...light up

 Some Santa Barbara

California is indeed a menagerie of climates and atmospheres and moods. I didn’t see the entire south-north stretch, but I got most of it from Los Angeles through Sacramento and up to the Mount Shasta area before leaving the state for Oregon. I believe the Northwest really begins in the roots of Shasta. Though Sac and The City and L.A. and Santa wherever each have a unique feel, they are certainly all California-y. 

Some Hollywood

But as soon as the flatness starts rumbling again and that white capped mountain shines brightly in the distance, things begin to change. The pines come out in force, and rivers dig gorges into earth again and rocks thrust into the sky in a frozen excitement loom over the winding man-made highway. This is the Northwest.

But before I was there I was somewhere between the Southwest and the West.

Some Vegas

It seems like so long ago, now, when I was standing in Las Vegas looking up at sights I’d only seen in movies and feeling a bit cardboard, like I was in one of those movies, as a prop or scenery perhaps, that those facades would all be torn down when the final take is completed, to be replaced, that the illusion of three-dimension was accomplished by skilled artists and master magicians. I couldn’t do anything but stand and look around—besides, there isn’t really anything to do if you aren’t checking in somewhere and gambling. Perhaps that isn’t completely true—it felt that way—for it wasn’t void of excitement. No, there was electricity in the air—not just what was lighting up the whole strange colony—and everyone was in love. Couples meandered, took selfies and laughed, sometimes stumbling, and that joy was infectious. This is the city of sin, right? Well I didn’t have much time to indulge in many of my vices, so a cigarette had to suffice. I lit up, looked around, left.

Some San Simeon

After the long descent through Apple Valley the great state of California greeted me and I managed my way into L.A. Good thing for GPS; without it navigating the inverted labyrinths of roadways would have been impossible. Southern California was not without its perks—namely congenial weather—and the traffic wasn’t even so bad as the rumors purport. But you do drive everywhere. I know I drive everywhere in my own hometown, but the driving is thicker in L.A., or something. You want to wipe it all off like sweat, but it sticks too well. It may be some illusion—if it is, it is besieging—but everything seems so far away and takes so much energy to find and at the end of the day you wonder if you spent more time behind the wheel or away from it.

Some Los Angeles

It was a kind of relief to leave the valley and traverse the beautiful coastline up through Santa Barbara and then to Monterey and Carmel and Solinas and then to San Francisco (aka “The City”). The coast surprised me, actually. Thinking it similar to the golden shores of Miami, which is maybe the case in the L.A. area, it was oftener steep drops into crashing waves, like Icarine mountains that finally realized it was too hot and decided to go for a swim, somersaulting into the Pacific. As I went it proved to be a continuous (really) collision. North of San Francisco the coastal road was so windy I slalomed my way north feeling like a test driver avoiding orange cones in one of those commercials.

Some Carmel

But the Bay Area should not be passed over without mention. It is much larger than I ever anticipated—I’m not sure why—but just as hilly. The City is brimming with an energy, artistic, historic, diverse. The Spanish heritage is revived in authentic taquerias, and new and used bookstores speckle the strips of shops on roads filled with so many people dressed conspicuously that they are swallowed in a sea of eclecticism, like all those beautiful lights blinking at the same time in Vegas where the gorgeous marble statues go unnoticed. There seemed to be quite the “immigrant” population—all friendly—Easterners who abandoned their home for a Western one settle in the most Eastern city of the West. Honestly, Frisco’s a regular New York or Boston, in feel. But the city’s veins run west, and that attracts we who want something different, but the same, sort of.

Some San Francisco

So, I suppose it is like any other city in these regards. And maybe I liked it because all this time out West makes me long for home. Maybe that’s what’s nice about Oregon: how East it feels—they have a Portland even!—and no matter how close to the sunset I get, my heart is in his rise. Isn’t that what I loved about Santa Fe? How like morning she was, clear and fresh and crisp? Isn’t that what I left in Vegas and L.A., the cities who wake and live in the electrified dark?

The New Yorkian skyline of The City (not to mention the arrogance—our city is best) is familiar so far from familiarity. I lighten up.

Some Northwest

How good to bookend the trip, from one Portland to the other; from one pineland to another; from East to West. It makes me think how we really are all one, all United Statesian. Being at Pacific’s scratching fingers I am no farther from Atlantic’s reach. I stand on her shores and look far into the distance, to the Cathays and Tartars I may never see, may not even exist. Isn’t it true? Far enough West brings me still farther East after all. 

...do it tomorrow

All I kept saying was rad. The people, totally rad. The weather, the view, totally rad. The activities, professions, museums, performances, all rad. But what an outdated word for New Mexico! It is no longer the 80s, Simon; no one’s saying rad. Except me in New Mexico, apparently. But I couldn’t help it.

The Midwest is back there...ahead is the South West

Before I left I had a feeling I would like the South West, and I did. It began the moment I crossed into the state…something in the air shifted, perhaps. We were no longer in Kansas—thank God—and Oklahoma was behind us too. We were officially in the South West. The landscape responded immediately, as if to greet us from a deep sleep. First there were the easy, deep breaths in rolling hills. Then the mesas—glorious mesas!—rose in first movements and fresh eyes. That kind of love only morning sees gently grew into mountains in  the seated position, eyes rubbed with clouds. And that sun, fully awake, smiled at me and said ‘hello’ in a ‘good morning’ kind of way.

Omega Bridge outstide Taos, NM

Our first stop was in Taos, an artsy spiritual town unsurprisingly nestled in the heavens. In every direction you can see for miles and miles and then up even higher to surrounding peaks. In one corner lies the land of the Pueblo Indians, the other has a shrine to poet D. H. Lawrence, and in between are the shops and restaurants of tourist-fed wares and well-fed tourists. Indian artifacts and artwork, cowboy garb and southwestern spices were in the windows of shop after shop. But it is becoming with a view. Maybe even quaint. 

Easter sunrise in Arizona

At the Taos Diner II we interacted with genuine gals more concerned with contact and communication than orthodoxy, and I enjoyed every bit of it, from the off-color jokes printed on their menus to the casual way they poured coffee, to the matter-of-factedly way they denied service when the power went out. We sat and drank coffee until it went cold or the electricity came back on and told stories of bears in the mountains. Outside the restaurant the cook toked on her cigarette and laughed with the neighboring businessman about the situation.

It is the land of mañana, apparently, so this is par for the course. I met a transplanted New Yorker who told me that first when he explained the difference between “the way it works” in the North East and South West. Cowboy poet S. Omar Barker (aka Ol’ SOB) said it this way:

Mañana is Spanish word I’d sometimes like to borrow.

It means “don’t skeen no wolfs today that you don’t shot tomorrow!

An’ eef you got some jobs to do, in case you do not wanna,

Go ‘head an’ take siesta now! Tomorrow ees mañana!

Le Canyón Grande

But I like it this way—not so fast paced and crazed, with less stress clinging to us like our wintery garments.  I like that it is markedly different in the South West. The character is distinct from other state clusters. Maybe that's why I'm on the West Coast and finally getting to this haphazard post. Santa Fe is growing on me. Or maybe that’s why everything was rad—because it wasn’t cool, like California, or wicked like the North East. It isn’t awesome or tight or right-on. It’s just, totally rad.

…get the hell out of dodge

It’s been day after day, it seems, in deceptive listlessness. Like plains rolling into farms rolling into fields—the experience one has crossing Kansas—these recent weeks have been monotonous, though anticipatory.

My travels back from Nicaragua went as anyone’s would. I was able to spend my final hours on the stoops of the Ometepan locals, a joy I often miss on the fenced porches of the States. It takes a certain kind of life to end the day sitting outside, peaceably, watching children pass, conversing with neighbors, content with stillness. In Palestine they understood this secret pleasure. So too did those in Nepal and Jordan. I was reminded of my sweet life in the West Bank as I tried to speak Spanish, both jokingly and seriously, which are hardly different to the local. I sat through dusk into darkness; the volcano silently faded into the navy night and a host of starlight broke through the sun’s waning cover. Paradoxically, the conversation was light, but the contact much deeper, like Michelangelo’s God touching Adam. These moments of connection are so delicate, intricate, even beautiful, and they occur wherever we are able to really meet with someone as ‘other-worldly’ as a Nicaraguan, or United Statesian or wherever-ian.

However, I had to say adios beneath hopes of return and a smoky volcano. I rode the ferry across the choppiest waters I’ve ever experienced and I marveled at the fact that we docked. For a moment there I honestly had no idea how or when we’d stop and what we were going to smack into and from where I will jump to save myself. Good thing I don’t have an iPhone to get wet—I thought (yes, these are my concerns). Luckily the plane ride was smoother.

The PoeMobile gearing up for departure

Home was freezing, my back peeled completely from a burn and I discovered I had developed shingles across my side. So when folk asked me how was Nicaragua, I found myself replying with a kind of love-hate paradox. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it, really; it was packing time! My father were to be off to the West on another leg of the Dead Poet Tour—this one exploring from Santa Fe to L.A. to Seattle. And there was much to do.

As I write this, on our way to our first stop in Taos, New Mexico, we are in the windy, cold, precipitous tedium of Western Kansas. The phrase “get the hell out of dodge” was first said in reference to Dodge City which we just passed through. It makes sense. Three titillating days of sunshine in Kansas City and Wichita spoiled us. Now all I am hoping for are the sunned clay homes, mesas and cacti of my imagined Southwest as we chase the horizon.

Westward Poe!

Ever westward. Towards occidens, the setting sun. It is a historically poetic direction in which to explore. Eden was in the East, and so lay our beginnings. From our exile until Lewis and Clark, until now, even, we have been headed West. It seems it is as Kerouac says, the east of my past with the west of my future. It is in the west our days end, unreachable but chase-able. And so in the hand of Discovery is the hand of Dusk, and they are inseparable.

So let’s get the hell out of dodge and head westerly. There’s nothing here for us anyway.

...sleep lightly

I implied it in the last two blogs--to put away the technology and that it is hard to sleep here in Nicaragua. In writing those words I didn't suspect how they would turn around to both spite and protect me.

I met up with the group I would be traveling and working with in Managua and we began our trip toward Isla de Ometepe--the Island of Ometepe. As we moved we met people who asked where we were from. I caught myself a handful of times:

"I'm American--I mean, I'm from the United States." After all, I haven't left Greater America, and I share a continental, maybe hemispherical identity with the Nicaraguense who are also "American." In fact, it was in modern day Brazil that the name "America" was first planted, so perhaps I am only getting closer to real deal. Not surprisingly, it is an easier question to answer in Spanish, where my only option is Soy de Estados Unidos. They have understood this concept far longer than we have.

Despite ourselves, we arrived on Ometepe after half a day,  smiling and excited, and were carted over to the orphanage, CICRIN, where we were to spend the next week doing construction works. Indeed, exciting it was, even by the first night.

I have always been a light sleeper--or perhaps an ever-aware sleeper--and something near me stirred my senses the first night at the orphanage. A moment later I heard the delicate sound of two lips separating and curiosity led me out of subconsciousness. I softly turned my head and opened my eyes to a crouched figure, pawing through my friend's luggage, looking up intermittently in caution. I suppose you never think you are being robbed until it happens--it is too far-fetched to happen to me, I thought without thinking--and so I sat up calmly. I looked over, hoping my friend had just risen early in the darkness for a morning stroll and didn't want to wake the others. Instead I caught sight of the burglar darting out of the room on noiseless feet and in the instant I was able to make it to the door, he was gone with only a crunch of dead leaves left behind. He made away with my friend's money and my beloved iPhone. An iPhone I care little for except for the photos he stole with it.

It goes without saying that I spent the entire rest of my stay in Nicaragua not only without a way to contact home but also without a camera; I could only memorize the beautiful sights, not immortalize them. And this is much to my chagrin because I love to take pictures of my travels and use them to color this blog or my desktop background or just to armchair travel in the future. Either way it forced me to have even fewer barriers between me and my experience than before. A camera is a wall, and the call of Instagram and Facebook, a distraction. This situation gave me a more unadulterated perspective. And what came into focus was an older world than I would have thought.

I noticed that there is something antiquated about this place, perhaps in their faces which still have the markings of ancient peoples (some of which are even Asiatic, reminding me of the great migrations during the Ice Age). But the sun seems older here too. They wear it on their skin and in their wrinkles. The toughness of their high cheeks, the trenches that crack in expression, the flat foreheads, they are all tanned by a hereditary sun. This is not like me, who gets it on vacation; it is a recent and fleeting color. At the beach where I waited for the ferry to leave, I saw young boys in their underwear chasing one another into the bar for a quick, sopping look at the Real Madrid-Barcelona score. They are various tones of brown, and in their skimpy attire I notice that the color is everywhere. There is no tan.

The sun bakes the land like a tortilla in this dry season where everything is dead or dying--something I wouldn't have been able to notice if I wasn't told since I come from the barren northern winters. I feel like we are harvested maize, popping under heat or puffing like souffles in the rolling hills. I look around in my stuffed minibus ride (what the locals call inta mortales, or something like that, meaning "on your way to die") and see an aging orange haze that takes me out of the bus and into the realm of the Olmec, Zapotecan and Mayan civilizations which thrived for hundreds of years, each adding to the menagerie of technological and agricultural innovations. They produced uniquely accurate calendars, great religious structures and the world-changing maize. Quite a bit has been discovered about these peoples, and quite a bit more is left undiscovered.

But perhaps all this is what I want to see--the vestiges of a glorious ancestry--because it helps me with my Euro-Caucasian guilt for spilling their blood so thoroughly and systematically, and for destroying those rosetta's stones of cultural information. With it I'll sleep better, but even the young men with gelled hair and tight shirts clicking their tongues at the passing women seem more American than I. Their eyes are Mesoamerican and their blood reaches possibly farther back in time than mine does, even if I trace mine back to Mesopotamia. Everything here is baked--a timely process--like that tortilla, dry and crumbling but rich in flavor and reaching far back into traditional and cultural history. I am a gringo, a microwaveable import.

Well, maybe not. I decide a stolen iPhone isn't such a great big deal and I relax into the views passing outside the windows. Sitting in that bus, my knee in the crotch of the man facing me and his nearly in mine, I take the trip from Managua to Jinotepe to Rivas to San Jorje to Isla de Ometepe as a local, as an American. 

...switch all electronic devices to the off position

I am surrounded by people mostly transfixed by the pallid glow of LED light hovering before their eyes. Ten years ago this would have been the scene in some freakish distopian movie set in the distant future; now it's a reality.  There are a couple families with young children who are devoid of the technological distraction. Good. The news above squabbles the results of a recent study which reveals that parents who put their phones away at the table have better behaved children. This is news?! 

Isolation can be a crowded environment.

It certainly changes the way we travel. We don't greet the person next to us on the plane, who might happen to be an interesting, theatrical person on his way to work at an orphanage in Nicaragua, an orphanage which sits underneath an active volcano, and who has read the very book you are reading and lives in the same city. No, that could be too uncomfortable. But the Atlanta-based belles in blue order us away from our touchable screens, so I stuck out my hand--I'm Simon, he's Mike--and a couple sentences later we were a mile-high and swallowed in the pages of the books we brought. At least they weren't iPads, like everyone else. At least we said 'hi,' unlike everyone else. 

We are so eager to get where we are going we forget that there is something bound up in the process of getting there, something we would be remiss to miss.

But I am guilty myself. I sit here click-clacking away, occasionally looking up for a passing descriptive word or an  inspiration rushing to her connection. And I check my watch hoping that more than three-and-a-half minutes have passed and I'm closer to ending this layover in Atlanta. However, this is the doldrums of travel and they've existed since Amerigo Vespucci sat in the Atlantic wondering where the wind ran off to. Well, even before then, but we didn't much know of their existence. The lull is a part of this process--it forces you to sit back, actually look around and think. You may even meet a nice guy named Mike who works as an event salesperson who does business with an army base in Georgia and lives where you do. But you have to work up the courage and say 'hi.' May we continually be unafraid to greet one another. We're only human, after all. Each one of us.

…take a nap

It has been three weeks since I have seen the streets of Khalil. I’ve clicked my heels, there’s no place like home, and now I’m playing catch up from the almost sleepless tornado here. Boy was it quite the storm.

It began in Freeport, Maine as I rushed home from saying good-bye to one last person so that I could collect my belongings and catch a bus in Portland. In total, I was stateside for two-and-a-half weeks…not long to see 51 people (not including the congregations of two churches), or to spend significant time on the phone with 9 others. If I only had a twin, it could’ve been more.

A teary good-bye with my mother ended my stay in Freeport; Wesley drove me to the bus. And there Tim and I boarded a bus to Boston where we sat and ate and had the last Dunkin Donuts we’d have in a while. Train 67 to Virginia finally called for boarding after an hour of waiting and we got on. It was 9:30 pm. Some sleep greeted me on the overnight ride, but between uncomfortable body positions and frequent stops, it was stunted, at best. But it got worse. At 2:15 am we chugged into Penn Station in New York City and were kicked off. Now the plan was to ditch our luggage in the temporary baggage storage and hit the town (or find somewhere to nap), but the dreams were rudely abrupted by a sign which told us that the luggage area wasn’t open until 5:15. Three. Whole. Hours. Ok, we thought, I guess we’ll wait in the station. Perhaps we’ll get some sleep…But janitorial duties said no to that. Sitting upright, trying to chase sleep, thoughts quickly turning into dreams and back again, was how we spent our time. And all the while the kind janitor kept waking us all up and moving us out of his way. I wasn’t angry, but I wasn’t happy. I finally found some floor-space and, using my bag as my pillow, slept soundly until Tim woke me up 45 minutes later; it was his turn to sleep.

Five-thirty came and we escaped the waiting-room prison without our heavy bags and we couldn’t have felt freer. I lunged for the subway eager to get moving. The A train took us to the tip of Manhattan where we boarded the free ferry to Staten Island. This was my father’s idea, and it was perfect. The sun had yet to rise as we passed Lady Liberty; the view was beyond phenomenal. I couldn’t have imagined a better morning.

On Staten Island Tim and I strolled for a bit, passing sleeping couples wrapped up in each other’s limbs, but soon found a bench to sit on. I was itching to write (it must be a gene that my father passed down to me that makes New York so inspiring…perhaps there really is no place like home). I sat down, looked across the waters and wrote this:

Sunrise on Staten Island

Ahead the skyline’s hazy,

So familiar yet so unknown;

The Queen of Freedom’s silhouette

Is grayer than her stone.

A orange blur plays hide and seek

With an undefinéd sky;

The only thing I know for sure:

That plane which soars on by.

Soon enough sweet clarity

Will split the foggy veil,

While rising tides inch up the shore

And ferries take their sail.

Morning always ushers hope,

At least, it does today,

As rising towers join Lady Free

In a hopeful, free hooray.

Feeling satisfied with my creative release I suggested we get back to the other island; sunrise over the city must be beautiful from the boat.

And it was.

On Manhattan it was time for coffee so we found our way to a small coffeeshop and I used the internet to reserve tickets to see the World Trade Center Memorial. From there we leapt a couple of blocks uptown to the visitor’s center to pick them up, then slid back down to where we were to actually enter the memorial. Over twenty minutes of security passed before we walked the serene green and solemn fountains. 

How appropriate it was to leave the space empty where once stood a tower. Nothing can replace them, nor the lives lost, whose names are forever etched into the stone border. It was truly magnificent, especially with the new towers rising quickly around them. When this project is finished it will certainly be a marvel, however arrogant as well. Ah, the American way.

Lack of sleep was catching up on us as we left the sacred ground, so we stopped in a park by City Hall to rest before the lunch date we had with my cousin. I was approached by a nice lady who I judged for a proselytizer. I wondered how I could let her know I was on her side without letting her down, for I wanted rest. Tim wonder—fell asleep. But I quickly found that not only was this nice woman a Jehovah’s Witness, but she was also more than prepared to convert me. A half an hour must have passed before I could accept the invitation for her literature and escape the relentless, cunningly coy preacher-woman.

The relationships of the rest of that day were a bit better. I saw an old friend from Forham University, who I have great affections for, I zipped up to Times Square to have lunch with my cousin, who I have great affections for, and I had some coffee at a diner with my friend from the Bronx, who I have great affections for. My heart was full as I collected my luggage and got on the A train once again for the hour long ride to JFK airport. Had I been alone on the train I might’ve found some sleep, but that was not going to be the case. The train was packed from start to finish and I was on my feet the whole time, exhausted. Two-and-a-half hours later we were boarding our plane and taking off and by that time, I was thirsty for sleep. It would be an overnight flight to Kiev, Ukraine, a perfect place to rest, but AeroSvit is certainly no British Air. The temperature on that plane was just low enough that even the little sleep one could have had in the discomfort of those seats was denied me. I resolved to pacing up and down the aisles finding small vents which pumped out a fairly pathetic warmth. It was enough to satisfy.

Church 1

We rolled into Kiev at noon their time and God-knows-what my time. I was ecstatic to get into the sun and let my marrow warm up. It took more time than it needed to get into the city, but our brains weren’t on full capacity. We had an eleven hour layover so we decided to get out and explore and even though I was running on a long nap’s worth of sleep, the day was a success. Kiev is not the most beautiful city, but we visited an area dense with old, golden-domed churches and little street shops selling beer and trinkets.

Church 2

Church 3

It wasn’t until the return to the airport that my bubble was burst. We transferred flights from AeroSvit to El Al, the Israeli airline and their security was not about to let us waltz on the plane unchecked. It was a good thing we were three hours early because it took them that entire time to empty all of our belongings on a table and sift through them item-by-item. Occasionally an object would be brought to our attention: “Whose is this?” “Uh…mine.” And then we would answer questions about its purpose and why we own it. We each got a full-body check that included dropping our drawers like we were in the doctors office; at least the young man performing this task was nice about it. I wasn’t sure if they would let us on with our all-too-truthful answers about our intentions in Israel, but we were admitted: the very last two to board.

Anxiety kept me up on that trip, but at least it was only 3 hours long. In Ben Gurion, the airport at Tel Aviv, we went through three similar hours of questioning in back rooms with intimidating women who scowled behind sharp glasses and spoke threats through deceptive questions. But finally we were let in with both a tourist’s visa and warnings about our stay here. I gladly accepted and left. All I wanted to do was get out of the airport and find my way home.

Tel Aviv sunset

But Tim and I stayed in Tel Aviv, relaxing on the beach waiting for his “suspicious” luggage to arrive, which it didn’t. So after a sweaty, fitful night in a hostel we headed southeast to Khalil. I left Freeport at five in the evening on Tuesday; it was noon on Saturday. With a 7 hour time difference, that’s 72 hours of travel.

There is no place like home. And 12 hours of sleep never tasted so good. 

…count to one

Mostafa and I

The grapes hang heavy and low now; one month and they will swell with royalty. They form a canopy, a shade from the sun. They are a decoration, like Christmas lights that glow green, pregnant with promise.

One week and I will visit home for 15 days (and by home I mean Maine, where kale and dandelions no doubt wait for me, and I for them, eagerly). I look forward to the trip, not the travel, nor the torment I will undoubtedly suffer in my underwear at Ben Gurion Airport (they don’t seem to like internationals who spend time in the West Bank). I will not speak Arabic, that is for sure, since that has already got me into a bit of trouble with the Israeli securities elsewhere, and I will play dumb, as if Palestine means little more to me than one summer abroad.

Tareq

One week and my time at the Excellence Center will be over. It went by so quickly, day after day in this school, lesson planning, teaching, eating. My second home’s here; my first family. But I don’t think it will be the end of our relationship. No, this place will continue to be a hoverground for Tim and I, a place to land safe feet, a roof always open. We will sit there and say, “its just like old times. Remember when…” and our love for Palestine will always be sweetened with the welcome here. And by staying in our apartment we will live with the male interns that pass through the Excellence Center over the months so the relationship will only change.

Omar

One week and Ramadan begins, where, for one month, Khalil will essentially shut down while everyone fasts between the green glow of twilights. And when they hear that call to prayer broadcasted from the minaret’d hills, they’ll eat, smoke and finally drink something. Tim and I will return here and get to celebrate the second half of Ramadan with our suffering brethren. At Ramadan’s end we’ll experience the delight of Eid al-Fitr, the “christmas” of Islam, where it is tradition to feast for three days, buy new clothes and visit family, as far as I know.

Mahmoud

One month and we will begin a new job teaching English in Palestine (this time for pay), which will allow us to stay here for one year and take Arabic lessons and go to haflas and hold hands and kiss and finally, hopefully converse beyond the wide shallow pools we have been splashing in thus far. And falafel will become less of a daily affair, for we will be able to afford kitchenware, but always a recurring fling, for we won’t be able to completely divorce from it.

Noor

And I will continue to live among this cluster of sweet Himonys. And I will swell with pride to bear their name. And I will count each one you see here as my friend and brother...


But between then and now, one great vacation.