Conversation's Dexterity

Dawn’s orange lightness spread over the Black Sea.

Curious enrolled in a Push Them Through English School. I need vocabulary and the courage to use it with meaning, dexterity and humor. I know my English is not grammatically perfect but I know my English is fluent, said Independence.

Casablanca

I know what I don’t know, said Z. The more I learn the less I know. Real eyes see real lies.

You are the teachers, Lucky said to Turkish beginners brain-washed by parents, media and education system. I am a student.

They expressed fervent Denial, an Egyptian river. No, you are the teacher. We have no free choice or logical imperative to accept responsibility for our learning. If we accept responsibility we have to accept the consequences and do the work BUT we are lazy. We live in a never-ending existential crisis. We are conditioned to sit, listen and memorize. We blend in, like Leo's history teacher warned. We just want to pass the fucking exams. It’s your job to create a facsimile of grammar book learning.

The less I do the fewer mistakes I make, said one smiling with cunning social intelligence. The fewer mistakes I make, said their twin with cunning social intelligence, the less I am criticized.

You got that BS write, said Lucky.

Light my fire, said Jim Morrison trying to impress two girls.

Feed me, said another. I am not a participant. I am a victim.

I know what you mean, said another SAD student. It’s fun being a victim. We can blame everyone else with our projected fears and loss for our failure to be real, human and brave.

See with soft eyes, said Lucky. We see through our eyes, not with our eyes.

Thanks for life lesson #7, said a past tense grammar addict injecting a lethal dose of acquiescence into their heart-mind.

You’re welcome. Next.

I have two scissors and one brother.

How are you? I am 21 and you?

How old are you? I am fine and you?

Speak memory.

Oh yeah? The safest memories are those you never remember.

Memories are all you have.

Are your needs being met?

That’s a fundamental quest-ion. Right there with the What Is Life quest-ion.

You get one chance with dignity and grace. Get is the joker word in English.

I am Curious. It’s a pleasure to see you again. Go with the flow. Flow with your glow. Flow and grow is an honorable quest. I sing and live in a flow state in Giresun, said Lucky. So I heard.

A traveler passing through brought good luck to silversmith, cook, baker, candlestick maker, fish hawker, cheese seller, broom maker men, women sewing cloth, merchants selling knives, banging copper, punching leather, women brewing tea, men cutting roots, laughing children and students saying yeah, yeah we’ve heard all this before, as singing musicians overcoming temporary anxieties with flowing confidence speaking in tongues wandered narrow alleys of becoming.

Poetic inspiration. Short, fast and deadly.

A wandering minstrel in Trabzon played his Kemil with love inside shadows of tolerance and charity. His broken orange shoebox collected currency from enamored strangers. A young girl turned to her mother, you know the words mama and I know the music - he plays loss, hope and memory. It’s our cultural history sweetie.

Crystals reflected an island where Amazon women warriors took no prisoners. They had sex once a year and abandoned males in pine forests.

A busy busboy checked his obsessive watch. Out. Pulsating tick-tock. Big time waits for no one.

Office hysterics. A young English teacher from Plymouth expressed his quest. I need empathic accuracy. Look it up, said Lexicon opening his heart.

The Language Company

Listen to wisdom and beauty

I am a person who listens for a living. 

I listen to wisdom and beauty.

Hold your space.

Listen deeply.

Zanshin - "the mind with no remainder." The mind is completely focused on action 

and fixated on the task at hand. Be constantly aware of your body, mind and surroundings

without stressing yourself.

- effortless vigilance

- live your life intentionally and act with purpose

- the act of iving with alertness

- awareness and focus.

You arrive in a village. So long, so far you are a stranger to yourself.

Your mask eats your face.

Eight red monks dance through a walking meditation.

Silence feels the gentle rhythm inside labyrinithian joy.

Play the blues harp on the back of a motorcycle.

Your journey is shorter than a breath, in-out.

You have arrived.

Poetry is in the street. It goes arm and arm with laughter.

Words are insufficient.

Crossing borders - transcendental act

TEOL gave Lucky a $300 monthly housing allowance. SOL (shit out of luck) found a ground floor flat next to The Department of the Forest.

He helped Lucky get a used fridge and a gas cooker. Lucky paid $125 for the fridge and $25 for the propane. No propane no gain.

Being a short-timer in paradise he never bought cooking tools. After surviving Nam he’d answer the eternal quest-ion, how long have you been here? All day. I pass through.

Repeat - most popular word in global English classes. Say it again dear robot. All day.

SOL borrowed his grandmother’s pliable mattress from the Ottoman dynasty. He loaned Lucky a blank sheet of paper and blanket. No hot water. You can wash/spin clothes and shower in the upstairs bathroom where everything is shiny and modern, said SOL. Thanks, I wash clothes by hand. I need tactile textile texture. Zen.

You need to buy a water heater, said SOL. It will cost you years of tears and regret. I love showering with cold water. Keeps you alert and you dry faster. This went over SOL’s head and he was very tall. He slouched forever.

He manifested the Turkish I Am Defeated Posture.

* See illustration on page 101 in The Department of Fear & Conditioning Manual.

The TEOL director in Giresun, a graduate of a Stalin training camp for Authority Figurines waiting for his funeral said to Lucky, You pay for water and electricity. We will deduct $500 from your salary to pay for imported Russian coal to heat your flat in winter. Erroneous pays for heating.

Everything in Turkey breaks down in 4-5 years speaking of children, said Zeynep, a writer kid friend in Bursa, That’s nothing, said Rita cutting, selling ice and publishing her small life story in Banlung, Cambodia. Kids here are broken before they’re born. It’s a mutant besmirched genetic strain in our DNA. Paranoid adults murder their darlings with benign dependency and passive hopelessness the dreaded disease of the heart-mind.

Rita shared a story - up river from Banlung in a remote jungle village they carve images of their dead.The Chunchiet animist people bury their dead in the jungle. Life is a sacred jungle. They believe in the universal inherent power of the natural world. 

The Tompoun and Jarai tribes have sacred burial sites. The Kachon village cemetery is one hour by boat on the Tonle Srepok River from Voen Sai.

Heart of Darkness flows through the jungle.

The departed stays in the family home for five days before burial. Once a month family members make ritual sacrifices at the site. The village shaman dreams the departed will go to hell. In their spirit dream story the shaman meets Loth, Leader of the Hell who asks for an animal sacrifice. The animist belief knows sacrificing a buffalo and making statues of the departed will satisfy Loth. It will renew the spirit and return it to the family.

After a year family members remove old structures, add two carved effigies, whittle wooden elephant tusks, create new decorated roofs and sacrifice a buffalo at the grave during a festive celebration with food and rice wine for the entire village. 

New tombs have cement bases and wooden effigies with cell phones and sunglasses. Never out of touch. See your local long distance carrier for plans and coverage in your area. The future looks brighter than a day in a sacred jungle.

Wow, said Zeynep, that’s an amazing cultural celebration. Yes, said Rita, life and death are beautiful mysteries.

How did you meet each other in Banlung, Zeynep asked Lucky. I traveled the narrow road from Pakse, Laos south to Stung Treng then east to the remote Northeast. Here’s what happened.

A rusty red and white metal border bar weighted by rocks in a wire bucket hung suspended. The VIP double-decker candy cane bus was packed with babbling European flash packers destined for the 9th century at Angkor Wat. They had a long way to go to get back in time. They were doing SEA.

The more they see the less they know, said a shaman.

The busboy handed out departure and arrival forms, collected passports, a $2 Lao departure fee, a $25 Cambodia visa fee and $2 entry fee. He took everything to a Lao shack. The border bar went up. The bus rolled through no-man’s land at the speed of a snail and stopped.

Being landless is fun, dramatic and exciting. No country, no documents, no money, no food, no water, no medicine, no family, no friends, no chance. Abandoned on Earth.   

A female Cambodian health care worker wearing a facemask got on the bus. Pointing a small medical toy gun into faces she registered body temperature.            

Someone said, “If you’re sick you stay here.”

“On the bus?”

“No, between countries. On the road.”

Sounds like a novel.

Crossing a border is a transcendental act.

On the C side it’s business as usual. Immigration shacks, money changers, women hustling fried food, beverages and fruits, naked children, scavenging emaciated dogs, ripped cell phone umbrellas and haggard tourists drinking H2O in blazing heat waiting for the boy to return with passports. An incomplete grandiose empty glass and brass Cambodian immigration building with fake Angkor temple motifs and plastic elephants, surrounded by landmines signifies exotic investment.

Money = tourism  = money. 

Stung Treng in Ratanakiri province was eight-seven clicks south along the Mekong. Swim with dolphins. Tourists passed through this small faded colonial town. They had a schedule. Time chases them, Hurry up! Hurry Up! You’re going to be late for an important date with destiny. Get a move on.

I visited Mekong Blue, the Stung Treng Women’s Development Center. Fifty women do a six-month silk weaving course. They feed larva, harvest cocoons, dye and create silk textiles. It is a UNESCO award winner known for superior quality, creativity and originality. 

They have Mulberry trees for leaves. Worms eat the leaves. Their saliva makes yellow cocoons. Saliva becomes a protein and is stronger than steel. Silkworm cocoons are boiled to extract raw yellow silk. One thread is 300 meters long. It is separated into soft and fine threads.

They dye the threads using natural materials: banana (yellow), bougainvillea (yellow), almond leaves (black), lac insect nests (red and purple), prohut wood (yellow and green), lychee wood (black and gray), indigo (blue), and coconut (brown and pink).

They also weave Ikat, a technique creating patterns on silk threads prior to dyeing and weaving. It is called HOL. There are 200 motifs.

The center improves their quality of life. It breaks the cycle of poverty through vocational training and educational programs. They have a primary school with thirty-five kids and two teachers. Everyone receives lunch. It is the single biggest employer in town after the government.

Then I traveled east on dusty roads to Banlung.

A cool educational adventure, said Z weaving through life.

The Language Company

Odyssey of the hat

Sitting in Trabzon in early September he decided to get another Akubra from David Morgan near Seattle. He’d had two in his short life. The first was a Banjo Patterson received in Eugenics. He wore it in China for three years and another year in Ankara/Bursa.

He gifted it to Zeynep before flying to Indonesia where he received a Snowy River. He gifted that cat in the hat to a Ho Chi Minh lover before walking the Nam-Cambodia-Laos-Trabzon path. In Trabzon he ordered aTraveler.

In late October two days before the Sacrifice holiday, Sit Down called from Trabzon, “I have your customs documents here.”

“Perfect timing,” said Lucky. “I’ll be over tomorrow. See you at the office.”

Process: Meet Sit Down and walk to the customs bureaucrazy near the port where Russian container ships unloaded crates of baboons.

Go to Office #1. Office #1 man sent them to Office #2 man. Office #2 man said, “Go upstairs to Office #3 man.”

Ring around the mulberry bush. Here we go and where we stop nobody knows.

Office #3 man was not at his desk. Another man said the value of the Traveler ($135) would mean BIG customs duties ranging from $25-75 depending on (a) his mood (b) international currency fluctuations based on speculative financial trades after the market closed and (c) his executive decision to charge said custom taxes in (1) Turkish Lira (2) Euros (3) Dollars (4) undetermined.

Lucky selected #1, filled out forms with blue ink on a line printed for that purpose the man entered data into a computer databank stamped some forms formed some stamps adjusted his purple Windsor fit to be tied neck knot smoothed his 100% blue cotton medium sized shirt into government issued tax pants nestled next to a black plastic belt above shiny handmade black leather shoes smiled and said, “46TL. Pay downstairs at Office #2.”

The portly going bald Office #2 man was loquacious. They exchanged grins paperwork and telepathy - We are in this together.

He copied essential documents accepted 46TL stamped and signed where he was authorized to because it was important necessary and fun. He handed forms back, “You brought me luck today. No one smiles here. Everyone wears grouchy pants. They rehearse eternal morose ambivalence. Go to the Receiving Office fifteen kilometers from here.”

Lucky smiled, “Every day above ground is a prodigious day.”

Lucky and Sit Down hitched a ride on a garbage truck overflowing with past, present and future used grammar textbooks. The RO was a cement building in an industrial park. A bonfire burned in front.

“Why?”

“They are destroying evidence of Kurdish and Armenian genocides, self-autonomy dreams, regretful memories, future fears, and Turkish democratic ideals,” said Sit Down.

A man in a death mask threw Human Rights Watch on flames.

“I see an eternal flame for international peace,” said Lucky.

“You’re dreaming,” said Sit Down.

They walked through dusty rooms filled with boxes.

The Receiving Director sat at his desk with a brown account ledger from 1900. Modern technology obscured. Lucky handed him formless forms. They shared tea and small talk. Spoons danced with brown leaves and sugar molecules.

Two workers carried over a long box from Holland. One slit it open with a serrated knife. He handed the Director an invoice, no voice and silent voice.

He enumerated the contents as the director marked off items in his book with a leaky pen: two aluminum bike frames including magnesium handlebars, miniature pedals, custom designed Italian foam seats, sprockets, chains, Shimano gears, hollow Zen bell from Kyoto, GPS navigation gadgets, four titanium wheels with be spokes, two hydrocarbon water bottles, two polyurethane reflective helmets featuring solid blue racing stripes augmented by spiral nebula galaxies, three pairs of form fitted black and blue iridescent bike shoes, three pairs of water soluble black/white racing gloves, synthetic shirts, shorts, and quick dry underwear in fifty shades of gravitational necessity.

The Director double-checked items in his ledger and handed the silent invoice back to the man. He put it in the box taped it shut and pushed it away.

The Director handed him a lucky paper. He disappeared into a cavern. He returned holding a box with white sticker #2443. The Director verified the form from Office #2 man. Tick. He handed over the form and box, “Here you are. You brought me good luck today.”

“Thanks very much. Luck favors the prepared. Thanks for the tea.”

Lucky and Sit Down enjoyed thick coffee in Trabzon while seeing/hearing a blind Kemil player sing laments. They confirmed future conversations about residency permit paper work, shook hands and he returned to Giresun by hot air balloon skimming the BS.

On his last evening at TEOL he helped scared students. “Open your head open your heart and open your mouth. Say ah.”

Students chimed, “First we open our wallets. Ha, ha, ha.”

He carried the box to his cold empty apartment. He pasted #2443 in his notebook. He opened the magic box. Size 59 in Regency Fawn.

Box paperwork said, “The Traveller is the Akubra to accompany you on your travels. It is made in Akubra’s pure fur Pliofelt, a soft pliable fur felt developed specifically for crushable hats. The pre-creased pinched telescope crown is 4 3/8 inches high. The welted brim is 3 inches wide. The brim has a unique memory insert that allows the hat to be manipulated back to shape easily after being packed or crushed.” Unquote.

Addendum in invisible ink: Travelers wearing this hat cannot be crushed, folded, fooled, spindled, cheated or manipulated. This hat brings the wearer good luck. It spreads fortune and prosperity to others along the way. This hat allows Travelers to appreciate diversity, freedom and tolerance with beauty, truth, and gratitude.

The Language Company

Gratitude

A forest outside my new room.

Evergreens towering into sky. Crow calls at 6. Wake up! Wake up!

Sunburst over the Black Sea.

The flat is high in hills.

Fresh sea air.

Trabzon lies near the sea. On the sea. Greek, Roma life, ancient fort, walls, steps.

People share curious greetings, ah, so you know Turkey from 2007?

Dancing spoon glass

Wandering old roman stone streets early light,

Fruits, veggies, 28 olive varieties, raisins, tomatoes, cheeses, fish in food heaven.

Feels great being anonymous, ghost, blessed to be here now

Hospitality is slow.

Imagine the day.

Gestures.

Time machine.

See through eyes, not with eyes.

Zen way Tao.

Acceptance and gratitude.