i still just get a thrill writing your names and knowing that we know each other so fondly 30 years on.
it's a gift.
for me, as you can imagine, there is another set of complex emotions as i was out in the backyard this afternoon trimming bamboo and strolling the garden below shivapuri w/ bans and nigalo (small bans) from different places in nepal and oregon. nepal isn't just a beloved memory for me, it became my life. whatever that black magic didi in larjung put in my b'fast never quite got out of my system. the ephipany i felt in tuckhe turned into shakun, a wife, ten years later.
the complex political journey that has been nepal since the cute authoritarianism of raja birendra through the murder of his whole family to our maoist colleagues filling the streets on thursday/friday has been my life. ex-king gynendra's grand daughter is even in leah's class (and one of her close friends...).
20 years with save the children and now another 3 with the un. a home. a garden. three kids. a modicum of nepali bhasa by which to flit and wing around the country in a language i would never have imagined being so comfortable speaking. who'd uv thunk it?
yes, nepal for me is that last trudge up tharong-la in the freezing morning, followed by the long exhilirating walk down to mutkinath, the leisurely stroll along the kali gandaki, the forests of gandrung, the site of pokhara after six weeks round the annapurna, then, once again, the travelers and pies in kathmandu that lingering autumn, my first in the himalaya, the unworldy iconography, the friendships, the breaking of barriers, the going beyond beyond, the dreams, fearlessness and simple joyful experiences that were enhanced by such luck, innocence and openness.
after all these years, these few decades, alas, nepal is more even than a home, a wife, my children raised here, the many friends and the nest that i've created (even sitting here tonight...).
20 years with save the children and now another 3 with the un. a home. a garden. three kids. a modicum of nepali bhasa by which to flit and wing around the country in a language i would never have imagined being so comfortable speaking. who'd uv thunk it?
yes, nepal for me is that last trudge up tharong-la in the freezing morning, followed by the long exhilirating walk down to mutkinath, the leisurely stroll along the kali gandaki, the forests of gandrung, the site of pokhara after six weeks round the annapurna, then, once again, the travelers and pies in kathmandu that lingering autumn, my first in the himalaya, the unworldy iconography, the friendships, the breaking of barriers, the going beyond beyond, the dreams, fearlessness and simple joyful experiences that were enhanced by such luck, innocence and openness.
after all these years, these few decades, alas, nepal is more even than a home, a wife, my children raised here, the many friends and the nest that i've created (even sitting here tonight...).
yet, it all cycles back to that maha-circumambulation around the annapurna in the fall of 1979, thirty years ago this week, with all of you.
it's time to crack open the leather-bound journals tomorrow and put the dvd i just had burned of all of my photos of those days in the window-sized iMac in front of me.
reflection is the gift of the passage of time, it seems...
tomorrow i've planned to walk over shivapuri ridge w/ some friends. it's a good 5 hour hike up 2,500' and back down to our garden. you've sent my imagination off now, to sleep, perchance to dream of the younger us and the many joys and, just as sweet, memories of joys that we've created together.
tomorrow i've planned to walk over shivapuri ridge w/ some friends. it's a good 5 hour hike up 2,500' and back down to our garden. you've sent my imagination off now, to sleep, perchance to dream of the younger us and the many joys and, just as sweet, memories of joys that we've created together.
