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.