Srinagar, Very Northern India, 2006

We’ve been alone on our houseboat, without the arrival of any other travelers, for some time now. Combined with a shortage of money, we’ve become slaves to boredom’s spells. I feel like a six year old, hiding out in my fort, peeking out my box cut window I draped lace over to see who is entering and if they’re earned their entrance through testimony of the secret password.

What is there to do with boredom? We’ve fished by means of a hanger and earring, to no avail. We’ve played both charades and ring a bangle around a glass. We’ve finished the list of who would you this and what would you that? We’ve spied on our neighbors and have shared long moments of silence always polished off by immense laughter. I’ve watched Janet’s handstands progress and rolled in laughter when she fell. We’ve picked boyfriends from magazine clippings, we’ve walked laps around our common area and we’ve snuck up on each other unexpectedly, we’ve bitch slapped mosquitoes and flies to their graves and followed mice to their corners. We even jimmied wires together to charge my camera battery.

Boredom. It’s almost nauseating how fast paced our American lives are that it can almost make one crazy when there’s nothing to be done. How we’ve longed for it and we long to leave it all baffles me.