a not so quiet American

2.25.13

I know if I attended one of these conferences next month I’d nail down a job.  But you’re not planning on being there?  No, and remember if I did nail down a job it would most likely begin in August and I don’t know where I’ll be before then.  You should go.  Ah I don’t think people have forgotten 'the possession' four years ago and that can’t be good when you need a job in the neighborhood.

By four am the clouds had blown out and the Himalayas glowed under the full moon.  At 11 am it is clear and sunny and warm.  A dozen middle aged French tourists who look older than I came in for masala tea and coffee.  Oui, oui how’s that instant stuff, Pierre?  Then it was breakfast before ten, dal bhat with a chili.  I have been eating more chilies now, some are blazing hot and I can’t taste the rice, but they have vitamin c so I suffer to be healthy.

Reetchi stopped by on his way to the fields with a sickle in his hand.  At thirty eight he has spent his entire life in the Pame Valley and has been making a go of it in the tourism business.  His English is slow coming but he works hard and is learning how the kitchen works.  Didi meanwhile asked for a pay raise and based on what other hired hands are earning she still makes more than everyone else.  Nevertheless she might just be working harder than everyone else.  This morning she carried the 30kg blue water containers from the banyon tree tap and then up the spiral steps where I helped her dump it in the tank on the roof.  Strange how the woman is never out of breath and I’ve never seen her sweat. 

Four men sit under the banyon tree, hands resting on pulled up knees.  If there was work, there’s nothing to do but wait.  Waiting is hard for me, the not so quiet American who likes nothing more than quiet unless there’s a need for old Dylan.

Let me die in my footsteps before I go down under the ground

I fear I laugh it could be so much worse and let’s hold the smallest violin between them nose hairs.  The Oscars are on I hear and I didn’t see a single movie from Hollywood this year.  I don’t think I saw a movie last year but I do remember a Frenchie director took the big schnitzels home.  Viva la black and white.  I’d sure love to go to France and speak that language.  Their ideals of liberty and passion and zeal for most of the time give me desires which unfortunately fade fast with no to keep the spark alive. 

Ideas are free.  Well duh, how in Tarzan’s name can you be around like minded people if you want to live a like a hermit and gravitate in the rhythms of silence. It’s a contradiction and that is dragging me down.  The black string from the Shaman’s vest is skewed, what happens if I cut it off. “Keep it on for a year then remove it and place it in a special place.”  So if I cut it off now and put it in a place whatever its intentions are would be immediately revoked?  Listen, I don’t want to stay here until the end of May.  Is this necessary?  Any word from the high school in Kabul?  It sounds a like big headache but it could be liberating.  Shit no woman there, ya know.  Maybe one at the university, no?  You’re gonna get your jewels cut off and shot at in a big blue jar if you’re not careful there ol Jack. 

It’s a tough choice, the streets of Kabul with a job and a roof or L.A. with no job no roof no money nothing.  I just don’t like that at all.  Kabul.  Pretty darn good Afghan mutton kebabs I remember outside the Hilton’s sub continental night clubs. 

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature - trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

                                                                                                                        Mother Theresa

Reading helps me not think unless it touches a nerve and even then reading is still better than not reading. I decided to pick up the Mother Theresa book I had to stop reading back in December because I couldn’t grasp her struggle and her vision.  Now that she has left the Loretos her mission really begins and it provoked some concerns I’ve had my whole life about ambition, which I lack.  First, this woman never lacked seeking God.  Her ambitious zeal resulted in those visions and the way I see it those visions were all that were necessary for her to find the motivation to continue in the most demanding work on earth.

Am I too old to be ambitious?  Nonsense.  Do you know how to approach your dream? No.  I always think of school, that’s where the support group is, encouraging, building, criticizing in a professional and acceptable manner.  Without going back to school there’s no way you’re saying.  Well, someone who could help me would be good.  I mean look at the little lady from Albania.  She prayed her way to Calcutta and got plenty of support.  So, let’s pray your way to…to…?  You don’t even know where you want to go.  China.  The one place that is never quiet.  Lord in the silence lead me.