Love, Actually, Can Last 56 Years...

What's a boy to say to his parents celebrating their 56th wedding anniversary??!!? Words seem so small and modest relative to the achievement that they have attained. For those of us who feel that we are still in the blush of our wedding vows (our mere 18 years gone...), the heights my folks have achieved seems more daunting than most Himalayan peaks. The emotional, spiritual and daily obstacles that they have had to overcome in creating love. and then family, over these decades seem more Olympian than Himalayan...

In the West, at least, the Himalaya, especially fabled Mt. Everest (Sagarmartha to the Nepalis...) is a standard reference for physical endurance and man's ineluctable quest to dominate nature, to stand atop the highest of snow-clad summits to proclaim his unique existence, before being forced by the greater elements to descend to the valleys that nurture and protect him. Of course, in the Hindu & Buddhist worlds, the symmetry and metaphor of the Himalaya are much richer, more complex and nuanced -- befitting the majesty of this seemingly indomitable barrier, as well as due to the teachings provided by the legendary anchorites who retreated to isolated enclosures in search of profoundly spiritual understanding of our transient human existence.

However, in neither cultural context was the idea of marriage and family ever regularly associated with these awe-inspiring, distant mountain summits. Only the romantic image of Shiva and Parvati, god and goddess, in a union of celestial gentility reminds us that the Himalaya also protect the householder on this earth. Whereas in the Western mind, the Hiimalaya are more often associated with celibate monks or youthful death at high altitude -- neither image exactly conducive to wedding vows and family obligations.

From ancient Hellas, where Mt. Olympus ruled, we were taught that when humans achieve the divine, they may wear the golden, cumulus wreath of the Greek gods. Thus the laurel leafed crown of the earliest Olympics and the transformative Renaissance paintings of man as gods carried forward from Homer's wine-dark age.

Our modern 21st Century world, too, has found ways to honor the inspired divine in our too often commercialized commuter lives. We have prizes and awards, like the Nobel, the Rhodes, the Pulitzer, the Templeton and the Booker, to laud those who have achieved feats few of us can aspire toward in our daily lives. We have Academy Awards and the Golden Globe, as well, to honor the silver screen thespians who offer us luminosity, insight and a reflection of our lives to last through the ages. As a culture, we have found ways to honor the best and most enduring accomplishments of our times.

And yet, is there any way to so succinctly honor the middle path of life, the basic unit of our individual security and identity? The lasting endurance of marriage in a tremulous union of trust, compassion and empathy. We know much in our time of the travails, hurt and wounds associated with marriage and relationships. These knots of caring and need are the circuits of our daily lives. We light up with joy and go dark with pain based on our ability to share each other's innermost sufferings. The struggle for our personal maturity gains moments of insight from those with whom we live -- just as our the scars of childhood cover our longing for real and needed affection. These are the depths of emotion that we plumb unconsciously each day with those with whom we live and seek to love.

Love. How did we find such a deceptively simple word to describe our deepest human emotion? The word slips out almost unnoticed, shy lips pursed together in a near apology of tenderness and longing. Can we remember when a couple first used the word with each other. Or, saw the reflected look in eyes of understanding and care that bespoke a deeper bond?

56 years, you say... An eventful, near-traumatic evening on a cold, wintry December 24th night in an elegant hotel in New York. Families gathered. Both an Orthodox and Reform rabbi there to honor and solemnize the occasion. Generations of faces and souls now lost to us there to celebrate the natural & cultural affinity for continuity. The marital torch, as they say, passed to a new generation. Too young to know the fullness of their vows or the length of their commitment. Still innocent in the truth of that artfully simple word. Unaware of the price that time charges for such attachment. Or, of the fleeting joys that parenthood and childhood and adolescence offer us in this rapidly passing sense of a lifetime. My child, my child, my son, my son, my father, my father, my child, my son, myself...

As I said, and then, as usual, ignored, there are no words for such achievements. (Although words are all we have...) There are no annual prizes or awards. No way of describing the strength and endurance of a marriage that has carried across generations, centuries and memories.

There is only that elusive word, love...

Little Boddhisattva Won't You Take Me By the Hand

tonight is the first night of hanukkah. it may also be the first year a lovely, little girl knows that her family has a religion and that there are special names to such momentous and confusing adult identities...

we had been telling little ms. leah for a few days already this week that tonight would be the first night of channukah.

two nights ago she suddenly looked up and asked josh, "are grammy & poppa jewish?". when he replied positively, she seemed reassured -- esp. as ez has been teasing her mercilessly that she can't celebrate christmas this year... of course, in ez's own tender, playful, irritating, ironic, iconic older brother way...

so, tonight, when we got home after dark, leah immediately grabbed me downstairs, not even letting me put my bags down, & pulled me by my sweater up the wooden staircase to our warm family room (where i type now...).

then, before opening the door, she said, 'close your eyes!' so she could surprise me with what she'd made for 'jewish' tonight.

resting on the floor, reflected in the bright, luminous eyes of a five year old girl, was a petite xmas tree decorated w/ all of her most favorite things!!

"is this for jewish?", she asked looking up innocently to her father.

i smiled and said, "of course, dear, it looks beautiful for 'jewish' tonight"...

in leah's spirit, therefore, may your 'jewish', 'buddhist', 'christian, 'bambuddhist' or whichever form of sacred vows you breath, bring you peace and light as the world outside steadily spins toward december's darkest day of the year.

let us all remember that we light these candles tonight & for the next seven days to remind ourselves of the spirit that is within each of us and the guiding light we offer to each other.

shanti shalom all beloved bodhisattvas near to our hearts!!! thank-you for being here with us in this mad, mad world of veils, tears & touching, forever touching...

Winter Mist, Loss in the Himalaya, Summer Plans, A Cambodian New Year's & Gary's Wisconsin Retreat...

it's rather cold out this morning. morning mist so thick there is no horizon or hills beyond the fog. i'm typing away at 7:30 am after josh & ms. leah trundled off to school & while ez & shaks sleep. i hear the sound of tek bahadur outside sweeping the morning leaves off the terrace & dear gita down in the kitchen cleaning up after last night's biryani dinner. as for me, i'm dressed in the same ochre fleece jacket, boxers & socks i wore to sleep last night.

winter in the third world remains a shivering affair. in kathmandu, we don't get the heaps of snow outside the window, the sleety roads or the joys of godly white crystals raining from the sky -- and within an hour here there will be a luscious blue sky over head -- but, the chill factor inside our homes at night-time is the price we pay for a dire lack of government services & modern amenities. of course, after so many years, i'm used to it, i.e. until winter comes and we crowd our space heaters in the evening & snuggle next to each other & our rubber water bottles at night.

if anyone's looking for a good holiday read, i highly recommend, "an inheritance of loss' by kiran desai. for anyone w/ some affection for beloved south asia or simply interested in how the mad rush to globalization affects the lingering, chattering & revolutionary classes, it's a beautiful, funny &, of course, slightly tragic story. as some may know, kiran just won the british booker prize for this novel. shaks & i loved it. although it was lambasted here by a writer who felt that she was too racist toward the nepalis. not exactly my impression (it's a novel, after all...). but then that may say something about the vulnerable state of the nepali identity these days given all the whiplashes of political fate and uncertainty in the country over the past few year years. sometimes we, too, feel like one of kiran's characters whose fate is wrapped up in larger issues & events outside of their control...

it sounds early, but we just used our latent nw (or, as ez says w/ a smile: northworst...) miles for a nearly six week trip to europe & the states next summer (even though i'll have only four weeks of official vacation...). we don't really have any plans, but it seemed wise, if we were going to draw down some of the 400,000 miles that i'd accumulated over the years, to book early -- so absolutely unlike us!! ;-) the boys are already scheming to dump us for the ten days in europe so that ez can run around copenhagen w/ his buddy, oliver, while josh may join lisa, his german girlfriend, in deutschland or flee together to spain. i had hoped to go together for a short walk in the swiss alps, but the teenagers are looking past their parents already, alas. then, a month looking at colleges in america, maybe a week in the adirondacks, time w/ family and, no doubt, a strong urge to get home to our own beds & lives toward the end of that time...

more closer to the horizon, over new year's, we are off to scott's new riverine home south of phnom penh. he's so excited by this latest wonder in his life and, it seems, to have been a joyous salve for the passing of his two biggest daughters from the home and the compounded rigors of a life in the un system. the last two thanksgivings, my amherst friend & best man had come up here to enjoy a bit of autumn while spending a week w/ us in kathmandu, so i'm glad to return the friendship and get away from the winter cold. we usually have gone to thailand, but i'm off there these days, w/ too much commericialism and the after-affects of the tsunami still in my short-term memories. a quiet week on a river in cambodia, reading, swimming, chatting sounds best.

i was, curiously, last night thinking, too, of my friend gary's lakeside home in wisconsin. shaks, leah, ez & i were watching the movie, 'notebook', and there are lovely scenes of the main character in his small white boat out on his alabama lake. for some reason, i thought of gary & his w/end retreat and how fortunate he must be to have a place of quiet & solitude.

sometimes, i think i'm getting ready to retreat from the world... is that ever possible?

58th Int'l Human Rts Day: Social Inclusion and Human Rights

The Himalayan Times
EDITORIAL, December 11th, 2006
 
Social inclusion and human rights
Keith D Leslie

In the mid 1980s, my work in rural Nepal included building schools in remote villages. There was one aspect of my project that haunts me till date. When I compared the roster of those building the schools with the students who attended them, a remarkable fact emerged: the surnames of those involved in contruction were always different from those attending the school. The toiling adults were usually from Vishwakarma (BK), Pariyar and Sarki families, whereas the children studying in the school were from Subedi, Karki and Shrestha families.

It was apparent that Nepal was a distinctly hierarchical society that had been defined and predetermined by caste, gender and ethnicity. In fact, before 1963, Nepali Dalits were forbidden to attend government schools by the Muluki Ain. This century-old national law kept hard-working castes in the shadows of society, suppressed by a historical and religious proscription that allowed them to build the local schools — but didn’t permit their children to attend them.

Later, when our programme moved north to the remote mountains, where the Gurung, Ghaley and Baramu live, I could see that many Janjati (ethnic) communities receded from power - not sought it - over Nepal’s long and turbulent history. Similarly, in the Terai and the hills surrounding Kathmandu, the social and political barriers to education, property and political power were equally visible among the landless Maithali Dalits, the disenfranchised majority Terai Tharu and the intentionally exploited Tamang communities. Such cultural and economic realities were visible but rarely discussed. Quality was seen as the antithesis of diversity, not a core component of Nepal’s rich culture.

Only recently have Kathamndu-centric civil society, donors and national leaders used the words, “Social Exclusion”, “Unequal Citizens” or “Ethnic Discrimination” as acceptable terms to describe the impact of rigid national hierarchy. Now that a peaceful process to create a “New Nepal” has begun, it is essential that universal human rights be made the foundation of Nepal as established by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination. Although past governments signed such documents, the nation has never fulfilled its commitment.

Hence political parties and government representatives have to assume the mantle for changing this social disparity. Only when indigenous communities have access to similar educational opportunities as ‘high caste’ students will Nepal achieve a society that measures up to its ideals. Only when the rights of ex-kamaiyas to own home and land are secured will Nepal’s reality match its rhetoric. Only when Musahar and Dom children can afford to attend school and not work in dangerous brick factories will Nepal be secure and prosperous. Only when the children of soft-spoken Tamang community now working as domestics in urban homes achieve positions of authority in the government will the face of Nepal truly change.

Only when the rights of Nepali children of all castes, ethnicities and religions are protected and promoted by parents, communities and government will Nepal know the comfort of peace.

Learning To Be Silent

The pupils of the Tendai school used to study meditation before Zen entered Japan. Four of them who were intimate friends promised to observe seven days of silence.

On the first day all were silent. The meditation had begun auspiciously, but when night came and the oil lamps were growing dim, one of the students couldn't help exclaiming to a servant, "Fix that oil lamp!"

The second student was surprised to hear the first one speak. "We are not supposed to say a word." he said.

"You two are stupid. Why did you talk?" asked the third.

"I am the only one who has not talked.", concluded the fourth pupil.

Zen Flesh Zen Bones
Compiled by Paul Reps

Flower Girls, Space Heaters & the Apple of Desire...

Leah & Shaks are sitting in front of the gas space heater, while Ez has his own heater as he lays in bed downstairs on his iBook. Josh is out for dinner w/ his buddies on the last night their favorite teacher from last year, Chip Faircloth, is in town. It's a slow Monday night here in Kathmandu...

Winter in Nepal leaves a lingering chill in the air here on the southern slopes of the Himalaya. We're at 5,000+' with magnificent sun from the early morning, but there is a dry breeze in the evening coming off the 25,000' mountains only ten or twenty miles to the north. Of course, our home was really designed for the tropics of Bali, not the Himalaya. We have eight sets of sliding glass doors downstairs, plus a couple of normal swinging doors, as well. Purrrfect for ten months of the year here, when the low hanging sun on the horizon rises high & long enough to warm the inside of the home. But during the "darkest day of the year" (as Frost wrote of New England...), the single digit centigrade temperatures pour in through the cracks in the handmade wooden window frames and coat the thin, ice-like glass that shelters us from the black skies outside.

I remember the first time I met a 'space heater' at a friend of Alma's off Greenwich Green when Scott & I landed in London the first week of March 1978. After decades of natural gas flowing unnoticed through our homes in America, warming the insides of our houses while snow piled high outside, it was a bit of a shock to realize that not all of the world had the easy comforts of our American middle class world.

Now, decades after having made my home in Kathmandu, when early December arrives, these handsome Italian heaters come out of the closets to protect us from these dark nights & hot water bottles warm our beds before we slip in to sleep. Such are the minor changes and adjustments one almost forgets to notice after so many years away...

Yet, like you, night follows day, and sleep calls after a busy and fulfilling day. The doors on my work on the other side of town are closed, the office lights off. Now, as Leah lying on the floor finishes her last drawing of a flower girl (with a colorful wreath of flowers around her head), the BBC news on in the background, the low rumble of the gas heater churning out warmth, I finish my ruminations and head to our bedroom. Leah will pick out a few books to read before she sleeps. I'll take my "Botany of Desire" to dream of apples and, perchance, a gentler myth of love...