What Keeps Me Awake These Nights
Tuesday, September 26th, 2006
I am home now, as most of you know.
Responsibly employed, I nurse a serious, shamefully priced Dunn Brother’s habit and ride my bike around the lake every morning, past a blur of jogging soccer moms and CEOs. I get lost when I drive, spend hours talking to my family and friends about everything and nothing of importance simply because I’m able, and press my face into my tiny nieces’ unbelievably long hair when I hug them. I cook experimental meals and watch baseball and vapid reality television shows again, hold in my stomach and am regularly reminded that the relaxed, fashion-backwards style I’ve come to favor is not so flattering back here. I find something to purchase at Target twice a week, wash my hair everyday and have fully, finally unloaded by backpack. For now, I am all too comfortable, safe and happy, middle-America.
But I still dream. I try on the notion that this stop at home is temporary – if so soothing and appreciated. And while I bide my time and enjoy the lengthy respite, I steep in the memory of nights on dilapidated buses, inhaling the pungent cocktail of diesel and burning oil weaving in through cracked open, blacked out windows. I resurrect the whining rhythm of transistor radios calling out highlife music eight compounds away at midnight in Bechem. I hold tight to the matchless glow of sun and hot wind on my face, eyes closed to the dust that dances behind a teenage driver on the back of a Yamaha 100cc, on a long stretch of bad road in the forgotten heart of Africa.
I know I left the last leg of my trip untold – that I never recounted a five day trek through the wild of Tibetan mountains or momos and monasteries or the overland journey from China to Laos and Thailand. And someday I will sit down and do those tales justice. But for now, more for me than for you, I just want to dream about a few favorite short and sweet, disjointed clips…
* * *
There is a broad sweep of land, an expanse thrown open wide like defiant arms, where the stark calm of northern Jordan meets southern Syria and the distant stretches of proud Israel. It is a place where the winds blows with such unforgiving incessancy that the trees bend permanently to its will, arching obediently towards the Golan Heights. There is something too quiet about this summit, where gnarled ropes of dried fig rings sway next to pyramids of ground sumac and tamarind at roadside stands. Where leery old men hunch over tables in radiant white jelabas, faces tanned and taut as their dehydrated wares. From such great a height, the Dead Sea is silently model-sized, belaying its historic stature. From such height, the Holy Land is benign and Syria is simply another destination on a generic Kelly green road sign
* * *
One night in Kampala, the electricity in my modest guest house of a tiny bible college flickered out, as it did with amiable regularity. And from the kitchen sink, my house on the hill looked out at the breadth of darkness lit by sporadic beacons of privilege, households wealthy enough to afford generators. Between the cicadas and the repressed, lilting banter of East African seminary students sweeping in through the screen window, I scalped a pineapple by candlelight and sucked sweet warm slices off my wet hands and considered that maybe this is all there is. Maybe this is enough – this town of moto taxis and streets rough enough to let one know that one does not belong; tired and crowded and forgiving enough to look the other way while you pretend you do. Slums sliding down the sides of hills and Christian bookstores nestled up against curry joints and cell phone card kiosks. Burger joints, open air markets and fried plantains next to missionaries, mercenaries and non-profit do-gooders. Every African somebody in an SUV stuck in traffic next to matatus full of kids in ties and women tied to produce, pressed five to a seat, ushered by bumpers stickered with hip anti AIDS slogans, willing to take anyone anywhere for 500 shilling. Maybe this is even more than I need.
* * *
There is a moment in the hazy, deep-blue earliest hours of morning when the call to prayer wakes you half heartedly, with just enough force to gently nudge into your dreams. When the ethereal drone of this unknown faith breezes from head to foot, from unconscious to subconscious to the quietly, truly awake. Where you lie under the heavy woolen blankets of the Rif Mountains or the lightest silk sleep sheets of the Nile Valley and you listen. Held still and listening. Kept captive by the muted beauty of these indiscernible mantras.
* * *
The smell and pulpy sweet taste of jasmine tea, plush with milk and sugar, will always bring back frosty mornings in the middle of Tibetan-nowhere. And memories of sitting beside my friend McKay and the nomadic shepherds who would inevitably wander in to haunch by our fire in a silent display of community. It will remind me of the craggy walls of the 17,000 foot giants that rose along side our quiet valley campsites, and the sound of desolation, broken only by yak bells in the distance and the gurgle fresh water makes as it musters the heat and energy to rise above tender shelves of river ice.