Stumbling Around the Third Planet: Travel Journal

Upasika Day

2011-12-02T23:26:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm going to a Theravada Buddhist monastery in White Salmon, Washington (https://sites.google.com/a/abhayagiri.org/hermitage/Blog/upasikadayteachings-december3rd) to participate in a meditation retreat. It's about an hour and a half away, but it'll be worth it. I haven't been in a sangha since before grad school, and now that I've got my degree I've sluggishly gotten back into sitting meditation and reading dharma books. I think the retreat will inspire me to "strive diligently," as the Buddha said on his deathbed.

I just made a pot of kheer (Indian rice pudding) to share; it's something I often take to potlucks, but for this occasion it's particularly appropriate because kheer is what the girl Sudatta gave the historic Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, when he took his ascetism so far that he nearly starved to death. The kheer revived him, and he came up with the Middle Way: a practice that involves neither extreme hedonistic luxury nor ascetism that's so extreme you die.

The theme of the retreat will be the Four Noble Truths. http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/4nobltru.pdf

Museums in Harvard Yard

2011-09-02T20:38:00.000-07:00

Harvard University sprouts out lots of museums. We visited two more of them today: the Museum of Natural History and the Peabody Museum of Anthropology.

We wandered through Harvard Yard (pronounced Haahvaahd Yaahd), with my dad asking directions at least once, because that’s what he does. I’m timid about asking directions, and sometimes I think he overdoes it. I rather think my mother—and perhaps my grandparents before her—have instilled in him a belief that he’s completely and hopelessly incompetent, whether it’s about following directions or using computers or whatever.

I say the above even though my dad’s choice to ask directions of the right person led us to the Museum of Natural History. We took the steps into a big brick Victorian building. The Boston & Cambridge bus tour conveniently covered two days and included free admission to this museum—all we had to do is show our ticket at the admittance counter. In this museum, we wandered through a huge room full of pretty rocks—crystals, gold, amethyst, etc. Some were huge chunks in glass display cases along the walls, and others were small pieces in nineteenth-century wooden display cases lined up in the center of the room. In the midst of all this was a case displaying very large, pointy crystals sticking up…and looking like they came from Superman’s planet.

The other room we explored (and my dad wasn’t nearly as interested in this one) was full of glass flowers and plants crafted by a man and his son from 1886 to 1936. They were Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka, and they made nearly 4,400 of these detailed, realistic, and life-size plant sculptures, entirely from glass. The original purpose of the glass sculptures was to teach botany at Harvard; until then, students only had access to crude papier-mache or wax imitation plants and flowers.

The Museum of Natural History was connected to the Peabody Museum of Anthropology. We didn’t have to go outside to enter it, and we didn’t have to pay for admission, because we’d already gotten into the other museum.

The Peabody Museum has exhibits pertaining to the culture of Mayan and Aztec people and other Native Americans, and of South American cultures. I was especially fascinated by the bright and colorful appliqued projects of the Kuna culture from Panama, and I’d like to make something similar.

I thought about what it must be like to be a student at such a university: you can visit so many amazing museums, without even setting foot off your college campus.

Seventeenth Century Burial Ground

2011-09-01T21:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finally found an open gate to the seventeenth-century graveyard. It was fascinating--tombstones dating to the 1600s, 1700s, and early 1800s. Some were unreadable, but even some of the really old ones were still readable. I especially like the skulls with wings--now I know where Edward Gorey got the idea.

Many of these 17th and 18th century tombstones have charming images of skulls flanked by wings--probably representing the Angel of Death. Some have a face instead of a skull.

Paul Revere's House

2011-09-01T20:36:00.000-07:00

We visited Paul Revere's house--it was built in the 1680s and is still standing. The house has low ceilings on the main floor, a huge kitchen fireplace you could easily lie down in, and one room that’s furnished in gorgeous (Jacobean?) seventeenth-century furniture, the style of the original homeowner’s. The other rooms on display are furnished in late eighteenth-century style, as they were in Revere’s time. The attic is off-limits; it was the many children’s sleeping quarters. Revere was married twice; his first wife had nine children, and after she died, he married again, and his second wife also had nine children. I suspect one or both of them died in childbirth.

Bell made by Paul Revere. If he had made the Liberty Bell, it probably wouldn't have cracked. Inauspicious.

We got lost walking from Paul Revere’s house to the North Church where he sent out a signal. But eventually we found it, a simple white wooden structure with a tall belfry in front. It appears to still be in use as a church. The pews are separated by white paneled boxes with doors on which are plaques describing who is allowed to sit there, such as “Wards and Guests.”

Touring Boston, we passed a couple more graveyards--called burial grounds--from the seventeenth century. Paul Revere and other famous people are buried in them.

Old North Church, where Paul Revere sent out a signal because the British were coming

I just realized Jane Austen would have had a field day writing satire based on my parents. For that matter, so would have Charles Dickens. But they're both dead, so I'll have to do it myself.

Art Museums at Harvard University

2011-09-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

The Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard University is under renovation and won't be completed until 2013. Across the street, the Sackler Museum of Asian and Middle Eastern Art has a few of Fogg's items on display--a room full of modern & post-modern art. The Asian & Middle Eastern art is upstairs--I took pictures of Buddhas, Hindu deities, and some Islamic tile. Gorgeous stuff. I also bought the museum's handbook to see a lot more of the museum's art, most of which is currently hidden away in storage.

Islamic tile

Stairs at the Sackler Museum

A Chinese bodhisattva

Buddha

Hindu goddess Kali dancing on Shiva

Image of one of the Buddha's disciples, probably his buddy Ananda

Pablo Picasso

Georgia O'Keefe

Boston, Cheers, and Antique Shops

2011-09-01T20:10:00.000-07:00

Today my dad and I took a bus tour of Boston and Cambridge. The tour guides/bus drivers were all quite amusing and informative.

The first stop on our tour of Boston was the Cheers bar. It’s in a beautiful neighborhood full of—you guessed it—really old buildings. Years ago my dad had said that Aunt Barbara owned an antique store next door to or around the corner from the Cheers bar, and many of her “customers” were people asking where the bar was located. However, carrying a business card we found at Aunt Barbara’s condo, we discovered that the antique store was located around the corner and down the street several blocks—it wasn’t as close as we had pictured it.

The Cheers Bar, around the corner from Aunt Barbara's former antique shop

Interior of Cheers Bar, in the basement; the restaurant is upstairs.

We came to the address for what was formerly Mayfield Antiques, and it’s now a real estate agent’s office. It looked like nothing but a door in a narrow space—other shops appeared to be on either side of the door, so perhaps the office was upstairs. The agent, probably in his thirties and wearing a suit, happened to be on the doorstep while we stood looking up at the door and the black paneled number “49” above it. He talked with us (my dad, a retired newspaper reporter, can talk to everyone except my mother). He suggested we visit an antique store up the street named White and Crane (I think that was the name), because they had been in business forever and might remember Aunt Barbara and her shop.

We wandered further up the street—lined with beautiful old buildings with lots of paneling and brick and dormer windows and mansard roofs. Many of the shops were antique stores, so the competition must have been fierce when Aunt Barbara had her shop here twenty years ago. We came to the antique shop that had been in business a very long time (two hundred years, by the look of it), but it was closed for a long lunch break. The front was very dark paneled wood with big many-paneled windows displaying an impressive array of antiques.

One of the antique shops had, displayed in its front window, a large wooden cabinet, perhaps a sideboard, which contained among other things several sets of Stafford dogs. Another had a white china cat in the window, and another had a black china dog.

We backtracked to a Tibetan shop I had spotted and drooled over a block away, on the same side of the street as Aunt Barbara’s former shop. The Tibetan shop was in the basement, with its front window visible a few feet above ground. We stepped down into the shop, and I admired embroidered clothing and pillows and a good selection of books, particularly on Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. The owner was a guy probably in his thirties who not only looked Tibetan but was carrying on a phone conversation in what sounded like Tibetan. I picked out three books about Tibetan women and begged my dad to get them for me, which he did. He chatted with the store owner and told him I’d been to Tibet, so we talked about that a little. I also looked around at other fabric items while my dad used the restroom. We returned to the tour bus stop, having decided we’d wait and have lunch someplace other than the Cheers bar because this had been only our first stop in Boston.

Tourists in Cambridge

2011-08-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

Since we're in this beautiful town, my dad and I are now being tourists. We're going to Harvard Yard today to visit a couple of art museums--the campus has a museum devoted to Asian and Middle Eastern art. Tomorrow we're probably going to take the subway to Boston and take a historic trolley tour of the city. So we're probably leaving Sunday or Monday, and I'm hoping we'll visit Niagra Falls and Seneca Falls while driving through NY. So I don't expect to be in Portland before the middle of next week.

Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University: it's under drastic renovation and should be completed in 2013. For now, it's closed.

Sackler Museum of Asian and Middle Eastern Art, Harvard Yard. For now, it houses some of Fogg's collection, a tiny portion of it.

Getting to Know Aunt Barbara

2011-08-30T19:49:00.000-07:00

I just looked through Aunt Barbara’s two passports. She went to Guadalupe and Jamaica in 1981, and she went to France and Montreal, Canada in the 1980s. She was in Montreal in 1982 (March 25); on the same page, strangely, is a very faded stamp that appears to say “Maryland” and has the date of February 4, 1986. Surely she didn’t live in Montreal, Canada for four years—I just talked with my dad about it, and it looks like she visited that particular part of Canada more than once. She was in France in 1986, when she was thirty-nine. She also had an International Driving Permit, to drive in France.

It looks like she arrived in France on 13 Aout (August?), 1986; she has France stamps for Sept 20, 1986 and Sept 30, 1986. She returned to Logan Airport in Boston on Sept 30, 1986. On a separate page is a French stamp for Sept 2, 1986; I’m guessing she had to get her passport stamped in different parts of France, while she drove around. She returned to France in November (18^th, apparently), 1986. Then again, maybe she was still there. The same passport page has “Sept 16” and Sept 20” stamps. One of the French stamps is for “17 Feurier 1987” which probably translates as February and is perhaps when she left France for Boston. Another stamp is dated “26 November 1986” and like all the other French stamps has the name Charles de Gaulle on it, perhaps the name of the airport. In the back of the passport are some stamps that are hard to read. One is an orange stamp, and the place name looks like “Wepenetse.”

On the next page are two purple stamps that appear to say “Warsaw,” with the date of 30.01.93 (January 30, 1993), so I’m guessing she visited the site of the Warsaw ghetto in Poland; this would be appropriate, since some of our ancestors were from there. The date for these stamps is 22.01.93. Under one of them is a faded red stamp for 23APR1986.

The older passport was issued August 21, 1981 and expired Aug 20, 1986. The other passport was issued on Feb 21, 1986, and it expired on Feb 20, 1996.

We also have three copies of her birth certificate, one issued in 1962 and the other two issued in 1971. She was born in the county of Allegheny, in Pittsburgh, PA, on 8/27/1947. Her full name was Barbara Lynn Wiget. My grandparents’ names were Francis Xavier Wiget and Edith Lucille Band (maiden name). Until I read this, I had only known my grandmother’s name as Lucy.

Aunt Barbara had many neatly organized files. They include files of stock dividend information. My dad said she was a combination of charitable and greedy, and I pointed out that in order to make donations, you have to have money. However, she did have an American Express card and an Amazon.com card (and many receipts or some sort of paperwork from Amazon), and she had a Costco membership. She drove a fancy sports car (part of a history of driving fancy sports cars). She lived in a fine old condo full of antiques (but according to my dad, her TV was from the seventies). It seems she had a relatively posh lifestyle, but having stock and getting money from her mother made it possible for her to not only have that lifestyle but also support charitable organizations. Her choice of what to do with her estate is definitely humanitarian and so much bigger than leaving money to relatives. A combination, indeed.

My dad hit the nail on the head when he said, “Her world centered around tennis.” She seems to have had many tennis buddies, and her apartment is decorated with tennis stuff—in particular a collection of tennis rackets hanging on the walls in her study.

Aunt Barbara's Will

2011-08-29T22:37:00.000-07:00

I just read Aunt Barbara’s will, and it turns out that she names a couple lawyers as the executors of her estate, which means they have to deal with all this stuff instead of my dad. That makes things so much easier! She wants her entire estate (all her possessions) to go to “the President and Fellows of Harvard College, a Massachusetts educational, charitable corporation, to establish the Barbara Lynn Wiget Endowed Research Fund at Harvard Medical School.

When I read this to my dad, he said that maybe she had paranoid schizophrenia. I thought she was just manic depressive, but it’s possible. I found in her files at least one article on schizophrenia that someone had sent her with a letter. However, I also found papers—including the autopsy report—about the boyfriend of hers who suicided in 1983. I have a theory that he was the one who had paranoid schizophrenia, but I could be wrong.

In her will, she specifies what she wants done with her body: she wants it cremated (that’s already been done, since her body was found almost a week after she died) and the ashes buried in her niche at Mt. Auburn Cemetery (which we passed on the way from the funeral home). Interesting, she also says that the ashes of Richard (the suicidal boyfriend) are at her condo in a brass urn, and she wants her executor (the lawyers) to “cast the remains” into the Atlantic Ocean.

Here is an excerpt from the will:

ARTICLE FOURTH: I give, bequeath all of my household furniture and furnishings, clothing, personal effects, jewelry, and vehicles, and all other articles of tangible personal property of whatever name or nature owned by me, not otherwise disposed of by this will and not including bank accounts, securities, cash or other intangible personal property, in accordance with any written instructions which I may leave. Any articles of tangible personal property not disposed of by my said written instructions shall be sold and the proceeds thereof disposed according to the provisions of Article Fifth.

ARTICLE FIFTH: I give, devise, bequeath and appoint all the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, both real, personal and mixed, of whatever kind or nature and wherever situated (hereafter called my “residuary estate”) of which I die seized aor possessed or over or to which I may have or own at the time of my death any power of disposition, control or appointment, to the President and Fellows of Harvard College, a Massachusetts educational, charitable corporation, to establish the Barbara Lynn Wiget Endowed Research Fund at Harvard Medical School.

I further direct that the income only from this fund be utilized by the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine to support research pertaining to the understanding of severe psychiatric disorders with special emphasis on the treatment of paranoid schizophrenia.

It’s such a relief to have found and read this will—that makes things so simple. The lawyers have to do all that stuff.

Aunt Barbara's Condo

2011-08-29T21:52:00.000-07:00

The funeral home housing Aunt Barbara's ashes

Today my dad and I went to the funeral home and got Aunt Barbara's death certificate (and met two guys with strong Boston accents, but I didn't laugh). Afterwards we walked to my aunt's condo, met the building manager, Leroy, and looked around. It's a beautiful 1920s building with hardwood floors and paneling, and her apartment is full of beautiful antiques. Leroy recognized my dad’s voice from the telephone, but he somewhat belatedly—after we had already entered the apartment and started to look around—asked to see proof of identity, so my dad showed him his driver’s license and the death certificate.

Front entrance to the building in which my Aunt Barbara lived

Front hallway to the building, with the staircase leading to her condo

The condo smelled musty from having been closed up with no open windows.

The front room is a hallway with a few pieces of antique furniture, including a mirror; there’s a fake fountain attached to the wall (it would look rather more appealing if it weren’t for the unplugged electrical cord). To the right is a small room that was originally a servant’s bedroom, and beyond it is a bathroom. Also attached to the front hall is the large living room, full of antiques and with a large bay window overlooking the Charles River. The condo also has a kitchen that is somewhat larger than a kitchenette (particularly longer) and has a white door leading to a back stairway. Otherwise, there’s a small hallway with a closet, Aunt Barbara’s bedroom, a bathroom, and the study. It’s altogether significantly larger than my one-bedroom apartment, and if you wanted you could have a roommate or a guest bedroom in a condo like that.

But let me back up a bit. In the room that was originally a servant’s bedroom, some of the top layer of floorboards had been pulled up. Leroy explained that this was where the body was. Apparently the body was…attached to the floorboards. I stared at the floor, where the boards were missing and the underlying boards were a slightly lighter color than the rest of the floor. I imagined Aunt Barbara lying there. She must have been in this room, standing up, when suddenly her heart gave away and she fell to the floor.

The living room was tidy, if somewhat dusty. The exception to the tidiness was some stacks of boxes, in particular wine boxes. Leroy explained that those had to be removed in order to get to the body. So Aunt Barbara had been using the servant’s room as a storage room. Actually, it did have some furniture: a small table and chair and a large, ornate cabinet with a padlock. Leroy explained that something important might be in that cabinet, but he didn’t know where the key was. So my dad pointed out that an old-fashioned key was another thing to hopefully find.

Leroy showed us the two small desks in the dining room, both possible locations for important papers, and he showed us the library at the back of the condo. It had one wall completely covered with a dark wood bookcase full of books; two tall windows; a computer desk with both a big old computer from perhaps the 1990s and a very small MacBook, in addition to a printer; some other furniture here and there, and a collection of tennis racks decorating the walls. Leroy explained that this was where Aunt Barbara spent a lot of time.

My dad decided to search the living room desks, and I agreed to search the library. Alone in the room, I looked around and opened the windows before I got to work. It was easy to be distracted, especially by all the books on the bookcase and by thoughts of Aunt Barbara living and dying in this condo. I felt mildly disturbed. I turned to the computer desk vicinity and noticed a tall dark file cabinet, so I decided to tackle that first. I found a binder and some papers on top of it, and these at least partially contained printed e-mails, something I hadn’t seen in a long time.

I set aside one of these papers because of the supposed friend who had sent it and whose contact information was on it; this could be someone who would want to participate in the memorial service and could tell us more about Aunt Barbara. That was a concern, in addition to finding a will: my dad wanted to find contact information for friends and colleagues of Aunt Barbara. They could attend the memorial service and would know more about Aunt Barbara so that, if she didn’t have a will, maybe they could help us figure out what to do with Aunt Barbara’s estate.

I opened the top drawer of the tall file cabinet and started to look through it. All the files I glanced at were research, either left over from Aunt Barbara’s PhD work or research that she did more recently. I looked at the desk and then at a wooden box-like piece of furniture on the other side of the desk. I decided to search it for now and closed the file cabinet.

I found a large stack of poetry, mostly limericks, that Aunt Barbara wrote, and I decided I wanted to not only read them but also type them up.

I easily opened this file box by flipping the hinged top out of the way. At the front was a file containing papers related to my grandmother’s death, including her will, and including information on a lawsuit that Barbara went through. She hadn’t gotten along with her mother and had thought she was being cheated, getting less money than my dad; she didn’t take into consideration that my dad had a spouse and three children, while Aunt Barbara herself was single and had no children. However, my dad no doubt pointed this out to her. She still took legal action—but it was against Bank of America, which cheated both her and my dad of thousands of dollars; I don’t remember the details, but it was related to the estate. My dad has hated Bank of America ever since. Another file contained information on stock, and another file contained Aunt Barbara’s two passports, an international driving permit, and three copies of her birth certificate. I took those out and set them aside with the small stack of papers I had picked out to take. As I went through this file box, I came to the conclusion that Aunt Barbara was extremely organized.

And then I found her will. It was in this file box, about halfway back, and in duplicate, with a cover letter from her lawyer, Michael S. Rosen. Thrilled as if I were Indiana Jones discovering a Bastet statue in a cave, I called, “I found the will!” We had only been in the condo for about half an hour. My dad and Leroy came into the room, and we discussed it. I noticed the stamp date of 1991 on the will (I later discovered she wrote the will in 1989), and my dad said there might be a more recent will, so we continued searching the condo.

Leroy was responsible for over ninety condos and had to go do work elsewhere. He said to call if we wanted to look at Aunt Barbara’s car; it was still parked on the September.

I continued searching the library/study. The room had a closet completely filled with bank boxes full of research on economics and such. Two of the bank boxes contained papers from banks and the like, and I began to look through those. On an antique chair across the room from the computer desk was a pair of bright red cloth shopping bags—the kind typically for groceries—advertising one of Aunt Barbara’s banks. Inside was a matching thermos.

In the hallway, I opened the closet door, and what caught my eye was the top shelf: a row of large stuffed toy animals, two of which were penguins. The rest of the closet was less interesting—sheets and such.

Out of curiosity, I wandered into the bedroom. In the center was a large, dark wooden antique bed, and above it hung a painting of Adam and Eve that’s shaped like the underside of a bowl. Facing the foot of the bed is a large old chest of drawers with a few items on top of it, particularly a small wooden multi-drawer jewelry box that resembled a little chest of drawers. My dad had already looked around this room and said, “Barbara had a lot more rings than you, about a hundred.”

One of the dolls I made as a teen and sent Aunt Barbara

I opened a top drawer and sure enough, it was filled with silver and gold finger rings in a variety of designs. The drawer next to it contained a variety of jewelry, and the drawers below that contained even more rings and other miscellaneous jewelry, some of which was certainly vintage. A necklace that particularly caught my eye was small and filigree-like, with small square red stones; it looked potentially a hundred years old. On the chest of drawers was a rectangular whitish stone box, about an inch by an inch and a half in dimension, with a little lid. Inside are finger rings handmade of seed beads. I tried at least two of them on.

Aunt Barbara had even more finger rings than I, and she was a cat person like me. She hasn't had live cats for a few years, but I noticed a big art book on cats, cat bookplates, and a couple of cat brooches (reminiscent of Doctor Who).

When I saw a tall, narrow shelving unit next to the bedroom door, I gasped. On each shelf was a one-of-a-kind cloth doll that I made when I was a teenager and that I mailed to my aunt when I was about twenty years old. It was one of my attempts to reach out to her. I decided that, since I made those dolls, I was entitled to take them. My dad was filling a sort of casual briefcase—one he found in the living room—with significant papers, and it didn’t have enough space for the dolls. I put them in one of the two bright red cloth grocery bags. Next to one of the dolls was an old black and white photo framed with an assemblage of beads and other little things. The photo was of a little boy between a young woman and a young man. I picked up the picture and took it to my dad. “Is this you?” I asked. Yes: this was my dad and my grandparents! I have no memory of ever seeing my grandfather, who died of a heart attack when he was only fifty years old, years before I was born.

On the other side of the bed stood a very large—about three feet tall—carved wooden African statue, probably a deity or (appropriately) an ancestor figure, since I recall that some African statue are tied in with ancestor worship. In the far corner of the room was a cabinet topped by a glass display case containing two carved wooden African statues, approximately eight inches or so tall each.

Even the kitchen contained antiques, in the forms of rectangular carved wooden molds and kitchen and dining items. A large iron object, some sort of tool, hung on the far wall next to a window. The kitchen seemed spare and spotless to me, and I suspect Aunt Barbara may not have been into cooking. The fridge was practically empty; I was glad my dad checked it, because I was afraid of aromatic science experiments. A few ready-made items were in the freezer.

The capacious living room was a treasure trove of antiques. In front of a rather narrow sofa stood a carved wooden coffee table that looked like it came from India and was topped by a protective layer of glass. On top were art books (including one on cats and one on Japanese paintings), some antique knickknacks, and three porcelain Asian fish, in blue, soft green, and orange. In addition to various antique chairs around the room, there was a long table under the bay window and various items decorated the table. My dad later said that the TV was really old, like one we had in the seventies or eighties. I was particularly fascinated by a very large old cabinet and the various objects displayed on it, especially a pair of old cloth black dolls.

Living room

The dining room had a beautiful and predominantly red rug centered on the hardwood floor. Over it was a table with charming seats, two of which were actually benches vaguely resembling two chairs put together. The small top-lifting antique desks were in this room, as was a china cabinet filled mostly with blue and white porcelain. Along one wall was the head and foot of a bed probably from the early twentieth century; it would have been a good addition to the servant’s bedroom.

My dad said that he found medical records—he turned away from them and didn’t want to see the details—and it looks like Aunt Barbara had a lot of health issues. They both inherited money around 2005, and my dad retired and has had a tendency to drive around the United States a lot since then. Over the past few years, he has repeatedly asked Aunt Barbara to accompany him on his travels, and every single time she’d have the excuse of a health problem or another. It happened so many times that he didn’t take her seriously. But it looks like she wasn’t making it up: her health problems were too real.

My dad and I stayed in the condo for about two hours. When we were leaving, he noticed the chain lock was broken and figured out that Leroy must have unlocked the front door when he figured out something was amiss, and when he opened the door, the corpse stench must have been overwhelming. He must have broken the chain to get in. What a horrible way to die—alone and forgotten.

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

2011-08-29T21:41:00.000-07:00

Charles River, view while driving down Memorial Drive

In front of Aunt Barbara’s condo, my dad asked a guy who was loading his baby into his car which way MIT is. We knew it was up Memorial Drive, this very same street, but weren’t sure in which direction. The guy told us, finished putting the baby in the car, and offered to drive us up there. So we got in his car. It turned out that he was a school teacher. We told him where the administrative building was—that’s where my dad believed we needed to go in order to talk about having a memorial service at MIT. So the guy dropped us off there, and we thanked him profusely before going into the building. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the wrong place: the guy behind the counter gave us a bigger and better map of MIT and told us where we needed to go.

This is a fascinating building we walked past on the campus of MIT

This castle-like structure is probably the oldest building at MIT, from what we saw. Most look like they're from the 1960s.

The place was, oddly, an office in the student center, which was a 1960s building crawling with students and occupied by fast food joints. We walked to this building and took an elevator to the office in question. The two students at the front desk didn’t have a lot of information, other than this was the place to go to schedule an event on campus. They directed us to the office across the hall, where we talked with a much more helpful woman who had worked there for years. She asked us what department Aunt Barbara worked in, and my dad wasn’t sure. She found out that it was the Department of Urban Planning and Development, and she told us how to get there.

Toto, I don't think we're in London anymore. This was inside the student center at MIT.

The building where Aunt Barbara would have worked, but she didn't actually work there.

We crossed the street to a museum-like building: most of the buildings on campus were modern, but this one looked about a hundred years old and neoclassical, with large ionic columns and Roman lettering. We eventually found the right department, on the third floor. Nobody sat at the front desk. We could see someone getting an interview in a glass room, and we noticed someone sitting at a desk down the aisle, so we approached her. While we spoke with her, she directed us to a tall woman who came out of an office. She explained what Aunt Barbara’s real association was with MIT—not remotely what we thought.

Aunt Barbara was a research affiliate of that particular department. She wasn’t actually an employee and didn’t actually work in the department on campus but rather at home on her little Mac book. Mel King (with whom my dad had spoken on the phone quite a bit) was a friend of hers who got her this research work, which gave her health care through MIT, but she didn’t get a paycheck. She did research for him, and he was a Professor Emeritus rather than a regular employee. Unlike her, he didn’t have a PhD. This was surprising, since I remember my dad repeatedly saying that she worked at MIT part time for $10 an hour; we were both under the impression that she was doing this for years.

Although Aunt Barbara was for some time active with the tennis program at MIT, my dad decided it would make more sense to have the memorial service at Harvard than at MIT, since Aunt Barbara’s PhD came from Harvard. Besides Mel King, the people most interested in having a memorial service were tennis friends from MIT. But I agreed with my dad—Harvard was the more appropriate location for a memorial service.

Tropical Storm Irene

2011-08-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Irene has diminished from a hurricane to a tropical storm. Here in Cambridge, since about 7:30 this morning, the wind has been making the trees boogie, and the rain has been mostly torrential. My dad and I are just hanging out inside the posh hotel because of the weather. I didn't even think to pack a raincoat, let alone my Wellingtons.

We took a walk around Harvard Square in the afternoon. My dad commented on the fact that students were out and about despite the weather, but I suspect many more people would be outside if it weren’t for the tropical storm. The worst appears to be over; we saw many loose leaves lying at the side of the road and on the sidewalk, and a few branches have broken off, but it could have been a lot worse.

This is what happens when you try to take a picture through a window during a tropical storm. The windows in the hotel room have a sign saying not to open them.

Branches and leaves--very minor storm damage.

Traveling to, and Arrival in, Cambridge, MA

2011-08-27T20:43:00.000-07:00

My dad and I arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts today! We're surrounded by beautiful old buildings, and just down the street is a seventeenth century cemetery! We wandered into a place called the Harvard Coop, and it's not just a co-op cafe (upstairs) but in particular it's a bookstore for Harvard students. My dad had to practically drag me out.

It's been raining in Cambridge--and we drove through a downpour on the way to Cambridge. It's a bad sign when you're on the highway and see vast numbers of vehicles coming from the other direction, and convoys of utility vehicles are going the same direction you are. Hurricane Irene is supposed to get here tomorrow afternoon.

We drove by Seneca Falls, and my dad didn't know anything about the Seneca Falls convention. I read the Declaration of Women's Rights on my Kindle as we drove by. Maybe we'll visit the Elizabeth Cady Stanton House on the way back. http://www.senecafalls.com/

Historic plaques are everywhere!

Harvard Coop--a big bookstore with a cafe upstairs. The Harvard banners remind me of Hogwarts.

Harvard and the surrounding colleges have charming gates like these. This one leads to Radcliffe College.

View of the seventeenth-century graveyard, or rather burial ground.

In Harvard Square, a shopping center near Harvard Yard--here you see the World News stand on the left and the info booth on the right.

Treasure in Hell

2011-08-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

I found some exciting things in my parents' scary basement: all the photos I took in continental Europe when I was 17, a notebook of things I wrote as a teen, a notebook full of undergraduate notes, an envelope full of scripts from a scriptwriting class (including a Doctor Who ep I wrote), an envelope full of something my now-deceased step-grandfather (on my dad's side of the family) wrote and sent me, and some undergraduate term papers. I've sealed a package to send myself.

Honeycat is a dog trapped in a cat's body. Pet me pet me pet me! Don't go to sleep! Keep petting me for hours!

My Brief Stay in Indiana

2011-08-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

I coughed quite a bit this morning (thanks to my destructive narcissist personality type mother’s smoking, and perhaps also thanks to so much dust) and did it again this evening. I've taken a Wellness Formula pill and a Vitamin C pill and have been gargling mouthwash, so I think I can make it. And the cat is adorable. We're leaving early tomorrow morning!

The dust buster is my friend. I've been using two, especially in my old bedroom (where I'm sleeping). The house is not only cluttered, but the mounds of paraphernalia are coated in a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs hang from the ceilings and walls. The kitchen is especially gross, with grease covering the entire stove top and some counter space; many of the floor tiles are broken. I don’t know how anyone can stand living in such an environment, not to mention eating when confronted with the disgusting sight of that greasy stove and counter. I try not to look at it, though the kitchen is between the garage door and my old bedroom.

Arrival in Indiana

2011-08-24T20:33:00.000-07:00

I'm in Indiana. Actually, I'm staying at the Hoarder's House of Horrors right now. I can't wait to go to Massachusetts.

My dad doesn't want to drive off to MA until Friday morning. I'm not looking forward to a whole day here, especially with my mother smoking cancer sticks and yelling at my dad every time he speaks in her presence. If I get out of here without another respiratory infection, it'll be a miracle.

She's smoking in the kitchen, windows closed. I'm not setting foot in the kitchen again. She single handedly ruined my respiratory system, and now I don't have an appendix to protect me. And since my dad probably would have gotten lost driving in Chicago, they both picked me up at the airport--she smoked five cancer sticks in the car and kept yelling at my dad just like she has for as long as I can remember. OK, that's enough ranting!

Bad News

2011-08-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

On August 18 at a little after 5:30 pm, my dad called. I hadn’t started getting ready to go to a party scheduled to start at 7 pm, and a part of me hoped he wouldn’t talk too long and another part of me wondered what happened.

I picked up the phone and found out: Aunt Barbara was found lying in her condo five or six days after she died. I felt shocked and dismayed at hearing this, even though I never got to know her well—tears welled up in a matter of minutes and I struggled to suppress them. My dad invited me to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts with me in order to do such things as find my aunt’s will if she had one and figure out what to do with her possessions if she didn’t. He said she had spoken of making a will, but he wasn’t sure she had ever gotten around to doing it.

My dad had been on the phone a lot because he was in touch with a bunch of people in Massachusetts: Aunt Barbara’s last boyfriend, Al; the director of a funeral home; the building manager for the condo; and at least one or two friends/colleagues of Aunt Barbara’s. He said he’d call me back for updates and reimburse me for the flight to either Chicago or to South Bend, Indiana (because he lives in northwest Indiana and would meet up with me there).

He called twice the following day, and I went to a local travel agent. I had already gotten my suitcase out of my storage space and started packing.

For Wednesday August 24, I have an 8:45 am flight. I think I'll take Trimet rather than ask someone to drive me to the airport really early in the morning--I'd like to be there probably by 6:45. And I want to leave my car at my apartment.

Write to Publish video

2010-05-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

Watch the Write to Publish manifesto video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrMfwUsMN_g

Get your tickets to the Oolicon: Write to Publish conference May 22 & 23 and learn about the process of getting your writing published. To purchase tickets, please contact the Portland State University box office at (503) 725-3307.

Come see Ursula K. LeGuin and Chuck Pahlaniuk on May 23!

Eastbank Esplanade

2009-09-08T12:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I walked approximately ten miles! I met up with friends on the Eastbank Esplanade, by the statue of Vera Katz, a former mayor of Portland. Most of the group had started the hike at the Oregon Convention Center, but since I live within walking distance of the Esplanade, I simply walked to my meeting place. When we reached OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry), James said that there are nine of us on this journey and one of us must throw the ring into Mount Doom. I raised my beringed hands.

We walked all the way down the Esplanade till it ended in front of the offices of the Portland Opera (where I once had a job interview with the box office) and for a very short distance we had no path and had to follow a sidewalk. I found this a bit weird for a hike, but James explained that the city couldn’t get this one little stretch by the Willamette River. However, it didn’t take us long before we came to an archway above a paved trail littered with cyclists and a few hikers. On the archway were the words: “Springside Corridor."

We continued the trek down this corridor, at first a narrow path, and we continued to look mostly to the right and enjoy the view of the Willamette River and the trees and plants along its bank. We passed the Ross Island Bridge, where the graffiti is plentiful and some of it is colorful and very artistic, so I took a picture. On our left was a chain link fence, and on the other side of it a set of train tracks, and everyone stopped when a calico cat was visible on the other side of the tracks. We were hoping she’d come toward us, but she didn’t; someone had left bowls of cat food and water for her.

Graffiti under the Ross Island Bridge

After the Ross Island Bridge, we came to a sort of lump of land (it wasn’t enough to call a hill) where some not-quite-natural looking rocks sat--large rocks, some of which had a sort of beehive shape with rusty mental bands around them. Some were very flat, good places to sit. There were also concrete walls extending out of the earth and pointing toward the Willamette River. Some of the group did some daredevil climbing here. I on the other hand chose to simply sit down on a rock and rest my feet.

At some point, the right side of the trail was flanked by many many trees. Throughout the walk, there was a lot of conversation, as we broke into twos and threes. I had a long conversation with Sunil, who grew up in India and left it when he was twenty-one, and I told him about my trips to India, Nepal, and Tibet, among other things. I also frequently got into conversation with Kris or James. We came to the Oak Amusement Park (I think that’s what it was called) where there were colorful rides, a disturbing roller coaster, and a carrousel. We had heard kids screaming before we could see any of the rides, and I made up a theory that it was an alien invasion and people were running away in sheer panic, but Kris pointed out that it sounded like joyful screams. If I were screaming on a roller coaster, my screams would not be joyful. I mentioned how when I was eight years old I went with a school group to an amusement park, and a teacher bribed me into riding a roller coaster and I was terrified and had a splitting headache.

Shortly after that, we came to a digital highway sign announcing the trail would be closed on September 5, and some of the group was concerned even though that was two days ago. We kept walking and arrived in Sellwood with no blockade or trench to avoid, and we turned left onto a sidewalk and proceeded up to the quaint downtown area. We passed the bright red caboose, Looking Glass Books, which I have yet to set foot inside because I found out about it while I was job hunting and came to the conclusion that it was too small a store to want another employee. Still, seeing it there I got to thinking it would be fun to just go inside and browse, even given what a tiny store it must be.

Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant in Sellwood

We walked a little further and, as it turned out, the Thai restaurant we had looked forward to was closed for Labor Day, but right across the street was the Vietnamese restaurant, Mekong, that Cathleen had told us about, and it was open. We went in and rearranged the restaurant, putting several small tables in a row. I ordered tofu rolls and peanut sauce and, like most of us, ordered a bottomless bowl of soup called Vegetarian Pho. Fee, fi, pho fum. It was a delicious meal, with great conversation, and I ended up getting a take-home container with a large portion of soup that I placed in my backpack. Backpacks are good for treks like this.

When we stepped outside, the next discussion was about who wants to return by bus and who wants to walk back the way we came. Cathleen and Lindsey decided on the bus (one other person had already left us in order to attend a potluck in Sellwood) and so we were down to only six people walking back to the trail. James of course made another reference to heading for Mount Doom, since our numbers were clearly shrinking. I already felt like a footsore tourist, but after eating such a huge lunch, I felt very full and like I should work off the food, so I definitely preferred to walk.

This time we noticed here and there cat food dishes, some of which were converted plastic jugs on which someone had written with a marker an explanation that these were for spayed and neutered feral cats. James had made a donation to the FCC (Feral Cat Coalition) during the Hawthorne Street Festival; the organization spays and neuters the cats and sets them free. It’s true they’re still out loose, but at least they’re not having kittens and increasing the feral cat population. We saw a couple more cats on this return walk and continued to walk and talk and joke around much like on the previous journey. However, we were walking slower than previously, which was good in my opinion since my walks are usually significantly slower.

A Day on the Oregon Coast

2009-06-29T10:57:00.000-07:00

My foot in the Pacific Ocean

Cathleen rented a car and invited me to accompany her and Sage to the Oregon Coast for a beach party. Of course I couldn’t pass up this offer. We are members of the Vegetarian and Vegan Meet-Up Group in Portland, and other members of the group would be waiting for us at the coast.

We met up in downtown Manzanita, Oregon, a charming little coast town that is surprisingly vegetarian- and free trade-friendly. We explored a little organic market called Mother Nature, which sells vegan bakery items and organic fruit, and we went next door to a Mexican restaurant and had lunch on the patio. A beach was just down the street, so we walked there, looking at various shops on the way. We passed a store called Moxie that specializes in free-trade handcrafted international items, several art galleries, a log cabin with two large dogs lounging on the front porch, a park with many luscious plants, several cafes, a bakery, and a store that specialized in dog supplies.

When we reached the end of the street, we were on sand and sat down on a long rock to take our shoes off. The hot sand felt good on my feet, as we walked further toward the swish-swishing waves. The wind by the ocean was overwhelming, blowing my hair in my face, and Ana, one of the Meet-Up members spending the weekend at a campground, said that they took morning walks, before the wind picked up later in the day.

My feet sank a little in the sand, and I had to pull my feet forward at every step, so that walking even a short distance required considerably more energy than walking on a flat, stable surface. As we came closer to the ocean, the sand was packed and wet, so we walked on its surface instead of sinking into it, and it wasn’t as warm as the dry sand. I walked closer and closer till I was standing in ice-cold shallow water. A wave crashed up and wet my ankles and the cuffs of my jeans.

We drove to the much-lauded yurt in Nehalem Bay State Park. Yurts are cylindrical and very sturdy structures based on Mongolian tents, but those on the coast of Oregon have modern conveniences such as electricity and heating. The yurt was surrounded by numerous other yurts, some of which had patios larger than the actual building. Even this one, with a smaller patio, had two picnic benches out front. Inside was a large bunk bed, a couch bed, and a small table and chairs. The showers and restrooms were in a separate building down a scenic tree-line path.

Inside the yurt, we discovered that Ana had accidentally created a pile of sand on the floor. Fortunately, the yurt came with a broom and dustpan. However, rather than sweep it up immediately, Ana pushed the sand together and Evan commented that it looked like a Zen garden, so he proceeded to rake it with his fingers. I dashed out and picked up three pebbles, brought them inside, and set them up on the raked sand, so it did indeed look as though we had a small Zen garden on the floor of the yurt. Next Evan took out a game piece and set it up as a Buddha. Then Cathleen brought in some twigs and greenery and added them. Each time something was added to the Zen garden, I took a picture. Finally, Evan and I both took pictures of the Zen garden, and someone shined a flashlight on it to add some atmosphere.

We took off our shoes again and walked from the yurt to another beach location. As we walked in the shifted sand and came to dunes with tuffs of grass on either side of us, the scenery reminded me of the Indiana Dunes State Park along Lake Michigan. But as we walked further, the blue and whispering waves I saw ahead of me was the Pacific Ocean, not Lake Michigan. We walked past a sand castle with some resemblance to Castle Carnarvon, and another that looked more like an ancient Indian stupa in the distance. The wind was harsh, just as it was at the other beach, but that was a mild inconvenient compared to seeing the surrounding mountains while watching and listening to the rocking white waves on the bright blue ocean.

We drove to another beach location and parked in a small and packed parking lot where we saw people carrying surfboards. We took a short hike through the woods, on a path alongside the Short Sand Creek babbling over rocks. It struck me as a bit odd to be walking in the woods and seeing surfers carrying their boards across a footbridge. The woods were full of moss-covered trees, so typical of Oregon. An enormous tree had fallen down, and its moss-covered roots lay facing us and looking like a peculiar green sculpture with bits of wood poking out in all directions and green dangling things. Large white mushrooms decorated many of the enormous evergreen trees.

We knew we were close to the ocean when we could hear the waves swish-swishing rather louder than the creek babbled. The tall evergreens began to thin out, and sand lay beneath our feet. Between the trees, we could see mountains and the ocean in the distance, before we stepped away from the trees and followed a much-used path and wooden steps leading down a dune onto the beach.

The stretch of pale sandy beach before us was flanked on either side by tall dark cliffs, and below the cliffs were a few equally dark and dramatic rocks in the water. This was a popular beach, especially for surfers: we continually saw surfers walking by with their long boards, or gliding on the taller waves. I was surprised at the number of dogs on the beach, all of whom clearly enjoyed the setting, as they wagged their tails and ran on the sand or into the water. One black lab played with a Frisbee in the ocean. Meanwhile, I built two more little Zen gardens, mostly from rocks and sand, and an assemblage made of twigs, feathers, and seaweed. I walked into the water, relishing the sound of the whispering waves moving in and pulling back repeatedly, creating a subtle and natural music. The air smelled fresh, salty, and unpolluted. The water was cold, in contrast with the dry parts of the beach, and I watched a stick floating on the waves toward me and then stop in front of me and lie in the wet sand, as the waves retreated and quieted. When I returned to the beach, the group was lying on the beach, and Cathleen handed me a pink towel, so I lay down partially under the protection of a large parasol stuck into the ground. We lay there for some time, before the wind turned the parasol inside out and flapping, with the sun beating on us relentlessly.

As we walked quietly along the beach, heading for the steps that lead back to the woods, I watched and listened to the waves mindfully. They gently moved closer, uttered a crashing sound, and then just as gently backed away and whispered more quietly. The waves have a steady rhythm, symbolic of the circular nature of the world and of time.

On the drive back to the yurt, we stopped at several look-out points. We were on the side of Neakhanie Mountain, in Oswald West State Park. Oswald West was an Oregon governor from 1911-1915, who was responsible for state parks and for creating OR-101 for the sake of letting citizens enjoy the beautiful coastal scenery. The two-lane highway curved along the side of the mountain and occasionally through it, thanks to a couple of tunnels, and the look-out points were small walled parking lots at the edge of the cliff. Looking out, we could see many trees, the ocean, and the beach gently curving along the edge of the ocean, like a scene out of a movie or travel brochure.

Back at the camp grounds, the zip car passed a woman with a cute little dog. The dog didn’t say anything, but I heard the woman say, “Are you the Meet-up Group?” She didn’t look familiar, and I knew from the Meet-Up website that only seven people were signed up, so I thought she must mean a different Meet-Up Group. As it turned out, her name was Kris and she had had not really signed up because of some confusion on the website, but she had posted a comment that she would like to spend just Saturday with us and not spend the night. Since she had been unable to find us all day, Kris and the Chihuahua, auspiciously named Minerva, had spent the day on the beach by themselves, so the trip wasn’t wasted.

She stayed with us for dinner, and as it turned out she is a new member and is also a member of Portland Meet-In, through which she knows our most outgoing organizer, James. We had a potluck meal that included cherries, carrot sticks, two types of hummus (including some that Kris made from scratch), multi-grain organic sandwich bread, tortilla chips and salsa, energy bars, dried mangoes, and amazing gluten-free cookies. Before dinner was over, Evan skillfully started a bonfire, using newspaper, twigs, driftwood, moss, corn husks, and a small bundle of logs that he purchased from a guy driving by in a cart.

Kris, Cathleen, Sage, and I left shortly after dinner. We had spent a relaxing and rejuvenating day along the coast and look forward to other such Meet-Ups. We typically have meet-ups at restaurants in Portland, and Sage expressed an interest in doing more adventures like this one, such as visiting Multnomah Falls and the Gorge. In short, we spent the day well and while it was relaxing it was simultaneously an adventure.

Message from the Giant Pit of Extreme Willful Ignorance

2009-05-12T01:07:00.000-07:00

This is a message I received from my cousin Teddi:

INDIANA: Republican lawmakers object to legislation that funds free breast- and cervical-cancer screenings for uninsured women.
Why?

Oh. my. Goddess.
I grew up in Indiana, and I can tell you it is overrun with Repugnantcans (really, only in this country is the word "republican" a euphemism for fascist, militaristic, war-mongering white male supremacist). Maybe the twits object to any phrase containing words like "breast" or "cervical." I think it boils down to power-tripping: one way to keep poor women down is to keep them from getting healthcare, so they suffer more and die sooner. Mind boggling.

Connecting with Tibet and India

2009-04-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

I did not plan this day to have an India and Tibet theme, honesty. It simply happened.

For the first time, I faced my fear of buses and traveled via public bus to downtown. I didn’t get lost, and the bus drivers were really friendly! Toto, we’re not in St. Louis anymore.

I got off the bus and walked to the Portland Art Museum, where I attended a dharma talk by Shamar Rimpoche. He’s a member of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism, and he’s the second highest-ranking tulku in that lineage, right after the Karmapa. He’s not young and pretty like the present Karmapa, but he knows more and had insightful words to say. The talk was in a small conference room, and the volunteer who spoke said they were expecting a small turnout. Um, not only was every seat filled, but there were people lining the walls, standing in back (with me) and ultimately sitting around on the floor way up front. He talked about the Four Noble Truths and meditation practice. I took notes, although not on everything he said.

All in the same day, I saw Shamar Rimpoche, cooked mung dal from scratch (this is the first time I’ve ever cooked dal from scratch instead of using ready-made dal that comes out of a box or can), saw Slumdog Millionaire for the first (and certainly not the last) time, and was reading In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi and The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar. Additionally, I took the Buddha book with me to see Shamar Rimpoche, and I took The Space Between Us with me to see Slumdog Millionaire, because of course I always have at least one book with me.

Perhaps more past life memories will come back to me after a day like this.

The Hawthorne and Belmont Neighborhood

2009-04-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

Here are photos that I've taken in my new neighborhood. People saw me wandering around with a camera and taking pictures, and they gave me odd looks. That's one way to make an impression on new neighbors.

Bamboo!

The architecture around here is impressive: here's a Victorian house with a tower, and across the street is a stucco apartment building from the 1920s.

Strangely, this looks like a governor's mansion. It's probably a commune.

I thought the plants here were at least as interesting as the house. Later I noticed that the balcony is, um, under construction.

I've seen so many beautiful flowering trees lately. Achoo.

A Japanese archway stands between a house and an apartment building. Japanese garden architecture, particularly gates and fences, are popular in Portland, Oregon.

This is a Chinese temple (presumably Zen) with gold letters on the wall proclaiming it the Buddhist Preaching Association, North America (or something like that).

Quanyin statue in the garden

The neighborhood is full of cats. This particular cat purred and rolled around on the sidewalk and let me pet her.

This is one of many cement sculpture/benches, and it has an acquatic theme. It's in the front yard of a big old house, which might be divided into apartments or might be a communal living situation.

A purple house trimmed with yellow, and with Tibetan prayer flags.

Landscaping is in. Flowers spill out over the sidewalk, like a water fountain made of plants.

This tree looks like a claw reaching up for the sky.

These stones look like Buddhist offerings to me, like on Vulture Peak in India.

A Japanese gate.

A friendly cat and bamboo.

I hope someone fixes up this big old house and moves in.

The Portland Dharma Center, or Zen Center.

Flowers like tiny bells.

This is a strange, twisty plant. (That's not the botanical jargon.)

Daphnes, with a powerful aroma. They're reminiscent of lilacs. I wonder if there's a flower named after Scooby Doo.

An outdoor mural....or impressive graffiti.

The popular Avalon Theater, a combination movie theater and pinball machine arcade. It's quite an experience.

Guesthouse with sculptures in the front lawn.

I'm not sure it's clear in the photo, but this sculpture on the gate includes a bird playing an old saxophone. It's a real saxophone.

This bright and sunny house is at an intersection that has vestiges of paint on the pavement, I think forming a sun shape that used to fill the intersection.

Murals with a Hispanic theme.

More metal fence art, and beyond that is a brightly painted Mexican restaurant and an equally bright bus.

Oozing flowers

Another friendly cat.

This yard art is amazing.

African masks made of found items, such as forks.

Goddess shadowbox. It's not really visible in this photo, but the shadowbox includes a tiny Willendorf Goddess.

Another random pretty house.

Maybe this house was painted to match the flowering trees.

Umbrella-like flowering tree

Salmon Street Writer's Group

I've never seen this kind of plant before, but I've seen several in this neighborhood.

Glorious orange

Tame Squirrels

2009-04-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

While I was taking a walk in my new neighborhood, I stopped in front of a tree that seemed to be full of bird feeders. A couple of squirrels were on the tree, and one of them jumped down and scurried toward me. She stood about six inches away from me, looking up as if she expected me to feed her. I took her picture instead.

While I was out taking pictures of the squirrels, two people came out and I learned that they raised the squirrels. Someone found four baby squirrels at a construction site and brought them to the woman I met, and she bottle fed them. Now they eat all kinds of nuts, right out of your hand. I fed the tamest squirrel a couple of peanuts, and she scurried down the tree trunk and touched my hand with one paw while taking the shelled peanuts.

This squirrel's name is Lucinda (if I recall correctly), and she's had babies. Another squirrel was called Yoda.

A Grand Day Out in Seaside, Oregon

2009-03-29T20:36:00.000-07:00

It seems a few members of the Vegetarian & Vegan Meet-Up Group were scared off by the weather: it was supposed to rain in Seaside, where we were going to collect litter on the beach. It’s an annual volunteer event organized by an organization called SOLV, which stands for Stop Oregon Litter and Vandalism. I figured rain wouldn’t be a big deal; after all, it’s Oregon, so it rains a lot and it’s usually a gentle, calm rain, not the torrential grumbly thunderstorms of Kansas.

It took over an hour to get to Seaside, Oregon, which turned out to be a cute touristy seaside town with rows of old-fashioned flat-fronted wood shops and restaurants. We parked in a lot for free, a couple blocks from the Lewis and Clark statue at a turnaround on Broadway. The statue ends the road, because beyond that is the beach and the Pacific Ocean. By the time we arrived, the rain had gotten to be surprisingly heavy by Oregon standards. We walked in the rain to the beach, and despite the rain and chill I grinned and nearly hopped at sight of the white foamy waves under the grey sky, and the seagulls flying and walking and squawking.

Seagulls

We all met up on the beach and took big white and green plastic bags for collecting litter. Many other people, of more or less all ages, were also slowly walking on the beach in the rain, even though it didn’t look like an especially littered beach.

Many seagulls

We trudged along with our bags and I picked up many tiny bits of bright blue or turquoise plastic and bits of thread or string. I picked up something dark brown and curvaceous that I thought was a broken piece of a bottle, but I later realized that it was a piece of weird seaweed. I often stopped to take a picture or gawk at something extraordinary.

Guess what: even more seagulls.

In addition to the foamy white waves shushing and shushing in the ocean, and the seagulls swooping and gliding and walking along on the beach, I came across countless broken shells and broken sand dollars. I put some of these pieces in my water-resistant coat pocket and found a small white shell that was complete, but I never came across a whole sand dollar. But the most amazing sight, and the most unexpected, was the seaweed.

A walrus-sized pile of seaweed. Weird.

I had no idea that seaweed comes in many sizes and colors. It can be blackish green and dark green and medium green and grayish green and even pink. It can be as thin as the reel out of a cassette tape, or as thick as a boa constrictor. I kept seeing seaweed that was at least four inches in diameter, hollow in the center, and ending in a bulb with many talons sticking out of the top. The first time I saw one of these bulbs, I thought it was a dead octopus. The seaweed looks slick and slimy, of course. All along the beach were swirling arrangements of seaweed in different shapes and sizes. We encountered quite a few huge mounds of jumbo-size seaweed, like beached Cthulhu monsters, or gigantic plates of noodles. James actually arranged one pile of seaweed so that it had a hair of eyes and a mouth: spontaneous outdoor art.

Cthulhu comes ashore, creeping ever closer.

Chili peppers?

Imagine this wrapped around your sushi.

Yummy noodles

Bad hair day

I collected the remnants of fireworks and a few other plastic things besides the tiny bits of blue and turquoise, and some more string and thread, and several cigarette butts, but that was it. I didn’t fill much of the bag. By the time we had been out for, say, forty minutes, it was very windy and the rain was torrential. Someone later described it as like a tsunami. As we headed back, we were walking directly into the wind, and it was a vicious struggle. We were terribly cold, soaked to the skin, and eager to get indoors to a heated and dry place. We turned in our bags, which were certainly not very full, and wandered around the charming downtown of Seaside. We went into a mall with a lively carrousel in the center; the animals included ostriches, light blue sea monsters, and cats with fishes in their mouths, in addition to more traditional carrousel critters. In a toy shop a five-foot-tall sock monkey was attached to the window, as if it wanted to get out.

We went to a beautiful sushi restaurant, decorated with many paper lanterns and silk curtains, and I ate sushi for the first time. I’ve been to a dozen different countries, and here in Oregon I went to a beach on the Pacific Ocean and a sushi restaurant, both for the first time in my life. I went to the bathroom to wash my sandy hands and rearranged my bedraggled hair, taking it down and putting it piled up on top of my head, before I even looked at the menu. After I returned to the table and ordered, I placed napkins on my chair seat and they became utterly soaked, of course. I noticed what looked like a little tea house behind us, with silk curtains in the doorway and straw mats for guests to sit on, around a table over a sunken space.

Lewis and Clark statue (with a shaggy dog at their feet)

We had a pot of green tea with earthenware cups, and each of us held the cups with both hands and savored the heat from the tea, in addition to the taste as it warmed our mouths and throats. The server brought out sushi arranged on leaf-shaped plates and square plates. I’m more familiar with Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese food (not to mention Nepalese and Tibetan) than with Japanese, and I had never tasted wasabi paste before. You’re supposed to use little rectangular dishes to mix soy sauce with green wasabi paste, which is made of horse radish. Then you pick up a sushi wrap with your chop sticks and dip it in the sauce. I discovered that the less wasabi, the tastier. The little rolls of sushi were dainty little works of art with vegetables, nuts, and plums in the center. James had ordered one of every vegetarian sushi dish, and he encouraged us all to help ourselves, and oh we did. I let others take some of the tempera sushi that I had ordered (along with a delicious plate of fried tofu in sauce). Since we were sharing all these dishes, someone commented that it was a communal meal.

After we stood up from the table and were no longer drinking hot tea, I found myself shivering convulsively. The meal was wonderful, but I would have liked the heat turned up more. I was still soaking wet, and remained so until after I got home and took off my wet, sandy clothes, took a steaming hot shower, and was wearing a dry change of clothes. Aside from the cold, wet, and wind, I had a great time. Next year I’ll be sure to have an extra change of clothes in my car and bring my Wellington boots and wear a trench coat instead of a short rain-resistant jacket. I now have raincoats for all occasions.

Another Thing About My New Neighborhood

2009-03-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

I think that people who have long hair and cats should get a discount on apartments with hardwood floors. A big discount. This isn't St. Louis, where apartments with hardwood floors are common. Here you have to pay significantly more for hardwood floors, and it seems like the pretty buildings dating to the 1920s are more costly than these drab 1970s buildings.

But at least my apartment building is surrounded by pretty, brightly painted Victorian houses. And cats. They're all over. I've seen at least five in the parking lot already. It's the neighborhood in general--while I walked to Safeway this afternoon, I stopped every so often to pet cats, and one of them was a Himalayan with bright blue eyes. And yesterday while I was unloading my car and leaving stuff sitting outside my front door, the next door neighbor had their door open with the screen door closed, and a big black cat with yellow eyes sat right in the doorway and watched me in fascination. Soul mate. The call of the Cat Goddess. If people reacted to me the way cats do, I'd already have a job at Powell's Books.

My New Neighborhood

2009-03-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

I'm right in the center of the Hawthorne-Belmont area, so I'm only about three blocks north of Hawthorne, which is full of independent (and in many cases eccentric) stores and restaurants. There are also plenty of bus stops along Hawthorne, so I don't have excuses for continuing to indulge in my bus phobia (it seems to be a combination of fear of getting lost and fear of getting yelled at by a bus driver--I had some bad experiences in St. Louis). Starting probably in April, there's a farmer's market just about a block from my apartment.

I'm planning on applying for volunteer work at a library that I haven't yet visited--it's the Belmont branch, on Belmont and 39th (I'm on Salmon and 21st), so it's within walking distance.

Today I took a walk to Safeway in order to get a jug of honey (I know it's extravagant, but it's for health reasons--my chain-smoking mother messed up my respiratory system during the first almost two decades of my life, so my throat gets clogged up easily). I saw a grey tomcat in the parking lot (I've seen at least five cats in the parking lot of my new apartment complex) and walked down the street past brightly-painted big Victorian houses, one of which has Tibetan prayer flags strung across the front porch and has a front yard almost entirely surrounded by dense bamboo. I came to a corner, turned, petted a big blue-eyed Himalayan cat, then a few seconds later petted a grey and brown tabby with white boots, and soon came to Hawthorne Blvd. Straight across the street was the Grand Central Baking Company (which is kind of like the St. Louis Bread Company), and about a block up the street was a fabric store called Cool Cottons (where I'm thinking I should drop off my resume). On the other side of the street, as I kept walking, there's a fruit and vegetable market in a tent called Uncle Paul's or something like that, with big neon hand-made signs with messages like "Kiwi 25c! Wow!" I was tempted to stop there instead of Safeway, but I decided I'll do that next time. Safeway (a regular grocery store) is on Hawthorne and 27th, a short walking distance.

Walking back from Safeway, I walked along the side of the street that Uncle Paul's Market is on, so I got a closer look, and I walked past the intersection where I had first gotten onto Hawthorne. On almost the corner of Hawthorne and 20th there's a little 1940's era movie theater (where I went with my dad to see the latest Indiana Jones flick) where I discovered they're showing Coraline at 3:30 on Saturday and Sunday. Tomorrow I'm going with the Vegetarian Meet-Up Group to the Coast for volunteer work cleaning the beach, but I'm thinking I'll be going to the movie on Sunday. I read the novel Coraline and am a really serious Neil Gaiman fan--Neverwhere is probably my favorite fantasy novel and I've read it 7 times.

On a previous visit to the new apartment, before I moved in, I noticed a purple and green Victorian house with the sign Salmon Street Writer's Group out front. They have writing workshops and they do cost money; who knows, maybe someday I'll teach workshops there. Further past the writer's workshop is a deadend with a red brick school facing it, and next to the school is a plain park which, at the time, was full of seagulls. I have so got to take my camera there on a rainy day--it seems like I see more seagulls on wet days.

I moved across town to a new apartment!

2009-03-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

And I'm exhausted.

I am now dwelling in Bohemia, or rather the Hawthorne-Belmont neighborhood in Portland. I went on an expedition, tunneling through furniture and boxes full of books to the far corner of the living room in order to set up my computer and phone. Priorities. The Internet is working, but I haven't gotten any calls from telemarketers yet. Still, if I can use the Internet, surely I can use the phone.

After the movers went away, I headed back to my old apartment to do some last-minute cleaning up before my 4 pm appointment with the apartment manager and her husband. Unfortunately, my vacuum cleaner died in the cleaning process, although not because of the long hair wrapped around and around the rolly thing. The clear plastic thing in the center wasn't filling up with dust and cat hair like it should; instead, dust and cat hair were building up inside a hose...and finally it stopped working altogether and I could smell something reminiscent of a hot iron. The managers said the problem is definitely in the big part at the bottom--the section that rolls around on the floor. I'm thinking I'll open it myself before looking for someone else to repair it. I'll probably find a huge, tumor-like wad of hair in the center. It'll wave its tentacles at me and say in a raspy voice, "I am the nucleus!" Well, that was my Doctor Who joke for the day. Sometimes I think I should move to London just so people understand my Doctor Who jokes.

Anyway, the apartment's lovely--slightly smaller than the previous one but with twice the closet space and a location that suits me so much better. I am not a soccer mom. This apartment has a groovy sunken living room with a fake fireplace that serves as an electric heater, and it's got a metal railing separating it from the slightly higher dining room. The two glass display cases flank my dollhouse in the living room, right in front of the railing, so you'll be able to see both sides of most of the sculptures. Unfortunately, there's carpeting rather than hardwood floors, so it's not perfect. I currently happen to be reading a book called The Search for Shangri-la.

Thubten Chodron on the Economy

2009-03-23T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is from a dharma talk I attended at Matrepa College in SE Portland. Thubten Chodron is a Tibetan Buddhist nun and a highly respected teacher. I’ve read some of her stuff and she has helped me understand some important things, psychology-related things.

The Beatles song “Money Can’t Buy Me Love” ran through my head for a long time after this dharma talk.

Living with less, we feel more humble and more equal with everyone else. We can become more generous, because we relate more to people in poverty and can feel more compassion toward others.

Living in a less wealthy situation = great opportunity for dharma practice.
You can be happy living in a one-room shack with a dirt floor.
Abundance of wellness in heart = sharing with others, don’t feel poor even if we don’t have material wealth.

“I give without a sense of loss.”—saying with mandalas. [I certainly felt that way in India and after I returned from India and took carloads to thrift stores, but I didn’t feel that way when I took my youngest cats to a humane shelter, even though it was a no-kill shelter. That was one renunciation for which I was not ready.] It’s hard to give something away because you’re sure you might use it someday (cardboard boxes, containers, etc). Generosity—“we’re reluctant to give away a dusty, empty box because we might use it someday.” We can feel poor when we have a house full of stuff. Inner mental state—no matter what our living standard is, we can feel rich.

Having less could result in sharing with others, bring yourselves together. For instance, a family that has two TVs and watches them in separate rooms can instead have one TV and gather together in the same room. There is extraordinary potential, even with the economy going downhill; families could get closer together and feel more compassion and generosity. [In my case, getting close to relatives is unfathomably unhealthy. No, thanks. I’ll join a commune instead.]

Miserly, greedy mind = what got us into this mess. Living on credit, spending money we don’t have, buying stuff we don’t need. We can’t blame it all on AIG. We bought into it—the consumers lived on credit cards with high interest without thinking about paying credit cards debt. Obscene greed. [There you have it: no amount of pressure will convince me to get a credit card. So there!] Obscene greed = more broken families and alcohol abuse, etc. Getting more and more stuff didn’t make things better. [At the Nalanda architecture museum there’s a carving of a large face with a wide open mouth and hands in the mouth; it symbolizes greed. At the Portland Art Museum there’s a huge disturbing, dark painting that’s also called Greed; it has soldiers with guns, cigarettes, Coca-cola cans, McDonald’s lunches, and they’re shooting guns and killing a wolf and the canvas has a lot of gushing blood on it.]

We used to have black and white TVs, smaller screens, just one TV and the whole family stayed in the same room. Kids now have their own room with their own TV and iPod, etc—they don’t learn how to be a human. Bad economy could be good for us and get us to reach out toward our neighbors instead of locking doors and cutting off.

How else can I spend my time if I can’t run around meeting all kinds of enjoyment? [I confess that last night I went to the Bagdad Theater and saw Slumdog Millionaire, and the ticket was only $3, no concessions.] “I don’t have time” is our national saying. If we had more time people say, “Get a life.” What do you do? Have time to do a daily practice—what happens when your excuse goes away? Volunteering in the community instead of being too busy all the time. If you lose your job, you can volunteer [I’ve been doing that], instead of getting another job you don’t like just for the paycheck and shopping.

A simpler life is a great opportunity to reach out to others, share with others. 20% of the world’s resources = North America (I’m thinking I read that it’s more like 24%). Contentment and dharma practice. When you sit down to meditate, what distracts you? Everything we want? Content with what we have = less distraction while meditating. [Lately I’m distracted with what I’m willing to get rid of.]

This is a good time for us to think about how to prepare for our future lives. If we’re not so greedy in this life, we have time for it. We think of other people: You should be generous, and I’m glad to be you’re recipient. But do we turn it around and try to be generous ourselves? Do we cultivate a stingy heart or a generous heart? This is an opportunity to look at our own personal greed. It’s easy to blame Wall Street, but aren’t we like these people? If we had the position of power, would we do the same thing? It’s tempting to blame everybody else, but it’s good to look inside.

Because of greed and fear, we make up fearful stories about what may happen, getting all stressed out.

Money doesn’t buy us happiness, and the more we have, the more we have to lose.
A German millionaire lost an investment and committed suicide recently. He felt like a failure. Another guy kept watching his stock and seeing it grow and grow and watching it go up and up… from $18,000, it went poof and he only had $150 of his inheritance. He took that money and donated it to a Buddhist nunnery, saying it’s time he started investing in something more meaningful.

We should prepare for future lives, without practicing escapism. In this lifetime, we have to create the cause of a better world. We shouldn’t just pray, but rather take action. Cause and effect—What we’re experiencing now is because of things we did before. One good future life is good, but it’ll end. How about getting out of the cycle? How do I create the case? That’s why we study the dharma—what to do, to actualize spiritual states that we aspire, study and put in practice, create the causes for something you want (like to become a Buddha) = the process becomes joyful and exciting. Causes will bring results.

Being generous is one of the causes. Fortitude, effort, kindness, compassion, lovingkindness. But we have to do something, not just sit around and say that sounds really good.

For people who think they’re a failure for not having a job or not having a house, tell them they’re not. Everything, including the economy, is impermanent. We can encourage them to get new skills so they can go get a job they’ll enjoy more. If you encourage others to think big, you can think big.

We have so many walls around us—there are so many people who scare me, etc. Maybe you should go there—like do volunteer work in that scary area.

It’s hard not to be judgmental toward people who live lavishly. Could you be experiencing jealousy, or perhaps sadness because you know what they’re doing is not working? But when you’re feeling judgmental—you should reflect that “I have the same thing inside myself.” You cannot control what they do, so you should take care of that potential that’s in yourself. Other people’s behavior can help us to reflect and transform ourselves. That judgmental mind is not a happy mind—it’s implanting negativity in our own mind, and this brings about more suffering and negative karma.

Getting together with a friend and gossiping about how bad others are—this is not helping your karma or self-esteem [mindful speech].

Having things isn’t the problem—it’s the attachment and craving. Have things without being attached to them. How can you tell if you’re attached? If you think of something that you have, and the thought of losing it makes you unhappy, then there’s attachment.

Does this apply to loved ones? We’re very attached to someone, and someday we’ll separate—it’s inevitable. Thinking if you hold on good enough they won’t die—doesn’t work. For their benefit—how can I act in a way that will benefit them the most? Does it benefit them if I’m clinging and trying to make them do things they don’t want to do? Maybe it’s better for them to go do something else, go somewhere else. Do you care about them, or about how they make you feel? If you really are, then you let them do what they need to do. This won’t always be the same person that they are right now. They’re just a karmic bubble. You can’t hold onto them forever.

When you have attachment for someone else, how do you deal with grief at parting? Don't judge your emotions—what we feel we feel. But do we want to continue feeling it? Feeling anger: don’t label yourself a bad person for being angry, but ask if you want to continue feeling that way. Move away from grief—don’t always want to feel that way. We shared so much love, I’m going to take the love I had with this person and share this love with the world. It makes you feel so rich, you want to share. Honor the feeling of connection and recognize it doesn’t have to be with one person.

Spiritual Journey and True Self

2008-12-19T11:05:00.000-08:00

Mythology around the world describes a descent into darkness, such as the goddess Innana’s descent into the underworld. She descends deeper and deeper, shedding jewelry and clothing, and it gets darker and darker, and when she ascends back up into the light, she is reborn. The darkness is similar to meditation: meditators don’t just focus mindfully on pleasant things but also on unpleasant, even extremely painful things and disturbing things. You sit there with disturbance in the darkness and observe it closely. Rising up from the darkness is like enlightenment.

My descent into darkness was my deeply depressing and alienating six years of dwelling in Topeka, Kansas. I was rather reclusive and quiet while surrounded by the most hostile community I’ve ever encountered, an androcentric and oppressive place completely at odds with my beliefs and discouraging any possibility of healing. Poisonous relatives verbally abused me to an extreme before I finally stopped having denial about what my relatives are truly like and how I feel about them. As a result—while on one hand I was psychologically traumatized—I analyzed these relatives, and I analyzed and figured out my own past and my own life’s path. Meanwhile I could not sleep without having dreams that involved long white hallways representing the path of my life.

During that time, I sat with the unpleasant and the profoundly disturbing and the deeply depressing. Meanwhile, I could not find my True Self in that environment, which I realized is just the thing my poisonous relatives have wanted all my life: for me to be completely disconnected from my True Self, which most people in this dysfunctional patriarchal society lose in very early childhood. Despite meditation and intellectual understanding, I lost myself and through fear and loathing somewhat regressed to my childhood, to the point that I almost returned to the voluntary muteness of my childhood. Nobody wanted to hear what I had to say, so why should I speak? Nobody would listen to me but would attack me no matter what I did, so why should I speak? In this deeply hateful and alienating environment, I experienced almost constant fear and loathing and had no sense of belonging. I even lost that false sense of belonging in a family to which I had clung for all those years. Despite that regression, I still had wisdom coming through in thin beams of light.

Moving from Kansas to Portland, Oregon, is not only a geographical move but also a spiritual one. I do not mean to imply that when I moved I reached enlightenment and became a Buddha, but rather that I have moved from that poisonous Goddess-rejecting environment, the dark underworld, to a city that is very progressive and creative, supportive of artistic creativity, and rich in fertile soil for spiritual growth. In Portland I have joined a meditation community that is genuinely helpful in the healing process (and more like group therapy than organized religion). Not only the meditation community but much of my experience in Portland, such as my nonviolent communication classes and meeting up with feminists, give me a sense of safety and an ability to say what I genuinely think and feel rather than wear a mask. I have moved to a community where it is possible to find your True Self.

During my first trip to India, an amazing Buddhist pilgrimage, I thought I found acceptance with a temporary traveling sangha, but during my second trip to the other side of the world I came to realize that India, Nepal and Tibet are not ultimately where my path was pointing me. I became all the more eager to head for the west coast, which seemed to be drawing me in. Ever since I graduated from college I have felt an urge to move to the west coast, but fresh out of college I didn’t have the courage to go through with it (even though now it doesn’t seem particularly courageous). I think the healing and supportive energy of the west coast was calling me all along. I don’t believe in “manifest destiny,” an excuse that arrogant white people used for attempted genocide and greed as they moved west in the nineteenth century; this is something very different. If a community just like Portland existed in the Midwest, I still would have moved to it.

Sometimes I think Oscar Wilde wasn’t joking when he said, “Life imitates art.” I don’t know if everyone’s life has a strong plot and so much metaphor as mine. I suspect that since most people are stuck on the most basic need of safety, when it comes to attempting to meet their needs, they are oblivious to their needs and to their True Self. Even if their life does have the potential for a plot and a mythological connotation, they are completely oblivious to it. Actually, I suspect that people who are on that bottom level of needs are at the starting point of the journey and never actually take it. I don’t quite know why some people are truth seekers, while others have no inclination to seek truth.

I'm currently reading a book called Dancing in the Flames: the Dark Goddess in the Transformation of Consciousness, by Marion Woodman and Elinor Dickson. Another relevant book (also published by Shambhala Publications) is The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock.

Snow Ducks

2008-12-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

It's surprising that the ducks are sticking around this time of year. These are pictures I took from my balcony while it was snowing steadily.

I wasn't fast enough to take a picture while they were in flight, flying toward me after I opened the sliding door.

A tree with a couple of squirrels, despite the weather.

I Cannot Stop Marveling

2008-11-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

I cannot stop marveling
at how tall the trees grow here,
like my true self
that family and other bullies
have tried so hard to suppress, to murder.
At last I have found a place
where growth and healing happen.

Portland in Autumn

2008-11-29T00:33:00.001-08:00

Bamboo on the Fanno Creek Trail

I actually took these photos about three weeks ago, and it's high time I post them. Since then, the trees have fewer leaves and the sky has more rain. The ducks are happy.

I don't want to encourage people to move to Portland, simply because many people have been moving here lately, and it's hard to get a job. Very hard.

Holly on the Fanno Creek Trail

Ducks in the swimming pool at my apartment complex (they like the heated water)
The parking lot is under construction on the other side of the pool.

View at the Hoyt Arboritum, where trees are labeled so you know what to call what you're looking at.

Hoyt Arboritum.

Astonishing tree with fluffy red leaves at the Hoyt Arboritum

The photo doesn't do it justice; the bark on this tree is as green as the leaves, but with some red stripes. It's also shiny and looks as if someone painted the trunk, and yet it's natural.

Hoyt Arboritum

View of downtown Portland, from the Hoyt Arboritum

I was in Lhasa on Tibet Uprising Day

2008-08-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Immediately after I got home from a trip to India, Nepal, and Tibet, I turned on my computer, typed up the following eyewitness account, and sent it to the International Campaign for Tibet and various news media. I ultimately also sent it to the president of China and to Amnesty International, and perhaps a few other organizations. The Olympics in China are coming up, and currently the International Campaign for Tibet's website has a letter that you can send to Bush, because he's going to visit Beijing. (I could make a snide remark about how I'm sure someone who's literate will read the letter to him, but I'll refrain.)

Today is March 10, 2008, and I am writing by the light from a hotel room window, since the power is out, as it has been all afternoon, evening, and night. I have spent a week in Tibet, and this is the only day that there has been a power outage, quite unlike Kathmandu, Nepal, where power outages happen at least once a day and last for hours. I suspect that the authorities deliberately turned the electricity off in at least part of Lhasa, just because today is Tibet Uprising Day, when protests against the Chinese occupation are most likely to occur. On this day in 1959, the current Dalai Lama sneaked out of his summer palace, the Norbulingka, and began a long journey to exile in India; two days later, the Chinese bombed the palace and still thought he was inside.

This morning as I equanimously lived in the present moment, practicing my walking meditation around the Potala, the Dalai Lama’s palace which is perched high on a mountain. I occasionally spun big gold prayer wheels set in wooden frames while I observed the pilgrims around me, some of whom greeted me with the words, “Tashe delek,” or “Hello!” I didn’t think much about the fact that today was Tibet Uprising Day. I was the only Westerner in sight, but I wore a Tibetan-style chupa, or dress, like so many of the pilgrims. Some of them wore contemporary clothes, and I saw many women wearing sunhats, but other pilgrims who had traveled far away wore traditional clothing that was often somewhat ragged, and they carried prayer wheels and often had coral and turquoise beads braided in their black or grey hair. I could see different styles of chupas from different Tibetan regions, for pilgrims walked great distances to reach Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. During one of my perambulations, when I reached the back wall below the Potala, I was startled by the sight of a white police vehicle something like an extra large golf cart filled with six cops in formal uniforms as if they had dressed up to join a parade.
I walked around the palace only once before I crossed the street and stood in the center of the drab concrete-paved square, where I took a dead center picture of the Potala, a beautiful sprawling red and white building with flat roofs and Buddhist banners; at the very top, there are ornate pointed gold roofs over the tombs of the Dalai Lamas. Most of the present palace dates to the seventeenth century, and it is all in traditional Tibetan style, with walls slanting inward and with black-framed glass-less windows. The building is thirteen stories high, and earlier on my vacation I had enjoyed a tour and climbed many stairs. I had stood in the courtyard, looked up at the Dalai Lama’s look-out window, and imagined a much younger Fourteenth Dalai Lama looking down upon the courtyard, as he had before he went into exile in India.

Strangely, after my camera snapped a picture of the Potala, a cop seemed to yell at me from some distance, but I didn’t understand what he said. I looked at him for a moment, but he stood perfectly still in the square, so I shrugged, turned around, and took another picture of the Potala, to see what he would do. He didn’t do anything. Since I wore Tibetan clothing, perhaps he had at first mistaken me for a Tibetan. I soon crossed the street and happily circumambulated the Potala three more times. I remained equanimous even when I reached the left side of the building and megaphones blared out music from a shop and advertisements from a cart full of merchandise. I did not feel annoyed when I was at the back of the Potala and could hear pop music blaring from the park that includes the Naga Temple. Under the circumstances, I would have preferred to listen to Tibetan Buddhist monks or nuns chanting.

I was ready to head out toward the Jokhang Temple, when I noticed numerous blue uniforms standing around the street corner, so I jaywalked and moved on. I headed for the vicinity of the Barkhor, an alley or path that circles the Jokhang Temple, the most significant Buddhist temple in Tibet. I had lunch at a café near the temple and went to my hotel room to write in my journal and take a nap.

Around 4:30, I returned to the Barkhor and began a walking meditation around the Jokhang Temple. I was in basically the same mental state I had experienced while circumambulating the Potala. So much walking meditation, perhaps combined with the thin air, is enough to put me in a calm, content, and peaceful mood. In the past week, I’ve walked around the Jokhang and stood on its roof, and this was the first time I noticed police standing around the Barkhor, the paved and crowded circumambulation route for the Jokhang, where pilgrims from all over Tibet walk around and around, much as they do around the Potala. Espying the police reminded me what day it was, but I remained equanimous and continued my walking meditation while out of curiosity keeping an eye out for cops.

Some of the police wore navy blue uniforms: badges, caps, and all, like airline pilots. At first, those were the only police I noticed. I decided to circumambulate six times rather than only three. Next time around, I noticed not only several uniforms but also cops wearing navy blue, with navy blue windbreakers. Both kinds of police either stood around watching the steadily moving crowd or sat on stools or benches around the Barkhor. After that, I started noticing what I suspected were undercover cops, and one of them said, “Hello!” to me like anyone else. I am so sick of that word, which almost every Tibetan apparently knows, but I smiled faintly and said, “Hi.” I only saw three other Westerners the whole time I was circumambulating, and they all looked to be cheerfully shopping.

When I had walked around six times, I was about to depart through the large paved square in front of the Jokhang, when a police siren jolted me out of my walking meditation. A small police van drove onto the square, which is normally reserved only for pedestrians. Like many others, I stopped to gawk, as I noticed two white cop cars and a huge crowd of police in navy blue uniforms standing, many of them forming a wall facing the temple. Brimming with curiosity, I joined the growing crowd, in which I was the only Westerner. This would have been a great time to be fluent in Tibetan, so that I could have understood what people around me said. To the right was a white vehicle and a large number of people gathered; many blocked my view, but it looked like most of that crowd was young, perhaps teenagers, and they were just standing around staring. In front of them stood cops in full uniform.

My first thought was that a political demonstration had begun, even though I had assumed that nobody would demonstrate unless they were suicidal. But as I observed the crowd of cops in the center, most of whom from what I could see formed a line, I thought maybe they were attempting to incite the crowd to riot so that they would have an excuse to get ugly with the crowd. Finally, I came to the much more likely conclusion that this was all a power-tripping display. Nonetheless, putting on this display is just the thing that could encourage Tibetans who believe in freedom and who are loyal to the Dalai Lama to put on a political and hopefully nonviolent protest.

Twice while I was part of this gawking crowd, a cop approached the cluster of people around me and yelled something while holding up his arms as if to push the people in front, and the crowd started to back away and disperse, but other people walked up and took the place of those who walked away. I finally decided that standing around and gawking like this was silly, so I turned away and continued circumambulating the temple and observing the police.

I have to admit that at this stage I was feeling rather less equanimous and was more interested in observing the police than in mindfully walking. Cops still stood or sat here and there around the Barkhor. Walking around the left front side of the Jokhang, I saw a cop standing on a wooden bench and holding onto the roof of a merchant’s booth. Eventually I heard a siren again, but this time I was not in front of the temple but rather surrounded by booths and shops behind the temple. A white police van with a blaring siren moved toward the crowd, counterclockwise, same as the golf cart-like vehicle I had seen while circumambulating the Potala. I have no doubt that this is deliberate, since Buddhists traditionally circumambulate temples clockwise. The crowd stepped out of the way of the police van and gawked. I kept looking back at the van, and it turned around behind me. This senseless driving around with a siren when there was no emergency struck me as ridiculous, and again the phrase “power-tripping display” came to my mind.

On another round, I saw a couple of young monks and maybe two other people standing in front of a wide and colorfully painted gateway, like the driveways to hotel courtyards in Lhasa. I stopped next to the monks and was quite astonished at what I saw. On the other side of the gateway, two white vehicles were parked with their right sides facing the entrance. A couple of little kids in pale blue school uniforms stood in front of the headlights, and next to them stood a military officer in a green uniform. Facing the children and the officer were at least four rows of green-clad soldiers, all squatting close to the ground, as if frozen in that position, and wearing helmets like motorcycle helmets but apparently used for riot gear. This was too bizarre! Nobody was rioting, and I had yet to even see a single protester. After gawking with my mouth hanging open, I looked up in search of a sign over the gateway and soon spotted a little square one overhead. It said “Police Station” in three languages.

I circumambulated a total of twelve times, not stopping till it was about seven in the evening and merchants had begun to take down their merchandise from the booths. I truly did not expect a demonstration to take place and therefore decided I had seen enough. I assumed that the rest of the evening would look much the same: the police and soldiers would continue their power-tripping nonsense, while the crowd would merely gawk and keep walking rather than protest or riot.

2
Today is the day after Tibet Uprising Day, and I have returned to Kathmandu, where the power is of course out; if the power were more reliable, I would go to the Cybercafé, type up my eyewitness account, and e-mail it to the International Campaign for Tibet and anyone else. Under the circumstances, I shall have to wait a few days, till I have returned to the United States.

In the morning, I was in the jeep with the driver and my tour guide on the way to the airport. Along the main drag, Beijing Road, we saw many green military trucks and green-clad soldiers, some still wearing riot gear helmets. The guide told me that monks at Drepung Monastery (which we had wandered around earlier in the week) fought with the military, and laymen joined in. The same thing happened at the Jokhang, perhaps only shortly after I left the Barkhor. I said, “I left the Jokhang around seven.” My guide also said that Drepung is now closed to tourists. On the outskirts of Lhasa, a military convoy was coming out of a base and we passed some of the vehicles; I counted at least nine trucks.

At the airport, a friendly guy in a uniform was stamping my passport and asked, “Was this your first visit to China?” I found the question startling, since I wasn’t in China, but I didn’t see any point in arguing and replied in the affirmative. He then asked, “Did you enjoy your first visit to China?”

I said, “Yes, it’s gorgeous! Maybe next time I’ll learn the language first.” I felt slightly ashamed of not arguing, of not righteously correcting him by pointing out that I haven’t visited China yet. But I do not like confrontation and did not know how to articulate such words. I had to be content with writing my eyewitness account and sending it to the media and to such organizations as the International Campaign for Tibet. It was a small bit of activism, but it was much more useful than arguing at the airport.

Greetings from Kansas

2008-06-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

I arrived at this musty house and threw open lots of windows at about 3 pm, and my Journey to the West (well, the first step, that is) is complete. I'm sweating and tired and grumpy and tempted to turn on the air conditioner even though I don't normally do that before July. There is so much around here that still needs to be packed...or left behind. At least sorted through. I have approximately one month before I'm loading a moving van to take to Portland. I wish I could fastforward and already be in the apartment in Portland.

In Phoenix it was pretty funny when Jennifer was appalled that the gas was up to $4.09 a gallon, when just yesterday it was $4. I said, "Wow, is that all?" thinking of the gas station in California where I spent $4.49 a gallon. The greedy and environmentally destructive oil industry is such a mega motivation to sell my car and use public transportation (not to mention let my feet do the walking).

It's hard to see a computer screen through a cat, so please excuse any typos.

Yesterday evening I stayed at a basic hotel in a Texas town called Darnhart or something like that. The hotel was $5 cheaper than the Econolodge that I stayed at in Albaquerque while traveling out west, but the ice machine didn't work; fortunately the room had a fridge and I filled bottles with water and left them in the fridge overnight.

I've only seen a little of Oklahoma, but what I have seen suggests that it has many towns that consist of a handful of trailers and a mill.

I stopped at a tiny Kansas town to buy gas, even though the location is best known for having the hideout of a famous 19th century gang--the name begins with a D and I've forgotten. Brain fart. Anyway, I decided it would be safe to stop there as long as there aren't any more recent gangs. The pumps were archaic and I had trouble figuring out how to use them; I also had to go inside to pay, because the pump had no card swiper.

It only took me a total of eighteen hours to get from Phoenix, AZ to Topeka, KS.

A purring cat in desperate need of petting and brushing keeps getting between me and the computer. Not pleasant to have a shedding cat rub against your sweaty face.

Departure from Phoenix

2008-06-07T12:03:00.000-07:00

This morning I left Phoenix and drove ten and a half hours. There’s a town in Texas called Dalhart, population slightly over seven thousand people. This is where I-54 turns—I had to turn left onto Denver Avenue, which is also 54 East. There’s a basic little hotel on the corner, as soon as you turn left…and that’s hwere I am. Going to be in a few minutes—though I’ve already lost two hours and the clock says it’s 9”30 though it feels more like 7:30. (Phoenix is on the same time zone as CA and OR, at least for six months of the year.)

Last night, I had the Ikea shopping experience with Francis, Jennifer, and Malcolm, and made a wish list because there’s an Ikea store in Portland.

Last night I also thanked Francis for treating me so well, and he said, “We’re family. Our mom’s side of the family are a bunch of dicks, but relatives don’t have to be that way.” Very true. Living in Topeka and having so much contact with my mother’s side of the family, I’ve become over the past few years accustomed to thinking of relatives as an abomination and as my worst enemies. Francis has reminded me that this doesn’t have to be the case and that I’m generalizing.

I’m so looking forward to being back in Portland!

Dreaming in Phoenix

2008-06-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

I had a dream in which I was walking on a concrete or grey stone path. It had four steps that went down, and I stepped mindfully, and then the path curved very slightly, and alongside it on the left was a long dark wooden arbor with very green plants covering it and covering a wall on the left side. One or two foot tall colorful creatures, like plaster statues come to life, were headed under the arbor and transformed into tiny brown birds, perhaps sparrows.

I woke at 6 am and took a walk from 6:30 to 8 am. When I got back, Francis was still sleeping and Angelkitty was on the bed with him, but she’s a scaredy cat and quickly, after one look at me, got up, jumped down, and hid under the bed.

Back in Phoenix

2008-06-04T11:58:00.000-07:00

It only took me five hours and fifteen minutes to drive from the Los Angeles vicinity to Phoenix, and I only stopped at two gas stations (and my tank was still almost full when I arrived in Phoenix).

As I was leaving the Los Angeles area, there was a dust storm, something I don't think I've ever experienced firsthand. I rolled up the car windows. The trees were dancing and dust and debris was flying at my windshield, and the sky looked sort of foggy in a beigey sort of way. I've read that Tibet has dust storms during a particular time of the year. And then of course there's the Dust Bowl. I went through a great deal of wind and flying debris throughout the trip to Phoenix--it's extremely windy here, at this very moment, and there's a weather advisory out. I mostly kept the car window closed and the air conditioner turned on during today's drive. Besides the wind, there were lots of purty mountains and palm trees.

My brother was at home when I showed up, and I took a shower and changed before we went out and picked up Malcolm (my six-year-old nephew), and we went out to eat at a buffet restaurant called Sweet Tomatoes. Francis had asked me what I wanted for supper, and I said, "Something that involves broccoli and/or cauliflower." Sweet Tomatoes was a good choice--there's a big salad buffet with broccoli and cauliflower, and I also had steamed vegetables that included broccoli and cauliflower. Yum.

I was expecting it to be over a hundred degrees here, and normally it would be about 110 degrees Fahrenheit, but instead it didn't reach a hundred today and is currently 89. When we left the restaurant, it seemed nice out--I'm sure the wind makes it feel cooler, not to mention the sun had begun to set. It's supposed to be 99 on Friday.

Attack of the Mutant Tumbleweeds!

2008-06-03T11:54:00.000-07:00

Now that I have your attention....I thought that subject line sounded better than "Greetings from someplace else in California!" which is what I was about to write. It's actually Corona, CA--I'm at my cousin Teddi's house. I showed up considerably later than I expected, because when I got to Los Angeles the traffic became strangely slow and congested. I guess this city doesn't have a subway system. Hectic. It only took me ten and a half hours to drive from Portland to Val's house a little south of San Francisco, so I showed up about three hours earlier than I expected. For the trip today, it felt like it took me the same length of time. Actually, it took approximately eight hours, not the six that it was supposed to take, but that was in part because the bridge was out on 129, so I ended up backtracking on the highway and using the Mapquest directions; and later on Hwy 46 the traffic came to a complete stop due to construction. I don't really think Mapquest is omniscient, but given that it didn't want me to take those routes, I almost have to wonder.

I had no idea there was such pretty scenery near Los Angeles: I think Los Angeles and the first thing I think of is pollution. Nasty. But no, there are some green dramatic mountains, and something called the Angeles National Forest before you actually get to the city itself, and there's a beautiful lake called Pyramid Lake, probably because of the weird triangular trellised formation in a mountain on the lake. It scarcely looks like a natural formation.

Oh, yes, I have to mention this:

As I was driving toward Los Angeles I saw tumble weeds in a field, and they were bouncing around like gamboling gazels, and since they were approaching the highway, I slowed down...although not quite enough. The tumbleweeds attacked my car! They bounded out of the field and into the highway, and a couple of them hit the front of the car, and one smacked into the windshield and then flew up above the roof of the car. It didn't damage the windshield, but it sure was startling.

Six dogs live here. I'm glad cats don't bark. There's also a black cat that lives upstairs and came mewing down and was all cuddling and purry on the living room floor--actually, he wanted to go outside, but I just pet him and gave him a massage. The dogs bark if I'm on the other side of the gate (in other words, beyond the kitchen), and they even rather oddly barked at me when I was out in the back yard. One of them is a basset hound (I first typed "basset house" perhaps because this is the biggest basset hound I've ever seen). The others are a big poodle and a small poodle and a terrier-type creature and something that looks like vaguely like a Muppet. Oh, yeah, and a Cavalier King Charles spaniel. And there are coi in a little pond in the back yard, and there's an aquarium with some more fish--it's 13 in the pond and 9 in the tank.

Tomorrow I'm planning on leaving at approximately 10 am to head for Phoenix and crash at my brother's apartment again.

More on the Grand Day Out in California

2008-06-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to Val's insight meditation center, and we had a 45 minute sitting followed by the dharma talk from the above-mentioned Sri Lankan monk. He wore brown robes instead of orange, but he had a charming smile. And his voice reminded me of Mukesh--people from Sri Lanka, surprise, talk like people from India. I'm sure the language is very very similar. Anyway, he told us stories about the Buddha that I wasn't familiar with, like the one about a monk who decided to go ask for alms in the evening because that's when people take the time to make rich food. The Buddha didn't argue with him, even though this was against their vows, and when the monk got a bowl full of rich food, someone dumped dirty dish water on him, and some of the water got in the food and ruined it. The visiting monk also talked about his childhood and his dysfunctional family, during a question and answer session, since someone asked about behaving compassionately with her teenage kid. And after all this, we each went up to the monk and he tied a multicolored blessed three jewels ribbon around our right wrist. He had knotted the string by hand, rather like a crochet chain. It reminded me of Sarnath.

Oh, yes, also Val introduced me to a couple people who went on Shantum's pilgrimage previously. And they knew some of the people who I met on the Dharamsala trip--in particular Paula and Richard, Manny, and Kathy. It was one of those "it's a small world" moments. And of course Val and I talked about the pilgrimage and India quite a bit. She and her husband and the couple I met at the meditation center are all going trekking in Bhutan and Nepal, and it turns out that in Kathmandu they'll be staying at the Vaishali Hotel, the one where I stayed.

Greetings from California!

2008-06-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

I'm visiting Val right now, in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, CA. She took me on a tour of a Tibetan monastic community called the Medicine Buddha, which was pretty much out in the woods (like redwoods), with winding paths and prayer wheels and a temple with a big gold Buddha and murals telling the life of the Buddha and children rehearsing for a play. And there are seven special places where there's a wooden sign in front of a bench, and the sign has dharma quotes from a book by the Dalai Lama called Lojong something something. There was also a little pond containing timid little coi.

Then we stopped at a little cafe and got snacks and beverages and took them to the beach, where the water was very blue with white waves along the sand, and we were actually on a cliff overlooking all this, and there was a concrete ship rotting away in view of us, just off a pier. Not a safe place to climb on anymore, rather like a condemned building. I rather enjoyed seeing seagulls and watching doggies playing in the waves.

We went to an idyllic place that's actually a nursery, and it's called the Bamboo Forest (I kept thinking the Bamboo Grove, because that's a place we visited in India, an early monastery of the Buddha's). It had a shop where you can buy bamboo mats and pottery and bamboo fences. There were also paths into the bamboo woods, with a wide range of bamboo--I had no idea it came in so many thicknesses and colors. There was a pond with a waterfall and a gazebo, and in the pond grew what looked remarkably like lotuses. They may have been water lilies, but they sure looked like the lotuses we saw in India.

Tonight I'm going with Val to her sangha, Vipassana Santa CruBhante Seelagawessi who's from Sri Lanka. This is so exciting!

Tomorrow I'll be driving to the Los Angeles area and visiting my cousin Teddi, before I head for Phoenix the next day.

The Rose Festival

2008-05-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the start of the Rose Festival, which is a really big deal in Portland every year: although it isn't June 21, it marks the beginning of summer. Parades and festival-like stuff abound. After waiting by the phone at the hostel for some time, I found out that I was accepted for the apartment, but she was with a client and said she'd call me back. She got really busy and didn't call back, so when it got to be about 1 pm and I was still sitting by the phone (reading my new book by Ursula K. LeGuin), and so I called again, even though I hate to nag, and she apologized profusely for not calling back and arranged for me to come sign paperwork and pay a deposit on the apartment the next morning (which I indeed did this morning). The next time I looked at a clock, it was already 1:30, so I had lunch at the hostel before wandering off.

I walked to the big main downtown library again, this time not getting distracted by astronauts roaming the streets but rather by shops and art galleries. I wandered in but, believe it or not, never bought anything. It's not like I had $2,000 to buy an antique Tibetan cabinet, anyway.

I was walking past a big antique store and noticed, to my astonishment, some brightly painted Tibetan cabinets inside, so of course I had to wander in--the store was full of stuff like that (I tactfully refrained from asking how they got these Tibetan things) and also some stuff from China, India, and Nepal. If I ever become a millionaire, I'm returning to that store. Yeah.

The next place to distract me and lure me in was the Lawrence Gallery, really the back garden entrance, because it was real purty and had a water fountain. So I wandered around in there, and it included a regular art gallery with some fascinating artwork and some more conventional artwork that I didn't find so fascinating (there were a few originals by Salvador Dali and Picasso, otherwise contemporary artists). The other part of the building was a free trade international crafts gallery, and it had lots of enticing things, like handcrafted dolls from Guatemala and puppets from Rajasthan, India. I decided I'd go back there after I, like, move to Portland and, like, get a job. I may have wandered into a few other places after that, but fortunately for my checking account, none of them were bookstores.

I got to the public library, spent one hour there on the Internet, and then headed down Yamhill Avenue all the way toward the Waterfront Park to enjoy the Rose Festival. It was, amazingly, bright and sunny and close to 70 degrees, and it never rained the entire day. I'm not making this up. But I wielded my umbrella anyway. Walking around downtown Portland with a tall cane-shaped umbrella, I feel like I should be wearing a top hat.

There was a $5 entrance fee to get into the park, or specifically the temporary WaMu Village, where there were lots of pavilions and games and roller-coaster type stuff. If you can imagine me wandering around and looking bemusedly at amusement park rides....well, that part was boring. However, there were a couple of stages with live music. Before I got to the live music, I sat through a clown act that was more for children but turned out to be funny anyway, and it including a performing dog.

Attending a concert performed by a group with seven varying xylophones, drums, and gourds was worth the $5. That may sound odd, but it was Carribbean/African music and was quite lively. A local rock band called Amadan (rhymes with Ramadan) was also a delight. They seemed Irish, but they were local Americans anyway. It must be because they included a fiddler or violinist who performed some rather Irish-sounding tunes. And maybe they looked Irish because of their hats, and the drummer wore suspenders. However, their tatoos didn't look Irish. During this Bacchanalian celebration, it occurred to me that the intense guitarist looked like a short Bono sans sunglasses.

There was also a big tent with a dinosaur exhibit, but none of the dinosaurs were alive. I could hear roaring and they certainly looked realistic, though. The tent next to that was full of "exotic animals," most of which had been rescued, but despite the rescue part I found it very distressing to see the toucan, porcupine, and wildcats inside cages and not having enough space. And whenever a marching band went by, I could tell at least one of the cats was annoyed with the noise; Cosette pulls back her ears if she hears a recording of bagpipes, and that was much like the bobcat’s reaction to the marching band. There was a baby Bengal tiger that seemed rather content, and people went into the cage and played with it. How cuuuute! And a bobcat had a grey tabby for company.

Oh, yes, there was also a beautiful view of the river, and after dark fireworks were set off from a barge. (Those of you who live in St. Louis probably think that sounds familiar. I saw many boats before the fireworks, and swish swish of the water and a couple of mallards who like popcorn. While it was daylight and I stood by the water, people on boats waved at people onland.

Anyway, I've paid the deposit on the apartment, and I'll be, briefly, leaving Portland early early tomorrow morning.

Southeast Portland and the Japanese Garden

2008-05-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

This morning I waited near the phone for a long time, and I found out that I've been approved for the apartment! The landlady was very busy with appointments and people coming by (there were like three other apartments available), so it's not until tomorrow, at 11 am, that I have an appointment to sign papers and pay a deposit to hold the apartment.

I've added one more night to my stay at the NW hostel, so I'll be leaving Portland (temporarily!) on June 1st, show up at Val's house that evening and spend at least one night there, before I visit my cousin Teddi in Los Angeles for one night, and then I'll next go to Phoenix and crash at my brother's apartment for a few nights, before I spend one night at a comparatively cheap hotel (probably in New Mexico) and then return to Topeka. And then it'll be the last of my packing and figuring out the moving van thing. My brother and dad will be helping.

I told the landlady I'd move in on July 12, and that's when I pay the rest of the first month's rent. It'll probably take about a week to move out there, like from the 6th to the 12th.

My favorite neighborhood is SE Portland--the Hawthorne Hostel is in the bohemian neighborhood, and I never got tired of wandering there. And the whole neighborhood is like a botanical garden!

I neglected to mention quite a number of things about that neighborhood, but here are some. I ate lunch at an entirely vegetarian Thai restaurant (I'm trying to be frugal, and that was the only time I ate out at a restaurant), sipped tea in the very atmospheric Tao of Tea before going across the street and seeing The Spiderwick Chronicles at the Avalon and looking around at the pinball machines after the film--I thought for sure I'd have a dream about goblins playing with a pinball machine. And I wandered into a cat lover's store and petting a couple of fluffy kitties....well, you get the idea. I also made myself at home in the hostel--it's an old house where each room is brightly and differently painted, and there was a cat, and I attended the Sunday brunch.

I was at the very Zen Japanese garden the other day, and here are some photos I took there.

Astronauts on the Streets of Portland

2008-05-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

While taking a walk downtown toward the library this morning, I passed a door just as someone dressed entirely in astronaut gear, big round thing on the head and all--stepped outside. It was hard to refrain from giggling. When I was just a few feet from the steps up to the front door of the library, I saw a whole bunch of these astronauts. On the back was something about a space museum--it seems they were hanging out in front of the library and advertising for this musuem. After I followed one of the astronauts into the front lobby, I made eye contact with a woman who was amused at the astronauts, and we burst out in giggles.

It's normal to see beggars and punkers and backpackers on the streets of Portland, but this would weird out just about anyone. I think I'm going to like it here.

Tonight I met Ursula K. LeGuin!!!

2008-05-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

Since my apartment application hasn’t passed the test yet, I walked to the downtown public library and spent an hour on the Internet there. Afterwards, I headed back in the direction of the hostel and sat down on a park bench and took out a couple of granola bars and a bag of almonds. A guy crossed the street and walked up to me (or jogged up to me) just to say quite earnestly, “I like your hat and your sparkly bag.” I laughed and thanked him. (I was wearing my Kashmiri hat that I got in Dharamsala and carrying the hand embroidered mirrorwork bag that was one of Shantum’s gifts care of the Ahimsa Trust.) Despite my laughter, he continued to have a serious look on his face and walked away—I hope I didn’t offend him with my laughter.
In Portland I have gotten a lot of compliments and smiles because of my bohemian clothing. Black is very popular here—and sure I used to wear black all the time—but I think the grey skies are a big motivation to wear colorful clothing. Maybe, who knows, after enough people have seen me wandering downtown Portland, I’ll set off a trend.

I met Ursula K. LeGuin!!! Did I mention that? After I got back to the hostel, I should mention, I checked to see if I had any messages by the phone, and I didn’t, so I decided that rather than driving to Beaverton just to go to the library for a job application (Beaverton, incidentally, is a suburb that’s very close to my prospective apartment), I’d wander around 21st and 23rd Avenues, since everyone says they’re great places to wander. Both streets are full of restaurants and bars and fascinating boutiques. Not to mention pedestrians and dogs on leashes. Just the dogs were on leashes, not the pedestrians. Not many pedestrians, anyway.
As I wandered and shamelessly window-shopped, I spotted a shop, in a Victorian house, called New Renaissance Bookstore, which basically is a spirituality bookstore with particular emphasis on Paganism and Buddhism. I wandered all over the store and asked for a job application (I think that was before I noticed a pigeon had pooped on my espadrille) and the woman behind the counter explained that they don’t have job applications—just bring a cover letter and resume, and she gave me the name of the manager to address in the cover letter.

Later, I was walking down the sidewalk again and spotted another bookstore: 23rd Avenue Books. So I crossed the street to go ask for another job application, and I was astonished to see a sign out front announcing “7:30 Tonight Ursula K. LeGuin.” It was about six in the evening at this point. I wondered if that really meant that Ursula K. LeGuin herself would be there or whether it was just a readers group or some fans reading something by her. I went inside and saw a sign, not to mention a pile of copies of her latest novel, Lavinia. I asked about a job application and got much the same answer as before, and like with the other bookstore I mentioned that I won’t move to Portland till July and will turn in my resume then. I also said I’d be back to see Ursula K. LeGuin.

As I continued walking up the street, it occurred to me that I had enough time to walk back to the hostel, use the restroom, change my shoes, and leave the magazines I was carrying behind in the dorm room. So I did all that, walking kind of quickly (though I stopped to pet a couple of happy Dachshund puppies on the way to the hostel).

I returned to 23rd Avenue Books at about a quarter after seven and noticed signs saying “Event” with an arrow, and I noticed a woman carrying the book Lavinia and going into the narrow alley between the bookstore and the next shop. I followed and found myself in a little courtyard with folding chairs, a podium, and a microphone. Several people were already waiting, and most of them had a copy of the book. I went back down the alley and into the store and asked for a copy of Lavinia. When she sold me the book, the woman behind the counter got out circular blue stickers and, pulling one off the paper, said she’s sticking it on the book to indicate that it’s sold. I said, “Oh, I noticed that on people’s books, and I just thought they were library books.”

I returned to the courtyard and sat down about five rows back. I looked around, got up, shrugged, and sat in the front row just slightly right of the podium. The suspense of waiting. A bookstore employee—a young guy in jeans and t-shirt, definitely not in the Barnes and Noble dress code—went to the podium and introduced the audience. He said he would give a bio of her but pointed out that he won’t bother because he’s sure we all know hwo she is, since we showed up here.

And then there she was, a little old lady in a black wool blazer and pants and an orange shirt and green jade necklace—actually, she sat at a little table to the right while the bookseller made the announcement (like, she was about three feet away from me). Oh, yes, he ended by saying, “Here’s Ursula K. LeGuin, so clap and yell to make her welcome.” Yes, he really used the phrase “clap and yell.”

She went to the podium and said that she’d briefly explain what the book is about and then read an excerpt that isn’t at the beginning, so we “wouldn’t get bored.” She added that afterwards we can ask questions, and then she’ll sign books. She said, “the book signing is the boring part for me.”

The excerpt she read was really wow—the book is about a minor character—or rather a character who is only briefly mentioned--in The Aeniad, Lavinia, and it’s all written from her point of view. She was a king’s daughter and her parents want to marry her off and have a list of suitors, but she isn’t interested in any of them because a poet’s ghost (Virgil) meets her in a garden and prophesied that she’d marry a foreigner. Her mother is crazy and threatening and pressuring Lavinia to marry her cousin.

Before she read the excerpt (which she stopped reading at a very climactic moment, to get everyone eager to read the book), she explained that at the age of seventy-five she decided that she wanted to read Virgil’s Aeniad, and she wanted to read it in Latin because that would be better than English. She had taken Latin in college, and now she got out the old Latin grammar books…and found it really boring, so she got a copy of the Aeniad that has Latin on one page and English on the facing page. She got carried away and thus wrote this spin-off.

LeGuin lives in Portland—she said she’s lived here since 1959—and someone in the audience asked her what’s her favorite restaurant in Portland for breakfast. She said that breakfast is a meal that she likes to spend reading a newspaper and not speaking to anybody.

Someone else asked her what direction she thinks Portland is going in the next twenty years. She said that she doesn’t think about the future and that people ask her about the future because she’s written science fiction, but she doesn’t think about it. She said that she’s a born and bred Californian and that she tends to miss California weather—she looked up at the pale grey sky as she said this and added that this evening’s weather is pretty good (in other words, the grey sky wasn’t dripping). She talked about how every city has many people and there will be too many people and a shortage of resources and how we’re currently aware of the oil’s future shortage. But she commented that overall Portland is doing a good job.

I didn’t mention yet: one of the questions was about Lavinia’s mother, the way LeGuin portrayed her, since she’s abusive and nuts in the novel. LeGuin explained that it’s the impression she got from Virgil, and that it’s hardly surprising that she’d go insane, since she was a queen in ancient Rome who’s sons died, leaving her with no male heirs.

LeGuin went on to say that other characters could be insane, too—like Lavinia’s dad, crazy with grief. “Who knows, maybe Lavinia herself was insane. She talks to unborn poets in gardens!” (That referred to Virgil visiting her as a ghost.)
Somebody in the audience said, “So do you!”

When it was time for the book signing (after much clapping) the bookseller explained how she’d do the signing, as she moved back to the little table and sat down. Basically, he explained where the line should snake around. I was toward the front of the line. When it was my turn, I gave her my book and said, “I’m Susan.” As she was writing, I said, “I didn’t know you were going to be here tonight, until I was walking past the bookstore at six o’clock this evening.”
She laughed and said, “Good. That means there was a sign out front.”
So here I am with this autographed book…and I’ve been too busy writing this journal entry to get back to reading the book! But it’s time I go ahead and do just that…

Portland was like a science fiction and fantasy convention all day—from astronauts roaming the streets in the morning, to the spirituality bookstore, to Ursula K. LeGuin’s reading. And given the people you see on the streets at any given time, it’s like a science fiction and fantasy convention every day. When it comes to clothing and personal style, anything goes.
I wandered 21st and 23rd Ave a little more after the reading—it was a late sunset—and I came to an odd gothic-looking tattoo shop that sold a lot more than tattoos. In the front window were dummies in punkish black clothes, and also a mirror display that included Dr. Who action figures: two Daleks and a Cyberman.

Portland, Oregon

2008-05-28T11:28:00.000-07:00

I had a vivid dream that was a disturbing cross between high school graduation/awards night and getting laid off from my job. There were many rows of folding chairs and a podium and it was in what looked like my high school cafeteria—white tile—and next to me was Kelly (from high school). I would say things like, “Aren’t we getting diplomas?” and she would reply, “They don’t do that anymore.”
“Aren’t we getting awards?” I asked.
“They don’t do that anymore,” she said.
What an anti-climax—I felt disappointed. After the ceremony was over, we as a big group of people were walking away, and I was walking away with Karen (one of the proofers at work), and we were talking about my losing my job, and I had that sense of insecurity and uncertainly and fear that I get when I think about my unemployment and how much trouble I could have getting another job.

Later, I showed up at the Art Museum (walked there from the NW Hostel downtown) and mentioned the fact that I was laid off and will move to Portland in July and probably get a job before becoming a museum member. The young woman behind the desk said that she just talked with someone about what it would be like to be laid off, and the response was that it’s “like graduating from high school. You’ve been there a long time and you’re glad to be free, but simultaneously there’s the worry and uncertainty about being unemployed.” Uncanny! I said, “It’s funny you say that,” and summarized the dream by saying, “I had a dream just last night that combined high school graduation with my job layoff.”

The museum, incidentally, is a beautiful place with a lot of contemporary art and a lot of Chinese sculpture--the kind that has been excavated from tombs--but I saw horses and camels much larger than any I've seen at other museums. A horse pulling a cart looked about lifesize. I've switched hostels in Portland because the Hawthorne Hostel only lets people stay for a week...unless they're interns who are working there. Hey, that's not a bad idea.

I'm currently waiting to hear back from my prospective landlady to find out if my application passes muster. If it doesn't, I might drive a moving van to a storage space, drop off my stuff there, and live in a hostel until I have an apartment. After I had already applied for this one, I did come across another apartment building while I was taking a walk--it had a big "for rent" sign and a phone number, and I wrote down the phone number. It was even in my favorite neighborhood, SE Portland, and not far from the first hostel. I really made myself at home there--it's a Victorian house painted in bright colors, and the people were very friendly and from many different places and there was a lot of blaah, blaah, blaah.

The downtown hostel where I'm dwelling now is much larger and not as friendly, but there's free bread and pizza and it's a fascinating old building with tall ceilings and bathtubs that have feet. The NW is also impressive--it's much bigger and more like a dorm than a house, and people haven't been chatty. But every hostel is different. I've been making use of the long tables to sit and read and eat. The Hawthorne had free bagels, donated from Noah's bakery, and there was a wonderful potluck Sunday brunch (the tofu scramble was especially good, and although I didn't cook anything, I did help with the dishes).

After I got the parking permit from the front desk to hang on my rear view mirror, I moved my car. That was yesterday morning, and I haven't moved it since! Lots of walking. I have stopped by at my car, like for granola bars and an umbrella. Portland people don't bother with umbrellas and tend to smile at you when they see you using one. Anyway, the guy at the front desk was very helpful and gave me a good map of downtown that I've been using ever since--it got me to China Town (I had bad vibes there and a crazy guy yelled across the street--the neighborhood is nothing like the one in San Francisco!) and the Chinese Garden (a very beautiful and serene place, and I was nearly locked inside.

I took some photos in the Chinese Garden.

I'm currently registered to be at the NW hostel till May 30, and I'm waiting to hear back from my prospective landlady, whether or not my application is accepted. Suspense. After I find out, I'll go back to the apartment office to sign paperwork and make a deposit to hold the apartment. Apartment hunting is stressful. Anyway, I'm hoping that will be settled by May 30, so that I can be on the move again in a timely fashion.

An Apartment in Portland

2008-05-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

Volunteers for Peace vfp.org (volunteer work in different countries)

At last today I toured an apartment I can truly see myself living in, although it’s not in this rather botanical neighborhood of Southeast Portland, and it’s almost in the suburb Beaverton, close to the city limits. Still, it’s a very green and quiet area, even if it’s more suburban, and the apartment itself will be satisfactory.

The landlady showed me two one-bedroom apartments, all of which are the same size and format. A balcony overlooks trees and bushes and a creek—and a storage compartment is on the balcony. The kitchen is small but more spacious than the others I’ve looked at (the same goes with the apartment in general). The landlady called a small carpeted area, just beyond the kitchen, the dining room, and there’s a big carpeted area for a living room—the balcony is off there. The bedroom is a completely separate room with its own door, and it’s smaller than the big living room and has a wide closet. In the hallway is a closet containing the water heater and enough tiled floor to keep a kitty litter box. The bathroom is small but has a tub rather than a shower stall (the closet-size apartment I first looked at only had a shower stall). This apartment has lots of possibilities, and I still want four tall bookcases. Even with all my books, I can still see it as easy to get all my stuff in this apartment, especially now that I’ve gotten rid of so much.

My plans involve living more frugally, but this will be a challenge.

I’m thinking that if I don’t get accepted for this apartment, then I’ll take the moving van to a storage place and stay at a hostel, as a friend back in St. Louis suggested. Actually, my dad will be with me then, if all goes well, so he’d be able to help out in person. This apartment that I looked at today is about twice as big as my brother’s apartment in Phoenix.

Greetings from Portland, Oregon!

2008-05-20T11:09:00.000-07:00

I'm here at the hostel and the Internet and/or AOL is incredibly slow, so this is just to say I'm here. I drove from San Francisco in one day and am exhausted.

Greetings from San Francisco!

2008-05-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

I figured "San Francisco" would look more impressive than "somewhere near San Francisco." It's a town called Cocati, which is just a little bit north of San Francisco, on the other side of a very long bridge with an amazing view of water and islands and hills and a big long white cloud hiding San Francisco itself.

Anyway, I'm at Marsha's house--she's one of the people I met in India on the second trip and went with to Dharamsala, and she has this amazingly clean I mean beautiful house with a silk rug she bought in Agra, India. And quite a few Buddha statues here and there.

In Phoenix I got my kitten fix: three fluffy little white kittens and one black tabby. Just about six weeks old. Oh, yeah, their mom (a completely white little cat with pale blue eyes--I suspect she may be some sort of purebred) took the babies into Jennifer's parents' yard, and now they're temporarily living with Jennifer.

She and my brother Francis also treated me to lots of great food and a trip to the Phoenix Art Museum, which has some wonderful Sri Lankan Buddha statues. I left my brother's apartment in Phoenix at 6:22 this morning and arrived here at a little bit before 7 pm. That was a long drive. Every time I stopped at a gas station to spend a gratuitous amount of money on gasoline, I felt as though I were in an oven; I think it was at least a hundred degrees everywhere until I got to the San Francisco Bay area. I've gone from looking at cacti and palm trees and sand, to looking at palm trees and sand, to looking at palm trees and lots of green stuff...and even water! There's, like, an ocean here!

I'm exhausted. It's time to stop writing. Tomorrow I'm going to hang out in Berkeley and spend a second night at Marsha's, and the next day I'll drive up to Portland, Oregon.

Phoenix, Arizona

2008-05-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday I began my Journey to the West.

Most of the mountains I saw in New Mexico were sprawled out and squat, but they were pretty colors under the vast cloudy sky: some mountains were pink or terra cotta, and some were striped terra cotta and pale green dotted with dark green shrubs.

After driving for eleven and a half hours the first day, I spent the night at an Econo Lodge on the outskirts of Albuquerque, which was fine except for having Spongebob Crankypants, a grumpy old Irishman, at the front desk in the morning. But there was continental breakfast and a big soft bed. Too soft for doing yoga, I found.

The next day, I drove through some breathtaking landscapes, including what I think was called Prescott National Forest, where the highway curved through the mountains. That must be the first time I ever cruised downhill at 75 miles an hour. Wheeee! (Note: the speed limit was 75, and it actually wasn't raining.)

I reached the "Phoenix City Limits" sign at about one pm Mountain time and got to my brother's apartment about an hour later; my Mapquest directions were a bit whacked and I had to stop for directions. So it took me about nineteen and a half hours to drive from Topeka, Kansas, to Phoenix, Arizona.

It also turned out that I didn't have my brother's current phone number, so it was useless using a tea shop's cell phone, but fortunately someone who worked for UPS had just stopped there. So although I had told my brother I'd show up in the evening, I showed up in the afternoon and camped out in front of his apartment. The guard cats looked out the window and meowed at me periodically. Neighbors walked by and greeted me. I went up a half flight of steps and watched doves fighting on a Spanish tile roof. I went back down and continued reading a book.

It rained slightly (which is weird, since this is a desert and it's not monsoon season). As soon as it stopped raining, huge gusty ornery wind made the palm trees dance and threw dirt in my face. I heard popping noises, looked up at a palm tree on the other side of the swimming pool (yes, my brother's apartment faces a swimming pool) and I saw yellow and orange balloons popping in the tree, and another cluster of balloons flew off and exploded in the air. I guess flying debris popped them.

My brother Francis showed up after 5, and we went out to a pizza place where we met up with my nephew Malcolm and my x-sister-in-law Jennifer, who has lived in Portland, Oregon, so we talked about Portland. Because of the shockingly high rent in the San Francisco Bay I've decided to move to Portland instead, and Jennifer told me about some of the neighborhoods and said she can definitely see me living there. I mentioned the neighborhood that includes apartments that only cost $285 a month, and she said that's a high-crime area. I decided that I'd rather pay $450 a month for rent than dodge bullets every time I step outside.

My brother's apartment actually makes me feel like a clean freak, which is pretty scary since I'm the Anti-Housekeeper; but my brother has a six-year-old son, and his apartment is like a big toy box. Since Francis is working today, I'm going to stay through Saturday and we'll go museum hopping (oh, yeah, and it's supposed to be 96 degrees Fahrenheit tomorrow), and I'll leave Phoenix Sunday morning to head out to the Bay area.

The Beginning of My Journey to the West

2008-05-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

I am in the process of traveling to Portland, Oregon, in order to see how I like it and find an apartment. I’m taking a long route because I’ll be mooching off friends on the way to and from Portland.

Today I drove eleven and a half hours, from Topeka to the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’m at a hotel (Econo Lodge) in a state I’ve never visited before. I started in Kansas and have been to Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico. That’s four states in one day! Well, I’ve read there are thirty-six levels of deep meditation….

Albakoykee—that’s how Bugs Bunny pronounces it with a Brooklyn accent.

It’s so nice to be in a hotel, but it’ll be even nicer to be in Phoenix with my brother Francis. I’m dizzy from driving so long, like after riding a sleeper train in India or the Tube in London or riding a plane across the Atlantic. That constant motion stays with you even after your feet are finally on the ground.

The scenery I witnessed in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas was drab. Boring. Flat Fields and Big Skies. If you drive through western Kansas and the parts of Texas and Oklahoma that I’ve been through today, you’ve got to listen to tapes or CDs, preferably some rocking tunes. Just to stay awake.

After I entered New Mexico I finally encountered some satisfactory scenery. Under the vast sprawling sky was rolling landscapes with green pompoms dotting it—shrubs. Eventually I saw some genuine trees. Finally, I came to mountains, although compared to the Himalayas they scarcely seemed like mole hills. They’re elongated and so squat, it’s as if the fabled ogre/goddess pinned down by the main temples of Tibet finally got loose, got up, and angrily stomped on the mountains. As I got really close to Albuquerque, the mountains were taller and more curvaceous, like about the size and shape of the mountains around Rajgir, India. But of course, comparing the mountain range around me to mountains I’ve seen in the past is not living in the present moment.

Back in Kansas, Toto

2008-03-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

The flight to Kansas City was amazingly brief, in contrast with the long and cramped flight from Doha to Washington DC. I set foot in the very familiar airport and almost immediately spotted Elaine, who gave me a hug and drove me to my house. We talked aoubt the trip—particularly Tibet Uprising Day—all the way to Topeka.

I stayed up till past 5 am, finally typing up my handwritten eyewitness account of Tibet Uprising Day, which I e-mailed to the International Campaign for Tibet, Amnesty International, and a bunch of people I know. I also e-mailed a variation to the president of China and the Chinese chair of the Beijing Olympics. I may or may not be banned from China and Tibet. Oh well. I also have reason to believe it will be a challenge to adjust to the time change.

Airports, Continued

2008-03-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

Now I’m at the Washington Dulles Airport. I was in a really grumpy mood by the time I finally spotted my suitcase. Too many airports and too many airplanes. Next time I’m definitely only going to one country, unless I’m crossing borders in a tour bus or on a ferry. And my luggage is so heavy—but that’s my own fault, thanks to buying so much in Nepal. On the bright side, I bought lots of gifts. I was doing so well until those last couple days in Nepal.

Because of my flight delay from Kathmandu to Delhi, it was after six when I met up with the driver at the airport, and it was almost seven pm by the time we got to the guesthouse. It was already dark out, even if the weather feels like summer. Not the friendliest of drivers, and he spoke English so fast I had trouble understanding him, but I did mention to him how that I wanted to be picked up again at 4:30 am.

The guesthouse in Delhi was really charming—Lutyens Guesthouse—too bad I couldn’t stay longer and see it in daylight and hang out in the garden. There were lots of seats in the back yard and a garden with a plethora of terra cotta pottery and sculpture and the like. My room was in a little, long building out back, facing the house itself, a white bungalow with a row of numerous French doors facing the back yard. The room would have been like paradise to a college student. It was small with white walls and a slanted ceiling with decorative yellow beams. All the fabric in the room—and there was quite a bit—carried out a blue and green color scheme. The window curtains, the fabric under the glass covers of a couple of small tables, the blankets, and a large pillow, the rug, and the chair upholstery were all in blue and green, mostly stripes. The bathroom was all white, with white porcelain tile, and had a white metal wardrobe that I didn’t use.

I woke at 3:45—that’s when I set my alarm. I did some yoga and got dressed and did what little packing I needed to do—and I rolled up and tossed out the black t-shirt in which I had been sleeping. That t-shirt was the last garment I left behind. Gee, maybe I should go ahead and change my socks for the pair Qatar Airlines supplied me with, even though this is so the last leg of my journey—only one more flight left, and so far it’s on time!

At four in the morning, I heard a bunch of peacocks calling. That was probably the only time I heard peacocks on this trip, and I didn’t seen any. It reminded me of the time I heard so many of them on the grounds of the Taj Mahal.

Was it really just this morning? We were at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at 4:50, and the driver wanted me to pay him, and I said, “Oh, I thought the guesthouse was going to add it to my bill,” and after some argument, I just went ahead and paid it, though I don’t know why the guesthouse would say via e-mail that I didn’t have to pay the driver, if I had to pay the driver. Maybe it only referred to the drive from the airport to the guesthouse.

It must have been about 5 am or slightly later when I got to the Qatar Airlines flight 233 ticket counter. The woman behind the counter said there was no record of my ticket in their system. I asked if she could put the record in the system, and she said she could but she’d need a supervisor and asked me to step back and wait till I was called. So I waited till about 7 am—the flight was scheduled for 8:05 am—and meanwhile I stood and waited and worried and bit my nails. I felt so short-shafted and didn’t even know if I’d be getting on this plane.

In short, I was stressed. Finally after the crowd died down, not to mention after I’d been standing by a trash receptacle and repeatedly thinking, “I was here before all these people,” finally I walked up to the counter and said to a different young woman than the one I previously spoke with, “I’ve been here since five, but your records don’t show me in the system.” Like, I bought the tickets back in October and have records proving it, even exact confirmed seat assignments. Since this was India, I strongly suspected that the word “supervisor” referred to someone male (India, indeed--that’s common in the U.S. too), but this young woman asked me if I had confirmed the tickets, and I said, “No, I don’t think so.” Apparently I was supposed to look up the flight to make sure it was on time and somehow confirm my tickets in the process. I thought confirming just meant you look it up online or on the phone to make sure the flight is on time, but she was able to promptly print out my next two boarding passes. Why couldn’t someone have done that two hours earlier?!

But then I had to wait in the endless immigration line. Then I had to stand in line at security—the electricity wasn’t working or something, and this took some time. Meanwhile a disembodied voice announced that my flight was boarding! I didn’t know if I’d make it on time. I got through security finally, behind a screen with a woman searching me very thoroughly and too slowly with a wand. She had me empty my pockets and was very thorough, as if she knew I was running late. I thought I’d never make it. But I did, just barely! I think I was the last one on the shuttle to the plane.

When I got to Doha, I bought a bottle of water—they only sold those small glass ones—and stood in line for security for a while before a staff member told me I had to go to the other counter and get my passport and boarding pass stamped, so I went over to the counter in question and a guy behind a counter did the stamping in question. I then went back to the line and was almost at the very end of it. I saw the signs concerning bottles of liquid and made a point of gulping down the last of my water and tossing the glass bottle into a trash receptacle; the staff member who had spoken to me earlier noticed this, and she thanked me with a smile. After I got through security, I had to hurry to get on the shuttle on time. Some people came on behind me.

Here in Washington DC, it’s chilly and wet. Not warm and dry like it was in Delhi and Doha. Not cold like in Tibet. Not wet and dark, a week later sunny and warm, like it was in Nepal.

I have just one last flight—it’s supposed to arrive in Kansas City around midnight. I hope I don’t have trouble finding Elaine, and that she doesn’t have trouble finding me. She said she’d be at the baggage claim, and she’s been to the Kansas City airport countless times.

In Kathmandu, strange men accosted me on the street all the time, but they weren’t flirting (with one possible exception, when I told a young guy that I would be going to see a dance with my travel agent, and he did a little boogie in place and said I could go dance with him). Here at the airport in Washington DC, this greybeard with a cane, who’s at least as old as my dad, I swear really was flirting with me, and I found this rather annoying. He first spotted me as he entered the shuttle where I was almost the only inhabitant; the airport is so huge that it has shuttles to take you to different terminals. He said I looked puzzled, or something like that; I had been looking at my boarding pass and feeling so tired but aware that I only had one more flight. After we got off the shuttle, the old guy with the cane asked me where I was going, and I was glad to duck into the woman’s restroom.

I’m waiting at the terminal, and ick, there are a couple of guys talking about football. Toto, I don’t think we’re in the Himalayas anymore.

Airports

2008-03-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

I’m at the airport in Doha, Qatar. There’s just a fifteen minute delay on the next flight—it’s scheduled to leave at 11:50—but that’s not going to be a problem—it’s not a drastic enough delay to prevent my getting on the next plane—tap wood.

Yesterday—was it just yesterday?—things went comparatively smoothly at the Tribhuven Airport, or whatever it’s called, in Kathmandu. One of the guys working there asked me how long was my stay in Nepal, and I made the mistake of saying, “Two days,” when really I should have said, “Four days.”

“Why so short?” he asked.

“Oh, I was here for a couple more days, before I went to Tibet,” I said, which really didn’t make it any better. That’s like saying I wouldn’t have gone to Kathmandu if I didn’t have to in order to enter Tibet. So much for my diplomacy. Another male employee asked me if I’d been to Nepal before, and I said yes, and he was happy with that and asked if I speak Newali! He wasn’t the one who was suspicious of my tubular rolled up thangka; but he was fine with it after I explained.

Last Morning in Kathmandu

2008-03-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

It’s a bit after 10 am, and Naresh called me from the lobby to say that the flight has been delayed one and a half hours. Maybe I should run over to the Internet café and send a message about the delay, although I’ve already checked out and my luggage is at the front door. I went ahead and checked out because when he called my room, I figured this time he was an hour early, like yesterday’s driver with the red car. Oh, yeah, it also turned out that his boss sent a message, saying he’s sorry about the dinner engagement. Whew, I’m glad. I said, “It’s OK—I wasn’t crazy about being out after dark. It’s fine with a tour group, but alone it’d be kind of scary.”

Before that, I had a delicious breakfast (except there was no rice, and the fried bread was overdone and crumbled), went back up to my room to brush my teeth, and set out to wander the streets and possibly do last minute shopping. I used up the last of my 1000 Nepalese rupee bills. Shameless. The Horizon Bookshop was still closed, so I went past them. I picked up a Ganesh and Sarasvati at one stand—they were both very very tiny but with lots of detail. I had told the pushy (male, of course) merchant that I was looking for a Bodhisattva statue, particularly Avalokiteshvara, and he insisted in trying to sell me a Shakyamuni Buddha, and I was refusing, when I caught sight of the two little Hindu deities and said I’d like to get them; he still tried to sell me a Buddha also (and I think he was weirded out that I’d be interested in Hindu deities), but I stuck with my choice, despite the pressure to buy something else (something more expensive).

I spotted Barnes and Noble Booksellers—of all places! It was a tiny store that looked very Kathmandu, not very Barnes and Noble; two sides were open to the narrow hectic street, no doubt with roll-up garage doors, and it was a tiny little shop with many piles of English-language coffee table books on a couple of big tables in the center, and with many books and postcards along the walls. I crossed the gutter and went in because this store had the Dalai Lama postcards I was looking for, so I got them and a couple of extras, but then—naughty me—I started browsing in the books, because a coffee table book about Nepal attracted my attention. Next thing you know, I picked out not only the Dalai Lama post cards, but also the book on Nepal and a big coffee table book on Indian embroidery. Naughty, very naughty.

After that, I headed back toward the Vaishali Hotel, turned, and headed back toward the shop where I bought the two Naga statues, because I really wanted an Avalokiteshvara statue, at least for Elaine, if not for me. After being accosted countless times by wallahs and shoe shiners and a little beggar and before this onslaught continued (I swear salespeople in Nepal are truly pushier than in India), I came to the shop, where a smaller Naga was in the place of the large one I got for Elaine. I went inside and saw two Avalokiteshvara statues with a thousand arms and eleven heads each, and they were about the same size as the big Naga. So I got one for Elaine, and one for me. I definitely have done enough shopping and don’t need to do any in Delhi!
Actually, when I get to Delhi, I won’t have time for shopping and just want to relax at the guesthouse. I get the impression that it has good ambiance and I’ll be happy to hang out there. I also have in mind using the last three or four photos in my second disposable camera.
I’ve gone to the cybercafé and sent a message to the guesthouse, and now I’m back to writing in the hotel lobby. It’s about 11 am.

I have little time to dilly dally in Delhi. Actually, I’ll just hang out in the guest house and get some sleep and a shower. I’ll need these things before experiencing many hours of flights and airports.

Incidentally, I had trouble understanding Naresh’s English (that always embarrasses me), and he was a bit…overfriendly, I thought. I realize that when guys in India or Nepal ask, “Are you married?” it doesn’t automatically mean that they’re flirting, but I was still suspicious. Such as when we were leaving the airport and he had his arm draped across the back seat behind me—little things like that. That was his typical way of sitting in the back seat with me, with his arm draped along the back, and I rather wished he’d sit in the front with the driver. In order to get me to look out the window at something, he would tap me on the shoulder; once he reached over and almost touched my hand in my lap, and I quickly moved my hand away. I think that by the time I left Kathmandu the final time, he knew I didn’t like overly familiar behavior. I hope he’s married and has kids, especially since he has my e-mail address.

Later--
Things went comparatively smoothly at the Tribhuven Airport, or whatever it’s called, in Kathmandu. One of the guys working there asked me how long was my stay in Nepal, and I made the mistake of saying, “Two days,” when really I should have said, “Four days.”
“Why so short?” he asked.

“Oh, I was here for a couple more days, before I went to Tibet,” I said, which really didn’t make it any better. That’s like saying I wouldn’t have gone to Kathmandu if I didn’t have to in order to enter Tibet. So much for my diplomacy. Another male employee asked me if I’d been to Nepal before, and I said yes, and he was happy with that and asked if I speak Newali! He probably wasn’t the one who was suspicious of my tubular rolled up thangka.

The Streets of Thamel

2008-03-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

It sounds like a concert is taking place nearby, but it’s not classical Nepalese music: it’s a 1970s American rock song. “Wide world” or whatever—music from my childhood. Eek. I might want to close the window soon. Gary did warn me that I might hear loud rock music from the hotel, although I would have expected ragas or Hindu chants.

Water is something you take for granted in the United States; I drink tap water and shower with steaming hot water. Electricity is another thing we take for granted: in America it’s not an everyday thing to have a generator running or to go for a few hours without electricity or to indeed never have electricity and use a treadle sewing machine. I don’t recognize this song. It’s jamming, whatever it is. I wonder what day of the week this is—I don’t think it’s the weekend.

I left the hotel at 4:30 and wandered the streets of Thamel, perhaps for the final time, unless I do it again early tomorrow morning. It’d be nice to, after breakfast, see if the Horizon Bookstore is open, so I can get the Dalai Lama photos they had with their postcard display. The bookstore was already closed when I went out before five this evening; if they’re not open in the morning, I won’t be heartbroken, because I have three copies of another photo of the Dalai Lama. I’m glad I didn’t get any before I went to Tibet, since they might have been confiscated.

While I wandered through the narrow, dirty, and loud streets of Thamel, I promptly bought yet another fairly large bottle of water, at a little stand run by a Hindu woman in a pink cotton sari. While I was at that stand, a guy bought two cigarettes, not packaged at all but handed to him individually. I kept walking, with the intention of finding the travel agency so that I’d get there this evening, but of course I got lost looking for it. However, I saw plenty of interesting sights and was accosted by many friendly people—all male—most of whom were selling something.
The concert continues. The singer is male, of course—this is such a Boy Land, and I’m so wishing I could go to Herland. If it weren’t for the rock music coming from outside, I’d hear Tori Amos singing in my head: “I need a big loan from the Girl Zone.” The music is distracting from my writing, and I’m a bit on the spacey side; after all, I’m getting on a plane and leaving Nepal tomorrow. Too bad I don’t have a one-way ticket to Herland. (Perhaps I should mention that Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote a novel called Herland back in 1916.)

Anyway, as I wandered the streets and gawked at my surroundings and dodged motorcycles and rickshaws, an old guy with long white hair and beard and wearing yellow robes and forehead makeup—in other words, he looked like a Shaivite priest—came up and sprinkled marigold petals on my hair and put a red bindi mark on my forehead. I smiled and thanked him profusely, and he asked for money, so I gave him a one hundred Nepalese rupee bill (that’s less than two dollars). As he walked away ahead of me, I noticed a beige-uniformed cop accost him, and that made me suspicious that he was just a beggar rather than an actual priest.

I soon spotted a bookstore that sold postcards, including Dalai Lama postcards, which were displayed at the very front of the store, within reach even if you weren’t on the top step. I took three Dalai Lama postcards and stepped in to the counter. A young woman with a round face and a red shawl stood behind the counter, and a guy in a black leather jacket leaned in front of it. They knew about the Shiva “priest,” whom the guy explained is just a beggar from India. I thought that was pretty funny and laughed it off rather than worry about having been made a fool of. (Apparently the fake priest is well-known, because the travel agent, Naresh, knew about him also.) At the bookstore, I chatted with the pair about other things, like about travel in Nepal, and during the conversation I noticed that the young woman didn’t actually participate in the conversation, although I spoke to her in an attempt to get her into the conversation. There sure are lots of friendly people in Nepal…but they are invariably male, unless they’re foreigners. Of course, my experience would be very different if I were actually living with a family in their house; then women would certainly talk with me.

The musician who showed me the way to my hotel last night recognized me at one corner, or rather in a bewildering square with a big map in the center that was actually quite useless for finding your way around the Thamel. We stood around chatting for a while. He asked if I wanted a cup of tea, but I told him I had to go to the travel agency and wasn’t entirely sure how to get there, but he had never heard of it and didn’t know the way there. I had plenty of time but knew I’d be spending some of it getting lost. It turns out that the musician also gives tours in Nepal, in the country. He said that he doesn’t really like Kathmandu (and I said I don’t like Kansas!) and he prefers rural places like Lumbini, where it’s quiet and peaceful and there isn’t all this pollution. The pollution had brought back a little of my congestion after I returned to Kathmandu, but it hasn’t developed into another cold. I gave the musician my e-mail address (funny, the guy at Bhaktapur also asked for my e-mail address—maybe I’m giving it out too much).

During our conversation, the first female merchant I’ve seen came along. She was young, tall and skinny, and I seem to recall her wearing a red sari, or at least something that was red. She was selling passport bags like the one I have, and I smiled and showed it to her, admitting that mine is worn out and has a hole in it. She pointed out that the passport bags she had had thicker black cloth inside, while the black cloth inside mine was very lightweight and translucent. She asked me where I got it, and I said that I ordered it out of a catalog in the States. The bags are made of colorful striped cotton on the back and brocade on the front, and a narrow string forms a loop to go over your head. My old one is royal blue, but I purchased from her a bright red one for one hundred rupees. She wanted me to buy at least one more, but I didn’t. I suppose, in hindsight, I could have gotten a couple more bags to give friends. Too late now. I feel better buying things from women than from men.

A tall and skinny guy who was wandering the street trying to sell a little wooden travel chess set noticed my purchase and tried to sell me a chess set, but I was firm. It was quite like when I bought pottery in Bhaktapur and other merchants took that as a sign that I spent money easily and would allegedly buy anything. At least one more merchant may have attempted to sell me something there, while I conversed with the musician on the crowded street. People were constantly walking past us, and it was noisy with traffic and voices.

While I stood around at the edge of the narrow street, chatting with the musician, and traffic and pedestrians passed by, a little beggar child came along, even though begging is highly frowned upon in Nepal, and the musician told the kid off, but to no avail. The little boy followed me around and occasionally tugged my sleeve, but I was determined to not give him money, because it’s Nepal, not India, and both of us could get in trouble with the police. The back of the customs form, when you arrive in Nepal, says not to give to beggars, so they mean business. When the fake Shaivite priest was with me, a cop had spotted him and chased him off, right after his little ritual with me. But I felt guilty for not giving something to this beggar child, for the boy was obviously desperately poor, with his dirty clothes and his messy, brownish hair pointed in all directions.

It’s weird, but eventually, after wandering totally lost and confused, I saw the travel agency office with about ten minutes to spare—it was 5:50 pm. Whew. Naresh spotted me through the front window and waved, and I waved and smiled back and went in. We had tea and I paid for the driver and tour that I had in the morning. Naresh said that he had shown up at the hotel at ten and was surprised that the driver and I were already gone. I said I was surprised too, and I asked him if he knew why the driver was so early, but he didn’t understand why. I remembered that Binod had said he was a friend of the driver’s, and it occurred to me that the driver just wanted to make sure Binod gave me the tour. I’m glad he did, because he was a much better tour guide than Naresh would have been.

I was concerned because the manager was not present, and he had invited me to the dinner theater thing, which I imagined would be traditional or classical Nepalese music. I was more nervous than excited about this; if I were with a tour group, or had brought a friend, I wouldn’t mind staying out after dark, but when it’s just me, that seems a little crazy. Naresh didn’t know about the invitation, and the manager wasn’t there, so after I had babbled on awkwardly attempting to make conversation (something I’m not good at), it was a relief to leave at about six thirty. I even headed out in the chaotic traffic while it was already getting dark, and I went back to the Vaishali Hotel with some relief at the prospect of quiet and solitude in my hotel room. I didn’t know how I could fill in the half hour with more awkward conversation, only to find that the manager didn’t show up. I had assumed he would be there when I showed up at six, so that I’d get business done and then head over to the concert. Uncertainty took over, and I left early.

I think part of the reason I get so lost in Thamel is the chaotic traffic. I’m trying to get somewhere or trying to go in the right direction while simultaneously getting confused and distracted by the beeping and zooming traffic and the continual threat of getting hit by a vehicle. In addition, the Thamel district is like Bodh Gaya in that the streets have no names. I have an eye for detail, such as colorful puppets (particularly a demon or deity with a bright green face) hanging from the eaves in front of a cluttered shop, or carved wooden masks lined up in front of another shop, or a doorway filled with brightly painted thangkas. But I’m not getting the whole picture, certainly not as if the layout of the streets were a map. I doubt a map would have helped, since there are no street names.

Here I am in the hotel room and the concert is still going on—it’s a male singer—and I’ve been listening. I’m sure I’ll still be able to hear it when I close the window. Between songs, I hear beeping traffic.

The music stopped, and I hear voices from down below, beeping and zooming traffic, and pigeons cooing above.

It’s almost nine and I’m thinking it’s time to go to bed. What an old fuddy-duddy. Really, being around people exhausts me so much. I started going to bed early in Dharamsala, after I came down with a cold, and I haven’t stopped since. The cold went away shortly after I arrived in Tibet, but after I got back to Kathmandu, I started coughing again; undoubtedly this is pollution-related. That proves I could not live in Delhi; to think that until this trip, I had silly fantasies of living in India for a couple years.

While it’s nice that people are friendly and chatty here, I can’t help but notice that only men are chatty. I haven’t really chatted with any women—they tend to be rather quiet. Very quiet. But who am I to talk? I’m an introvert myself and am not in the habit of talking to strangers any more than I must. Nonetheless, speaking almost exclusively with men triggers a sense of isolation, a sort of loneliness. In India, I was always with female sangha members, unlike here. As Tori Amos put it:

Boys on my right side,
boys on my left side….
I need a big loan
from the girl zone.

In Tibet, I think women would have been chatty if we had shared a common language. It seems that in Tibet both men and women are socialized to be outgoing and to chat with strangers. It would have been a really good idea to learn Tibetan before going, although it was only a one-week visit. The Tibetan Children’s Village teaches Tibetan, Hindi, and English from an early age, so it’s easy to communicate in Dharamsala, but in Tibet it’s a different story entirely. It’s a different world.

Bhaktapur, Nepal

2008-03-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

I vaguely know I had a dream in which there was a bunch of people, yet once again I didn’t write it down. I woke at 5 am and haven’t gotten back to sleep, but that’s hardly surprising: I went to bed at about 8 pm, even though I recovered from my cold. I first lay reading a Jataka Tale, until the power went out again. Looks like the power is out now—it happens very frequently, not just afternoons and evenings as I thought before. Oh well; I’m probably not going back to the Cybercafé. Electricity is too unreliable.

I hear crowing, and the sky looks to be pale grey. It’s 6:45 am.

Later:

This morning I was looking forward to sightseeing in Bhaktapur, which is actually a separate town from Kathmandu but still in the Kathmandu valley, to the east of the capital. The driver was already at the hotel at nine o’clock in the morning. Actually, he was there earlier; as I left the breakfast buffet, a guy who worked for the hotel accosted me and asked if I was sightseeing this morning, and I said yes but not till ten, and he indicated a small red car in the parking lot (interestingly it looked a lot like my car back in the States). I misunderstood because I knew for certain we were to meet up at ten this morning. I thought it must be a mistake; that it was someone else’s driver, and I went back up to my room, saw that it was only 8:38 am, and brushed my teeth and all that.

Shortly before nine the phone rang, and a woman at the front desk said that my driver for sightseeing was waiting in the lobby. Puzzled and still believing it must be a mistake, I went down and made sure it was the right driver, the one for Bhaktapur; I pointed out that it wasn’t supposed to be till ten, so the woman behind the counter confirmed my room number, and it was indeed the correct room number. He was the right driver: a short bald guy who probably had a recent death in the family, since he was not only bald but also wore white from head to toe. He was shorter than I and wore a white jacket, white jeans, white polio shirt, and a white cap, Western clothes rather than, say, a dhoti and kurta, and he was indeed the driver for the little red car.

He knew very little English and all the Newari I know is “Namaste,” the same as in Hindi. He didn’t seem to be in a good mood, perhaps because I made him wait, but I could be exaggerating. In hindsight, he probably wasn’t so much brusque or bad-tempered as incommunicative because of the language barrier.

On the subject of language, yesterday not only the crazy streets but the transition from “Tashe delek” to “Namaste” was something of a culture shock. The only thing the guy said to me on the way to Bhaktapur was “This is the Pashnuphati Temple,” referring to an impressive white domed Hindu complex that Naresh had already explained to me while we rode to the Boudhanath Stupa. The driver’s silence was welcome, as I sat gawking out the window at the lively scenes outside the car; it’s nice to not be awkwardly attempting to make conversation.
The car eventually went down a narrow and bumpy street (a common thing in this part of the world), and I was fascinated by the sight of a large group of Hindus gathered at a temple with large black racks full of burning and flickering candles. Someone inside the temple had offerings: leaf plates on which people placed flowers and candles much like the ones I remember the sangha placed in the Ganga River while we were on the boat last year.

Soon the car passed on the left the remains of an old Hindu temple; it had steps with some stone animals on either side of them. Many people were bustling about and plenty of vehicles sat around, and the car turned and parked next to another vehicle. I got out of the car after the driver did, and the first thing I saw was a large white gate in front of us. A tour guide came along, a skinny young man, with his hair in a ponytail, wearing dark Western clothes: jeans, denim jacket, black T-shirt and a baseball cap, as if he were in a park in Chicago.

Actually, it seems like in Nepal Western clothes are much more common for guys than for women; I suspect it’s due to the societal double standard that insists that women practice modesty but doesn’t insist the same thing for men, combined with the assumption that Western women are immoral and that Western women’s clothing isn’t modest. I could point out that if I’m wearing a neckline that shows my collarbone, then it’s a low neckline by my standards, but of course I’m a Virgo personality type and dress more modestly than most Westerners; I don’t even like short sleeves or dresses that stop above my ankles. It occurs to me that Nepalese men might think I’m immodest or at least very bold because I’ve gone by myself to this foreign country and walk the streets alone; I’m really not sure what people here must think of female tourists like me, although in Kathmandu they’re accustomed to us. The thing that makes me weird is that I’m an American at a time when Americans don’t want to come to Nepal because they think it’s too dangerous.

The tour guide, Binod, said I had to go to the ticket booth and pay to get in, so I did so and got a pretty parchment-like ticket as a souvenir, along with a complementary little brochure about Bhaktapur. Since the disposable camera I picked up in Tibet was down to only five pictures, I stopped at a camera shop immediately to the left of the big white gate. What looked like a box containing a disposable camera was in fact an empty display box. The male sales clerk (for everyone I interacted with here was male), another little guy, had to get on his bicycle to go get me a disposable camera! It didn’t take him long, not more than ten minutes.

The guide introduced himself as Binod and said that he’s a student and is studying art and architecture. I greeted this info enthusiastically; smiling and saying that’s very appropriate. After all, I majored in visual art during my first year of college and have always had a fascination for architecture and interior design. This fascination for architecture is what drew me to Bhaktapur.

After we walked through the imposing gate, Binod explained that Bhaktapur has different styles of temples: Pagoda, or Sikara (the steep Indian domes). If you look at the pagoda temple roofs at the right angle, they’re shaped like the Nepalese flag, with two triangles, one above the other.
We headed straight toward a pagoda-type temple with two rows of stone animals flanking the steps, a common theme in Bhaktapur. To the left of this temple hung a huge bell, larger than the Liberty Bell but similar in shape. The bell used to be rung in order to deliver news to the town. As Binod pointed out, “Now they have newspaper, TV, radio, and Internet.” There’s also a golden king sitting on a golden lotus throne high above, stuck atop a metal column. It looks precarious, but he’s sat up there for centuries. Just below the lotus throne, a snake or naga curls around the column and hisses. Further to the left of that is the golden gate that used to lead to a palace; it was largely destroyed during an earthquake in 1934.

Beyond the golden gate, the most fascinating thing to me was the Sundari Chok, which translates as “beautiful courtyard.” It is indeed beautiful, with sculpted mythological creatures all around the edges. In the center of the courtyard is an algae-filled rectangular tank, around the edges of which are realistically carved stone snakes. A tall metal snake was centered facing the tank, on one end, and below it was a shiny gold metal spigot consisting of an open-mouthed fish with a couple of other critters, including a rat, on top of it. A king used to bathe here. The lush detail of all these critters was my favorite part of the appropriately-named courtyard.

From another courtyard we approached a Shakti Temple where photography is prohibited and where only Hindus can step inside, but it was OK for me to stand in the doorway and peak inside. Once a year—I find it shocking that this is still done—but once a year one hundred eight animals are sacrificed inside this temple. I refrained from vocally criticizing this tradition, though I’m sure I widened my eyes in dismay. Coming to think of it, my mouth also dropped open. It’s just the sort of thing that unfortunately is likely to give us Goddess-worshipers a bad name. And Gandhi probably wouldn’t have kept quiet about his disapproval: I remember reading in his autobiography that he was appalled at the bloody goat sacrifice going on when he visited a Kali temple in the early twentieth century. Yet this sort of thing still happens. I realize that goddesses like Kali represent both life and death, but this is an example of misusing religion. A temple should not be a slaughterhouse.

The building has a beautiful façade, and when the architect completed it, the king had his hand chopped off so that he wouldn’t be able to come up with a more beautiful piece of architecture for someone else. I found that shocking also, although the story sounded familiar—perhaps in relation to Shah Jahan and the Taj architect. Above the doorway of the Shakti Temple is a wide and elaborately carved wooden design with figures reminiscent of Boudhanath Stupa and also with Nagas and creatures curving around, also flanking the doorway, not just above it. Above are huge eaves consisting of more carved figures and coming to a point. It was really magnificent. There were the usual elaborately carved wooden windows, and at the jutting corner of a roof I saw a creature facing outward with an open mouth, and below it hung a bell.
Oh, yes, I’d like to point out that while I was on a pagoda-shaped temple, I looked up and saw that hanging from the eves were bells with bodhi-leaf-shaped ringers, just like at the Great Stupa in Gyantse, Tibet. And like that stupa (which was part Tibetan style and part Nepalese style, with the Nepalese big Buddha eyes overhead), we entered the beautiful courtyard through a low door, so that when people go through the door they’re automatically bowing.

Binod gave me a fascinating yet disturbing explanation for the carved wooden latticework that fills traditional Nepalese windows. In addition to the ornamentally carved wooden window frame, the window is typically filled in with elaborately carved wooden latticework. It has to do with the caste system, how women from certain castes were expected to be cooped up indoors most of the time (if not all the time) and it was considered immodest for them to be seen. With these latticework windows, women could peek outside, but anyone looking at the window can only see darkness inside and cannot really see inside the house. I felt sorry for all those women with cabin fever for so many centuries; sure, it’s nice to be inside and work on projects, but it’s also great to go out, walk, and explore. Not to mention raise hell.

It occurs to me that modern Western society still harbors a similar attitude, even if it seems more subtle. If you’re female, you’re brought up to believe it’s not safe for you to go out at night; young males, on the other hand, go out at night and get gunned down on city streets. And if you’re a female walking outdoors in daylight, you can expect to be harassed. If power-tripping white male politicians and religious figures had their way in America, women would be indoors all the time, confined to their houses because they are too busy bearing and raising children and not allowed to have birth control or abortions; that is a disturbing aspect of the world that Bush-supporters are attempting to create. Of course, if they succeeded in destroying the world in warfare, there wouldn’t be any women alive to stay indoors and be baby-making machines, but of course I don’t expect Bushworld to make any sense. I could go on and on about women’s stunted lives over the centuries, but that would fill volumes.

Binod took me to the Pottery Courtyard, where very skinny women in cotton saris set up countless rows of pots to dry in the sun, in a courtyard. I would not be surprised if that courtyard contained over a thousand clay pots. We crossed this courtyard and Binod showed me the huge oven where the pottery is baked after it has dried in the sun. It was amazing, a long mound of what looked like smooth dirt, the oven slanted backward and I could see smoke coming out of two spots at the back. In front of it we had passed people working and displays of more pottery, and one guy was making a pot on a huge wheel reminiscent of the film Little Buddha (which, incidentally, was partially filmed in the complex of temples I visited in Bhaktapur, Binod said). I’m going to have to watch that film and spot Bhaktapur, even though Rachel thinks it’s a terrible movie. Indeed, it put more emphasis on the supernatural stuff, unlike Thich Nhat Hahn’s novel Old Path, White Cloud.

While we stood looking at the oven, a merchant walked up to me and displayed a pottery fish-shaped candleholder that hangs from a string of clay beads, and it occurred to me that it would be a good gift for my parents, so I went ahead and bought it for only 250 Nepalese rupees. The guy led me back to his shop to wrap it, and it turned out that he was also selling clay Buddha statues, several inches tall, for 100 rupees—this was a lot cheaper than stuff you can get in Thamel, and it was all made by hand, with plenty of detail. Purchasing pottery in the Pottery Courtyard supports local families. So I also bought a Buddha, and the merchant gave me a little one-inch tall Buddha for free.

Unfortunately, another merchant noticed my purchasing stuff and was eager to sell me a statue or a singing bowl, and another guy with a pole across his shoulders, from which hung baskets of chives, wanted me to buy from him. Yes, Nepalese merchants are at least as pushy as Indian merchants. The situation struck me as comical, and I laughed aloud; Binod was puzzled and asked what I was laughing at, so I felt silly, but I explained, “I buy something from one merchant, so everyone wants to sell me something.”

We afterward went to the Thangka Lama School of Painting, which has six teachers and forty-five students. Indoors, the corridors were very narrow. We entered a room where male students had the thangkas stretched out on frames and were painting them; it reminded me of the Norbulingka Institute in Dharamsala, but the room was much smaller and didn’t have huge glass windows. We also went into another room, where Binod and I sat on rug-covered benches facing a long table in the center of the room. Thangkas covered the walls. The head instructor, who of course was another guy, gave me a talk while showing me some amazing mandala thangkas.

One of the thangkas was painted by a forty-six-year-old lama who’d been painting thangkas for thirty years already! I hope he isn’t going blind. The painting was an amazing World Peace Mandala designed by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama himself. I gasped when the teacher explained this. The outer rings represent the five elements—and the Dalai Lama added a sixth element, Wisdom, which the outermost ring represents. The teacher also showed me a book on the making of the World Peace Mandala, showing the Dalai Lama beginning the original sand mandala in the same design. I actually bought the thangka—for $540!! But as Binod pointed out, it’s something very special, like diamonds; furthermore, it truly moved me. I intend to hang it in a very prominent location, under glass. I think I’ll carefully break the news to my dad, since I was spending his money, that he gave me for the trip! But the money goes to support not only the artist who painted it, but also the school.

On the drive back from Bhaktapur, I noticed that Kathmandu doesn’t have motor rickshaws but tuktuks, three wheeled vehicles that look a little too big for only three wheels and that have a seat for the driver in front and two parallel benches in back, facing each other, so that passengers are in effect sitting sideways. It looks like they can hold as many as ten really skinny people.

Back to Kathmandu

2008-03-11T23:54:00.000-07:00

The time difference in Kathmandu is like two and a quarter hours from Lhasa, so I’ve gone back in time slightly.

I’m in the hotel room and it’s about 2 pm. I’m exhausted. It’s a culture shock: Lhasa seemed so clean and orderly compared to the chaotic streets of Kathmandu. I don’t think this city is meant to have so many cars! It has lots of bikes and motorcycles, too, but it has so many more cars than an Indian city, or at least it certainly seems to. And the streets of Thamel are medieval—narrow, winding, potholed—and everything’s crowded together.

I met up with the travel agent, Naresh, and he gave me some beautiful postcards to entice me to tour Bhaktapur, and it worked—I came up with 10 am tomorrow as a good time to meet up at the hotel. What the heck, I may as well do a little more touring while I’m in Nepal. I also intend to get a statue or two for Elaine (and probably for myself!) and some Dalai Lama postcards. Elaine, as I may have mentioned, is the coworker who will be picking me up at the airport in Kansas City.

The lights all suddenly came on! I’m tempted to go to the Cybercafé but like Naresh’s manager pointed out, I should take it easy and rest today, because of the transition from Tibet to Nepal. It’s like suddenly returning to India after visiting Tibet. Just the change from “Tashe delek!” to “Namaste!” is startling. However, I might want to just lie down and mindfully breathe for, like, half an hour, because there’s noisy construction going on really close by, like next door, and there’s no way I’m going to sleep through that.

Walking from the travel agent’s office, I got lost again! It’s embarrassing to admit I could be so stupid. It seems like such a simple walk. But the streets are so chaotic and bewildering, and they have no names. After a week in Tibet, Kathmandu seems crazy, chaotic and noisy—I thought the blaring megaphones were bad, but here there’s constant honking and zooming of motorcycles! In Tibet, the steering wheel is on the left and they drive on the right side of the road, just like in America; and although they still honk more than Americans, it’s not like in Nepal and India, where they don’t get a lot of use out of breaks.

A musician showed me the way to the hotel, and I thought I should pay him, and I bought his CD; he tried to sell me his violin-like musical instrument first. He seemed nice, but I was paranoid because of my experience with the rickshaw driver last time I was here, but I’m thinking the musician didn’t rip me off—the CD was $15 or 1500 rupees—Nepalese rupees are less than Indian.

I’ve developed a cough again since arriving in Kathmandu. Clearly I can’t live in a highly polluted city; my respiratory system is too fragile, thanks to all that secondhand smoke my mother forced on me for the first nineteen years of my life. Although Tibet has so much less pollution, many people (mostly women) wear cloth masks like surgical masks. At merchants’ booths, you see them hanging in colorful clusters, for they’re made from a wide variety of colors and patterns. But then, in Tibet I can see how it would be useful against winds and dust storms—certainly, I wouldn’t expect so many germs and so much pollution there.

I spent over an hour at the Cybercafé and forgot to send an e-mail about riding a yak! I’ll have to do something about that.

Now it’s 7:27 pm and I’m thinking I’ll lie down and read Tricycle magazine some more. Oh, yeah, I haven’t mentioned: after lying down and mindfully breathing (but not actually taking a nap), I got up and went wandering to find the Naga statue that I fell in love with and that I’d decided I want to get Elaine. I originally saw it the first time I was in Kathmandu, walking past and totally not in the mood to buy anything, and I saw it again while walking to the travel agency. So I went out…and there it was, displayed on the front left corner of a table in front of the shop. The shopkeeper also had a few Nagas like it but half the size, so I also got myself one that’s half the size of the first. Mine is about five inches tall, and both metal statues are heavier than they look. While in Tibet, I was struck by how often the Nagas appear in temple architecture, as part of the elaborate carvings and murals. That’s not terribly surprising with all the water in Tibet; the Brahmaputra in particular snakes around a lot. Tibet has a lot of sand—something I didn’t think of in spite of all the sand mandalas. Ah, one of which I saw in a somewhat dark room at the Sera Monastery. It was inside a glass display case, like the one at the Tibetan Nuns Project nunnery in Dharamsala, even though normally sand mandalas are destroyed, representing impermanence and detachment.

My Last Morning in Tibet

2008-03-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

It is morning and the power is still out. I’m tempted to ask if this happens every March 10.

2
In the morning, I was in the jeep with the driver and my tour guide on the way to the airport. Driving along Beijing Road, we saw many green military trucks and green-clad soldiers, some still wearing riot gear helmets. Gyantzing told me that monks at Drepung Monastery (which we had wandered around earlier in the week) fought with the military, and laymen joined in. The same thing happened at the Jokhang. I had told Gyantzing about my circumambulating the Potala and how many times I circumambulated the Jokhang yesterday, and now I told him that it was around seven in the evening when I headed back to the hotel, so the protest must have started after that. He also said, “Drepung is now closed to tourists.” Wow—that’s the monastery we visited on the first morning.

On the outskirts of Lhasa: a military convoy of at least nine trucks is coming out of the military base.

We passed a rocky mountain, and on one lower corner was a portion of a carved Buddha figure; most of it had broken off the mountain. I wonder if it used to be brightly painted like the others, perhaps decades ago or centuries ago. I wonder if the Chinese blew it up in the 1950s or 60s.
We passed the big Buddha carved and painted on the rocks, right after passing the little summer houses; they certainly have a great view of the Buddha, but I’m not impressed with the choice of making realistic goose sculptures along the edge of the pond, when there are real live geese just like that a few yards away. The real ones are quite enough.

3
I’m at Gate 2, at the airport, and actually eager to go back to Kathmandu, despite how gloomy it was. I’m eager to use the Internet (for obvious reasons, namely my eyewitness account!) and to get a souvenir for Elaine. After several years of eagerly researching Tibet and finding the culture so fascinating, and at least two years of hoping that someday I’d visit Tibet, it is ironic that I’m now so eager to get out of Tibet and back to Kathmandu.

The view at the terminal is gorgeous, through a long, tall glass window. The view is of sharp pointy brown mountains and a bright blue sky. The sky is so big and bright blue in Tibet generally.

The terminal has a little shop, and it includes some books, including The Search for Shangri-La by Charles Allen. Gyantzing had mentioned the book to me, and I said that I’ve heard of it—I think I have a copy of it, but significantly the subtitle is completely different in the American edition than in the version available in Tibet. The subtitle here says something about Western China, whereas the American edition uses the phrase “Tibetan history” rather than pretending as if Tibet were part of China. I spotted a book called Tibetan Stories, which as I expected has folk stories and mythology, but it also has ridiculous anti-Dalai Lama propaganda, very stupid and childish stuff, and as is the Maoist custom calls him “Dalai” instead of “Dalai Lama,” as if he weren’t a teacher. The word “lama” means “teacher.” In my opinion, he’s much more a monk and spiritual leader rather than a politician, and he prefers it that way.

When the customs guy looked over my passport and boarding pass, he chatted with me cheerfully, and I was cheerful too, but I was weirded out when he asked, “Was this your first visit to China?” My first thought was: But I haven’t been to China!
Rather than argue, I said, “Yes.”
“Did you enjoy your first visit to China?”
“Yes, it’s gorgeous!” I said, no longer so shocked. When he encouraged me to “return to China,” I said, “Maybe next time I’ll study the language first!”

I kept it vague, not specifying whether I meant Tibetan or Manchurian Chinese. Who knows, maybe I will take that course on Chinese and go to Beijing some day. But I don’t like mean boys in uniforms, and I don’t like megaphones. I’m sure the Dalai Lama would disapprove of the wagons with megaphones blaring out recorded ads for merchandise, and I rather suspect he’d also not be keen on shops blaring out music, like the same song over and over again in particular.
Maybe the next country I visit will be Thailand. Or maybe I’ll go to Morocco, so I can ride a camel, since I’ve ridden an elephant in India and a yak in Tibet.

In hindsight, it’s too bad I didn’t ask Gyantzing some questions about nuns. The tour was all about boys, boys, and boys—like in Kathmandu women and girls were so much in the background while I wished they’d step into the foreground. Yes, I know, patriarchy is a polluting cloud that’s suffocating most of the world, but in some places it’s more blatant than others, particularly in the extremes of misogyny. Somehow in the USA, patriarchy seems slightly less subtle because it comes not in the way you see people on the street but in the form of such things as nuclear weapons and having a Whiteboyworld government that acts like the world’s bully and that, along with their misogynistic supporters, are doing their damndest to impede women’s reproductive freedom not only in the USA but also globally, what with the evil Global Gag Rule.

Anyway, what I was going to say is that it’s too bad that, when Gyantzing told me boys had to be sixteen before they could become monks, I didn’t ask what age nuns had to be. Also, I should have asked if the nunnery that I’ve read was close to the Potala is open to visitors or at least contains a temple that’s open to visitors. I wish I had thought of that on my free day; I could have taken my Lhasa map with me and walked to the nunnery, and I could have walked up to the Naga Temple, or at least close to it, in the park. Gee, I’ll just have to visit Tibet again someday… I’m more likely to stick to armchair traveling, since I have plenty of books on Tibet, including some books on Tibetan women and the feminine in Tibetan Buddhism.

Tibet Uprising Day

2008-03-10T22:38:00.000-07:00

This feels like the coldest day yet—I’ve been in Tibet for nearly a week. Maybe it just seems colder because I had the coldest room yet; maybe I should try harder to turn up the remote-control heater, since like the one in Shigatse it’s stuck on 30 degrees centigrade, whatever that means. No matter how cold my room seems, it’s a lot colder outside my room than in it! I could see my breath in the hotel roof restaurant. I’m sure Tibetans are less sensitive to cold than I am—even most Americans are less sensitive to cold than I am. In the restaurant, I had three cups of tea (they’re tiny cups), and when I was done eating and pushed away my plate, I put my glove back on my right band before I continued drinking tea.

Wow—what a morning! It’s now 1:15 pm, and I’m at the Tangyeling Café, which rather caters to Westerners. Not only is the menu multilingual and big, but it even has Indian food, Mexican food (or something like it) and stuff like pizza. Too bad I didn’t find the place when I wandered into the noodle joint my first full day in Lhasa. Here I ordered Indian food that’s hopefully authentic (except it doesn’t have to be as spicy). The café also has really nice ambiance. It has elephant-patterned cloth placemats, pictures and banners and little prayer wheels on the walls and big glass windows. There’s recorded music, and it’s Western, which reminds me of Mc’llo’s in Dharamsala, although it’s much quieter here.

This morning I walked the three long blocks to the Potala, circumambulated once, bought a disposable camera at a little camera shop, dodged the traffic (I swear I can hear Paul McCartney singing “Let it Be”) to the park across from the Potala, took some photos—including two of my stuffed toy owl Dewey in front of the Potala. I got back across the street and circumambulated the Potala three times straight.

After I took pictures of Dewey and the Potala from concrete steps descending into a pond, I headed further toward the left to the big bland square that has a monument to the Chinese invasion of Tibet (still absurdly called “The Peaceful Liberation of Tibet”). I got to the center of the square and stood there very visible, held up the little camera, and took a full frontal photo of the Potala. I heard someone yell something, and I turned. It looked like a Chinese cop in a blue uniform was looking at me, and he yelled again. There was some distance between us, and since I was wearing Tibetan clothing, he may have mistaken me for a Tibetan. I looked at him for a beat, and he was silent, so I shrugged, turned around, and took another picture of the Potala. Nothing happened.

I turned and moved further up the square, to get a closer look at the Invasion monument and to take a picture of it, when I noticed that a soldier in a green uniform stood on the steps at the monument, so I decided not to take a picture after all. I didn’t want to push my luck that far, although I’d been drinking Tibetan holy water. I got a little closer to look at the monument, turned and got a much more satisfying look at the Dalai Lama’s palace. I headed back the way I came, with the intention of taking the dangerous crosswalk again. But first I stopped amid the bare trees and took a picture of the Invasion monument from a hopefully safer distance. I also took a little walk across a bridge and circumambulated a café in Tibetan style—bright and colorfully painted—and then I went back to continue circumambulating the palace.

My lunch at Tangeyling consists of vegetable korma (with broccoli! I had broccoli withdraw), yoghurt with bits of cucumber, naan, and masala chai. It was like I was back in Varanasi. Americans sat and had a lively conversation at the next table, along with probably the only blonde baby in Tibet. That must look really weird to the locals.

3
I wrote the following in the evening, by the light coming in through the hotel room window, since the power was out all afternoon, evening, and night. I would have sent this as soon as I got to Kathmandu, but the power is highly unreliable there.

I was in Lhasa on Tibet Uprising Day

This morning as I equanimously lived in the present moment, doing a walking meditation around the Potala and occasionally spinning prayer wheels while I observed the pilgrims around me, I didn’t think much about the fact that today was Tibet Uprising Day. At the back wall below the Potala, I was startled by the sight of a white police vehicle something like an extra large golf cart filled with six cops in full uniform.

After one walk around the palace, I crossed the street and stood in the center of the square, where I took a dead center picture of the Potala. Strangely, a cop seemed to yell at me from some distance, but I didn’t understand what he said. I looked at him for a moment, but he stood perfectly still, so I shrugged, turned around, and took another picture, to see what he would do. He didn’t do anything. Since I wore Tibetan clothing, perhaps he had at first mistaken me for a Tibetan. Later, I had circumambulated three more times and was ready to head out toward the Jokhang Temple, when I noticed numerous blue uniforms standing around the street corner, so I jaywalked and moved on.

Around 4:30, I returned to the Barkhor and began a walking meditation around the Jokhang Temple. I was in basically the same mental state I had been in while circumambulating the Potala. In the past week, I’ve walked around the Jokhang and stood on its roof, and this was the first time I noticed police standing around the Barkhor, the circumambulation route for the Jokhang. That reminded me what day it was, but I remained equanimous and continued my walking meditation while out of curiosity keeping an eye out for cops.

After that, I started noticing what I suspected were undercover cops, and one of them said, “Hello!” to me like anyone else. I am so sick of that word, but I smiled faintly and said, “Hi.” (Incidentally, I only saw three other Westerners the whole time I was circumambulating, and they all looked to be cheerfully shopping.)

When I had walked around six times, I was about to depart through the paved square in front of the Jokhang, when a police siren jolted me out of my walking meditation. A small police van drove onto the square, which is normally reserved only for pedestrians. Like many others, I stopped to gawk, as I noticed two white cop cars and a huge crowd of police in navy blue uniforms standing, many of them forming a wall facing the temple. Brimming with curiosity, I joined the growing crowd, in which I was the only Westerner. This would have been a great time to be fluent in Tibetan, so that I could have understood what people around me said. To the right was a white vehicle and a large number of people gathered; many blocked my view, but it looked like most of that crowd was young, perhaps teenagers, and they were just standing around staring. In front of them stood cops in full uniform.

My first thought was that a demonstration had begun, even though I had thought that nobody would demonstrate unless they were suicidal. But as I observed the crowd of cops in the center, most of whom from what I could see formed a line, I thought maybe they were attempting to incite the crowd to riot so that they’d have an excuse to get ugly with the crowd. Finally, I came to the much more likely conclusion that this was all a power-tripping display.

Twice while I was part of this gawking crowd, a cop approached the cluster of people around me and yelled something while holding up his arms as if to push the people in front, and the crowd started to back away and disperse, but other people walked up and took the place of those who walked away. I finally decided that standing around and gawking like this was silly, and I continued circumambulating the temple and observing the police.

I have to admit that at this stage I was no longer feeling equanimous and was more interested in observing the police than in mindfully walking. Cops still stood or sat here and there around the Barkhor. Walking around the left front side of the Jokhang, I saw a cop standing on a wooden bench and holding onto the roof of a merchant’s booth. Eventually I heard a siren again, but this time I was not in front of the temple but rather surrounded by booths and shops. A white police van was moving toward the crowd, counterclockwise, same as the golf cart-like vehicle I had seen while circumambulating the Potala. I have no doubt that this is deliberate, since Buddhists traditionally circumambulate temples clockwise. We all stepped out of the way of the police van and gawked. I kept looking back at the van, and it turned around behind me.

On another round, I saw a couple of young monks and maybe two other people standing in front of a wide and ornate gateway, like the driveways to hotel courtyards in Lhasa. I stopped next to the monks and was quite astonished at what I saw. On the other side of the gateway, two white vehicles were parked with their right sides facing the entrance. A couple of little kids in pale blue school uniforms stood in front of the headlights, and next to them stood a military officer in a green uniform. Facing the children and the officer were at least four rows of green-clad soldiers, all squatting close to the ground, as if frozen in that position, and wearing helmets like motorcycle helmets but apparently used for riot gear. This was too bizarre. After gawking with my mouth hanging open, I looked up in search of sign over the gateway and soon spotted a little square one overhead. It said “Police Station” in three languages.

I have a theory that the real reason the power is out is that it’s Tibet Uprising Day—like the Chinese authorities did this on purpose. Maybe the lights will be out till midnight. I’m glad the heater works even though it runs on electricity—it probably has a different connection, I don’t know. There’s a light on in the hallway—I can see it from under the door—and there’s some sort of big room facing the courtyard and with lots of shelves—the lights are on in there. It’s now 9:06 pm.

4
Who cares if the lights don’t work: for once, I had a hot shower! It’s probably because nobody else is crazy enough to take a shower in the dark. I had the flashlight on and I was very careful about not slipping. Now I’m going to bed; I look forward to snuggling under the covers.

Chant softly and carry a big prayer wheel.

Sometimes a prayer wheel is just a prayer wheel. Gee, I wonder if guys and prayer wheels in Tibet are like guys and cars in America. The bigger the prayer wheel…never mind.

Return to Lhasa

2008-03-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

I want to go meditate alone in a cave. Well, a cat for company would be OK. I want to have no contact with humans for a month. Unfortunately, I’ll be in Topeka, Kansas, after I return to the States, and will be going back to my job and have the enormous ordeal of dealing with Aunt Ethel; without snow and ice, I don’t know what excuses I can come up with for not wanting to associate with her. Given what an insensitive brute she is, she’ll no doubt get all huffy and holier-than-thou if I simply said I needed solitude. She doesn’t believe introverts like me exist. Deranged barbarian. Not that her psychotic delusions matter to me, but for some odd reason she believes in imposing her psychotic delusions on me and she does insist on cramming them down my throat. I have so got to pack up and head out to the west coast.

7:30 am I had a dream in which I was in what looked like a Tibetan village with crumbly white buildings, and many people were around—I think I wasn’t the only dharma bum—and a very little girl, two or three years old, had taken a liking to me (oddly—I can’t imagine why anyone would take a liking to me, especially a child!), so I was attempting to get her adopted. She seemed to want me to adopt her, which was of course completely out of the question. I thought that if she were a kitten, I’d have a different attitude. Maybe that dream was inspired by the thought that I need to nurture myself, to be my own mother. The little girl could have represented me, even though she looked Tibetan and was dirty and ragged like a beggar. Maybe I am like a beggar, begging for respect and acceptance. I also had a dream in which it looked like Tibet or some other place, maybe Kathmandu, and plenty of Westerners lurked around. It’s vague now—actually, I think there was a glass cabinet full of Tibetan scriptures, the kind you see rolled up in brocade here in Tibet and at the Exiled Government’s library in Dharamsala.

2
Now that I’ve had breakfast and brought my luggage down (with some help—this hotel doesn’t have elevators, the only reason I can see it qualifying as a "budget" hotel), I’m in rather a better mood than earlier. I just gave a little kid a pen—it seems to have worked, since he took it and walked away. Great, even toddlers know the word “Hello.” I must have, I’m guessing, looked stupider than I suspected. Or maybe that’s just my paranoia talking—it’s hard to tell where justified paranoia and unjustified paranoia meet. I’ve read a lot about Tibetans—that they have a sense of humor that involves laughing with you rather than at you, and that they can make humor out of suffering. But at least two incidents yesterday were obviously misogynistic males laughing at me, not with me. It’s so ironic that misogynists have a ludicrous belief in their superiority just because they have a ridiculous organ hanging between their legs, that quite obviously does not make them superior in the least. Besides, who’s more likely to cause war and build bombs: someone who has a uterus, or someone who has a penis?

I was going to write about the emotions of the two different visits to India. 1) Blissful, euphoric, happy, confidence-building. 2) Some bliss and happiness early on in particular, but the disappointing reality check of my depression still being with me—I did not leave my depression behind and that is a major thing from which I was trying to run. I’ve read in Buddhist books that you should not try to relive the same experience; this is referring to a meditative experience, but it can also refer to the emotions you experienced on a pilgrimage. I think a large part of the emotions on the pilgrimage was thanks to our meditating for forty-five minutes in the mornings and also, in particular, our meditations in special places where the Buddha also meditated—those places gave me highly emotional moments. Last year’s pilgrimage was the most wonderful vacation I’ve ever had, and probably ever will have. This vacation has been the weirdest I’ve ever had.

Today we are driving back to Lhasa. Yesterday was Women’s Day—women were drinking and dancing. That explains the fireworks. I didn’t know about it until this morning: Gyantzing asked me if I slept well and then explained why there was so much noise that could have kept me awake but didn’t. Too bad I wasn’t out celebrating with women, but then again I’m not into drinking and dancing. I’m into overthrowing patriarchy. I’m into getting the revolutionary ball rolling, which is what Women’s Day should be about. It’s ironic that it was supposed to be Women’s Day when for me it felt like Misogyny Day. Without patriarchy, every day would be Women’s Day—a day free of war, rape, incest, domestic violence, and prejudice. Every day would be a day free of oppression and injustice. Bye-bye Dominator Society, hello Partnership Society, to use the scholar Riane Eisler’s terminology. It seems to me like this Women’s Day is scarcely more than condescension, mere words. It doesn’t seem to be conjuring a lot of feminist consciousness around here, that’s for sure, judging by my experience on the streets of Shigatse yesterday. It should be about sociological transformation to an egalitarian and just society, not about drinking and dancing.

Writing while in car (and therefore very large and messy handwriting):
I see shaggy goats with curly horns. Brahmaputra/Yellow River—we’re passing it again. Shigatse Region: On the left of the highway, we see some small buildings and an area where a new, smaller airport will be built. Straight ahead stands a wide, roundish, rocky brown mountain. It’s a holy mountain for sky burials; wealthy families pay for funerals there. I can see two stupas, smoke, and prayer flags on top of the mountain. It’s significant that only wealthy families get sky burials there; I didn’t think to ask what happens to poor people when they die. Perhaps I didn’t ask because my mind was on the breathtaking scenery, but I’ve been in Tibet for nearly a week and have continually seen breathtaking scenery.

We stopped for gas, and I walked around. I approached a bridge, and across it we saw what looked like a monastery with three pointy roofs. Gyantzing explained that it’s a Boen monastery on the river. (I’m adding an “e” after the “o” in “Boen” because of my computer’s inability to type an umlaut; it has the same effect on pronunciation as an umlaut in German.) The monastery has a backdrop of big brown mountains looming over it. While we looked at this building in the distance, Gyantzing told me some things about the Boen religion.

Interling is the name of the monastery and means “Center of the Swastika.” Boen has statues like Buddhas, but with a swastika on the chest. I commented that I’ve seen Chinese Buddha statues with a swastika on the chest, and he explained that’s only Chinese, not Tibetan. I believe it was a Hindu sun symbol before Buddhists took it up—simply because you see a lot of swastikas in India, such as on Hindu temples, and Buddhism branched off Hinduism. The swastika is similar to the Irish goddess Bridget’s sun sign; I have one made of twigs that I purchased in Ireland.

Shirup (or Sherab, I’m thinking, since that was the name of an early, influential Boenpo abbot) is the name of the Boen Buddha. Boen is more naturalist, since it’s an indigenous shamanistic religion (I might add that Tibetan Buddhism gets its more Pagan aspects from Boen—both religions seem to have influenced each other). Various things in Tibetan Buddhism, such as images of the sky and moon, and also prayer flags, juniper burning—all come from Boen originally. Shungshun was the founder of Boen (according to Wikipedia, his name was Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche, and Shang Shung was an ancient Tibetan culture that predates Tibetan Buddhism.)

Gyantzing mentioned that his uncle was a monk at this monastery in 1959. The Chinese put an abrupt end to his monastic career.

I saw two very cute donkeys in the street. I stared at the donkeys, and locals who stopped here stared at me. There is a gas station and probably a place to stop for snacks; I just know quite a few vehicles are parked here. From the car, I saw ponies with colorful saddle blankets. Just a bit ago, I saw a lot of sand, what you might call a cold desert, on a flat surface backed by big brown rocky mountains, and I also saw sand on mountainsides. We’re riding through an area of mostly brown mountains with some streaks of greenish grey in smooth descending falls, surrounded by sharp and roundish surfaces. Down by the river are some dark, shiny, slick, large rocks. There is also green flowing water.

In the middle of nowhere, we stopped at a café that emits loud music that sounds like a song I’ve been hearing a lot in Tibet. I wasn’t hungry for lunch, having had a large and relatively late breakfast, so I wandered around outdoors after telling Gyantzing I wasn’t ready for lunch. It felt good to stretch my legs after sitting in the car, and I also admired the mountains, some of which were snow-capped. I saw nine crows fly off; I wonder if that’s an auspicious symbol, since seven appeared when the first Dalai Lama was born, and five appeared when the Fourteenth Dalai Lama was born. It was bright and sunny out, and the sky was amazingly bright blue.

Breathtaking mountains surrounded me. The yard included two scruffy cows and three dogs.
A group of five children walked up to me and chatted with me; they knew some English words. I thought they’d beg, but they just wanted to chat. Maybe if I had had a camera, they would have wanted their pictures taken, and then they would have begged for money, and I would have given it to them, but of course my camera was hopeless and therefore hidden away.

The kids said, “Hello!”
I said, “Tashe delek!” and, “Hi!” It was a new day, and I was more patient. Besides, they were definitely free of malice. They said some Tibetan and got a blank look from me. One of the girls pointed at my forehead, and I thought she was pointing at my third eye. They asked me my name, and I said, “Susan.” They repeated it after me, and I smiled. I said, “What are your names?” But I guess they didn’t get the question, or I didn’t understand their names; they had a tendency to talk all at once.
One of the girls pointed at my forehead and said, “You are beautiful!”
Embarrassed and taken by surprise, I laughed and said, “Thanks!”
Soon they said, “Bye!” cheerfully, and I did the same, and they moved on, playing kick the can in the street. Perhaps they were walking to a school far away from their home. A couple of them were dirty enough to be beggars, and they were a variety of ages—like between two and seven I think, not that I’m a good judge of age. I wished I had a bunch of pens handy, but they were all in my suitcase.

With some urging, namely a grandma stepping out onto the café threshold and waving me in, I went indoors, sat down at a long table with the guys, and tasted rolls and butter tea. Inside, the café was like a family house—maybe it was combo home and café. Tibetan butter tea doesn’t taste bad if you dip bread in it—it taste just like bread and butter. Gyantzing chatted with Grandma. The family was busy in a courtyard, just outside a big glass window in front of us; they covered an old wooden table with a big shiny plastic Coca Cola tablecloth that was very commercial looking in red and blue. There was a grandfather, a dad, and a young woman, presumably the oldest daughter, working on the table, and also children were hanging around. They were stapling the shiny tablecloth onto the table, and I rather thought it would look so much prettier to paint the table in very bright colors. I have a hand-painted and very colorful coffee table painted with African-inspired designs; it was a cast-off from an ex-roommate.

We passed a glistening turquoise river.

I’ve noticed a lot of police checkpoints on this route, which have resulted in numerous short stops. Bureaucratic much?

We arrived in Lhasa, where we stopped at a travel agency and Gyantzing got my plane ticket, to my vast relief. The office was a large white-tiled sort of room with a few women behind a very long countertop. Strangely, they did not take credit or debit cards (I don’t own any credit cards), but only cash, so I paid with almost all of my Chinese money. I felt very grateful toward Gyantzing for getting that problem out of the way so calmly and uncomplainingly. He said that since this isn’t tourist season, it was easy to get a ticket. Nonetheless, it was weird that I had gone to Tibet without a return ticket to Kathmandu, but that fits in with all the other weirdness on this trip. We afterwards went to the Yak Hotel, the same one at which I stayed previously, and parted.

I used Internet at the hotel and my e-mail was unbelievably slow. It must have taken twenty minutes to open each page, and I was reading Tricycle magazine most of the time. I have a theory that the Chinese government doesn’t want me to send e-mails, and that’s the reason that it was so unbelievably slow. Every minute or so, the screen changes color from off-white to white, and I have reason to suspect that when it’s white, somebody else is reading it. Gee, the Bushworld government spies on e-mails and you don’t know when they could be reading yours; at least the Chinese government lets you know when they’re spying on you.

According to Vikram Seth in From Heaven Lake, there were portraits of Mao all over the place in Tibet in 1981. Fortunately, that is no longer the case. Going to Tibet and seeing portraits of Mao Zedong would be like going to Poland and seeing portraits of Adolf Hitler. True, he’s on all the yuan. Indian money has Gandhi printed on it, and Chinese money has Mao printed on it. Setting aside the little detail that Gandhi, what with his vow of poverty and all, would be absolutely appalled to know that his face is on money, which would you rather have on your bills: portraits of a highly influential nonviolent activist, or portraits of a political fanatic who was responsible for widespread famine and more deaths than Adolf Hitler?

I walked directly from the Internet café to the Barkhor, where I circumambulated a total of six times, till past seven in the evening. I knew the route but nonetheless periodically thought I’d follow the monks. When in doubt, follow the pilgrims spinning prayer wheels. I saw countless monks in red robes, some wearing brocade jackets of which I doubt the Dalai Lama would approve, never mind that they were traditional Tibetan garments. Many monks were quite stout, as the Dalai Lama’s brother pointed out, and they made me feel slender. Indeed, with all the meat and noodles in their diet, it’s no wonder. Many laypeople were also in traditional clothes, especially older people, that was well-worn and in mostly browns and dark reds, and I spotted some elaborate hairdos, with strings of coral and turquoise beads strung into braids. People of all ages wear traditional clothing, but it’s often more spiffy looking than pilgrim-looking. Even some of the chupas are brocade, unlike my plain dark blue cotton chupa.

The first alley I walked through was lined on the right with many booths displaying a bounty of vegetables; it's strange that I’m not finding so many vegetables at restaurants. Other stalls displayed a bounty of spices and herbs and teas (oh my). I scarcely looked at the less interesting booths that sell electronics, plastic toys, or ordinary Western clothing. I was more interested in stalls selling incense and Buddhist sculptures, although I’d rather get a Buddha statue in Kathmandu. A couple of stalls displayed monastic musical instruments, including those incredibly long horns, which stood on the big open end down on tables. Some booths displayed hundreds of strings of beads, mostly coral and turquoise, though a couple of booths sold strings of pearls.

On the right side, towards the front of the Jokhang Temple, are stalls displaying not only jewelry but also horse decorations such as bells and various silver, turquoise, coral, and other old stuff that I’m tempted to call artifacts; they were certainly used, if not antique, traditional Tibetan paraphernalia. Some booths sell fabric and traditional clothing, but what’s particularly interesting is that there are fabric stores around the Barkhor.

Humans aren’t the only ones who circumambulate the Jokhang: it’s not unusual to see cute little dogs. I saw a couple of black and white Lhasa Apsos (though it seems like earlier on the trip, I saw many Tibetan spaniels and no Lhasa Apsos), and weirdly enough I saw a light tan Chihuahua. I’m fairly certain that Chihuahuas are Mexican dogs! The little critter was on a leash and scurrying to keep up. I rather hope the person it was with, an older woman in a chupa and apron, would periodically pick the tiny dog up and carry it.

When we got back to Lhasa, we drove past the Norbulingka and it’s under major construction—it really didn’t look pretty, so that’s off. I’m rather doubtful I’ll ever visit Tibet again. Love the scenery, hate the food. I’m very glad that I packed all that dried fruit and nuts.

I can’t believe this—there’s a song running through my head, because almost every shop or stall that sells CDs plays that song on speakers. It sounds like a combination of traditional Tibetan and modern music, almost techno.

The streets of Tibet seem so much more orderly than the streets of Kathmandu, even though I was timidly trying to cross the wide intersections in Lhasa with traffic going by on either side of me. The rickshaws in both Lhasa and Shigatse have lanes along both sides of the street, and they are separated from car traffic by a metal railing painted in red and white stripes. The rickshaws themselves have green canopies with a pleated, colorful fringe—they’re reminiscent of Tibetan Buddhist banners, but they’re a cheap and cheesy imitation. The rickshaws leave their special side lanes to turn or cross the streets.

All the police vehicles in Lhasa are white—I think with blue lettering, in at least Chinese, maybe also English, and/or Tibetan. And I’ve seen plenty of police vehicles in Lhasa. Taxis look Western when they don’t have that white Dharamsala taxi look, of course without the Bollywood music on the radio or the Ganesh statue on the dashboard.

I’ve seen Hyundais and other Japanese vehicles in both countries, and I was weirded out in the courtyard parking lot of the Yak Hotel, because I saw a Geo Metro. It was white and shaped like my car and although I couldn’t find the phrase “Geo Metro,” I did see “Chevy” and some Chinese words.

A peculiar sight (if you’re not accustomed to it) that I frequently saw in the countryside in Tibet was the tractors. The front is a tractor, like for a farm, and there’s a long pair of handles that the driver holds as if they were reigns on a horse, and behind the driver this vehicle is a wooden wagon. The first one I saw on the road, from behind, had me completely fooled. I thought it was a horse-drawn wagon. There were indeed plenty of real horse-drawn wagons in Gyantse, a town known for its horse races.

A common sight, especially in Shigatse, is three-wheeled cycles with a wooden wagon in back. Many merchants own this kind of vehicle, and the merchandise is piled in back with a very annoying megaphone repeatedly playing a recorded message.

The megaphones are awful. They were big in China (and consequently Tibet) in Mao’s time. If megaphones are loudly blaring political propaganda at all hours of the day, you can’t think, you can’t concentrate. That’s where this comes from. That reminds me of how some people like to listen to music all the time, whereas I like to have quite a bit of quiet, such as while writing.
In Tibet, smoking like juniper offerings is normal, even indoors. With the possible exception of the Tangyling Café, restaurants don’t have nonsmoking sections. Ditto hotels, and my room in Kathmandu also had an ashtray. Yuck.