Homes Away From Home

25.01.08

More Crude and Unapologetic Cultural Generalizations...

Coming back into Vancouver and flying over to Victoria, I notice patches of clearcut forest and realize that Canadians, like Americans, have built a country on killing -- killing of nature or of other cultures, whatever stands in the way of comfort and material progress. There is a similarity of intent - conquest for survival, then more - but a difference in style. In Canada the land stretches seemingly without limit beyond the horizon: unkempt and unkept nature, cold dark forests and mountains. As if humbled by this perspective of the vast unending wilderness, in contrast to their diminutive efforts, Canadians go about their killing with quiet and practical efficiency. Canadians are also rather reserved in the socio-political sphere, content in their perpetual status as colony to the greater power (first England, then America). Americans, on the other hand, have been emboldened by their swift conquest of a continent and more lately, a global political economy. Relishing their success with a reckless pursuit of materialism, some Americans take a shameless (one might say, crude and unapologetic) pride in their accomplishments and status as dominators.

 

01.02.08

Connectivity Issues

“If we have not found heaven within, it is a certainty we will not find it without.”--Henry Miller

It’s all a melange of dreams and expectations, glitches and disappointments. Did I really expect paradise to be graced with seamless connectivity? How to reconcile the placid warm waters of this Thai island beach with any worldly ambition of efficiency or success? In wanting my tropical cake and eating it too in my ultracivilized way, something gets lost in translation.

For details, there are certainly the obvious successes and failures, highs and lows of my connection to this place and its people (whether foreign or local or somewhere in between). Fresh from the exhilarating freedom of receiving email to my Blackberry in the jungle in Maui, I find that I cannot connect with it to any local data service provider in Thailand; and in attempting to upgrade its software for a backdoor solution I found on the Internet, it crashed and has not yet recovered. Of course the support line back in Canada is open for business only when the overseas call centers here are closed; and the international phone card I bought to use in the phone booths is useless in the absence of any local phone booth. On my way down the sweltering road to the useless phone booth, the improvised container of sunscreen (which I’d filled at home for this trip after having my primary tube confiscated at the airport in Vancouver) exploded in my hands.

On the positive side, I’ve been enjoying the frequent company of a good new Canadian friend I met at a river pier in Bangkok, in transit to the same island yoga course where I was bound and staying at the same guest house in the city. And I did make some fortuitous drumming connections in Bangkok through my friend Michael Pluznick, who arranged a rooftop group session atop a 44-story highrise with a panoramic view of the city, showing us parts for five West African rhythms and engaging in wondrous solos. The group included our host, a longtime expat; a Sri Lankan kit player; and another kit player about to fly home to play with Jefferson Starship. Afterwards we went to the lavish buffet at the Sheraton before retiring upstairs to catch the last half-hour of a great subtle jazz group featuring guitar, piano, drums and standup bass. The drummer had jammed with the others the night before, and for the last song of the set the Starship drummer sat in. They created a great sense of space in the consonant and sparse improvisation from each quarter: a revelation after my jam with friends at home several days before, when I’d found it hard to restrain my exuberance in free jamming after many months of structured playing with set rhythms.

Earlier that afternoon in my quest for a local phone service SIM card, I had glimpsed some royalty whizzing by enroute to shopping at the chic Siam Paragon shopping megalith, their cute red sports car escorted by numerous police and military personnel, with both vehicle and pedestrian traffic held up for blocks for their passing.

Next day I took a break from my friend Anna and the King of Siam to seek out an isolated corner of a large city park where I could play my drum and flute freely without disturbing too many nappers. Day three was devoted to finding an alternate bus ticket to leave the city that night, after the initial disappointment of hearing that the bus associated with the guest house was already full; then spending the afternoon doing an editing job which, by complete coincidence, turned out to be a paper on Thai linguistics by an anonymous client from Bangkok. After a long night’s bus ride and morning ferry trip to Koh Phangan, I finally got settled at Rose’s Bungalows where I’d stayed with Nora and Cleo two years ago on my first trip to Thailand. I could finally drop my load, practice drumming again while an excavator roared in the near distance, shower, then sink into the deep sleep of home -- at least, a home away from home.

Humor is in inverse proportion to ambition.--Norman Lewis

It didn’t help my contented mood of settlement to discover, while unpacking, that my stash of $165 in cash had gone missing, in some mysterious fashion, somewhere between Hong Kong - or was it Vancouver? - and Rose’s bungalow. But I didn’t allow myself to dwell long on this misfortune or miscalculation, beyond trying to recall just which pack pockets were left unlocked when. Is this evolution, when previous causes of anger and bitterness now trigger just mild disgust and resignation? I am not, after all, merely playing “The Game of Life” to win by maximizing gains and minimizing losses; or if I am, I can at least intuit that there is more to the game’s accounting than a balance sheet of time and money. Nothing that can’t be cured by a good Thai massage on the beach -- especially at $8 per hour.

Lately my days have been devoted to the timeless pursuits of sunbathing, swimming, snorkeling, and hiking the back roads; sharing good food and conversation with Anna; and my persistent quest to resolve the malfunctioning Blackberry. It’s not so much that I need the phone while I am here -- though it would make it easier to arrange next week’s rendezvous with Michael on Koh Samui, and assist my other friend Anna from last year’s India trip in finding her way here -- it’s more a matter of principle, of putting into working order what I had hoped for following November’s tortuous decision to spring for a cell phone in the first place. Meanwhile I cannot help but harbor resentment for the sales rep who convinced me to take the Blackberry over the Nokia, touting its supposedly superior performance and eminent suitability for travel in Thailand. I followed his advice in buying an “unlocking” code so that I could avoid paying exorbitant roaming charges while here ... only to find that the local providers don’t support Blackberry unless you are a resident with a work permit.

So meanwhile, I’m left waiting for a reply from Rogers email support (advertised as 24-hour response time, but currently revised to “5 business days”); finding purpose in a morning’s stifling walk to the nearest pay phone, though it didn’t work and Internet service along the way was intermittently shut down with local electricity; recalling tales of fellow travelers such as the Scottish-Malaysian doctor who swam with penguins in Antarctica, or witnessed mass deaths in Nigeria when cholera and yellow fever epidemics were not acknowledged as possible (because they were considered “unclean”) by local sultans who therefore allowed them to proceed unchecked; eating at a beachfront restaurant, anything different than the “same-same” Thai fare everywhere: baked macaroni with cheese, chicken and ham (and a zest of Thai spice). At least I handled three small editing jobs today when the electricity happened to be on, so the thread of professional identity can continue thinly along the edge of this otherwise all-too-languid shore.

Paradise is best known when it is lost.--Pico Ayer, "An Englishman in Paradise"

I know I am no philosopher; but Pico Iyer’s fine phrase, “Paradise is best known when it is lost” provokes some considered response in this land of limbo between eleusia and ennui. The quantum approach, for instance, leads us to recognize that the losing, in the form of separation, comes in the very act of knowing. That is, at least, when “knowing” is of the rational, analytical type, in which the ego-mind is engaged in separating all the things in this world, especially itself in its fearful defense of individualistic survival.

There is another kind of knowing, however, that is inclusive instead of divisive, and that gives a more hopeful vision than Iyer’s archly civilized cynicism. In this knowing of a higher awareness than that of the small-self ego, the individual identity is dissolved to make way for a greater appreciation for the whole -- whether that is the whole of one’s immediate surroundings or the whole of universal existence. Such knowing seeks not to describe and delineate, but rather to embrace and expand; and in the process it enhances rather than demeans our conception of “paradise.” In this higher-order sense, we might truthfully say, “Paradise is found when it is best known.”

02.02.08Today saw more of the same . . . though with new twists and wrinkles. On the technical end of things I was happy to discover a WiFi outlet for affordable Internet access; but the connection was slow, and in my quest to download the proper software to repair the ailing Blackberry, I gave up the wireless connection in favor of a faster cable hookup up the street at Jay Jay’s travel. Unfortunately, though that connection was indeed faster, my promising download still aborted halfway along due to the vagaries of the satellite connection this island depends on.

My evidently misguided attempts to be a cyber-cowboy in Thailand were tempered by long and peaceful sits in the sparsely populated beachfront restaurants. With no contact with either Anna today, I was left to my own devices: both computerized and meditative. It occurred to me while sitting in that public space overlooking the crystal water that I was indeed at home here . . . reflecting on the comparative scene I once enjoyed outside my house in Argenta looking at the distant view of Kootenay Lake. The key difference here, apart from the obvious one of climate, is that here “my place” is not my own in the usual sense of private property; and yet, my new sense here today is that “being at home” in a place is more simply a subjective attitude, a way of being at peace with one’s surroundings.

Perhaps diverted by my ongoing quest to iron out the glitch in my phone-computer, today I felt free of any desires to improve upon, complain about, or otherwise fix my physical surroundings. I no longer felt the need to compare Thailand to Hawaii or Canada, whether favorably or not; or maybe it was that I felt well enough favored and settled here, accepting finally my place here for better or worse, for the duration of my stay this winter at least, that I could finally be present to enjoy what it had to offer. Or, maybe, like the bliss I felt most palpably at the exact midpoint of my three-week visit to Maui, my contentment in this temporary home today came also at the likely midpoint of my six-day period of residence here before moving on to Koh Samui and Wat Kow Tham. Still another realization raises its unromantic head: that I feel most at home here on a day when I spend half of it on the computer.

03.02.08I succeed finally in downloading the required software for the Blackberry ... but the installation process still fails, and so finally I give up ... at least this phase of trials. Later, walking home airy light from the hyperventilated state of bliss after kirtan with thirty voices in the sound chamber at the yoga center, I hold somehow this dual vision of who I am, as man walking down the earth road under stars: the spirit being lifted to higher communal consciousness; and the toolmaking human still driven to iron out the glitches in his latest technology. Three Sundays ago I was similarly lifted to heights of ecstasy in a Haiku, Maui singing circle ... and balanced that unsustainable bliss with a twelve-hour grounding of sleep.

 

Danya's Pools

Though I travel in the winter to seek sun and warm sea to swim in, I also find peace in the quiet seclusion of nature, the gentle green of forest pools far from the tourist crowds and sunny glare of the resort strip. Here is my audiovisual homage to the heart of Maui...

 

Maui Revisited

Mr. Synchronicity

Today was a magical day. It began with a plan to wake up early and catch the bus to Ka’anapali, which is next to one of my favorite beaches from my first visit to Maui in May 2006. At that time Kahekili Beach Park was just that, a long natural strip of unspoiled golden sand beside swaying trees and greenery. Now there is an unbroken string of high-end hotels and cabanas lining the shore, with only token remnants of the original vegetation. The beach is still uncrowded however, with sand just as soft and water as clear and calm as I remembered. This time I was treated to a special compensation for the disappointment over inevitable development. As I dove to swim along the bottom not far from the water’s edge, I heard clearly the sounds of singing - actually groans, moans, squeaks and screeches - from humpback whales wintering offshore.

The day began auspiciously enough, as I ran into Kevin on my way up to the road to hitch a ride to town. He took me to the bus stop, and from there my long day’s journey went predictably enough. The so-called Maya-Hopi Indian man who sat next to me for the first half-hour talked nonstop, running a manic jag through everything from the Word of God to the caste system of India and the war criminals of Nazi Germany. After that I settled into quiet enjoyment of the scenery, with verdant primal mountains to my right and turquoise ocean to my left, all the way to Lahaina. There I stopped for coffee and Internet at a café I remembered, before catching the bus for the last leg to Ka’anapali. On the bus ride back it was the teens who dominated the airwaves with their constant chatter, easier to take because it wasn’t directed at me personally.

The final portion of the trip, just before dusk, was a little worrisome since I’d been warned by the taxi driver I hired my first night here (having forgot my driver’s license at home and so unable to rent a car) not to try hitching at night. As I stood by the highway from the end of the bus line I was questioning whether I’d be able to make the drum class the next day ending around this same time, having to hitchhike home. But just then a car stopped. I opened the door, and Steve, the drum teacher I had met last visit and hoped to meet again at his class the next day, reached over to shake my hand. “Nowick!” he said, “I was just thinking about you, as I was playing Mamady Keita’s ‘Soli’ here on my car stereo.” We caught up on drumming and other news as he took me to my destination driveway. He’s been enjoying learning tango with his girlfriend, after a steep learning curve of a year and a half. Coincidentally I also tried to juggle drumming with tango lessons with a girlfriend a couple of years ago, though in my case I quit (both the tangoing and the relationship) before the learning curve leveled out.

Halfway down the driveway to Danya’s place, a truck rolled up behind me and stopped to offer me a ride. It was Kevin again, returning from town. Back at Danya’s place later, I met Ray and discovered in the course of conversation that we’d both spent time in arctic Quebec, where, among other things, we’d witnessed caribou wandering through the streets of Kuujuak, and “shared a beer with Zebedee Nungak.” At that point Shara walked in, dubbing me “Mr. Synchronicity” since she’d already seen a guy in Paia come up to me and recognize me from Nelson, BC (as well as from the beach jam earlier in the day); and this while traveling with Mina, also from Nelson and staying at Danya’s. I used to rehearse at Mina’s house every week for a while when she was living with a guy whose family band I played with. Shara also announced that she’d discovered that Congolese dance classes were happening every night this week in Paia, and I could catch a ride home with her after my drum class and her dance class.

The Hourglass Effect

The first week in January just might be my favorite time of year. Even in cold northern climes, it is special with the growing light each day, the knowledge that light and warmth are increasing. In the tropics, where daylight and temperature are more constant, still there is an effect of extra tranquility and ease, each day beckoning with a paradoxical yet intoxicating mixture of fullness and emptiness. In either location the schedule of events and expectations seems at the lowest ebb for the year, and for that reason alone this brief season is precious.

In contrast, the holiday time leading up to the new year in December is hectic and hurried, with each day shorter than the last, as time is filled with social engagements, travel arrangements, errands and loose ends (not to mention sickness from overdoing it). The year in between sees a seasonal variation in temperate lands, yet a subtle ticking of the calendar no matter the latitude.

In effect, it’s as if the calendar year runs like an hourglass. With the turning of the new year, the glass is full, the sand seemingly endless in supply, the trickling away of it imperceptible. Yet trickle it does, day by day, and by fall the diminishing supply causes increasing anxiety that we’re not going to get everything done that we had hoped this year.

I suppose this is where some of that subtle sadness comes in, on New Year’s Eve. It’s not just the tawdry leftovers from 1930s America that taints the champagne, or the nostalgic singing and tipsy kissing, or the flashing of the fluorescent lights, but regret at time gone by and opportunity missed. Oh well - the hourglass turns, and we start with a full cup of possibility and potential again.

At least, such is the feeling I had up until this day. Even this morning, for instance, I felt the buoyancy of free and open spirit - not removed from life but at peace with the simplicity of the daily scene: walking down the road in the sunshine, even listening to the ravings of my seatmate on the bus. But this day, January 8, marks the beginning of the second week of the year, and already during my bus ride today I have generated a long list of things to write about, which equates to things to do. And once we have an agenda of things to do, we jump back on the wheel of karma: action, and reaction, spinning ever faster.

Second Time Around

It’s interesting visiting Maui for a second time. Having explored all the areas of the island during my first visit, now I know where to go, can be both more settled where I’m staying and more focused during my outings to various favorite spots. I know where to shop, where to do Internet, where to get good coffee, where to change, snorkel, swim, and drum. This sense of familiarity is made deeper by staying in a congenial place with like-minded people, a kind of extended family (especially when it includes old friends from home).

On the other hand, I wonder already what it might be like to visit a third time, or more. Would familiarity give way that quickly to routine? Relationship with a place is like relationship with a person, going through those three stages: Discovery - Familiarity - Routine. It seems that these three stages make up a natural cycle, a complete circle. Past the point of routine lies the challenge.

If the circle is continued without change, status quo risks becoming stagnation. There is a choice, however, to spiral upward and outward, expanding to new fields of exploration, new relationships of discovery. There is also a choice to spiral downward and inward, into more subtle realms of experience that on the surface may appear the same, but actually can be appreciated in deeper essence. In this way stagnation may be averted or transformed into sustainability. I suspect that a key ingredient in such a transformation of status quo is for routine to take on an aspect of the sacred: routine gives way to ritual.

Grisham the Prophet

I’m reading a piece of “pulp fiction” called The Brethren, by John Grisham, which once again proves that fiction is truer than strange truth. Written in 2000, a full year before 9/11, it lays out a scenario that is chillingly prescient. If it wasn’t also truth that such shenanigans date at least as far back as the time of Caesar, one might almost suspect that BushCo took their script from the novelist’s hands.

A main premise is that the CIA rigs a presidential election, through blackmail and bribery and corporate sponsorship, for its chosen candidate on the single platform of doubling military spending. When the candidate inquires about how the American public will be convinced to go along with such an agenda, the answer is right out of history, past and future:

“We’ll create a crisis on the other side of the world, and suddenly [you] will be called a visionary. Timing is everything. You make a speech about how weak we are in Asia, few people listen. Then we’ll create a situation over there that stops the world, and suddenly everyone wants to talk to you. It will go on like that, throughout the campaign. We’ll build the tension on this end. We’ll release reports, create situations, manipulate the media, embarrass your opponents. Frankly . . . I don’t expect it to be that difficult.”

“You sound like you’ve been here before.”

As the political ads engineered by the CIA go on the air, we see images that are all too familiar to us in the post-9/11 world:

This one began with a grainy video of men with guns slithering through the desert, dodging and shooting and undergoing some type of training. Then the sinister face of a terrorist - dark eyes and hair and features, obviously some manner of Islamic radical - and he said in Arabic with English subtitles, “We will kill Americans wherever we find them. We will die in our holy war against the great Satan.” After that, quick videos of burning buildings. Embassy bombings. A busload of tourists. The remains of a jetliner scattered through a pasture.

I guess the publication date of 2000 was too close to the American election in November of that year to influence its outcome. But given another year, the brains beyond W. didn’t miss a beat. Either that, or John Grisham has his finger right on the pulse of the American Way.

US Homeland, Empire

Yesterday while hitchhiking I got a ride from a man from the Czech Republic. He’s been here two years, but is seriously contemplating leaving soon. I asked him why, and he referenced the politics of war, the obsession with militarism and security. These were the same things that led me to leave the USA in 1974 following the Vietnam war. Now, 34 years later, the political climate is, in the words of my wise and cynical friend Wayne, “the same only worse.”

In a follow-up conversation today, Kevin observed that Hawaii was somewhat removed from the political mindset of the mainland US, the “homeland.” Maybe Hawaii, I wondered, was more like the colony it once was instead of a true State; and for that matter, not unlike Canada - a part of the American empire. “Patriotic” Americans used to say, “Love it or leave it.” Somehow that slogan got replaced along the way with, “You can check out, but you can never leave.”