Bliss

Greetings,

Nature is what you can be. Culture is what you are.

Two French women arrived at the Blissful Guesthouse in Kampot. Kampot is famous for pepper, old French colonial buildings along a river flowing to the sea and packs of roving wild vicious dogs, mongrels and starving, desperate canines.

One said, "Hello." A traveler in the shade of waving sunsplashed ferns said, "Welcome to paradise."

"Is this paradise?"

"Paradise is wherever you are."

One woman with a cloud of white hair smiled and said, "You give us a great power."

"You already have the power. You are a light warrior."

"We can talk about that later." 

"I am a now, not a later."

They went to reception. There were no rooms available. They wheeled their bags away, through the sand of time discussing life's vagaries in fluent French, laughing at the absurdity of it all with innate existential wisdom.

Metta.

 

Bike S.E. asia

Greetings,

The girl and her boyfriend from northern California arrived in Siem Reap by bike. No petroleum consumption.

Since December they've covered 2,500 miles through Thailand, Laos - spectacular, mountains, valleys, great roads. Central and southern Vietnam - terrible roads and heavy traffic. Southern Cambodia, delightful.

Advice? Get a good seat. Get a larger tire pump. Carry extra tire valves. 

Spin them wheels. Go.

Metta.

One day in China after escaping the tyranny of school systems.

Tiger Voice

Greetings,

Tell me about your future
all laid out in perfect reconciliations 
of existence
overflowing with play, discoveries, exploring your labyrinth
rapacious fluidity,
exercising complexity science
where imagination tells the truth
these days before Chinese New Year
and Mr. Murakami sighs,

"Memory is like fiction, or else it's fiction 
that is like memory. Human existence in absurd activities. 
Right and wrong drop out of the picture. Memory takes over and fiction is born.
It is a perpetual motion machine, tottering through the world,
trailing an unbroken thread over the ground."

It is now the Year of the Tiger
believing their strength, solitary nature, nocturnal way,
running to survive
swimming in deep water
leading you into deep forests
when a shadow spirit named The Other
whispers
"It's time to go, it's time to go."

Metta.

 

Passage

Greetings,

People are more affected by how they feel than by what they understand.

When they met she was anxious. Tall and talking fast. She was in a highly frantic state. She was from Sweden. After a couple of days she calmed down. She had a dream after visiting a temple at Angkor.

She said, "I don't know what I'm running away from. I'm traveling for a month. I just knew I had to leave. Now I don't know what I'm running toward."

"Yes," he said, "one door opens and one door closes but the hallways can be a bitch." She laughed. She felt better releasing her anxiety, her uncertainty by laughing. If only for a moment.

She's been here a week. "A week here," she said, "seems like a month. Now I feel like I can be in the moment. It's hard but I'm working on it. I want to cut all my hair off."

"Nothing like modifying your outward appearance to affect your self-esteem."

Shy Cambodian girls with straight black hair cut off her long blond movie star hair. They treasured her tresses, wrapping it with rubber bands to decorate their hair. 

"I feel better now," she said feeling the searing heat of tropical sun. "I'm going to begin sketching again. I loved to sketch when I was younger. I lost it somewhere. I'm starting again."

Here's one entrance/exit passage.

Here's one entrance/exit passage. There is NO EXIT.

Metta.

Elephant Tears

Greetings,

A girl from Argentina who arrived in Siem Reap after midnight broke down after breakfast. Tears streamed down her face. Her boyfriend stood helpless. He handed her a tissue. He didn't know what else to do. She cried and cried. He suffered in silence.

She blubbered in Spanish. "I miss mama...I miss mama. Where are we? What is this strange place? Everyone is trying to cheat us. The food is terrible. They charge extra for butter. Where's the beef? The bus scam from Thailand was long, bumpy, grumpy, expensive, a drag, a mistake, a terrible tragic drama. I can't understand the people here. O woe is me, us." She discarded a soggy tissue.

Her macho man suffered in silence. 'She's a basket case,' he thought.

They'd argued recently. About their trip, lack of good sex, decent food, hot sticky weather, poor planning, lack of planning, expenses.

'Maybe it all comes down to sex and money,' he thought. Clean and clear understanding. In Spanish or Splanglish or deeper emotional levels of complexity. 

She blew snot into another tissue. She crumpled it into a ball and dropped it on a plate glass table. It shattered under the weight of her sticky mucus. It's not what she thought it would be. Her expectations were shattered by illusionary possibilities. Her life was one big question.

She gradually composed herself. They started to leave the restaurant. They paused at the top of the stairs. It was a long way down. He whispered to her. Calming poetic words. He put his arm around her shoulder. She was frigid. Mr. Romeo had his work cut out for him and there was nothing to fix.

Metta.