I exist.
This post-Japan miasma envelops me. I listen to Weather Report at 12:30 a.m. and sit in my office chair but my mind is still on planes, talking foreign languages (I was amazed how quickly my Japanese came back--like I've always said, better than my French, remembering how I came back here in 1994 and was paralyzed from the feet up with French, though I'd spoken it fluently from age 13--just, Japanese had replaced it. But now I can switch effortlessly back and forth. Go figure).
So . . . weird. And I'm now reading an article in National Geographic about Calcutta (they bastardise it in that post-colonialisation fervor that seems to be striking the third world as "Kolkata". Well, better than Myanmar, eh?)and that's where I was born and lived for ten years. That is a long time!
The article encompasses the traffic chaos. Like I said in my last post, I'm so protected here, so safe. I bitch about Montreal traffic, but really, we're in heaven here. When I went back to Calcutta for my 40th birthday, to go see my old house, we got in a traffic accident our very first day. Hooked bumpers with another car. It was literally like those amusement park rides you come across. It was so stupid it was funny.
Yes, I bitch and moan but then I realise I really have nothing to bitch and moan about, when all things become clear.
Brad and some friends went on a two-week trek into Everest base camp in Nepal last fall. They spent a night in Delhi on the way over and several nights in Kathmandu. One of the first things he said upon his return was, "We live in paradise."
ReplyDeleteAnd there's nothing like flying around the planet and back in a metal tube to make one feel vulerable and small!
Cheers!
Yes, we live in a gilded cage and never realise it until we go to other countries.
ReplyDeleteJust cannot in my wildest imagination think of going to a third-world country now.
Too much like Xtreme travel.
And I adore flying but it sucks the life out of you, like, real quick. I'm still in La-la land after three days of being home. I'm sure I will come back to myself eventually but that guy's still crossing the Pacific like Magellan . . .
ReplyDeleteA week to recover? I think so. And glad I'm back here and not there.