Take 'er easy, Barak

3.29.13

Can too many birds singing in trees become a distraction?  For the two backpackers in room seven, they’d like some shanti as the sun ascends this Good Friday and there it is and wouldn’t you know it, silence. 

Tomorrow there should be an interview with this fella and today I ought to prepare for answers and ask my own questions such as:  is there a coffee machine in the teacher’s lounge?  Is there a smoke tent outside under some nice shady trees?  Are sandals permitted?  What questions will you be asked, what have you been doing for the past eight months? How would you teach inference to an elementary level class? 

I’d like to end this four year journey and there’s only one way to do that and that is settle down.  And settling down has never seemed so unrealistic than it is right now.  Do I really want to settle down in the desert, well, yes and no.  There’s nowhere else, you’ve remained in the vicinity for a reason.  Turkey hasn’t called back and I haven’t heard anything from the others still in the radar.  The recruiters have gone home and the work of sifting and contacting the best people begins.  I’m a long-shot, a Bedouin liked well enough by the Saudis, at least five immediate contacts from an array of places I have no business being in at this stage of the journey.  The last and final mother%#$@ stage in this journey. 

Where would you really like to be now, Johnny boy, give us your day dreaming best.

If there was no financial obligation to consider before allowing such desirous and surely unworthy splendor entry into a most minimalist existence for the last eight months, I’d have to say I just don’t know right now. I’d like to return to Ireland.  There.  Enough?

Well, then take the job wherever it is and make the best of it, save up and visit the pretty island.  There, that wasn’t too hard was it?  And if I wanted to settle down there, that is a crazy day dream because in reality if I don’t have a job to go to before I leave I will make the pilgrimmage to the corner of Michigan and Trumbell, that’s right homey, I’ll bring fence clippers and a tent. 

Michael Card.  What is Easter music without the solemn, without the sorrow and joy.  Easter at St. Francis Xaiver’s in Salalah was the last time in church so, Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.  Yes, I know I’ll be in Pokhara on Easter, go to mass while you’re there.  I’ll do the sunrise on top.  Happy Easter.

Next to the tap right below lives two precious baby black goats and yesterday I helped the women remove a nasty gauze bandage from the rear leg of one of them to reveal a pretty nasty wound.  Sure that leg would be delicious with a nice cherry-bernaise sauce, hey happy Easter!!  I don’t think anyone’s slaughtering goats on Sunday.  A baby lamb, though, hmmm, that sounds good right now.  It is late afternoon and still a small chance for rain.  I’ll believe it when I feel it, the pattern bends each day a little more but doesn’t break. 

The satellite imagery shows all the flash lightening and rumbling in the north and remaining there on its way east.  A breezy starry night above and another dry day.  I’ve thought of a lot of questions for this interview and I don’t know if I’ll remember to ask any of them. 

The Indian guest who is from the Indian state of Assam and works in New Delhi couldn’t help but tell me how much she envied my self-imposed sabbatical and we talked about matriarchal societies and a general, universal hatred, in her words, distrust in mine, of lawyers, one of which she says is one of the hated.  I don’t hate you.  You’re cute. 

3.30.13

Another trio of threes.  Thank God it’s almost April.  An interview in five hours, what to do before then?  Shave, a rare shower, review my blurry history.  Tell us, what have you been doing for the last four years, be brief, please.  Well, it’s been eight months here, then nine months there, and five months here and then ten months there and three weeks there, and seven months here and three months on the road and then ah, four years here.  Whew. 

A warm and quick sunrise and already the queue at the banyon tree rest stop tap is long.  I wish I hadn’t read a thread about this school in Oman.  Teachers can be quite dysfunctional when they don’t understand and accept the flow of ambiguity.  There are no intentions to mislead you, compassion might not be a factor, an unfortunate side affect to fatalism in a harsh monotheistic culture, but nothing is done with malicious intent. 

I understand this clearly, after April, the anticipation, the hope for anything to happen even remotely supernatural will end and will it be depressing?  Well, there’ll be no crawling under the bed now, life goes yawn and on.

A nice hot shower in room one and a shave.  It feels clean once again, and I should clean this tall room. Didi comes by occasionally asking to clean it up but I wave her away.  I can do it it just a guy thing, like wearing the same clothes for two weeks, if it doesn’t smell what the hell.

A group is coming this morning and Suraksha, Prisma and I went to look for some wild flowers to put on the tables and there are none.  The Rhododendran flowers are drying up and the nice colored ones are connected to vegetables.  We did find a lot of juicy yellow berries as far as the farm across from the grandparents.  The interview meanwhile has been delayed a few minutes.  What to do. 

Nothing.  Everything looks fine on the table.  A birthday, an anniversary.  A lot of people, one group from Israel lead by Avinon Barak.  Barak.  Mozaltov and breathe deep.  We’re on top of a mountain, no one sells balloons.  Happy Passover, still?  Mozaltov, am I using this in the right context, Avi? 

I hear a lot of kids running around, but there are only six in the group.  Shalom and Happy Easter, Christ has risen recently, at least in God time, not in people time.  I am trying very hard to be civil.  I would like a nice peaceful evening.  Okay pass the hookah one more time.

10:05pm—This morning I wrote the third paragraph up from here.  After the interview I walked to the grandparents house for a delicious lunch I must describe later. When I came back I found Barak in the garden and a very nice table set out with all kinds of flowers red.  I assumed this setting was for him and his family only it wasn’t.  The group that Laxman told me about had booked the tables and ordered the meals a day in advance, a group celebrating a relationship, an engagement of sorts.  The Israelis were walk-ins.  Are there any significant coincidences going on here?  Two parties, both asking for balloons, one an engagement, one a birthday party, and may it be noted a rather peculiar one.  The former military officer asked that the village kids be rounded up and here they were, the cake comes out the kids are anticipating the excitement, the balloons, helium ones, and the singing is finished, Barak passes out little candies and the kids are dispersed.  What about the cake? 

Holi Easter

3.26.13

Today is this festival called Holi where people douse each other with colored dust and and throw water balloons.  A half dozen children along the steps have mini-water squirters and Taka’s boys have already been told by tourists don’t even think of squirting them as the boys wait, grinning silly, for someone to enlighten. Shiva’s oldest son Manan gave me the emerald green tikka and a brush on each cheek and one on the chin.  I wore it for a few hours then Suraksha washed up and so did I.  I think the Indians are a little more into this holiday.

And yesterday I learned I missed Palm Sunday.  I suppose this Friday I should remember the day and Sunday, well, it’s visa time.  And what about Oman, in the picture suddenly.  There might be some snafus with this one regarding visas and getting diplomas attested and ya de da.  Is this location really ok?  Absolutely.  I can look through the barbed wire and feel safe.  No, there is no temptation to go over if boredom sneaks in because…because for now.

And we’re pretty sure two months more is likely and I think it’s ok with everyone because business hasn’t let up in three or four days.  Today a group takes five rooms.  The German lady in room one came up to me while I stood at the water tank waiting for Didi to arrive and asked me a question in German and the quick response after making four trips from the juncture with two water filled buckets was  ‘Ich bin nicht Berliner’ (confusion, embarrassed, she continues to speak in German which I don’t understand either) ‘…It was spoken in my mother’s home though this was the Bronx ya know wat I mean during Prohibition and King Kong and the like...’

The guides for the group are in room seven and receive a visit from one of their tourists, saying something about having no water in the room.  That doesn’t make sense but I’m staying put.  She then asks one of the men for a foot massage.  I’m not interested.  Eight months and not a single massage in Lakeside.  Why I just didn’t feel the need, even when I had money.   

3.27.13

For the third straight evening dark skies and big clouds gather in the north and they come no closer, held up, no rain.  By morning only a hazy range remains, another dry day. 

 Contracts.  Who carries those around?  Letters of recommendation ought to be enough, sir.  But if you don’t have that?  How can you prove you were there?  Ya, gut, das es gut.  Well, personal references, emails, sure you can dupe someone there, phone numbers, not good enough confirmation I was there, working.  Hmm…diplomas are ok, attest away.  Well, from UGRU the only evidence I have are my visas.  Contracts.  You can send me a contract and I can use that even if I never show up?  I do love Oman.  I do.  I really need a DL if this is supposed to happen, I mean really, cause and effect, whatever happens happens, it’s not a roll of the dice, it happens for a reason.  On the other hand, if I had stayed at one job, in one place, I’d have a family and property maybe and ya de da none of that was supposed to happen, isn’t that something to smirk at?  Is it time to smirk at God, geez not on Maundy Thursday, please J.

The spirit misled me away from the only profession I know.  These last four years, it’s too much dude. I want stability, please.  And it goes without saying that I most likely will not be in any rush to return to the mountain this time, I’m afraid.  The coincidences, all of it, well, nothing happened and it’s time for a paradigm to shift and give me something to be jubilant about.  

Coincidences still occur and I share them with Laxman and Maya when they are peculiar in nature.  Atma’s, spirits in each of us make connections in even our most daily manners, but what’s significant is how they are able to see the future perhaps as little as a half-second before our spirit knows, and if in that half second all humanity was sucked through a nebulae that would be a good thing, no? 

Ah, I thought you were finished with the nonsensical.

The bad news is spirits, like us, anticipate something, and their precognitive abilities are limited, to say, a half second, and not a full second.  Spirits are accountable like we presumably are but don’t ask me who they are accountable too, I’m sure the hierarchy is in place for a reason, nevertheless if spirits are accountable were the spirits I was running with doing what they were told to do?  The spirit who thought Sumjana was number eight didn’t know she wasn’t the eighth, though it doesn’t excuse why she said she was number eight. 

A guest from New Delhi checks into room two and wants to know the time for sunset and I said, sunrise is 6:15. Sunset!!! Oh, I rarely know exactly the sunset and wouldn’t you bloody believe they’re almost the same this week.  An equal twelve.  Give symmetry a pat on the back and who gives a rat’s ass.

3.28.13

The sun rises earlier every morning, the smell of rain at five, thick blue haze and tomorrow’s forecast calls for rain.  I know rain is not good for business but it is good for the gardens. 

I offered to walk to lakeside to buy antibiotics for Maya’s ailing tonsils and lead the German woman down who, despite climbing to ABC last month, is quite unsure of the easiest trail to the lake. I went up at seven, had a coffee, and swept the upper garden.  I could hear the woman coughing in her room.  There is a great reluctance to use anything not organic when you’re sick up here, a good argument with nature’s abundant supply surrounding you and the nearest clinic at least 40 minutes away in the valley by bike, one hour if you take the bus, two if you walk.

Nature’s supply is sometimes abundant in room eight.  Grapefruit seed extract.  We’re down to 14 precious tablets. 

2:46pm—The northern sky darkens and rippling thunder moves east, a walk to the roundhouses after dal bhat but I stopped short and had a milk tea at the new and very pink Mountain Garden restaurant and guesthouse, with the largest and perhaps only car park on the mountain.  The road headed to the sky zip is improved and two large vans of Indian tourists slump out and climb to the view top. 

The sun breaks free, the wind picks up, should I go for the sheets on the line or the chairs in the garden, everyone is around.  Sleep sounds good right now, shanti.

5:31pm—Skies darker, gusty winds and yet no rain.  The quiet before the ever slow storm.  And when I woke up the black string from Nyima’s vest tied to my wrist came off.  Should I put it back on or put it somewhere, there ya go M. Teresa, page 163.

in prison

3.25.13

The earthy unearthly Chinese were quickly out this morning and left rooms one through five fit for farm animals.  What people on earth put their cigarettes out on the walls?  Who leaves water running in the sinks?  Who takes off toilet seats in order to stand better?  What’s a wastebasket for when you have the floor to toss refuse?  Yes, I do remember diners in Beijing tossing chicken bones on the floor.  Twenty-three years ago. 

11:30am—Eight ladies are at the tap talking at the same time, surrounded by yellow, blue, silver and white containers, the only water source available right now.  Look here is Balrum’s second wife, their tap is dry.  Here is the widow of 15 years who lives on the side of the road, her tap close to the library is dry.  How’s Dan’s tap and how long does a 50,000L tank last for one old hippy?  The Hubei eleven used 2000L during their two day carnival ride and a call was made to bring water up from Pokhara, 10,000 Rs for five thousand liters.  Tomorrow another big group.  I made signs which I printed out and posted in the each of the bathrooms, extolling the virtues of water conservation and respecting its value.

In the meanwhile, I helped Didi clean room one, a tourist arrives at noon by taxi, Balarum the driver and I exchange greetings.  The second high season I am told, is now.  Well they’re coming up for the mountains and they are elusive, maybe this season should be the first medium season.  Billowy post storm clouds extend north to east, it’s dry alright.  There was a brief pattern of rain every three days but that lasted only nine days.  For the first time Maya says maybe the two one thousand liter tanks will have to be used. 

Strong gusty winds, the haze dominates the afternoon, Pokhara is in the eighties below, rain would be nice, a blessing for all life, a curse on the roads.  A family of Swedes checked into room five at one, Didi was still cleaning, they sat in the upper garden with coffee while their two boys enjoyed the banana milkshakes when a devil’s whipping tail lifted dirt and threshed the foursome soundly.  To their credit they laughed shook their hair and resumed with their beverages.  You can come inside if you like, oh it’s ok, we like it.

A rumble.  Another two guides show up at room eight.  The Swedes have two guides, there only three beds in room eight. Well there are two extra beds in room seven.  One bed has what’s left of four years of travel on it, spread out or in piles.  Everything I take off this bed I shake because spiders and ants and nothing else yet are curious.  The other bed opposite from the one I sleep in has the computer and odds and ends including the end of year issue of the Economist which I’m hoping to read the last half dozen articles when I leave. The Mother Teresa book sits on the rolled blanket in front of the window, well, I might take this one.  It isn’t a thriller, ya know.

The middle aged German lady in room one and I stand at the windows in the dining room watching  the growing queue of  ladies at the water tap below and when I tell her I’ve been here for almost eight months I get this:

Frau: You are in prison!! OmiGod.

John:  A prisoner of my own conscience.

Frau:  You are a prisoner.  I can’t believe it.

John:  I’m happy to be imprisoned here. 

If you can afford to see eight months of sunrises and sunsets on top of a mountain then I guess that is a good thing.  If a job in Antalya doesn’t become reality I will be disappointed but not for long.  I’ve had eight months of sunrises and sunsets on top of a mountain to consider. 

8:44pm—The moon is too bright to pee in the jungle.  The truck carrying the 5000 liters of water is going to come at one in the morning because it doesn’t want to lose water from splashing out when it has to stop and start from traffic at seven in the evening.  Laxman might need some help with this one, an afternoon event of dragging pulling, heaving a 50 meter plastic pipe that was covered and trapped in thick jungle vine and removed with sickles, through Prem Maya’s garden to the steps and down to the juncture and here the water boys will attach it and stick that mother of a snake into a hole the size of a baseball.

11:42pm—A hundred meters of pipe and the water runs through to the tank.  How awake am I after four cups of strong organic coffee and a red bull five hours earlier, the waterboys arrive early.  I am told three hundred liters spilled out of their Mad Max transport device on the way up.  What to do you say. 

What to do but remember tonight’s platinum moon, a bright, silvery dish and wonder what kind of camera you’d need for such brilliant luminosity.

face your farce, dude

3.24.13

11:29am—The four ladies who played majhong are now playing cards and the cards are really big and the remaining eleven Chinese arrived at eight and weren’t they a bunch to consider.  Upon reflection I understand the interest with all things Chinese goes back to Marcella Ranagan so I don’t mean any disrespect but let’s call a child a child and may compassion not flee in the face of farce . 

Eight of the older Chinese finish egg fried rice and one loudly asks for another.  It’s a parade of one word imperatives: Beer!  Rice!  Egg!  The ladies are civilized but too many of them in yesterday’s kitchen and this morning’s kitchen led the way for the other, younger, country folk who don’t enter kitchens in Hubei but see it’s ok here, no it’s not ok.

The specious child entered with the eleven unkempt mass and went after Carl the Cock clucking and cooing like only an atheist can, almost causing the bird to fly down from the railing until the bird escaped.  A stunted boy, 17, maybe 18, striped short sleeve dress shirt opened with a white t-shirt and a gaudy gold chain around the neck sporting spiky black hair came into the kitchen aggressively looking for salt.  I led him out and gave him the shaker.  He smelled it like a piglet and said thank you.  Five minutes later little Kim Jong IL’s offspring springs a leak, beady eyes tightened, fat round, pasty white face that doesn’t  know how it fits around a full set of gray boned teeth. Everyone else has got their eggs where were you, dude?

Kim:  EGG! EGG!

J:  Shanti Shanti

Kim:  I want EGG

J:  Mayo, no cooks, have a seat.

Kim: EGGG EGGG I WANT

J:  Go TALK to your Leader

And he stormed out and went down the steps, to the nervous laughter of everyone in the room.  The leader who goes by Jo ignored my concern that one in his group was out of hand, yeah right this isn’t the first time.  Well the entire group is getting fed dinner tonight, little Kim better be on his best behavior. 

I must say I learn a lot about keeping your cool when there is no one claiming responsibility for a large group. Patience.  Jo, professionals take care of all the ordering for the group.  Take responsibility and show respect.  Remember, respect.  It was 17 cups of rice, twenty cups of black tea ordered, only four folks took.  And don’t skip out of town without paying your bill.

I gave Ramesh a green oryx soft stone cross when I congratulated him on his first voyage out of Nepal.  This morning I found it in the dining room and it’s in my pocket.  I should put it on, huh? I did, Maya giving me a saffron string and now I wear the cross for as long as it wants.

A distinguished looking tourist from Hawaii with a peace corp label on his clean gray t-shirt thinks the price of momos is fair but decides not to eat here, perhaps he’s doing research but he also doesn’t think I am from America.  Well, I can look like an Afghani I’m told, once in a while.  Almost eight months here is lucky.  You are so lucky.  I am here because my spirit needs peace.  Good luck stay away from these Chinese, maybe the next village on the other side of the mountain with thick forest will be far enough.  

Next week, again, it’s time for a visa.  I was asked how the job search is going.  No calls, no emails except me throwing a lemon to the west coast.  It’s the second time I almost took the bait to the kingdom.  It’s just not a place to live alone.  Should I email Antalya again?  Having something to look forward to could post me a bed in Detroit.  Two months there would be alright.  It’s a big freaking place, man.  Well it has to be downtown with the homeless. 

The sleeping seven stir above.  It is tranquil in the valley; the chorus of tree singers show no objections and play their melodies for everyone.  I think it would do Kim good to sit in a chair, strapped down if necessary, and listen to the calls of a better life than his right now.  Meditate, inflate, deflate, hibernate, gravitate, expectorate do it now, son, three hundred and fifty times and then we can move on.

Suraksha came to the room.  I knew she would because I had a choco-pie.  I ate it before she came.  I was hungry, kiddo.  How bout the coconut biscuits, gone, I was hungry and out she goes.  A dull headache persists.  And hunger.  I desire a hamburger and fries.  Yeah, that does you no good at all to think about this.

8:51pm—Kim and his unbridled bunch didn’t come up for dinner and that is fine.  I know it’s not good for business to wish for peace but peace will make you prosper and that was on the menu.  Two Ukrainians checked into room six, one says Americans eat their dessert before during and after their meals unlike us who eat after dinner.  Well, fraulein, in the afternoon my mother made puddings and pies and breads and they’d sit on the window sill and even the birds lined up for a crumb, the house would smell so good when we came home from school and sometimes I got the spoon or the bowl after pudding was made and I’d lick that pan clean, no soap necessary.  “Ah so traditional” she replied.  And I took their order, mashed potatoes with cheese tomato and onion, so traditional, hmm, veg fried rice, mother never made fried rice in her life, spinach soup, mother liked creamed spinach, that frozen kind which she’d chop and I later learned in life spinach tastes a lot better than the frozen creamed kind, a small pot of honey lemon tea and a snickers bar.    

Maybe a full moon tomorrow, tonight’s bright enough the folks check into their rooms together and orderly they close the doors behind them in unison.  Last night was fun, ya’ll can sure enjoy life, and it is worth mimicking if only to mock if it is necessary to show such boisterous behavior is nothing to laugh at unless you like being laughed at.  Good nite, sleep well.

key the canon! key the canon!

3.22.13

8:42pm—An annoying headache all day, no thanks to local vodka last night as we wished Ramesh adieu.  A steady stream of tourists and locals kept me busy enough during the afternoon and by nightfall all the rooms are booked.  I told Suman my economic principle that will never leave you in any kind of financial disarray: don’t spend more than what is coming in.  Of course a two or three month monsoon requires saving up for three months of no business and who the hell am I anyways to share advice about money.

Today was Prisma’s birthday number four, Madha made an apple cake and she bought two Cadbury chocolate bars and I melted them with a little butter and drizzled it over the cake and wasn’t that cake pretty good. 

3.23.13

Where are the twenty two Chinese right now?  Sure it’s only five thirty in the morning as I type this.  It is good fortune to have a strong supply of water filling up the big tank with the group coming.  Can I hope for the same good fortune and get hired from here before the end of May?  My faith is weak.

Lamjung’s outline is only visible in the blue overcast.  A sore throat persists, no smoke yesterday, perhaps not today.  I am accepting the inevitable crash if I return to America with nothing.  Hitting the bottom again, geez, there’s nothing more humbling. 

I’ve read enough of the Tibetan book.  The deeper you go into any faith’s commentaries and interpretations the further you are from common sense. 

A cloudy sunrise with one red splotch, such haze subdues what could have been a pretty nice photo.  The camera is functioning though I get a lens error if I use the zoom too much and have to turn it off.  No cheers from the onlookers, a subdued bunch they will be, hanging on at the top hoping clouds will disperse.

A joyful orchestra of birds and a very distant cock crows.  Do I look like a fool helping?  The old white dude carrying water, the old white dude carrying clean dishes, the old white dude.  I don’t care but sometimes I do and that annoys. Why think about such things when nature sings a sweet melody right outside your door.  The tourist airplanes and micro-flyers buzz overhead, a multitude of youthful locals march their way to the top.  The birds are unfazed.  The sun finally ascends the horizon haze forty minutes later.  It’s time to go up.  Take a panadol first, toilet paper, 1rs throat lozenges.  There are some very exotic calls coming from the trees now, the kind one hears further south among the Tropicals.  I can’t even describe a bird call right now, but if I could repeat it…it’s gone.  The Tibetan horns blow from below.  Another day with three threes in the date and an equation totaling three.  Does it mean anything? God I wish to not make or think about meaningless connections anymore.  And what is there to four threes, oh the rare clover. 

5:13pm—Eleven of the Chinese checked in, their other half will stay at the View Top.  After helping Maya wash dishes and pots and everything else because Didi took the day off but didn’t tell anyone, I wiped down the outside tables of beer bottles and glasses while two Chinese men were taking photos with saucer-size lens of birds.  Stay away birds!  Look at the sunset, look at that moon, a three quarter waxing, don’t point your amateur skills at the woman showering below, hoodlums.  To their credit they didn’t intrude with the neighbor but ya know, it’s not a compassionate thing to do but if you smash your cigarettes on the ground and ignore the ash tray, I’m gonna key your camera.  Right?  Enjoy your stay.

I’ve had 497 songs on my ipod for the past three years and before cleaning the rooms I clicked shuffle songs and the music started with my only two AC/DC songs and continued playing them alphabetically.  Some shuffle, but I was glad it played the way it played, it was nice to hear four songs from the Allman Brothers, three from Amberlin, Andy Irvine and his ‘Eastwind’ album is a perennial favorite, two from Audioslave and then ‘Hey Jude’ my only Beatles song, two Ben Harper’s, two Black Crowes before finishing room six. 

Do you really think Detroit is a place you need to be now, that is if I don’t get hired from here before I have to leave?  I can see myself among the bustle outside the ballpark on Friday nights and bumping into people I know.  I’m not asking for anything but a buck or two and I can buy an umbrella, thanks Martin.  Where am I staying?  St. Dominics, they have these great sausage and green peppers lunch on Tuesdays, some dude who learned from this other dude who owned a restaurant in Northville called Hole in the Wall.  John Genetti I think his name was.  Well, bro I don’t like seeing you this way, come home with me and you can sleep under the grill of my beemer.  Thanks, but I passed up on a 8k a month job and I don’t sleep under anyone’s beemer. 

The Chinese eleven cooked dinner and I have a stomach ache.  Maybe it was the boiled pumpkin, maybe it was the chicken stock they called soup, I don’t know but I passed on Maya’s rice and am nurturing a few coconut cookies back in room eight.  The Chinese dude with the camera too big for anyone has it sitting on a tripod aimed at Pokhara below.  He’s taking a long exposure photo or he’s waiting for the haze to dissipate. Four of the middle aged women sit in the dining room and play mahjong and one of them has that earthy 19^th century I’ve lived on the farm and only got electricity last year, dark complexion with a pulled back look like someone’s got her hair and is pulling really hard.  Ya’ll gonna be here tomorrow?  I think there’s rain in the forecast.  Hmm.  Your room will be a warm cozy place to stay.  You want hot water?  Bring your thermos to the kitchen and we’ll fill it for you for a special I’m not appreciating how bloody hard it is fee to heat this water and we’ll be ok.  Ok?

Planck Day

3.20.13

I have to decide today if I am going to Kathmandu tomorrow.  I read doubt is a sign of the unenlightened mind.  That is disappointing.  Every job I show interest in I later doubt because waiting for something better is driving me crazy! What if there is nothing waiting for you?  Two more months here is ok if it’s ok with them but that is crazy too.  Water.  The big tank is empty and that can be stressful when it’s completely out of your hands.  The rooms are empty at noon and how can anyone stay without a toilet or shower.

8:57pm  Maya returned to her parent’s home and so did Ramesh, who leaves for Korea at the end of the month.  May God bless your adventures and see you tomorrow.  Suraksha is hanging out with Prem Maya and company, the third such night, and Laxman and I finished eating a nice variety of rice with a South Sri Lankan Birayani approach.  It is a quiet evening, a break desired from cooking  for so many for such a long stretch.  It’s good business but five thirty am to nine in the evening is not easy.

3.21.13

A dark gray overcast morning and the first time visitors going up will see nothing.  A swollen throat and it’s two panadols and grapefruit seed extract.  Antibiotics worked temporarily and if this gets worse I’ll be in trouble. 

7:21am--It appears I am up to no good again, another job lead sabotaged.  Why o why must you show interest if you’re not sure?  The sky darkens, thunder rumbles, morning storms on Red Leaf were always moments to stop everything and embrace nature coming right into your bedroom.  Meanwhile Carl the Cock remains under the basket.  Chickens in rain are never good. 

A note from a friend, out of KSA after a three month stint.  The place ain’t easy, there’s a lot of sacrifice for the paycheck that becomes very relative. The sky darkens even more, little children’s voices and Carl break the meditative silence. Where is the rain. 

When the kitchen darkened WJR would crackle and we’d stand at the windows and watch the maples and oaks wave and the darkness would lure us away from everything and in silence we’d listen.  I don’t think mom would have put up with a chicken in the dining room, the dude is downright loud.  Shanti. Didi arrives and I help her dump two water containers in the tank.  There is a leak somewhere and this is not good.  In two days 22 Chinese are expected.  The skies brighten.  Not even spit, what a curve ball.  The sun breaks out, the winds pick up, my stomach growls, even after an egg, toast and coffee.  Should I take a walk? 

11:00am—The heavens open finally and it pounds, the winds are accelerating and in the western sky it is bright.  That doesn’t mean the end of this system.  Sometimes it will sit in the Pokhara bowl and the mountains will hold it, sometimes it will back up or circulate, whatever it does, get out the buckets and how much can we trap.  Wait, here comes the hail and blue sky.  Shake those cookie sheets and on its way it goes.   

The rain falls again.  It’s time to run to my room in the rain to get my raincoat.  Carl’s wings are too small for his fat feathery body and when he flaps he’s only flagellating himself for having small wings.  He stands and walks along the railing and looks down on the Prem Maya household and I stand in his way and I let the pea-brain know digging holes in any of the gardens is against the law.  He clucks and whinnies and approaches me like he isn’t aware he’s minutes from becoming dinner.

Next month it will be remembered that four years ago KK and I landed on top of this mountain and it  only got crazier after that.  And if I’m still here on 4.23 it’ll be another day to remember and pray I forget because who wants to remember this any longer. Not I.  There ought not to be anything significant about four year anniversaries anyways, so why are you recognizing the day and the last day to remember.  After this, there are no dates to hope something will happen.  All the illusioned incidents will disappear, like the dreams that walked me around the house.  And you will be a new man?  You will walk straight and stop fighting God?

The sun came out after the rain ended an hour after it started but the blue gray shroud of clouds never left and three hours later grumbling thunder darkens the north.  I sat in the sitting room and was watching the BBC story of Obama visiting the dead sea scrolls when the power went out.  He’s not going to the Mount of Olives that you are aware of, though a quick read of Planck’s Day today will leave me wonder until the president has flown away.  End of bleeping story.

I have to email Kathmandu.  I have to email the Saudi dude.  It’s frustrates me to disappoint  people and yet I know if I don’t speak now they’ll get really pissed I waited so long.  Another cv sent today, back in Oman, oh really?  It’s all about location, and as far as I know there are no mausoleumss or caves honoring Job in the border town.  As for the driver’s license?  I must get one. 

In the meanwhile as the afternoon wanes and all is still except for Carl there is a cup of pepper tea and French toast and days of future passed for a headache, at least on low volume.  I know it’s not a great deal to extend this visa for two more months as long as there is work of any variety where I can justify to myself a meal but it’s where am I going to go.  The Emirates at the beginning of June without a car.  Hmmm, I’d last a week. It has to be America.  Be jealous of me not, local friend, I don’t know what I am going to do but I probably ought to head to San Diego but how about an abandoned building in Detroit.  The weather will be ok, a little rain perhaps but there’ll be
baseball to follow and corners to sit on.

The Psychologist and Anna

3.18.13

A sore throat begins just two days after finishing a week’s worth of Augmentin.  A beer before bed and six trips to pee in the jungle without enough clothes on in the chilly night probably contributed.  A simmering headache is also present.  The skies are clear and thus the Himalayas are brilliant.  The Russian ladies in room one were so disappointed when they arrived last night in a violent squall and were so happy with Lamjung and Annapurna this morning.  Goodbye ladies mozaltov  to your grandchildren!

The moment between exhaling and inhaling is a gap and here in this gap is the place where you meditate.  Meditating became increasingly difficult today when I started feeling icky and when I couldn’t get a Pearl Jam song out of my head, having heard only half of Betterman.  Why was it so stuck I don’t know.  Yesterday there was plenty of time in the sun to practice and distractions weren’t too hard to keep out.

Marcus from Germany and Anna from Russia, newly married and living in Basel.  It is always difficult to explain the unexplainable without mentioning the sacred plant.  You have to include it because it is so integral in the events.  There would be no coincidences, there wouldn’t have been a spirit possession-epiphany-enlightenment-overdose without brownies and still I feel bringing it up discredits all the experience.  And that can’t be right. 

Then again you’re still alive, well into 2013.  Hey Obama is going to the Holy Land.  Jesus will stand on the Mt of Olives and…and…blowing smoke.  Shame on me.  You want to believe, you wish your illusions would become reality.  Of course but thinking about this is beyond the illusory and where the deluded wind up at St. Vincent De Paul Soup Kitchens murmuring incoherent gospels. 

8:20pm  All the rooms are full.  The newlyweds, two Australians,  two happy and tipsy Japanese women,  the English woman in room two and two solos, one from Indonesia and a pretty gal from Shanghai who came into the kitchen and sat down with us while we ate after everyone else got their meals.  I thought for a minute she was stoned but why can’t she be just happy and silly without due cause? 

The English woman and a Nepali man who was her guide two days ago are sitting next to room eight and they walk back and forth smoking.  I’ll never sleep as long as I can their voices resonate through the walls.  No internet has been available today and I’d sure like it now.

I told Marcus when I was young I remember waking up in different parts of the house and at around twelve years old I woke up in the dark basement and was so frightened and subsequently angry I rarely dreamed again for the next 35 years and I rarely dream now.

Then I remembered Nyima’s medium telling me the 2700 year old spirit possessed me because my own spirit left.  Did my spirit leave when I was 12?  I will certainly go off the cliff if I think about this for much longer. 

If the higher powers wanted me dead they should go ahead and do it.  There is no fear in death, and right now there’s no fear of dying alone.  If it happens it happens and what am I going to gain from reading the Tibetan book on living and dying if I want death.  Ok I want living, no that’s not true, life doesn’t matter, it is what it is.  If it isn’t shared with someone it’s just playing with someone else’s kids. 

3.19.13

‘I have a good heart, I help you,’  if you help and you expect nothing in return you have a good heart. Every thought and action and intention is accountable.  Intentions.  What is your intent?  What are my intentions?  Osho Goldfarb had the word intention tattooed on his arm. 

The crazy dog barks away.  His bark is all I hear and it distracts any attempts to meditate.  What am I left with, thinking.  Interview questions.  Krashen.  Incomprehensible input.  Who learns and becomes crazy.  The building blocks of knowledge require previous knowledge.  Hindsight.  Predestination and Free Will.  It’s not complicated if you slow down.

The second straight day without internet, checking boxscores, headlines, social shmedia, jobs, so many in Japan.  Japan.  It would be nice to meet a Japanese man or woman here and talk about working in their country.  Where are those happy middle aged Japanese women who can write Nepalese (!!), oh I hear, they’re in room six, waiting for the sun to heat up the water so they can shower.  The Australian blonde in room five thanked Maya for the first hot shower in three days, “It was ah-mIz-ing”.  I shaved in room one when the Indonesian checked out and used a half bucket of cold water to wash the hair.   

And should I go to the capital in two days about a job?  Many ends loose with the desert folks, the oil company folks, Antalya wanes unfortunately only because September is a lifetime away.  Before the Japanese ladies left I did ask them about age discrimination and they confirmed that is the practice. 

A woman below the railing cuts the grass.  Don’t wonder about those white stained leaves is just toothpaste.  The crazy dog’s bell rings when he barks and I spent four hours helping Maya prepare meals and chasing Ramesh’s gold chicken from digging up the gardens.  A sore neck, fatigue settles in but sunset approaches. Marcus and Anna went looking for a quieter place, odd so many people checked in last night and only two remain today.  The steps to the top have been quiet except for the mountain ladies all jockeying for water at the tap, water that came strong this afternoon but has slowed down.  

I'm not cooked yet

3/14/13

Amideast

Dear Mr. Norris,

I wish to express my great interest in teaching with Amideast in Casablanca.   

3.15.13

That’s as far as I got with this one.  It would be cool to work in Casablanca.  So what’s holding you back?  Are you kidding?  I don’t have a clean shirt, no shoes, one thin green silk tie, pants that are too long, and this outfit is legit, not that my previous employers were anything but legit in their own eccentricities.

How bout working for an ngo in Kathmandu?  And with a salary of 20,000rs a month, or $200 bucks.  I’ll get a visa if that is more important and I will live in a major city that is quite, how do you say it compassionately? You’re tough to please, ya know that?

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.  A nice companion to Mother Teresa if that’s possible.  Taking on suffering like only a nun can and accepting the inevitability of it. I will work for such a sum if at least there is a clean room and toilet to come home to.  Not even the Albanian lady could do her work without a roof.  We will see. 

Outside is calling.  Yesterday’s late afternoon storm was an adrenaline rush and taking photos at the helicopter pad you had to brace yourself for a Himalayan pummel .  All is calm now.  The spirit of the home is calmer as well.  Give each other space and avoid drinking.  Save it for Sunday.  St. Pats.  How many enjoyable days have you had on this day?  Not as many as I’d hoped. 

Many people ask how I wound up here and few get the story.  Madhu the journalist and her German husband and their little boy got the coincidences and Tibetan shaman visit story, albeit was brief.  Four years ago a spirit who calls himself Job led me to an old man in a camp. 

I have to choose what I must believe?  Mother Teresa vs The Tibetans.  Jesus Mary and Om. 

3.16.13

The sun is rising at least two minutes earlier every other day.  A six twenty four beginning, earlier this week I told a tourist six thirty.  Time changes because of its impermanent and relative nature.  There’s no need to fret how this day will turn out, you can predict it with some accuracy but that confident assessment can’t account for what you will think unless you make an effort to discipline. 

Living on this mountain has been a retreat from the west though the west is like Cruella Daville’s fingers always trying to pull you back and she’s here.  Cruella. 

“Time is short I’m sure there must be something more”

Well he never said what that more would be but I am under no spell anymore.  Find Mr Higgs and tell him who gives a shit. 

No, you thought you might be a ghost, you didn’t get to heaven but you made it close.

For four years I haven’t figured out who these lame ass characters are.  Do you think you’re a ghost?  One of those in Tibetan Buddhism’s contemporary realms found on Venice Beach and Sydney?  And why speak of heaven in the past tense?  You know something we don’t know, I’d wager your ability to predict future events is limited. 

Limited spirit power, trust you not.  I didn’t ask you to come in, dude, and you certainly weren’t behind me returning for a puja to exercise my right to exorcise you for such a misleading. Please Lord of Heaven enlightenment is supposed to be blissful.  I should go up and help Maya, Laxman is in Pokhara, the internet is down, a good thing sometimes, Suraksha put make-up on Prisma, Didi is walking around with large heavy things on her back, and paragliders whoop and holler. 

Carl the Cock has regained some strength after he was given a medicine of hot water and panadol last night.  On the floor outside the toilet he sat with a plate of flattened rice in front of him and his beak would go down as if to eat but he’d just stare at it and then he’d raise his head again.  This morning he was on Ramesh’s porch looking down on us and crowing  “I am not cooked yet!”.

For crying out loud how can I choose between two faiths?  I was born and raised Catholic.  I am a Catholic, for better or worse.  This spirit, shit, he’s still here.  He’s a Buddhist or a Bon or a Daoist, I’ll believe what I believe and you believe what you believe but for crying out loud, if this means you gotta get out of my head, then out!  Out.  Leave.  This confusion, the contradictions are leaving me adrift up in the rare air.  You heard Nyima, he was asking me, not you, to choose.  

It does beg another thought about going undercover, unaware of course and only learned in hindsight, in the Evangelical world.  Who planned that? And who were you named after?  That’s a lot of weight on one’s shoulders ya know, in the living room there was a portrait of three John’s, JFK, Pope John the 23^rd, and John the Baptist.”  Not the John who was the best friend of Jesus?  Well they all came from the one whom Jesus loved most.  That is one hellava name to live up to.  Like Shiva?  Ah I don’t know.  Maybe. And how are ya doing?  I don’t think I’m doing too well in the outside world, but it’s just fine here, for now.  Time to go up. 

9:16pm

I violated a principle I’ve held since I started journaling and later and that I was to never write about the people I worked or lived with.  In the Emirates I didn’t write about my close friends because I respected privacy (and then there was only moleskine) and here I let my emotions and frustrations come out here.   The spirit brought me here for a reason and despite the spirit being in the dog house since nothing happened in December, I had (have) to trust all things happened (happen) for a reason.  Sharing my frustrations here is ok I think however if it involves someone in this family I really must work it out in the respectful arena of the home and not put it here.  I mean really who wants to read of someone elses troubles?  Not me. Mea Culpa

3.17.13

Hopeless helpless. ADNOC would like an interview in Dallas.  How presumptuous.  I’m really stranded here.  I don’t know how worse things can get.  Oh they will get a lot worse if you throw yourself out of room eight.  Why would I do that you say, such despair on St. Patricks Day.  Is there a reason to drink at least I know the next day nothing has improved. 

I want to enter the cathedral of nothingness.  No dependency, no attachment.  Alone with nothing. 

8:50pm.  I will have to read Sogyal Rinpoche’s chapter on meditation again because it was good, common sense good.  No Christian can deny that cleaning the head of all that is unhelpful is one of many steps to getting close to God, and where is God but within each of us. 

Two Russians check in late and then watch the approaching storm from the dining room.  The internet weather indicators have been almost right on every call.  This morning I told Suraksha to take an umbrella to school because it was going to rain but didn’t she run up the mountain to avoid it. 

I managed to get one beer on this holiday in the west, while here no one knows and no one cares and why should they? 

Before we blow out the candles Carl the Cock appears to be his old self and there is no reason to bring in the lady chicks because today he was with the hen above and the hen below.  Carl lives up to his name I say, and was unable to be corralled when the wind howled and the black sky approached in a slow and menacing way so he was cooped up with Prem Maya’s hen.