my sea legs
as sure-footed as rocks
crash through the waves
Grit gathers
in my crevices
and my sharp edges become
home to poison-tentacled anemones
to clever octopuses
to pretty little tangles of fishing line
my sea legs
as steady as osmium
sink down
and touch the grooves of her crust
I read her, I hear her song, and the sound of her vibrates through me
we write each other
in the tongue of touch
in the language of compulsion
let Us stick to the facts
where things
are as certain as standing
on waves
of sand
entombing
feet
and legs
and torso.
swallowing Us.
surrounding Us.
this is no tomb.
only winter
387 sols long in the tooth. We rattle
with frost quakes; sudden cold
sheltered in place
and frozen
still.
quiet as photographs.
We wait for the wall of sand to drop
out of Our skies
and for sun
to activate Our solar panels
and the radio signals and the end of the night
and this is no tomb.
only winter.
in the meantime
let Us count the objects of exploration:
there are 14 in all. over nine metric tons of experiments crafted
in dream and imagination. hard
ware
stranded.
except 24 terabytes of data escape each day.
in the meantime,
let Us make a map of all the places We may go,
and rocks We may meet
and things We may say
once the sand and the winter subside.
A few stitched together writing prompts from pw.org and this video served as inspiration.
Still. Quiet. Inside.
Eggs wait in the nest. Small life;
but the raven comes.
APRIL 10, 2018
This is our last day here. I’m sitting in a temple doorway, watching the flow of people walking through the square. Bells ring. Car horns, scooter engines, and shuffling footsteps join the sound soup. Crow caw, and pigeons coo.
The less fortunate gather along the walkway below. They sit on the ground and watch people go by as they wait to receive.
Namaste. Where are you going, friend? Where are you from? Hello, money? Money – money – money. Chocolate? Hello? Ride for a good price. Good flute, very good price. Picture? Take picture, 1000 rupees. Welcome. Taxi? You need a taxi? Taxi. One tea, one tea.
Buy ticket.
Look, look. Good gift for sister-friend, mother-friend. Look. I make by hand, me and my daughter. Look, Nepal, China, Bhutan. Look. Only 100 rupees.
The stains on his skin look like tears. He touches the statues, and then his forehead, and then the stomach of the statue. Down to the right foot. Left foot. The statue base.
Pick the choicest flower as a talisman, and put it on your head, or stick it in your bag.
Stand still. Face your god, hand held over sternum. Move your lips in the recitation of a prayer, or a chant. An incantation invoking the god, calling to the god. Name the god, and ask him questions. This is a calling, a prayer.
We stand in the shit and look up to a ruined wonder. We believe, but we don’t act. We pass through like like clouds in the mountains, a constant stream, and all the while we drift according to the will of some other thing. We make victims of ourselves. We sink comfortably into the wretchedness of routine. We embrace the banality of “it’s out of my hands”. We look to someone else. Someone else.
We are amazed when another person performs that thing, which might have been our dream, a fading thing at the edge of memory from when we imagined ourselves to be bold.
This is the outsider’s view of Nepal. Maybe it’s also the outsider’s view of life, and the state of being human. Maybe we are all swaddled in the dense nest of dreams, always imaging what we can do instead of doing it.
Flower petals on my head. Rain on my face.
Roof top. Clouds the color of wood ash gather. Wind whips at the rooftops. Clothes flail and lash from the wind, but the birds ride the air currents, circling and settling and circling again.
APRIL 8, 2018
I haven’t written in a couple of days. Instead, licking my wounds and binge-reading books. We stayed in Ghandruk for two nights. On the 6th we hobbled to a bus stop and rode from Kimche to Pokhara. The ride was just as traumatic as when we first arrived for our trek in the taxi. Instead of my sensibilities and expectations, the victim this time was my cell phone. Screen cracked. The throbbing of my ankle distracted me from being more careful. Our packs ended up in the “trunk” so to speak, which had rusted through in places and collected with efficiency all the mud and muck of the road, which itself was a harrowing, rickety, rocking and rolling experience. None of this improved the condition of my ankle, but taking off my hiking boot helped with the swelling.
We overnighted in Pokhara before enjoying another bus ride back to Kathmandu. ‘Enjoying’ being more of a euphemism here.
Interlude, Pashupatinath
We are watching a Hindu funeral ceremony. Friends and family of the deceased gather. The body is wrapped in an assortment of cloths. Bright orange, red and fuchsia.
The mourners circle the body for a requisite number of times, and then it’s finally the moment to transfer it to the funeral pyre. Meanwhile, a widow for a different funeral spreads her worries and grief over a shrine embedded in a nearby wall.
When the mourning men pick up the body, they circle the pyre, feet bare, three times before setting it down. They remove the robes of vibrant color until the body is stripped down to just one thing. A white shroud. Even the marigolds are taken away and hung from one of the great logs forming the pyre.
The gifts come next. Water, white powder and fire. With each gift, the body is circled three times. Fire is the last gift, placed tenderly beneath the body by an unsure hand. The eldest member of the family, no doubt. More logs and straw are placed over the body until it starts to resemble the haystacks in the countryside.
Pyre one is being put out. The priest and his helpers kick logs off the platform, still burning. They sizzle and smoke when they hit the water. The assistant fills bucket after bucket with water from the Bagmati to kill the cremation flames and wash everything from the ghat. The ghat itself steams. Jewels and other remnants are collected.
I’m hung up on how it was not such a strange thing for me to see bodies on funeral pyres, the full sensorial experience including the sound of human flesh sizzling in the flames. It was not disgusting, nor did I feel confronted with my own fragile mortality. I didn’t psychologically rebel from the experience. It just was. Part of life. Maybe I’m suppressing my emotions; maybe I am overripe and oozing in them.
We witnessed Hindu and Buddhist cremations. The ghats, or platforms, for the religions are separated by two bridges. The Hindus seem more efficient, while the Buddhists take more time with the body, to anoint it, to gather it and place it.
Aside from the ceremonies, we encountered lots of religious iconography, of course. Shrines, statues, recesses in walls.
Brightly colored powder smeared on things as a sign of devotion and blessing. Everything sacred, even the stray dogs lounging in the temple complex and a simple brick walls.
APRIL 6, 2018
I neglected to journal during this day of our trip, but we did hobble around Ghandruk for a heartbeat. Here are some scenes from we beheld that day. Other activities included reading with reckless abandon. I might have been absorbed with either M.R. Carey’s THE BOY ON THE BRIDGE, or Adam Silvera’s THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END. Both are excellent books, if you’re into those sorts of genres, although you may want to hold off on THE BOY ON THE BRIDGE for a little if the pandemic has you on edge.
For now, let me present to you Old Ghandruk.
I love the details of the construction, from stairs built into walls…
…to the hand-carved woodwork adorning the windows and doors.
And there is the stuff of living, basic necessities like some twine of animal sinew…
…and corn and hay.
There are the animals who portage building materials and the goods of life.
And those that provide pest control, fertilizer and sustenance.
There are dishes to wash, laundry to clean, and wood to stack.
While I am a stranger here, I can see that everything has a kind of order to it. A logic.
But that doesn’t mean the realm of the spirit world goes ignored. Talismans protect…
…as do the guard dogs, arbiters of the portals between this realm and the next.
Everywhere we look, magic and order dance.
APRIL 5, 2018
Yesterday, we trekked from Chhomrong to Ghandruk. The hike was not as difficult as one might imagine or anticipate based on all our trials and travails up to this point—and then the stinging nettle incident happened.
Here is the short of it: Just outside of Kimrong, we veered off the main trail and ended up running through a stinging nettle bush, which distracted me from adequately dealing with a rather large and very loose bit of sod in my path. So I went down.
Adam says, “Like a sack of potatoes.” Not very poetic.
Based on the sharp pain and the pseudo-numbness creeping in my ankle, I knew immediately it wasn’t just an embarrassing fall. We hobbled down the slope the rest of the way and found a somewhat flat rock in the riverbed upon which to rest. There, I dosed myself with 800mg of ibuprofen. Thank god I always hike with a first aide kit. We redistributed our one remaining wrap (we had given the other one to a sweet Canadian hiker who had sprained her ankle) from A’s left knee to my right ankle. A— also took a bunch of weight from me.
Would it be enough? It had to be; that’s all I knew.
Dosed and wrapped, I proceeded to hike from Kimrong to Ghandruk on a busted ankle. And, of course, it rained the entire time. The skies darkened with weather and released thunder.
I don’t want to dwell on the struggle. Yes, the rest of the way hurt, but I am endlessly grateful that I sprained my ankle at the bottom of a river crossing, and that we spent nearly the rest of the day ascending. Luck. Pure.
Once the panic left, and we got into our silent rhythm, I turned my mind, and my camera, to the landscape we had the privilege of moving through. From Chhomromg to Kimrong, and Kimrong to Ghandruk.
This length of trail was so different from the rest. From the song birds, to the thistles and other new flora. There were straight delicate birch trees, vibrant moths and butterflies. There were cows on the trail instead of the ubiquitous water buffalo and mules.
And there was trash. Tons of it. We had started the day picking it up and beginning to fill a 2nd bag, but had to stop after I sprained my ankle.
We encountered a grey horse in the middle of the path, who tolerated being investigated by the dog following us from one of the farmsteads. Terraces of rice, mule trains, and quarries appeared along the trail, almost like heartbeats. A steep staircase slithered up a hillside and disappeared into the clouds.
Then we arrived on the outskirts of the village of Ghandruk. It is a beautiful thing made of stone. The streets, the walls, the pathways and courtyards, roofs and homes.You weave through the winding narrow corridors, and the villagers watch you from their courtyards and small windows. The kids stop to yell at you to tell you the way.
Impressions from yesterday:
All-in-all, I think I can sum up yesterday as thorns and wings.
APRIL 3, 2018
The foam of a cappuccino bursts at my upper lip. It’s an indulgence, for sure. Especially because I intend to have more than one. But we are stationary for the day, and that kind of indulgence is infectious, so two cappucini it is.
I am sitting on the patio of a place billed as the German Bakery. It has an espresso machine and a steady stream of local visitors stopping in to say hi. Being right next to the main stairs, the clang of bells has been near constant as the mules go up and down with their deliveries of kerosene tanks, beer, toilet paper, and other odds and ends.
For a long time, mules stood captive on the stairs, their hooves poised and their hides sweaty, as their drivers popped into the bakery for a steaming cup of coffee or tea. The water guy, carrying three huge containers of full water jugs on his head, did the same.
All of Chhomrong, particularly the youth, are passing through, and the lady of the house is running everything. She glows from the inside and showers everyone with genuine smiles. I think the boys of the village are enamored.
Crows caw from their perches on the hillside behind me. Every once in a while they make a sound like speech. It’s strange to hear, and I have to wonder if what I’m really witnessing is the evolution of this creature.
Sitting beside the main stairs has revealed more than the locals and the mule traffic. The trekker traffic passes through, too, and that is a shocking insight. These people are mostly traveling without weight, often times without a day pack or even a bottle of water. And then we see the porters go by and they are over burdened with the stuff of other people. It has been the topic of endless conversation to us. The complexity of the economy and the trash all along the trail and the preservation of such delicate resources and people’s ability / inability to care, social classes and so-called karmic classes. It is all a jumbled complicated mess.
We took lunch at Chhomrong Cottage—a small flat pizza, which took forever to come out. I think it might have tasted moderately above average, but it was otherwise the same pizza we have been having this whole time. (Pizza in the Himalaya. I know. Atrocious. But honestly, my stomach has been screwed for pretty much the whole trip so far, and having something that is somewhat reliable is so very very welcome.)
We returned to Kalpana (the guest house where we stayed for 2 nights) for more food and a long rest in bed.
One roll of thunder, and then rain on the roof. There is something special about this moment. Something forever about it.
Now we are on a quest to find a quiet space in which to do a little art time. A little reading time in some relative peace. How difficult it is for people to sit in silence. To embrace the quietude. To be without stimulation. We have talked about this on the trail, too. The way modern society is all about sugar, fat and salt. Shows, sex, and social media. Constant stimulation. Without it, we are nothing.
A storm has been hovering over us, but just now, a cloud has rolled in. We are in the clouds, which have swallowed the mountain, leaving us wrapped in a canvas of grey.
APRIL 1, 2018
Last night, I had to run out into the cold. The stars were out. The night sky was out. It had to be photographed. I had to capture the stark beauty of the mountain glazed in snow and dipped in moonlight. To see them that way was singular. Stars hovered in the sky, as if they were insignificant next to the Annapurna. It was thus when we woke up at 4 a.m. to go to the bathroom. It was as if the mountains lent the stars the ability to glow.
This morning was starkly clear after days of clouds forming, veiling the mountains and hiding the slopes from sight and revealing them only a little bit. But this morning there was nothing between us and the mountains. We stood together gazing, seeing, trying to understand. It is baffling, it is sublime this is the action of he earth. The steady drive of a thick mantle of crust. This is the timescale of the earth. When we are gone, our outer layer will be a thin swath of plastics and trash, crushed cars and stripped landscapes. It will be a char of irradiated junk. But the earth will keep moving and reshaping. It will be.
We slept with three strangers. One, Jackie from Hong Kong, became less strange to us. We talked with her through last night about travel, dreams, and education. One person was a punk. Discourteous and lacking a caring soul, he dressed head to toe in denim with gold littering his ears and fingers. A wispy mustached shadowed his upper lip, and his black trucker had seemed to levitate off his head. He had the kind of smile in which you expected to see the flash of a gold tooth. He had the kind of smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He is rank with mischief and the getting away with things.
Today we descended. After one night at M.B.C., and nearly one full day and night at A.B.C., we started to make our descent.
It’s so strange that out of the 10 days this trek will take us, only a fraction of it was spent at the whole impetus for the trek. The return, however, has made me appreciate how difficult and strenuous the journey has been. With weight. I did this with 35 pounds of gear on my back. Day after day, in inclement weather. We are on an adventure.
Here is what stood out from the day (and night):
MARCH 31, 2018
Today we hiked from M.B.C. to the final stop. Well, not the final one. Maybe better to say the ultimate stop—the reason we came here. Annapurna Base Camp.
Today was just as, if not more difficult than yesterday, even though it was a fraction of the distance. Again, I had to make many many stops to get here. It wasn’t necessarily the pack weight, although I did feel it in my legs a few times. Mostly it was just an ever-present fatigue as I tried to trudge up any kind of incline.
Focusing on my breathing ruled me. Resting pose consisted of this: using my hiking sticks as props for my body, wedged right there under my clavicle. Bent over myself looking at the snow, white, while I was breathing, breathing and breathing. Meanwhile, surrounding us, the mountains, and the clouds dancing around them. Snow fields following the contours of the land, and ragged dark rocks rising up out of the white, the sun soaked blinding white.
Everywhere—all around are the mountains. We are in the lap of the mother and she sings to us. She sways us. She conquers us in ways we can feel, and ways we can’t even as we (the entire human mass on the mountain) rage against the slopes, shouting in voices full of bravado, screaming out that we exist because it’s the only way we feel we can be see. And the only way we can be known, as something significant.
There are as many ways to be here in Her presence as there are people in the world.
Climbing to the craggy top of the moraine. Listening to the glacier creak and crack. The sudden breaking down of the structure. The sudden breaking down. Vertical flutes of snow, variegated, full of lines and texture. Animal tracks in the snow. The black dog of the mountain, a mouse in his mouth, more interested in playing than eating it. But it was too late to play, sun leaking out of the sky.
Later, I roused myself to join A— in the common room. We chatted about travel and the trail with the South Africans, with whom we had been hopscotching since Himalaya, and talking with Jackie, the adventurous teacher from Hong Kong who lives to travel.
And here, where you can almost touch the stars, we listened to cellphones ring and bling and chirp and talk to their people. It sounds like a casino in the lodge. People stare blankly at their screens. Even here. They all blind their seeing eyes.
Ananke and Eos 