Love is

Love is a blind whore
With a mental disease
And no sense of humor.

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Slow.

Lesson? Sustain the art.

Siem Reap

1)    motorman sings his sad tale of "no money"

2)    the endless hard luck story

3)    rows of empty ugly hotel monstrosities line the Highway of Death

4)    being Sunday Someday, SR is more destitute than a hungry girl waiting to go to bed with a hungry man

5)    people salvage trash in the rain

6)    air is thick with moisturizer and masks

7)    Carl died. He left a young Cambodian wife and two boys, 12 & 6. Heart attack.

8)    I feel this deep loss. Profound sadness.

Needs. Drama. Story. Conflict.

Give it an edge.

Theme : loss, passion, alienation, boredom, loneliness.

One week ago he sat in a Lao garden. It rained.

Everything smelled deep, pure, beautiful.

Five months in Vientiane helping grades 6/7 be more human.

Sitting in the garden writing - polishing manuscripts about Turkey, China, Indonesia, affectionately called Amnesia.

For the last three months while playing with kinder garden kids from 8-3 he'd been involved with Ling who came from the war ravaged interior and worked the massage biz.

During the course of their pre-meditated hot sexual relationship interspersed with gestures and broken Lao-English guttural intentions, he bought her a phrase book and dictionary and English primers, and a hand-made paper notebook. He gave her colored pens and watercolor paints. She had the skill and artistic eye.

At night he read as she created in precise detail large Lao images of dancers, village life, coiled serpents, and vivid representational fantasy/reality cultural art.

He was astonished and supportive.

She was happy. They were in temporary attraction, lust, desire, passion. They shared lives. She relished the generous and serene outpouring of her emotion and creativity.

He told her he'd leave the school, town, country and her after a month.

They cried. They hugged. She painted a final picture of the holding hands, walking up the street lined with flowering lilac trees. Another had them hugging, shedding tears.

He suggested she keep her art alive. She said she would. He suggested she make a portfolio of her work and show it to galleries.

He flew away.

A vanishing point on life's canvas.

Ling's Art 

letting go

He procrastinated. He was addicted to Ling.

They stayed together. They helped each other in small ways.

Love, passion, time, money, energy.

One night she repeated her performance, I come back in one hour.

He waited. Her chance to be responsible. To do what she says. To be honest.

She's a no-show. Her reasons, her choice.

He released his awareness of the futility. Free following their path with dignity, respect.

Letting go. Exhale everything out. Clean break.

How's it feel this emotional release for all the imaginary angst?

Calm. Centered.

Dance Now. Think Later.

My life dance is ambiguity, acceptance, independent detachment and creative imagination.

Dance is isolated yet cooperating and independent. I believe in the magic of dance.

When you dance for a fleeting moment you feel alive.

What do I see? I see a circle of movement, a connected unity, language in space. There are five rhythms in dance.

You start with a circle. It’s a circular movement from the feminine container. She is earth.

Then you have a line from the hips moving out. This is the masculine action with direction. He is fire.

Chaos is next, a combination of a circle and line where male and female energies interact. This istransformation.

After chaos is the lyrical. A leap. A release. This is air.

The last element of dance is stillness. Out of stillness is born the next movement.

I’ll dance until I die.

What is life?

Dance.

the blind man and his daughter

He wore a felt hat. He gripped a wooden staff. His face was long and sallow.
The girl was 11. Wearing cotton, her face was solemn, shocked.
Both wore plastic flip-flops.
She held his hand.

They came to an intersection. Small buses, bikes, lost fat Europeans, orange robed wandering monks, silver vans. Women carrying bamboo baskets spilling oranges negotiated pavement.

The girl led the man across the street.
Their pace steady, yet hesitant.

She was his eyes. He trusted her implicitly.
A stranger drawing in his notebook watched them.
He pulled a 20 Kip note from his pocket.
He gestured to the girl, Take it.
She froze.

She spoke quick Lao words to her father.
Questioning, doubt, healthy uncertainty in her eyes.
The stranger gestured the 20.
She remained still.

He got up and slowly approached her. His hand extended the money.
His hand said, take it.
Her small hand emerged with caution. Her small fingers accepted the gift.
She smiled placing her hands together.
Her fingertips touched her chin meaning, Thank you.

She whispered to her father, it's 20.
His blind eyes darted back and forth.
He mumbled, Thank you, joining his hands.

His wooden staff hung in the air like a pendulum.
She led him away.

They disappeared. 

  

star's story

How slow can you go?

Slower than a breath. 

Slower than stillness.

Slow slower and slower.

One night star bright moon light senses our mutual loneliness.

Star shows me scar marks on her wrists. My father died. I lived with relatives. They beat me. I tried to kill myself. Twice. I ran away. I became strong. I decided to live.

I met a man. I got pregnant. I had my son. He is 17 now. I studied Lao massage and worked for three years.

A good fool is hard to find.

Acrobatic spine torso. Ride the pony. Flexibility. Drive it home until dawn.

We are buried deep inside narrow dark muddy passages.

We are surrounded by women gossiping, telling stories in the market. They discuss the Lao woman with a tall foreign man. She inspects green beans. With theatrical brilliance she throws them back. Disdain. Too expensive. Poor quality. She negotiates greens, bamboo, vegetables.

You don't see foreign ghost spirits in this market.