Friday, May 29, 2020

Pre-Monsoon


Ban Apinihan. The pre-monsoon.



A night of heavy rain and our dreams are a warm water log, the steady tap tap, the pre-monsoon jingle on the water clears the air and dissipates the heat. The morning sings to the drenching. The red earth of Babylon East is soaked in it and all plants in the garden are morning somnolent, as though drunk and barely able to stand.



The cloud cover over the city is low, some of the clouds are tinged in blue by the nascent sky, others are a dark grey, promising cooler days ahead. I go around the house turning off ceiling fans. The bullfrogs in the lake and garden pond are having a field day. Their heavy hearted, deep throated gnarling voices convulse through the dawn light.



I went downstairs to look in the pond and saw the milky white frog egg nebulae floating there. Another night of mating in old Vientiane town.



After days and days of torrid heat and sticky skin comes this cooling relief, this drenched respite. Birds and insects fly low. I breathe deeply, thankful to have been given life, this life, to taste the dark green garden and light blue grey sky. As Bowie once sang, “Somebody up there likes me”, although not seeing the full picture also means having zero inkling into the real scheming of the Universe.



Still, get it while you can.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpHA1hHCTi8






Saturday, May 9, 2020

Jailbreak


Ban Don, 7/5/2020



Using my need to collect important official and work-related documents from a place that should, logically, house no such documents, I took my motorcycle up to the area of Hin Heup, then east to Ban Don where the majestic limestone mountains have been carving their way into men’s minds for centuries. According a brilliant, though very modest geologist I know and who will go unnamed, these bloody mountains are full of DNA since limestone was formed through living genetic material which means that I have been travelling through – buzzing through, really – a landscape as alive as a petri-dish while sitting over a gas tank also filled with material formed by the living.



It’s one big alive floating fuck fest of a kaleidoscope out there and in here.



The mountains are nothing less than delicious; some carry caves in them like pockmarks, others simply sit there, planted like a beacon of sensitivity to give fair warning to all who wish to cease dreaming altogether. At the end of a road I found a riverside restaurant where a young man speaking excellent English set up shop. The tables are submerged, giving diners the chance to easting with their bare feet rustling in the cool waters of the Nam Lik.



Sadly, however, they take this opportunity to toss their empty BeerLao cans into the river and so even this spot of pristine beauty is relieved of the hope for humanity that Covid-19 may have given us.



The road is not always the road, however, and a three day escapade on a motorcycle cannot compare with an endless and goalless trek on a bicycle during which one’s life is meshed with that of the people.



After a few days out, although dazzled by the physical beauty of the landscape, all I longed for was to see my family again, sleep in my own bed and be welcomed by the morning light genius of Ban Apinihan.



I never thought I’d see the day when this would happen.



Years ago, in my distant childhood, I remember going into the house of friends of my parents, the kind of people you look at as a kid and wonder, “what on earth can these people possibly have in common with us?”: plastic covers on the sofas and little tinseled shelves tucked into useless corners loaded with knickknacks like tiny porcelain poodles or Eiffel Towers, among them was a framed saying – in those days everything was made of wood and not plastic made to look like something so people could say, oh, yes, that’s what wood looked like – and so a real wooden frame and in it were a compass (une rose de vents!) and the words: “North, south, east, west. I travel far but home is best".



And I remember thinking to myself that this was the most stupid thing I had ever seen. Not even taking into consideration the fact that these people never travelled far and that their home was a cacophonous insult to the eyes, the whole system of thought reeked, in my young eyes, of a provincial and unquestioning slavery to unthinking and mediocre happiness.



And here I am, years later, thinking: North, south, east, west. I travel far but home is best.











Saturday, May 2, 2020

Confinement Six





Ban Apinihan 2/5/2020



For years I have been getting up at the crack of dawn. No matter what time I have gone to bed or the quantity of alcohol – sometimes industrial quantities – I have consumed, the first light of day sees me up and vice versa.



I have never liked the English expression ‘crack of dawn’. It implies a violent birthing, an incessant pounding on a reticent door. A burglar will crack a safe and I wonder how our language, so rich in metaphor, has failed us so miserably when describing this one daily event. For dawn may mean doom or it might mean light. Whether it be with anxiety or hope, the dawn does not crack. It is not a whip.



It is something that comes gracefully and even soldiers awaiting the sunrise assault or the prisoner condemned to perish can see the bitter paradox of something so gradual leading to such a terrifying finality.



The dark sky turns just a little bit darker before a pastel eggshell coldness begins to radiate elsewhere. The distance separating night from day never seems more unbridgeable, and yet she comes.



When the light is unbearably there, vibrant yet not blinding the sun sends an awesome ray, a delicious portfolio of distant emanations of colours and heat.



The crack of dawn. The horizon becoming a canvas; tree lines laid bare in a contre-jour of blinding contrasts and then splendour! The universe seems to open its arms in an embrace to fate.



Another daylight time of cacophony and turbulence, another morning given over to chores and tasks; simplified lives sectioned into bite size pieces: brush teeth, sprinkle face, grind coffee, push ups, deal with the taste of last night: wine still fresh yet abandoned in the upper throat.



In urban Vientiane the roosters’ crows, the abundant cock-a-doodle-dos resounding from backyard to garden, set the stage for other drama. After a night of sleeping the cat stretches and lays down for a nap.



There’s only so much I can take before going mad and, like Goethe, call out for “more light”!



When we finished building Ban Apinihan, the land was in a terrible state: clay covered with building debris. Our gardener and friend, Zdenek Sedlacek (Z pour les intimes) nourished that soil, planting trees and bushes and flowers…all in a way that made it look as though the hand of man never touched it.



Over the years the earth was rebuilt and a topsoil developed, to such an extent that I was able to cordon off a metre and half strip at the southern end of the garden, beyond which bulrushes grow wild in the lake water. And so I cordoned it off and gave strict instructions to Z and his workers that no-one was allowed to prune or cut or clear away any of the vegetation in that strip. Of course, without Z’s work it would still be a wasteland, but now it is a small forest: tropical, rare, perfumed and intimate. Birds frolic in the branches and some animal has dug a burrow. In the small pond, fed by a septic tank, live tiny fish and frogs; dragonflies fill the day.



Growing wild now are Birds of Paradise, lotus leaves occasionally break free of green destiny to sprout a long stemmed flower of dazzling white that lives for a day or two before collapsing – petal by precious petal – onto itself, leaving behind a solid wooden receptacle with holes in the top in which the lotus seeds lay until it, too, drops into the water; there to mingle with the aquatic life until its day will come and lotus it will be in its own light.



At sunset, the crepuscule. The light is perfect and foliage seems to be taking its one last breath – an inhaling, long and steady – which has lasted all day and now, on the cusp of exhaling, all breath stops and the plants seem poised on that crest of understanding.



The silence. The meditative silence as night fondles day and turns it into slow darkness, like a pulled blanket.



In the garden and beyond the insects roar. The mosquitos are out and the birds, dragonflies and geckos are on the war path.



Munch, munch goes all Creation.




Friday, May 1, 2020

Confinement Five


Ban Apinihan 1/5/2020



The sun. Over the lake. Again. This cycle, at least, has not given up on us.



Up early I head to the kitchen for coffee, the sweet and martyred Boloven; that rat’s nest of rivalry and exploitation still producing one of the world’s finest Arabicas.



The dishes are piled high from last night’s dinner. One of the advantages of not having a mae ban is that we are more intensely in contact with our immediate needs.



I decide to listen to music. The house is still asleep. The wood is not yet creaking from the morning warmth or the family’s footsteps.



Music, then. Doing the dishes music. I hesitate between early Beatles and Eric Satie – that Yin/Yang of French culture – and finally decide to go onto YouTube and listen to whales singing. Since I have been living for weeks at the rhythm of the lake I felt that some underwater music would be fitting.



The subtle yet forceful bass and vibrant trebles filled the living room and all was water. The lake was full of fishermen, early birds getting the worm, causing circles of waves to ripple out at all points of the surface; they sprinkle light on the kitchen ceiling, little waves that live and would die after their moment of instruction, the lesson being, “thou shalt shine and reflect the sky”.



For they do not last. And still the whale’s song filled the house, breathing into every space, inhabiting them: a tremolo of understanding.



Is this a wisdom beyond my fathoming? I cannot say. I know neither what the whales are experiencing nor the limits of my own understanding.



I only know that what they are living is so foreign to me that it may just as well be taking place on a different planet. And yet this is not the case since we are sharing, for better or for worse, the same planet.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-7QrQ0cbpg


Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Confinement Four


Ban Apinihan 29/4/2020



On Facebook people are posting videos of empty cities. In places like Cincinnati or Melbourne wild animals roam the streets. It has taken them such little time to reclaim that which is ours. I heard on the BBC that Yosemite Park has become itself again and that bears are sun-bathing in parking lots. Waddles of ducks are walking down the streets of Paris, past the grey pierre de taille buildings and closed charcuterie shops.



All of this because human movement, if not human activity, has ceased. Humans have receded to their technological trickles, grasping at their civilization with whatever tools we still have: Internet, books, Netflix…



In my generation the radio was our tribal drumbeat. I remember when John Lennon was murdered and an entire swath of baby boomers turned off their television sets and just listened to Beatles music on the radio. We didn’t want the image pollution and reporters’ questions, we didn’t want to see the blood on the sidewalk. We just wanted his music.



We have far more distractions today. I myself confess an addiction to House of Cards.



Vientiane itself is so close to being invaded by nature anyways, despite the native blindness to garbage, that not much has changed here.



Near our house a huge tract of land is being levelled to make way for a future impeccable suburban project. Fine. Come what may.



Have any of you noticed that when people only consume what they need the economy tanks?



Singing the song from The Book of the Jungle, my children as me to explain the English expression, ‘the bare necessities’.



You can watch the empty world here: https://www.skylinewebcams.com/

  

Monday, April 27, 2020

Confiement Three


Ban Apinihan, 28/4/2020



Is it a forgotten city? I have always thought of her as such. A mole of forgetfulness in the Mekong plain going about her little business.



During the days of the lockdown the city, never a strong force in our lives, receded into a distant noiseless approach. Parties were at a muffled distance, traffic a seldom rumour.



Last night blended perfectly in from yesterday afternoon when I had some errands to run in town and instead of coming home directly I rode along on the city’s ring roads, past the Settatirat Hospital and into the courtyards of the open and illuminated temples there to confide amongst the gold-tinted reclining Buddhas and lone courtyard trees.



The streets were growing. People were out, shops were open and men sat drinking beer together. The lockdown is to be lifted on Monday next, in one week and already the people of Vientiane are spreading their wings. The traffic is buoyant if delicate, subdued yet flourishing. Everyone wore a mask as a concession to the orders.



Like every man with a family to care for at the edge of this brave new world, like every blindfolded sucker waiting for the axe to drop and the future to come smashing on our plans with its sharp and inevitable blade… like all men everywhere I sometimes look into the precipice and ask myself, wondering out loud. Whether there will be a world for my children.



In the midst of dark and frightening thoughts, thoughts like a granite gargoyle, thoughts as welcoming as a cob-crypt I found a meadow, a spot of forest and then, just then, I got a telephone call from people I had not seen or spoken to in twenty years; people who have always stayed in my heart, tucked like a reserve diamond in a refugee’s coat; a little wooden box I would open now and then to preserve their beauty.



And there they were. On WhatsApp. Older, yes, and still the same grace and humility, still the same love song to life and it came to me – the dry stone hills of the Galilee, the little hippy community of goat-cheese makers, the lone wood-burning stove in the living room of the old stone house. Rosh Pina.



The call from my past, their accented Hebrew, the inevitable joy and resignation. Sickness, old age, forever flourishing.



That is when I went temple hopping. The gates were open and the lights were on and at every corner the bright and accepting silent receiving of the Buddha statues. The delicious placidity and sweet gecko calls, the flying ants smothering the naked light bulbs carving halos through the night.



From temple to temple, like sailing through Greek islands until I made it home.







Saturday, April 25, 2020

Confinement Two


Ban Apinihan, 26/4/2020







In the face of a hangover all bravery, every indication of salvation, runs busy body past the starting line; in the opposite direction, cheered upon by the adversaries and to the dismayed exaltations of the losing side.



Alcohol is the great flattener, the fermented or distilled answer to longevity. Morning lungs are sore, the head pounds inexplicably, members shatter their previous mastery and tremble precariously.



I remember sunrises full of grace, sunlight peering from below a purple horizon and filling the sky like a breath. I remember dotted stars fading before the majesty. I remember the sliver of the moon made transparent by sun’s rising tide. I remember heartfelt thanks as morning dew kissed grass blades and petals farewell. I remember the dank dark soil murmuring its Song of Ascents while butterflies and dragonflies caressed the air.



But today I awaken at noon to my darkened room, for I had the foresight to close the impending light out before collapsing the night before. Slivers of light at odd angles crash in through the wooden tiles and settle there, blinding if small, a concentrated hit, on an ancient beam or illuminating a fastidious spider web.



Outside voices from the lake tell me that the fishermen and women are out, foraging amongst the sweet water weeds under the shade of shore trees. Life, the thing I left behind with my half-finished glass of Cahors, has somehow managed to go on without me, has somehow managed a kick start of cockcrows and ruffled feathers and with that the villagers exchange gossip or talk about food. I can hear their sturdy palms flatten the water to drive the fish into their nets. In my mind’s eye I can see them peeling the tiny black shellfish off the river grass and can hear them being dropped into floating baskets.



I stumbled from bed this morning, made it to the balcony door and opened it as an old man would a birthday present. The light of day collapsed upon me, exclaiming Holy! Holy! Holy! From your vicious and head wracking hangover, from this debilitating state of affairs we – the water and the light, the ripples and the spider webs, the voices and the pounding, the trembling and the weakness….



….from all this we will sublimate a morning.


Confinement One




Ban Apinihan, 25/4/2020





In the meantime the ancient lake, home of battles and battalions, armoured Indochinese knights wrestling cursing mythical snakes, is cloud-washed, drenched in its own circle of rain and pause, a place where some things will never surface.




Blue-grey clouds, their visible layers melting off into a light grey blanket; a line of distant cocont trees with one standing naked and bereaved; the slow moving fishermen and women casting their triangular bamboo nets into the murky waters; the silence of the pre-monsoon plain as it veers toward smoothingness, distant rooster calls and the fishermen walking stealthily through the waist-high water, their bodies bent forward as though they could see their feet through the primal muck.




A fisherwoman lifts her net out the water to examine her catch but is only rewarded with drops of water, rivulets streaming down the white net; nothing more. She is dressed from head to foot, her hat covered with a plastic bag and floating beside her is a tiny boat filled with drinking water and food and cigarettes and a lighter.




The sun, also rising, does so behind a canopy of cloud and the air, untainted by the smell of burning garbage is as clear as Creation.




And to think this will all happen and has always happened and is happening now: an insect call, a flutter of wing, a bending blade of grass, wavering flowers crowning every bough, the tight brotherly coconuts huddling against ripening time.




There are no silent killers here. All of them can apply as much stealth as they wish; there will always be a munching. There will always be a distant cow and somewhere in the lost and tucked-in country side beyond a morning fire will cackle and blaze for sticky rice and breakfast vegetables. Somewhere a father will be collecting his tools and a mother washing out a black and dented pot, somewhere the wood plank and bamboo kitchen veranda will be awash with splashed water, bits of food scattered between the floor boards to feed the chickens, geese and pigs below. Somewhere the eternal Asian morning will begin afresh as though no one had ever turned off the lights, as though the sun had never set the evening before and as though the stars had not dotted the shrill tropical night with its drowsing bird calls and insect rushing cackles.




And yet the morning freshness is there to tell all and to speak of the evaporating night chills to speak to the dews upon the naked mountain flanks, to speak to the heavy clouds calling out of the valleys.