By Lisa VanderVeen
Eighteenth Annual Solas Awards Gold Winner in the Women’s Travel category
I hear them before I enter the Kora. Flapping and cooing, they feast on corn offerings from red plastic bowls. I know this because I’ve been here before, in what feels like a different life. I watch a woman crouch down in a position not available to me since I was five, hands busily tying a piece of brown straw around the base of a small piece of bok choy. Finished, she tosses it neatly into a pile, and grabs the next from the box, all the while chattering animatedly to her neighbor in Nepali, a language I cannot understand. It’s 6:30 a.m. in Kathmandu and the pilgrims have come to circumambulate the Kora at Boudhanath Stupa.
I have come, too. Not because I am Buddhist, though I am considering dipping my toe in that holy water. I have taken time off work as a school administrator to attend a meditation and writing workshop. There is a purpose to this trip, which makes solo travel back to South Asia easier after my divorce. I want to reclaim this place, releasing it from memories of time spent here with him. I am deeply in love with South Asia and finally out of love with him.
On our last trip to Kathmandu together, I fell for the smiles of strangers as we nodded “Namaste” to one another, holding our hands in prayer. I fell for the lei of marigolds whose dense orange ruffles encircled my neck. I fell for the creamy milk tea, layered with cardamom and chai. I fell for the sounds of singing bowls as we shopped for the one that sang to us with the perfect resonance and timbre. I fell for the malas and the katas, the Buddhas and the deities, the thali and the dal, the impossible, yet somehow functional clumps of electric wires and the dicey wifi. Being here without him required bravery. He had the Hyatt points and the knowledge of how things worked here. Sitting at home in New Jersey, I questioned whether I was brave enough to return alone. Then, I listened to a podcast and learned about Himalayan Writers Workshop, an opportunity to write and study Buddhism, steeping in the culture of the Kathmandu Valley. It felt like an invitation. A welcome back.
That’s how I ended up here this November morning, with a group of strangers who have quickly become friends, for our walking meditation in the Kora. We are intently focused on sound this morning, as we silently approach the Stupa, its sleepy, droopy eyes welcoming us in the early morning haze. The narrow roadways that lead to the Stupa are filled with shopkeepers and grocers, like the woman with the bok choy. It is pepper season and small, cherry-red peppers overflow from a wheeled, wooden cart. Large daikon radishes and stout green squash lay on the ground, on a bed of colorful newspaper with foreign (to me) characters. I smell incense and burning trash, dodge the sleeping dogs and weave in and out of motorcycles, as burgundy-clad monks chant and sway in doorways. I close my eyes and breathe it in. Listening. Remembering.
The roadway opens, spilling out into the Kora, the circular path around Boudhanath Stupa. The pigeons await, as I knew they would. I’ve never seen so many pigeons, not since the last time I was in this sacred place.
In a different life, my fourteen-year-old daughter bought corn from the corn sellers and delighted in watching the birds rise en masse like a gray cloud to the sky. In a different life, my husband’s eyes met mine and we shared a smile, sipping cappuccinos together as we watched her pure, unadulterated joy. That life ended on a January night which, until that moment, felt like an ordinary day. That night, over Costco salad, he poured out a tale of infidelity and deception that refused any chance of reconciliation. He moved out, she grew up and went to college and I was left to feather my empty nest on a pilgrimage of self-discovery and re-invention perhaps not unlike those circumambulating the Stupa. I step into the fray, moving in pace with the others, a teeming mandala of humanity, one foot and then the next, over uneven stones.
The sky is steely this morning, the chill of impending winter creeping breathily down my neck. Or maybe the permeating gray is smoke from incense and burning juniper. Someone hands me a cracked plastic cup filled to the brim with dried needles, slivers of bark and branches. I walk to the caldron, an exotic thing with a decorative collar of gold, and slowly sprinkle the contents of my cup onto the flames. Smoke curls upward, tickling my nose. I make an offering and hope for one in return. I’m mesmerized by this place, so foreign to me and yet so familiar. The sounds are immersive, drawing me into their embrace. The tinkle of bells, flap of wings, chanting, something percussive that sounds like a drum. A man in a red robe and shaved head falls to his knees in prostration, wood blocks tied to gloved hands, scraping the rough stone beneath him. A white rope is wound tightly around his knees, another around his waist. They hold an apron in place. Feeling somehow ashamed to bear witness to this intimate act, I turn my head and look away.
Nostalgia is a trickster. It comes without warning or tissues. I feel the tears begin, coming slowly at first, then in an impetuous wave. I give them a wide berth. I feel a hand on my shoulder and I turn to see the gentle face of one of the women who is here with me in the workshop. Though we just met, she feels like a friend. She walks in step with me, silently handing me a feather. Somehow she knows, as women do. I squeeze her arm in gratitude, deeply touched by the caring gesture.
As we walk, I am enveloped by the current of humans walking alongside us. I am part of something bigger than myself, interconnected. We are all here searching, learning, growing, changing. A realization begins to surface, rising from a place deep inside. I understand Kathmandu more profoundly than I did on my last trip here, which now feels like a holiday. The workshop has been intense in the very best way. I learned about the Buddhist tenets of non-attachment and impermanence through conversations with lamas and meditations with monks. Sharing coffee, wine, laughter and tears with new friends, I felt supported when my sadness began to surface. Our morning guided meditations brought a sense of presence and awareness, even as I identified the thoughts that drifted in and out of my mind. With him, I stayed at a sanitized Hyatt and only ate in the hotel dining room because he was afraid of food poisoning. Now, I ate delicious vegetarian food from local spots and stayed at hotels with dubious hot water but that felt more real to me.
My pace slows as this realization crystalizes. The version of myself on this morning, in this Kora, is an entirely different person than the one who was here with him; I brought a different me to Kathmandu. The fact that I am here at all tells me that I am stronger than I realize, somehow empowered to board the plane alone at JFK. As it turns out, Kathmandu was mine all along. All I had to do was claim her. High above me, the pigeons alight on the white dome of the Stupa. I think of the joy they brought my daughter and, as a result, he and I. I release him until he too is lost to the sky.
We finish our morning Kora and return to our hotel, turning left at the pigeons. The promise of a cappuccino awaits. I turn back for one more glance, knowing that while my sweet memory of our family together lingers, he is no longer here with me. What remains is mine: the warm glow of butter lamps; the scritch of straw brooms; the flutter of prayer flags against the cerulean sky; the creak of the prayer wheels as they are turned by hands and hands and hands.
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Lisa VanderVeen is a school administrator by day and a writer by night, winning Solas Awards for travel writing in 2023 and 2024. She enjoys stretching far outside her comfort zone, adventuring in over 40 countries (often solo) and pursuing her many hobbies, which include photography, distance running, memory keeping, hiking, and spending time with her cats and beloved daughter, Sophie.