So, I can say your name like a mantra?

A few days ago, when visiting with the daughter, it was early in the morning that I stepped outside to get something from my car.  A middle-aged woman was walking her dog.  As she neared me, I smiled and said "good morning."  She kept walking. No smile. No nod of the head. No greeting from her.

To me, that was the ultimate evidence that I was not in Eugene anymore.

Life here in Eugene is pleasantries galore.  The temperature here might be cold, but the hearts are warm. This when I am, as one friend described me, a gregarious hermit--the emphasis being on hermit, I suppose. Here, we smile, nod, greet strangers on the bike path. We wait for pedestrians to cross the road. Heck, we even stop and allow the ducks and the geese to get to wherever they want to go and it does not matter to us how much ever time those birds take.

Even when I am at the grocery store, I am welcomed. Not because I spend a whole lot of money--there is only so much one can spend on lentils and vegetables and fruits anyway.

Thus, when I saw that she was working, I skipped a couple of counters and walked up to hers.  I knew I would get a big smile, unlike that cold, cold experience 800 miles south.

She smiled. "ShriRaan, right?" she asked.

I could not believe that she actually made it a point to remember my name from that last conversation.

"Almost there" I told her and explained the "m" ending. "You sound like you have been practicing my name" I added.  She smiled.

"According to my grandmother, saying my name a few times means that you will go to heaven."

The old tradition was to give kids the names of gods.  Every time the kid's name was called, even if it was because the kid was in trouble, well, they were uttering the lord's name.  It is not difficult to imagine that my grandmother was not a fan of "modern" names.

"So, I can say your name like a mantra?"

This being Eugene, such questions are no surprise at all. It is certainly a different way of life in this part of America.  I cannot imagine such a conversation in a small town in Alabama!

"Oh, as a mantra, you can even focus merely on the second half of the name, Ram. Straight to heaven."

I was tempted to talk with her about Valmiki and the chanting of maramaramarama ..."  At least sometimes I do know when I should keep my mouth shut.

"Do you remember your grandmothers?" she asked.

Little does she know about the number of posts here in this blog about the grandmothers and their villages. About life in the old country.

"One died in my teens and the other died in my twenties" I said.

"Oh, so you remember them well."

"I do. Very well. But, I had no grandfathers--they both died way young."

We had completed our transactions, and there were customers in line.  "We will talk more next time" I said as I picked up my bag.

The woman walking her dog in Los Angeles has no idea how much she is missing out in life.  But, to each her own, I suppose.

I know I would not want to live any other way.

Brahma
By Ralph Waldo Emerson

If the red slayer think he slays,

      Or if the slain think he is slain,

They know not well the subtle ways

      I keep, and pass, and turn again.

Far or forgot to me is near;

      Shadow and sunlight are the same;

The vanished gods to me appear;

      And one to me are shame and fame.

They reckon ill who leave me out;

      When me they fly, I am the wings;

I am the doubter and the doubt,

      I am the hymn the Brahmin sings.

The strong gods pine for my abode,

      And pine in vain the sacred Seven;

But thou, meek lover of the good!

      Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.