Glock's Perfection

Jack walked up to Sister's II - All Day Breakfast & Bakery in Kampot, Cambodia, a sleepy old French port town.

American, slim, late 50's, chiseled face, crooked front teeth, in a Marine style camouflage cap with fake gold insignia, stained camouflage pants, dusty rubber and canvas military boots and a worn black t-shirt with a picture of a Glock automatic and ammo clip featuring a stenciled bullseye target and words, Glock.Perfection.

He stood in front of a display case. Baked goodies. Cinnamon rolls, brownies, banana cake, carrot cake, biscotti, chocolate fudge pie, chocolate chip cookies and apple pie.

One sister came out.

"Good morning how are you,"

Jack mumbled, "Does the apple pie have raisins in it?"

"No," she said.

"Let me have one slice."

"For here or take away?"

"Take away."

She put the pie on the glass counter, sliced a piece and put it in a styrofoam box. She slid the box into a plastic bag. She offered it to him.

He showed her a $10 bill.

"Oh, don't you have small money?" she said.

"That's a you problem, not a my problem."

She left to find change.

Jack turned to a stranger throwing bread crumbs to sparrows, "You'd think by now she'd have a float in the morning."

"Life gives you the test first and the lessons later," said the stranger.

"Yeah," Jack said, "they need more education and experience."

Two sparrows pecked at curbside crumbs.

The sister returned, handed him change and said, "I hope you enjoy the pie. It's fresh this morning."

An experienced Vietnamese woman collecting plastic and cardboard wearing a bamboo conical hat protecting her from intense sun pushed her daily savage salvage wagon past Sister's.

Jack took the bag, curled a lip in gratitude and walked in a different direction.

 

Grow

He's a student in a Montessori program in Mandalay.

Do one thing at a time.

Slow.

Center.

Focus.

Present.

Independent. Free choice. 

We don't learn. We grow.

*

"I would like to house my spirit within my body, to nourish my virtue by mildness, and to travel in ether by becoming a void. But I cannot do it yet . . . And so, being unable to find peace within myself, I made use of the external surroundings to calm my spirit, and being unable to find delight within my heart, I borrowed a landscape to please it. Therefore, strange were my travels."
 - T'u Lung
(T'u Ch'ihshui)
translated by Lin Yutang
The Travels of Mingliaotse  Read more…

Mandalay, Myanmar

He's in Myanmar. Opportunity knocked. He answered. 

Hello, said Opportunity. Would you like to help others in Mandalay?

Never been there. It's open now.

Yes it is.

Yes, thanks when?

Next week.

Lets go.

On the ground. Efficient immigration. Business visa at small clean airport an hour from Mandalay.

You need a clean $50.

Myanmar money exchanges will not accept creased folded bills. Get a stack of new $100's.

Pleasant happy people. Smiles. Smiles. Smiles. 

Agrarian. Innate joy. Early stages of expression. Hard economics. Simple life. Street markets.

Pleasant atmosphere. Heart-space. Gentle people. Soft spoken. Light.

Ice please

In another incarnation they were naked in a meadow. I am blind. He is deaf. Millions have Usher syndrome.

We hold hands. Skin is our unified quantum field theory of tactile language. Beyond feeble illiterate words. Fate introduced us at an NGO charity ball, Save The Children Now & Forever.

Deaf is a famous concert pianist. Blind is an Angkor Wat explorer. She scaled 88 keys seeking tonal quality, perfect pitch and frequency. He explored her twin peaks, smooth geography, labyrinths, valleys, hall of dancers and thick topographical jungle foliage.

They had a tacit agreement to be gentle and kind together. Peel my skin like sweet aromatic fruit, she whispered. I am your skin mistress. One must sacrifice the peel to enjoy the fruit. Play my flute, he moaned.

*** 

Remember this, Leo said to Ice Girl in Banlung. In China we learn the less we do the fewer mistakes we make. The fewer mistakes we make the less we are criticized. I remain safe and happy. It’s called THE SYSTEM. Brainwashed. You see this in all Asian educational systems.

Students shuffle in, remove their brains, soak them in a cleaning solution, which is not the solution for fifty tedious minutes and replace said gray matter at the end of class. It’s endemic. Command and control procedures. Big Brother is watching you. Save face. The fear of public humiliation is greater than the fear of death. Karma is the universal law.

Ice Girl in Banlung

Flower's Hands

“What do you recall during the one-hour full body massage with blind Flower at Seeing Hands?”

”Her hands were all. Her hands were water, air, earth and fire. Soft gentle sensations. Learning, sensing, feeling her physical sense. Engaging her senses. Touch was her essence. She knew all the pressure points.”

“Soft, medium or hard," Flower asked.

During her therapeutic touch and go he discovered ideas and structure and form and literary vulgarity. He slowed down inside the labyrinth.

A writer is a dwarf, invisible and must survive.

Flower whispered, “I don’t like sleeping alone. It’s boring.”

It’s easy to remember loving Flower’s soft, deep real tactile sensations. She knew how to please a stranger’s skin. She lived in the middle way. Her middle way was breathing, and awareness. Her middle way was acceptance and loving kindness. Wisdom, patience and gratitude. Non-attachment.

“Eat the world with your blind eyes,” she said.

“Yes my Flower, yes.”

“Dead or blind, there’s no difference," Flower said. “People who cause you difficulties, you should think of them as very valuable teachers because they provide you with the opportunity to develop patience.”