Messages from Behind the Glass

June 2, 2011

Today I depart for the land of Krishna, silk and spices. This feeling I have is both familiar and foreign. It always happens so fast.

“It’s just like the present to be showing up like this.” ~ Bon Iver

It is difficult to stay in the moment and not drift off into a place where unresolved feelings and nostalgic memories lie. As if the symbol of a journey is a stocktaking of the past. I hope I have left nothing soul-precious behind that will have vanished when I return.

From the window of this comfortable rail car the waves lap the shore. I am parting with the Pacific Ocean for the Arabian Sea. It makes me feel connected somehow; the currents that pull at these Southern California beaches are pressing the sand on the steaming Indian coastline. And I am a message in a bottle.

June 3^rd or perhaps June 4^th – I cannot be entirely sure as I sit soaked in recycled air and stripped of time zones.

I have been listening to and reading Arundhati Roy as I make my way towards her homeland. I so desperately seek the knowledge that guidebooks cannot provide, the type of insight that will never be shrink-wrapped for sale. The type of thinker, writer, speaker, creator that dares us to take the path less traveled. Her masterful attention to the abuse of people and power is painfully poetic. Her descriptions of grief rest peacefully where interconnections brush the individual soul yet staunchly poised at the blunt intersection of the state. Her critique is both mighty and gentle – the way that true strength should be. I beg you to read her, listen to her, revel in her ability to speak truth to power with the utmost eloquence. I aspire.

As I touch down in the Middle East, I think of the Arab Spring. Inspired by Roy’s imagery I say this:

If I sit still enough as I peer out at Bahrain from my window seat, I can see the revolution breathing on the glass.

Post Script: BIA internet is too slow to upload photos, so it will have to wait.

PeAcE.