Travel Notes
Palm frond shadow - lady
I’ve been sick for three weeks with mild diarrhea. It’s worrisome, because it has mucous in the stool. And it’s getting worse. It’s painful to poop. I had to take a taxi to school today because walking was too painful for my stomach. Talked to my Spanish teacher today about it, and she thinks I have a problem with amoebas. She said that Mexicans take a medication every six months to help with this, and that she also avoids eating the street food. Bad news to me, because my favorite food here is the street food. Even lots of restaurants are not safe, according to her. Food preparation safety is generally not followed. I asked her if grocery store meat is safe. Nope. She said the best market for meat is the Merced, which is fortunate, because the Merced is near and dear to us. It’s half the size of Cleveland’s West Side Market.
We’ve learned to wash our hands frequently. Mexicans wash theirs before every meal. I remember Grandma asking me to do this, but I’d never made it a habit. In Mexico, hand washing is mandatory.
There’s not much rain, and the streets are caked with dirt. We walk everywhere and we touch the walls, bend down to pick up garbage for street art. We wipe our hands in our eyes without thinking.
Dirt everywhere. It blows into the house and settles on the floor. I must wash the floor twice a week, and rinse it off well. There’s no good place to put the rinse water. I push it out the door onto the furthest corner of the service patio, where it joins a cake layer of previous accumulated dirt. The water sits until it evaporates. The drain in the patio is plugged. I am reluctant to buy anything I don’t absolutely need, so I haven’t yet gotten an expensive wringable mop and bucket. I have plans to wash up the caked dirt on my hands and knees repeatedly, and use the water to flush the toilet.
Water is a problem. It’s not drinkable from the tap. We buy all our water for drinking. We have no hot water to wash dishes, and we’re not inclined to boil it because we pay for our own gas. We use a special cold water soap.
Our kitchen sink is on the dirty service patio. The sink’s really meant for laundry. The draining rack for the dishes is in one half of the sink where Mexicans would normally scrub their clothes. The roof of the patio is also caked with dirt. If a heavy truck goes by, the roof shakes, and dirt falls onto our dishes, and we have to wash them again. We’ve learned to cover the draining rack with a towel or plastic sheet.
Water is also rare. People run out of city water here, so they have reservoirs under their houses that they pump up to a tank on the roof. During the hour per day that the city water is on, they try to remember to replenish their reservoirs. Sometimes the city runs out of water for extended periods. In that case, our landlord has to call a water truck and have his reservoir filled.
We conserve water. We flush only once a day, so it can get horrid. The flocculates in the water coagulate with the urine and create a glistening yellow saran wrap layer on top of the toilet water.
The toilet doesn’t work well. We leave the top off the tank so we can see if the stopper nestles properly in its hole. I think mosquitoes like to hang out in the tank. When we flush the toilet, there’s a huge GLOP sound, and a miniature water fountain burbles out of the SINK. I try not to touch the bathroom sink unless necessary.
The cockroaches like to hang out in the bathroom at 3 a.m. at night. I haven’t seen them much in the kitchen, only twice. But I think they crawl into the bathroom walls via the storage room. Our landlord must keep garbage in the storage room.
Last night Smith saw a three inch cockroach creeping in the sink. “Turned on bathroom light last night. Three inch cockroach in the sink. Startled me. I didn’t want to kill it. It saddens me to kill things. But I couldn’t not tell you saw it. And I couldn’t dare tell you I’d dare let another one go.”
“Yeah, those buggers lay eggs in your jelly,” I said.
“But I figured the other one and I had an agreement. I let it go, it respected my jelly. Gives that old Tommy Roe hit Jam Up Jelly Tight a whole new meaning. Although Jam Up Jelly Tight is a damn fine sexual metaphor for a teeny bop song. Cockroach tried to get out of the sink. I grabbed the Fabuloso bottle. I used it as a sword; I kept thrusting the cockroach back into the sink. Roach dashed one way and another, and I’d counter thrust. Finally I turned on the water, pushed him into the water, and forced him down the drain. But the drain has a bar across it three inches down, so cockroach couldn’t go. He lay there, covered in water, pretending to be dead for a while. Then he lurched the water to the surface, just like one of them horror movies. He took three steps out of the water, and I squished him with the bottle. He sorta looked around to see what happened and I squooshed him again. Then I picked up the squooshy bits with some toilet paper and noticed he’d lost a couple legs and two feelers in the process. Cleaned those up. Then scrubbed out the sink with cleanser and washed my hands with soap. And felt sad that I’d killed something. But I gotta be reasonable. If I gotta choose between the cockroach and my wife, I’d better choose my wife.”
I get my slice of life in Paradise - lady
Feb 28 2008 09:59 pm |
Humor and
Mexico and
Travel Notes |
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this is the time they never show in movies, or include in novels… the killing time time. we’re packed. spent the past 3 hours cleaning this place and regathering our stuff to move upstairs. now we sit for 40 minutes waiting to go up. it took one elevator to move down from 6 - it’ll be two to move back up. had to buy an extra elevator’s worth of dishes, pans, food, cleaning stuff, moroccan clothes… how can a 10 day stay turn into an extra elevator? and all this extra stuff stays when we leave, so it’s money short time used and lost. otherwise, its bulk and weight carried on our backs.
lady k is sitting next to me, stern, glowering. i turn and say “boy, you’re a bundle of radiating joy.” she laughs, says “i’m sorry, i hate this waiting part.” now she’s back in brood mode. this is not a welcoming apartment, but at least it was our 10 day hole. folks with places to stay have no idea what’s entailed in frequent moving. this will be our 31st change of bed in 9 months - 31 places to serially sleep. this move is for 16 nights. then a month in the sea coast town of essoaira. after that, only the shadow knows. no place to go back to, don’t know where we’re going - we’re grasshoppers trying to outrun winter in a world of air-conditioned ants.
figure when the earth breaks into sporadic pools of isolated people, lady and i can survive by traveling between surviving enclaves and entertaining them with our poetry. to pay for our entertainment, they can house and feed us and give us a wee bit of hashish for the road.
and the earth will break, at least as we know it - i’d say there’s a 99.9999999% chance of it happening within the next 43 years. if it doesn’t go via global warming, it’ll be social cooling, or it’ll be by some escaped man-made virus, or germ that’s gained super-virus powers because all the anti-biotics and humane growth serums we’ve dumped into the water, or some country with the initials u.s.a. will start dropping atomic bombs, or franken-corn will take over the earth’s vegetative system killing everything in its path and then die off itself, or the bee collapse and lack of pollination will starve us, or scientists will try to geo-engineer a fix to global warming (which will of course backfire and fry or freeze us faster), or the earth’s magnetic field will fade out & realign itself (it’s about 150,000 years overdue), or an asteroid will hit us, or honesty will come into vogue destroying the very basis of the world’s economic and political systems, or the cheney-bush beast will declare martial law and cancel the next elections - and we all know if they stay in power any longer, the earth is doomed. i figure lady and my trekking about with all our possessions on our back is training for the future.
my true sorrow for the coming future will be its lack of electricity - there’ll be no web world, and how can i be sure i exist if i don’t receive cyber feedback?
watched american movie dubbed into french on belgium woman’s tv here in marrakech. lady k went to the dvd menu, told the movie to talk to me in english, with english subtitles just to be sure - it said sure, will do. it lied. machines do what they want to me. so does marrakech… the city toys with me by day, and i good naturedly go along, so it rewards me for being a good sport by getting me stoned each night.
you know what T.V. stands for, don’t you? Totally Valueless Theoretically Void Tired Vision Trash Value Trendy Validity Trite Vocalizations Turgid Vocabulary Turd-ish Vociferation Treated Vomit Typically Voyeuristic.
i read you couldn’t walk across the street here without being offered hash. i have yet to be offered any, anywhere. only way we got hash here or france or grass in krakow was to ask strangers. so far we’ve asked three strangers where to find smoke, and all three have known.
i don’t wear walkmans when i walk because i want to hear what’s coming from behind when they come to take me away. i want a fighting chance to get away. gotta get away before they get you in the car. once you’re in the car, they have you, you’re meat. i’m just going to tell them “i’m not me. go away now. i’m closing my eyes. you can’t see me.” then when they’re laughing, i’ll run away.
we got stoned and walked to the the city wall to watch martins fly from their wall hole nests at 5 p.m. i asked how the birds knew when it was 5 o’clock, and was that daylight savings or normal time, but no one listened. no birds flew out.
we’re in the middle of marrakech, where walled old city meets new, and as we walk 4 blocks from new to old, we smell urine and rotting flesh mixed with sewage. we walk the wall waiting for the birds, and see that every zigzag of the wall was a urine trap. saw a lot of urined earth - “and poo too - don’t forget number 2″ lady adds. people probably been pissing on those sections of the wall for 1,600 years. we should take soil core samples, see how human urine has evolved over the past millenium and a half.
in respect for the men we pass kneeling on rugs praying to the wall, she lets go my hand. yet the outside edge of the prayer rugs is lined with silent men displaying shirts and pants for sale. god and mammon, prayer and purchase. god’s worship is scheduled, mammon’s worshipped constantly.
lady mentions there are no other tourists walking about where we are. i watch the next hour - no non-natives except us. we dip in and out the old city, just wandering, then walk through a used souk - a flea-market auction bazaar. i figure we’ll be besieged to buy, but they’re so surprised to see 2 lone americans stroll through hand in hand, that by the time they realized they had stuff we needed, we were gone.
passed an endless parking lot of taxis outside the walls - hundreds upon hundreds of old taxis looking for food, this must be where used taxis come when they swim upstream to spawn and die.
near home i heard horse clomps, turned, saw tourists in horse drawn carriage. i pointed and said to lady “there’s one, there’s another european. we’re not alone.” lady k exclaims “how colonial was that!” three more carriages clomp by, all full of europeans - and they’re pointing at us. i wonder if lady and i are inside or outside the zoo bars here? i can never keep it straight any more.
just before home, purple petals on the ground, red flower falling. the purple from the jacaranda tree, the red maybe bougainvillaea.
mohammed said there are no public hospitals in marrakech. if you’re sick and can’t pay, you die. no need to worry about what to do because there’s “no solution.” said the same for old people - if you’re old and have no family to care for you, out in the street. too many poor here to worry about niceties. said there used to be water around marrakech and people grew grapes, figs, oranges, but the water’s gone, so more old and poor come into the walled city for work - and there is none.
after 2 nights up on the 6th floor, we spent 10 down here on the 4th. today we move back up to the 6th while the owner flies to begium for 10 days. the 7 days left over after she gets back, we’re not quite sure about. we paid upfront for them, but we’re not sure if or where or what’s going on. i gather that’s not unusual in marrakech. lady k was baking peanut butter cookies this morning to give to folk as thanks, but the stove gas canister ran out when she was half baked. places always try to push us out when our time is up - usually it’s the internet that goes, but we have none here, so the gas disappeared. reality has a sly sense of humor.
physically, long-term budget travel isn’t easy. hand washing clothes means hand wringing clothes with an arthritic thumb. i also walk and work with a creaky neck… plus a stiff back from a long and reckless life… and the coup de grace - a pulled groin muscle from 2004 when mom collapsed and i tried to lift her from the floor. various other nicks, scrapes, dents, and defects. these are damaged goods backpacking with lady k up down steep places for long periods of time over varying terrains where they speak unknown tongues.
lady laughs at me in the mornings because i have to shake my body back in place, get all the various joints and mutinying muscles reacquainted. let this be a lesson to you young ones - there’s hidden cost involved when you marry used goods. there’s no warranty, and most likely the original manufacturing plant’s no longer around.
long-term budget travel to irregular places also contributes to smelly clothes, stinky bodies, and bladders which need be emptied right now when now seldom coincides with public toilet. lady k thought i wasn’t feeling well when i turned down my second cup of coffee this morning - but we’re going out, and coffee rapidly creates more bladder water. i’ve learned bladder pain trumps coffee pleasure. travel teaches you lessons you can never pre-imagine.
is the journey worth it? oh yes. lady alone’s worth the pain. besides, there’s no pain like the pain of boredom from sitting in the same seat in the same house in the same town living the same life looking at the same spot on the same wall licking the same lack in your sorry heart daze after day after daze.
we two make a good life lesson - lady k at 34 shows it’s never too soon to start living your dream, while my 61 proves it’s never too late to run off and join the circus. we’re also example of collaborative get along: we’re old-young, tall-short, male-female, and both sides of the barcode - yet we work wish walk will pretty much as one… i am she and she am me and we will whether the walrus together.
went to a home-made dinner yesterday in the old city, lamb with almonds and prunes. our host spoke some english so i was not entirely out of the loop. he took my broken computer ac adapter to a friend who took it apart and fixed it for $11.
today we went to a hammam, a moroccan public bath. hamid’s teenage son went in with me since hamid’s missing finger is still oozing and not welcome. i was unprepared to have his son wash my body. i’m not used to being touched by strangers of any sex. but it felt good to be washed, scrapped, rinsed in hot water. if i go again, i will wash myself. i don’t like guides, servants, helpers, hangers-on, etc. i come from poor people, and i’m not comfortable being treated like the big boss man. i’m trying to flow with the customs of the countries we’re in, but i prefer to carry my own bags, make my own bed.
after the bath, hamid took us to his mother’s. she gave us fried fish and cold potatoes and two woven baskets with our mint tea. then we visited his brother for more mint tea - the rooster in the next room kept crowing, its cries bouncing about the tiled chamber. you’ve no idea how loud a rooster sounds inside a house.
each meal we eat fixed by others has upset my stomach and bowels. not as bad as the madrid airport food poisoning, but enough to be wary. trouble is, if you’re uptight and afraid to try anything, why be here in the first place. we’d rather take the chance, have the experience, maybe pay for it physically later. besides, it’s good for weight loss. i bet to lose ten pounds overnight, all i’d have to do would be to drink a glass of tap water.
we watched Babel last night - the core of the movie was filmed here in morocco. odd seeing on film sights we see in flesh. what a sad, complicated, interconnected film. my first thought was why make it. i noticed by the film’s end the cate blanchett brad pitt white couple gained happiness, and the japanese father and his disturbed daughter attained a chance for reconciliation and redemption - but the brown-skinned moroccan family and the brown-skinned hispanic family both suffered greatly and were destroyed. racism or reality? or a bit of both?
the most kindness in the film was shown by a moroccan, the least kindnesses came from older white american males. now that i think on these things, i begin to understand why the film was made.
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. - Lau Tzu (600-300 BC)
moving on again. for the 19th time in 9 months. reminds me of the first 5 years of my life when my parents were too poor to stay any one place so moved and moved and moved. more than once we slept in the car - this is 1946 through 51.
today will be cleaning, packing, tossing, looking out the back balcony across the valley to the pyrenees mountains to say goodbye to the view, perhaps one more walk through this delightful hilltop village. this place is beautiful, peaceful, friendly. everywhere i’ve gone, i’ve heard how rude the french are. gotta tell you, at least here in south france, they’re the nicest folk i’ve met anywhere, period. even the children say bon jour.
in mySpace, you ask other folk to be your friend. i asked the Earth and Lao Tzu and Willie Nelson and Meat Beat Manifesto and Nikolas Telsa so far and they said yes - so i actually have friends now. i also asked God and Yoko Ono to be my friend, but they haven’t answered. Yoko accepted Lady K’s friendship offer though. i’m thinking i’ll have to wait until Lady’s asleep and go in and play with her friends.
one of her friends is a california musician name of Ralph Carney, who’s played with Tom Waits among others. we’re listening to his music right now - album called I Like You (A Lot). the man is very varied, wonderfully weird, officially odd. listening to him makes me want to get a few of the Smith/Peter Ball music jams up on my mySpace base place.
interesting phenomenon - when my mom Mother Dwarf was alive, most folks preferred her art over mine… now i’ve a new woman in my life (my wife), most folks prefer her blogs to mine. there’s a message here maybe? of course, i’m the outsider outlaw barcode breaker go my own wayer, so i suppose it’s unrealistic to expect acceptance. on the other hand, once i’m dead and they get the cult of The United Mutants of Smith going, everyone will be my friend - it’s my being alive that’s keeping my popularity down. think i’ll fake my own death so i can have some friends.
seriously though - i am hard to be around. i think too highly of myself, and my life is far too weird to meld with other’s flux.
“cobwebs in the closet, closure in the hole” - that popped into my head this morning… not sure what it means, but will write a poem around it. closure in the hole could be after i’m dead n gone.
next 5 days will add 2 countries to our is - spain and morocco will join the u.s. england netherlands poland croatia slovenia italy france dance. we drove through slovenia - didn’t stop, eat or sleep, so in a way it doesn’t count… except, our first time entering slovenia is the last stamp in our passports, even though we passed into italy, slovenia, croatia, slovenia, italy, slovenia, croatia, slovenia, italy and france since then. you can only stay in western europe 90 days legally - but since we’re still officially in slovenia as of last december, none of our past 8 weeks in south france counts. legally, we haven’t been in western europe since our week in amsterdam last september.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. - Lao Tzu (600-300 BC)
i’m a lucky mucky ducky.
my friend, my artistic collaborator, my traveling companion, my biographer, my inspiration, my cook, my haircutter, my amused appreciative audience, my fan, my p.r. agent, my co-performer, my dream, and my lover are all the same person - my wife Lady K.
that’s the lucky ducky part.
the mucky ducky portion lies in my film noir past - which includes but is not limited to car thief, armed robber, convict, bankrupt, divorced, drug dealer, adulterer, drunk, near dead, unemployed, and cancer.
i’ve been granted lucky ducky status because i went wrong and learned right… i’ve created art and poetry… i published 513 people for free… i’ve sent thousands of books of poetry and art out into the world… i’ve made people laugh in good ways… i paid poets to read their poetry… i stood by my mother in her time of sorrows… and, i took a wounded dying woman under my wing, offered her safe harbor and time to heal - (she married me in reward).
Lady K moved in 4 weeks after we took up. the next week we chose to sell my place, give away our possessions, move to europe. 5 months later we were married by a Wiccan, and 5 months after that we left america.
in the 8 months since, we’ve slept in 7 countries. what we own, we carry on our backs. we write poetry, fiction, non-fiction, take photographs, create art, and blog everywhere we go. together 24/7, we’re supportive, honest, and faithful - each with each to each.
the only things missing in this existence are bathtubs to soak in and poetry communities in which to read.
my life has been magic since Lady K came. and now we’re upping the ante - in 3 days we leave france, train to barcelona for 2 days, train to madrid for 2 days, then fly to marrakech morocco for a couple months. we’re going through the looking glass to see what we look like on the other side - which should be interesting since people find us an odd look on this side, what with my being 10 inches taller and 27 years older than she.
our coming future is so strange i cannot weave expectations around it. i feel excitement - it’s as if we’re running off to join the circus. this is the kind of adventure you read in fiction, watch in movies - this is fairy tale true. i suffered for a long hard time - now is worth what all i paid along the way.
may you all live your dreams as i. may you all be as lucky as i. and may you all stay stubborn and true along the way long enough to reach such a place in your life.
this story is so unusual, this one time both my blogs (walkingthinice.com & myspace.com/smithcrimes) will be identical.
Apr 03 2007 08:36 am |
Being and
Travel Notes |
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Doorway in Abeilhan, France (photo by Lady)
SPANISH
the numbers 1 through 10
uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete (see-EH-teh), ocho, nueve (NOO-EH-beh), diez (dee-EHSS)
Window in Abeilhan (photo by Lady)
CATALAN
the numbers 1 through 10
u/una (OON/OO-nah), dos/dues(DOHS/DOO-wehz), tres (TRREHS), quatre (KWAH-truh), cinc (SEENK), sis (SEES), set (SEHT), vuit (BWEET), nou (NOH-oo), deu (DAY-oo)
Doorway in Abeilhan (Photo by Lady)
A RABIC
the numbers 0 through 10 & 20, 30 &100
sifr, waahid, ithnaan, thalaatha, arba’a, khamsa, sitta, sab’a, thamaaniya, tis’a, ashara
20 ishruun
30 thalathuun
100 mi’a
TO DO
mail art
pack
blog
clean
mow lawn
phrases (Catalan, Spanish, A rabic)
print itinery
call train co.
print hotel reservations
maps printed out madrid, barcelona, marrakech
update check books
transfer money
we have but 3 more days here in south france. have to start the gathering, evaluating, tossing, keeping, packing, cleaning process called leaving.
when you move 17 times in 8 months through 7 countries (* see note) while carrying everything on your back, you get used to the routine… but i still don’t look forward to it. i like being in the place we are, and i like the idea of being where we’re going to be - but i’m not fond of the getting to and fro via multiple means of transportation involving 3 or more different languages, 3 countries and 5 cities in 5 days - though now i say it that way, it sounds rather interesting.
*note - u.s.a. to leeds england hotel to north england sheep field to north england b&b to leeds hotel to london to amsterdam place 1 to amsterdam place 2 to amsterdam place 3 to london to lodz poland b&b to krakow poland place 1 to krakow place 2 to krakow place 3 to london to liznjan croatia (with a side stay in venice italy) to albeilhan france.
we’re never home, never a guest - more like perpetual professional consumers of places to stay. i look forward to settling down perhaps next year - yet wonder if it will be hard to stop moving on.
this journey works and is worthwhile only because i’m with Lady K. without her, i’d just find the closest opium den and cloud my mind in shadow. our love and relationship are the real journey - the geographic changes merely stage sets.
. . .
keeping in mind this quote by claud cockburn - “never believe anything until it is officially denied” - here’s a rather interesting denial:
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert denied reports of a planned coordinated offensive in which the U.S. would attack Iran and Israel would hit Syria and Lebanon at the same time.
here’s another excellent bit of wisdom from martha gellhorn - “never believe governments, not any of them, not a word they say; keep an untrusting eye on all they do.”
Lady K says i’m not getting angry as often - or as much. it’s because i’ve left a lot of what angered me back in america - possessions, politics, programming. it’s because i’m doing something, rather than waiting to do something. it’s because i’m testing myself and finding i’m more or less worthy of this journey. kathy takes up the slack when i’m not.
we’re where we’re not known, going where we won’t know.
need to get lady k to write a blog on travel differences - she has theories of how the food, people, weather, sky colors, landscape palettes, stores, toilets, prices, etc differ place to place. she’s more concrete, in the real world, whereas i’m rather abstract, discontinuous, not quite always there - and even when i am there, i’m not always sure where there is.
past 3 months saw my first gutting/cleaning of a fish, my 1st grill fire laid, my first empty stove gas canister replaced, my 1st repair of bicycle flat on the road. scary to be riding bicycles that have had 3 of their 4 wheels taken off, repaired and put back on by me. i would not be your first choice for a mechanic. life prods areas where we’re weakest, and mechanical skills are among my many.
* ‘last year, Congress quietly approved provisions making it easier for the President to declare federal martial law after a domestic terrorist incident. And in late 2003, General Tommy Franks openly speculated on how a new 9/11 could lead to a military form of government: “a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution.’ *
after reading the excerpt above on www.commondreams.org, i wondered if the cheney-bush beast will stage another terrorist attack on america so they can bomb iran, declare martial law, and cancel the 2008 elections.
i know everyone, including my friends, will say i’m way out there on this. but let us face it - this is a government that brazenly stole both elections, illegally invaded another country, killed 700,000 civilians, spies on its own citizens, and legalized torturing, kidnapping, and murdering anyone THEY say is a menace. cheney also seems to have lost 8 billion of the 12 billion dollars he had under his control - some suggest he’s using this money to run illicit anti-Iran programs around the world.
these are not ethical, honorable people - they stuff themselves on stolen power with other’s money, they feast on blood not their own.
as is, cheney-bush have nothing to lose - if they don’t shut down our legal government, they’re going to end up in jail for war crimes, high crimes, theft & malfeasance in office when they’re prosecuted by the next honest regime. they’re obviously not afraid of being punished for what they’ve done, so i think they’ve already planned another 9/11 which they’ll use as an excuse to declare martial law and take over the government the rest of the way. bye bye america, heil amerika. brain cramps anyone?
personally, i think they should all be locked in a room and forgotten - let them eat each other.
* excerpt above -
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - CommonDreams.org
Easter Surprise: Attack on Iran, New 9/11… or Worse
by Heather Wokusch
It is easier for a Camus to pass through the eye of the needle than it is for a Republican to get into Heaven.
i joked i’d walk a mile for a Camus - and now it appears i will. ordered a couple Camus essays which will arrive the day we leave. so on our last day in france, we’ll bus to town, then walk with our all our possessions in packs on our backs from the bus depot to the bookstore to the train station in a weird cultural parabola. there’s not many artists i’d walk with weight on my back to buy.
reality is fraying, begins to reweave itself mid-stream. metaphors abound. it’s the cleaning-up-here-getting-ready-to-go-there dues, and it’s dropping clues. for example, my computer keyboard has become interactive… last 3 days it does/does-not record my “w”s and “space”s as it sees fit. if that’s a metaphor, i don’t understand. although today it’s changed to leaving out some spaces, while adding extra spaces other places. that’s so logical, reality has to be doing it on purpose. i know the universe is playing with me - but am i its toy, or play pal?
got vaccinated today for typhoid, hepatitis, tetnus and dyptheria. i feel different inside, feel the baby diseases moving about. we’re getting bit by bits of disease so we’ll be safe to go somewhere where we can’t drink can’t wash face can’t brush teeth can’t wash vegetables unless we use bottled water. can’t even let their water get in our eyes or mouths in the shower. we do the hep-cat hepatitis dance.. we be absurd as we adlurb our way to new day say.
down to our last week in south france. each day now becomes a final affair. today’s our last day to walk up the hill to the thursday fruit man. each day he drives to a different village to sell his wares. the fish woman also comes thursdays. we keep missing the cheese woman’s drive-through, and we totally ignore the red meat man.
4 more times i’ll walk 100 paces up the hill to the village patisserie for fresh baked bread. i’ll get maybe 5 more chances to pet the old cat in front of the grocery. we always take time to look at flowers, pet cats, and talk to dogs. we also watch the lizards every chance we get… their fleet liquid sun movements charge our magic batteries.
our M.O. / S.O.P. is we move to a new town in a new country, settle in, get acquainted, get comfortable, then move on, start over. past 8 gypsy months living in 7 countries, we’ve had 5 one night stays, 1 two nighter, 3 one weekers, a 7 weeker, a 13 weeker, and this is our 7th of 8 weeks here. heading for 1 night in barcelona, 2 nights in madrid, then 2-3 months wandering around morocco - probably mostly short term stays.
you learn a lot about yourself and the world when you constantly pack up and move on. learn what’s important to you too because whatever possessions you keep, you have to carry on your back. the two items that top my list of physical needs are water and laundry. also find i’ve become hooked on internet access. which makes morocco an interesting choice because the water’s bad, the laundry and internet questionable. but that’s cool cuz the object of exploring is to move beyond yourself.
we don’t really know what we’re doing, just that we’re doing. we’re Beauty & the Beast, Lady & the Tramp, Ms Able & her Scamp.
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