A poet is not a prophet

May 28  11:28am

Rain and dark skies are a good reason to remain indoors today.  An interview with a school in Iraq went as well as I could imagine, explaining the last four years still sounded a bit rusty.  Nepal for nine months.  Did you think you'd stay there forever?  In hindsight we learn knowledge, in the present though I didn't know.

I have a very spiritual family but confronting the spirits and understanding their intentions is never a sure thing.  Why do they come to us?  To comfort, to reassure.  A 2700 year old spirit's intentions in hindsight are unclear.  Why make an announcement if no one believes, why pay attention if four years later there's nothing but the same.

My kingdom come thy will be done.  On earth rain falls hard and nature rejoices.  Whose kingdom are you in today my friend?

Similarities between Mother Teresa and Francis of Assisi:  spiritual darkness, abandonment, separation but an unshakable faith. Oh if we were to have that one on one connection with Jesus then the world's worst adversities could be managed.  God certainly needs to intervene more, don't you think?

If there is one good thing to be said about being inside on a cold miserable rain is I smoke less.  Dirty business these cigarettes are.

So what are your intentions today.  And tomorrow and the next week.  How badly do you want to stay in the US.  A coincidence with the Rochester along Lake Ontario leaves me to wonder if the brain can produce coincidences separate from real ones.  In other words if I think enough about Rochester will events occur that appear but are not real at all?

Four cups of coffee before noon and my bladder is going to explode.  I have to find another book.  The Swerve and The Reluctant Saint were good, this current book on insanity and leadership isn't holding my attention.

Ok, Imagine Dragons has a few cool songs with intriguing lyrics.  Demons, Radioactive, four years ago it was Kings of Leon and Coldplay wrapping my head too tightly and look where that left me.  Musicians are in touch but it doesn't mean their message is for the masses.  Sure people love the music but they are only poets, not prophets.

my butt freezing homeland

23 May

In the last three hours temperatures have dropped twenty degrees. Strong gusty winds are keeping me inside this afternoon which is alright; a stack of books, plenty of coffee and a toilet are available.  How then are you, Jack?

I've been in the states for a week now and still feel the effects of being in an unfamiliar time zone.  I can only assume travel fatigue and bouts of manageable depression leave me wanting to sleep.  Why depressed?  An uncertain future and no sun contribute.

What have you been reading?  I finished "The Swerve" a delightful and sometimes shocking story got me thinking so hard I had headaches.  Today I've been looking at a variety of history books on the Catholic church, primarily, I must confess, to see how and why the books of the New Testament are in the order we have today.  It's a given that the 13 letters St. Paul wrote were considered canonical because God called him out and told him to explain and defend the new faith to the new churches in Asia Minor.  The new believers were pagans, though not necessarily heathens because pagans did believe.  A heathen as I understand is an atheist and the Galatians and Ephesians to name but a few believed in the mythological gods of antiquity.

I also found translations of the New Testament that are not protected by copy write and thus are in the public domain.  Sigh, Johnny boy, what are you thinking?  According to these fellas at Gordon-Conwell 41,000 denominations exist in Christianity today.

Each group has interpretations ranging from baptism to free will and so forth.  What I would like to do and this may take some effort that'll require more time than I have, is to trace the origins of the interpretations.  It is my gut instinct that the differences come from Paul's letters.  Inspiring, life-changing, divine, but divisive and in some cases merely opinion, a reason to consider a re-shuffling of the canon.  I don't envision removing a single jot or tittle from the New Testament, but simply moving the 13th apostle's commentaries after the book of Revelation. And where else could I do this than my beloved and freezing butt country.

Lord Have Mercy

5.10.13

5am—It feels quite surreal to be finally leaving. Six Russians checked into rooms two through four late and they are already up and headed to the viewpoint.  No mountains but wispy clouds and a nice orange sun would be nice.  The sorting of personals is finished, today, pack.  Visits to the grandparents and others in the village. 

It’s not even six and I’m ready to go up.  Another ear-buzz bye night, I have no idea if I’m killing one everytime I go after it or it’s the same mother#@& tiny that is robbing my sleep.  My stomach growls.  I finished my peanut butter biscuits a long time ago.  Well, I’m certainly trimmed down enough perhaps this nine months was preparation for entry into the homeless world again. 

Everyone I know, everyone, owns a home and at fifty I don’t.  My first ever investment was right dag nab here and I have to leave.  Well the blank.  Marrying any of the girls Maya had introduced to me would have solved this problem long ago but you held out.  No one can be faulted, they tried.  And we appreciated it then and do now. 

They will not forget what you preached for four years.  A false prophet, no, shamanic occurrences that had another message I completely missed, I guess.

Ok, who did Abbie Hoffman call the first hippy?

I must, I need, I want, to send one or two emails today.  It is kind of important.  How can I make it without others?

If the CWM is where you want to be, make a decision then at the bus station.  Why do it now?  Impermanence holy cow I just accepted the offer at UOB and this is the goal, ok?  We’re going to the end of August.

I better write down addresses.

4:05pm—A snake fog glides into Pokhara from the north and then whoooshh up it comes right into the rooms blowing it comes.  Would you like to share what you would like to happen to you in your country?  I have no idea, a break I guess, a piece of luck, the presence of Jesus in the back seat of a pinto playing checkers.  Dude, I am never right.

Hey look! It’s Suman and Suson coming up Maya’s Way.  Tiksa, hey, let’s roast a chicken, dude. Huncha. Menacing black dangling clouds quickly rush from the north into Pokhara, pounding rain, high winds.  Didi cultivates in the field below room six, wearing a bluer than usual rain tarp in a lush green glow at dusk approaches.  If you had a good camera ladies and gentlemen, you’d do good to be here. 

Rainfall in a dry forest welcomes lapping it up, a water stain on a room three wall, water collects on the veranda.  After the last four days the dry season is pretty much over and this isn’t a monsoon storm from the east, that comes next month.  In Salalah it came in July.  Wouldn’t Los Angeles be  a wonderful place to live if it had an annual monsoon?

Ah yes, my final day on the mountain, let it rain real hard for a long time, wash out roads, landslides, the usual disarray.  The veranda is pretty much flooded and Didi is still in the field. 

5.11.13

An hour from leaving Sarangkot.  A peaceful sunrise approaches.  Lord Have Mercy on me, a sinner.

hide in the fog

5.8.13

Bishnu, the crazy dog’s owner, brings the animal from above and the dog is holding on to his tail and spinning furiously on his chain as they walk down the trail.  The sun breaks out nine minutes before eight and it feels good.  Heavy fog blinds, the Thai duo in room five return to the room after a breakfast of chicken fried rice and fried vegetables and they close their door and the windows hey! why are you shutting out this glorious Eastern morning?

I have so far procrastinated as long as I can and one must sort of act, right?  At least before you disconnect in Houston control time four days.  I have far too much stuff to carry in a 17kg backpack.  A gentle purge is required.  My ratty torn up and kind of trendy blue jeans won’t make this trip I’m afraid.  They’ve been patched up once already in the crotch but it didn’t stop other places personal from tearing away.

I’m thinking nice pine trees in the fog.  Yesterday the very bright skies without a sun were nice for using the black and white chronometric or something mode.  Silhouettes turn out very nicely. 

Maya remains in bed after another visit to a dentist this time in Pokhara yesterday.  Dentists, God Bless Them, suck. 

10:07am—Thick fog rolls in darkens the room and the jungle is alive and growing and eating itself. Baba is on his way to Pokhara on foot.  He was sporting some nice looking cross-trainer shoes and walked faster than I was going too meanwhile another strike in the city begins, all taxis and buses are a no go. 

Plans to take photos in the fog keep stalling.  Let’s wait at least twenty minutes.  Let’s hear your agenda today.  Contact.  I don’t think I should watch this movie anymore.  I showed it to a class at Zirve with Turkish subtitles and they were definitely into it.  So, who are you?  Are you the Doc or those others out there?

5.9.13

A gang of mosquitoes taunted all night so I turned the light on and slept poorly until day light.  Prepack and purge day begins in a few hours.  An orange-lite sun suddenly appears from the light blue mist and fog and then disappears.  Last night Laxman and I carried, dragged, and walked Balarum back to his home after dark and a muscle in the lower left back just reminded me how hard that was. Once he was safely at home his wives offered us tea and pan fried beet root under a makeshift tent outside.

I don’t know what it is but advice from her leaves me disconcerted. If I am supposed to get a driver’s license I will get one.  Bureaucracy troubles but I can face reality and it won’t be easy but it leaves me depressed to hear it.  The heavy fog is a good place to hide right now. 

12:19pm—Mother’s Day in Nepal and Maya is off to visit her mother and will return tomorrow.  Gusty winds in a blinding fog-hazy are leaving me sleepy in the dining room.  Suggestions for staying awake?  A red bull, really?

Paul was a chosen by Jesus in a blinding light to preach the new way to Gentiles and Israel.  Gentiles who are non-Jews, pagans in Asia minor, Greeks, and I’ll leap, all peoples to the West.  The way wasn’t going East because a way had already been revealed thousands of years earlier.

Perhaps if his letters had been placed after the Book of Revelation pagans of other sorts in the region may have embraced the faith more and a prophet from the peninsula may not have been necessary. 

I’m gonna miss this nice bed and while I connect with Pico Iyer’s homeless traveler philosophy he speaks of one with money.  In four days the streets will be home again and there can be no time to be comfortable but that is what I am in the storm that slowly moved in, teased and then unleashed the biggest rainfall so far. 

I am not exactly encouraged with your plan after the LA bus station which is what again?  What else can I do if I don’t assert and I don’t know what I want to assert for, oh, ok, a job.  Yes, why not work anywhere, why mention anywhere when that anticipation is what, desire?  I desire to know, man, I’m lost.  The rain falls harder, three Vietnamese men check into room one.  They’re quiet. 

Some goodbyes will be in order tomorrow. 

It's world time

5.5.13

“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.”
― Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist

4:27pm—Thunder clouds roll in, rain falls, good is the Lord who provides.  What will I miss in six days?  Revolutionary Nature, constant, impermanent, and sometimes just outright supreme.  Four years ago this week I passed out Mother Theresa pendants to the children milling about under the new steel communication tower installed on the kitchen roof as lightening snapped and buzzed from every direction.  I feared for the children who didn’t show fear at all and with that lesson learned quickly I synchronized with the name everyone knows.

I’ll also miss the cleanest air in the world.  Every storm coming from the north brings pure winds of unadulterated virgin rain.  You stay outside as long as you can, soaking and synchronizing it all in until it turns horizontal and you flee for cover. 

An Australian couple stayed in room three last night and this morning the affable male asked me what sort of day I had in plan and if puttering was in the itinerary.  “There is no magnificent mountain I’d rather putter on all day”.  I’m not sure I putter much, though when there is no business it can happen.  Today a walk to the Mountain View Lodge, the first place I stayed at in January of 2008, then owned by Durga, brother of Moti and Shiva, and now owned by Ram, cousin to Laxman, for a black coffee.  I’d like to take a minute and say something about Ram.  Five years in ksa, part of his job with a government official was chauffeuring the dude in his Black Mercedes between cities.  260km is pretty fast, bai. 

Radical social change.  Where else but in the schools is this necessary and poverty is the evil.  The article in the Texas Monthly is a frightening indictment for every child who’s had to attend a school in this state as well as other states who over-test and over-manage and haven’t come up with a solution to a problem that didn’t exist sixty years ago. 

Poverty.  You’re born into it fighting all your life and you get nowhere and so goes the next generation, one after another after another but you’ve got family, no?  Here you do.

The village deaf and mute lives in a shanty next to one of the smaller temples along the road to Kaski. How he survives I know not, but he came along to the wedding in Pokhara and there served himself up the largest pile of food on his plate that you can feel free to imagine here.  His family is this village. 

5:51pm—Wind ceases, the threat of rain looms under a hazy gray canopy of cool air and crickets. Whilst there is no tourist, oh wait an old fella checks into room three, his guide leads him. 

10:07pm—An Italian woman checks into room one along with her handsome Italian speaking Nepalese guide, and two Soviet ladies check into room three.  Soviets?  I have the door open to let some cool air and I know the mosquitoes are coming in, so close the damn door!

A sixty percent chance of rain today and all there was was spit that can’t be counted.  Clear skies and a few ka-trillion stars bristle in the dark matter.

I don’t know long I can wait before I make some contacts and god willing can receive some kind of reply before I go so I can at least have an idea if I am supposed to go East or remain on the West Coast.  Really? I got seven days.

5.6.13

Fog at five, a pale orange sun fights to shine, the Soviet ladies are greeted in zero visibility, enjoy the viewtop!  Ladies line up at the Banyon tap, the clock ticks.

10:04am—A breakfast rush brought in more Soviets and a reporter and his photographer from a newspaper in the Indian state of Punjab and I gave him the crazy story but I’ll wager when he looks at his notes and sees 2700 year old shaman who calls himself Job, Nyima Dhondrup, synchronicity, musadifah, he’s gonna write a different story about  a restless American on top of a mountain in Nepal. 

The fog thins to a bright hazy overcast with an imminent internet prediction of rain.  Take your umbrella, pani this afternoon I told Ram’s daughter Antika. Didi is staying home today with a sore tooth so there will be rooms to clean, dishes to wash though that might be harder to do if Maya has anything to say.

Four years ago I was pretty convinced something would happen on 12/21/12 and as the anxious days passed doubts and disbelief became disillusion the day after.  The journey I hoped to end continues.  What is wrong with settling down with a wife a few kids, a yellow kitchen, a dog, a hammock before my next puja?  Is it really so selfish to desire this?  Killing all desire is bummer, Buddha, and it’s making my stomach growl. 

5:35pm—The thirty minute storm passed an hour before Antika left school.  It was a close one. If the pattern serves correct the next storm will be late tomorrow morning and the boomers will come.  Surely, shaking hands with the tip of a lightening bolt is not what I desire, but to hear the snaps and the buzzes of mother nature flexing is just primordial I guess.

Since it is Monday in the world of Calvinists and Catholics I suppose it’s time to make some connections.  So, where are we now?  Well, we’re still in the airport.  After that I can’t decide.  Reading the Catholic Workers Movement schpiel intrigues and if upstate NY is good, I am good.  If it isn’t good, Venice Beach is losing appeal right now.  And then there’s the largest ghost town in the world.  Well, you’ve been talking family there they are, on the outskirts.  May we talk?  No?  I’m feeling like that North Korean dude sometimes.   

Didi came today, did the dishes, did the rooms and I spent two hours srubbing the kitchen floor.  Maya went to the dentist , Laxman went off to the jungle to look for water and four nutty 20 something Australians who had booked paraglider tickets with Maya were quite late for their launch time because the leader insisted her world time was correct: 

John: It’s 1:20, ya’ll should be walking now to the launchpad.

Shannon:  It is not, it’s 1:06.

John:  Ah, that’s India’s time.  Here it’s Nepal time.

Shannon:  No you’re wrong.  This is world time.(she’s holding up her i-thing)  This is accurate.  World Time.

John:  HA  What is world time?  It’s Nepal Time and the pilot just called, he’s waiting.

And off they went for lunch and Prakash called three times and the paragliding office called three times and the Aussies were just taking it far too easy.  Which I kind of admired but really, an hour later the storm came and that was it for the day.

5.7.13

The fog is very heavy and I headed out once with a camera and came back when the sun’s intensity turns the fog into a blinding no escaping white-out light and without sunglasses or my California hat which, incidentally was washed yesterday for the first time in nine months.  It looks like new, Merci.  And the kitchen floor may I crow looks like new.  Seven months, the tiles are holding up nicely. 

A quiet symphony of jungle life outside room six is very therapeutic.  Let’s pull the chair outside on the veranda, hearing them crazy dog’s bells is a good thing cuz you can’t see him.

Ok, it’s time to make a decision.  What’s holding you up?  Look,  I have been on top of a mountain for nine months.  The idea of getting physically close to anything nuclear doesn’t appeal.  Radical Catholics.  Am I a radical Catholic?  Has the last four years been anything but radical I don’t know.  I am not poltical but  I will be homeless and I think we can work together for three months at least.  and ya know, you don’t want to wish, you want to connect, right? Yes, I want to, yes I need to, but holy cow I am really slow about this transition. 

What do radical Buddhists look like?  Would they picket nuclear submarines parked in their backyard? All things can be used for peaceful purposes.  That is Himalayan pacifism.  Take what is bad and turn it into good.  What would Jesus say to this?  What would our friend Paul say to this?  Come friends, let’s sit outside in the mountain air, there is a patch of blue sky.

A Catholic left

5.3.13

An upset stomach continues today, a glass of honey rum sits untouched, a bowl of oatmeal with bananas and a cup of tea didn’t stick around too long and dal bhat is soon, I’m just not hungry but you know if you don’t  eat this meal you’re gonna get really hungry. 

Los Angeles’ Skid Row is fifty 50 square blocks.  I just thought you’d like to know that.

The LA Catholic Worker’s motto is “Comfort the Afflicted and Afflict the Comfortable.”  Do we have provocative-non violent Catholics here?   Ok, I did some reading.  Dorothy Day.  I never heard the name growing up but I’m living a life of temporary poverty, so what about them?  The Catholic Left.  I got nine days.

5:59pm—Four Bangladeshi men check into rooms one and two.  The leader of the group wears a green striped polo shirt with four red stars on his pocket and for a second wondered, the stars looked real enough however when Maya scolds him for sitting in the garden without sandals because he’ll carry dirt into the room and who knows maybe into the bed though I must assume they are Muslims they should be washing their feet a lot, and…he snaps his fingers and someone runs up the two flight of steps and gives the leader his sandals.

Another day of no rain oh how I love rain up here.  Dusk descends; the men wish to purchase a local chicken to eat.  Negotiations for its price continue. 

5.4.13

If I were to arrive in the states today I’d have no choice but to head to the shelters in Skid Row.  Does that bother you at all?  Yes, it does but what else can I do?  It’s all part of a plan I cannot see.  I want God’s help, no, I can do it myself.  Really?  Your efforts have gone flat.  What about these Catholic Workers?  How much do I need to survive in the states, I don’t know.  Consider the cost of trying to get back to the Middle East, who’s gonna pick that tab up you lazy good for nothing.

5:03am—Mosquitos were unmerciful throughout the night.  There’s nothing I can do.  I slapped down a fat one, my blood staining the sheet, shit, I didn’t want that. 

Trust the Lord with all your heart and if you fail to do anything yourself, you’re screwed.  God is going to save you if you do nothing?  No.  This is a bummer thought, dude.  God helps those who help themselves. I never liked this mantra and I heard it a lot on Red Leaf.  Another one, the harder I work the luckier I am.  How in the world did ascetics’ two millennia ago manage? I needn’t worry about skid row, it is inevitable.  You know being dependent on the kindness of strangers is humbling, becoming a burden on the state isn’t as humbling because the face of the state is neither man or woman.  Nevertheless, it is wrong to rely on the state if I am capable of taking care of myself and by the looks of it this morning, Jack,  you got eight days to change the inevitable, I mean, I can do, I can try, to ensure a safe landing in burning California.  Lord Have Mercy on me, a sinner.

The Bangladeshi men opted out for the chicken and went to bed without dinner.  I did see them with bags of chips and water in the rooms. 

Mr. Kim’s photos were infinitely better than mine, at least in the sharpness and color, not so much the composition.  Imagine if I had had a nice camera here, two years ago I was here five months and didn’t have a camera so maybe this is just progress, right? 

The Banyon tree tap is giving water and people walk away with jerry cans on their backs.  A soft and uneventful sunrise, the mountains barely an outline at six.  What in God’s name am I going to do today? It will be hot again. 

Living on the streets doesn’t frighten me, it bothers the shit out of me.  When St. Vincent De Paul security started putting up high fences to control the growing hungry dogs of men and cats of women I was fortunate to be on my way. 

No matter how difficult it becomes remember there are many far worse off. 

1:20pm—Twenty seven children and men celebrated an annnual jungle puja in the jungle below the viewpoint, complete with baby goat, rice, and onions. Sumjana’s father, dressed in white, attended to the temple above the killing, cooking, and eating ledge and then he gave everyone a red, orange and black tika. This is one of the few men on the mountain who doesn’t speak a word of English.  Never a use, never a desire, what does a seventy seven year old man with ten children and two wives need another language for?

8:50pm—Strong house shaking winds now, a little rumbling and no rain again today.  I wonder how they would have cooked the rice and goat if it had rained.    

There is an argument to be said for hedonism if heaven does not have an external presence outside our heads. 

the unlikely heaven

5.1.13

Mr Kim had a three pm flight to KTM and he left at two.  Would I hold the plane for this dude?  Well he couldn’t stop insulting Maya’s rice.  What is it with Koreans, Pakistanis, Indians and Chinese who feel their rice is superior to everyone else’s rice.  It’s different and being different doesn’t make it inferior. 

6:09pm—Billowing Michelangelo clouds tower over the valley, no camera of mine could catch the holiness, ok let’s try one or two.

It was and is never God’s will for something to go wrong in your life. Cause and effect, call it sin if you feel better, but everything happens for a reason.  God’s will?  Dear, can we argue with the theologically astute about God’s will and not use Paul’s commentary as a source of reference?  That would be fun but I need a job. 

Suraksha and Prisma and I walked to Baba’s for milk, we stopped once for thirty minutes and picked two handfuls of sweet yellow berries and at the homestead had a most delicious second breakfast before heading back where we stopped to watch the Asian Drilling Co. drill for water in the buffalo pond in the shadow of one bare and ugly mountain with 150 Sherpas doing the stones.

 I would have stayed longer but today ranks as one of the hottest days this year and for the first day of the month there will be no rain.  The internet forecasters at wunderground failed three days in when they said no rain and everyday there were all consuming mothers blowing in big, so I don’t check it anymore.  Let it rain, let it be beautiful and let there always be change.

Have I talked about William Tyndale College at all in the past four years?  My goodness.  I got a good education there let’s say it right out.  I liked everyone and it was small enough you could actually know everyone though that doesn’t mean I liked everyone, what better place for an accountability check on your personality you say.  Well, Dean Barr, God rest his soul, knew early on I was not your normal ‘evangelical’. 

 We made each other laugh and he really wanted to have a beer with me, an envy he had for the practical Catholic approach to alcohol. 

So, how does four years of Bible College figure in with what happened four years ago?

You’re kidding.  They gave a Catholic an Evangelical education.  I used the knowledge from Tyndale and company I kept to perform a three day puja, and oddly at the end when Satan had been defeated I initialed two colleagues on the tombstone I drew at the entrance of the living room and thanked one but not the other.  Why?

The one I thanked was Catholic though not a practicing one at all as far as I know, the one I didn’t thank was or is most likely still steeped in the theological traditions of Scottish Reformation and John Calvin and we were good friends. I guess in this case the non practicing Catholic knew more about the spirit world than the Presbyterian would ever understand.

8:52pm—I left room eight and reached the first flight of steps just as Suraksha came to the railing and called my name.  Hajur?  Oh, I hear a very good and I closed the rooms and came up.  A samyog I told her at the dinner table.  Or you could just call it timing.  After dinner I returned to room eight and when I saw I had no drinking water I hustled up the four flights and just as I reached the dining room Suraksha comes out laughing, samyog again samyog.  You have the keys?  I closed the shop and the keys were still in my pocket, forgotten completely until then.  Forgetting water, forgetting keys.  This could be a coincidence, I don’t know, maybe it’s just a fatigue factor.

Why make such a stink about samyog anymore?  Because sometimes nothing good comes from them.  What I didn’t note in the buffalo pond note of entry; when I returned to the guesthouse with the heavy milk container I grabbed my camera and returned to take a picture of this machine when they needed my camera flash card for another camera they were going to lower into the 100m hole and see what in blazes they had down there.  Unfortunately the other camera and my flash were incompatible and that was that.  Returning with something they could have used was still not helpful.  A coincidence that leaves me thinking my spirit, the one who sees my future only a flash of an eyelash faster than I has limited precognitive abilities.

The word to remember in Nepalese means Sumjana, there are various spellings here, so I ask Suraksha can I say Malai sumjana chaina sumjana?  She has no idea what I am trying to say and goes into serious discussion with her mother.  May I enquire?  No. 

And lastly, for nine months I’ve done what I enjoy doing; being outside with astoundingly panoramic vistas every day and taking pictures and writing.  How in God’s name can I continue to do this and this time do it for a living?  Lord, Dr. Laura said I needed a mother?  Really?  I need a coach, that’s all.  Can I really go back to school?  I sure hope some kind of inspiration comes this way because without ambition I just don’t know…and another lastly, you need a home dumbshit before you find a job.  An address, ya know, some stability, residency, a mobile, things that will let an employer know you’re not just a schmuck, you’re an Irish schmuck. 

5.2.13

I ought to be worried, I ought to be afraid.  If you die don’t expect us to pay for your body to be returned.  God forbid I should be a burden to anyone, and if you unfortunately do become burden don’t let it fall on family.  Sigh. Ok, let’s take the cold slap and use it to motivate.  Don’t worry, if I die I will leave instructions to be cremated and I’ll send a few grams of my ashes and you can, at your convenience because I don’t wish to be a burden, place them in the ground next to Dad.  And if you don’t bury me next to Dad, his spirit is going to be pissed and you don’t want to piss off your father.  Seriously.

I’ve lived a more isolated existence these last four years than I ever did in the Emirates when I went off the charts and to return to that lifestyle nothing’s the same.  Lost friends, the journey’s toll leaves me empty.  Such faith you have at five in the morning.

And when I leave the country the photos will end, the writing will cease, the contact I’ve managed to keep with social media will no longer be.  And is this what you want?  I don’t think so but I don’t know what else to do, an inevitable closing it seems.

All the taps are dry, everyone is sleeping in, a cloudy beginning, no form of rain yesterday for the first time in a week.  Are we still in the dry season, May four years ago.  The first two weeks here and then it was off to Varanasi for ten days or so.  This month I believe it will be the Buddha’s birthday.  Should I expect silly coincidences?  No, please dear Jesus, I’m not looking for signs. 

You imagine a better life but you think it’s selfish.  Ambition is what, then?  Am I the only person on the planet who is stuck in the bloody mud?  For crying out loud, you pansy sleep on the street this one last time?  Oh please one last time for sure, we’re done giving it all up, thank you Jesus.  And I do blame Jesus.  Jesus made me believe heaven was coming but we all die ya da ya da and like spirits we have to continue to wait, even after we’re dead.  Horseshit.  This spirit is waiting.  He has been waiting for 2700 years for heaven to come.  You think heaven is coming, wait 2700 before you start bitching.

A time to move up to room six?  The room temperature is too warm to use the heavy blankets but if I open the window guerrilla mosquitoes dive bomb and bob all night, like they did a few hours ago.  I did open the door at 4:30 because the night air is good and clean. 

I imagined sitting down with Francis Ford Coppola and discussing how to film the beginning of the first act in a screenplay I wrote through the guided hand of a spirit.  None of this happened obviously or was going to happen because the world wasn’t going to end, it was all in my head. 

I imagined a big wedding on top of the mountain, press coverage, meeting with world leaders.  Ha, what a crazy ass imagination that one turned out to be.

I also imagined becoming wealthy because I thought I had the story of the ages and it’s so retarded to imagine getting rich right before the world was going to end.  What would be the point? 

But I didn’t imagine the coincidences.

8:50pm--Back in room six for the last nine days.  This is a fine room if I may say so.  A morning without wind, welcomed overcast skies but an acute case of stomach pain followed by vomiting and painful shitting.  What is it I know I won’t consume again. A light dinner, Ama visits, chats with her daughter in Israel.  Even the family abroad is closer here than I am with mine.  I am ashamed.