The fog is a velvet curtain. Seemingly impenetrable until a set of cracked rear lights appears less than a foot from our front bumper. With a staccato blast of the horn, the driver propels us into oncoming traffic. I stare at the red thread wrapped around his steady wrist so I won’t see the freight truck baring down on us. Just before impact, we slide back into our lane and the horn sounds again. This time it sends two children on a single bicycle back to the relative safety of the road’s shoulder.

Within seconds my heartbeat returns to normal and I squint through the haze. Even with the windows sealed shut, I can almost taste the dust as it dances between cars and billows past faded cement structures.  Like a child of the 1950s waiting for a black and white film to start, I sink back against the seat and watch the country awaken.

India slowly lifts her veil to me and reveals one perfect scene after another. Children playing cricket with sticks or whispering secrets into each others’ ears; men sitting cross-legged on cattle-driven carts – a stalk of grass between their teeth or faded rubber sandals beside their bare feet, and women, adorned in a rainbow of saris, banging laundry by the river or pumping water into weathered pails. As the pink orb of the sun slides up from the horizon and we idle in one of the day’s many traffic jams, I share a smile with a stooped and greying woman. She stares at the whiteness of my face while I investigate the lines etched deep around her eyes – each one a lesson I wish I could sit with her long enough to learn.

After nine hours of weaving through rural India, my mind is cluttered with new images. Images to add to the stories that have already settled like a thick mist in every corner of my mind. With no wine, no wi-fi, and no one waiting to greet me, I must take this silence as a gift and retreat from India’s chaotic embrace. Perhaps with enough quiet, the fog will clear and I will know how this chapter of our story should begin.

You see, there are over 8,000 pictures to review, and hundreds of moments I could share with each of you. Tales of the magic we found with G Adventures at the Taj Mahal; snapshots of the lessons learned from our Cross-Cultural Solutions volunteer projects in the slums of Delhi; and the beginnings of novel worthy friendships that emerged from this first Fresh Chapter Adventure. But, for a few days, perhaps the silence of Northern India will buffer me and give me space to reflect on the simple moments of connection with 13 new friends who have changed my life forever.

As Ansel Adams said, “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”