“from many people…”

everywhere & nowhere 39

---

Some say the world is like a giant mirror. We search for ourselves in its face.

Me, I think sometimes the world is more like a kaleidoscope of mirrors: each beveled plane edged & defined by a fractured image; never itself, always its self. Or maybe a shattered kaleidoscope, a collision of images so rich the real and the representation become just another hypothetical urge to theory.

& the many mirrors of millions of kaleidoscopes reflect a world of angles and of incidents.

A physical world, where the angle of incidence equals the angle of refraction.

Slight of hand or trick of the Eye/I?

multis e gentibus vivres

“from many people strength”

 

 

“baggage”

everywhere & nowhere 38

 

---

 

Some things we carry with us… no matter how far we wander. Invisible, packed out of the reach of customs officers, they don’t have to weigh down a backpack. We might not even know they’re there.

Take memories, for example.

 

My father gave me a tall, glossy collection of fairy tales for my birthday a long time ago.  The volume was slim.  The pages cool to the touch, finished with a smooth satin sheen.  I would cradle the book. Hold it at a specific angle. Look over its pages carefully. Thoroughly. Not necessarily because I thot it precious at the time, but because, if the light wasn’t quite right, the illustrations would be hidden by the glare.   I must have been old enough to read, tho I don’t remember exactly when I got it.  & it’s gone now.  Lost in the shuffle of a hundred moves. Its title a shadow of old memories.  Filed, stored, dusty, inevitable. I haunt used bookstores with the curiosity of a born reader, but I’m not sure I ever want to find another copy of these particular stories. The book’s existence has the mystery bought by vague reminiscences….

there was a youngest brother

& there was a princess swathed head to foot in sea green silk

mummified

waiting to be rescued

The story wove characters & figures with the resolution of a dream: How, along the route the young man proved his good nature by helping a hive of bees rebuild a nest; & how, in return, the bees swarmed around the figure of the princess when the time came for him to choose his bride from among three other draped harpies…. 

The plot was sufficient if you believed the cloth surrounding the princess was laced with the honey of her skin.  You’d be right there with them when the success of the young lovers’ embrace worked an unravelling on the final page. 

The silk, a sea green cocoon. The dawning, like the sun on the ocean.  The glare of the page under my mother’s sea shell lamp…

 

a happily ever after

***

 

“You’re Okay, Kid,”my cousin Kelly once said after I had fallen short of my own ambitious expectations for about the zillionth time.

“Zillion, trillion, quadrillion… Dumb.  Dumb.  Dumb!  Stupid silly girl!  Sissy! Sissy! Sissy!”

I muttered all the teasing expletives to myself, anticipating my critics while kicking at the snow with big felt lined skidoo boots.  I was eight years old.  It was January, & I had just stumbled so that I lost the foot race with Jack to the fox-and-goose home base/free zone.

Kelly smiled & she helped me brush the snow off my jeans. When I realized she wasn’t laughing at me, I wiped my baby tears away, annoyed, and I contemplated her amused expression. She had fine clear skin, the smile of the girl next door, & a mischievous willingness to try just about anything. 

Kelly was my hero that year. Her’s was the kind of encouragement that can only come from someone seven years older; someone who already knew the secrets of bras and boys.

“You just gotta learn to keep your feet on the ground,”  she said and then she was off, following the maze paths we had cut in the paper surface of the snow.

 

***

home is the ground you’re born to

***

 

When we were younger, my mother rarely grounded my brothers & I if we did anything wrong.  By the time I was fourteen, I had left my family and set out on my own…

 

grounding

a metaphor

the live wire will burn you

laying out the ground work

 

From grade one on you learn the importance of memory.

 

 ***

 

“letting mom in on the fun”

everywhere & nowhere 37

---

 

Kindly leave your fire arms

at the door before entering

The sign greets an unsuspecting Canadian diner in Manila. I just want some food, see. A lot like Nicaragua, all this gun toting, except where, in Central America blue uniformed private-infantrymen-cum-security-guards stood vigil outside such bastions of civilization as banks and jewelry stores, asking that you park your weapons before entering… well, here they’re even needed to guard the restaurants. 

Keeps one musing while slurping one’s bowl of “special Korean noodles,” the octopus tentacles staring back at me warily with their suction cup eyes.

On my way back from Banaue, I ran into a couple of Swiss girls who were also heading to Manila after a stint in the north.

One had short dark hair. She was an “alternative radio personality” and packed a k.d. lang kind of persona. We got to talking, as we sipped bad instant coffee and waited for our respective buses. She and her companion (probably an artsy lesbian pair) are on their way down a different route: from here to Pakistan. Then east along the Silk Road into China. Then tracking-back west to Europe via the Trans Siberian Highway.

Gosh. & I thought I was being adventurous!

We chatted about women on the road and she struggled to push the word ’solidarity’ through the language barrier (I’ve got no German… yet)

There’s a story in the pages just of these travel encounters…

While in Manila, I had to decide what to do with a six week gap in my flights, since a planned trip over to Papua New Guinea fell thru.

I decided to move on with only a brief stop in Thailand, after toying with the idea of entering a Buddhist monastery for a month-long stay.

I would extend my time in India, instead.

 

 

 

April 11/93

Manila Philippines

Dear Mom,

It’s always hard trying to sum up weeks of new experiences

scrapes, irritations, inspirations

and the mundane

I’ve been plugging off letters and postcards for the last week, trying not to say the same thing every time.  Today I fly to Bangkok.  I have decided to spend only one or two weeks there and then move on to India.  I did some reading and relaxing in the northern parts of Luzon here in the Philippines, and my India handbook kept hinting at strange and wonderful things in that land. 

The past three weeks have been both trying and exciting–as usual.  I spent the first five days in Manila arranging for a Thai visa so I could stay more than two weeks.  Now a wasted effort. 

…and Manila isn’t the greatest place to be stuck in for five days

Like every third world city I’ve seen (and really almost every big city anywhere), this place is inhospitable, noisy, aggressive, dirty, and polluted.  But the pension I’ve been staying in is comfortable. There’s a small cafeteria in its basement that opens onto a rare city garden, complete with palm trees and tropical blossoms–an oasis of sorts.  That’s where I am now as I write this letter.

A couple of weeks ago I spent most of my time here too: awaiting my visa, and avoiding the hassles of the men and the touts who were always wanting

“Come with me missus.” 

“You take ride in my rickshaw.” 

“Hey missus.” 

After 26 hours on planes and in airports, I needed the rest then.  

& after my first night, I was more than happy to find this touristy guesthouse with its garden sanctuary. 

‘Cuz that first night, Mom, was hell. 

Getting off the plane after 1:00am, taking the last available spot in a booked up city, I slept (sorta) with my knife in hand, waking every half hour or so, until finally I could clear out at 6:00 am.  The place was off a dirty unlit alley, see. No locks on the outer doors.  The “common” bath had no running water, shit everywhere, no mirror, no way to wash, and no curtains across the dirty broken windows… neither there, nor in my “room”.  No sheets on the grubby stained sack-of-lumps mattress, and, of course, no one else in the other rooms. Who’d be crazy enuf to stay here?  …phantom footsteps in the alley.

Not exactly an auspicious start to this leg of the journey.

& it seems I always have trouble with accommodations: probably the one thing I’d appreciate about traveling with others instead of alone. With others, one person would watch the bags while another scouts for beds. 

When I got to Banaue, my first stop up north, I also had trouble.  The place I’d hoped to stay at was booked.  I had lugged myself and my pack a half kilometer up the hill roads and stepped walks to get there. (The town is built on a mt. slope)

 

All this after an awful 11 and 1/2 hour bus ride, where the bus blew a tire, and we had to wait around at the side of the road under the mid-day glare of a hostile sun as they tried to fix it. 

THEN  …to be turned away at the door!

 

 

“Okay, Gayle.” I tell myself.

“Pick up the stuff.” 

puff. puff.

“You can do it; just another 15 min. walk to another joint.” 

sweat.  sweat. 

Stiff upper lip, eh? 

Near collapsed with the effort.

So I spent another five days recuperating. This time in Banaue. 

But it was worth it in the end.  The horrendous stretch of clear-cut desertified hills gives way to beautiful green mountains a few hours before arriving at Banaue, and this town, itself, with the surrounding valleys of the Cordellera  mountains is spectacular! 

The slopes of the valley are completely terraced for rice planting.  The green fields like gigantic steps scaling the mountains.  Old women with straw baskets on their backs, bent over transplanting rice-lings. 

You follow paths along the edges of the terraces and up the hills to tiny villages, where the people live in thatch and mud huts.  Their network of houses connected by steep paths, scattered with dogs and pigs and chickens. 

And the little girls along the way all offering their assistance:

“I take you to waterfall Mam.” 

“You need guide Mam?” 

“You pay me what you want.  I use the money to buy books, Mam, for school.”

At night, I stand on the balcony and watch the sun set on the greens of the terraces.  I listen to the barking dogs, and the tuk-tuk of the motorcycles as they taxi-ply the few roads. 

Roads are scarce here: vehicles and buses ramshackle because the terrain isn’t made for anything but walking.  The “tracks” are more ruts and landslides than streets.  The odd uniquely Filipino jeepenies (jeeps garishly painted and modified to carry perpetually-squished-in passengers) are always breaking down. 

On the way to my next stop (Sagada)  we also had a breakdown.  Again in the middle of no-where.

 

When I did eventually make it to Sagada, I found an intriguing edge-of-time kind of village, surrounded by pine covered mountains and limestone caves.  I stayed in a wonderful place built into a limestone wall.  Looking all the world like it belonged in the Swiss alps, it was very much Filipino.  It is busy!

The large family who run the place are kept constantly busy dealing with water shortages, power shortages, or the pig barn out back, when an animal needed feeding or slaughtering (a side business). They’re busy building a new path of steps up to the place, and with providing a never ending supply of beer for the patrons. 

The children of the family range from about 16 years old to about 2, and only the toddler was exempted from a full day’s work.  Everyday.  I’ve never seen children work so hard, so much of the day, without complaining. 

Brenda, the oldest, polishes the wood floors every morning, using the half shell of a coconut–push scraping it back and forth, back and forth, with her left foot. As if it were a skate and she was gliding on the ice.

 

& I’ve met lots of interesting people en route.   We spend time swapping stories about where we’ve been and what we’ve seen. 

Sometimes I feel like I’m just a beginner at all of this. When I run into a British man, for instance, who spent 11 years in Uganda before Idi Amin, who’s been to Central America, all over Africa and Asia, and is now a consulting lawyer to the Chancellor in Hong Kong. He’s here on vacation in the Philippines, visiting his Filipina wife’s family.  A bombastic old colonial, he has stories of pulling out of Africa during civil war, and of dealing with China as Hong Kong works out the terms of re-unification.

It’s all part of the experience

Tho, of course, there are times when I’m just plain wiped out as well.  And then I wonder why I bother. 

Like the day before last.  I got to Baguio–my last stop on the way back to Manila.  I was peacefully wandering the city streets, taking in the festival air of the Filipino tourists who flock here over the Easter holidays (mostly to avoid Manila’s heat and smog). 

It wasn’t until Good Friday that I realized I was going to be in trouble.  Because there were 200,000 people visiting this town of not much more than 200,000 people. 

And by Saturday night, they were all looking for a way to get back to Manila.  Every bus outta there that could be booked was booked

…thru to Monday

MY PLANE FOR BANGKOK LEFT SUNDAY

 

 

So, equipped with a horrible mountain-air cold, and the first day of my period, I had to get up at 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning, and lug my stuff to the chaotic bus terminal of the one company that didn’t take advance reservations. 

Me and hundreds of other panic stricken travelers mulled about hoping for a ticket on the 3:00 am bus heading for Manila.

It was a weary wait, and an even wearier ride… but I made it. 

& you know, Mom,

there was a moment

as the sun began to rise

turning the sky amber over the open rice fields of the central plateau

the scattered trees passing my vision in silhouette

and a volcano rising up from the flat stretch

looming like the future

…a moment, when I figured:

yeah, okay

this really is all worth the effort

& then some!

 

“the Philippines”

everywhere & nowhere 36

---

Once I got myself back into shape for travel, I decided to head east, instead of down to South America as initially planned. I wanted to see India and Africa.

I got a great deal on a flight to Bombay that offered two free stop overs, so I landed in Manila, spent three weeks in the Philippines, and then stopped over in Thailand.

I had… quite unlike me… decided not to travel too hard in the first month, since I was still recuperating. 

Smiling at my caution, I didn’t do the smaller island beaches and resorts on South Pacific stop over, though (I would leave that to a week long stay at Ko Samui later); no, instead of Filipino paradise, I took one look at pictures of the terraces of Banaue and knew I just had to see them for myself!

 

April 5/93

Sagada, Philippines

 

Hi Jeff

…So I’m here–sort of. 

It’s not been without moments of irritation: I watched Manilan smog, yellow brown and dusty, go in thru my nostrils and come out again after passing thru my lungs (it was that thick); I had to  survive a horrendous 11 and 1/2 hour journey from Manila to Banaue in which the bus decided to blow a tire right in the middle of a three hour stretch of clear-cut desertified hills, right in the middle of the day (the sun over head–no shade to be had–42 degree temp); I had to survive yet another breakdown between Banaue and Bontoc when the jeepeny bust a bolt and started to drag what looked like an axle.  We waited two hours before another vehicle came by the no-where-stretch-of-road (tho two foreboding military vehicles passed the other way).

But much of the time this has been inspiration. 

Banaue was a jaw-dropping kind of experience.  The entire cordillera valley is terraced for rice planting, the stepped fields literally glowing with greens.  The town is built up a hillside overlooking a beautiful stretch of terraces, and the paths to the surrounding villages often follow the edges of the field plateaus. 

To be sure, the place has adapted to the tourists.

 

 

The only natives still wearing the traditional loin clothes + feather head-dresses are the elders in search of pesos for photos. 

But to a prairie girl (used to seeing the flat stretch of the wheat field meeting the sky) this is spectacular.  & while the Philippines, with all its people speaking English, in Western dress, going to Sunday mass, does not seem nearly as exotic as Indonesia, there is still magic in Northern Luzon. 

Only three generations ago the hill people were involved in ritualized head-hunting forays.

& here, in Sagada, the pine covered hills and the limestone caverns + caves house hanging coffins–still a preferred mode of burial.  The people in this region mix the Christian teachings of the Episcopal missionary (now Anglican) with their traditional animistic beliefs.  They venerate the spirits of their ancestors; “bury” them in coffins suspended from rock walls or stacked in caves, where they are safe from predators, but the bones are readily accessible for consultation. 

Every fiesta includes an invitation to the dead, and the sacrifice of a chicken or a donation of alcohol specifically to keep them happy.

& the place I’m staying at is fantastic: built into a picturesque limestone formation that juts up from the surrounding countryside.

One wall is the natural stone barrier of the canyon, and beyond the windows to the east, the mountain slope is covered with the tall pine trees, like the Rockies… except in a dip–where the soil is better–are banana palms, jasmines and bushes with bright red blossoms. 

& when you turn a corner and look down into the valley, to the west of town, the landscape stretches out lush and beautiful with more cultivated terraces.

  & deeper than death ravines  

The world is a patchwork pattern of bright and dark greens, the blue sky overhead, the river a melody.  Some of the terraces are 2000 years old, sculpted without iron tools, and irrigated by an elaborate system of bamboo pipes.

Yesterday, I sat under the overhang to the mouth of a huge cave. My two German companions set out to explore the caverns, but, me, I’ve had my fill of caves since Costa Rica. 

I went along on the three hour trek mostly for the walk, and the views, and the glimpses of the coffins everywhere–mysteriously compelling.

I’ve met a few people en route–most very interesting, tho not many have glowing stories about this country as far as our kinda travel goes. 

It’s one of those in-between places, I guess,  & sometimes disappointing. 

The southern islands, I am told are especially over-touristed: the locals, having seen enuf of foreigners, are little interested in anything other than how much money you’re willing to part with. 

Up here in the North tho, they smile and are by-and-large friendly.  We went to the big cave with Winston–the thirteen year old son of the owners of my pension.

 

 

Typically, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking… Why not in a land where death is in evidence, and has drawn the curious from around the world? But not all my thinking has been morbid. 

I have never met so many extensive travelers as I have on this road.  It seems (smile) I’ll never achieve my ambition to do something no one else has thot to do. “Ah–such tragedy!” 

Mostly I’ve been swapping stories, and I’m beginning to realize there are many ways of seeing–many many ways to travel–almost as many ways as there are reasons for traveling.

There was this Chinese American guy, for instance, who seems to have been everywhere: Central America, SE Asia, China, Africa. 

 

He was with the Peace Corps and spent four years in East Africa.  Fascinating.  BUT he was here in Sagada only three days, and seems to be one of those “I’m here.  I’ll hit all the spots I’m supposed to as quickly as possible. Check them off my list, then move on” types.  You know the type: looking only to chalk one more name up to their list of destinations traveled. 

Then there’s the two (other) Germans in the pension (Germans are everywhere!)… they are in Sagada for three weeks–they’ve seen only a few of the caves and one waterfall. Mostly they spend their time stoned in one smoke joint or another.  This little mountain town is remote from the powers that be, in the Philippines, and one of the latest in a declining tradition of freak-zones, where Western hippy-wannabes can still find a hassle-free space to hang loose and do the cheap stuff. 

Then there was the woman I met in Banaue.  She was the Canadian consular attache to the Philippines; out and about on a few days off.  40ish and very Toronto-Jewish.  She drove up in her land cruiser, wanting to show a friend around the north. She was funny and interesting and had been posted everywhere–Hungary, Paris,  New Delhi (I think? Didn’t actually take notes).  Now: she wanted to see things too.  In a way.  But she had a bureaucratic luncheons heaviness around the hips, and when I mentioned my intention to go to Batadd–a three hour hike–she indignantly responded “Oh.  It’s probably pretty and quaint, sure.  But who wants to walk for three hours.”  Her cruiser was immensely comfortable–with air conditioning, shoulder strap seat belts, and a stereo for soft music.  She hit the villages that had roads. 

 

thinking about travel and what’s next…

 

Maybe I’ll divide my time in Thailand between the beaches of Ko Samui and a Buddhist monastery nearby that accepts Westerners.  Something cerebral and spiritual, to of-set bikiniville. 

&, of course, I’m anticipating what we’ll be doing in Africa.  (I’ll call from Bangkok on that one.)

***

So: I guess I am here

one stop

on the road

Tomorrow I’m off for Baguio and then on to Manila for my next flight. 

& there’s lots to keep the mind occupied.  All the heres I’ve been… those I’ve yet to see. 

Everyday when I travel, I am asked at least once: “Where are you from?” 

There is a “here” that we all claim as home, but (having given away +/or sold all my stuff) I am feeling more than a little up-rooted. 

Canada.  Yes, that’s it of course I am Canadian. 

But does that mean Saskatchewan or Toronto?  A house, a school, an occupation, or a history? 

I think sometimes it means people.  I’m from a certain kind of people.  Not just my family.  Clan.  We have less and less in common as the years go by.  But a people, who see things thru eyes that have sharpened their vision in a common environment. 

And perhaps that’s what leads to the displacement…

because the more I travel the more my eyes seem to change

adapt/adopt

a-point-of-view

from view-points around the world

So, if I am from a people, those people are changing as I shift position. 

…and its only when I look in your eyes, Jeff, that I see something of where I am from. 

I miss you deeply.

All the more, when I am talking to others and listening to their stories

 

’cause it’s all story, in the end

& god knows I go on talking forever…

so it’s just story (no “in the end” about it)

and you have become a large part of this story

even if it seems to twist and turn haphazardly

like the winding roads in these hills

In the fairy-tale that is us: I want to wander; return to some preordained spot + swap more stories with you.

and I want to touch your hand while we’re talking.

and I want to feel your smile when I kiss you

and I want to look up from my writing to where you are sitting,

across the room, or across the country,

knowing you’re thinking of me too.

I want your body next to mine some nights

I want to drag my fingers thru your chest hair

and to feel your hand against my thighs.

Then I want to wander some more

and work out all my silly philosophical dilemmas

return to some pre-ordained spot

to swap more stories with you

and I want to touch your hand while we’re talking

snd I want to feel your smile when I kiss you…

 

Until the end of June… take care of yourself!

 

“filling in the gaps”

everywhere & nowhere 35

---

December, 1992

Honduras and Guatemala

Jeff had come down to Honduras to wander with me for three weeks over the Christmas holidays in ‘92. His friend Dave was leading a Canada World Youth project in southern Honduras. After carousing with Dave and a couple of Jeff’s other old high school buddies for a while, we broke off from the group and headed for Copan, made our way over to Tela and the Caribbean island of Rotan,  and then headed up into Guatemala, before he flew back to the Saskatchewan winter and his day job. 

Our travel together was infused by a quiet kind of easy-going companionship, born of the pleasure we both derive from exploration, and a mutual, driving curiosity about the lives of others.

No expectations. No itineraries.

We moved with the wind… and with changing inclinations.

 

 

After Jeff left, I stayed in Antigua, Guatemala, for a couple of weeks. Just hanging out. In ‘92, the country’s mix of Indio and Spanish-American culture was still tinged with bitterness and hostility, following more than a decade of ugly clashes, but the little town of Antigua, itself, almost felt like the future: its international mix of lefty expats and the Spanish Guates lived a relatively peaceful co-existence with the Mayan speaking indigenous population who came down from the surrounding mountains to trade goods, and sell their products at the weekly market.

Perhaps because of the earthquake ruins, the town seemed to relax into a realization that the world was large, and that the people on it went around and around. The Guate Mayans in Antigua had schools for learning Quechean right alongside the Spanish schools, and the markets were a mix of colour and hopefulness.

The clean mountain air was a refuge from Guatemala City’s squalor and pollution, and the day trip I took from Antigua, to climb Pacaya’s active volcanic slopes, was nothing short of spectacular.

Antigua is easily one of the favourite places I visited in all my travels.

The night before I was forced to cut my Central American voyage short, a ‘recruiter’ from one of the Indio guerrilla groups had knocked on the door of the (off the books) establishment I was staying at.

Every backpacker at the time knew there was a good chance, at some point, that they would get “shaken down” for the cause.

The guerrillas were generally polite enough: they’d board a bus that they stopped, or they’d enter a rooming house or restaurant, clad in khakis equipped with an antiquated weapon of some kind, and any Westerners in the vicinity would be “encouraged” to donate (clothing, food, walkmen, money) for the cause.

Then they would melt quietly back into the background.

Me, I had no problem with their methods, given what I knew of the repression that led to their struggle, and of their non-violent form of solicitation.

But, in 1992, Guatemala seemed to be slowly changing. Newspapers were more likely to criticize oppressive government actions against the native population, and Rigoberta Menchu, one of the country’s indiginous revolutionary heros (whose autobiography I had given a paper on the previous year, and whose life inspired my visit to the country), was about to come back from exile in Mexico.

She would lead a million people through a celebratory march in Guatemala City while I was there.

Looking forward to the next leg of my journey in the weeks after Jeff left, my plan was to stay in Guatemala long enough to take in the atmosphere after the Rigoberta Menchu rally, and then return to Costa Rica so that I could say good bye to all my new friends from that part of Central America, and to pick up a few things I had left with Patricia and her family.

Then I was heading down to Ecuador. I wanted to see something of the Amazon.

Things didn’t quite work out the way I planned, of course. They rarely do… perhaps that is why I never put much store in “plans”?

I had been up to Atitlan in the days just before that pivotal evening in Antigua, when the unexpected rebel visitor, and my equally unexpected departure from Central America would converge.

An illness I contracted in Atitlan set a whole cascade of changes into action. Already too thin from a combination of bad food, too little sleep, too much heat, and basic travel exhaustion, I was like the walking dead when I stumbled back to Antigua. 

A quick stop at a Guate doctor’s private office, and he confirmed my suspicions: the amoebas I picked up around the lake were not going to go away, given my weakened constitution.

 

 

It took a day to line up flights so I could get back to Canada, and it would take another three weeks to get treatment that would eventually rid me of the all parasites I had picked up, so that I could pack back on enough weight to set off for the next leg of my journey.

As it was, I was skeletal enough to be mistaken for a heroin addict at the border (at least I think that’s why customs gave me such a hard time at the Calgary airport…. they literally ripped apart my backpack in their search for non-existent contraband).

Come to think of it, my haggard appearance probably scared the Guate rebel who banged on the door, that last night in Central America. 

I remember that he gazed at me, then at the backpack on the bed of my little windowless closet-sized room, and, instead of shaking me down for the cause, he gave me a little datebook with a Mayan calendar–my last memento of Central America.

(But I am getting ahead of myself, again.)

 ***

 

The following letter was the last one I posted from Central America. Written to my friend Tricia: the person who had kindly to agreed to take charge of my ‘happily ever afters,’ and so was housing 15-20 boxes of books in her garage back in Toronto; on the off chance that maybe I’d Come back to Canada and would want to settle down at some point.

Such friendships acted like tethers to my other life, and these letters may have been the one thing that kept me at least passibly sane as I followed the wind, and my changing inclinations.

 

January 25/93

Antigua, Guatemala

Dear Tricia

Another month has gone by and I am no closer to having achieved  anything.

Maybe it has something to do with my complete lack of ambition, or the fact that I set out to escape  achievements?

This is truly a hedonistic existence

(even if the bad food and consequent illnesses steal some of the romance) 

Speaking of which…

I spent three weeks in Honduras with my best buddy Jeff–an engineer from Saskatchewan, who has been bitten by the same travel bug as me, but who was clever enuf to get a degree in water systems management, before he decided to wander freely.  He can get a job just about anywhere he chooses now.

And, me, I’ll admit that sometime in the future, when I’m itching to move but can no longer afford it, I’ll think seriously about hitching a ride to his wherever of the year, to act sponge.

         got no pride

But then, when it comes to this lifestyle, pride is the least valued of commodities.  What with 4-5 days passing and only one bucket of brackish water to wash with, or with a constant (bi-hourly) familiarity with dank toilets, or with either freezing or sweating the night away, swatting mosquitoes and sighing with the wind. 

every noise imaginable making its way thru the many many cracks in ill-repaired slat wood walls

 

…Still, the mirror stillness of turquoise waters, clear and perfect for coral snorkeling, the salty taste of a Caribbean or Pacific sea-side breeze, powder-fine white sand between my toes, living a Caribbean postcard… well it all kinda makes up for the inconveniences.

 

especially when you have someone to splash and giggle with

 

& here in Antigua there’s lots to make up for discomforts as well  

(it has food to die for,  for instance, not from  )

I’ve been taking it easy since Jeff flew back to Canadian blizzards.  This city is an interesting and paradoxical mix of wandering ex-patriot hippy types, intellectuals, Indios, Hispanic nationals and their Mestizo maids.  The mix has led to a strange conglomeration of businesses and functions among the incredible crumbling facades of the town’s colonial architecture.

 

prime for analysis:

sometimes ironic

sometimes curious

sometimes awed

 

The huge white-washed 17th century mansions and churches (in various states of crumble and demise) are fitting symbols for a declining colonial mentality and its tarnished dreams.  This town was thrice struck by monster earthquakes. As a result the grand cathedrals, arches, and administrative buildings of the old Spanish empire now stand (sort of), often roofless, the walls reaching up but supporting only the blue sky, huge gaping cracks in the mortar echoing the global geology of tectonic plates.

 

and I’ve been thinking about Rigoberta Menchu

 On Saturdays and Sundays there are Porches and Mercedes parked in Antigua’s streets.  Kinda trendy for the rich Guates to pay tribute to a city that was named a world heritage cite.  But when you walk thru the streets, by all the Indian vendors with their incredible serapes, jewelry, jade, hupiles, and stitchery, you can’t help but sense the schizophrenia at work.  The people all seem to get along: Americans, Canadians, and Germans as tourists; the Hispanic Guates; the Mestizos; the Indios; the displaced and perhaps misguided intellectuals and northern ex-pats. 

Yet, upon closer inspection, the fissures are as predominant in the social structure as they are in the buildings.  A certain patronizing hostility happening as the Hispanics barter with the indigenous artisans; a certain sly smile when a bumbling Spanish-less gringo shows an interest in the handiwork (tho, to their credit, the humble Indios stick to their Maya heritage, by and large, and so are able to pull themselves up just short of rubbing their hands together).

Then there’s the desperation in the eyes of some (especially the old or the disabled) as they poke around for food and implore for Guate pennies; and the discordant way I keep bumping shoulders with it all are the “nose-in-the-air-”I’m living this, not visiting” ex-pats.

 

it’s all here

 

Like some microcosmic this-is-what-you-get abridged version of Central America: Cruel looking battle hardened men on the streets with fuck-you faces, or with the guns and uniforms that say something similar; others hampered by the scars or missing legs,, looking up from a rolling wooden platform with the humiliated broken expressions of obvious victims of torture. 

It would be depressing, overwhelming, but for the children’s quick and clever schemes to get first your sympathy, and then your money.

And the Indian women, who make up for everything, by living an irrevocable hope.  They show you their work: their blouses (hupiles) painstakingly decorated with embroidery that must have taken months, all in the colours of celebration; and they have babies, almost always, tied to their backs with a shawl.  They play with their children in between bartering over the wares they’ve brought to town, to be displayed on sheets across sidewalks.

 

There have, of course, been many colourful moments I will cherish in the midst of my learning and my struggle to understand, and I will probably bore people over and over with the details of them if I ever decide to come “home”.

BUT, I figure, if I limit myself to one in-depth story for each letter, I won’t be repeating myself too much upon my return. –and each day I’m off and rambling, I should get perhaps only one “Shut up Gayle, I’ve already heard it” to my credit.

…keep reminding me of the perils of tediousness

 

So

for Tricia Morgan’s second missive:

The Story of the Garifuna Village:  December 25, 1992

The morning seemed to dawn pretty enuf.  We’re on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, at Tela.  My handbook said the beaches here are everything you’ve ever dreamed a Caribbean beach is supposed to be–tho in truth they are somewhat grimy, often littered, and the ocean in kinda grey.  (I’d have to wait until Rotanfor the post-card platitudes to pay off with perfect Caribbean beaches.) 

BUT the area is compelling.  It is surrounded by tiny Garifuna villages that are inhabited by an interesting people who speak a musical almost unintelligible patios of French, English, Spanish, Caribbean, and African.  Their second language is often English not Spanish.  They are a dark skinned bright-complexioned people, and Jeff and I both decided, without even having to discuss the matter, that the village 45 minutes down the beach from Tela would be a prime Christmas day outing. 

We’d dine on seafood chowder cooked in coconut, and take our chances with their home-brewed contraband clove laced liqueur.  There are no restaurants, so to speak.  The villages are a foot-path connected collection of tiny thatched huts set up on the sand, but some of the houses have open kitchen with places for diners to sit out front.

The atmosphere seemed perfect, since neither Jeff nor I have sentimental memories of Christmas traditions–both of us coming from “broken” homes that preferred to sit around a table, bicker and hurl insults, or compete intensely at everything from political debates, to cards, to trivial pursuit, to who had the curliest hair, or who could spit the farthest.

 

Our Garifuna plan was to be an exorcism of all that

…and it was… 

Tho not for the reasons we anticipated.  First there was the rain.  A tropical storm.  The water coming down so thick you couldn’t see five feet in front of you. & us caught about 30 minutes into a 45 minute walk, without umbrellas or jackets.  I show up in this relatively isolated village of thatch huts, in a dress that has turned transparent (no bra) Both of us with our hair plastered to our heads like drowned rats. 

We sit at the first place we come to, Jeff without a shirt cuz I need something to provide modesty.  We drink a beer and watch the Grinch in Spanish as it plays from an old black and white TV. 

(No shit: The Grinch dubbed! And this is one of the few establishments that has electricity.) 

But the owners aren’t exactly thrilled with our bohemian lack of respect for a special occasion; they’re not directing us any smiles of welcome.  So, almost dry, I give Jeff back his shirt and we move on to another house: an even smaller hut where a group of eight men, as piss-drunk as you can get and still be standing, are having a great time playing traditional conch shell music and singing ballads. 

We sit and order our chowder,  and this time they are very  friendly.  They’re all members of one family.  The father is the drunkest of all, a big kneed, wrinkle-wizened man, who looks like he’s lived hard all his life. But he knows the best stories.  And he’s the one to lead the songs.  Can’t quite tell if the ballads are  bawdy or brave, but I make a few words out, like amore and cervessa and rum. 

And we are grabbing attention with a couple of the unmarried boys, who brave Jeff’s largeness in light of his friendly smile; they come over to flirt with me, to practice their English and to teach us the local names for the pieces of seafood in our bowls.  They giggle at my mispronunciation, and the giggling is catchy. 

Before we leave, they offer us their Christmas hooch. It is delicious if probably not very good for you. The clove aroma lingers like a cylinder at the back of my throat.

On the way back to Tela, feeling warm and dangerous, Jeff and I go skinny dipping and make love in the worried waters of post-storm Caribbean breakers.  The next day we will pay for our adventure, in part with sniffles (easily enuf dealt within this climate), but in part also with that toilet parade that inevitably comes hot on the heels of having stuffed something into our mouths that we shouldn’t have.

 

Okay,  I’ve babbled away another 4 double sided pages.  And you, having your comps to study for: as if you don’t have enuf to read. 

I hope everything is going well.  Can’t say I miss the academy much, but there are times when I wouldn’t mind a little literary chat over red wine and well aged cheese… you know with a good friend… like the one who’s protecting my library for me as I play hooky. 

Take care…

Take Three: “building bridges”

everywhere & nowehere 33

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Take Three

May you wander over the face of the earth forever, never sleep twice in the same bed, never drink water twice from the same well, and never cross the same river twice in a year.

 

—An old gypsy curse, Nancy McPhee’s Book of Invective

 

Did you ever get the feeling you’re living two lives at once? & that they contradict each other? 

 

*********

 

 ************

 

“distance to destination: hong kong to vancouver”

everywhere & nowhere 32

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August 6

Heading East

 

the screen flickers in front of me

not a movie now…

little plane: spec in the speck in the sky

a sign.  with portent.

 

distance to destination

ground speed: 811 kmph/502 mph

 

 

                    fast.  fast.

 

 

“last night in bangkok”

everywhere & nowhere 31

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August 5

Bangkok

 

You’re drunk Johnny.  & you drink too much because you hate yourself.  You think of your life, and you hate where your at.  You say you want me to tell you about yourself?  Okay. …you carry too much baggage Johnny.  What makes your life so hard?  How can you have so many secrets to be afraid of Johnny?   With your “comfortable English upbringing” and “your loving and supportive family.”  You’re a fucking walking defense mechanism, Johnny, & damn if I can figure out why.  “I don’t want to be with anybody” “I don’t care about anyone except maybe myself… and maybe my family.”  (Who are all safely tucked away on another continent)

Don’t you see.  …You said you were sick of insincerity & you didn’t want to come back with me to the hotel tonight. Well, sincerity is relative. & I am going home tomorrow. I am going home tomorrow.  & you are a liar Johnny.  Here you are.  You are here with me.  In my room.  Still trying to hide, tho we are both behind the only door there is to close. Why did you come here Johnny?  I didn’t ask you twice…

Then

somehow (i don’t remember how it happened)

we are naked on the floor again

my lips against his body not whispering sweet nothings:

“You-are-a-liar-Johnny, a-drunk-and-a-liar…”

“You-are-a-liar-Johnny,” i breathe against his mouth

as we roll over and over,

“You are a liar…”

 

eventually, yes,

much later

you will close the door softly behind you…

 

but only after admitting that you are a liar

while lying naked on that bed

 

 

“soul searching”

everywhere & nowehere 30

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August 3

Phet Buri–Kanchana Buri

We stop, walk wots–Buddhist temples. And again this “nothing” stares me in the face. 

            & I am staring back

             blankly

Gold leaf, creased and flicking, on this physical representation of the Buddha before me… the physical representation of an ancient teacher who wanted nothing so much as to achieve the ultimate in non-physical being…

         & here he is

         everywhere

I am wandering vaguely. Lost in this Thai city of temples.

 

 

 

I have nowhere specific to go, and i give up trying to follow anything.  Not logic. Not maps. Not meaning. …until a puppet shop window display arrests my musing.  A shadow puppet takes centre stage; doomed, paradoxically, to a life behind curtains.  Beside it, on the other hand, a full faced puppet seems frightened by the seeing. Strings tangled and gone limp from lack of use. All day it peers out at the passing world with eyes that never close.  Seeing everything.  Regal, with its traditional porcelain features.  Clad in gold embroidered silk. Its black hair starkly pulled into a top knot.

***

 

this afternoon:

Bridge over the river Kwai. 

A Western movie signs its autograph across an eastern landscape.

I am at the museum.  A replica of the POW shelter.

Inside: one man writes of being a doctor.  Watching so many patients die —malnutrition, untreated tropical ulcers, cholera.  After an hour of following pictures, paintings, stories, articles, I still don’t understand the sense they make out of these good guy/bad guy wars.  & this man. 

This doctor who was there, watching people die:  upon liberation he hated the Japanese, the enemy who had been so cruel…. until he watched one of them die, too.  (a one-legged Japanese soldier, who had worked at the camp all during the building)

and the hatred drained out of me,

he wrote

 

Later: Wandering among the tombstones.  Wondering…  the graveyard housing thousands of the allied POWs who died building the Thai-Burma railway.

“here lies”

…his name, age, status as a soldier, job, regiment…

“dearly missed…”    “bravely lived…”

“for king and country…”  “having done his duty…”

until one catches my eye:

 

The night grows dark

and I am far from home

 

…the graves begin to spin

 

&  the days spin into evenings… 

 

 

It’s my turn to cook, and I’m cooking in a bog.  Tropical rainstorm wreaking havoc on my efforts.  The clams refuse to open, flat smug black shells.  Nobody seems hungry anyway.  It is our last night on the road.  Tomorrow we reach Bangkok, and then I’m heading home. & everybody’s off at the bar, reminiscing.  Having a good time, while I’m cooking in a bog.  Fucking clams.  Open!

 

After, cooling down, drying off, I am talking again.

            talking

              talking

with Johnny… a guy who continues to oblige my curiosity by providing the most opaque and frustrating conversation. 

“From beer to Mekong Johnny?”  I’m being flip

blank look

Taking a long drag at his cigarette, he blows clove scented smoke thru the fog of my sarcasm.

 glimpses, surfaces, shadows, games

getting nowhere

 

…& getting nowhere, we end up naked on the reed floor of my little cabin.  One day left, and I still don’t know how we find ourselves in this arena yet again.  Struggling with eachother’s demons.

 

August 4 

nothing gentle, no words now.

your body does the talking

tho the story it relates may be painful to you,

& perhaps you’d rather not be there to listen;

you’d rather be anywhere other than here

your skin bruising

each breath like searing lava

your pulse a jungle

 

& i think

(i can’t remember for sure)

i think you left me naked on the floor

and now you are

            running

                         running

 

“when and there, in southern thailand”

everywhere & nowhere 29

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July 29

Hat Yai-khas Phanom Bencha National Park

I am in Thailand.  & I am truly lost. 

Like when I was a kid, hiding from my older brother’s anger, my heart pounding to the beat of his fists on my locked bedroom door.

If the door held, he would give up the vigil with a volley of curses, and I would be left, first deafened by the silence, then fascinated by the way the branches of the old oak tree scratched against my window. Breaking through my deafness. 

One day, about a year after my father died, a heavy winter frost sat like felt across the pane, recording the tree scratches.  Inscrutable hieroglyphic stories on a brittle glass page… a secret code that meant my room wasn’t my room anymore. I was somewhere else altogether.

& I almost spoke of it to Johnny:

Childhood scars over scotch and beer.

But I won’t talk of my childhood tonight,

I don’t want your hand resting on my shoulder,

Turning gentle now, offering sympathy,

“We are only playing Johnny”

Later, alone, the voices insist, recording scenes from the past.

Me remembering in an ordered mature manner, avoiding the uncertainty of a child’s gaze…

 

***

 

 

& Thialand is still the place to begin exploring…  even if it seems cliche. 

Past/present/future all together here in the land of ancient traditions.

Where a rising middle class means no more romantic nostalgia for foreign tourists in search of an exotic “other” world.  Here, where 75 million year old limestone deposits are greeted by a new superhighway; where “Western tourists” mix their curiosity, shoulder to shoulder, with orange and saffron clad novice Buddhist monks….

both out to learn the scope of things

 

& Thailand is as difficult and as beautiful as it is expressive. 

The man who runs the restaurant, and takes care of the park here, has two beautiful daughters. 

He is my age.  He earns money at two different jobs, working more than 16 hours a day, in order to send his three year old to the nearest school  …which is more than 40 minutes away.  (An hour during the rainy season.)

So: “Here I am”  I  think,  “I am here in Thailand.”

“Sitting in your restaurant.  In your home.  Eating the food your wife has prepared.  I am drawing silly pictures to entertain your daughter.  I am listening to the stories you tell about your life here in Thailand.” 

“Here you are:  Painting scenes… making me see…”

& I am trying

…but…

inadequately prepared to understand it all

I am still a silly girl, with a tourist’s sensibility.

No,  I will not stop

            trying

            trying

When I get home, when I finally sleep thru the night, I will dream of the things you’re saying, and the things I’m seeing, and the order they take will not be affected by mature responsible, logic; and finally, maybe, they will not be drowned out by this romantic crush i am carrying around like a life raft on this journey… i will not be trying to work out all that has happened, making it add up, making it make sense.

 

It will come in flashes:

Like, the fisherman in the dark hours of the early morning, that first night in Indonesia. Standing in the shallows of a rough-pebble-and-broken-coral beach. A silhouette bathed in the moon’s blue spot, his arm arching above his head, hypnotically spinning the line around and around, the faint hum of momentum, before casting out to the waves…

Or glimpses of yellow green sulfurous mud with epoxy bubbles, as if it had lungs…

Warnings of evil spirits on Malaysian beaches: local ghost stories designed to haunt a solo stroller, perhaps to scare this silly Western girl walking alone at night–and me smiling, thinking evil people might be more of a threat… wondering how easy it is to tell one from another… 

I will remember Christine singing that haunting Moire folk song…

The girls giggling an evening away in a mobile tent village beside Thailand’s highway number 4…

& learning about

…everything…

from a young Indonesian man in Charita.

I want to remember the way Arlene’s wordless crocodile games drew scream-and-giggle delight from inquisitive Indonesian children… & to smile as I recall raindrop schools of fish. 

I will remember times with absolute certainty:

“I don’t know what you want…”

He is complaining, tho his smile means he’s pleased with my teasing. 

“We are only playing Johnny. 

Tag you’re it and the chase is on. 

It’s supposed to be fun Johnny.  Come play with me!”

We are sitting on fold-out camp stools, night shadows plotting territory on the white of the truck right behind us. I have his fingers at my lips, denying their calluses and unfolding their grip. 

games in the dark 

a driving force 

 everyone else has gone to sleep

but here, in a stranger’s land,

i am nocturnal

and i am sure of everything

 

…except that

in a flash

the memory is gone….

 

August 2

(?)

Last night:

In the cab of the truck with Johnny

Music thru tinny speakers.

Everyone else  is sleeping

but we are listening

 

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons fills my senses

 

“Did you ever think maybe life is a door?”  he asks me.  “It would be easy to learn how to open the door gently, but it would take a special talent to close it softly behind you.”

 

playing

playing

 

…i have forgotten how to breathe…

the music infects my brain

reflecting our shared space

claustrophobic

anachronistic

too dense to contemplate

*** 

Tonight:

Another sleepless night spent walking the beach alone

We are somewhere on the way back to Bangkok

…on our way to the end…

            & across this ocean

                        somewhere

                                    is my home