Two months later

It is March 20th, a fine warm day in the city, and though all the earth within sight is brown- the smell on the breeze every now and again hints that spring is here. The birds outside chatter happily, Shinay naps peacefully on the couch, and I'm ruminating over a cup of instant coffee.

Over two months have passed since we left this city and my mind is still making sense of everything that the time held. From seeing my family on the Gulf Coast of Mexico to working construction with Gabe and painting with Ian, from spending time with friends and family in DC and Lynchburg and at Virginia Tech to seeing the new president inaugurated- then flying off again for "home" in Asia- it was like looking at the past through a kaleidoscope- all these fractured colorful bits of life crammed into a tiny amount of time- and trying to work out what the pattern means or what the future holds or if there's any way to hold onto it all- all of the people and the places that we love, but knowing that every turn of the hand, every change in the light creates a new and ungraspable mosaic that is perhaps better enjoyed than figured out.

And then we landed. Here. In one piece of the mosaic that is a grey-brown, dusty city surrounded by low mud mountains. My friend Bill picked us up at the airport in his familiar style, playing Journey and chatting the whole way back about some new revelation about life and how it all works. We passed by our usual Sichuan restaurant, my favorite noodle shop, the vegetable lady that Shinay always chats with. Mosaics within mosaics. Did they miss us? Did they wonder where we went? Four floors up with 100 pounds of bags each, into our quiet apartment. Thanks and goodbye to Bill.

And then it was just us again. In our own quiet, blue-colored, peaceful facet of the kaleidoscope. It felt good to have our own space. Our own time. Our own rhythms. To sleep in our own bed. To walk out and buy our own vegetables and cook our own dinner and do our own dishes. For a week we settled in, got registered with the authorities and with the school, put the apartment in order, found out who was in town and reconnected with folks. We were still in a daze from the whirlwind of the past two months, but happy to be with each other again. Before classes started, we decided to enjoy the togetherness that we'd missed and take one last trip before the demands of the spring resumed. We traveled through Xinjiang by train, connecting the dots of the eastern reaches of the Silk Routes from oasis town to oasis town. It was a wonderful adventure and returning made our home seem the more familiar and comfortable.

So here we are. Three weeks into being back in Asia, two days into classes and projects, several weeks into Spring by the Chinese reckoning. Now I'll stir fry some potatoes and onions and zucchini for a picnic with the neighbors and we'll enjoy a tiny March-afternoon-colored bit of what will one day be the memory of Spring 2009.

01.20.2009

Big Meadows

For those who don't know- we're down from the Plateau for a few weeks. On Thursday I was lucky enough to go for a walk with my brother at Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park. Here are a couple of pics.

A Lady and a Man

 

Afternoon Prayers

 

Zijin Cheng: Lion & Dragons

Zijin Cheng: Door & Pot

 

Zijin Cheng: Gargoyle

 

The Shores of Kokonor

 

Braids and Belt

 

Circumambulation of a small town temple

 

Merry Christmas!!!

Wow, what a wonderful day! What a wonderful life! I can't begin to express how blessed I am. Every day I'm humbled by the incredible riches with which I've been blessed- a wonderful family that loves me, tons of friends, a comfortable home, no lack of food to eat and warm clothes to wear. Sometimes I just sit, too small to move- why should I be so blessed when there are so many people who have nothing at all? What thing did I do that made me worthy to receive life when others eat nothing but bitterness and suffering until their short days on earth come to an end? Nothing, I have done nothing at all to deserve all of this grace. I only hope somehow, in some small way to be able to share goodness and life and warmth and love with those from whom such things have fled. 
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Tonight our home was filled with friends and family from all over the world. We celebrated our hope of eternal life with food and songs and prayers. But if we fail to extend the love that we've received- what good are we? If we spend all these gifts on our own comforts- what have we gained? Life is so short and suffering in the world is so great, how could we live in our own skins if we didn't attempt to share the riches that we've received? And yet, what is harder than to convince our own selfish flesh to give up comfort, even though it be for the worthiest of ends? As Thoreau said when commenting on men's possessions possessing men, "the bad neighborhood to be avoided is our own scurvy selves." 
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On Saturday we will be hanging out at the home for orphans and castaways and the mentally ill. Adjacent is a home for the elderly. Some of them can't even talk, can't cry out for the most basic human needs. No one cares about them. In fact- most are there because they aren't wanted by their own families. I hope that during a few moments with these precious people we'll somehow be able to communicate love and kindness. I also hope that this one day will not be the exception in our lives, but something as common as breathing in and breathing out. Our gifts, our blessings, were not meant to be held on to, but to be exhaled, passed on freely and readily as we received them.

For Birute

I promised a friend that I'd send some pics of Tibetan Mastiffs. Here are two from last year. I was in the field working on a grassland study and talking to folks about possible solutions to the problem of brown bears breaking in and pillaging nomads' winter homes. It was a good time- clipping grasses, sedges, and forbs with scissors while being swept over by four consecutive thundering hail storms, being watched by wolves, and stumbling across wild ass bones and abandoned nomad homes. That night we helped herd the yak home and were rewarded with an astounding sunset and a homemade yak-meat and noodle dinner. Sometime in the night the dogs went crazy and we all went outside to observe a large black silhouette lumbering away in the dim moonlight. Probably an Ursus arctos. 

The close-up of the puppy is from summer 2004. I was out in the field doing some participatory-rural appraisals.  The puppy belonged to a doctor who made about $500 a year. I think he either lived in a livestock shelter or ran a medical dispensary out of it. He made ends meet by working as a motorcycle repairman. Anyway, that's his puppy. Can't remember if Marc or I took that shot.

 

Friday Around the House

In anticipation of an upcoming Christmas party, I'm tidying, doing laundry, and washing dishes. It's almost noon and the ice inside the kitchen window is slowly thinning. This week marks the beginning of the descent into winter, and with it the first trickles of the expatriate exodus to warmer climes. In the project area- even the government shuts down for winter and moves to lower altitudes- so our compound will soon be filling with officials and their families even as the foreigners are departing. Others on the team are now up on the plateau finishing up the clinic monitoring, looking for land to lease for a research station, and tying up loose ends before the new year. January will find only the hardiest folk on the grassland- and that's when we hope to be getting into some substantial wildlife monitoring and equipment setup- though I won't be around to make the trip.

Back to the dishes.

Gazing South

Haven't taken many pictures lately. The three images below are views from our south windows. There's been demolition and construction going on for weeks and it will continue for the next couple of years. We're on the western edge of town and the surrounding buildings have been razed in the first stages of a new development drive that will construct many high-rise apartment and office buildings. Right now, however, the land to the south and west holds only a few trees full of crows, the shells of a couple of buildings awaiting demolition, and three army-green tents where some of the road-building crew live.

Southwest

South

Southeast

Dear Uncle Jochi,

it was pitch black dark outside when my wristwatch alarm went off thursday morning. i stood in the shower until my second alarm went off about a quarter hour later. i pulled my lunch out of the fridge and stuck it in my bag along with some gloves and clothes, tied my boots, and pulled on my down jacket. it was somewhere south of freezing and not any lighter when i stepped outside to find the rest of the guys.

by the time we hit the good roads it was plenty light and i remembered to text message the teachers to let them know i'd be out of town. we flew along smooth new highways above hayfields and rivers and small villages, past the growing bones of dams, factories and prisons.

somewhere beyond huju the highway gave way quickly to dirt roads, which in turn gave way to snowy lanes lined with white-barked trees. long straight single lines of trees along long straight stretches of snowy road along long straight runs of streams coming down off the mountains were broken infrequently by little bridges cutting to the opposite bank and by small villages of mud and stone and people.

curls of smoke rose from the chimneys in the windless morning. men and women turned hay in farmyards and walked along the road with their pitchforks on their shoulders. one man led his black hog off the road into a stand of trees at a gentle bend of the stream.

eventually the ridges and peaks and streams and fields and herds and haystacks and stone walls converged as they must when one drives up-valley. there we parked, got out, and walked up.

Sunny Afternoon

Lows in the upper 20s this week. Highs in the low 50s. Our sun-room where we hang laundry to dry gets quite warm in the afternoon sun- and from its windows we can see snow on the eastern hills. Today we are cleaning house and listening to Congo to Cuba (thanks Krejci!). Shinay has added flavor to the day's chores by brewing eight treasures tea and fixing a delicious tofu-cabbage stew. I married a great cook! If you're in DC and want to try eight treasures tea- we recommend Ching Ching Cha in Georgetown.

Chilly Wednesday

I woke up this morning to the sight of what appeared to be snow on South Mountain. Our apartment backs right against the base of the hill, and about two hundred yards up there was quite a bit of white between the tufts of grass and trees. Not sure if was a heavy frost or a dusting of snow. I wanted to go inspect- but it's not that easy to get to the slopes that are so tantalizingly close, as I discovered on my walk there last weekend.

About 50 yards up the steep hill, a mud road runs parallel to the base. All along the road are the old style courtyard houses built without gaps in between save for a tiny drain here and there. It's maddening trying to go for a nice walk on the hill and having to walk for over a mile to get to a break in the houses. If one travels westward along the hill, the only avenue upwards is to a gated entry to a park. If one travels eastward, there is just house after house after house. All are mud or brick or concrete block. The mud and brick yards are swept clean, potted flowers grace the doorways and the windows are hung with colorful curtains. Huge laying hens cluck about and a few roosters crow throughout the day. Children run about happily flying little kites made of plastic bags and string. This is affordable housing and seems to be a healthy neighborhood of taxi drivers, laborers, and shop-workers. A mosque anchors the east end and to the south east is a broad field before the city resumes. Men, women, and children alike all seemed noticeably happy as they walked through the fields and mud streets chatting or playing. Every home bears a black, spray-painted designation on its outer wall: "for demolition".

I eventually gave up looking for a break in the houses and followed a young boy as he picked his way through some buildings to an ash and rubbish pile that doubled as a ladder up 20 feet to the next terrace. I tried not to think about what I was climbing and scrambled up after him. In a few garbled words I enquired about how to get up the hill. He just pointed and said to keep going the same westward route I'd been following. To my dismay, the brick path eventually led right back down to the previous terrace, but I did enjoy the expanded view and the sight of two different flocks of chickens waiting patiently at their owners' doorways for lunch! 

Abandoning the search for a legitimate route to the hillside, I ventured into an un-gated courtyard and looked about for someone to ask for permission to cross their property- but couldn't find anybody. The small rooms to the back of the courtyard used the hillside as their rear wall, but there was a little nook in the corner where one could pass. It was an outdoor room for a tethered calf, two walls being the earth itself and one wall being that of another building. I was happy to face a guard calf rather than a guard dog and carefully climbed the homemade wooden ladder eight feet up to the mud steps cut into the soil. 

Finally! Above the endless ribbon of mud and brick homes, above the noisy streets, I was almost eye level with the towering high-rises and facing a terraced hill of grasses, trees, and shrubs. I grew up in the countryside on a sprawling property just east of the Blue Ridge. Even the small town of Blacksburg was unnerving in its urban-ness and crush of people everywhere. Grass and trees and cows and bugs and bushes and streams and hills are what I need to breathe. Over the years in Blacksburg and then in DC I learned where to find little pockets of air and how to hold my breath longer and longer. At Tech it was the cow pastures and hikes along the Appalachian Trail and any stream Gabe and I could find. In DC it was wooded neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and long runs on the W&OD trail and walks at Great Falls and kayaking the Potomac. It became such habit that I didn't even realize how tense I was until I'd hit 29 South and the rolling fields lined with cedar trees approaching Charlottesville and all my being would relax like tight muscles in a hot bath. 

South Mountain is a little breath of life in this city of millions. As I picked my way through thornbushes and tall grass upward into bigger and bigger trees and then beyond them to high fields- I felt alive again. Fall is the time that I need the outdoors most and the time that I daily live with one foot in the here and now and one foot on the ethereal ground of memory. My body walks concrete paths between concrete towers, but my soul is with Gabe and Grandad cutting wood and walking in the pastures. At dusk I want to go somewhere- but I don't know where, I'm looking for something, but don't know what. I feel lost until I realize that my being is searching for the gathering in of family and friends around the Brickhouse kitchen table at dusk- but that is far off in distance and further off in time. 

Dusk instead found me sitting in a park with another old friend whose pages hold these worlds together- and also promise another better than the beginning. Sitting beside an earthen wall of a city thousands of years old, I read the words that accompanied me to the farm ponds of Appomattox and the banks of the James River, that fed me through hungry times and lit my way through dark ones, and I remember that there is no going back and there is no standing still- there is only pressing on.  

I have sucked in a breath of nature and have drunken a draught from the springs of life. I have looked into the ghosts of memory and it is time now to return. Homeward bound, I climb the dark hill to the apartment- knowing that the home I long for is both past and future, and that the home that I must build is now.

Signs of fall, smell of snow

The leaves on the mountainside are turning golden and the air is often crisp and cool. Outside of the gate trucks loaded down with apples sell to passersby. Besides the usual fall crops- huge mounds of red chili peppers are being carted all over the city on little motorized three wheelers that supply the small vegetable shops. In people's windows one can see strands of them as long as a man hanging to dry.

A couple of days I've walked outside to the distinct smell of snow on the wind. How odd, I thought- as there was no sign of snow clouds. As I hiked up South Mountain a few days ago- the source of the smell became visible. All of the high peaks beyond the dirt mountains surrounding the city were showing white at the peaks.

Walk on South Mountain

A man returning from the yellow pastures at the top of South Mountain. I crested the shoulder of the hill to find him packing and lighting his pipe. He lingered for a little while in the warm afternoon sun- probably curious to see what I was doing- then shouldered his load of fodder and gathered his grazing cattle with whooping calls and the cracks of a whip. 

Although not very visible in this picture, the ridge in the far distance is snow-capped.