leave the unseen alone

9.8.12

A cloudless morning, pink-red peaks along the Annapurna range, the sun on this Saturday and a cool breeze remind some of October.  Yesterday Laxman returned the repaired television and you ask why watch BBC business week when nature calls?  Panchase, a mountain I can see from the tower, why, that doesn’t look far.  A two day walk I am told.  I think tomorrow, perhaps, a warm-up for the long anticipated trek to the base camps.  Yawn. 

Clouds north cover the mountains, the contents of the kitchen were cleared out, the burners set up in the dining room amid the buzzing and painting, there is a lot to be done, so much so you don’t know where to begin.  Maya’s other brother tells me maybe the painters will start on the rooms in two or three days.  Well that’ll make it hard to go to Panchase and return if the room is being painted.  Wait wait wait. 

How many believe guardian angels actually exist?  The 2700 year old spirit knows my future, perhaps the delays are his doing, what am I waiting for?  Today a wedding in east Turkey, I could have been there now.  Tomorrow an inauspicious life changing day anniversary that shouldn’t have been, it would be good to trek then, maybe it’s time to see Niyma.  I’d need a translator.  Tell me, wise one, what do you know that you can’t tell me, what does your medium say that even he waits expectantly?  Why keep secrets unless you’re unsure yourself?  Can spirits be misled?  I hear the distant voices of children approach. 

It is good to leave the consummation of time to others.  It is good to leave the unseen to others. 

But if you can’t, if you have seen the unseen, how can you go back and live like before?  Every single bloody moment I remember the spirit taking that red marker I finished drawing the rising sun on the wall and threw against it and seeing you carrying it across the room.  I saw you, man, you think I wouldn’t be as fast to turn around and see you, I know you, holy crap, so there you are, next to me, and it was you who performed a puja, it was you, not me, who led me to enlightenment of the kind that leaves me homeless to wander, but I am tired, can’t you see, I want closure on this walk.  There has been no consolation in telling others who are too busy living in the now. 

 

I am lucky to be here.  I know this is no malevolence messing with me.  My intents were honest and forthright, I didn’t ask to see ahead of time.  I am lucky to wander and wonder with too much time on my hands.  Ah, I don’t know.  Teaching in Turkey and Oman helped push the days forward and now we’re getting closer, a close friend, a companion would be so good, Lord.  An old friend who knew me, who knows me, words and the sound of a familiar voice, Lord.

Ramesh comes by, says he is leaving.  He takes the Tevas, they’re too small.  I hope his children don’t get a hold of his new mobile.  Good luck. 

All the workers in the past two weeks (?) have been fed by Maya or Kave, and slept in rooms seven and eight.  It is, I know, the only way to keep them here.  It is a noble gesture, an act of kindness but also of generosity if it is only to keep them here.  The two carpenters have been here the longest, each 18 or so, there isn’t much communication between us for we don’t wish to distract paid employees. I watch the one skinny one with a baseball hat pulled down to hide some kind of intemperate attitude work with a lathe, the tips of his pointing fingers gone, skin folded over to make the stumps.  No, we got nothing to talk about. 

I should go up and eat but the coolness of room six and David Gray suspend me in thought.  “Time after time they drag you down…” 

Lunch was in the reception room, pots and pans, dishes and glasses filled all the spaces, Maya served the dal bhat from the floor and we ate watching teej dancing on four channels.  Suraksha managed the remote.  Resting afterwards was interrupted by the nine-year old and her best friend Sabana, one of the many children of Moti, who owns the  Panoramic Guesthouse with indeed a panoramic view of Pewa Tal and the valley, but no mountains.  Moti spent a few years in the gulf and hated it, not surprisingly.  His guesthouse and the surrounding environs have been landscaped beautifully. Moti is one of three brothers in the village; Durgu owns the Mountain View Guest house and works with the white haired American, greatly benefitting from a 60 year old with a lot of money, and Shiva, who owns and probably monopolizes the commerce with the guesthouses with his shop. 

We played Uno for ten games and then they continued on.  The problem playing the game with only two is the enormous amount of cards you can accumulate. Suraksha counted  35 cards, too many to hold, too many to keep track of and play this game with any speed.  Oh well. 

A baby goat’s bleating is a most pathetic call.  Tied to a tree it has nowhere to go and nothing it likes to eat.  The goat sole existence here is to be eaten.  No one drinks its milk, nor makes cheese, nor takes the hair to make tents or hats or brooms. Is the meat good?  Well, there isn’t much meat though within the marrow of the bone a delicious flavor I can’t describe.  The risk to getting to this requires cracking the bone and avoiding slivers.  The blood is also enjoyed.  Now I know all things are permissible but I am squeamish when its put on my plate. 

Five children are playing hide and seek and four girls and Mana are hiding in my bathroom while Ganesh, the seeker, stands at the door, how did he know, oh the ruckus.  Do I ever tire of taking memorable images only to me?  I do, the praise is nice, I know the gift is there, oh if I had an inch of business chutzpah.  The gang chooses its next seeker outside my window and they’re off with the door closed this time. 

Another brilliant sunrise.  In the east’s waning moments before darkness a sudden flash of multiple shades of orange-peach illuminate.  There, I tell Laxman, there is the origin of Sarangkot color.