rainy day

A rainy sunday.  Thick drops flood our deck as they paint the cement dark, heavy air hanging lazily while the sky and sea blur to be one, dressed the same shade of blue.

It's everyone's day off, but we see no one.  No kids playing soccer at the church, nobody works in their garden, nobody stands around talking, leaning, laughing against fence posts.  Rain drives them inside. No bells on the hillsides.  Even the birds have gone to bed.  Quiet prevails.

We woke up late.  The time change didn't help.  Tea, breakfast, more tea, we nurse light hangovers as we lay back in bed to watch a movie about love.  The rain steady and heavy.  4 pm comes fast, the day passing us by.  Inside, hiding from that water, that cold.  Remembering times in rain and all the wetness of the Pacific Northwest.  We grow nostalgic, love it, and need to be in it.  Raincoats on, we step out.

Up a hill, past empty playgrounds, "yassas" to wet chickens, lemons dripping from their trees.  My hair grows heavy so quickly, sticking to my forehead.  Pants wet to the knees.  The road curves as we climb the mountain, past a small church, the place where the road fell to the sea, and to where the cement begins again.  We come to a look out, that ocean so many shades of blue, a rainbow now growing out from the middle of it, curving to land on a mountain top.  We sip some ouzo from a bottle and walk on, across and down, turning left on a soggy brown puddled street leading to a grass field and a small, old building.  A church.  On the beach.

We go in, through small blue doors, dripping water to the floor.  11 wicker chairs, and a podium decorated with a crumbling bible.  I have the urge to pick it up, to see what passage it would fall open to.  But all my beliefs and non believing hold me back, so I touch the spine, gently, almost as an afterthought.  I light a white candle, put it in a bowl of sand.  Walk outside just as the sun is burning through the clouds.  Sit down with the pebbles and small pulsing waves and Abbey talks to me, says something about...
  
              how, the world spins so fast, and here we are, this little dot in the geography of this planet, and we are still alive through it all, our hands functioning so well as we hold small pebbles, old pieces of this earth traveling across the ocean to land at our feet, and we feel so still, but in truth we spin and we spin and we spin as the moon moves the waves, and she reminds me of a sentence I read in India, that, for some reason, sticks with me.  Coming to the surface at moments like these, short and sweet:
  
             "All this and I am still alive.  I fear I have no death."  (Tagore). 

And, also, how
  
             "The world is permeated with roses of happiness all the time, only none of us realize it.  The    happiness consists in realizing it is all a great strange dream." (Kerouac).  

And that is the point.

(Drawings courtesy of Abbey Koshak)

movement through stillness

Signed my name above that thick black line. Free of a lease. I study the form.  6 names.  Andi, Daniel, Bethany, Spencer, Rebecca, and Amelia. And I realize with a small shiver that I am feeling quite sentimental about this.  With our names all in a row, this random selection of various residents, we have put into a legal document the cold hard fact that a chapter has closed. The pages have been turned, all covered in writing, paint, doodles. Whiskey and coffee stains.  Cigarette burns.  Lines crossed out and rewritten in a sloppy sideways fashion.  And the book has turned to lay open, page up, on a clean white sheet. Now being slowly filled in with a doodle of a mountain side dotted with sheep.  Guitar chords and a sharpie drawing of a sunflower.

And what is it that I am talking about?

I am just thinking that I will miss those big echoing hallways.  The sounds of bare feet slapping old wooden steps.  A blue room and breezy sunlight coming in through curtains brushing my face as I sleep away some afternoon or another.  And even when I didn't live there, I did.  And now we've signed away any responsibility to damage done to that house over 4 years, and are free to walk away with a book full of memories and one of the biggest, closest families I've ever known. Bravo 12th and C. 

All this and these, memories of yours and mine, coming at me during a lull.  Like the one between waves.  Ocean waves.  Salt and kelp and that slow soft pounding.  A lull because, I've really been moving a lot in this past year.  Traveled the USA, finished college, saw Mexico, China and now the brakes hit the floor and I am a little dizzy but happy to be here.  I lay around on a big white bed, next to a big wide window, watch the sunrise in those lazy shades of pink of blue and they reflect off walls and window panes and I just smile, roll over, sleep again, easily.  Because, things move slowly here.  Sheep make their way idly down the hillside, to where grass meets water.  Cars putt past spilling the dirt road into the air.  Sailboats sit, waiting for the wind, the sun.  No work for at least two weeks, everyone says.  So we relax.  We drink wine and we play music and we lounge and laugh.  Climb mountainsides and watch the sun make the way across the day.  We wait patiently for that sun to grow warmer, to bring sails to bring tourists to bring us work and the waiting is, perfect.  Is paradise right now in a quiet sleepy town ideal for all this reflection and recognition of these silly sentimental feelings.  

Like being on the beach in Mexico. Working slowly southward day by day.  Time passing as the scenery stayed the same.  I moved, but had the thought that maybe I was still.  And in my blue tent night after night I ran out of books to read and my mind played small tricks on me but I figured as long I put foot in front of foot it would lead somewhere and I HAVE to be moving.  Not keeping still, but moving forward, no matter how much the sky, beach, sand appeared unchanging. At least thats what logic declared. 

And this doesn't make much sense, but the fact is, I am still as can be, sitting on this bed by the window, listening to Abbey play the guitar and then leave to comb her hair.  And we've got nowhere to be.  So we'll stay here.  Yet through all this staying I am feeling an undeniable sense of movement not through time or space but in my mentality to be able to stay, and wait.  

And that is something I am so very happy about. 

and some pictures

 Yangzi river old man card games.

I'm going for a wee.

schhwaaat??

tea time.

seriously. yo.

rollin some dice. killin some time.

                             they're putting walls up everywhere...

                             but there are ways to get around.

There are more, but whose got the time. Thanks China for it all.  More importantly, now its 10 am. I've got a bottle of ouzo and an Ionian Sea, the sun is shining down on me and oh what an adventurous day it will be.

The Great Wall

After so much movement my body has come to a halt on a chilly balcony with a couple of empty chairs, a muchtooclean table, untouched ashtray and a view of the Acropolis.   I have to keep shaking my head, thinking this must be a dream. What happened to the filthy streets of Beijing? I look down at my tattoo, then away.  When I look back its still there, a solid little tree.  I jump, but I don't fly. This isn't a dream.

Flash back five days and I am saying goodbye to Lauren and Amelia, standing between buses in Shangri La. Exhaust in the air and bags on our backs as our six eyes lock, brown-blue-brown, so comfortable now within eachother, and oh how I am in love with these women. I board a bus and am gone.

Since then its been a blur. I know there were homebrews, musical chairs, dancing, lakeside day walks and nights filled with Radiohead and Beatles covers in a familiar Dali bar.  I still have a bruise on my hand from drumming.  Another reminder that I am not dreaming.

And then it was back to Beijing.  The List.  And two late night flights.

And so it was, that on my last day in China, I saw the Great Wall. I believe I saved it for the last day because I wasn't sure I could do it.  Was scared, maybe.  But, I was there. Had to at least try.  I packed a small container of ashes into a little cloth bag, put that into my pocket, touching it periodically with my hand to make sure it was still there.  I climbed in my friends car, getting lost to Bob Marley playing through his ipod on the two hour drive to the wall.  Bob Marley always makes me think of Pine Sol.  Of my parents cleaning the house on sunday afternoons as I arranged stuffed animals to take a trian ride across the living room floor.  Just like how cutting a bell pepper reminds me of an old friend Nate. And sitting on a bare toilet seat makes me think of Caty Blain.  Drinking whiskey makes me want to hear funk.  And vis versa.  Associations that time cannot part.

So we arrive at the wall and I think how there could not be ANY more people around. The place is packed. I wish deeply for everyone to clear out and leave me alone here to focus and think.  I have to close my eyes and breathe. Calm down or something.  I didn't even realize I was anxious.  I follow the wall with my eyes, to where it curves and weaves through snow covered hills to disapear in the fog. And I realize there is nobody out there.  There.  Further.  That's where I need to be.  I want to start running, like in the Karate Kid, but I don't.  I walk slowly and take it in.  Up, down, around. This really is an amazing place.  I think of all the bodies burried underneath, all the years and dedication to keeping others out, so that foreigners could now come, take pictures and buy the t-shirts. Amazing.  And I'm one of them. Two of them.

The crowd thins and I can feel I'm getting there. The air feels cleaner and there is more snow. Just a little further.  I pass the container of ashes from finger to finger inside my pocket. Thinking this is okay, I am okay with this.  And I stop. Abruptly.

Coming up from the wall is another wall, a different sort of wall, a dead end wall growing in the wrong direction heading up towards the sky. No way to go around, no way to go over.  But I can see out in the hills just how far the Great Wall stretches and I want to go there, but the official is saying no.  A dead end. The Great Wall has a dead end.  I shake my head, and turn around.

As I resign to find somewhere else, I stop periodically to check the scene. To peer over the side and look at the ground.  Checking for signs.  But everywhere something is wrong.  It's too dark, there are too many people.  I don't like those trees or there is too much snow. Or it's too windy, and I've seen the Big Lebowski.  I realize I am looking for reasons to make it feel wrong.  I've started to think how this is a crazy idea.  I shouldn't do this.

I keep walking, now with the cloud of defeat hovering over my head.  When I am almost back to the entrance, to the throngs of people and the souvinier shops, I realize its now or never.  I veer to the left, look out a small viewing window, and I see a bird.  Black and white and flying close to the ground. And I think of my mom.
                           
                                  "There he is." She would say, "There's Kirk". 


Another association I will never be able to kick.

I open the container and empty the contents into my hand and hold my fist tight.  No one tells you what cremated ashes will look like, or feel like.  I don't know what I expected, but I didn't think they would be so gray.  Black maybe, I don't know.  Blue would be nice.  Tie Dye would be more appropriate than gray. And once in my hand, they felt like a beach. Under the sun, fingers through sand. My dad wanted to live on a beach, and now he has become one, I thought. And with that, I opened my fist and let go, into the air and that slight breeze. Above the head of that bird, slowly drifiting downwords to mingle with the brown earth and some newly planted trees.  He will help them to grow, I thought.  The bird looked up, and flew away.

And now that I've begun, there is no turning back.  And this is crazy, I cant help but think.  But with help from Liam (my big brother), and with enough time, I'm sure it'll be done.

 The list, (or, the eight remaining):

- Visit Denali State Park

- Visit the pyramids in Egypt

- Run with the bulls in Pamplona

- Visit Australia, and New Zealand

- Hike the Pacific Crest Trail   (Sophie, Lea – 2013)

- Visit the great wall

- Go to France and ride the Alp D’Heuz (Davie J – join me!)

- Race in Ironman Hawaii in Kona (?!)

- Live on a beach.