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i have seen the end of the world... and it was beautiful.
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Yesterday we took the family on a special trip to Situlpauwa Temple, perched high in the hills 15 km inside the borders of Yala National Park. I’ve written about it before, so won’t repeat myself here. For me, this journey was a bit of a photographic mission - previous visits had always been a race against time, the sunset, the closing of the park gates, and for once, I wanted to ensure there was enough time to meander slowly, and taking all the pictures I wanted. There is something about taking a photograph. Something I didn’t know before these travels. A way in which it allows me to see differently - somehow through this lens, the breathtaking eros and sensuality of shape and grain and angle, of light and shadow, all conspire to reveal Life in the inanimate, Motion in the inert. The slow dance between that which grows and that which seems timelessly unchanging, and where these are met by camera and human eye, something else happens. Alchemy. At least this is how it feels, seems, appears to me, and this is what fuels my obsession with roots and rocks. I am seduced. 2 safaris in Yala National Park this week. The first, a full-day affair with a honeymoonish Italian couple who delighted in The Nature, and each other, and didn’t tip Dinesh. My phone ( = camera) battery ran out just after lunch, basically the point at which the safari went from really good to amazing, with perfectly framed, close-range, gorgeous photo op after photo op presenting itself, and me, more bummed about it than I should’ve been - the single water buffalo wallowing in a gigantic mud puddle in the middle of the road, with the sun low behind her casting a perfect shadow of her entire head and horns in the milky brown mud; the Changeable Hawk Eagle sitting close by in an open flood plain of bleached white mud and wispy blue sky, surrounded by the white feathers and down of its prey, the remains of which it was eating with great relish; my very first sighting of the more rare Chestnut Headed Bee Eater, and so it went…these words now my album and archive. Also seen, a mama and baby porcupine, 2 jackals hunting (scoping out, not yet moving in on) a newborn water buffalo (!!!) getting licked to life by its mama, a trio of leopards (mama and 2 cubs) lazing and stretching in a tree, another leopard, very close, in a little glen just off the road, and much more. The second safari, a half-day, was a wrist-slap - I almost didn’t want to go, because I felt like it would be Chasing God, hunting “lost opportunities” one should rightfully accept as gifts, not menu items… but I went… and sure enough, everything went just a little bit wrong, our timing was screwy, and none of what I’d hoped (in spite of myself) to see really presented itself to me. That said, it was a beautiful drive, and the park, stunning as ever. Sri Lanka seems hellbent on teaching me about expectations and the letting go thereof. I recognize, and often truly appreciate, the lessons, but I can’t say I’ve noticed a sea change in behavior on my part! In fact, if anything, I think the continual stream of petty frustrations and disappointments, the myriad of things I have to talk myself through and/or down from, the endless and seemingly futile attempts to understand, and be understood by, Dinesh, have just collected, like little beads of nitroglycerine, mercurial, and volatile. ARK, who once was a jeweller, used to tell me that if you work a metal too much, it hardens and becomes brittle, as if it only holds within its molecules a limited, predetermined number of times it can be bent. Perhaps I too am made of such metal. Anyway, in this Sri Lankan mirror, what is sometimes reflected back at me is not so nice to look at: I’m kind of a bitch! …who knew…? (don’t answer that.) slideshow 1: Yala - place slideshow 2: Yala - feathers and fur (& scales) slideshow 3: yala - tusker butt flipbook smoke has thickened & blurred the air in the whole house, and if this entry gets weird, it’s probably carbon dioxide poisoning, so forgive me. while this event is worse than usual, low grade (subterminal) asphyxiation is a regular occurrence here - cooking fires (trash and scrap wood) 3 times day, a trash -&-leaves fire every other day (per household, so factor in 4 or so neighbors, depending on how the wind blows), hyperbolic incense for the buddha at sundown, and mosquito coils at night. it is no wonder everyone here has a cough and i have a headache half my waking hours. little wonder the monsoon season is half as long or juicy as it once was… this is underdevelopment. this is global warming. this is where poverty and foresight miss meeting one another due to a clerical error, and this is, i fear, a greater occurrence than not on our beautiful planet.
ok this just got kookier.. i just talked to Rani, Dinesh’s mother, and she lit the fire because she thought it would chase the mosquitoes away because she thought the puppies seemed to be extra itchy… somehow the fact that they were in the direct path of all that thick smoke, and trying to breathe, seems not to have occurred to her… i mime that maybe the fire is a bad idea, and she puts it out… and then walks through the smoky room to the front door/porch, and proceeds to light the gag-a-licious incense for the evening…!!!! i am speechless… and very sad, as i hear her now coughing as i write this… in other news, i saw a monk bathing the other day. that’s something one shouldn’t see. i didn't try to see it. i didn't want to see. but i did… as we were driving by some kind of temple-y compound, the fence just opened, and there he was, in his little monk skivvies, at the bathing cistern. i am probably scarred for life now. or damned to one or other of the abundance of grisly buddhist hells. oh my… ... can i just say (again) how much i love the sri lankan sky?!?!?!!!! not an hour into my "homecoming", i find myself here, at yet another facet of the lake's edge, with dinesh, rohan, and a pack of wild dogs... and a storm coming. i also love the wild dogs of sri lanka...! If there is one thing worse (& of course, there are many, and far…) than riding a top-heavy jam-packed Sri Lanka bus from the sky-scratching heights of Ella down and this way and that way, and down and etc, it is doing so, etc etc, in the rain. Now I can probably count the number of times in my life where I have prayed for it NOT to rain, myself being a Rain Lover and such, and I would still have fingers left over. But today, as we rolled and swerved and careened down and down, etc, I did so, starting right after we after passing the scene of a grisly accident where some unfortunate soul lost control and flew through the (useless) guardrail and off a 700 meter or so cliff to a gleaming green grassy and near certain death., r.i.p…. With a wink and a nod and a middle finger stretched upward, god answered my prayers, and it started to rain. No, not rain, pour. As in buckets. Sheets. Cats and dogs. Choose your adverbial analogy. It RAINED. I braced a little harder, and recited my Airplane Takeoff-&-turbulence Prayer (“today is a good day to die.i have lived a good and full life, loved as best i know how, leave no standing hurts or grievances behind that i know of (& if i am blind to any, may the hurt or aggrieved parties please forgive me), i am ok, IT is ok, i’m ready, let’s do this”), and we rolled on…
I am seated near the back of the bus, in an aisle seat, right across from the back door, which is open. This has some distinct benefits, and some potential drawbacks. During the downpour, there is a lovely blast of cool, sometimes spray-filled, air, and the visuals of the side-blown sheets of mist and rain over paddy fields and yards and jungle as we speed by, are spectacular. Also in the event of our flying off one of these scenic death bends, my proximity to the door could afford me rapid egress to safety. The flipside, of course, is that in the event of said potential accident, said ease of exit could also, and less desirably, result in my being hurled out to death and dismemberment (preferably in that order)… No way of knowing, really, just noting the possibilities as we go. Also there is a large speaker across the 1ft aisle in the luggage rack and aimed directly at my left ear. This falls onto the “cons” side of the issue of seating arrangement, in case there is any confusion. Have I ever spoken to the issue of contemporary Sri Lankan music? Well, yes, it’s an “interesting” phenomenon… the old stuff, I love, in judicious portions, but the modern stuff gives ( not unlike its global counterparts) the unfortunate impression that there is more money than talent in the pool - the downside of improved access to technology and the internet. Featuring a mix of mariachi-esque instrumentation (the accordions of old replaced by god-awful synthesizers), canned and clumsily thumping bass-boosted rhythm tracks your average speaker can’t handle, and swelling in sugar-soaked, waves of sentimentality, the songs are all pretty similar, pretty boring and/or cloying, and, at the volumes they are almost ALWAYS played at, skull-splittingiy oppressive. Perhaps I am officially a cranky old lady now, or perhaps it is my keen ear and inability to enjoy (ok, tolerate) off-pitch singing, but it also strikes me that there is a near-ubiquitous (genetic?) tone-deafness in Sri Lankans , sending the needle nagging the reddest of the red limit on the Painful-to-Listen-to meter. I will say, though, that there is another, and redeeming, seeming genetic peculiarity to the male (in particular) Sri Lankan voice, and that is a quality of sounding like smoked honey poured over a dusty gravel road - it makes me swoon (and even though Dinesh can barely stay in tune to save his life, I am ever-thankful that he loves to sing to me while we are driving). Until I change seats I ride this bus permanently right-sidebent, with all my weight on my left sitbone, in an effort to brace and balance and avoid inappropriate contact with my nearest neighbor, a surly and diffident young Sri Lankan man who has that ever-irritating Male Entitlement Leg Spread thing going on, for which I have little tolerance even at the best of times. This not being the best of times, with the music-drill in my cranium, the heat, and neck pain further amplifying my alarming capacity for irritability, I just start to push back - his foot, his shoulder, his thigh, the fuck out of my way, asserting my right to my childish cranky brain’s estimation of Exactly How Much Space my approximately $1.25 -for-2&1/2 hrs bus fare should afford me… he gives, but in begrudging, 2 inch increments. In the meantime, it is a sea of male pelvises making forays into my personal space (at face level, thank you very much) from the 1 ft wide aisle to my left, for it is here that the bus driver sometimes stands to prepare to collect fares, and it is here that people sometimes wait before pouncing on a newly vacated seat (and, strangely, it is “here” even when I move one seat forward). Thankfully, this situation does not last the entire trip. The rain ceases after about 30 minutes, and the rest of the ride passes unnotably. Soon, I will be back in Thissa. Ella, which means "waterfall"... a very "cute" town of hills upon hills upon hills, punctuated with a sparse braille of hotels and houses, teeming with jungley goodness. There is sun here through most of the day, then you can watch as a thick mist pours down from the clouds over the whole town, dimming if not obliterating the colored lights that dot the hills. Often there is rain, thunder, and lightning in the evening. There are 2 "main drags", and there are tourists. At 4:30 am it is me and the canned monks and the frogs. As light blooms, it is dogs on rooftops, hundreds of birds. I have been here the past 5 days, thoroughly enjoying, nay, reveling in, the Hill Country cool and variety of diet, as well as beautiful hiking options , to great heights, waterfalls, temples... I quite like it here, and am cooking up a little plan... Anyway, last night teeth-rattling thunder, sky-encompassing lightning, and rain... love it. This morning, breakfast of water buffalo yogurt and papaya, a walk to the falls, and then hop the bus back to Thissa. below: slideshow#1 - through town and tea estate and up and up, to Little Adam's Peak, with view across deep valley to Ella Rock. slideshow #2 - along railway tracks skirting town through tea estates and up through turpentine tree forest to Ella Rock, with a view across deep valley to Little Adam's Peak! ps for some reason i was so pessimistic about my hopes of capturing the spooky beauty of the turpentine forest that i didn't take any photos there. regret. ramrod straight, towering up into blue sky, and ghostly pale blue-white-silver trees rising out of a black soil - and - white pebble/course sand ground, partly scorched from some not-too-recent fire... haven't seen them anywhere else in sri lanka. next time, i will make it my soul'd work to photograph them!
i don’t often write here about the wider world, or news from home. part of that is a simple fact of isolation and lack of access, but lately, in the lead up to what may prove to be the Darkest 4 years in US history, i simply cannot bear to tackle it. there is so much being said, and much of it better said than what I might muster, so I’ve just left well enough alone. but now news of the fire at the Ghost Ship in Oakland has reached me, and with it, the heavy and horrible news that friends lost their beautiful, gifted and gorgeous child. a loss so profound it stupefies. facebook feed floods with condolences and a rallying of the vast community they have to draw strength from, and that is achey & beautiful. this morning, tho’, i was able to get a bit of public radio online, and listened to ostensibly concerned interviewers and officials speak of codes and illegality and such, and it felt so wrong. i mean, i get it - people want to make sure a horror like this never happens again - at last count 36 people lost their lives, and there are many still as yet unaccounted for - but surely now is the time for Remembrance, to focus on telling the stories of those lives, to celebrate the art they made, the love they gave, their unique threads in the great weaving. that is the “news” i crave hearing. perhaps the general media is not the place for that. i am sure such things are happening in kitchens and art spaces and bars and street corners all over the bay area and beyond. and when the media does what it does, i would only hope that they include a discussion of the dearth not only of affordable housing for all, but also the rarity of such spaces of inclusion, of creativity, of community created outside the dominant value system. i hope that they can honor the totality of what such spaces represent, the complexity and depth of each life lost. half a world away, this is what i hope.
* i offer this one grain of salt prayer to Leisa and Sunny, in remembrance of Cash. another one of this mini tour's best kept secrets, maduru oya is a gorgeous park that receives few visitors - a geological, ornithological, botanical, and zoological treasure! the animals here are much less inured to the presence of humans and their jeeps, so are shyer and more likely to scatter when approached (always at very respectable distances, of course)... somehow this makes the experience feel more "authentically" wild. pictures are a bit grainy (light and distance), but give some idea of the splendor and beauty, i hope. no pictures of the jackals hunting a huge herd of spotted deer, which was pretty exciting to see (no kill). ...oh yes, and the "ranger" offered to take us on a much less travelled track...where we spent 3 hrs bumper-deep in a soft mud-bottomed "puddle" (pond-sized)...each attempt to extricate ourselves, using logs, rocks, etc under the tires, only sunk us deeper, and this with no walkie-talkie, no cell reception, no one around for many miles, in a park known for its Danger Elephants... uh, whoops... |
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