Lay Your Head on My Pillow

If I must go this is the way to do it. On tour in India, we had the opportunity to stay at some very nice hotels and several of them. They don't beat the comforts of home but sometimes you have to open the shell to witness the pearls inside. If I would have stayed in my room without talking to the staff to better understand their culture and the other cultures in India, the shell would have stayed closed. If I would have just eaten the food without inquiring more about its origin, spices and preparation, the shell would have stayed closed. At one point the staff and I had paper napkin maps of the country, one that looked a lot like Texas to me, and their countries plotted for my understanding. I gave one of the staff such a hard time about it looking like Texas that she re-drew it for me to be a better representation of the country. Now that shell was wide open to demonstrating the pearls of graciousness of India.

On our first night into New Delhi, after 19 hours of travel I was to charged up about being in India that I took the first 60 minutes and shot the room. Yes I know that's loony but I wanted to capture it before I messed it up. There was one feature of every hotel room in India that they forgot to tell me that caused me to take my 5:00am shower in complete darkness in the room. To conserve power, the hotels we stayed at in India had a slot near the entrance of the door where you insert your room key. Inserting you key into this slot activated the lights and other power sources in the room. Well things (lighting and power) were fine after I did my shooting but in the process of turning the lights off to go to bed, I deactivated something and was in utter darkness until I checked out. Too proud to call for help, I fumbled my way to the shower and took care of business; not to worry I had this equipment for years and I know where everything is; LOL!

Back to pearls. Sometimes you have to search for them and other times you just need to be aware and pop the shell. I am so glad I opened the gift of pearls that were given to me and I have those memories to go along with the pictures to frame my experience in India. You don't need to travel as far as I did to get your pearls though. Many of them are right underfoot in your midst; all you have to do is open your eyes.