Dazzle n' Pride at Blaauwbosch: Part III

We're just sleepin' here. Nothing to look at folks. Now move along.




Obviously you don't get it. We've only slept 18 hours today and we need at least three more hours. Later we'll be hunting some yummy baby giraffe. That'll show 'em. So move along now.

Dazzle n' Pride at Blaauwbosch: Part II

Here's a question. What do a group of giraffe see when they're staring out over the plains?


Hey guys, I wanna look too? What are you looking at? Aaah, I see them now.




Jeeze, thanks giraffe for alerting these idiots to come poking their nose into our business. I'm leaving!

Dazzle n' Pride at Blaauwbosch: Part I

We stayed at the Blaauwbosch (that's blue bush to all you non-Afrikaans speakers) Game Reserve. It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

You prepare yourself really fast for a safari, when these signs appear on the roads.

Home, home on the range where the deer and the antelope play... As do the zebras. The stripes move this way and that...hence the name a dazzle of zebras. What is a poor predator to do?



This baby is just three weeks old, but he's already curious about the strange metal monster full of people who ooh and aah over him. Off he goes, looking for mama. Watch those cutely uncoordinated legs. If you look carefully you can even see the dangling thread of his not yet fully detached umbilical cord. And yes, that's my voice on the video.



I'm lonely...such a lonely little wildebeest.

London

It was a beautiful, non-rainy, blue-skied day in London today. And my feet hurt. And I can't wait for tomorrow so I can punish my feet some more and reward my eyes and my mind. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm

Chain, Chain, Chain

Periods of activation and inactivation within neurons. Or perhaps they are simply cycles of neural activity. Words. Each word comes loaded with even more questions. What does neural really mean? And neurons? And this? And that? But what I really want to know is...what does it look like?

If I was to put a scope with an audio receiver inside my brain and thought of certain events of the past...my memories, would I see anything? Would there be a flash of light? Perhaps a kind of sizzle...like cold rain falling on hot asphalt. Perhaps a slight change of color? Or a sound like a sigh, a soft sigh?

How are memories stored? How do we really acccess them? How does it all work? In between the neurons and the connections and the speed of the brain and its size, meanings get lost. Alzheimer's is one of my biggest fears. More than death even. Because without my memories, without those events that shaped me, who am I? Who is anyone? Is it because I am afraid to acknowledge that underneath all the fancy words and the images and sounds and smells that filter back to me through time...I am really just a body made of meat and bone? That memories are nebulous....there is no physical storage system. No way to pass them except to tell them to someone else. And then be dependent on their own interpretation and the frailty of their own memories.

I mean really, I barely have space for my own memories, why should I take on someone else's? And what explains that sometimes when I look up towards the white-cloaked peaks from my backyard I can smell the crushed grass of a high-altitude meadow in the Himalayas. And the nudge of a curious sheep as I lay flat on my back, eyes closed to soak in that moment forever. And the calloused feet of a man who walked the Himalayas in flip flops. And the look in his eyes? And the old man in a village who asked me to explain what flat land looks like. And the young woman, an old maid at 22, asked if she could go into the plains and find a job.

And how each memory is a link of a chain and each that I access leads to another and another...and eventually they circle back and return to where I am now, in the present. And how my chain is intertwined with so many others. Our common experiences mesh into memories that still remain uniquely our own.

All I know is. Right now, at this moment in time I have memories.

La Italia

Yes...I am off to Rome and Naples on my way to Pompeii, so no posts for a couple of days. I've always wanted to see Pompeii...since I was a child and saw some pictures of it. Hope my fascination remains after actually going there.

Merry Christmas everyone and hope you had a wonderful Eid.

Naina in Torino

A month or so ago I drove to Torino (Turin), Italy from Geneva. A three-hour long drive takes you through the Jura and then the Alps, where you cross over into Italy after driving through the Mont Blanc tunnel. The tunnel itself is about 8 miles long and while the French side was grey and overcast (being on the windward side of the mountain) Italy welcomed us wiht blue skies and perfect weather. I don't think I had ever realized the truism of the immutable fact that mountains create their own weather.


I am still not over the fact that in two hours I can drive through three countries. As usual Naina was along for the ride though I don't think the scenery impressed her much. Nor did Turin. While my mom-in-law went inside the church and the museum I relaxed by walking around the ruins of an old Roman amphitheater and then in the piazza, which was jam packed with people.

There was a protest against China: No Human Rights No Olympics. A fair trade I'd say? Of course, that's not going to happen. A group of kids went from speaking Italian to singing American pop songs with a perfect American accent and back again. The Rasta kids on the other side of the piazza were high on life and hash.

The piazza was full of families and their dogs. And, then there was Naina. At one time there was a group of at least a dozen kids and grown ups waiting to pet her. She was in seventh doggie heaven. I love the mutt but I can't understand the fascination my little husky/shepherd mix engenders in people. (Two weeks ago a woman in Geneva turned twice after passing us then wanted to know where she could buy one like her. She's a rescue from S. Central L.A I told her and I am not even sure if the rest of her litter mates look like her). A young Italian couple just came over to sit next to me so they could play with her. Two little babies sat on the ground and rubbed her belly. This is what a rock star's security guard must feel like...except of course for the tummy rubbing thing.

So, here you are, even though no one asked, Naina in Turin. Hey, you can't pet the shroud...but petting her is free though I am thinking of charging 2 francs per person. :-)

More than an evening in Paris

I did it!

I drove the five hours from Geneva to Paris (and back) myself...I had passengers but I did all the driving. All over the weekend. We arrived in Paris around 11 and I did the prospect of which terrified me the most...merging into the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe. Can you say nerve-wracking??

Still I managed not to run over the million insane pedestrians (those damn tourists) or bang up the car and drove us down the Champs Elysees to our apartment and even managed to find parking. Yay! Safe and sound.

Then it was the usual Paris sights and trying to stay up late and wake up early to cram as much as possible for the poor in-laws who had me inflicted on them as a tour guide. Walking up and down long stairs, running from the RER to the metro and the different lines....and the ancient Paris tradition of wandering around utterly lost.

And...yes...hold your breath...interacting with *nice* Parisians. There were the two girls who looked at the map for me when I was a tiny (ok...a lot) lost and disorented the first evening trying to find my way from the garage to the apartment. Okay, so they totally got me lost...I was 5 minutes away from the apartment and they sent me off on a 30 minute wild goose chase.

Then the totally cool British couple (well, they live there so they qualify as Parisians) who walked with us to show us the closest metro stop to the Eiffel Tower. His company had posted him in Paris. He went mountain climbing in Switzerland. He was doing a master's course in French while she was learning it. And they were pros with the Paris transit system.

Can I mention the slightly creepy but kind of cool guy who hit on me as I waited on a bench, reading a book, drinking coffee while the others went up to the top (I'm kind of over the climb now)?

And the nice cop. Yep! The last night we were there (the second night) France won a major rugby tournament against New Zealand. It was wild. Traffic was stopped as people danced in the streets. Two tres chic girls in very short skirts and very high heels ran up and down the Champs Elysees waving a French flag. And all around us horns were blaring. Long and short beeps...loud, loud, loud.

As we walked around the Arc a cop came and said that we had to leave and wait in the tunnel a few minutes before making our way back. We went down and as we were walking to the exit this other cop started talking to us. He was totally in the mood to chat, asking where we were from, wondering what was going on on the surface. He actually seemed upset that we walked away and upstairs.

The street celebration was a riot (almost literally I think)....the crowds were huge and it was hard not to get infected with their sheer joy. I wish I was that enthused about something. Oh well!

For the first time I kind of liked being in Paris. Tres magnifque Paris. Au revoir.

Coins in the Fountain

The last time I visited Rome was seven years ago when we live in Connecticut. At 11 am on a Friday, I returned from the dentist and B said, "hey, let's have lunch in Rome tomorrow."

I threw in some clothes in a bag and with two other friends of ours we drove like bats out of hell (only the bats are slower) to T.F. Green (about an hour's drive which we made in like 40 minutes) and went to Rome for the weekend.

It was strangely surreal. We were tired and jetlagged and lost track of time. Our friend, M, said, "hey, remember the day we arrived?" We were like, "uh, you mean this morning?"

It was a wonderful weekend, especially because it was such a rare thing. Some people commended me for putting up with my husband like I was some long-suffering wife. Hello!!! I traveled by myself for months in the Indian Himalayas and backpacked through India with my best friend for three months.

I resented being cast as the dutiful, indulgent wife when I could barely wait to throw my clothes into my bag and take off.

I am thinking of Rome because this past weekend was spent there. This time the flight was just about an hour, there was no jetlag and it was insanely hot (yes, me with my heat intolerance and these summer vacations in hot places. wtf?).

Still....Rome was beautiful. The eternal city, alive and lovely at every turn. Built on the sweat of slaves and the blood of millions, it has a certain weary aura and an undeniable mystique. I prefer Rome to Paris. I think it's a more soulful city...and there was very little dog poop on the streets.

The last time we couldn't visit the Sistine Chapel (this time I spent a lot of time there) or the Trevi fountain (I am not much for customs that consist of me tossing money into water).

But there it was, this amazing, beautiful fountain, gushing water on an evening the air was so still and thick I could swallow the heat. And the spray from the water cooled my face and I dipped my hands and arms in it and for an instant got some respite from the furnace of Rome.

I threw in these coins: half a Swiss franc, a US dime, a 20 cent Euro coin and a 50 paise coin: all my homes (well the Euro is more neighbor but you get the point).

Even though I was back in Rome despite not having thrown a coin in the Trevi the last time, this time I wanted to be sure I would return (not in summer though).

I also wanted to be sure that I would also go back to the other places that hold places of my heart. Places where I have left pieces of my heart.

Arriverderci Roma!

Hot Air and Views

The Temple of Hatshepsut

Views from Hot Air Balloon

What the heck am I doing up so early? It's dark and I had hit my best sleep. I am in a boat with seventeen others, heading out from our cruise boat in a motor boat and on to some field in Luxor.

It's hot-air balloon time. We rise with the warm current, 17 of us stuffed into four standing compartments and I watch the sun rise over the Nile. Over the haze of modern Luxor, I can see ancient Thebes shimmer and come alive for that one instant where the powerful sun-god Ra appears to establish his mastery over the earth.



But the sounds of Luxor waft up. Prayers and shouts and music and Ra is defeated yet again.



The heat from the balloon is well...hot. It is called a hot air balloon after all. And we float noiselessly over the Valley of the Kings.



And I see the temple of Hatshepsut rise up from the desert. Almost as if it is part of the desert.



A temple of a usurper, a woman who invented the story of her divine birth, where her mother was impregnated by the spirit of the great Amun-Ra. So she had to rule, not her stepson Tuthmoses III. A woman who did not call herself queen but a pharoah, a King of Egypt. A king because she was the son of Amun-Ra, not his daughter. A woman defined not so much by what she was but what she was not. And all the more powerful for it. She ruled for 27 years before her death.



Hatshepsut whose name was all but expunged by those who came after her. For never should a usurper be honored. But clues were left behind and the son of another pharaoah who treasured history left a trail to her in ancient hieroglyphs. History does not die. It can only be forgotten for a while. Hidden away until it chooses to come to light.



They said she was not mummified--the most horrible thing for an ancient Egyptian king--so that she would not be re-born. So that she would truly die and so that her soul would not ever ascend to the paradise of Osiris.



But then a lone tooth fit perfectly into an empty spot in an unidentified mummy's mouth and what was once the body of a 45-60 year obese female with bad teeth and hair was confirmed as the mummy of that most unusual pharaoah, Hatshepsut.




This happened just a few weeks before I leaned down from my balloon and saw her temple rising from the harsh sands of Egypt. Do kings remain kings forever?

Pyramids of Giza

The first night we were in Egypt we stayed at the Mena House (the hunting lodge of one of the Egyptian kings) now run by the Oberoi. We had dinner at the outdoor, poolside barbecue place. They brought us hot Egyptian flat bread from the oven and the kebabs were succulent.

But right in front of my eyes, almost close enough to touch I could see it. More than 3000 years old, watching the decline of yet another day, insignificant for them, the great pyramid of Giza.

The light faded gently and I watched as the night absorbed the triangular form into itself. But since I knew where they were, if I stared into the darkness I could just make out a perfect pyramid, where the stars did not shine, where the night was just a shade darker, just a little more intense.

I finished my dinner in the shade of times past and I was humbled.

I went all the way to Egypt and all I got was this lousy chest infection

Yes, I'm back. Days earlier. It's amazing how quickly a vacation loses its luster when you're struggling to breathe and burning up in a fever. I think I have the Egyptian plague...maybe not since it does seem to be responding to antibiotics.

We were lucky enough to be able to leave earlier than planned. So...once I am feeling better, I'll regale you with tales from Egypt.

Hello my friend....how's about a felucca ride? I give you best Egyptian price...

Ok...from Cairo to Aswan to Abu Simbell, back to Aswan and on to Luxor (stopping at Kom Ombo and Edfu in between) before returning (tomorrow) back to Cairo...it's beautiful. And of yes....insanely, absolutely HOT! I am burning up. What's the hieroglyph for air conditioning?

Anyway...will be blogging (and responding to tags) when I return to Geneve.

Tale from the Crypt

Byron has carved his signature into stone, each letter distinct on the lightly colored surface, elegantly delineated. I can imagine him leaning close to the stone pillar and carving out each letter of his name patiently, knowing that generations to come would look upon it and try to divine his presence.

This Byronic graffiti is in of the first floor rooms at the Chateau Chillon, about an hour and a half drive from Geneva. Situated on the banks of the lake, it is part a fortification (and toll booth for lake-faring merchants of yore) and part a stately royal residence.

From the cold stone of the underground dungeons and other rooms to the giant fireplaces and beautifully detailed furniture of the rooms on the top floors, this 900 year old castle appears strangely insubstantial when you view it through the shreds of mist around the lake. But it is real and it has survived for almost a 1000 years mostly intact.

While other tourists wandered around the courtyards and admired the views from the many windows or exclaimed over the painted ceilings and ornate furniture I found myself shuddering in the heat as ghostly fingers crept up my spine.

I had walked into the crypt, a place that others seemed to avoid. In the 15 or so minutes I spent in the crypt there no one else entered. I could hear the sounds of conversation, the laughter (and cries) of children above me, but no one else was around.

It was damp and occasional shafts cut into the ceiling let in light while slits on the side of the stone walls gave me glimpses of the lake. If I listened carefully I could even hear the swishing of the water against the outer walls of the castle.

But more than that, despite not seeing anyone there I did not feel alone. There was someone. Many someones here. The temperature had dipped as soon as I walked down the rough-hewn stairs. As I stumbled I steadied myself against a wall and felt the moisture chill my skin. I wondered if there were bodies entombed in the walls.

Was that strange smell just from centuries of being next to a body of water? Was it just mustiness or was it really the smell of buried bodies? It didn't smell like any other subterranean place I've ever been to. This was the smell of death.

More than a smell, this was a place where live could not thrive. From the smell to the feeling of being buried even as life continued above me. The tantalizing glimpses of sky and water just made it more surreal.

Rooms led to passages and steps and more rooms. Who were the nameless dead? At least Byron had left his mark in a place frequented by the living on a stone pillar that was warmed by the sun that streamed in from a nearby window. But these people had no names, they are anonymous and I am not sure if they were totally at peace.

I wondered if I could find my way back through the maze, wondering if I was doomed to be trapped forever, bad B-movie scripts playing in my head. Then I saw an old wooden ladder. I climbed up gingerly and emerged into the blazing sunlight, slightly disoriented.

It was strange to be back among the living. Perhaps I had brought something dead up with me into the land of the living.

Wilde in the Rain

I will never think of Paris without rain. Cold rain trickling down my nose, making its way under my cheap, yellow poncho that says Paris! on the back. Trickles of rain as we sat inside a restaurant. Sheets of rain as soon as we emerged. It was a live entity this rain. Stalking us, lying in wait until we came outside at its mercy.

Cascades of rain as we waited in the longest line in the world, to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Perhaps it mocked us for our tourist follies. It certainly was malicious. Blown sideways into my face on the second level, open to the elements, beading on the glass windows at the top.

Rain...rain...rain, as we walk down the narrow pathways of the cemetery. Glistening on Oscar Wilde's tomb. "You are my hero," says a scrawl in red. Hundreds of lipsticked kisses (indelible marks, Lonely Planet tells us) decorate the block of rock with a large winged creature springing from it.

A page with his photograph, its edges ragged, dripping with water. A candle extinguished long-ago, a red rose with all its petals blown off save one. Wilde's grave is a favorite spot for gay men. They kiss the grave, try to have sex on it...and commune with him in some way.

Jim Morrison's grave is hidden away. We approach a guard, "Excuse me?" in English. "Morrisson?" he says and laughs.

We find it. It's small but there is a small gate leading to it. A bottle of whiskey leans drunkenly, the joints lie soaking and unusable. "Jim, Oh Jim," says a woman in her 50's to a man who will forever be 27 to her.

Respect for the dead, the signs inform us, is to not deface their graves. But they forget to write about love for the dead.

As strange as it was to me that a woman would cry at a stranger's grave as if he had died yesterday or that others would have sex (very uncomfortably) on another's grave, there is something haunting about their love. It is not amorphous and abstract. They actually feel some real connection, some link that reaches across the years and makes their feelings current and makes the dead come alive...for an instant.

My shirt is soaked. There are tears in my poncho already (6 Euros well spent). I lift my face into the rain and lick the drops off my lips. And I feel alive.

I wonder if the sun ever shines in Paris. It'll always rain in Paris for me.

Trade Show Blues

Didn't feel up to any updates over the weekend. The rest of this week I'll be at a trade show. In town but not at a computer much. My feet are already complaining. Ouch! Anyway, more updates next week.

Have a great week all.

Suffering Moses

The 19th century essayist and poet, Matthew Arnold said, "Excellence is not common and abundant. On the contrary, as the Greek poet long ago said, excellence dwells among rocks hardly accessible, and a man must almost wear his heart out before he can reach her."

Perhaps almost wearing your heart is the cost of excellence, the price of creation.

When I was fifteen I took my first and only trip to Kashmir, not realizing that generations would grow up thinking of that enchanted place not as the paradise we did, but as a battleground.

There was this shop in Srinagar owned by this old artist/artisan who made the most exquisite papier mache, (not the stuff you get in the state emporia), delicate, multi-layered, intricate flawless pieces. He signed all his work on the bottom, in a sprawling calligraphic signature...the same name as his store, 'Suffering Moses.' His name was Moses. I had to know, had to ask him, 'Why Suffering Moses?"

He looked at me, intently, his eyes a strange shade somewhere between green and grey, the pink skin of his cheeks glowing, "Young lady. How else could I make anything beautiful? Only by suffering, right? I suffer for my art. You create nothing good if you don't suffer."

And that to me, is the relationship between excellence and suffering. Thank you Suffering Moses wherever you are.