fruit is good

Before Hanukkah left I asked him to turn on the solar.  By six in the evening it is dark.  I don’t know what he said but an hour later there’s no electricity and there’s no internet connection.  I read the first chapter of Moby Dick this afternoon but I can’t read squat now.  Oh complain not and take advantage of the silence on the eve of your trip.  Yes, let’s ponder for a moment.  Nepal has a new constitution, good for them, people are generally happy and relieved.  But one of the new laws has changed my faded and passive entertaining that there would be someone I’d meet and marry.  The law states that if a Nepalese woman marries a foreigner any children they might have will not become Nepalese citizens.  Ouch.  Only if the man becomes a citizen can the children become Nepalese.  So, whaddya think? 

I think it’s a sign.

I’m going along with this lights out thing, Hanukkah seems to know something and Youniss here for the overnight shift, and nowhere in sight, is no help.  To boot all the lights save for emergency ones are off. 

Inspiration in the silent mode.  Answers don’t normally come to us through visions or by words from our unconscious (for the majority I presume) they come from everything outside us and we have to interpret the response.  If the response is ages in coming, that’s the riff isn’t it, the unanswered prayer considered not serious enough, or it's coming from an unbeliever, a response was made but missed, an impossible question I guess has the highest volume that will never be answered.  A silent response is an answer.  It’s no or wait.  And if you want to wait until your last breath, whatever dude, it wasn’t meant to be.

And only then, when I am dead, will I understand.

I think Hanukkah said ‘the solar will come on about eight’. I like light. 

9.22.15

All my bags are packed I’m ready to go, there is no taxi outside the door, I don’t want to miss my flight today, oh babe what can I do.  It’s almost nine and there isn’t a lick of electricity in the building.  I have to charge my mobile and I have to print out my insurance card, not that I’m expecting to use it on this trip.  I know, there’s time, why wait until the last minute, to give myself something to do until it’s time to leave, five hours from now.  I got my Gilead, journal and no internet yet, I need to shower, packing is mostly done, the last items to go wait, there’s plenty of room for chocolate and what else. 

Fezel brought his five year old son and he sure enjoys his bag of fruit.  I suggested he share the pomegranate, orange, peach and three ping pong ball lemons with his siblings, an hour later he ate the orange and finally we broke open the anar and it was good.  Simon dropped by and said in a month’s time the real good fruit will be available.  I can’t imagine this fruit gets better. 

So, two hours to go before  I head to the airport, all things packed, a shower is imminent, Letterman and Seinfeld have a nice conversation, I can’t imagine staying here for two weeks with nothing to do but this, write random thoughts waiting for another day to end.  Sigh.

it's all symbolic

There’s no logic to love and in hindsight, it makes perfect sense.  Keep me away from it.  Why?  Because I’ll lose everything for it and there’s no logic to that, right?  I’ll be so poor in spirit it does leave me wondering if someone or some magnetically warbling field has intentionally kept me in places where it is safe. I know, I've chosen the places I’ve lived and just because opportunities are significantly smaller, I am safe from myself, I guess.  God forbid I should lose my life to love. 

How is your relationship with God today?

There is nothing more wastefully time consuming than waiting for something to happen.  If I am not given the impetus, the ambition to do it myself, what can I do?  How can I force myself to do what is not in me alone?  Alone is a pejorative word in your case, dude, and of course you need others to inspire you and push you to pursue what you only dream about.  Did I answer the question?

I haven’t anticipated a trip as much as this one coming.  A night in Dubai is manageable, ten in Nepal for goodness sakes, it’s almost enough to do a trek.  Well, it is possible to do Panchase.  I think I’ll need a minimum of three days. 

Fezel is cooking an egg dish, I handed him a bag of vegetables.  Tomorrow or the next day I’ll leave out whatever fruit is left.     

9:53pm—Am I the source of tension, my own imagination, how are things going to be when I see I what I have to do?  What you have to do, and what is it that you have to do?  In the most diplomatic way I have to say I don’t like what I don’t see any more and I have other interests that I wish to explore.  Where in the world do you think your spirit is going to take you?  I’ve given what I have been able to give and I can continue this but I no longer like the view.

How many times have you been to Nepal since April of 2009?  Every year I visited, staying sometimes as brief as five days and as long as ten months.  The people, the weather, the mountains of course have kept me coming back, and the mountains do not change, unlike mountain people, and flat landers keep moving on but I don’t want to move too far off the mountain.  Just away from its urbanization. 

And it’s not what I am doing that bothers me it’s how others will react because it could be misunderstood.  Understanding.  Acceptance.  There will be no jealously, there will be no last minute offers, there will be no pleas nor scenes of dismay.  Like adults we will see each other coming and going and life will continue.  There, think like this, think positively.  The worst aspect of role playing is I see the worst scenarios and it leaves me bummed out even though none of it ever comes true, though it could.

So why always think the worst when you know everything usually turns out ok?  I lose a lot of sleep because of negative thinking. 

Should you be drinking a mountain dew at this time of night?  I didn’t finish reading toefl essays today so I gotta do it all tomorrow and plan ahead because when you come back you’ll be ready?  Ya, that is a nice way to come back.  Be ready. Here, finish off the pistachios and let’s try these dried mulberries again. 

© ® ™ ᾨ φ ❶ ¤ ¿ Ø ß Đ Ħ ƍ Ə ǂ Ʊ Ȣ ɷ ʘ ʬ ζ ϡ ϗ ϔ Д Ѡ Ѫ ฿ᴥ 

Life is nothing but an arrangement of symbols and if you understand the symbols you understand how to navigate through life.  It hasn’t been too hard, has it?  In hindsight it hasn’t been easy at all.

And three years ago today I believe Laxman and I reached the Annapurna Base Camp.  I need to trek more.  

refugee status

I had the ‘family’ class at four and then Saffiq called and said to cancel the toefl class tonight as well as tomorrow, which means I have finished teaching until I return in some state in October.  I could have left earlier than Tuesday so ya I got two more full days with nada to do.  I could plan some lessons ahead, ya, I could do that. 

I’d like to see the Pope in Cuba.  I’d like to hear the Pope speak to Congress.  I’d like to know if I’ll stay at the Fishtail Lodge for a night or even two.  Hey, you sleep on a broken mattress on the floor for two months and you’d be thinking nice bed nice bed nice bed and whoa!  Hanukkah is here with bread and potatoes and the bowl of shenllli, I still can’t pronounce the word let alone remember it, the yogurt like drink.  Tonight it was good and I had a second cup of it after I finished eating and listened to the host describe and then show me his souvenirs from the Russians and behold, his wounds have been tattooed. 

What is it that troubles you?  Changes that force me to examine the present and its state and dammit when it happens there’s a lot of questioning and how things will be I can’t foresee.  I look at every angle and try to see how my actions will play out, I don’t wish to end anything. I wish to resolve simply and clearly this is the road I’m taking but I’ll still have an envelope for you when I visit, otherwise I’ll simply leave and never return.

Last night I role played a moment of reaching out to reconcile with an old friend on the back steps smoking a cigarette and it just seems so right to do, perhaps before you leave you can send a note.

A good strong cough is a healthy cough.  George Winston still has the right music for these evenings in September.  Night temps are now below sixty Fahrenheit for the first time and below 90 in the afternoon.  Still the house remains warm and stuffy until dusk, my floor fan has been on since I moved in seven weeks ago.  Is that a record of some kind?

When I arrived in Pittsburgh five years ago it was in its truest meaning time traveling.  From Dubai to the old world.  Exotic in a historical way, exotic in mountain lush and heaping humidity that sucks on your skin and the power is off again. 

I like little kids but having them in a classroom I feel as if I need an extra dozen exercises.  One boy who is named after a very famous Jewish theologian can hardly keep his book open.  And his sister, omigod, she’s a sweet kid who had hiccups today and look, the little girl’s older sister looking at me from the one-eyed halibut angle, what do you look like under the cape, lady?  Ok, we’re giving women some training, I am motivated.  So motivated today I brought in a bag of fruit and of vegetables and didn’t we learn something about what I like to eat and what the difference is between a tomato and an orange and does a pomegranate grow on a tree or a bush. 

9.20.15

8:47am—Can you identify a tree by its burning?  The larger finger piece of wood I burn in the room has the smell of Michigan.  Is it cedar, pine, oak, maple, birch I do not know.  The smell comes from the north, Marquette, Black Lake, the Sleeping Bear Dunes.  I still don’t have the internet but I am hoping it’ll come on before the usual 10am.  Not that I don’t have toefl essays to read and comment, I wanna see the box scores. 

God can’t condemn that which wasn’t meant to be.  If it wasn’t meant to be then you’re forgiven because what the hell do you know, you’re a puny Lutheran who thinks the book of Revelation should have never been added.  Ok?  And this understanding covers all transgressions repeatedly pointed out by Paul and Jesus and the OT, including the most obvious of human error, marriage, because we are simply no match for divinity.

12.43pm—Younnis served up potatoes in a tomato sauce and bread.  He doesn’t cook very much I am told.  The offer and meal is appreciated and it wasn’t too bad, especially if you’re hungry.  City power was on for a whole two hours, lordy loo what are we gonna do?  I tossed the loaf of bread I bought a few nights ago, completely molded out. 

A debit card from the last country I worked in continues to make life a little easier, reservations at hotels for this holiday coming fast, eleven days and three countries.  Sounds almost papal.  I don’t know if or when I’ll get my AIB debit card but I do know I’ll return to this internet account of mine and see if the salary is in and if I can somehow send money.

Correct me if I am wrong but I think every student I’ve had, from 30 to 10, has been a refugee.

no shlop shelng

9.00am--The light that indicates city electricity is here went off as I was hanging my laundry on the gazebo railing.  And so goes with electricity an internet connection, but after you’ve checked the box scores, news, social media, email, what else is there to do aside from going to youtube for some background sitaring or five minute clips of Stephen Colbert. 

Last night Rezek took me shopping and I found fruit behold and loaded up on bananas, grapes, pomegranates, two oranges, two peaches, I passed on the apples though they looked ok, and a large bag of dried mulberries.  Shall I make a large salad only I will probably eat or just consume it in the next five days.  Saffiq leaves today for all of next week, which means no egg and bread for breakfast and no lentils for lunch.  I also picked up a loaf of bread and a loaf cake that I had two slices of this morning with a little bit of peanut butter, and oh if there is power in the morning, the toaster, and the toaster would toast that cake loaf up real good, like pound cake and melted butter.  If only I had butter. 

7.59pm

This afternoon’s lunch was brought into the blue room by Hannukah.  A huge chapatti and sliced potatoes cooked in oil and eggplant in its own right prepared as a I don’t know what, but it was good and I gave the eccentric man a Ziploc full of dried mulberries which aren’t as good as fresh ones. 

‘you shlop shelng in Nepal?

No shlop shelng in Nepal.

Woa

Schlop shelng in Dubai.

Dubai Schlop shelng, ah…yes. Dubai big schlop shelng

Thanks to solar I had two toasted peanut butter and banana sandwiches and an apple Barbican.  I started reading Gilead and…with focus, a comfortable chair, and quiet, I am in a small town in Iowa.  Marilynne Robinson’s period prose reminds me a little bit of Conrad Richter. 

I wonder if I’d like reading ‘the trees’ again?  An influential work indeed. 

I didn’t grade too many essays today.  I might have two classes tomorrow, the women and children and strangely older men and two teenagers, geez its practically a home of sorts, and then the second toefl class so I can’t lay around like I did today. 

I think ten minutes of Stephen Colbert a day is more than enough.

I am day five into the novena and foresee standing on a mountain, a clear night, to observe a double celestial treat.  I don’t want to think what will or will not happen because the very second either way I am disappointed.  Assume nothing, expect nothing but continue to practice morning rituals, meditations and chants, and moments of silence.  The intention of the novena isn’t to receive, it can’t be, but that’s why they call it answered prayers, dummy, I know.  The intention of the Novena isn’t to receive anything, it’s to prepare.

“I know you haven’t heard anything really too crazy from me in a while but I actually lived next door to this Mexican-American fella and the spirit of Abbie Hoffman, political activist in the 60’s, found a place to roost in his soul, in his mind, and there were a lot of Jews as well who flew out of his flat and through my living room during the purgation, sorry, puja.”

It would be nice to speak to someone about the significant and insignificant symbolisms that left most, probably all, scared out of their wits.  I told two psychologists in Pittsburgh, ha, and they wished me well.  I told three  colleagues in Buraimi in the only bar in town and there was the collective glassy eye look, wow, I haven’t the faintest idea of what you are talking about, but wow.