Five days after an incarcerated umbilical
hernia is removed I light up a cigarette.
I know, what the hell are you doing?
I am weak, I am mortal and if death comes to me now, I don’t care,
really. I understand chronic cough was
one cause for the hernia so I won’t smoke more than one or two of these Lucky
Strikes a day and I’ll make sure I don’t cough chronically.
Lucky Strike. Is
there a name that sounds more ominous for a cigarette than this? Light up and if you’re lucky the smoke will
strike your arteries like a raging bolt.
Strike it up, knock me down, I am mortal.
It seems highly improbable I’ll make it
here through a year. I will decide a
month before my six month visa expires if it’s time, I know, such a short stint
may make schools hesitate but when they see where I was, they might not hold me
in judgment. One year in practical isolation
is a bummer, man, and I am not happy.
Come on, dude, remember the happy places. Salalah wasn’t bad at all, I was happy
teaching, I liked the city, the beaches, if I had a car, if I wasn’t bent on
being in the mountains, I’d still be there.
Turkey wasn’t that bad, either. I
wasn’t unhappy there, I just wanted to be in Nepal. Again.
And now you’ve got your fill of the
holy mountains and the very limited options there, it’s time to look elsewhere and
please, if you do leave this place in four months, be happy to be where you
are. Please.
Tomorrow is an off day.
I have a lot of prep to do for the next week, two new classes begin, one
at seven in the morning. A fella from
the home office was here for a few days giving the place a look and planning to
start IT classes. They’ll need about a
dozen computers and instructors and won’t that liven up the place. There is a lot of potential but I told Azizi
if they can’t provide more than a few morsels of electricity IT will be a
bust.
I’ve been told there should be no
problems finding a surgeon to remove the stitches in twelve days, sure guys,
I’d like to believe you but if you knew what was sitting on the peninsula two
hours away you’d reconsider. One student
said I should be able to get on the American base to see a doctor. I don’t know if the military sees civilians
but wouldn’t that be cool. Across from the airport the stars and stripes flies
high at the base entrance, how close it feels to be free.
In the hospital I finished ‘Steppenwolf’ and at first
it felt eerily planned I was supposed to read it but by the end I didn’t
identify with this detached wolf-man.
Now I am half way through Heinrich Harrer’s “Seven Years in Tibet” and
what a trek, why can’t I do this, just live off my wits, forget having money,
forget living in comfort, simply go, go and find work where you are.
Aren’t I doing this now?
I think it would be prudent to return to the cold state
of my home in December and feel out what is going on there. No, I don’t envision returning there but what
if.
10.9.15
I had lunch with ten men, four of them teenagers, and met Saffi’s
younger brother who worked with special forces during the worst times of the
war, and his cousin, a clean, handsome young man. And then Saffi told me six of them were
leaving the country tonight. I was so
overwhelmed, I am so overwhelmed.
Pathetic me crying about my own minute troubles. I have no idea how great suffering is for
others. And what can I do other than
teach students the names of fruit and vegetables. I am ashamed so much I want to leave and live
in New Zealand. Shame on you, when it
gets bad you want to flee but fleeing for the sake of fleeing is cowardly.
How can a restless spirit ever find peace, my body dies
and the spirit will move on. Where will
my spirit go, do I have any say in the matter?
Well, if you attain that level of enlightenment, if you achieve that
place where the spirit is free and no longer has to abide in a body, well, isn’t
that what my spirit wants to be? In a
state of complete peace? If only my
spirit would find peace now. I’ll do
whatever it takes.
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