move away from the day

6:00pm

Is it ok to get out of bed now?  A clear day and in the evening it’s still chilly and I need long johns and my head wrapped in pashmina.  I haven’t been cold in April since I don’t remember.  On the Arabian Peninsula temps are in the nineties already.  I’ll be diving into those sweaty climates but first I have to get through the next three days and I don’t feel so hot, I don’t know what it is other than the usual downside of medicine from the day before and the traditional spring blues like my throat hurts and I have a headache.  I should look for more grapefruit seed extract on Thursday, the day sort of planned to hang out at the largest mall in the world, it is the largest mall in the world by total area but it is listed in wikipedia as number 19 for reasons I don’t care, really.  I’ll see a movie if there is a movie worth seeing, I’ll tempt myself in the big bookshop, I’ll eat a meal I have been craving for a long time.  Mexican?  Thai?  A real hamburger?  And then I’ll return to my hotel room and if it isn’t too late submerge spirit and body in the rooftop pool.

Actually I got out of bed at the normal routine time of six am and went to the campus at ten because I was invited to sit in on a class whose last day it was, a group from Roshan had finished a three month marketing strategy course, three of the students there are in my morning class and then there was a meal and diplomas were handed out and I fled as soon as I had a chance but before I was taken home I asked the driver to take me to “Finest” the supermarket and I bought Classico sauce, cheerios, some nice Twinings tea, Walker butter rich shortbread cookies, crackers, juice, milk, yogurt, veggies, and a loaf of uncut bread. 

And no I didn’t go out looking for a pharmacy last night.  I’ll look when I return.  I know I won’t find anything in Dubai unless I visit an actual doctor…

9:23pm

Watching late night shows on youtube must have some medicinal value, I know making my student’s laugh has always put tense or nervous students at ease.  So, thirty minutes of Bill Maher and Steven Colbert helped me cough loudly tonight, something I haven’t done since Kandahar.  Thanks, fellas. 

So?  This anniversary of sorts is over and nothing happened, what a fuss you made.  I did get good news first thing in the morning, the fingerprints made it to Sylvanwood Drive, I really didn’t think they’d ever be seen again.  Can I take that as a sign?  No.  A coincidence?  Not on your life.  In truth the fingerprints arrived on the 22^nd not the 23^rd I only heard they made it on the 23^rd, so it is not a coincidence.

Perhaps now you can move away from the day, what good has it done you in the last seven years?  Joseph Campbell says a message was given and I have to live with it and make sense of it and somehow take from it what is good and for the better I want to return to university in September and do something that started long before 4.23.09. 

I'd just like to take a break, ya know?  A long rest, in a hammock, with my favorite books next to me, next to an ocean, or a lake, or in the mountains where the air is pure and clean.  The journey will never end you know that.  I know, I was just kind of hoping I could take a break for a while, ya know?