Lesson Learned...

Patience is a greatly underrated virtue. When you least expect it, the patience that you lacked at a time of little importance comes back and slaps you right across the face. Let me elaborate.
In my homestay, the laundry is done by my younger host sisters once or twice a week, depending on the regular, if not persistent, wardrobe needs of my older host sister. We have a washing machine in the backyard and a drying rack for all of the clothes. Two weeks ago, I gave a rather large batch of clothes to my host sister Lakshmi. In it contained several new kurtas (the long tunics paired over scrunched leggings—very fashionable among young Indian women). The next day I saw the dark colored clothes perched on a drying rack and the day after the light colored clothes similarly situated. For two days following I asked Lakshmi if I could have the clothes back to iron them. She obediently returned all of my dry, yet wrinkled, clothes to my room minus a pair of these leggings and my favorite navy blue kurta. I waited a day to see if the kurta would appear, but it didn’t and I, being possessive over my clothing in a country where I am lacking a general volume of clothing, did not hesitate to ask here where the pieces were. Over the next several inquiries (which spanned over a week) I was directed to my host mother, then back to my host sister, then back to my host mother all over again. I felt lost, vulnerable, taken advantage of. I assumed the worst. I wondered why my host sisters, technically the daughters of the family’s main servant, would want to take my clothes when my host parents so generously provide them with everything they need. Was it an act of power? Was it a display of their superiority over me in their environment? Was I being handed off from woman to woman with meaningless answers because they were purposefully trying to confuse me and teach me a lesson not to ask stupid questions? No, no, and no.
Today, when I returned home after a long and eventful trip to Udaipur, I saw a stack of neatly pressed and folded clothes lying on the coffee table in the living room. My navy blue kurta and black pants were at the top of the pile. My face brightened as I lunged for the clothes. All of fears of loss and deception dissolved. My host mother simply smiled and said, “When you wait, you see beauty in things that come slowly.” Here words are humbling even as I write at this very moment. In our hyper-prioritized, time-constricted lives in the U.S, we place emphasis, energy, and negative emotion on the things that ultimately do not matter. The loss of an insignificant kurta outfit having little monetary value and somewhat small sentimental value plunged me into a set of emotions that internally forced me to turn against the women in my host family—women who have been nothing but hospitable, kind, and warm to me. The twinges of anger and frustration I felt when I sorted through my clothes every morning hoping to find what I thought had mysteriously vanished were completely unfounded. My host mother sent away the clothes to be pressed so that I would look and feel better in them. Despite the two weeks it took for the clothes to return the intention and meaning behind the gesture amounts to so much more than the waiting period. In a very silly way, this interaction restored an element of my faith in people and in the inherent urge we feel to do good and help others. As trivial as the example may be in reality, I deeply questioned my tendency to jump to conclusions and pass judgment. Throughout my life, I have been guilty of this far too many times, losing friends and alienating people in the past. The simple act of doing something nice for someone without informing them coupled with a language barrier can lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding, yet it should never warrant silent and unforgivable judgment. The pace in India teaches many lessons that I hope will resonate in me over the remainder of my life. Time does not condition the meaning of actions, the journey and the intentions do.