The largest ghost town in the world

4.19.13

Five forty two pm, back in room eight after an afternoon of idleness until dusk and two rooms are booked. Maya wants me to give my dirty laundry to Didi for washing and I continue to decline, later, maybe tomorrow, nothing smells and that’s ok.  I wonder how many men wear the same clothes for days or weeks with no hassle.

7:56pm—The wind howls, the rain spits and stalls.  Everyone expects a big one but not yet. After breakfast this morning I took a 45 minute nap, I don’t know if it’s the heat and the altitude or just the heat.  Now only eight o’clock and I’m ready for shut eye.  What an exciting life you have, Jackie boy, brush the teeth and turn out the lights.

4.20.13

At the banyon tree rest stop a woman in red lights a candle and walks about the tree three times.  How do you define Hinduism, if everyone in your family and community say you are Hindu, then you are Hindu.

A thin blue veil lightly shrouds Lamjung at five thirty this morning, wispy clouds luxuriate the ranges.  Saturday, what in God’s name am I going to do today?  Wash clothes?  The children returned last night after four days away, and yes, I did feel like a ghost, unseen, unknown, taking up space.  A family member for hire it is sometimes.  Don’t take it personally I tell myself, but are children a reflection of what they hear and say? I hope not though I know better, it is a depressing way to begin the day.

Another tooth breaks while eating a fried roti.  It wasn’t the roti I know, it is a lifetime decay.  It is so wrong to hope anything will happen on the twenty third.  Shameful wishing, coincidences are supposed to be some kind of cosmological acknowledgement but what do they really say, they don’t encourage hope that’s for sure.

And no cosmic calendar indicates any kind of anniversary is recognized. This decision to write off four years of wandering because nothing happened is simply my efforts to stop the brain from guessing and anticipating such madness.   

I walked over to Ram’s and watched the men slaughter a goat.  There are many reasons to be squeamish but if your father was a butcher and you grew up in the suburbs you wouldn’t mind a masterful execution and completion in ninety minutes, one kg for each of thirteen families in on this animal, each receives an equal amount with equal parts.

I need to leave the country in forty two days.  I can’t go to any other country on earth without a job except for one.  Sometimes I feel a need to be there, to hear my language again, to help somehow but there is no direction.  I have had this loony idea in my head to start a business for a long time, would it help to share it here?

 Big D Tours

The World’s Largest Ghost Town

How much capital would I need to start up a fleet, how much for advertising, planning and so forth?  I know what you’re saying already…it’s just an idea which are always free need I remind you.  I know I’m no businessman but it’s dreamy to imagine visiting historical vacant buildings and prairie fields where Tom Dempsey kicked a 63 yard field goal with half a foot and then it’s coneys for lunch.  For an extra charge people could light a house on fire or visit a crack house. 

Locals with children are on the veranda.  I haven’t heard Maya or Suman up there with them, I’ve been feeling somewhat reclusive today, overcast, not a bad day to take a walk, really, isolated and angry clouds in the valleys heading east fast, thunder and downpours fly past, but we’re dry here and oh two guides settle in room seven, one of them is dragging the stack of plastic chairs across the tearable linoleum floor so it’s time to get up.  They’ve brought a Japanese dude.  Konichiwa, bro.  These fellas look like sherpas. 

9:40pm—I ventured out of room eight and in the field right below I helped Del-Maya plant ginger and popcorn corn, using at times a 2000 year old spade to till the earth.  With a wobbly back I went to the top and it sure was busy and spent the rest of the day sweeping, carrying water, prepping in the kitchen with all the rooms full again.  Thankfully, Suman was there to help, and one of the sherpas pitched in and cooked. I’m not sure what it is but a cigarette leaves me dizzier than usual.  Am I smoking too many or not enough?  I don’t know it’s time to sleep.

4.21.13

The first big rain of the season came last night and at six this morning the dark overcast greets no one.  Everyone sleeps and the rain continues to fall. It is this kind of weather that makes meditation connect, of course as long as you’re not hungry and you don’t need the loo.

People walk slowly in the morning, even when it rains hard. 

4.23.09  I brought it on.  A journey that started because I had too many questions.  Rocket fuel, there is no where to go on this planet for the answers and four years later the answers my mind created leave  more questions because the answers were not correct.  You can’t trust people, you can’t trust spirits, you can’t trust your mind.  Trust in Jesus, trust in the silence, my feet are freezing.

I considered everything I had to be a loss, I thought I had been given the news, the scoop of the ages, too wired, too connected, too doped up in a cognizant and fully aware kind of way, all of it, the illusion, was created in my head and assumed it was true until I assigned specific dates, now I sit in a grotto, numbers don’t add up, coincidences mean nothing more than their occurrences.

I remember the events that took place on this date, why write anything here, well, if everything was created in my head why talk about it anymore.  It isn’t doing you any good. 

Listening deep is putting me to sleep.  What the hell am I going to do today?  Sunday.  In the real world below maybe I’d go to church, have breakfast, watch Charles Kuralt, read the newspaper, go to a ball game, read, watch a movie and go to bed. 

So what the @#$%& are you doing, get up and do it.  How can you feel guilty desiring such a life you used to have, why not return to that and begin again.  Detroit.  If I can line up a job there, get the driver’s license again, re-unite with movitation to at least not be dependent on others or some interdependency would be good too, then I’ll accept whatever inevitability comes along. 

And here comes the year’s first fog, c’mon cheer up and stop looking at homeless shelters.  Ok, maybe I’ll just crawl under the blanket for a few minutes. 

Winds sweep away fog, rain continues, Didi cleans the rooms, lucky sod, when someone knows their lot in life, it’s sure easier to manage the what ifs and what the’s.  Yes, her life is harder than mine, but she’s got children, a job, money, what else. 

So you don’t know your lot in life, yeah, it sucks,  a jubilee on the planet and has the gompa on the mountain prepared you to return to the flatlands once more we will see.

8:52pm—I walked down the road to Balarum’s property for a very pleasant sunset in the east and figured on return that I should return to the states in mid-May.  I need to make these plans very very soon for fear the fares will change from their reasonable rates now. 

I think I’ll be able to work it out for three or four months and then return to the desert, and if it is meant to be then it will happen. 

I am planning for the inevitable crash because there is no other way and because I can plan for the crash it won’t be that bad.  It will be shame I never saw or heard from doctor laura of Larrabee, and there's no interest in going their either, but what a shame for it to happen and then not be able to explain it.  A lot of loose ends there are, Lord, hanging us out on the line to dry, so typical, eh?

There, that’s enough.