Flying Hobo Girl

I feel so lucky. I must have said this a dozen times yesterday as Andy and I were settling in to our volunteer posts in Ubud for the Readers and Writers Festival—one of the top literary gatherings in the world. Each October here, dozens of fantastic authors from Louis de Bernieres to Kate Adie converge in a setting that couldn’t be more enchanting: mossy stone temples line the narrow streets, morning vendors sell bags of lustrous marigold blossoms and bougainvilleas petals for the morning puja—or prayer—rituals. Beautiful and simple meals are served up on banana leaves.

We arrived at the Festival and met up with Gabe, the volunteer coordinator. She’s a fan of Andy’s Biotruck Expedition and invited us to stay at her house where we’d have our own room, kitchen, Internet, laundry, and showers. She drew us a map, handed us the key, and soon we were steering our rented motorbike through rice paddy fields and coconut palms that flank the road to Gabe’s house.

The past three weeks have unfolded just like this—idyllic, easy, synced-up. At Timbus, we happed on great paragliding conditions and flew for hours along the coastal bluffs. In Pandang Padang, the white sand waters were the just perfect temperature and we swam around in the craggy coves for hours before dozing off in the Bali sun. But, in the end, these were just the minor boons of good weather and timing. Where our good luck really shined was on our train ride across Java.

We were moving slow the morning we were to depart–so slow that we almost put off leaving until the next day. But we arrived at the station on time and embarked on the over-night trip to Serabaya. We passed the 12 hours eating cashews and noodle soup, shuffling through our ipods, and joining a 2 a.m. karaoke session in the “restaurant” car. We screamed Sweet Child of Mine into the microphone while passengers curled up like  cats around our stools, somehow sleeping through our bleating imitation of Axel Rose.

We arrived safe, but the same train the following day–the overnight train to Serabaya and the same one we’d have been on had we loafed a bit longer–got off on the wrong track and collided with another train, toppling carriages, injuring dozens, and killing 36. Holy shit, Andy said spreading the front page of the newspaper across the breakfast table, showing me the graphic photos of the tragic wreckage, the quotes from traumatized survivors. That could have been us.

From the start, Andy and I have gotten along preternaturally well—so well that even our differences seem charming. We haven’t tired of mimicking each others accents–him exagerrating the nasaly “a” of the American accent so that I come off sounding like a mallard, and me poking fun at the prudish way he refers underwear as “knick-knocks” and calls pants “trousers.”

These are cultural differences, but there are personal ones as well. After a year of driving his biodiesal bus halfway around the world, he’s learned how to rough it and make-do and can jerry rig repairs on his engine with a pen knife. Meanwhile, I have a meltdown if my dress zipper gets caught or the handle of my wheeled suitcase gets jammed. Come mealtimes, he is content as a monk sipping watery broth at street stalls, while I run about scouting for bakeries that sell crossiants and lattes. I compliantly pull out my wallet when presented with a bill, whereas Andy double-checks the math and enters the seven stages of mourning.  I complain constantly about the heat, while he stoically endures.  All the same, we’re well-matched companions, picket-fence wary vagabonds, pilots, writers, peers, and just fundamentally get each other.

On our first evening in Ubud, we unpacked and I rummaged up something nice to wear. Come nightfall, we got to attend the festival’s exclusive opening gala to watch a traditional Balinese performance of Vegas proportions—a nonstop parade of gilded outfits and choreography. We ended the night clinking complementary glasses of wine at Casa Luna and swaying around to live music.

But, ack. great as it’s been, good luck always makes me nervous. Bad luck I understand. When I am slogging for months in some depressed state, I figure it’s something I brought on myself, that I’m “doing time” for some past offense. But when things start too feel a little too idyllic, I feel undeserving and brace myself for a fall, for the other shoe to drop. Always a seed of dread contaminates my happiness.

In Bali, the ephemermality of luck is well-recognized. The other day, my taxi driver tapped my 30,000 rupee fee on the dashboard to ensure a lucrative day.  And, each morning, the Balinese place offerings of rice and blossoms in front of their door to court good fortune from the gods. This afternoon, as we wheeled the motorbike over dropped frangipani blossoms on the road leading to the Festival, I wondered: what ritual, chant, or stick of incense could I light to keep our good fortunes going?

I leaned over Andy’s shoulder and shouted over the engine noise: I feel so lucky.

But I don’t think Andy gives much credence to luck, preferring to think he steers his own fate as deftly as he plied the motorbike around the stray dogs and morning vendors that obstructed the road. He replied in this manner of his that I’m still trying to decide is either a sort of charismatic arrogance or just plain good self-esteem.

We are not lucky, darling, he shouted back to me. We are good.

I am assuming the rhythms of life here at the Mesa Refuge, an artist’s residency located on the bluff of Tomales Bay in Point Reyes. I have a two-week stay, 14 whole days to slow down and sink deep into my writing. I am hugely grateful for the opportunity; it’s a gift bigger than my restless and undisciplined spirit deserves.

The house is high ceilinged and beautiful, the walls paneled in windows that reveal the expanse of bay and surrounding marshlands. The well-tended gardens that surround the perimeter release a scent of jasmine that breezes through the open doors and windows. Except for the calls of egrets and marsh hawks, there is almost total silence here. In my writer’s shed out back, I can formulate my thoughts while watching the wetland colors transform blue-green-red-brown in the shifting sun.

This morning was perfect writing weather and a heron flew over the marsh against the gray drape of sky. When he landed in the shallows, his blue body went dead still, and he stared at the water surface for what seemed like an hour. This vision of immense patience affirmed a truth about writing that I have more and more been sensing: that the trick to doing it well is not really a matter of logistics–plotting out action or deciding on tense. That the trick to good writing learning how to sit heron-still and to be quick on the strike when ideas come. I believe that the best writers are not those with the most talent, or the largest vocabulary, but the ones who can sit still the longest.

There is nothing to stop me from sitting still here. No noise, no interruptions, no social events. Even the most mundane tasks are covered; dinner is catered each night and a bag of coffee and a French press sit poised on the counter each morning. If I’m in need of a contemplative walk, there are 70,000 protected acres of surrounding land. If I am wanting for inspiration, there is a library full of books—many of which were written in this very house—Michael Pollan’s Omnivores Dilemma, Terry Tempest William’s Leap, Jeff Greenwald’s Size of the World.

If I get nothing done here, there is no one and nothing to blame. All my needs are met.

It’s a bit bewildering. I’m used to being knocked around and ignored by overwhelmed editors, to being underpaid and undervalued. Here, at the Mesa Refuge, it’s like time traveling back to the patronage system of the Renaissance. I am treated as if my work Matters– so much that there is a fresh rose placed near my bed, and an apology offered that the footpath leading to the overlook isn’t better swept.

The only obstacle left now is you, observed my mentor.  His statement is both true and terrifying. But lest I forget why I am here there is a desk in every room to remind me, and a dozen pens on every desk.

This is my commitment to myself: everyday for the next 14 days, I will sit my restless spirit down and focus. I will follow the lead of all the writers who have stayed here before—known and unknown—and assume their steady breath. I will enter the lineage of herons who hold so still out there on the marsh, patient, unmoving, waiting for a catch.

Thank you Peter Barnes for the gift of the Mesa Refuge.

I’ve just launched a new project and am putting all my efforts toward it for the next 6 months. Please visit www.committedtotheworld.org My new blog will be continued on that site. Committed to the World is a leap-of-faith, a cathartic opportunity to contribute something useful for the wider world, and at the same time examine my own attitudes about commitment. You can help by visiting the website and sending out the link! Get Engaged!

I’d love your help!!

For Huffington Post article, click  here

www.committedtotheworld.org

I’ve never believed in naming cars. “Poodles” my friend Dana would gush, patting the dashboard of her green Rav4. “Go Squirrel Go!” my college beau would shout, goading of his little gray Datsun over some wash-out road.

Such pet names made my eyes roll-for I was sure that in this era of global warming, these dirty, stinking, polluting, hunks-of-metal did not deserve our love. Because despite their convenience, a car was a concession, not a comrade. Love was just not a politically correct emotion to have.

But ever since my mechanic, Bow, delivered the news last week, I’ve been gripped by sadness. I dropped my van off at his auto shop after it’d started overheating and waited out the afternoon in a nearby café. Then the call came in: Chris, it’s Bow. It has a blown head gasket.”

I knew all too well what that meant. It meant it was too expensive to fix. It meant the end of the road for my car. It also meant the end of an era.

The van had entered by life during a particularly rough autumn; a long relationship had ended, my 14-year old dog had died, my downtown apartment was bought out from under me, and I’d just quit a job. Unable to endure this clutter of losses, I opted for escape: I’d live my dream of being a vagabond-on-the-road. I crumpled the eviction notice on my door, and bought a Toyota Previa. It was the perfect travel rig: all-wheel drive, reliable, and just big enough to live in.

I’ve never been good with a hammer, but fueled by this new vision, my angst turned into industry. I unscrewed the back seats and set about building a bed. When it was finished, it folded into a couch, with plenty of room for storage underneath.

My mom was surprisingly supportive, one day ushering me into IKEA for sheets, pillows, rugs, shelves, and decorations. She even spent an afternoon helping remodel my van, outfitting it with a leopard print bedspread, red velvet pillows, yellow LED lights, and a posh rug. I knew right then that she was the best mom in the world.

Within a week I had the lifestyle down and was touring the western U.S. I drove through the redrock canyons of southern Utah, tracked down hotsprings in northern Nevada, and criss-crossed Colorado. I drove down the entirely of the California coast and then back up, cruising along the east side of the Sierras. I tooled around San Francisco, camped at the best paragliding spots, and parked at the base of the Tetons, where I woke each morning to million dollar views. I unlocked the secrets of the West—the crepe café in Shoshone, the best camp spots near Deadhorse Point, and the off-trail petroglyphs. Mom rooted me on from her bank desk the whole time, signing-off each email: “With Love, hobo-mom.”

My van now sits inert in the driveway, a remarkable 238,000 miles on the odometer. My stuffed monkey dangles from the hanger hook, and crisp sage leaves from the Alvord desert curl on the dashboard. The ashtray hangs open, full of pretty seashells from some coastal sojourn. Looking at my van’s wide windshield, its mud-splattered doors, I am reminded of how many adventures we shared.

Within its cozy confines, I wrote essays, read books, and watched movies. I had passionate arguments, made love, and slept whole nights with all four doors flung open, inviting in the night breeze and the sound of crickets.  While the miles ticked by on far-flung desert highways, I experienced the entire emotional gamut from loneliness to zeal. I felt lost and found and lost again. My van symbolized both rootedness and mobility, and seemed to contain everything in the entire universe. Friends marveled. Have any mustard? Got it. Playing cards? Yes. Origami paper? Sure. Lime squeezer? Of course.

Looking at it now, I see that my van is larger than the sum of its parts–greater than its four-tires, its steering wheel, and windshield wipers. It is greater than its blown head gasket. No doubt it’s been a blight on the planet (it got a lackluster 20 mpg) but it’s also been the realization of a dream, and has embodied my independence. It carried me away just when I needed it to and brought me back again. I was too proud to name it then, too ashamed to let on, but now as I move through the world on foot, unsure of just where to go next, I’m calling it for what it was: home.

It’s cherry time in California. I have crossed the state and everywhere pickers lean against old farm trucks, tailgates stacked with brimming boxes of Bings and White Rainers. I bought a bag for $1.00 and chewed their sweet flesh as I drove the Central Valley , placing seed and stem in my morning coffee cup.

I was returning from Yosemite. It was Memorial Day Weekend and my first visit to the park. I never imagined that in “the wilds” there could be so many miles of pavement, so many strollers, tents,RVs, bicycles and cars. Kids fed tame deer Pop Tarts at the campground. A woman pointed a finger into the early evening sky, enamored by a tic-tac-toe of pink contrails. Tourists from every place on the planet scampered in the raging mist of Yosemite Falls, risking it all on wet rock.

The park was brimming with humans and there were lines for everything: lines to get in, lines to get out, rush hour traffic polluting every hour. There were all the amenities of the city too—restaurants, movie theaters. An espresso stand served Irish Crème lattes–though I just bought a plain coffee. At the cream counter I opened two sugar packets and was dismayed to see a bin of tiny plastic creamers. I emptied eight into my cup, carrying in both hands a small rubbish heap to the garbage can. Yosemite Valley still has a long way to go in terms of sustainability. “A sacrifice zone,” my friend grumbled.

But the Ansel-Adams granduer radiated nonetheless: waterfalls thundered in the valley and sunsets turned El Capitan from gray, to blue, to pink, and finally to scarlet. Indian Paintbrush smoldered red-orange in the meadows and one evening, a bear trampled rushes and sedges in a distant clearing.

My companion Jeff and I took a hike and saw no one. Miles into the forest we sat on a granite outcrop and split an upscale snack of sliced tomato, basil, and mozzarella and took in our own personal view of Half Dome. I unwrapped a beer from the fleece jacket taken from the bottom of my pack. It was still cool when we opened it.

In San Francisco now the weather is hot, but hands of fog feel their way through the city, offering intermittent cooling and then moving on. Today I accompanied an actor friend to drop a headshot at the office of his talent agent.

We took the BART to the Embarcadero station. A walk up Geary Street led us to the building of JP-Talent. His agent greeted him and said that though he’d made the final cut for a cowboy role, he didn’t get the job. Robert was disappointed but not surprised. Work these days is scarce–especially in California.

We stopped at Swan’s Seafood for lunch. The diner has been in the same location since 1912, its same long marble counter a sturdy edifice that stretches the length of the narrow restaurant. Customers sat shoulder to shoulder and we wedged ourselves among them, assuming our place on round stools. Containers of horseradish lined the counter, along with bowls of tarter, jars of capers, and plates of bright lemons that sat like sliced suns. Behind the counter, the workers moved fast and happily, hammering pink lobsters shells, tossing half-halibuts across the kitchen and sloshing buckets of soap water into deep sinks, rinsing away the lunchtime fallout of skin, bone, and rind. Robert and I shared a salad: crisp iceburg, piecey crab, and curls of shrimp. Robert polished off two raw oysters -on-the-half shell that glistened like something forbidden.

We went to an art gallery and looked Salvador Dali’s block print depiction of the Divine Comedy. We sipped coffee among ipod clad hipsters. Finally, we found a bakery and I finished off this May in California with two sprinkled cookies.

There’s nothing quite like wrestling your demons in a spectacular setting. For me, it took the form of a showdown with my darker emotions in front of a UNESCO World Heritage Site: Guanajuato.

My first day in the beloved Mexican city, I wandered the streets like La Llorona, the “weeping woman”—a ghost who according to local legend roams eternally with regret. To describe what I felt as “homesickness” sounds too cute—like calling typhoid the sniffles. What I felt was something more existential: total disconnection.

Granted, I was groggy after a red-eye from San Francisco. Listless and unopinionated, I allowed the cab driver take me to a hotel of his choice. It was bleak, dingy, and overpriced. I unloaded my bags, hauled them up the steps, and collapsed on the bed of Room 22. There I lay afflicted with a combination of discontents, the worst that solo travel has to offer: I was hungry, thirsty, exhausted, and inexpressibly lonely.

A montage of sounds wafted through the tiny window from the market below: the fast rhyming cadences of Spanish, the creak and clatter of vegetable carts on uneven cobblestone, and the inebriated melody of “De Colores.”  The streets were alive, interactive, flowing with life. I crouched in the darkness of my room, a soul afraid to swim.

“Don’t buy into this,” I reminded myself.

I’ve had this same sensation so many times—from my first experience at horse camp at age 12 to leaving for college. The feeling that I’ve made some grave mistake is overwhelming. It’s a demoralizing sensation, a loss of faith, and a complete undoing of everything I aspire to be: bold, adventurous, open to life.

I even start to think: maybe it’s time to settle down into a quiet predictable life.

I have yet to learn the art of arrival.

I peeled myself off the bed and went outside, wandering along the weathered cobblestone in search of food. With its curving narrow ways and baroque and neo-classical architecture, Guanajuato is as beautiful as Venice or Lucca. And like Venice, the town has had to contend with the problem of water. Until recently, torrential rains caused surrounding rivers to crest and flow into the streets. Rather than relocating to drier land, the inhabitants adapted by constructing dams and redesigning parts of the city.  Some of the building foundations sit four and five meters over the street.

The city is famous for many things, not the least of which is being ground zero for the Mexican War for independence. Here Miguel Hidalgo launched the first major insurgency against the local Spanish government in 1810.

It’s also a mining town and in the 18th century became the world’s leading center of silver extraction.  Shafts tunnel through the surrounding hills, the deepest being Boca del Infierno (“mouth of hell”) which plunges a sinister 600 meters into the earth.

Armed with mining wealth, the Guanajuatons possess the leisure and funds to cultivate sophisticated tastes. As a result, a strong sense of aesthetics defines the city. Most everything in Guanajuato—from the bronze statues and towering Basilica to a simple door knob or the neat arrangement of bell peppers at a street stall–seems touched by an artist’s hand.

I went into the first restaurant I could find–a casual place with vinyl seats, fluorescent lights, and sizzling chickens on a spit.  I was alone only a moment when a Mexican balladeer approached my lonely table with a serenade. It was a pathetic tableaux—a scene straight out of “Eat, Pray, Love.”

This was my breaking point. It was time to seize control of my own narrative.

I spied a woman my age sitting alone at a table across the restaurant.

In Jeff Greenwald’s one-man show, “Strange Travel Suggestions” he asks this question:  “Who are we when we travel, at our best?” In answer, he pulls out a giant Tarot card of The Fool: the happy wanderer, obliviously stepping of a cliff and into the unknown. There’s a feather of optimism in his hat, and a dog bounding along at his heels.

The Fool, Jeff points out, doesn’t passively surrender to fate; he turns to greet it. Whether or not he flies when he steps off that cliff is determined by moment-to-moment decisions: whether to sit alone in a cafe or to strike up a conversation; whether to spend the day lounging alone, or learning the local language and seeking out community. I think often of this travel wisdom, which has guided me on so many adventures. The philosophy is simple: believe in chance meetings, take strange suggestions seriously, and roam unnamed alleyways.

After devouring a couple of enchiladas, I decided to approach the other lone gal in the restaurant.

“Mind if I interrupt?”

She set down her pen, smiling and receptive. She was from Telluride and was also studying Spanish here.

After introductions, Rachel scribbled some hints for me on the edge of my Guanajuato map: the best budget hotel, internet cafes, and a good language school.

I soon moved into a new room, and enrolled in Spanish school. Later, I got an email from Rachel inviting me to go out.

Not bad for a first day: I had a school, a place, a friend, and plans for the following night. All the ingredients for happiness were in place.

The next day Rachel and I went for a long walk in the sun above town with Paul, another student from the Spanish language school. Rocks flanked the trail, red as Canyonland. Cactus and agave grew from the hillside. Rachel and Paul turned out to be great company, open-hearted lovers of travel.

Late afternoon I walked around town, waking at last to its beauty. In shop windows, I saw small statues of the Virgin de Guadalupe, Dia de los Muertos figurines, and stacks of sugary treats. I noticed how the buildings were a procession of colors—purple, orange, blue, green. Between them on the alley walls I saw spray painted skeletons — the bare-bone imagery of death was combined with flowers and regalia, adding up to a bright-bleak Frieda Kahlo aesthetic. These are the designs of a people unafraid to dance with their demons.

That night Rachel and I went to a nightclub in the Jardin, the town’s main square. There we met Andrew, a 25-year old midway through a two-year bike ride from Canada to Tierra del Fuego. His travel stories had me laughing, and as I laughed a life force began to percolate back through my veins.

Deeper into the night, a cellist played solo — and each slow pull of his bow filled the high-ceilinged Zilch Bar with haunting and sublime snarls. Come midnight we were moving from place to place. Hours slid by as Rachel and I salsa’d with men wearing shiny shoes and Cuban hats. We ended the night eating street tacos with roasted pineapple at 3:30 a.m.

I strolled down Guanajuato’s dark streets, noting landmarks to guide me home—left at the Basilica, a sharp right at the Cervantes Museum, past the bronze rendering of Don Quioxte.  I arrived in my room at 4 a.m. carrying two bouquets of flowers: roses and lilies from my dance partners.

I dropped the flowers on the table and fell into bed, feeling ‘in place’ among the old chip-paint buildings, in the valley of the Sierra Madre Mountains, and above the strange layers that make Guanajuato: the ghosts of rivers that once coursed through this valley, the network of silver mines dug on faith. My vibrating bones surrendered to the matress. Somewhere, La Llorena roamed restlessly. But I fell into a deep and contended sleep, the scent of roses and lilies at the foot of my bed.

I don’t know why, but I’ve become recently afflicted with a severe case of  inarticulate-ness, an experience of total grammatical-breakdown and incoherence which is making itself evident in this very sentence as I write it.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been studying too much Spanish in the last few days, obsessively trying to translate Pablo Neruda poems into English. Or maybe it’s because right now I’m getting distracted by the Brazilian couple who audaciously make out in the middle of this beachfront cafe. I don’t know. But, for now, as the very structure of the English language crumbles around me and I wallow in subject-confusion and intimacy-envy, I refer you to the wonderful and inspiring holiday blog of one of the more articulate people I know …

http://www.jeffgreenwald.com/category/blog/

Before leaving Kathmandu, I went to Boudhnath to walk a couple of clockwise  koras around the stupa. A Buddhist mecca and all around inspiring place, a visit to Boudha is often the perfect way to begin or end a journey. More than one mountaineer has spun prayer wheels here, believing the gesture is an auspicious start to a Himalayan expedition.

My morning at Boudha was a lovely one. The dome was lit like a half-moon in the early sunlight.  Tibetans were already out in force, shuffling around the monument with prayer beads swaying from their fingertips.  Some offered marigolds and tika powder to Buddha statues; others crawled on hands and knees, an act of both reverence and self-renunciation. All around the stupa, prayer flags hung illuminated, rows of oil candles switched and burned, travelers composed photographs, and clusters of birds pecked breakfast from walkway cracks. Everyone seemed possessed by a private mission, with a personal prayer, their own reason for being there.

Including me. At noon I had an appointment to meet a new friend at the Boudha entrance. James Hopkins is an American now living in Nepal. He’s carved a full life for himself, undertaking seriously Buddhist studies under a respected Rinpoche. He has other reasons to be there as well, having lately grown attached to a particular community near the stupa: A  village of beggars and among the poorest people in already-impoverished Nepal. They live on very little, calling canvass tents “home”  and procuring whatever food they can by shining shoes and extending their empty hands on the streets.

Frankly, the place sounded depressing. But James lit up when he talked about the village and was eager to introduce me to the community before I left Nepal.

After leading me down a side street, he took a sharp turn into a cloaked alley. The trash-strewn passage soon opened up to a field. In the field were rows of tents–a whole neighborhood cobbled together with tarps, fraying string, and knobby wood poles. When we entered the “house” of his good friend Bhimla, we were greeted with sparkling eyes and love. It wasn’t long before we were sitting among the family with biscuits and tea.

There is no doubt that James is a friend of the tent-village. Among other things, he’s helped them start a small industry. Using scraps of old saris and salvage fabrics, they hand-stitch quilts of the most spectacular colors. James sells these $140.00 a-piece–the exact amount of money needed to send one of the village children to school for one year. His hope is to leverage them from a life of begging by putting their inherent skills and creativity to use.

What struck me about James’ interaction with the villagers is that he obviously doesn’t feel sorry for them. And he shouldn’t. To my surprise, the village is truly a happy place, full of laughter and fun. And against what would otherwise be a backdrop of bleak brown and army green tarps,  the half-made quilts and bolts of fabric offer streaks of jubilant color and hope.

I will post contact info for the project very soon. I encourage everyone to consider buying a quilt as a Christmas gift!

It seems silly  to complain about the misery of airline travel–even with the lack of leg room, the sterile air, and the bad food; One hundred years ago the same journey around the world would have taken much longer and been fraught with danger. Still, I found my 40-hour commute from Kathmandu to San Francisco to be punishing: like tossing two days, four countries, six meals, and twelve time zones in a blender and punching the grind button.  My circadian rhythms collapsed, digestion ceased, and brain short-circuited.

The reprieve, though, was an 8-hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany. At the airport, I approached a ticket attendant for a good, easy-to-get-to cafe recommendation. He scribbled on a piece of paper: Cafe Karin, Hauptwache Station.

Driven by dreams of gourmet rolls and good cheese, I managed in my delirious state to purchase a subway ticket to the center of town. Even if I got hopelessly lost on the rails of Frankfurt and never found Cafe Karin, anything would be better than languishing in the departure lounge eating mentos and reading O Magazine.

After pulling out of the airport station, the train entered a stretch of woodlands. It felt nice to travel across solid ground again, to touch the earth. I pressed my face up against the cold window glass and stared out into the bare-branched scenery: the sky was deep gray and tree after tree passed as the train coursed toward the low sun.

So this was Germany.

Something in me stirred: Looking out into the snow, I realized that I hadn’t had a winter in so long. There was a moving bleakness to the equinoctial landscape–a sublimity that only comes with some touch of decay. It was a feeling that I’d long forgotten about, having dodged Decembers with margaritas on Mexican beaches, and spent summers eating August tomatoes on the hot Ashland farm. The life I had lately crafted for myself was one of eternal sunshine.

I slumped back in my seat, surrendering to a visceral awareness of being awake too any hours. Other passengers climbed on the train, Germans mostly, in long coats, snug scarves. As they talked among themselves, their voices to me sounded like breaking icicles. I felt invisible among them–a person with no name, no family. A presence suspended: between homes, between places.

I jumped off at the next station. On the platform I asked a woman for directions. A man overheard me asking about Cafe Karin. He knew it well–it was next door to his dentist’s office. His name was Dierk and he would be happy to take me there, even buy me breakfast.

He was quick to assure me that he was a decent man.

“Now mind you I have a wife and kids, a grandchild on the way,” he explained as we climbed the steps from the subway platform. The skyscrapers of downtown Frankfurt towered above us as we walked.

Cafe Karin was bright, simple, clean, and so novel after two months of Nepal’s dingy teahouses.  In German, Dierk placed our order and we settled in. He gave me a brief rundown of his life: that he worked for Lufthansa Airlines and had traveled much. In retirement now, he carried a lighter workload, schooling flight attendants in the intricacies of wine.

The waiter brought us coffee in big decadent mugs. To my utter delight, a basket of rolls arrived: I never knew croissants could sparkle. Fresh fruit came next, followed by a plate of cheese that–after interminable days of rice and potatoes–seemed an apparition. But there it was: rich brie, flavorful vegetable cream cheese, Gouda.

After breakfast, Dierk led me around the corner to Goethe’s house-turned-museum.

“You know Goethe, don’t you?”

“Yes!” I recited the classic Goethe line: “Whatever you can dream, begin it …”

“Okay smile!” he pulled out a camera and snapped my picture.

Dierk herded me toward the door. We only had an hour and much to see. In the gift shop, he bought a few interpretive pamphlets, handed them to me, then rushed me out.

“Follow me.”

I chased behind him for a couple blocks while he rattled off facts:

“Furt,” he explained, “means ‘river-crossing’–the Franks were the early tribe here, thus ‘Frank-Furt’ means the-Franks’-river-crossing.”

Soon, we were in a square. He placed his hands on my head and directed my gaze toward a large building. “That,” he explained “is the site of the world’s largest book fair: Frankfurter Buchmesse.” He snapped my picture. We went inside and looked at a few hanging photographs of old Frankfurt, the scores of old elegant buildings before they were destroyed by World War II bombings. Before I knew it, he was dragging me toward the door of a cathedral.

“This is the Frankfurt Cathedral. Are you Catholic?”

We entered and walked along the perimeters. Looking at the gory crucifixion statues and ghostly stone renderings of the virgin Mary, I realized that as strange as the elephant-headed idols of Nepal’s Hindu temples seemed, this –though more familiar– was pretty strange, too.

Dierk rushed us into the gift shop, grabbed few more informational pamphlets, and shoved them into my hand.

Next we dashed toward a market, passing along the way the old ruins of a bathhouse, leftover from the days that Germany was part of the Holy Roman Empire. We ran through the market, taking in a visial blur of color: stacked peppers, bouqets of herbs, baskets of mushrooms, shelves of wine, fans of fresh cod, shrimp over ice.

“Smile,” he said, and snapped my picture.

And, then, that was it: it was time to go.

My whirlwind tour was over: we’d covered a thousand years of history in two hours.  Dierk hurried me back to the station, gave me a hug and I climbed back on the subway to continue my strange passage. Only now I felt visible, real again:  A person with a name, and a friend.

If I hadn’t just done it, I wouldn’t have believed it was possible. Flying alongside trained raptors seems like the stuff of dreams or the fantastical storybooks of my childhood. But today, as I followed an Egyptian Vulture named Kevin from thermal to thermal, watched him dive in front of my paraglider, swoop under my feet, and then land on my hand, I’ve never felt more awake in my life.

My first “parahawking” experience was a tandem flight with pilot Scott Mason. A long time falconer, Scott invented the sport here in Pokhara, Nepal after learning how to fly a paraglider from local pilot Adam Hill. He combined the two sports and now pursues parahawking with a single-point focus.

While other pilots enjoy post-flight beers in this flying mecca, Scott runs around in a leather-glove, weighing his eight birds four times a day, and refining his training techniques. Since all of his birds were rescued from dire situations–from destroyed nests or cages– there is sort of a philanthropic streak to his efforts. Still, tossing chunks of meat at birds while flying a paraglider is an undeniably eccentric pursuit and Scott’s obsession would easily qualify him for a Werner Herzog film.

With all of his investment, it’s understandable that Scott wanted to ensure I was prepared before I parahawked solo. So, during our tandem flight, he taught me the techniques: how to follow the bird, how to call him in, how to feed him in mid-air.

It’s more complicated than it looks. While steering the glider with one hand to veer away from terrain and other pilots, you must fumble to get food out of a pouch with the other. After blowing a whistle, you firmly extend your left arm, and the bird swoops and lands on it from behind. This can only be done while turning right. Left-banking turns risk tangling the bird in the glider lines.

If this weren’t enough to think about, the pilot must remain ever-vigilant of the wild birds. Midway through our flight, an eagle began to dive attack Kevin. The remainder of our airtime became an urgent rescue mission. Scott abandoned thermaling and focused on scaring the eagle off. As he shouted over his shoulder, we began to head uncomfortably close to a ridge. I wondered just how much he was willing to sacrifice for his precious birds.

My next flight was solo. As my feet left launch, Scott released Kevin and the raptor flew immediately in front of my glider, flashing his incredible wingspan. Fewa Lake glimmered below us and the elegant white pinnacles of Himalayan peaks –Machapuchare and Annapurna–sat on the horizon. Kevin soared above me, guiding me to the rising air and then, as a reward, I extended my arm and called him in. He landed on my glove, snatched the treat, and hitched a ride for a few seconds. After he flew away I lost track of him until a minute later when I felt a racket of talons and feathers shuffling across my helmet. He had landed on my head.

I always thought that the mere fact of flying was miracle enough, but flying with trained birds is a new level of ecstacy, a double-pleasure, possibly akin to eating a chocolate bar while getting a massage, only a million times better than that.

As I continue to fly with him, my only complaint is that Kevin isn’t more cuddly. An animal-lover, I had somehow imagined that we would become close friends, buddies in the sky. But birds-of-prey resist anthropomorphisizing. Looking into his cold eyes, at his bald wrinkled head, I keep wanting to ask Kevin: “What are you thinking?”

But it would be futile; this scavenger is on a different page altogether. To pursue it further would be like trying to forge a relationship with a guy that doesn’t express his feelings.

Birds-of-prey may not be for cuddling, but they can show us the sublime.

(For a warmer experience, I’ll turn to other animals–like the baby yak I met in the Khumbu region. With his matted and mud-splattered coat, he was a rather pathetic character. And, tied to a post, he could probably not guide me anywhere, much less to a thermal. But he knew how to communicate with a needy human being and within moments of our meeting, wiggled his way fast into my heart.)

For more Pokhara pics, go to:

http://picasaweb.google.com/flyinghobogirl/NepalParagliding#