in the half-light that passes as electricity in kathmandu during winter, ms. leah's testing colors on the palm of my hand for the rainbow she's painting for her best friends, choyang and tsering, while i'm importing a paul simon collection (nick drake queued up next...) on our computer for future (and present...) aural amusement. my dear chelsea friend, nick dawson, handed us a major part of his massive cd collection when he thought he was leaving nepal this past spring. he's back (i guess k'du, for all its hardships, is a hard place to leave...), so i should move, at last, to stockpile some serious tunes on our hard drive while the the music is nearby...
actually, about 1 am this past friday, standing in the cold, night-time air on utpal and caroline's front porch for their house-warming party, i was telling computer-savy nick about my mental blocks w/ computers. even at the age of 52, i'm still intimidated by their plugs, wires and commands. maybe a phobia from too many late night viewings of kubrick's '2001: a space odyssey', "open the pod doors, hal" -- but it's since it's already 2007 and we still haven't our space colony on the moon, maybe it's time to join the 21st computer literate century. after all, talk about a slow learner...
so, this w/end, with the able assistance of ezra, i've made some modest steps forward that have lifted my techno spirits and given me some slight (and needed...) confidence that i can master some more complex tasks in the future. i learned (at least practiced...) how to download photos from our new mini sony cybershot, as well as these exquisite rock n' roll songs, onto our user-friendly apple computer. so, my next tremulous lesson next w/end will be to move these soulful western rhythms onto the ipod for easy access at my office during the day. such, it seems, are the emotional achievements that these middle years offer this greying soul... ;-)
as I've repeated a few times... it's winter in nepal. that means lovely autumnal days w/ a gentle warmth in the crystal cerulean air -- but, no secrets among friends, the night chill is monstrous, if i may say. zero centigrade w/ zero central heating. of course, partially we're to blame with the exquisitely semi-tropical home shakun designed (when she still thought nepal was bali...). for those of you who have been here, you'll remember that this house has more glass per wall space than anything designed since i.m. pei's pyramid in front of the louvre. not to mention that charming nepali craftsman-like work, which has left space around all of the wooden window and door frames allowing the mountain breezes to unself-consciously waft into the house from the 8,000' shivapuri national park behind us. yes, we have lovely ridgetop views, a magnificent acre+ garden with scores of conifers, fruit trees and bamboo amid streams and ponds to delight us -- but nothing will stop the january wind from blowing in off the 20,000' snow-clad peaks only 15 kms behind our home -- until central heating comes to nepal. ahhh, nature in her frozen glory...
we escaped our himalayan winter for ten days over new years to scott's wondrous new tropical home near kampot, two hours south of phnom penh. his new home puts paid to any hotel on the beach in thailand forever. i'm not sure we have an open winter invitation, but there's no other place now i'd rather be to escape the cold. what scott and sochua created over the past eighteen months has been magnificent, much more beautiful than i had imagined or expected. i call it his 'four seasons' home -- it's that exquisite, aesthetic and peaceful...
like the frangipani tree at the entrance to their home, the joy of the vacation w/ scott and sochua is still fragrant. imagine a large, two story wooden frame home rising like a dream on stilts in the expansive, open pasture of rice fields, with a twin (hans' home) next door, as if you're seeing double. then, as you drive around toward the front of the home, facing the 200 m. wide kampot river, you see a stairway to heaven, reaching from the young garden below up to a wide porch on the second floor at the center of the broad v-shaped home. as you climb up the stairs, your mind is drawn across the river toward the rounded ridges on the highlands beyond, until you step into a spacious dining/living room with wooden floors, a 22' open pyramidal ceiling, a gracious, modern kitchen, and a lengthy, elegant dining table with perfect views back to the river and mountains beyond. not bad, bodhi. not bad, at all...
of course, if the physical setting wasn't divine enough, there were three 'didis' on duty at all times. sochua's table is always set for the guests. with her gently smiling cousin-cum-cook from phnom penh there under mu's supervision, if one's spiritual appetite wasn't filled by the cambodian landscape, there were snacks, fresh baguettes from kampot and fresh seafood and vegetables every afternoon and evening. with a holiday bar, cold drinks (in the bright orange plastic ice box) and some 'quintessantly quite' on the daily menu, days and evenings passed with the quiet, tender ease of a thirty-four year friendship... although, for a measure of excitement, there were always evening swims in the kampot river or next-door in hans' swimming pool when the sun was hottest or for more adventure two man kayak trips up amid the lush, tropical palm banks -- although the peacefulness of the environment rarely called for more stimulus or travel. we had arrived.
now, back to nepal's himalayan winter of discontent, the political situation remains vague and uncertain, hun sen's cambodia certainly showed the economic strength (and moral vacuum...) of a democratic dictatorship. but, even for the seasoned observer, it's hard to see which way nepal is going. we hope for greater peacefulness and stability, given that the country has slipped steadily backward over the past ten years (made more evident by the comparison w/ cambodia). but, even with the positive steps of the maoists tentatively giving up their weapons and agreeing to participate in future elections, there are new ethnic and regional splinter groups taking up where the maoists left off in blocking the highways, blackmailing the economy and murdering to make a point. it's hard to know if we're takling two steps forward and one step back or one step forward and two back...
we live in a country of epochal uncertainties. not always easy on the state of mind, unless national uncertainty is your pleasure. still, it appears that the worst of the internecine war is over. now, it's time to wonder what nepal's peace will look like? the continuing semi-chaos of a fragile democracy or an evolving semi-benign communist dictatorship? or something in between? put down your bets before the wheel stops spinning! although in nepal the wheel of life never quite stops spinning... as the dharma says...
next there is a constituent assembly election planned to write a new constitution in june 2007. will it happen? what new forces will it unleash? who will be thrown to the foreground and who into the background? and, who will go peacefully? do we predict greater political openness or grinding repression? will we achieve new forms of economic stimulus or the continuing draining of national resources out of the country? the constituent assembly's first vote is supposed to be about the king. remind me: which was the last country to peacefully vote out a 250 year old royal family? not to meniont, when did a recently 'royal army' ever integrate with a 'revolutionary people's army'? reasonable questions, methinks...
or, dear g-ds, can nepal, true to it's remarkably syncretistic and wordly cultural identity overcome some profound classical mental categories to churn out a surprising 21st century hermaphroditic national political identity? will nepal's youthful population take this opportunity to create new inspiration and optimism? or, will the past dogmatic social forces that continue to afflict the national identity still play the 'zero sum' game to everyone's detriment?
best to remember the final words of 'the count of monte cristo', that monumental tale of historical passion and renewal: 'wait and hope'. for like any great novel, the joy is in the reading or, in this case, in the living through remarkable times... even w/o electricity occasionally and w/o central heating always ...
for spring grows eternal even in the heart of this father of three children, husband of a single wife, who once, long ago aspired to be a 'philosopher-poet/itinerant painter'...
2 comments:
Fine visions of Kampot as a future travel destination; the tropics in winter is a dream deferred as temperatures in Portland have been below freezing for days. The water barrels that drain the shed are frozen solid, the breeze from the mountainous east bends the young black bamboo like prairie grass.
Politics here in our thinning democracy is taking some exciting turns, too. All the news of war you read sees us frozen in a vietnamesque mire; as clear as the winter sky over Kathmandu that military hubris will not/cannot provide politcal victory in the morass of the Middle East maelstrom.
So through the freeze of winter weather and world politics, the good souls go skiing. It was 16 degrees F as a friend and I drove through Sanday on the way to Mt. Hood. 12 degrees F showed on the digital screen at the brew pub as we crested the pass at Government Camp. Traffic was steady and the sno-park was full with overnighters who skiied into cabins down in the meadows below Mt. Hood the day before. For Scott and I, the early start was a dream. The well-traveled trails were quiet in the morning light. We skiied along a short stretch of the Barlow Trail, a Lewis and Clark era spur that avoided the river route and instead dragged wagons over the muddy slopes and through dense forests to take pioneers to the rich farmland of the Willamette Valley. From Summit Meadow, where those early Oregon settlers rested, Mt. Hood rose like a goddess. Its south face draped in white with buckles of volcanic rock punctuating the blanketed world. We basked in the sun, realized that we were toasty after the 20-minute warm-up, and took off across forest and field, away from the tracked road. The day was glorious and the direct sun at 5000 feet made for a comfortable outing. A large lake where we once took Shakun, Keith and the boys swimming on a warm summer day some years ago was frozen and covered with a few inches of soft powder. For most of the day we kept off the roads, stuck to narrow meadows and alpine forested slopes. Lunch was of course with the magnificent Mt. Hood view that we could not take our eyes from, swapping travel stories and keeping school chatter to a minimum.
My one day out was smooth and refreshing, one of the winter joys of western Oregon living. Dreams of the Yellowstone ramblers were a delightful presence as my mind traveled the intricate channels so open when one is in skiing-meditation mode.
Love to all and thanks to Keith for blogging along in cyberland.
commander,
once again, your bright and knowledgeable spirit beckons through the bright, reflected snow on the slopes of mt. hood in winter-time. such lovely images, of course, make me want to be there w/ you. although, knowing a deeper truth, in some undefined way, i was... our joint travels have left a lasting mark on all of our adventures. i can feel the morning warmth and the quiet in your words.
for us, it's saturday again and i've just been collecting pebbles w/ leah, then watering the fruit trees. the weather in kathmandu turned a corner this past week and the air is warmer and more attractive, both in the evening and especially in these sunny mornings.
lots of love, keith
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