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
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