Going To Graz

“Take a good look at me! 

I am an idiot, I am a clown, I am a faker.

Take a good look at me!

I am ugly, my face has no expression, I am little.

I am like all of you!”

-  Tristan Tzara

*

After a month in Cadiz I needed solitude for winter writing. Patricia opened a provincial map. She pointed out coastal towns. “Villages full of Germans this time of year. It depends on what you want.”

She highlighted areas and small towns north of Cadiz like Arcos de la Frontera, Bornos, Villamartin, and Prado del Ray.

She pointed to a village named Grazalema. It was in the Sierra National Park and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with 146 species of birds, tracts of Pinsapar Fir and climbing opportunities. “This is also a beautiful area. One of my favorites but it will be cold there this winter.”

“Thanks for your help. I like the sound of Grazalema. I’ll live there for three months before returning to Morocco.”

“My pleasure. Good luck.”

One Romani said adios to another Romani. I carried my pack and word machine past the San Francisco cathedral where men fitted fragmented dolomite stones into puzzles.

Tanned people drank coffee or red wine watching muscular workers string plumb lines and hammer beat up rocks into passive submission. A priest in religious shadows fingered rosary beads waiting to hear sinners release imaginary guilt.

Hammer music faded as I traversed passages to a park where a bronze Spanish hero on horseback waving a sword dripping blood proclaimed freedom and a constitution in 1812.

Transatlantic shipping vessels with the word FAST loaded at a dock. The Canary Islands were two days away.

 A harbor billboard extolled CONSUME.

 Adjusting my antenna I heard Sonny Boy blowing his harp, “If you don’t help me darling I’m gonna have to find me somebody else.”

The COMES bus wound north passing olive and cork trees, crumbling stone homes disintegrating to earth, tilled soil and walled estates. Giant black steel bulls advertising local sherry guarded hills overlooking highways. Bulls, sheep and cows grazed in fields. Moorish castles hovered above old Roman roads.

Men manipulated shovels, small dump trucks, cement mixers, wheelbarrows, chisels and hammers. They heaved, hauled and sweated as homes and businesses consumed fields. They attached stones to existing structures. Roman stonewalls married Moorish stonewalls.

Adults were big kids assembling life projects to authenticate their being.

Bread, water, lentil soup, ham, cheese and olives dressed mid-day tables with a siesta for dessert.

Yangon, 2015

In Algodonales I negotiated a ride past Zahara de la Sierra into rising mountains. The abandoned castle sat on a pinnacle above fields and three lakes.

The Almohads, a strict Berber sect from Morocco, built Zahara in the 8th century. It fell to Castilian prince Fernando de Antequera in 1407 and was recaptured in a night raid in 1481 by Abu-al-Hasan from Granada.

Spanish anarchists, bandits and literary outlaws in exile used it as a hideout in the 19th century.

The high vertical mountain pass at 1300 meters was Puerto de los Palomas or Dove Pass. Doves did not live there. Egyptian vultures ruled skies.

The narrow hairpin mountain road wove through clouds, rain and snow as plateaus, rivers, lakes and forests disappeared in fog. A disembodied spirit floated.

ART

Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Yangon, 2015

Omar's Daughter

Omar remembered his daughter in Cadiz.

Faith worked at Mandarin Duck selling paper and writing instruments. She practiced a calm stationary way.

“May I help you,” she said one morning, greeting a bearded forcestero. Their eyes connected loneliness minus words. She averted her eyes. He was looking for pain free intimacy and ink.

“I’d like a refill for this,” he said, unscrewing a purple cloud-writing instrument with a white peak.

Recognizing the Swiss rollerball writing tool she opened a cabinet filled with boxes of cartridges.

“Fine or medium?”

“Hmm, lets try both.”

“One box of each?” she said.

“Yes please. I don’t want to run dry in the middle of a simple true sentence.”

“I agree. There’s nothing more challenging than running empty while taking a line for a walk,” she said.

“Isn’t that the truth? Why run when you can walk? Are you a writer?”

“Isn’t everyone? I love writing, sketching, painting, drawing, watercolors moistly,” she said.

“Moistly?”

“I wet the paper first. It saturate colors with natural vibrancy,” she said.

“With tears of joy or tears of sadness?”

“Depends on the sensation and the intensity of my feeling. What’s the difference? Tears are still tears in the rain. The heart is a lonely courageous hunter.”

I twirled a peacock feather. Remembering Omar’s Mont Blanc 149 piston-fountain pen, I said, “I also need a bottle of ink.”

“We have Black, Midnight Blue, and Cornflower Silk Red. British Racing Green just came in.”

“Racing Green. Sounds fast. Let’s try it.” Omar would be pleased with this expedient color.

I switched subjects to seduce her with my silver tongue.

“Are you free after work? Perhaps we might have a drink and some tapas? Perhaps a little mango tango?”

“I have other plans. I am not sexually repressed. I am liberated. I have a secret blind lover. He peels my skin to enjoy the fruit. Here you are,” handing me cartridge boxes and a bottle of green ink with a white mountain.

I paid with a handful of tears and a rose thorn. My ink stained fingers touched fine and extra fine points of light.

Faith and her extramarital merchandise were thin and beautiful. She was curious.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” she said. “How old are you?”

“Older than yesterday and younger than tomorrow.”

“I see.”

“It was nice meeting you,” I said. “By the way, have you seen the film, Pan’s Labyrinth, from 2006, written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro?”

“Are you crazy or what? 2006 is five years from now. How could you know about it?”

“I live in the future. It’s about your Civil War from 1936-1939, repression and a young girl’s fantasy. It’s a beautiful film on many levels. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.”

“Wow,” she said, “I loved that film, especially when Alice meets the Mad Hatter. Poor rabbit, always in a hurry, looking at his watch.”

“Funny you should mention time. A watch plays a small yet significant role in the Pan film.”

“Really? How ironic. I’ll see it in the future.”

“Yes you will. The future memory will inspire your spirit, art and life.”

I pulled out my Swizz Whizz Army stainless steel water resistant Victoria Abnoxious pocket watch, laughing.

“My, look at the tick-tock. Got to walk. Thanks for the ink. Create with passion.” I disappeared.

Faith sang a lonely echo. “Thanks. Enjoy your word pearls. Safe travels.”

Sitting on a park bench under a Banyan tree I fed cartridges into a mirror, clicked off the safety and turned a page.

It was a musical manifesto with a touch of razzamatazz jazz featuring Coltrane, Miles, Monk, Mingus and Getz to the verb.

ART

Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Burma, 2015

Cadiz

Outside a cathedral across from the Citadel a virgin bride threw her red rose bouquet into blue sky. Friends pelted her with white rice containing 50,000 genes. Humans with 30,000 genes raised teary eyes. It rained flowers. Friends and strangers inhaled wild fragrances drifting from the sky.

They scrambled, pushed and shoved in a desperate struggle for aroma’s meaning.

“What’s happening?” said a blind widow leaning on her cane.

“They are celebrating the passing of an era,” said her son. He was a survivor of the Civil War when 350,000 Spaniards died. The war divided friends, families and communities. Another 100,000 were killed or died in prison after the war.

The rebellion started in Morocco in 1936 when five Spanish Foreign Legion generals revolted against the leftist government. Francisco Franco took control. German and Italian soldiers, weapons and planes shifted the balance of power to the Nationalists.

A UN sponsored trade boycott of Spain in the late 1940’s turned Andalucía into ‘the years of hunger.’ Peasants ate wild herbs and soup made from grass. 1.5 million went into exile.

“Let’s cross here,” said her son. They blessed themselves. Roses rained. It was impossible to explain how it happened and wedding parties knew it.

Berber-Spanish poets revealed truth as a variety of theories in a cosmic soup. When survivors at the wedding reception heard the word soup they experienced enlightenment with lentils, carrots, potatoes, bread, and slivers of cured ham.

Tavia Tower, Cadiz

Moving through broken light past cathedrals holding silent iron bells I walked to the Torre Tavira Tower at the intersection of Marques del Real Tesoro and Sacramento.

Cadiz was famous for its dominating watchtowers during prosperous trade in the 18th century. The tower was built in a Baroque style as part of the palace of the Marquis of Recano. It was named for its first watchman, Antonio Tavira and appointed the official watchtower of the town in 1778.

A Camera Obscura projected a live 360-degree image of Cadiz. A guide pointed out imported rubber trees from Brazil, the Mercado, and political and religious buildings.

Maps showed voyages since 1600 to Central and South America, Africa and Northern Europe.

Columbus sailed from Palos de la Frontera, north of Cadiz in 1492 after receiving a cedula real or royal document when the abbot, Juan Perez, a confessor of Queen Isabella promoted his cause as she played chess.

She decided the Queen would have more power. “I want to move as far as I want in any direction.”

The royal document granted Columbus 100 men and three vessels.

Cadiz’s golden age controlled 75% of trade with the Americas. This contributed to its development as a progressive city with a liberal middle class and imported architecture.

The Napoleonic Wars and British warships blocked the city after shattering the Spanish Fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Spain turned against France and Cadiz withstood Napoleon’s siege from 1810-1812.

Cadiz delegates adopted the first Spanish constitution in 1812 followed by years of ideological struggle.

Cadiz neoclassic architecture had clean restrained lines with Roman and Greek ideals, harmony and proportion. Courtyards featured classical squares, circles, triangles, columns and rounded arcades.

Cadiz Museum

Twilight hurried toward night as a million birds sang in towering Banyan trees with roots spreading stories in Plaza de Mina, outside the Museum of Cadiz.

I scaled stairs. A white marble sculpture of David glowered down.

The receptionist stopped me. There was a male guard with her.

“Where are you from?” he demanded. It was free for Europeans and 1.5 Euros if I was a forcestero, a person from outside the city-state.

“I am from heaven,” I said, pointing toward a ceiling covered in purple tapestries. “Down to have a look around.” This threw him off.

The guard hustling the receptionist wanted to get rid of me. “Are you from Germany? English?”

“No, I am from heaven,” pulling out Euros. The receptionist detached a ticket.

“Go ahead, it’s free,” she said, smiling. A little stupidity and kindness goes a long way in heaven.

“Gracias.”

Phoenicians founded Cadiz in 1100 B.C. and called it Gadir. They traded amber and tin.

Calling it Gades the Romans used it as navel base. They introduced the potter’s wheel, writing, olive tree, donkey and hen in Spain. They replaced bronze with iron. Metals became currencies. People developed agriculture as settled populations built walls, towers and castles.

Romans contributed aqueducts, temples, theaters, circuses and baths. They gave the Iberian Peninsula the Castilian language based on 2,000-year old Latin.

Their wanderlust built roads establishing communities in the nation-state and satisfied their impulse for cuisine, sex, music, and trade.

The Museo de Cadiz danced with Roman artifacts and stories of archeological settlements from Gades to Seville and Cordoba.

Rooms overflowed with estuaries, isolated tight white pueblos, coins, maps, heads, pottery, vases and unmarked graves.

Roman legion armor, burial sites, aqueduct maps, temples, theaters, masks, sculptures, marble, glass, utensils and bones used for sewing rested behind glass.

A three million-year-old human in a stone chamber slept in cool dust.

ART

Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Mandalay, Burma, 2013 - Happier times.

Cadiz Life

After moving through Moroccan dust, chaos, beauty and impermanence since September, Cadiz was a perfect base for hunting and gathering stories and images.

My second-floor room in a neighborhood of abandoned warehouses overlooked a 200-year-old intersection. A wrought iron balcony faced a narrow cobblestone street. Benjumeda Street extended past shops, churches and plazas.

I was a translucent blue monarch butterfly gathering wing heat for future flight. Inside, outside and all around I wandered Cadiz.

I freelanced for the Bureau of Wandering Ghosts.

Burma

Outside Plaza de Las Flower stalls shoppers pulled provisions home in wheeled shopping carts. Women pushed wheelchairs filled with groceries and cement uphill in their utilitarian universe. Their rolling world was hard rubber spinning in a galaxy. Wheelchairs indicated an invalid family member sat at home in a rocking chair watching game shows and talking heads. Waiting for the goods.

Exploring visual epiphanies, I opened my aperture to f/2.8. Write with light. In exile with silence, cunning, humor and curiosity I discovered Sunday flea market images: old photos, stamps, phonographs, typewriters, dolls, tools, locks, religious paintings, seafood, books, discarded clothing, toys, glass, buttons, broken phones, watches, faces, hands and lottery tickets.

Bar slot machine games called the Wheel of Fortune flashed lights as men drank cheap sherry and pumped 100 peseta coins into hungry devices. Unemployed men and women prowled streets, corners and shops selling lottery tickets called ONCE.

The Champion grocery store across from the old market sold sixteen different lottery tickets. A city this old believing in a religious hereafter had a gambling addiction. Pay now and pray later. Poor people needed all the hope money could buy.

Hope was broke.

I exposed streets, parks, cathedrals and beaches with sun-greased white haired ladies knitting and playing bingo and children dressed in gaudy black and red sashes for religious festivals. Men cut fish, hands held creased maps or thick Cuban cigars, children grasped parental fingers.

Tourists gripped each other in lost wild desperation. Lovers slept in sunlight. Men hammered stones as pigeons fought over bread scraps. Obscure dark faces in doorways greeted neighbors. A crescent moon floated between television aerials.

Burma

Juxtapositions of hammers and crucifixes rested on red fabric. Brown nuns supporting their habit passed brass Moorish door knockers as historical debris laughed before and after Chris Colon sailed west.

I wandered the city carrying a Moleskine and piston driven fountain pen spilling Midnight Blue ink.

Businesses had signs reading, “This establishment has a book for claims and complaints.”

In a cafe I ordered a meal of nouns and verbs with a side order of flat dirty realistic cardboard character development.

“Hold the adverbs,” I told the waitress.

I scribbled seven serious mystical mischievous words. Seeing this a man behind the bar whispered to a woman. They began cleaning. They hauled out crates of empty bottles, swept and mopped the floor with determination, efficiency and fear suspecting I was from the CLEAN authorities.

Fear is a great motivator.

Kitchen women suffered a panic attack. Jabbering like irate birds they scrubbed gleaming appliances with profound intention and motivation. They feared they’d be closed down for an imperfection in their life.

After fresh tomatoes I spread my wings.

ART

Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Burma

Heart Wisdom

Mahling Township, Myanmar (Pop: 10,000)

2.5 hours south of Mandalay, another village.

Fog shrouds trees before dawn on a chilly December morning.

Mornings are fraught with mist as an orange burning orb rises over forests and rice paddies. Crows caw sing wing wind songs above monks chanting sutras at a pagoda. A bell reverberates.

Leaves dance free from The Tree of Life.

This raw, direct immediate experience reminds a traveler of Phonsavan, Laos near the Plain of Jars, long ago and far away in the winter of 2013. A Little BS came of it.

Here at 5:45 a.m. below trees with yellow leaves, 100 grade-ten female students with dancing flashlights trace a dirt path. They’ve escaped the comfort of hostel dreams.

They dance toward classrooms and a cavernous dining hall for rice and vegetables. Hot soup if they are lucky. Mumbled voices scatter singing birds.

Thirty-five female student voices reciting scientific lessons at 6:15 a.m. echo from classrooms at the Family Boarding School.

Dystopian rote memorization. Utilitarian. Repetition.
Learning by heart.
It’s not about learning. It’s about passing the exam and marks.
Vomit the material.

Delicious

The wisdom of the heart is deeper and truer than knowledge in the head.

They drone on huddled, hunched over wooden benches in jackets and yarning caps with swinging tassel balls. A bundled teacher scratches white words on a blackboard

 Today is the day of my dreams.

A narrow garden of hanging pink, orange, purple, white orchids reflect shadows before scattered light sings. An office girl sprays H20 diamonds on petals and green leaves.

A distant solitary bell reverberates.
Monks chant sutras at a pagoda.
A thin stick broom sweeping world dust cleans perception.