Monday, October 4, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
welcome to a time of intense dreaming.
on saturday I was a native american rushing into battle playing a flute. i was sitting with a few others playing music and suddenly men wearing suits came into the field. we outnumbered them and there was a moment where we could have been passive and let them run us. but i had the urge to chase them off, and so I ran straight for one of them playing the flute. he shot me. I might have floated away and become a constellation.
last night I was running the mexican border, going from a little adobe house on a hill under a giant blue sky with my friend B and her new love that I haven't met yet. I wrote to her this morning to tell her about my border dream. coincidentally they are planning a border festival in the spring, from a little adobe house on a hill. I guess I've dreamed my way into it and will make my way over there come April.
on saturday I was a native american rushing into battle playing a flute. i was sitting with a few others playing music and suddenly men wearing suits came into the field. we outnumbered them and there was a moment where we could have been passive and let them run us. but i had the urge to chase them off, and so I ran straight for one of them playing the flute. he shot me. I might have floated away and become a constellation.
last night I was running the mexican border, going from a little adobe house on a hill under a giant blue sky with my friend B and her new love that I haven't met yet. I wrote to her this morning to tell her about my border dream. coincidentally they are planning a border festival in the spring, from a little adobe house on a hill. I guess I've dreamed my way into it and will make my way over there come April.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
control
this is a minute for those that I dare not count, spent trying to understand what and who you love, looking at pictures taken before the dawn of the new self consciousness, before we got so lost in the reflection, before we became seer and seen. we look, we look - to make measurements of me, map my position, understand my context, examine my value, prove I have one, make myself feel i have none. who knows?
any way, i leave feeling less. i just can't know everything. sometimes I forget that I don't want to.
this is a minute for those that I dare not count, spent trying to understand what and who you love, looking at pictures taken before the dawn of the new self consciousness, before we got so lost in the reflection, before we became seer and seen. we look, we look - to make measurements of me, map my position, understand my context, examine my value, prove I have one, make myself feel i have none. who knows?
any way, i leave feeling less. i just can't know everything. sometimes I forget that I don't want to.
Monday, September 13, 2010
submerge
Buffalo: Prayer and Abundance
Those who have a Buffalo totem must walk a sacred path, honoring every walk of life.
You will achieve nothing without the aid of the Great Spirit
and you must be humble enough to ask for assistance and then be grateful for those gifts.
A Buffalo totem will seek to help you establish a deep connection to Mother Earth
and it will ask you to help the endangered species of our planet.
He will bring you strength of character and an independent spirit.
It is the totem of abundance.
Do not push or force, but follow the easiest path.
Buffalo medicine is knowing that abundance is present
when all relations are honored as sacred and when gratitude is expressed to every part of creation.
Buffalo medicine is prayer, gratitude and praise.
Praying for the needs of all creatures, for harmony and
give praise for the gifts you have already received.
Buffalo: Prayer and Abundance
Those who have a Buffalo totem must walk a sacred path, honoring every walk of life.
You will achieve nothing without the aid of the Great Spirit
and you must be humble enough to ask for assistance and then be grateful for those gifts.
A Buffalo totem will seek to help you establish a deep connection to Mother Earth
and it will ask you to help the endangered species of our planet.
He will bring you strength of character and an independent spirit.
It is the totem of abundance.
Do not push or force, but follow the easiest path.
Buffalo medicine is knowing that abundance is present
when all relations are honored as sacred and when gratitude is expressed to every part of creation.
Buffalo medicine is prayer, gratitude and praise.
Praying for the needs of all creatures, for harmony and
give praise for the gifts you have already received.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
1st Rolfing Session of 10 last night. had a thought during, that the process is like tuning the body as if it were an instrument. painful, but so interesting to surrender to it, say yes to it, knowing that you are being re-ordered. when I detached from it, i could feel its vibration, felt my body like this, like an instrument, singing strange notes.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
some like it
watched "Some Like it Hot" in the park tonight against a backdrop of the city, floating upright rectangles with little lights. I waited for Marilyn Monroe to make an appearance, I had not seen the movie before but knew she was in it. I thought the crowd would make some collective noise when she appeared, I thought that there would be an expressed sense of waiting for her as I was, but there wasn't. I expected the icon worship, but no.
Everytime I see her in something I want to pay attention to what it was about her, or who she was. I can't imagine that this person got to be a person in the context of her arrival, her presence creating the stardom phenomenon. She evokes a very tactile thing, she's fluffy, in a sort of literal sense. she's soft, full, something about substantial vacancy, I don't know. the film was made three years before she died, she was 33, my age. I can't help but wonder what went on, what that vacancy was, who lived behind it, and where they lived. I'm sorry you had to go like that. I wonder who you were.
Everytime I see her in something I want to pay attention to what it was about her, or who she was. I can't imagine that this person got to be a person in the context of her arrival, her presence creating the stardom phenomenon. She evokes a very tactile thing, she's fluffy, in a sort of literal sense. she's soft, full, something about substantial vacancy, I don't know. the film was made three years before she died, she was 33, my age. I can't help but wonder what went on, what that vacancy was, who lived behind it, and where they lived. I'm sorry you had to go like that. I wonder who you were.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
1. walking back from the new kitchen today i looked at the immediate side street view. Just look at that cool snub nose Citroen Utility Vehicle.
Random Fact: The first commercial vehicle from Citroën was introduced at the end of 1921.
2. ok, perhaps not that interesting, but I just looked up at at these houses that I see everyday and the colors popped today. they are very strange looking houses to me.
Random Fact: The streets in Greenpoint are named alphabetically. Walking south along Manhattan Avenue, you will find Ash, Box, Clay, Dupont, Eagle, Freeman, Green, Huron, India, Java and Kent Streets. Then comes Greenpoint Avenue, formerly known as Lincoln Street. Further south one can find Milton, Noble and Oak Streets. All streets were originally designated by letters, not by name; A Street, B Street, etc. Calyer Street, coming after Oak Street, was formerly known as "P Street" and is followed by Quay Street. (thanks Wikipedia)
3. one of my favorite things that I see everyday in my neighborhood, the nasty neckface van. I dont know if neckface owns this van or what (somehow i dont imagine him living in boerem hill, but I could be wrong), but it adds a welcome flavor of in-your-face to the neighborhood.
Random Fact: Neckface is an anonymous graffiti writer from California, born 1984.
Random Fact: The first commercial vehicle from Citroën was introduced at the end of 1921.
2. ok, perhaps not that interesting, but I just looked up at at these houses that I see everyday and the colors popped today. they are very strange looking houses to me.
Random Fact: The streets in Greenpoint are named alphabetically. Walking south along Manhattan Avenue, you will find Ash, Box, Clay, Dupont, Eagle, Freeman, Green, Huron, India, Java and Kent Streets. Then comes Greenpoint Avenue, formerly known as Lincoln Street. Further south one can find Milton, Noble and Oak Streets. All streets were originally designated by letters, not by name; A Street, B Street, etc. Calyer Street, coming after Oak Street, was formerly known as "P Street" and is followed by Quay Street. (thanks Wikipedia)
3. one of my favorite things that I see everyday in my neighborhood, the nasty neckface van. I dont know if neckface owns this van or what (somehow i dont imagine him living in boerem hill, but I could be wrong), but it adds a welcome flavor of in-your-face to the neighborhood.
Random Fact: Neckface is an anonymous graffiti writer from California, born 1984.
a haiku & a view from the street I work on
while some are muted
when its grey in the city
others come to life
Monday, August 23, 2010
nyc subway, a world of the past
http://24flinching.com/word/headline/subway-lifeblood/
these images are so beautiful. a completely different time in new york city's (and our country's) history. as a kid growing up in the 80s I went into the city from nearby new jersey - hanging onto my fathers pinky finger, small enough to be looking at street people eye level. It was colorful, exciting, frightening, and it provoked me on every level. it liberated me from mainstream america, and I distinctly remember the moment that I felt that beauty could be many many things, perfection came off of its alter and could be there for me to re-see and redefine. this moment happened in the car as I sifted through images. I remember how it felt, this discovery exploding inside of me. it brought a sense of private liberation in early childhood, it was mine. After this moment I see that I chose to try and understand the world through this lens.
and as I got older, i would go to surrender myself - to run straight into the sense of endless possibility that it offered, a place to become everything, to disappear into, and over and over, to be delivered to myself.
everything in me has always said yes to this city that has become the great love of my life, this place that stays with me wherever i go or live. I'm glad i got to see a little piece of it like it was then, a place with more color and soul than it has now.
by Dorian Laux
I couldn't name it, the sweet
sadness welling up in me for weeks.
So I cleaned, found myself standing
in a room with a rag in my hand,
the birds calling time-to-go, time-to-go.
And like an old woman near the end
of her life I could hear it, the voice
of a man I never loved who pressed
my breasts to his lips and whispered
"My little doves, my white, white lilies."
I could almost cry when I remember it.
I don't remember when I began
to call everyone "sweetie,"
as if they were my daughters,
my darlings, my little birds.
I have always loved too much,
or not enough. Last night
I read a poem about God and almost
believed it--God sipping coffee,
smoking cherry tobacco. I've arrived
at a time in my life when I could believe
almost anything.
Today, pumping gas into my old car, I stood
hatless in the rain and the whole world
went silent--cars on the wet street
sliding past without sound, the attendant's
mouth opening and closing on air
as he walked from pump to pump, his footsteps
erased in the rain--nothing
but the tiny numbers in their square windows
rolling by my shoulder, the unstoppable seconds
gliding by as I stood at the Chevron,
balanced evenly on my two feet, a gas nozzle
gripped in my hand, my hair gathering rain.
And I saw it didn't matter
who had loved me or who I loved. I was alone.
The black oily asphalt, the slick beauty
of the Iranian attendant, the thickening
clouds--nothing was mine. And I understood
finally, after a semester of philosophy,
a thousand books of poetry, after death
and childbirth and the startled cries of men
who called out my name as they entered me,
I finally believed I was alone, felt it
in my actual, visceral heart, heard it echo
like a thin bell. And the sounds
came back, the slish of tires
and footsteps, all the delicate cargo
they carried saying thank you
and yes. So I paid and climbed into my car
as if nothing had happened--
as if everything mattered--What else could I do?
I drove to the grocery store
and bought wheat bread and milk,
a candy bar wrapped in gold foil,
smiled at the teenaged cashier
with the pimpled face and the plastic
name plate pinned above her small breast,
and knew her secret, her sweet fear,
Little bird. Little darling. She handed me
my change, my brown bag, a torn receipt,
pushed the cash drawer in with her hip
and smiled back.
I couldn't name it, the sweet
sadness welling up in me for weeks.
So I cleaned, found myself standing
in a room with a rag in my hand,
the birds calling time-to-go, time-to-go.
And like an old woman near the end
of her life I could hear it, the voice
of a man I never loved who pressed
my breasts to his lips and whispered
"My little doves, my white, white lilies."
I could almost cry when I remember it.
I don't remember when I began
to call everyone "sweetie,"
as if they were my daughters,
my darlings, my little birds.
I have always loved too much,
or not enough. Last night
I read a poem about God and almost
believed it--God sipping coffee,
smoking cherry tobacco. I've arrived
at a time in my life when I could believe
almost anything.
Today, pumping gas into my old car, I stood
hatless in the rain and the whole world
went silent--cars on the wet street
sliding past without sound, the attendant's
mouth opening and closing on air
as he walked from pump to pump, his footsteps
erased in the rain--nothing
but the tiny numbers in their square windows
rolling by my shoulder, the unstoppable seconds
gliding by as I stood at the Chevron,
balanced evenly on my two feet, a gas nozzle
gripped in my hand, my hair gathering rain.
And I saw it didn't matter
who had loved me or who I loved. I was alone.
The black oily asphalt, the slick beauty
of the Iranian attendant, the thickening
clouds--nothing was mine. And I understood
finally, after a semester of philosophy,
a thousand books of poetry, after death
and childbirth and the startled cries of men
who called out my name as they entered me,
I finally believed I was alone, felt it
in my actual, visceral heart, heard it echo
like a thin bell. And the sounds
came back, the slish of tires
and footsteps, all the delicate cargo
they carried saying thank you
and yes. So I paid and climbed into my car
as if nothing had happened--
as if everything mattered--What else could I do?
I drove to the grocery store
and bought wheat bread and milk,
a candy bar wrapped in gold foil,
smiled at the teenaged cashier
with the pimpled face and the plastic
name plate pinned above her small breast,
and knew her secret, her sweet fear,
Little bird. Little darling. She handed me
my change, my brown bag, a torn receipt,
pushed the cash drawer in with her hip
and smiled back.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
7 Jan 67
Dear Lydia
It is now 9:30 and I shall have to get up for the mid watch at 11:30 and i really should go to sleep, but I cannot. You crazy little girl I love you very much and cannot think of all the ways to tell you and how good you make me feel just by writing and saying hello. After 2 1/2 years that seem like a breath and 3 months that seem like an eternity, I do not sleep a night without you. Given the whole world or as much of it as I have seen, and all the people in it, and I have met many different kinds, there is no one to whom I would give my one and only life but you, and no where but by you that I would spend it. The rest, the real part cannot be said but must be lived as we have lived it - with gentleness, patience, the taking care of one another with tears and with so much fun and pleasure. I can hardly wait to show you.
Love and love again
Michael
Dear Lydia
It is now 9:30 and I shall have to get up for the mid watch at 11:30 and i really should go to sleep, but I cannot. You crazy little girl I love you very much and cannot think of all the ways to tell you and how good you make me feel just by writing and saying hello. After 2 1/2 years that seem like a breath and 3 months that seem like an eternity, I do not sleep a night without you. Given the whole world or as much of it as I have seen, and all the people in it, and I have met many different kinds, there is no one to whom I would give my one and only life but you, and no where but by you that I would spend it. The rest, the real part cannot be said but must be lived as we have lived it - with gentleness, patience, the taking care of one another with tears and with so much fun and pleasure. I can hardly wait to show you.
Love and love again
Michael
Date blurred
Dear sweet wife,
It is late at night and I cannot sleep for thoughts of you. This need of you is a wonderful thing but it destroys me in repose, only by furious activity can I lose myself for a minute. At times like today, when time is heavy on my hands, you are large in my mind. I miss you so much. The big things and the small. Making love and watching you sleep - you are so pretty in the mornings just before you awaken. The cooking and washing of dishes with me biting your ear. The endless and foolish talk of people in love. I look upon it all now with such a curious nostalgia - as if I had died. I confess that I was glad to be numb for a while - not to feel - not to ache. Fatigue is a blessing though I did not recognize it. Love me else I die surely. Doubt me not for if you do, the small part of me which makes of pointless activity a life, will surely disappear.
In Love and Agony
Michael
Dear sweet wife,
It is late at night and I cannot sleep for thoughts of you. This need of you is a wonderful thing but it destroys me in repose, only by furious activity can I lose myself for a minute. At times like today, when time is heavy on my hands, you are large in my mind. I miss you so much. The big things and the small. Making love and watching you sleep - you are so pretty in the mornings just before you awaken. The cooking and washing of dishes with me biting your ear. The endless and foolish talk of people in love. I look upon it all now with such a curious nostalgia - as if I had died. I confess that I was glad to be numb for a while - not to feel - not to ache. Fatigue is a blessing though I did not recognize it. Love me else I die surely. Doubt me not for if you do, the small part of me which makes of pointless activity a life, will surely disappear.
In Love and Agony
Michael
May 8, 1961
Dear Charles
I am trying to find a place for you for Sunday - Wedesday. I spoke to my people. They said if it could not be worked out, then they could not leave you here without a chaperone or someone at a drag house it would be ok. If it doesnt work out - and it might not - that you would leave Sunday.
I wonder each time how long can I go on dissappointing you - saying goodbye - saying I'm sorry. You have been patient and I can do no better than this. I have been brooding over this most of the day. I want you to be happy but I can not cause it.
Meanwhile, I have my scouts out. Anyway, if worst comes to worst - be prepared and I know that I will cry too.
I miss you now very sharply and wish I could have you here -
Love & Hope
Michael.
Dear Charles
I am trying to find a place for you for Sunday - Wedesday. I spoke to my people. They said if it could not be worked out, then they could not leave you here without a chaperone or someone at a drag house it would be ok. If it doesnt work out - and it might not - that you would leave Sunday.
I wonder each time how long can I go on dissappointing you - saying goodbye - saying I'm sorry. You have been patient and I can do no better than this. I have been brooding over this most of the day. I want you to be happy but I can not cause it.
Meanwhile, I have my scouts out. Anyway, if worst comes to worst - be prepared and I know that I will cry too.
I miss you now very sharply and wish I could have you here -
Love & Hope
Michael.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Note: Charles was a nickname for my mother. I'll give the story later.
Feb 5, 1961
Dear Charles,
Thank you so much for writing. I am still on the tread mill. I am as lonely as you. Thank you for the perfume. How lucky we are to be who we are. I know not what to say. (I am reading Shakespeare again and this new twist of language I cannot help)
What stupid thing this would be by itself, alone. It is such a long way, do not be dissapointed at June week, for it is very formal.
Charles - always grow deeper and broader - be young - be happy and sad and dont get caught in by false people living fake lives - be genuine and honest and full of life - the way you are.
Yours-
Michael
Feb 5, 1961
Dear Charles,
Thank you so much for writing. I am still on the tread mill. I am as lonely as you. Thank you for the perfume. How lucky we are to be who we are. I know not what to say. (I am reading Shakespeare again and this new twist of language I cannot help)
What stupid thing this would be by itself, alone. It is such a long way, do not be dissapointed at June week, for it is very formal.
Charles - always grow deeper and broader - be young - be happy and sad and dont get caught in by false people living fake lives - be genuine and honest and full of life - the way you are.
Yours-
Michael
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
I keep on here, im choosing a letter at random and posting. until i get things sorted into dates its a mish mosh of a story. and so it goes.
July 27, 1969
Dear Michael.,
Your last letter sits in front of me and I am sad. Knowing you love me makes me glad and happy inside. If it were for you it just wouldnt seem worth while. There isn't a day that passes that i dont think "Wouldn't Michael love that" or "I must remember to tell Michael that." Linda looks up and there you are! I wonder who will speak to you and soothe you when you demand too much of yourself. Will they misunderstand and abuse a nature so gentle? I have not forgotten you - far from it.
My Michael, I love you well, too well to be left without you for such a long time - and not feel depressed - our year in England was our only break. We've been waiting for each other a long time. No I do not like our separations - I try to give meaning and relevance to my life without you but I can't. We are reaching a time of decisions. These first five years may set the pattern for the next 15 or 20 years. I fear my own dependence on your love. I want to lash our and declare my own independence because of it. I want to tell you that - there is no such thing as one man for one woman and that we can live happily and manage our separate interests like civilized persons. That our child will manage because it has no choice. I want to tell you these things and try to convince myself that they are true, but I can't. Memories sift through my mind - a couple of kids who found something so special that even though they were too young to know exactly what it was they held on with their every fiber. Yes, we could have walked down a different street and missed one another and found another, but I believe with all my heart that it could never have been the same. I mean it when I say that I could never love anyone as I love you. We are of one mind. Marriages are not often made of this - one can work hard at a relationship and have have some success , but there is always something missing. Its the kind of thing that makes you forget about yourself and think of the other person. Its the tight close feeling I get when I know I'm too far away to help, and I read your letter and my reply could never be fast enough, timely enough.
Have I forgotten you? no, and maybe this is why I cannot smile. I realize your hands are tired - I know of your frusteration. But you too must try to read between the lines of my unhappy letters. I am a one man woman and I find it difficult wihtout you. I love you very much. I am only sorry that I cannot cheer you when I know you need it so.
Lydia
July 27, 1969
Dear Michael.,
Your last letter sits in front of me and I am sad. Knowing you love me makes me glad and happy inside. If it were for you it just wouldnt seem worth while. There isn't a day that passes that i dont think "Wouldn't Michael love that" or "I must remember to tell Michael that." Linda looks up and there you are! I wonder who will speak to you and soothe you when you demand too much of yourself. Will they misunderstand and abuse a nature so gentle? I have not forgotten you - far from it.
My Michael, I love you well, too well to be left without you for such a long time - and not feel depressed - our year in England was our only break. We've been waiting for each other a long time. No I do not like our separations - I try to give meaning and relevance to my life without you but I can't. We are reaching a time of decisions. These first five years may set the pattern for the next 15 or 20 years. I fear my own dependence on your love. I want to lash our and declare my own independence because of it. I want to tell you that - there is no such thing as one man for one woman and that we can live happily and manage our separate interests like civilized persons. That our child will manage because it has no choice. I want to tell you these things and try to convince myself that they are true, but I can't. Memories sift through my mind - a couple of kids who found something so special that even though they were too young to know exactly what it was they held on with their every fiber. Yes, we could have walked down a different street and missed one another and found another, but I believe with all my heart that it could never have been the same. I mean it when I say that I could never love anyone as I love you. We are of one mind. Marriages are not often made of this - one can work hard at a relationship and have have some success , but there is always something missing. Its the kind of thing that makes you forget about yourself and think of the other person. Its the tight close feeling I get when I know I'm too far away to help, and I read your letter and my reply could never be fast enough, timely enough.
Have I forgotten you? no, and maybe this is why I cannot smile. I realize your hands are tired - I know of your frusteration. But you too must try to read between the lines of my unhappy letters. I am a one man woman and I find it difficult wihtout you. I love you very much. I am only sorry that I cannot cheer you when I know you need it so.
Lydia
Friday, June 18, 2010
Sept 13, 1963
Dear Lydia,
I have ached till i did not think it would end. I have waited and looked for the letter that would tell me that you wanted to see me every day. I have neither smiled nor laughed since you left. I find increased difficulty in finding a reason to do anything. My father bade me to be patient and patient. I have been since the 30th of July. Since that time I have talked to no other girl, tho in the Phillipines there were many who would have done more than talk. And now I wonder, to whom would it have made a difference. I can only ask, dumbly and mute with shock and agony, why have you hurt me so? I am glad you have someone, for I am all alone and I know how bad that can be.
I want to die.
Michael.
Dear Lydia,
I have ached till i did not think it would end. I have waited and looked for the letter that would tell me that you wanted to see me every day. I have neither smiled nor laughed since you left. I find increased difficulty in finding a reason to do anything. My father bade me to be patient and patient. I have been since the 30th of July. Since that time I have talked to no other girl, tho in the Phillipines there were many who would have done more than talk. And now I wonder, to whom would it have made a difference. I can only ask, dumbly and mute with shock and agony, why have you hurt me so? I am glad you have someone, for I am all alone and I know how bad that can be.
I want to die.
Michael.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Dear Michael,
Speaking to you today only reminded me of my lonliness. Time - always a matter of time. If only it would pass quickly enough for you to be home again, then stand still. But since this is not reality we must look to vacations and short weekends. Eventually our time will come. The life puzzle is put together with time. This is the price we must pay.
So some more patience is needed on both sides. Write. I miss you so - am so lonely without you.
Love Always,
Lydia
Speaking to you today only reminded me of my lonliness. Time - always a matter of time. If only it would pass quickly enough for you to be home again, then stand still. But since this is not reality we must look to vacations and short weekends. Eventually our time will come. The life puzzle is put together with time. This is the price we must pay.
So some more patience is needed on both sides. Write. I miss you so - am so lonely without you.
Love Always,
Lydia
Friday, June 11, 2010
letters
to Mrs MC Berkowitz, Toledo, Ohio
from USS Wiltsie
June 16, 1969
Dear Wife,
From far away - late at night and lonely, having been away from you two months - five days short of being married 5 years - i pledge to you my love. I miss you terribly. I want to touch you and see you again. To kiss the back of your neck by the sink - to let dinner burn. i am myself small and vulnerable, but you make me a king. i have such pride in you and the baby that we made together. Read through these clumsy words and perceive the shape and form of my deep and passionate love for you. Michael
from USS Wiltsie
June 16, 1969
Dear Wife,
From far away - late at night and lonely, having been away from you two months - five days short of being married 5 years - i pledge to you my love. I miss you terribly. I want to touch you and see you again. To kiss the back of your neck by the sink - to let dinner burn. i am myself small and vulnerable, but you make me a king. i have such pride in you and the baby that we made together. Read through these clumsy words and perceive the shape and form of my deep and passionate love for you. Michael
Thursday, June 10, 2010
construction
I keep dreaming of houses.
there is a general consensus that talking about what your brain conjures up during the mysterious hours is lame, so I won't get into specifics, but I will say that this morning I'm thinking of the language of architecture - the dream provided the experience of understanding the language on a level i usually don't understand as clearly. each house was radically different - and some extreme forms of themselves. I loved these weird extreme craftsman giant buildings. I understood so personally what each one was saying. Perhaps its not unusual to dream of houses now, in my 30s, when this idea of building something for your life pervades everything.
when I used to live in the brewery in Los Angeles, my friend Dave had a particular dislike for the art walks. not because of art. but because the people who opened their doors lived inside their art. Not only was their art all over their walls all the time, but a lot of people had turned their apartment into a sort of version of their art. Walls painted thick black goo, just like the style of the art they made, you get the picture. He claimed it was like walking into their psyche. or something like that. When i think of it a blog must be the same way. In a sense when you visit a blog, you enter a space wallpapered in a persons psyche. weird. does that mean these pages have walls? how many?
is it that as soon as you perceive something, and understand different things about it, your perceptions and ideas create dimensions? how busy is the brain constructing out of perception?
there is a general consensus that talking about what your brain conjures up during the mysterious hours is lame, so I won't get into specifics, but I will say that this morning I'm thinking of the language of architecture - the dream provided the experience of understanding the language on a level i usually don't understand as clearly. each house was radically different - and some extreme forms of themselves. I loved these weird extreme craftsman giant buildings. I understood so personally what each one was saying. Perhaps its not unusual to dream of houses now, in my 30s, when this idea of building something for your life pervades everything.
when I used to live in the brewery in Los Angeles, my friend Dave had a particular dislike for the art walks. not because of art. but because the people who opened their doors lived inside their art. Not only was their art all over their walls all the time, but a lot of people had turned their apartment into a sort of version of their art. Walls painted thick black goo, just like the style of the art they made, you get the picture. He claimed it was like walking into their psyche. or something like that. When i think of it a blog must be the same way. In a sense when you visit a blog, you enter a space wallpapered in a persons psyche. weird. does that mean these pages have walls? how many?
is it that as soon as you perceive something, and understand different things about it, your perceptions and ideas create dimensions? how busy is the brain constructing out of perception?
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
February 22, 1964
I'm going through years of letters from my parents, reading them, transcribing them, savoring them. I'm not sure yet what will come of them. In the meantime, I'll post some of them for reading pleasure and perhaps it will inspire me to continue on. I would give more background but maybe later. I think things best speak for themselves, in the beginning at least. But one thing here, in 1964, my father was 21 and my mother was 20.
February 22, 1964
Dear Lydia,
How can I tell you how much I love you? there are no new ways, so I shall tell you all the old ones. I miss your touch, your smile, your not wanting to leave me, the nails on my back. The hair that tickles nose and mouth when I try to sleep. The warmth when you sleep, the one colored eye. the softness of your lips, the shy tongue, smooth skin, small ears, ticklish neck. you are the happiness missing from this stupid existence. I could not bear your not loving me. I should collapse and break. you dont know yet how much i need you. how every free moment is torture for me without you near. I shall see you by hook or by crook. God end my torture soon in letting me see her. write me. Love, Michael
February 22, 1964
Dear Lydia,
How can I tell you how much I love you? there are no new ways, so I shall tell you all the old ones. I miss your touch, your smile, your not wanting to leave me, the nails on my back. The hair that tickles nose and mouth when I try to sleep. The warmth when you sleep, the one colored eye. the softness of your lips, the shy tongue, smooth skin, small ears, ticklish neck. you are the happiness missing from this stupid existence. I could not bear your not loving me. I should collapse and break. you dont know yet how much i need you. how every free moment is torture for me without you near. I shall see you by hook or by crook. God end my torture soon in letting me see her. write me. Love, Michael
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Zanzibar: Malindi and The Passing Show
Twenty dollars got us a tiny room with two beds and no bathroom in the Malindi Guest House when we first arrived in Stone Town. The house itself is situated on a narrow but busy street, and is indicated by an ornate door that is constantly open where random men perch themselves to chat and get a break from the heat during the day. At the end of the street is the main harbor where young men swim out with colorful buckets to more than a dozen fishing boats that rush in with the tide at sunrise to fill with fish for impatient crowds of buyers who heckle and bargain at the muddy, slimy shore. The market and its surrounding busyness embues the air with the smell of fish, refuse, sewage and sweat, as every pocket of the small twisty street fills in quickly with men doing something and nothing: selling and buying fish, pulling carts with produce, riding bicycles with straw baskets lined with plastic for fish, zipping through the street on mopeds, or selling clothes and small goods on the side of the road. A small number of women are on the street too. They sell sweet fried breads and tea. I see others on the backs of bicycles and mopeds driven by men, riding sideways wearing traditional hijab.
Beyond the Malindi Guest House door is a courtyard, on the left are open-air stairs and to the right is a dark emptyish reception room with only a desk and a bulletin board where a gentleman greets us wearing a long traditional thob. While Teah negotiated with the wide eyed man with extremely pronounced cheekbones, I stood next to our pile of bags pondering the sign on the board: "please do not swim or sunbathe at any beaches in town."
The immediate space at the top of the stairs reveals itself as an entrance to the dark interior of the house and is a living room displaying middle eastern carpets and a few antique arabic pieces of furniture: a dark wood crib, a couch, and a large low table in front of it with magazines on it called "Friday," with young middle eastern women on the covers. But my attention is grabbed by a beautiful old upright piano in the corner of the room and I realize in that moment how much I am missing the sounds of South Africa, where there were always drums to play and people making music. In the same instant that I want to play the piano I know that I can't, and I am reminded of the way I felt as kid with my paternal grandmother who could make you aware of her rules without ever speaking them, for which I always felt a divided reaction - a pure and deep burn of injustice, and also the desire to comply just to feel the simple pleasure in pleasing someone else. This will not be the first time here that I feel this way here, there are many rules and boundaries that are conveyed and policed subtley, and without thinking I will find myself with both urges of response, to abide and rebel.
Beyond this living room is an adjacent windowless hallway that contains our room and a few others, and another hallway with two single bathrooms that are dark boxes with a sink, a toilet, a shower, and a candle with a box of matches. There has been a power problem on the whole island for the last three months because the cable that runs power from Dar es Salam to Zanzibar is broken. Despite attempts to fix it and promises of aid from foreign governments like the US, the people have had no electricity for months. Now they have to pay for petrol to run their own costly generators that are turned on for a few hours of the day. Maybe its just the heat, but the feeling regarding all this seems to be frusteration mixed with docility, a tired sense that everyone must keep the peace. I try to imagine what would happen in New York City if no one had power for three months in the middle of summer.
Shower before bed and once you get there, don't move an inch; close your eyes and pray that gods of sleep carry you off before your body heats up again, or before you become too conscious of the stagnant hot air. Somehow this worked for me on that first night in the Malindi Guest House, but it did not for the girls. After waking in the middle of the night and shuffling the mattress to different areas of the hotel in search of a breeze, Teah tried sleeping on the roof without a mosquito net and was woken up by a strange worker with a flashlight several times; Ghada slept on the lone wooden bed frame in the room. That was our first and last night in the Malindi, after our returning from Kendwa we are now staying at the ritz of backpacker guest houses across the street. For 30 dollars, it boasts 24 hour generated power, a ceiling fan, and a corner room with 4 windows, a bathroom, and two beds - enough to make me giddy at the idea of getting sleep.
On most days it is too hot to do anything in the middle of the day and the last stop before retiring to the room is my favorite place to eat, a restaurant appropriately called The Passing Show. Cheap, quick, and constantly busy, the Show is filled with people at every hour of the day and night, mixed with both locals who are mostly men - Indians, Arabs and Africans, and tourists, who seem to be largely Scandanavian. There are at least ten men who work at The Passing Show and all have an air of ownership, though it can be hard to tell who works there and who is just hanging out watching CNN. Regardless, they are a tribe of efficient people who give The Show an air of both business and social club.
When you walk in past the counter which sells fried food and sodas to go, you will be directed to one of many tables that occupy two open spaces inside, and an outside patio to the side. On each table rests a glass bowl filled with half slices of small limes and bright red chili peppers (both grow locally on the island), and little plastic jars filled with dark red spicy paste. Laminated one page menus are distributed and drink orders are taken immediately - cold Fanta or coke are served in glass bottles, water in plastic bottles, fresh cold tamarind juice in glass beer mugs, or sweet Masala tea with Cardemon. Dishes are separated on the menu in categories between Biryanis, Curries and the like, with choices of lamb, fish, beef or chicken, all served with rice, coconut nan or chiapati, and all for about 3500 shillings (around $3), also called Tsh. As soon as you've finished the second sip of your drink, plates of food are in front of you, and are as delicious as you would imagine anything is that has been stewing all day under a watchful eye.
Beyond the Malindi Guest House door is a courtyard, on the left are open-air stairs and to the right is a dark emptyish reception room with only a desk and a bulletin board where a gentleman greets us wearing a long traditional thob. While Teah negotiated with the wide eyed man with extremely pronounced cheekbones, I stood next to our pile of bags pondering the sign on the board: "please do not swim or sunbathe at any beaches in town."
The immediate space at the top of the stairs reveals itself as an entrance to the dark interior of the house and is a living room displaying middle eastern carpets and a few antique arabic pieces of furniture: a dark wood crib, a couch, and a large low table in front of it with magazines on it called "Friday," with young middle eastern women on the covers. But my attention is grabbed by a beautiful old upright piano in the corner of the room and I realize in that moment how much I am missing the sounds of South Africa, where there were always drums to play and people making music. In the same instant that I want to play the piano I know that I can't, and I am reminded of the way I felt as kid with my paternal grandmother who could make you aware of her rules without ever speaking them, for which I always felt a divided reaction - a pure and deep burn of injustice, and also the desire to comply just to feel the simple pleasure in pleasing someone else. This will not be the first time here that I feel this way here, there are many rules and boundaries that are conveyed and policed subtley, and without thinking I will find myself with both urges of response, to abide and rebel.
Beyond this living room is an adjacent windowless hallway that contains our room and a few others, and another hallway with two single bathrooms that are dark boxes with a sink, a toilet, a shower, and a candle with a box of matches. There has been a power problem on the whole island for the last three months because the cable that runs power from Dar es Salam to Zanzibar is broken. Despite attempts to fix it and promises of aid from foreign governments like the US, the people have had no electricity for months. Now they have to pay for petrol to run their own costly generators that are turned on for a few hours of the day. Maybe its just the heat, but the feeling regarding all this seems to be frusteration mixed with docility, a tired sense that everyone must keep the peace. I try to imagine what would happen in New York City if no one had power for three months in the middle of summer.
Shower before bed and once you get there, don't move an inch; close your eyes and pray that gods of sleep carry you off before your body heats up again, or before you become too conscious of the stagnant hot air. Somehow this worked for me on that first night in the Malindi Guest House, but it did not for the girls. After waking in the middle of the night and shuffling the mattress to different areas of the hotel in search of a breeze, Teah tried sleeping on the roof without a mosquito net and was woken up by a strange worker with a flashlight several times; Ghada slept on the lone wooden bed frame in the room. That was our first and last night in the Malindi, after our returning from Kendwa we are now staying at the ritz of backpacker guest houses across the street. For 30 dollars, it boasts 24 hour generated power, a ceiling fan, and a corner room with 4 windows, a bathroom, and two beds - enough to make me giddy at the idea of getting sleep.
On most days it is too hot to do anything in the middle of the day and the last stop before retiring to the room is my favorite place to eat, a restaurant appropriately called The Passing Show. Cheap, quick, and constantly busy, the Show is filled with people at every hour of the day and night, mixed with both locals who are mostly men - Indians, Arabs and Africans, and tourists, who seem to be largely Scandanavian. There are at least ten men who work at The Passing Show and all have an air of ownership, though it can be hard to tell who works there and who is just hanging out watching CNN. Regardless, they are a tribe of efficient people who give The Show an air of both business and social club.
When you walk in past the counter which sells fried food and sodas to go, you will be directed to one of many tables that occupy two open spaces inside, and an outside patio to the side. On each table rests a glass bowl filled with half slices of small limes and bright red chili peppers (both grow locally on the island), and little plastic jars filled with dark red spicy paste. Laminated one page menus are distributed and drink orders are taken immediately - cold Fanta or coke are served in glass bottles, water in plastic bottles, fresh cold tamarind juice in glass beer mugs, or sweet Masala tea with Cardemon. Dishes are separated on the menu in categories between Biryanis, Curries and the like, with choices of lamb, fish, beef or chicken, all served with rice, coconut nan or chiapati, and all for about 3500 shillings (around $3), also called Tsh. As soon as you've finished the second sip of your drink, plates of food are in front of you, and are as delicious as you would imagine anything is that has been stewing all day under a watchful eye.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Paradise revisited
We left Kendwa today to continue on. What a strange thing it is to feel relief in leaving a place that people come to spend their holidays.
I didnt realize when we left Stone Town a week ago that there would be no more banks, so yesterday I went in search. I heard from a few locals that there was an ATM at one of the nicer hotels in Nungwe, another beach at the top of Zanzibar known to be more upscale and frequented by Italians, so I set off by way of the beach at 10am that morning when the tide was low to cross. I had been warned of robberies, so I put only a few things in in my bag and hid everything else under my clothes
I had felt anger rising in me since the night before when my travel mates were fighting and I had suddenly become sick of everything overnight, the aggressive vendors that prohibited any peaceful walks, the local beach boys who relentlessly bothered us, the strange decadance of the vacationers, the lack of sleep in the mosquito ridden heat, the way i felt i looked ugly with my short haircut growing out and the dark sun patches on my face, and the general absurdity of my being angry at all in this beautiful place.
First I stopped at the Royal Nungwe, which only irritated me more; it is a monsterously ugly thing made to look like a giant castle with endless white decorative walls and huge expanses of overly manicured half dead grass. I walked up to reception passing strange chlorined pools of water and desolate and pristine walkways. a local woman hotel worker sits and prunes a lone bush that doesn't belong. the proportions of space do not inspire anything, instead there is only a sense that you are small and imprisoned inside someones idea of paradise, it's sensibilities indicate wasted priveledge and worse, without any knowledge of itself - wasted and reveling in it. I finally get to the wide cold marble counter and it is not an ATM machine, only a bureau of change and at that they are open, but not open until 3 because of whoknowswhatreason. I walk behind the giant gates of the hotel where local guards dressed as Massai flirt with me and finally tell me to go into Nungwe village for a bank. Jambo, mambo, whatever. I do walk into the village and there is no bank there either, only local life where women carry things on top of their heads and walk down the road, and men sell things or sit in the heat. I feel ridiculous.
I want to escape somehow to give myself relief from my frusteration of not finding what I need immediately, I want to walk all the way back to Stone Town to find a bank but I know this is silly, its an hours drive. and more, I want to walk fast through and out of the slowness of Africa, I want, I want I want. as I walk, things open up and it is not just the bank and these immediate frusterations, but everything else: I want to walk through my dissapointments, my choices, my passivity, my vulnerability. I feel all the power that anger can bring, and I cant help but wonder suddenly how much of us are informed and powered by dissapointment - feeling victims of the world and each other, broken by ideas that were promised us in fairy tales and on commercials, and how little life can seem to measure up when taken at this level. And why do I feel this when I am here, after all? What exactly am I so pissed off about? The fact that I have a life where I can entertain these kinds of troubles is in and of itself a waste because I know they are problems of priveledge - the priveledge to have choices and make decisions. the fact that I feel burdened by them seems absurd. But here I am.
I continue on and finally find a little store at the Nungwe Inn that will give me cash on my Visa card and in that regard things are set right again. I walk back to Kendwa relieved to be independent again and I let the walk back take everything out of me.
I am arriving at a place where there is no reality to my own sense of victimhood. If nothing else, this trip has been all about choices. I have free will to go anywhere I want - separate from the people I am with, go to different places, make different choices if they suit me. and the same with the rest of my life, I can't look to anyone or anything to blame, I can't think of much from the past or present that I have not chosen on some level. this is strange feeling of being an adult having a tantrum - there is no place for victimhood in my life, and there is no walking out of this awareness, there is no one i can look to for answers. It is all the choice, the priveledge of choice that bugs me. It is far easier to put myself into a situation and become a victim of it and claim that I didn't choose it than choosing something else. In this way from here on, I cannot be bothered by the things around me without taking responsibility.
Why does the weight of agency feel so heavy? The idea that we dont have to suffer if we don't want to, that no one can be responsible for our happiness but us, why does this feel so full, so strange? Here in the heat and the walking and the banks and bothers, it is just me, working within.
Now to look up.
I didnt realize when we left Stone Town a week ago that there would be no more banks, so yesterday I went in search. I heard from a few locals that there was an ATM at one of the nicer hotels in Nungwe, another beach at the top of Zanzibar known to be more upscale and frequented by Italians, so I set off by way of the beach at 10am that morning when the tide was low to cross. I had been warned of robberies, so I put only a few things in in my bag and hid everything else under my clothes
I had felt anger rising in me since the night before when my travel mates were fighting and I had suddenly become sick of everything overnight, the aggressive vendors that prohibited any peaceful walks, the local beach boys who relentlessly bothered us, the strange decadance of the vacationers, the lack of sleep in the mosquito ridden heat, the way i felt i looked ugly with my short haircut growing out and the dark sun patches on my face, and the general absurdity of my being angry at all in this beautiful place.
First I stopped at the Royal Nungwe, which only irritated me more; it is a monsterously ugly thing made to look like a giant castle with endless white decorative walls and huge expanses of overly manicured half dead grass. I walked up to reception passing strange chlorined pools of water and desolate and pristine walkways. a local woman hotel worker sits and prunes a lone bush that doesn't belong. the proportions of space do not inspire anything, instead there is only a sense that you are small and imprisoned inside someones idea of paradise, it's sensibilities indicate wasted priveledge and worse, without any knowledge of itself - wasted and reveling in it. I finally get to the wide cold marble counter and it is not an ATM machine, only a bureau of change and at that they are open, but not open until 3 because of whoknowswhatreason. I walk behind the giant gates of the hotel where local guards dressed as Massai flirt with me and finally tell me to go into Nungwe village for a bank. Jambo, mambo, whatever. I do walk into the village and there is no bank there either, only local life where women carry things on top of their heads and walk down the road, and men sell things or sit in the heat. I feel ridiculous.
I want to escape somehow to give myself relief from my frusteration of not finding what I need immediately, I want to walk all the way back to Stone Town to find a bank but I know this is silly, its an hours drive. and more, I want to walk fast through and out of the slowness of Africa, I want, I want I want. as I walk, things open up and it is not just the bank and these immediate frusterations, but everything else: I want to walk through my dissapointments, my choices, my passivity, my vulnerability. I feel all the power that anger can bring, and I cant help but wonder suddenly how much of us are informed and powered by dissapointment - feeling victims of the world and each other, broken by ideas that were promised us in fairy tales and on commercials, and how little life can seem to measure up when taken at this level. And why do I feel this when I am here, after all? What exactly am I so pissed off about? The fact that I have a life where I can entertain these kinds of troubles is in and of itself a waste because I know they are problems of priveledge - the priveledge to have choices and make decisions. the fact that I feel burdened by them seems absurd. But here I am.
I continue on and finally find a little store at the Nungwe Inn that will give me cash on my Visa card and in that regard things are set right again. I walk back to Kendwa relieved to be independent again and I let the walk back take everything out of me.
I am arriving at a place where there is no reality to my own sense of victimhood. If nothing else, this trip has been all about choices. I have free will to go anywhere I want - separate from the people I am with, go to different places, make different choices if they suit me. and the same with the rest of my life, I can't look to anyone or anything to blame, I can't think of much from the past or present that I have not chosen on some level. this is strange feeling of being an adult having a tantrum - there is no place for victimhood in my life, and there is no walking out of this awareness, there is no one i can look to for answers. It is all the choice, the priveledge of choice that bugs me. It is far easier to put myself into a situation and become a victim of it and claim that I didn't choose it than choosing something else. In this way from here on, I cannot be bothered by the things around me without taking responsibility.
Why does the weight of agency feel so heavy? The idea that we dont have to suffer if we don't want to, that no one can be responsible for our happiness but us, why does this feel so full, so strange? Here in the heat and the walking and the banks and bothers, it is just me, working within.
Now to look up.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Crickets and Canaries
Ghada and i got up before six this morning to meet Mr Haji who was to take us to the fish auction in the village this morning but we never made it. I had barely slept all night - my mosquito tent is very secure, except for when a mosquito manages to sneak inside as I open it up to climb in. i fall asleep, wake up itchy, and the night then becomes a routine of trying to fix the situation. also I keep opening my door and walking outside of my hut staring into the darkness like a hungry person who opens the refridgerator door over and over again even though there is nothing in there to eat. each time i am surprised and dissapointed by the darkness, as if only the morning could offer at least the solution of starting a new day when we can stretch the day as long as it will allow. and so I find myself dreading sleep time, when my body asks for rest and there is no promise of it. Delivered like this into morning, most days start out slowly, except when Ghada and I have ventured into the village for photographing and interviewing.
the first sound of the day is the ocean, the first sight is the light blue water prefaced by white sand and the two mamas on the beach who sleep outside next to their huts with crafts, next to my hut. Jambo!, they say first, before propositioning for a massage. Jambo! Mambo! Hello, how are you? Poa. I'm cool. Massage? Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. or, not today. Asanti. Thank you. Hakuna Matata, no problem.
A few steps away is free coffee and a simple breakfast included in our hut price - a small banana, which is about half the size of the ones we get at home, half of a mango still on the skin offering itself in turned inside out in squared sections, a small oily crepe, and another piece of bread - sometimes a square fried donu, or a piece of white bread. there is a spread that is not called butter or margarine, called Blue Band, and strawberry jam that is almost hot pink in color called Al Diwan, with Arabic writing all over the label, and coffee which is best if you make it like this: mix a spoonful of powder milk, half a spoonful of sugar with a little water to get a milky consistency, then add a bit of instant coffee, then add hot water to the top of the cup. this way it eliminates the chunks of coffee stuck together. sometimes I sit and write, or have conversation with the girls that can stretch into the hot part of the day. There is swimming anytime. as it gets later, the sun can get so bright that you cannot see and it makes sense to retire to the girls hut where we listen to music on the ipod dock that Ghada bought in Johannesberg.
It is hard to avoid cliches to say things like this, but to sit in the hut and listen to music brings such simple pleasure - step out of the heat, stretch out on the floor and just listen, or sing... Mercedes Sosa's voice floats through the afternoon, as she sings Gracias a La Vida, what can you do but smoke cigarrettes and stare through the half open door and feel your heart open and break, close and open and break over and over again. Ghada lays down on the bed and closes her eyes. Teah and I sit on the floor, legs stretched, sections of sunlight catch the smoke as it lifts itself through the air of the hut and rolls out the door.
At some point in the day I like to clean up my little room and sweep it out, refold any clothes from the night before, straighten the sheets, and organize my camera equipment so I can recharge batteries when and if the generator comes on in the evening. When appetite comes in the mid afternoon it is cheapest to go outside of the beach - walk up through other little places and out onto the dirt road behind all the hotels which the tourists forget about as soon as they pass through the gates of vacation. It is 5000 shillings for seafood curry with rice, or a masala dish, coconut curry, things like this, 1000 shillings for a big bottle of water, a little more for a beer. As lunch is being made in the Kinjiji Cafe kitchen I realize that my body is ready for every meal, I feel hunger. It is different than in the last week or so in South Africa, where our road trips forced meals at gas stations, chips and sweets only, and generally there is an abundance of this kind of food . hunger doesnt come the same like this, empty food brings emptiness.
I wonder how it is that a sunset here can make me sad at all, but some of them do. I guess the way the day plays out like this routinely and quietly I can hear everything inside of me. after sunset, we put on clothes, change the spirit with local maize vodka or whisky, and then begins the music, the dancing, the moving.
Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me laughter and it gave me longing.
With them I distinguish happiness and pain—
The two materials from which my songs are formed,
And your song, as well, which is the same song.
And everyone's song, which is my very song.
Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life
the first sound of the day is the ocean, the first sight is the light blue water prefaced by white sand and the two mamas on the beach who sleep outside next to their huts with crafts, next to my hut. Jambo!, they say first, before propositioning for a massage. Jambo! Mambo! Hello, how are you? Poa. I'm cool. Massage? Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. or, not today. Asanti. Thank you. Hakuna Matata, no problem.
A few steps away is free coffee and a simple breakfast included in our hut price - a small banana, which is about half the size of the ones we get at home, half of a mango still on the skin offering itself in turned inside out in squared sections, a small oily crepe, and another piece of bread - sometimes a square fried donu, or a piece of white bread. there is a spread that is not called butter or margarine, called Blue Band, and strawberry jam that is almost hot pink in color called Al Diwan, with Arabic writing all over the label, and coffee which is best if you make it like this: mix a spoonful of powder milk, half a spoonful of sugar with a little water to get a milky consistency, then add a bit of instant coffee, then add hot water to the top of the cup. this way it eliminates the chunks of coffee stuck together. sometimes I sit and write, or have conversation with the girls that can stretch into the hot part of the day. There is swimming anytime. as it gets later, the sun can get so bright that you cannot see and it makes sense to retire to the girls hut where we listen to music on the ipod dock that Ghada bought in Johannesberg.
It is hard to avoid cliches to say things like this, but to sit in the hut and listen to music brings such simple pleasure - step out of the heat, stretch out on the floor and just listen, or sing... Mercedes Sosa's voice floats through the afternoon, as she sings Gracias a La Vida, what can you do but smoke cigarrettes and stare through the half open door and feel your heart open and break, close and open and break over and over again. Ghada lays down on the bed and closes her eyes. Teah and I sit on the floor, legs stretched, sections of sunlight catch the smoke as it lifts itself through the air of the hut and rolls out the door.
At some point in the day I like to clean up my little room and sweep it out, refold any clothes from the night before, straighten the sheets, and organize my camera equipment so I can recharge batteries when and if the generator comes on in the evening. When appetite comes in the mid afternoon it is cheapest to go outside of the beach - walk up through other little places and out onto the dirt road behind all the hotels which the tourists forget about as soon as they pass through the gates of vacation. It is 5000 shillings for seafood curry with rice, or a masala dish, coconut curry, things like this, 1000 shillings for a big bottle of water, a little more for a beer. As lunch is being made in the Kinjiji Cafe kitchen I realize that my body is ready for every meal, I feel hunger. It is different than in the last week or so in South Africa, where our road trips forced meals at gas stations, chips and sweets only, and generally there is an abundance of this kind of food . hunger doesnt come the same like this, empty food brings emptiness.
I wonder how it is that a sunset here can make me sad at all, but some of them do. I guess the way the day plays out like this routinely and quietly I can hear everything inside of me. after sunset, we put on clothes, change the spirit with local maize vodka or whisky, and then begins the music, the dancing, the moving.
Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me laughter and it gave me longing.
With them I distinguish happiness and pain—
The two materials from which my songs are formed,
And your song, as well, which is the same song.
And everyone's song, which is my very song.
Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life
Thanks to life
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