The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World.

by Jennifer Baggett

  The next thing I remembered was waking to sunlight streaming through the empty dorm. I’d let my overactive mind go to extremes in the dark, and felt silly in the light of day.

  Sitting up in bed slowly to test if the dizziness was gone, I felt my breath stop when I saw a black tarantula—whose body alone was the size of my hand—poised menacingly at the foot of my bed. I didn’t stop to think about whether it was a nightmare but could only react. My eyes were swollen and bloodshot from the virus pumping through my body, but pure fear jolted me with enough energy to jump out of bed and run down the length of the dorm.

  I remembered in too much vivid detail seeing a similar hairy, eight-legged creature while cleaning the bathroom stalls, then hearing the sound of its body being squashed by the Indian woman in charge of karma yoga, who’d killed it with a rock after I’d screamed.

  Before coming to the ashram, I’d known that learning to sit with myself, to meditate, to just be, would take discipline. It wasn’t supposed to be easy. But throw in culture shock, a fever-inducing virus, and waking up to a tarantula, and I could almost understand the feeling an alcoholic might have when she hits rock bottom—spinning out of control.

  After making sure the tarantula had moved on, I used all my remaining strength to drag myself back to bed, too weak to make a getaway. I didn’t move for hours, until Chloe stopped by with tea and fruit after I didn’t show up when she waited for me at lunch. Then I fell asleep again, as still as one of the yogis carved in stone by the lake.

  By day three of the illness I finally summoned up the energy to make it to a lecture. Sitting there on the floor, my body sometimes felt as if it were vibrating—and just thinking about doing a downward dog gave me a head rush. But I was improving, and at least I’d felt well enough to leave the confines of my bed.

  The day’s lesson was about karma. Yogis think the body is merely a vehicle for the soul, subject to reincarnation, until you finally get it right and reunite with the universal consciousness, or God. In yoga land, there’s no such thing as instant gratification, and the road to cleaning up your karma can be long indeed, spanning dozens of lifetimes.

  As I had been raised a Catholic, the concept of reincarnation was totally foreign to me. I had been taught that we get only one life before we hopefully make it to Heaven by the grace of God, following the teachings of Jesus, and making sacraments, such as confessing sins to a priest.

  Still, I found comfort in that rather than looking to a priest to serve as a sort of middleman to God, my yoga manual said, “Self-realization is god-realization.” That the whole purpose of life is to find your personal path that will help you connect to the spark of divinity everyone has inside him or her. I took this to mean that everyone has different gifts. Taking the time to figure out our passions is not selfish because once we find our calling, we’ll feel that we have a solid purpose and a connection to something bigger. This helps bring peace.

  “Regardless of your religion, your most important duty on this earth is to find your true self, and yoga’s regime of self-discipline can help you get there,” Swami said. “Only once you know yourselves are you able to know God, because the two are not separate but one and the same.”

  Once the swami finished his lecture, students with questions walked up to a microphone at the front of the prayer hall. Chloe rose to get up from her place next to me. “Swami, how would you explain why some people get diseases like AIDS and cancer and others don’t?” she asked.

  “People get diseases such as AIDS and cancer because they have impure minds or are paying off bad karma from a past life,” he stated matter-of-factly. I’d consciously tried to be open to the ashram’s lessons and reserve judgment until the end. How else was I ever going to learn anything new? But I wasn’t going to listen to the swami try to say sick people are at fault. I thought of Esther being left on Sister Freda’s doorstep with a near-deadly case of malaria. I was so angry, I was ready to walk out.

  “What about this eye virus that’s going around? What’s the cause of all the people at the ashram getting sick?” Chloe asked.

  “Can everyone who has not gotten sick please raise your hands?” the swami asked. When more than half of the students did so, he shrugged as if his point had been proven. “People get sick because of karma, or else everyone would become ill.”

  Feeling as though the ashram leaders saw me as a karmic leper, I walked outside to sit on the steps with my head between my knees. It was then that Vera, the bearded Indian man who served as kitchen master, came up beside me.

  “Holly, how are you feeling? Like you have a weight on your head?” he asked, gently placing a hand on my shoulder. Even Vera had caught the virus and had spent the last week hiding behind dark sunglasses to veil his bloodred eyes.

  “Vera, I have to leave,” I said, the decision suddenly pouring out of me. I didn’t know where I would go, I just knew I didn’t want to stay here. I couldn’t stay here anymore.

  I felt Chloe sit down on the other side of me. “Holly, please, please don’t go,” she said, pleading. “You have only a week and a half left of the program. If you’re going to be sick, you can be sick anywhere. You might as well recover here and at least have your teaching certificate to show for it.”

  Until then, the only treatment I’d received for the virus had been rosewater eye drops from the on-site ayurvedic clinic, which did nothing to heal and only stung my eyes, making them redder. Chloe offered to take me to the hospital so I could get some prescription meds to speed up the healing process, but Vera insisted that one of the staff escort me. As Vera helped me into the rickshaw, he whispered that he, too, had given up on the rosewater eye drops and had healed quickly after using prescription drugs.

  Back from the clinic a few hours later, with three different kinds of pills, ointment, and eye drops, I didn’t walk straight back into the ashram. Instead, I spun in the opposite direction and sat by the lake to think. Why had I come? Why should I stay? Intentionally sticking with a situation in which I was miserable felt foolish, especially after I’d seen real hardship and knew how truly lucky I was to have so many opportunities. I wanted to run back out into the world, to be with other people and not just in my own head.

  The lions roared in the safari park across the way, and Hindi music carried over the water’s sleek surface from tinny radio speakers playing in one of the nearby shacks. My T-shirt clung to my back from sweat, and I tipped my face to soak up the sun’s rays.

  I felt broken from all the rebelling my mind and body were doing in the ashram. Using all my energy to try to control my impulses had left me feeling depleted and empty. Ironically, the sheer emotional exhaustion had left my mind more silent than when I’d been actively trying to rein it in.

  Why did yoga school feel more like boot camp or an emotional breakdown? I suddenly remembered the old Alcoholics Anonymous saying “Let go, and let God.” What if coming to the ashram was part of a larger plan, a lesson I needed to learn? Would Sister Freda give up because she wasn’t “happy”? Would she quit when she felt uncomfortable?

  Sitting there, I recalled how the swamis had compared our minds to the lake: emotions such as worry, sadness, happiness, and desire created waves that kept us from seeing the bottom—our deeper, true selves. I could leave the ashram, but I couldn’t keep running away from myself. I had to get to the bottom of my restlessness if I was ever going to be able to sit with myself peacefully.

  I stared at the water, which was clear and blue. I saw sunlight glint off a school of fish far below the surface, their slick bodies effortlessly twirling near the lake’s muddy floor. A flower floated by on the wind, maybe an offering carried away from one of the dozens of shrines peppering the ashram grounds.

  Frustrated, I grabbed a smooth, flat rock and flung it at the water, watching the ripples radiate out from its center as it skipped once and then twice. I watched as the stone began to sink. Once it hit bottom, did it stay there forever, down in the darkness?

  There’s
a metaphor in Buddhism about the lotus flower, which starts out growing on the bottom of all this muck and then rises through the swampy darkness into the light. When it finally gets there, it turns into what it was meant to be, opening up into something beautiful. But the flower doesn’t open instantly; it has to go through the muck to get to the light. If I ran away from my own moments of darkness, would I never blossom into the person I was meant to be?

  I recalled another Buddhist sentiment from a book of quotes I’d gotten back when I was a happiness editor: “There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.”

  I can’t say exactly how long I sat there by myself, looking out at the lake. Picking up another rock and aiming it at the water, I lifted myself up without waiting for the rock to hit bottom. I was going to finish what I’d started—I was staying at yoga school.

  Everything at the ashram became easier once I’d taken the prescribed meds and had gotten my health back. I hadn’t mastered sitting still and quieting my mind, but my attitude had shifted. I wasn’t going to fight myself—or the swamis—anymore. I began to suspect that the rigid schedule, the two meals a day, six hours of sleep a night, and four hours of yoga, was as much about pushing students toward their breaking point in order to reveal their real, raw selves as it was about discipline. But was the road to enlightenment supposed to be so uncomfortable? As the rest of the students filed out after class, I walked toward the stage where the swami was sitting in his standard lotus position.

  He looked up at me and smiled gently. “You look like you’re feeling better, Holly.” Telling him I was back to my old self, I went ahead and asked him the point of all this self-discipline.

  “You’re telling us that we have to learn to control our bodies and minds in order to know our true selves and to know God. But our instincts and senses are essentially programmed to lead us away from the divine—indulging in food and sex and sleep feels good. Why would God hardwire us this way?”

  His luminous gray eyes softened. “That’s an existential question, really,” he said. I suddenly felt sorry for him—he had a tough job of drilling self-discipline into all of those critics.

  “We’re not talking about living a life without flavor. What we’re saying is that attachments and desires diminish pleasure, because you can’t fully enjoy something that you fear losing.” I wasn’t sure if it was really possible to fully love something or someone without being attached. Did Elan understand this, and that was why he had let me go on my own journey? Had my own attachments to my relationship kept me from being fully present on the road?

  I went to sit in the prayer hall to let his answer sink in. For the first time, I saw the point. The swamis weren’t saying that we had to live an austere life in order to connect with God. It wasn’t about forgoing fun and sidestepping love and banning rich foods forever. Rather, it was about diving fully into all of those things without holding back out of fear that they’d end. Because, inevitably, everything comes to an end.

  I thought I’d learned that lesson already on the road. Hadn’t I felt more alive when I’d stopped to buy postcards from Padma outside the Taj than when I’d tried to shut out the beggars? Even anxiety held meaning if I simply paid attention to it rather than pretended it didn’t exist.

  When we were just two days away from graduation, I plodded into the dark prayer hall for morning meditation and sat cross-legged on the floor, just as I’d done almost every other morning for a month. Incense filled the air, and everything was silent. Except, of course, for my mind.

  I prepared for another hour of sitting with myself. Not silently and not comfortably, but I guess that’s why they call it a meditation “practice”—because it’s not perfect. Instead, I simply listened to my breath coming in and out. I’d given up trying to force anything to happen while I sat there. I’d just accepted that I’d devote myself to sitting, and the acceptance somehow made it feel less tough. I’d stopped struggling. I let go, and I let God.

  Suddenly I fell into myself. I don’t know how else to describe it. There were no flashing lights or tingling feelings. I was aware that the world outside my mind kept turning, but for the briefest of moments, I felt blissfully still and was wrapped in a light, peaceful sensation. I felt myself smile from the inside, feeling that nothing outside myself would make me feel complete, because nothing was missing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Amanda

  THAI ISLANDS

  DECEMBER

  So…then what happened? Did you guys finally do it?”

  I was sitting with my friend and New York City roommate Beth on an AirAsia flight headed from Bangkok to Phuket. I’d been relaying the story of what had eventually transpired between Carter and me in Laos in hushed tones between the beverage and food services. Gotta love the foreign government-subsidized airlines—even on hourlong flights, they ply you with booze, hot towels, and grub.

  “C’mon, what happened?” she asked, her eyes wide.

  “Yeah. We did, but…oh, Beth, it wasn’t what I expected.” I sighed, cringing as I recalled how things had played out. “I held off for so long, waited forever to meet someone, and then when I did…when we did…it was just…awful.”

  Beth looked appropriately horrified. I explained that Carter must not have had many long-term relationships, or else his last girlfriend had been a blow-up doll, because otherwise he would have understood that the wildly enthusiastic, over-the-top sex tactics so prevalent in porn films didn’t do anything for a real live woman.

  “I actually stopped him in the middle and asked him to slow down,” I said. “That lasted for all of ten seconds before he cranked it right back up again.”

  I’d felt blindsided. Nothing about Carter’s incredible kisses or sweet, protective nature could have prepared me for our rough, emotionless liaison. As soon as he’d passed out, I’d silently crept back to my own bed. There was just no way I could sleep next to him after that.

  “Did he say anything the next day?” Beth asked. “I mean, he had to notice that something was wrong if you cut and ran in the middle of the night.”

  Jen stirred from her semislumber and joined the conversation. “Actually, that’s the weird part. He really didn’t seem to think anything was wrong, other than the fact that Amanda suddenly didn’t want to hang out with him anymore. The whole time we were in Luang Prabang, he followed us everywhere…found us no matter what we did. We went to breakfast, and there was Carter at the next table. We’d go on a hike, and Carter was on the same trail. Getting a foot massage at the spa? Carter’s in the chair next to us. He went from zero to stalker in point eight seconds. It was crazy. But you remember. This kind of stuff just seems to happen to Amanda.”

  Beth nodded. During the time that we’d all lived together, she’d experienced the full force of random exes coming out of the woodwork to call or text me incessantly. I’d decided there must be some aspect of my personality that attracted guys who never gave up, took any communication from me—even demands to get lost—as a sign of encouragement.

  Of course I wasn’t unique in this; every one of my girlfriends had a type. Some were drawn to wounded birds that required endless coddling; others were catnip for lazy bastards who took advantage of their good nature; a few couldn’t escape those conceited Wall Street types looking for a trophy girlfriend. I considered myself one of the lucky ones. At least my men were consistent and could be counted on to call—and call, and call.

  Though normally I’d try to lie low and ignore all stalker communications, this had proved impossible in Luang Prabang. Enchanting though it was, the small town offered only so many places to hide. After Jen and I escaped for a quick two-day hike and kayaking tour through the Hmong mountain villages north of town, we returned to our guesthouse to find Carter brooding on the porch, mechanically feeding pieces of stale bread to an owl the owners kept in a cage outside. He looked as if he hadn’t eaten or even moved since we’d taken off. He glared under hi
s brows at Jen and me as we quickly removed our shoes and left them in the cubbies at the foot of the stairs.

  Feeling a stab of guilt for giving him the silent treatment, my resolve broke and I decided to just talk to the guy, to explain what had gone wrong. Maybe he’d even appreciate hearing the honest female perspective. We went upstairs to his room, and I apologized for taking off without a word. He grumbled some acknowledgment and wanted to know exactly what he’d done to make me run. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I tried, as delicately as possible, to explain how uncomfortable I’d felt the other night.

  “Well, why didn’t you just tell me at the time?” he asked, clearly insulted. “I would have done something, I would have fixed it.”

  “I did tell you. More than once. You listened to me for, like, a few seconds, and then it was back to…um…well, you remember. I mean, it’s like I wasn’t even in the room.”

  “C’mon, it wasn’t that bad,” he said dully.

  “Are you kidding me? Were you there? It was terrible.”

  I knew I’d taken the whole honesty thing one step too far. Carter decided to share that I had to be frigid or mental or have some bizarre sexual issue, because I’d been the only girl to ever tell him that he’d been anything less than stellar in the sack.

  “And just so you know, because I’m sure you’ll want to…the last woman I slept with was a Thai prostitute,” he said almost proudly, letting that fresh piece of info linger in the air for a second. “And she told me I was incredible. The best she’s ever had.”

  My entire body turned to ice, and I couldn’t feel my hands or feet. My brain, on the other hand, raced at Mach 12, rocketing past the other unpleasant details of our night together to fixate on the only thing that seemed important right then and there.

  Oh, God. Thank Christ. We’d used a condom.

  Now it was Carter who knew he’d taken it one step too far. Staring at me, then back down at his feet, he asked what I was thinking.