I must create a system or be enslaved by another man's. I
will not reason and compare.. my business is to create.
::: William Blake :::

winter

the winter chill
set in
and told us
hyper people
to go slower
warmth had to come
from the inside
and preserved by
down and wool
we walked
like fluffed, plump
birds
across streets
and over bright fallen leaves
like a young death
the leaves are still vivacious
on the concrete

we crawl into heavy blankets
and sense morning light
outside our eyelids
our bodies synchronized
with the turn of
nature
resist
the routines of man
and stubbornly protest
the clock
we are slowed
by the winter
into morning contemplation

the youthful act of summer
the speed of fall
halted
and matured
by the cocoon
of winter

6 people

Whenever two people meet, there are really six people present. There is each man as he sees himself, each man as the other person sees him, and each man as he really is. -William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

Embryonic Light

thought
pushed me awake
for the seventh morning
in the embryonic
light
of 5 AM
I laid like a new born
batting my eyelashes
looking around
solving problems
that wouldn't get solved
the twilight
shined in blue over
the couch
and living room
giving the impression
that it was off-limits
this time of day
was for the light
not for the human
I was intruding
in the silence
and gentle opening
of the day
my steps were loud
my movement too rapid

go fast looking in and out of a million doors, or walk through one slowly

The lame man who keeps the right road outstrips the runner who takes a wrong one. The more active and swift the latter is, the further he will go astray. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Mount Ararat

It was time to leave the odyssey.Walking through corridor leading to the plane I looked outside and there it was. Unbelievable, it stood there humongous, gargantuan but somehow hidden if you weren't looking for it, if you were looking down somehow distracted by your own mountains to climb or towards the next activity, the plane.

I just stood there. It was something you couldn't avoid. Even if you had seen them before, climbed them before, no matter how many you had seen before, this was remarkable. This always happens when I think I have seen it all.

I boarded the plane and lost the view. Then I forgot about it and focused on the smelly guy sitting next to me. As the plane started its way down the runway, it made a ninety degree turn and suddenly I had the view of a lifetime. I decided not to take a picture but just to watch. It was something words or a photo would fail to capture. As we increased our speed it stayed with us, or at least with me, and as we rose it only became more impressive.

You see, it floated. It was a floating mountain, Mount Ararat floated that day. You couldn't see the base, all you saw was a string, a line of clouds cutting the sky in two pieces and then a mountain top so huge and so perfect grew from that line of clouds. And as we rose it stayed floating, the bottom never revealed, no base to see, it was like god, or mother earth with her hair draped around her looking at us.

Istanbul

I feel I have come back to civilization. Poor Central Asia, I don't know why I am being so harsh this time. Last time I was there it was so magical, this time it was a hindrance. Maybe its age. Or because I miss my life, people, my friends, my world, a good sign actually...it seems I have become more stable, less of a nomad, and definitely less curious. I like my internal life maybe even more than the external one...

I finally took a shower in the stink bathroom. I just held my nose and went fast. I was afraid the steam from the shower would just accentuate the smell if I stayed in there too long.

I asked the receptionist for a wake up call but that meant she had to wake herself up first to wake me up which didn't feel very reliable. Six months ago I had a similar situation in Dushanbe and the guy overslept and I was given five minutes to get into a van full of people waiting on me to go to the airport. So last night I kept on waking up every two hours just to make sure.

Of course I also woke up exactly at 4:20, the subconscious is a powerful tool. She called as well, five minutes later. The cab pulled up as I came outside. I put the keys on the reception desk and walked to the cab. We started to drive off and I wondered had they paid him for the transfer that I paid for the night before? Suddenly the receptionist appeared, in a sleepy daze, with cash in her hand for the taxi driver.

We drove in darkness, back on that long Soviet street to the airport, the one that goes forever. Taxis zoomed passed us and I watched my driver's eyes through the rear view mirror to make sure he doesn't sleep. I pictured myself hitting his back to wake him up. We made it. There was one door the airport, like the top of the funnel everything poured in a tight spout and spilled out into the airport.

The waiting room for the Istanbul flight was mainly Europeans, swiss, brits, and a french couple. A huge American family too. I always wonder about those large American families a wholesome wife in a long skirt and hiking boots and minimum three kids...undeniably missionaries. I guess.

At the drinking hut in the waiting room we all got some tea, way overpriced at about a dollar fifty. Some Kyrgyz men in uniform took shots of some alcohol, ostensibly to wake up.

The flight had some of the most beautiful mountains I have seen. At one point midflight, we must have been over 20,000 feet in the air, snow capped mountain snuck over the clouds. At another point the sea met a desert and forming the top of a heart at the shore.