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.