citizen of the bardo
THAILAND | Wednesday, 16 July 2008 | Views [1468]
Fresh protests erupt in Indian Kashmir
I think it was this photo.
... that made me and my girlfriend change our plans, mid-sentence from...
"Let's just go. We've been planning this trip to Kashmir for months!"
to...
"Hum. Maybe not."
And suddenly I find myself in Thailand; sweltering under both monsoon heat and the trail end of a three-day 102 degree fever.
Don't
worry; the fever bit is just my body's fiery way of detoxifying what's
left of a country in me right before I leave it. You'll find records of
these repeat incinerations throughout my archives, in the sweat soaked
and twisted sheets of the airport hostels in Madrid, Antiqua, Calcutta
and Bangkok. It's a fact of my body/travels with which I've been forced
into a delirious peace treaty.
So. Temperature at a steady and
un-medicated 99 (yea!) with street-stand Thai-iced tea in hand I,
today, come to you. Forgive me my delirium-ramble, as I'm still
spinning from the surprise severance of my South Asia adventures, which
was as blunt as the fever hot. In response to the baffled stares of the
hostel staff downstairs, I have quickly relearned to rename "curd" as
"yogurt" and "motor rickshaw" as "tuk tuk." May you, as well, practice
patience with me as I stutter through these sentences and this
transition.
Tibetans identify this state of being by a word I
(probably inappropriately) use and (perhaps unhealthily) spend a
majority of my life in: "bardo." Which means something like, "liminal
passage, intermediate state, the state of consciousness in the course
of migration between death and rebirth." Yep. That's what I'm putting
on my next immigration form in the box asking for, "country of
permanent residence."
Now, I haven't posted in over a month and
I've got years of editing and entries to catch up on, which is about to
change as I devote the next five months to exactly these creative
pursuits. Writing. Posting. Not traveling. Because the realization has
only JUST dawned upon me (I'm slow!) that remote travel and the
processing/posting of its inherent experiences are two circles that are
close to mutually exclusive. I know. Mind blowing realization for me to
have just stumbled upon. But yes. I have to sit. In one place. At a
computer. To put it all together. And that is the plan. (But don't hold
me to it, because as you well know, sometimes I'm all talk.)
What
I have not yet confessed is that sometime in the spring of 2003, while
deep in pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, I pulled a pen out of
my red bandanna and wrote the following into my journal:
"7 Years of Movement; 7 Years of Stillness"
As
with many of the sentences that I hastily scribble down, I wasn't sure
what it meant, or what seed, exactly, I had planted into my life path
with that statement. But here I am. At the conclusion of what I
estimate to be (a total of) 7 years of travels abroad.
And for the FIRST time in my life, I am ready.
Ready for what?
Stillness, friends.
Stillness.
Tags: kashmir