A Moment That Took My Breath Away

One day I was window shopping in a small town in New Zealand and came across a journal for sale.  It had a quote on its cover that caught my eye.

It read, “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the number of moments that take our breath away.”—Anonymous.

I have since adopted that as my mantra.   Well, that and the one about sliding into the grave sideways, totally worn out and shouting “Holy shit!   What a ride!”

I turned 75 in November, meaning that I am now three-quarters of a century old.   That’s a good impetus for introspection, a time to consider those moments when I was suspended in time and waiting for my breath to return.   One of the most indelible occurred in Tibet while I was on a leaky “river boat” crossing a wide river called the Yarlung Tsangpo.

I noticed a woman as we approached the primitive boat landing to board the craft.  Her image was striking; her age impossible to determine.  Wooden benches along the hull provided seats, as did a wooden structure amidships.  Whether it was luck or fate—or perhaps serendipity—that woman and I wound up seated across from each other.

She never looked at me that I noticed, while I tried not to stare at her evocative face.   Her colorful striped apron told me she was married.  Other than that, she was dressed all in black, except for her shoes.   They were bright yellow sneakers.

One of our group was a red-haired gregarious lady who was seated next to the old woman and attempted to engage her attention.   The woman smiled.

Soon the young Tibetan boy seated next to me moved to sit with his father on the stern and the old woman crossed to sit beside me.   At first, she remained silent.

Then, in a move that took my breath away, she lifted my right hand and placed hers next to it.  I noted, of course, the obvious difference in skin color.

And then, I noted the similarities.   Both were hands that had known hard labor, both showed the wrinkles of time, both had knuckles that indicated arthritis.   The longer I looked, the more I realized how alike we were.

And that is what I wish for you and all the people of the world on this first day of 2017—moments that take your breath away.  

Yes, we have differences, sometimes deep and profound things on which we disagree.  But if you take the time to look, you will see how similar we are, how we all hope for good lives, for friendship, love, and respect.

On a special note, I will never forget that woman and how she had the courage to communicate with me through our hands.   I hope someday the Tibetans will have their country, their religion and customs, their true Dalai Lama back, and that China will leave Tibet before it is too late.

 

A boat similar to ours is crossing the river to an ancient Tibetan monastery.

Que Sera?

Part One

Each night as I wait for sleep to steal my consciousness, I play a word game on my Kindle.  It is much like a combination of Crosswords and Scrabble for one player.

Like those games, it favors words one rarely, if ever, uses in normal conversation, words like haen, caden, hace, and, my favorite, sera.  I think of wild pink roses and Tibet as I type the letters s-e-r-a into empty spaces.  I remember children with black smudges on the tips of the noses on their way to see the monks of Sera Monastery and have their naughtiness—if there is any−expunged.

One recent night, I was working at the computer and remembered that I wanted to look up the definition of sera.  In English, sera is the plural form of serum, the amber colored, protein rich fluid that separates out when blood coagulates.  Then I did some research on the Sera Monastery in Tibet, and went to bed.

Sleep was elusive that night.  Near three in the morning, something drew me to the loft.  There on the computer monitor was a photograph of Sera Monastery, one of the random photos my screen saver shows in a constantly changing montage.  There are four photos of Sera Monastery on this particular computer, just one of thousands of photos of people and places the screen saver could have selected.

Weird, I thought.  I lingered at the computer until I thought I might find sleep.  The image of white stone walls and black-trimmed windows of Sera Monastery followed me down the stairs and lay on the pillow with my thoughts until the arms of Morpheus drew the curtains closed.

The next day, it happened twice again.  Each time I went to the loft, that same photo of Sera Monastery was having its moments on the screen.  Then off we’d go to the Grand Canyon or St. Petersburg or the Great Barrier Reef. 

This was getting downright spooky.  Coincidental?  I don’t believe in coincidences.  While I do think there may be some validity to mind over matter, I seriously doubt that my mind has even an iota of control over this computer.  Yet, all I’d done was Google Sera Monastery and sera.  I hadn’t opened the file of Tibet photos nor done anything else to invite that particular photo.  None of the other three, mind you.  Just the one that is my favorite.

Yesterday, another of the Sera Monastery photos made its appearance.  This one is of a window.  I do that a lot—take photos of windows and doors and gates and locks and doorknobs.  And brooms.  I have several photos of brooms.

What can I take from all this?  I really don’t know, except maybe I am supposed to show you photos of Sera Monastery. 

And so I shall.

(to be continued)

 

The View, Part 6, Stranger in a Strange Land

We are talking about the staggering population of China, estimated at 1.4 billion.  One of our group, who had closely follower the Korean War, says something to me.  I hear only part of it, but what I do hear is chilling:

“…..we could take care of the North Koreans,” he says. “But then the Chinese came at us.  There was no end to them.  They just kept coming.  We couldn't stop them and they ran right over us...”

 ***

I've been in Tibet for five days.  It is the morning of the sixth as we board a bus that will take us to the airport.

I love these friendly, gentle people, their honest, spiritual ways, and their smiles that come from their souls.  I have been wanting to visit here since I was a small child, perhaps seven or eight years old.

I’ve also had it with the suffocating presence of armed Chinese soldiers everywhere. 

Soon after I checked into my hotel here in Lhasa, I pointed my camera out the window to photograph the nearby mountains in the late afternoon sun.  Then I saw soldiers in fatigues down below, directly in line with my view.  During my entire stay, they performed drills and played basketball in a courtyard behind their barracks, outside my hotel room window.

The Chinese military barracks are out of sight on the far right.  The courtyard where the men drilled and played in visible over the blue roof in the foreground.

They patrol the streets.  They are stationed at public parks, monuments, and bazaars.  They are posted at specific areas—four of them under a canopy, each one with its back toward the center, each one facing a different direction, each one armed with an AK-47.

I have to look carefully before I point my camera, making sure there is not a soldier in view because “the soldiers aren’t really there.”  Our guide cautions us several times about photographing the soldiers.  She says they will chase down the bus and confiscate the camera.  It has happened before to one of her groups.  Further, she says, she would suffer consequences.

I had to be careful when photographing this fountain because an armed soldier was posted nearby.

One day I had pointed my camera out the window of the bus as we passed a monolithic memorial with beautiful mounds of colorful flowers beneath it.  At the last second, I noticed an armed soldier at its base.

I asked later what the monument was.

“It is a monument to the peaceful liberation of Tibet,” was the response.

In your face.  A Tibetan monastery on the mountain in the background was destroyed so the Chinese could erect the antenna.  Tibetans consider it an affront.

Well, it wasn’t peaceful at all.  And, it wasn’t a liberation, it was an occupation, an enslavement.

This sign is at the entrance to the Dalai Lama's summer palace.  I noticed the prohibition against prayer flags and incense.

Now, on this last day, an hour from the airport, our bus stops in the traffic lane and waits while one of our group dashes into a shop to retrieve a purchase.  I slide over to the sidewalk side of the back row in the bus.  Twenty feet to my right is one of those four-man armed stations.

AK-47s at the ready, the soldiers stand ramrod still in full uniform.  Only their eyes move and those eyes take in everything.

I’ve had it.  I raise my camera in full view of everyone outside. 

This is my best chance to photograph one of the open air meat markets where cuts of meat are on display, uncovered, unrefrigerated.  I suspect it is yak meat.

I move the camera a bit to the right, playing chicken with the soldiers, and photograph a rickshaw.  I take another picture.  I make no effort to conceal what I’m doing.  A man in civilian clothes watches me.

I am not taking pictures of the soldiers.  I am not violating the unwritten rules.  But I’ve had it with their suffocating, unwanted presence.   I am also aware that I have unintentionally photographed the soldiers that were guarding the Beijing to Lhasa railroad, and also a part of a military convoy appeared in one shot of the countryside.

When I was selecting photos for this post, I noticed the soldier in fatigues for the first time.  Usually they were in dress uniform.  I was photographing the Jokhang Temple in the background and the oven where juniper is burned for purification.

I remind myself that I am not in the United States.   I don't want our guide to suffer any consequences for my foolish mini-rebellion.   I put down my camera.

The View from the Back of the Bus, Part 2, The Dalai Lama

On a sidewalk in Lhasa, a few of our group are talking with a Tibetan whom I will call Alpha.  The expression on his face shows extreme dismay and tears have escaped his eyes.   He looks about anxiously, apparently afraid a spy for the Chinese communist government will hear him talking about the Dalai Lama.

He is an English-speaking man, one of few Tibetans who holds a job, and thus is subject to the Chinese government’s edicts.

I learn why he is so distressed.  He has just been told that the 14^th Dalai Lama, the 76-year-old spiritual and political leader of Tibet, is hospitalized for lung problems.  (This turns out not to be true).

“We never hear anything about him,” Alpha whispers.  He says that when the Chinese-chosen Panchen lama comes to Lhasa, everyone must go to the streets to cheer him and revere him and wave prayer flags.  They do not like this, nor do they like the Panchen lama, whom they consider a false lama.  But disobeying the government’s command would be to lose his job, and losing a job means never working again, except in the fields as a pauper.

The Panchen lama in the Yellow Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism is the next highest lama after the current Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since 1959.  He travels the world on behalf of Tibet.

A Tibetan Buddhist monk.

It is the Panchen lama who directs the search for the child incarnation of the current Dalai lama, the child who will become the next Dalai Lama.

From Wikipedia:

“…the People's Republic of China asserts it is Gyancain Norbu, while the 14th Dalai Lama asserted it was Gedhun Choekyi Nyima on May 14, 1995. The latter vanished from public eye shortly after being named, aged six. Chinese authorities stated that Gedhun had been taken into protective custody from those that would spirit him into exile and is now safe.^”  

Gedhun's family also is missing.

Potola Palace, former residence of the Dalai Lama

I tell Alpha that I had heard no such news about the Dalai Lama.  When I get home, I say, I can e-mail him with news.  While I have a netbook with me in Tibet, there is strict censoring.  I am even unable to access my Google-based blog.

Alpha now shows fear and says all e-mail in China is censored and it would mean great trouble for him.  I can disguise it, I offer, perhaps reporting it as the health of my relative.  Again, he says no and walks away in great distress, obviously wanting to disassociate himself with free-speaking Americans.

Prayer wheels.

As for the communist government of the People’s Republic of China, it says their chosen Panchen lama has embraced communism and sees its benefits for all China.

***

In the past few months, the Dalai Lama has surrendered his political role, saying he wanted to concentrate on his spiritual leadership.  Most recently, he says that before he dies (or reaches 90), he will choose his successor, an extreme departure from tradition.

Something is in the works and time will reveal how that plays out.

I just wish I could contact Alpha and tell him that his Dalai Lama is alive and well.

The View from the Back of the Bus, Introduction

(I'll be leaving soon on another trip and have prepared some stories for your enjoyment while I'm gone, just in case I can't get to my blog in Churchill, Canada.  Or don't have time.  Or a polar bear gets me.)

I was in Australia when I learned something that has stood me well on all the travels I’ve done since.  I hesitate to reveal what that is for fear that someday everyone will know and I will have to fight the masses.

If you promise not to tell, I’ll let you in on my secret.

I sit in the very back row of the tour bus.

We were driving back to Melbourne from Phillip Island, specifically from Summerland Beach where we had seen the Little penguins safely from the sea to their inland burrows just after nightfall.  It was a long ride in the dark back to our hotel in the city, and I opted for the empty rear row so I could lie down and nap.

Then, unable to sleep, I sat up and discovered I could see!   I mean, I could see something other than the seat back in front of me and the limited view out the window beside me.  Think of it!  Never in my life have I been able to see what's on the top of the refrigerator, or reach the highest shelves in the kitchen cabinets, or see a parade.

AHA!  See Larry craning his neck to see?

 The rear row usually is elevated and that gave me a view over the seat backs and heads of all the passengers.  If I sat right in the middle of the back row, I could see out the front and both sides, scooting from side to side as the photo ops demanded.

I had no seatmate and room for all my stuff.  It was perfect.  I’ve claimed the rear row ever since.

On my trip through China and Tibet, my fellow passengers began calling me “The Empress.”

And then….  

 One by one, a few joined me for conversation, either sitting in the seat immediately in front of me, or beside me on the rear row.

“Now I see why you like it back here,” they said.

I am going to start posting a series of anecdotes about things I heard and learned while in China and Tibet.  When necessary, because of the political and social constraints there, I will do everything I can think of to disguise the people about whom I write, if I sense they might be subjected to reprisals because of my words.

Everyone will be referred to in the masculine gender and given a name I pull out of the air.

My sources:  my fallible memory, my almost indecipherable notes scribbled while riding in bouncing buses, and information imparted to us by various guides—heard by someone with noticable hearing loss who sat in the very back of the bus.  Plus, conversations with citizens and some online research.

Stay tuned, and don’t forget your promise.

The China Journals, What Makes a Trip a Success? Part One

Mexico

(This time last year I was on a Road Scholar tour in China and Tibet.  I've been trying to figure out how to tell you about three things that happened during that trip.  Today's news gave me the answer)

 The China Journals

What Makes a Trip Successful?

Part One

Television news today has been full of reports about the Italian Court overturning the murder conviction of American exchange student Amanda Knox, who has been in prison there for four years.

Ready, set, go!

It reminded me of a couple things—the caning of an American who was convicted in Singapore of vandalizing automobiles by spray-painting them.  Another American over-stayed his visa in Singapore and was facing caning.

How frightening, I thought, to be in trouble in foreign lands, unable to speak the language, dealing with unfamiliar legal systems.

The second thing I’ve been thinking about is Simon, our affable, talented, and knowledgeable tour guide in Australia.  Near the end of our trip, Simon was talking about his version of a successful tour, which differed from ours.

We, of course, thought about hot air ballooning at sunrise in the Outback, riding camels, and Uluru (also known as Ayers Rock.  We thought about Christy bungee jumping in Queenstown, New Zealand, to mark her 50^th birthday, and the fabulous Sofitel resort in Fiji where we stayed.

A perfect swan dive for her 50th birthday.

Simon’s concerns were more prosaic—no weather delays that would necessitate a scramble to find rooms for a large group, no illnesses, and so on.

And then he said, “I didn’t have to get anyone out of jail and there were no international incidents.”  I looked at him closely.  He wasn’t kidding.  Those things had happened before, he said.

Russia

While Amanda scurries to get out of Italy, I think of a few instances where tour guides have cautioned about certain things.  

In Russia, our guide told us not to ask a group of students about Chechnya.  “They are students,” she said, “not politicians.”

In Tibet, our guide sternly warned us against taking photos of the multitude of armed Chinese soldiers that were everywhere.  There would be consequences, she said.  And, when we visited the Potola Palace, she stressed the importance of our entire group exiting the palace in sixty minutes or less.  She would be fined if we went overtime.

Germany

But, unlike Simon, I look for other indicies to proclaim a trip successful.  In the next three days, I will tell you about the three things that made my trip to China and Tibet a resounding success.  Be advised:  Those three things are not what you would think.

(to be continued)

Mexico

Valentine's Day Postprandials, Part Two

 (Continued from Part One)

 Death wish?  Me?  Impossible.  I couldn't have a death wish; I'm having too much fun to want to end it all.

Yet, right at the top of my shopping list was one item of incontrovertible evidence.  As I drove down L Street toward Spenard, I thought about all this and what it meant.  I remembered my last shopping trip to Anchorage, some six weeks ago.

I'd needed a new pair of indoor shoes, something easy-on, easy-off, with no laces.  I pushed my shopping cart  past the shoe department at Fred Meyer's and saw a bunch of sale signs, along with bright gold coupons for additional savings.

And there they were, the perfect indoor shoes, marked down for sale, plus an additional discount with the coupon.

 Cool, snazzy, and unusual.  No laces, no Velcro straps.  Slip on, slip off.   And, if I happened to forget and wore them outdoors, the soles were waterproof.

 There was just one peculiarity about these shoes. 

These are the new rage.  They're called "fitness shoes" or "wellness shoes."  They're also known as rocker-style shoes "because the negative heel (lower than the toe) and curved bottom results in a gait that, the companies claim, improves posture and creates a natural instability that forces your buttocks and thighs to work harder."

"Natural instability." On sale or not, I don't need rocker style shoes to give me "natural instability."     Whatever athletic abilities I once possessed have long since been left on playing fields of many kinds.
 

That might have something to do with why my tour guide in Tibet almost fainted when I climbed up this rock wall .....







...to photograph these flowers:

The shoes also are supposed to increase calorie burn, and since my get-ready-to-hibernate-for-the-winter metabolism has resulted in regaining half of the weight I lost last summer, I'm all for increased calorie burn.

Once at home, I slipped them on.  Ahhhh. I've never put on a pair of Dr. Scholl's shoes yet that didn't feel wonderful.  I survived five hours of walking around, up and down stairs, in and out of the garage.  I didn't fall once.

Nothing to it, I thought.

Then I started a shopping list for my next visit to Anchorage, the one I was reading now, the one with the evidence pointing towards a death wish.

I reached the store I needed and walked inside.

"May I help you?"  asked a nice young man as soon as I entered.

I told him what I was after.

"For yourself?" he said.

"Yes.  I need another concussion," I replied.  He laughed and led me to the right area of the store.  That's where I chose these:

The clerk and I walked up to the cash register with my selection, where I handed over my credit card and and a handful of those foil-wrapped Valentine's Day chocolates.  They brought a smile, a very soft, tender, slightly abashed smile.

Then I stopped a lady with two children and gave her some candies.  Another lady with three kids got a handful, also.  "Here," I said.  "If I don't give these away, I'll eat them.  Happy Valentine's Day."  Well, does one really need an excuse to give heart-shaped candy to strangers on Valentine's Day?

Then some to another clerk.  Everybody in the store was smiling as I walked out the door into the sunshine.

Death wish?  I don't think so.  Just some more adventure and memories of a childhood spent ice skating on the pond behind our home in Woodland Park.

That's me pulling the sled with my two little sisters on it.  My younger brother is in the fur hat in front of me.  Don't know who the other kid is.  That's funny....the big bank on the top right doesn't seem to be as tall as I remember.  Must be an optical illusion.

(to be continued)