Ooooh Farida

"I'm going to tell you something and you can't ever, never, ever forget it."

Farida looked up at me with a seriousness unavoidable because she's always smiles and jokes.

"One day, you will need a man." She paused. "You will find the right one and I will pray for you that you do.

Her eyes were wide above her orange sari. I let the stone bench, the shade, and a short breeze cool me a minute. She held my gaze and waited for an acknowledgement that, yes, I know, she was right. But I couldn't figure out what she was breaking to me exactly. Wasn't what she said obvious? Something most people wish someone else would tell them? It made it hard for me to take her words to heart; it was the first time I doubted the advice she gave me. Farida is also 24 and was married and pregnant by age 13--a Hindu girl swept up into an Indian "love marriage" (as opposed to an arranged one) with a Muslim man of 20 years--and has four children. She has an energy and smile I have trouble understanding and I listen when she gets serious. But my doubt at this statement, by my estimation, grew from her own.

First of all, how well did she really know me? Maybe there is no "right" man and it's all a decision we make in the end. After all, how do all these arranged marriages work out anyway? Also is she promised prayer doesn't that show doubt on her part? And does it work to pray for something like romantic love anyway? Isn't that almost like praying for a TV set--just another object of desire? Isn't true, eternal love meant to be and the universe is either in on it or it isn't? I thought that was in the cosmic rule book somewhere.

More doubt about this Man of My Dreams is that she saw something in me that would prevent me from finding him. It was that, "one day," as though there weren't already days I thought I needed one, like when I landed in Mumbai at 2am and foudn my way to a filthy, flea bag hotel and slept on stained sheets, greeted by 4 or 5 men with very little English asking for my documents and money. Or the other day when i took off on a motorbike to find a new beach and discovered a perfect seat on a rock with a first class sunset view. Were these times I needed a man? I don't really think so. So when then?

Then again, is this the attitude she saw that would block me from the love of my life? Did I need "a man" or "the man"?

Doing gardening work at the eco hotel where I met Farida (she is on staff there), I found there were simple, clear times when I needed a man and when I didn't. I absolutely could not use a blunt machete to pull three long trees of bamboo fromt he groun, but Sangapa, my fellow gardener with a body any yogi and/or weight lifter would kill for, could do it in a few blows. Then again, there is a woman, many women, somewhere out there who could do it. Maybe even Farida could do it.

Then there were times I just wanted to fight it out. Like when I rooted 2 very larged weed trees that had become home to a planet of red ants. The trees were growing in buses with leaves brushing against neck like little green super-highways to my flesh. Or there was the time when I decided it was my place to haul large slabs of stone and marble across the grounds to set up for a party. What was I trying to prove? That I could do it myself! I can do it too damn it!

So is it when I won't let a man help me that I'm most in danger of passing "the one" by? Is it when I just want to wear something frumpy that I'm blocking my love from finding me? Is it my occassionally apathetic attitude about politics or my lack of committment to yoga or my ability to stuff myself blue and then complain about it?

It can't be. Even Farida added later in a hushed voice, "Love is blind Kate."

The comfort in her initial piece of insight was sandwiched in all that doubt: "You will find the right one." If that's what I want, then that's all that needs my attention.