wabble, wabble

wabble, wabble, originally uploaded by kasias pics.

hiccup, hiccup, chug, wabble, wabble......I grinned at the tractor in front of me that had six wheels, 5 of which were of different diameters....wabble, wabble......and the passengers bouncing up and down on the slanted bench 10 feet above the ground.....but I grinned because the sky was a velvety lavender dipped in honey so golden it made the horizon melt in awe, and put me in a state of complete and utter ease. And this sunset had an expansive sky to fill which gathered the passing scenery into one cohesive whole. The poor soul's shoes that hung from the wire strung lazily across the road were just as much a part of the view as the women crossing the fields with bundles of firewood balanced perfectly on their head. As was the stink of black exhaust and the pains in my stomach and the bold colors worn by roadside pedestrians, contrasting beautifully with their dark skin. I am beginning to break the habit of compartmentalizing the experience of beauty and heartbreak, idylic realities and bite-your-lip-and-taste-the-blood realities, as if they belonged in different worlds - as if their worlds were not belonging to each other. Whether out of ignorance, idealism or some survival instinct, I had seperated my impressions of the natural landscape or dignified Masai from those of the begging mothers and mudstained storefronts. And even for three years I been able to somehow not see the telephone and electric lines that slashed the view of Mt. Fuji and the Southern Japanese Alps, or the shacks that surrounded the picturesque farm houses of old Japan. Well, they were seen but just got pushed to some other corner of my memory where webs gather dust. But somehow, whether it be the Muslim song floating on the darkened breath of every evening or the effort of grinding my own salt or the disappointment of a bus load of children having never arrived, I have cleaned out the corners and opened the space for my experience to remain intact and whole. Maybe its just too much effort to divide it up and try to make sense of it all. And so it is one reality: both the shoeless stranger sulking somewhere and the grand slopes of Mt. Meru cradling the women walking with wood at her base...and so it is, the tractor in front of me with wheels teetering this way and that, one cohesive whole......wabble, wabble.


*burlap painting by Abraham Khalid, and now hanging in my room