My life on the road is winding down. I’ve been away from America for nearly two years now. I had only returned for a short trip last year when my mom died, and let’s face it, that wasn’t a visit. I always think about how if I had only known that that one day in August of 2013 was going to be the last time I’d see my mother alive that I would have hugged her tighter, kissed her, told her over and over again how much I loved her. If I had known she was going to die I never would have left. It had been my fear since I was a child that my mother would die when I was far away from her. China couldn’t have been farther away.
Now that August is nearly here, and my time is rapidly moving toward my year anniversary of being in Europe things are again coming to an end. Last week my work visa finished and I am no longer legal to work in the Czech Republic. I have moved from working visa back to a tourist visa allowing to remain for three months in the Schengen before I have to return to the U.S.
So what to do for the remaining two months? Well, it’s of course difficult to live for two months without making any money. Anyone whose worked for Czech wages knows that you don’t exactly make a ton of money in Prague. So it’s off to Poland for two weeks as a volunteer teacher and then the week following that it’s back to the Czech Republic for one final gig and then it’s nothing but wandering time. Since I will be on the East side of the Czech Republic I thought that I would explore a little of the Southern part of the country and eventually end up in the beautiful little Cesky Krumluv. I’m really wanting some lakes or even better- the ocean. Perhaps I can squeeze in a trip to Croatia or Slovenia before I leave, but I’m not sure where I’ll be able to get to. I’ll have to just take it one day at a time.
It makes me a little nervous taking it day to day during the height of the tourist season, but I’m a little nervous all the time. That’s anxiety for you- a real buzz kill. Still, even with the anxiousness I’m moving forward in some kind of direction.
There’s so much catching up to do with this blog. Filling in the missing pieces of the past two years, but I’ve nothing but time at this point.
Days before beginning my trip on the Great Ocean Road, and a week-n-a-half before my mother dies, I a sit in a beautiful park looking up at a blue sky. It is 34 degrees Celsius and it is hot. Next week there will be fires surrounding the city of Melbourne.
It is late January in Australia which is summer to those of us from the northern hemisphere. I’ve never experienced a sunny February since 1992 when I had lived in Hawaii.
Where does all of this take place? In the past or the present?
It’s always the past unless it is happening exactly when it is happening, and as I gaze at photos from a year ago, and you read this post possibly years from the date it was written, I write it as I again sit in a cafe in June. I’m sitting across from a new friend that is going to leave the city for a new life. This morning around 8 a.m. another new friend, left Prague. My heart feels a little heavy since when you live your life traveling (or partially traveling) you fall in love with people so quickly. The friendships are so precious- as if we had all known each other for years, but this is impossible. I used to ask myself, would we even be friends if we had met in another lifestyle, in the nine-to-five world, would the age differences and the cultures matter more in our daily relations? I stopped asking these questions because they are useless questions.
Friends are yet again leaving my life. Yes they are leaving, my life. It sounds selfish, but this is all from my perspective, and I only know what I see and feel within my periphery. They walk into and out of my life or I walk into or out of their life, but from my perspective. Once we separate everyone becomes a story, just like I am a story to them. It’s remarkable.
Lisa left Australia a week before I did. I had more time because in China as a teacher you get up to a month off during the winter holiday. It’s a huge perk. They offer this month break in many countries, the U.S. does not, so Lisa had to return to the states after two weeks. This left me with about four or maybe five days on my own.
We met a friend of a friend of Lisa’s in Melbourne. Craig. He was a nice guy, and a talented artist. He walked us all around the city of Melbourne at breakneck speed. He didn’t drive and so he was an expert walker. Craig introduced us to this beautiful park the Fitzroy Gardens in the city near to where we were staying.
After Lisa left and I returned from my Ocean road trip, I spent one day wandering around the city by myself and I finally found Gertrude street. Lisa did end up finding it before me, but I didn’t go with her that day preferring to loll about in the gardens instead of shopping. I’m not a shopper.
My favorite thing is to wander, take some photos, and then sit in cafes drinking coffee or drinking something while people-watching and writing in my journal. I’m jumping a little ahead- on my last day I spent the earlier part of my day with Craig.
Craig had walked me over into the Italian part of the city and we had these amazing watermelon granitas. A watermelon-lemon nonalcoholic crushed ice drink. They were so amazing, so refreshing we gluttonously had two each. Pellegrini’s Espresso Bar, the cafe where we had the ice drinks was built in the 1950’s and it had that wonderful 1950’s cafe design, and apparently it was the same interior as it was 58 ago. The seats at the bar and the checkered floor. “Come back to the Five and Dime Jimmy-Dean Jimmy-Dean”. It reminded me of the Italian cafes you find in San Francisco or New York.
Melbourne has an Italian and a Greek part of the city, it also has a Chinatown that is the oldest Chinatown in Australia. “Country-towns” all have a kind of movie appeal. As if it’s all a set, and you are the actor in the film. You travel to a foreign country, and then have lunch on the movie set of another foreign country, then go for a walk in another movie set foreign country, and dinner in yet another, and somehow the Greek town in Melbourne has a likeness to the Greek town in San Francisco, but you have a difficult time finding the Greek town in Greece. It’s true, we are all just folding over stories and illusions. I do enjoy the layers. I don’t think Prague has any of these. Everything thing in Prague is Prague- maybe on the outskirts, maybe some Russian parts. I’m not sure this is a new and extemporaneous thought.
I didn’t spend a lot of time wandering through Chinatown since I had been living in China during my time of visit, and Chinese food outside of China is never as good as Chinese food in China. As a side note I think San Francisco’s Chinatown can at times give you the closest idea of what it is really like in parts of China.
Craig took me to the sky view of the Eureka Tower, but because of the fires we were not able to see anything. He kept apologizing that we paid to go up to the top of the tower and there was no view. I said, that it wasn’t a problem that it was just preparing me for my return to China where I never had a view because of the pollution. Nothing could have prepared me for my return to China, not even my mother’s last e-mail. We are never prepared for the reality of death, even when we think we are waiting for it. In truth, the fires didn’t prepare me for the pollution either. When Lisa and I first left Oregon we drove through and visited Crater Lake. There had been terrible fires that year; it was August 2013. The skies were full of smoke and we could feel it in our skin, but fire is a clean smoke and the burning wood leaves a different residue. In China it is concrete and chemicals- forest fires don’t prepare you- a walk through a burning chemical plant would be more appropriate. I suppose you prepare for life the best way that you can and then walk through it with balance so you can catch yourself as you fall.
As soon as I had returned to China, and a day after I found out my mother had died, Craig sent me a photo from the tower because the smoke had cleared and he wanted me to see the view. Unfortunately, since my mom had died I didn’t see the photo till two or three weeks after he had sent it, but the kindness was not over looked. Kindness and thoughtfulness can never be overlooked. I had left Craig’s story in this story of my story. I don’t know how his story continued, but I kept the photos and the friendly e-mails.Now I write about him here in a story.
The last moments of my day in Melbourne and Australia were spent on Gertrude street in the Sila cafe, eating cookies, and drinking coffee, and writing. All of my favorite things. I had always wanted to be a beatnik, but felt I lacked the talent of words,and I was born about 30 years too late, but I did know how to drink coffee and too much wine plus I knew how to meet truly interesting and talented people. That was about as beatific as I could ever get.
I was particularly fond of this cafe because it reminded me of one of my favorite places in the world; North beach San Francisco in Cafe Trieste where Francis Ford Coppola wrote the God Father, and the where the beats, and the poets, writers and artists of the San Francisco Renaissance converged to create or cure a hangover or just hangout.
Writing these post from the past while in a present tense, yet thinking about the future, I am aware of the constant intersections as if life was a highway. The common cliche of the open road or the drive through life, and there are so many on and off ramps. We think we have maps, but they are often outdated, and even with modern technology we still don’t always know if we took the right turn. Not that it matters, because it’s all about the journey, right? I think a lot of the journey is about the people you meet and the things you do, and how open you are to the experiences offered.
What will you do with your one precious life? I ask myself constantly, and more so now that she’s gone, my mothers gone. I don’t ask myself so much what’s the right choice, I cat because I have to accept the choices I make. That’s not the right questions. The right question is what will I do with my precious short fragile life? What will I do today, and how much of it will be devoted to tomorrow?
You can’t really talk about Melbourne, Australia and not mention the graffiti. It’s everywhere and it’s excellent. In my humble opinion Prague could really use a lesson in graffiti from Melbourne (I’m living in Prague as I write this post. If you happen to wonder why I would randomly pick Prague as an example of bad graffiti). I’ve always liked street art even when to other’s it’s considered vandalism. To me if it says something, if it’s done well, then it’s valuable- then there are the shitty tags. You know the kind. The true vandalism. There’s no point except to tag something and your tag or your scribble sucks. There’s so much of that in Prague I just consider it a mess that ruined a beautiful building for nothing.
But… Melbourne, wow, what an art scene.
Almost any alleyway offered up something special. There were so many different styles.
There were spray paint and stencils, instillations, and poster art, and stickers.
Hell, they even had collage.
Some of this work was found around the St. Kilda area, but much of it was found when we were lost trying to find Gertrude street.
I don’t think I need to say much since the art speaks for itself.
In all honesty, I didn’t do any research before going to Australia. My friend sent me a message about how we should meet up in Australia, and I said yes. I bought a plane ticket, I reached out to my few Aussie, and Tassie friends, they hooked me up with places to stay and recommendations and then that was it. My friend Lisa did much of the research on what to do and where to stay. I felt like after spending six months in China that a trip to Australia was going to be so easy- and I was so right.
I’m happy Lisa put more into it because without Lisa’s research we may never have stayed in what I consider the best part of Melbourne. St. Kilda is a little distance from the center of the city, but worth the commute. It felt like a place completely separate from Melbourne, which I imagine it is to some extent. I’ve already mentioned that I liked Melbourne, and there were many great parts of the city, but St. Kilda was my favorite.
It wasn’t just because of this creepy fun park with the nightmarish clown mouth that you walk into, Sydney also had a Luna Park, but it helped with the setting. I had heard from some people that St. Kilda was once a pretty aggressive area. It makes me think of Dog Town when Southern California beach towns were tough and surfers weren’t the pretty groomed boys and girls of the magazines, but actually more gang like and territorial. I don’t know if that’s really what it was like, but you can tell that it’s still a little rough around the edges. I personally like that; the rough around the edges part. I tend to think rough around the edges is another way of saying creative and edgy.
No one wants to live in a place where they feel unsafe, but you also don’t want everything to look like the cookie cutter idea of happiness. I think you always need a little bit of wild to remind yourself that life is unpredictable and chaotic; everything else is just a facade. I guess to be more specific, once money and image comes into a neighborhood the rules and regulations get tighter. That once awesome muralist that would paint amazing paintings on the wall is suddenly a criminal, all because one person with more money moved into the neighborhood and doesn’t like the way it looks. Or the local market that would once give away food that was going to go bad to homeless people is suddenly fined because that new posh business that just moved into the neighborhood doesn’t like having homeless people around because it’s bad for business, or that local rock club that has been around for decades has to shut down because some real estate mogul has come in and bought up the property and wants to build condos for vacationers and he doesn’t care what happens to the local neighborhood because he doesn’t even live there, and so on. There’s still homelessness, there’s still crime (or new crimes have been created through new laws) you just can’t see any of it because they pushed it into another neighborhood. That’s what I mean about the facade.
I suspect St. Kilda will head the direction of tourist and vacation destination and price increases. I imagine it has already seen some price increases. It’s too bad it couldn’t stop right about where it is just floating between once rough and now up-in-coming that’s always the best time.
Judging by the architecture and some of the old photos of the area it was originally a pretty wealthy place, a fun palisade for the wealthier folk of Melbourne to come and visit for their summer holidays. But as happened to so many places at the turn of the century, it went from a Victorian playground for the rich to a red light district. Something happens and it falls into neglect and disrepair and eventually it becomes dangerous like Coney Island or Santa Cruz boardwalk. Those places were both scary in the 70’s and 80’s just watch The Warriors. All they wanted to do was make it back to Coney Island. Maybe it’s all just a crazy cycle.
One thing that we got to experience while we were there was the St. Kilda festival. Nine days of music and art. It doesn’t get more spectacular then that really. We watched several bands, and wandered into many galleries. To me music and art are basic fundamental parts of life just like food and shelter. We need it in order to really feel alive. We are nourished and then we express ourselves. If you really want to see what’s happening in a city check out the music and art scene. Is it exciting and new, refreshing, and surprising or is it something you can see on vevo or any manufactured pop scene?
I didn’t take many pictures of the bands, but I loved this colorful girl group that called themselves We Love the 90’s or something like that. I didn’t realize the 90’s were so bright and poppy, but maybe I wasn’t paying much attention back then.
And, of course we had to see some metal. We stayed about three nights in St. Kilda in a nice hotel just a few blocks from the beach. Even after we left and stayed in another part of town, I returned to take a final walk on the beach. I mean, just take a look at that sunset. It’s like it’s something straight out of a last days of summer motif.
I’m sitting in a cafe in Prague as I write this post about an exhibit that took place over a year ago. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, when my mother died last year, I really felt like it didn’t matter whether or not I posted anything here about my trips. Especially my trip to Australia. This is because three days after I returned back to China my mom was found dead in her apartment, and I felt so angry with myself for not being there with her, or at the very least sending her that e-mail I had promised. The e-mail that would have told her all about my trip. I didn’t want to talk about the trip because I was so mad at myself for going. The truth is I had a great time in Australia, and I was really happy there and if my mom had lived, I would still have been happy with the memories. I would have told her all about it.
This blog is no substitute for sending an e-mail to my mother, but I feel a little melancholy with the idea that all my life experiences will just fade into obscurity when I die. I mean they could be lost in the obscurity of the web, but I’m okay with that because the illusion that I’m sharing something of my life makes me feel like I’m a part of the story. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I’m still working out this whole “what to do with my one life” thing. I think of Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day, and I wonder, yes, what am I supposed to do with this life other than love being a part of it. What am I supposed to do? Is it greedy to want more? Is it too much to request that I experience the best of this world and die with that? I hope not. So why hold back on sharing the stories even if obscurity is the future.
If I had to be asked what I liked more Sydney or Melbourne, I’d have to pick Melbourne. I know they’re kind of rival cities, and I know that there are arguments for liking Sydney more, but the best way I can say it is that Melbourne was more my speed. Sydney has better beaches, but Melbourne had something special. A vitality, and an energy like something was being created. Sydney had that suit feel: All business and then some expensive partying at night. Everyone is beautiful, successful, and making money. I understand that this appeals to people, but it’s not my thing. I like real spontaneity and spark. I like the idea that things are not finished yet and its all still a grand work in progress. A place where you can take risks because failing is only part of the process. I don’t think this risk taking and allowance for failure is in Sydney so much because it already has the image to upkeep and when image becomes more important than process, I think it gets a little boring. But, what do I know, I was only there for a week.
While I was in Melbourne there was an interesting exhibit going on at the National and International Art galleries of Victoria. I really enjoyed the National Gallery (NGV) because it was all Australian artists and all interactive. There was work from artists all over the country including Aboriginal art.
And, since it was interactive you could literally walk on some of the pieces, in fact, you were invited to.
In the International Gallery you had famous pieces from artists like Warhol and Lee Krasner. I was excited to see an original Krasner piece since a lot of her work has been overshadowed by her husband Jackson Pollock (mainly by her own choice since she wanted to foster him as an artists).
So much time has passed since I went to this exhibit, that I have lost the names of the artists. I have them somewhere in a journal hidden under piles of clothes in un packed suitcases. This is how I’ve been living for almost two years, unpacked and uncertain but moving, moving, moving- on. As soon as I find the names I will update this post.
I think some of my favorite work was the video work and of course the photography. I’m a huge fan of the film genre- moving and still.
I’m not the kind of person that can really tell you what’s happening in a painting. I lack the vocabulary, but something about the medium of film really speaks to me even some of the most abstract work.
I don’t know how long my friend and I stayed in the gallery, but it was an almost all day event. I think we did both the National and International one in the same day. It was well worth it. There were many pieces I didn’t take pictures of because I’m not really big on taking pictures of art. It isn’t a motto, it’s just that I forget because I’m more interested in just looking at it, and I rarely feel like I capture it well in a photo.
The final photo below is from an alleyway near the gallery. Melbourne has some of the most amazing and creative street art that I’ve ever seen. I took this picture while we were planning our next activity.
It is interesting how little of my trip remains in my memory especially since I had enjoyed it so much. I assume it has to do with my mother. I lost some of my joy. I think my mom would be sad to know that I had lost some of my joy because of her, but to her I would say, “what do you expect woman? I love you and you’re gone.” Still, I should reach back for some of those memories and those joys. I had never thought I would ever go to Australia. It had seemed so far away, and since I never have any money I had thought, I’ll never be able to go, but I was there. And, now I’m here in Prague writing about being in Australia. It’s ungracious to not revel in the memories of a joyful time of travel. It is ungracious to me and to my mother. So, a year after her death, I can say, “Mom, I had a really good time, and I’d like to have more.” I’d like to tell her all about it, but I’ll just have to settle with the ubiquity of the web.
So more tales from the travels of the past, as the travels of the future are dreamed about in the travels of the present. To the open road. No one can express the joy of travel more than Whitman.
You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.
Not too long after my mother died, my friend Wu Shao bo who calls himself Shawn, (many Chinese people will pick an English name when they are young) suggested that we should go to Huashan together. I agreed and he invited his friend Liu Xiang Kai, who I call Xiang Kai (Xiang sounds like Shee-ang) to join us.
The trip to the mountain although considered a sacred mountain was not meant to be a spiritual trip. After my visit to Shaolin, I had let go of the idea of China’s sacred places as being sacred. This was modern China, and much of the spiritual part of the journeys to places like the five sacred mountains, and Shaolin, along with any of the many buddhists temples were now commodities bought and sold to tourists. You could still find the faithful buddhist burning incense and saying prayers, but for what seemed like the majority of Chinese tourists prayers involved a camera of some sort. You could think that nature itself was some kind of spiritual experience, but the crowds and the litter that they brought with them, was too overwhelming to be able to absorb the majesty of the mountains. Eco- tourism is also huge in China and thousands of Chinese are flocking to mountain hikes, and gorges, and valleys for adventure and for photo ops.
Not to tear apart modern China, but up until about twenty years ago these mountains were hiked by monks, pilgrims, and occasionally hiking enthusiasts Chinese or otherwise who new or the secrets of the mountain. Today with the budding commerce of tourism and eco-tourism, and the fact that more and more Chinese have some leisure time, nature has become a literal stomping ground. China calls itself a communist society, but it has also embraced capitalism. I often saw many parallels between American capitalism and Chinese capitalism. I fully believe if Americans had the same population size as China that we too would destroy our own national forests. There are of course many, many, conscientious Chinese people who honor the earth, and do not like to see their beautiful country littered and polluted and they take measures to not add to the destruction , but for every 5 conscientious Chinese you have about 20 who don’t give a shit or think someone else will clean up the litter. In America our numbers are smaller, but the fact that there is an almost daily battle to preserve the land, it would not surprise me that if we had a population as large as China’s that we too would have an uneven balance of entitlement versus preservation. There are other factors involved of course, but the reality is that this once sacred and very dangerous mountain is not that sacred, but still very dangerous.
There are five sacred mountains in China, Taishan the East mountain in the Shangdong province, Hengshan the South mountain in the Hunan province, Hengshan the North mountain in the Shanxi province, Song Shan the Center mountain in Henan province, and Huashan the West mountain in the Shaanxi province. I had been to Song Shan when I had visited the Shaolin Temple. Hua Shan was close enough to travel to in a day, but it’s reputation was that of the five sacred mountains it was China’s most dangerous. It’s difficult to find numbers as to how many casualties have occurred on Mount Hua. My friend had told me that you can’t find any numbers because they don’t want to decrease the numbers of tourists, but with the sketchy conditions, and the large, large hiking populations by inexperienced climbers, and days of bad weather I’m sure the number is not small. I fit into a number of the above categories, and had a few moments where I felt like I couldn’t hold on, but my life literally depended on my keeping my grip. My life and the lives of about 50 people nose to ass beneath me.
As an outsider to China it is easy to attach myself to the romantic connotations associated with ancient Chinese traditions, Daoist beliefs and Buddhist rights of passage. Like some scene from Seven Year’s in Tibet or The Rivers Edge, I pictured myself reaching the peak of the mountain, and when in a moment of reverie the sunlight would break through the clouds or rise over the crest, and I would be filled with a sense of peace and gratitude and a higher understanding of what life is about or why we are here, why I am here, and then I’d feel a dawning acceptance of my mother’s death, and I’d understand- no- not understand but I’d know that it is beautiful. That death like life is beautiful. Sadly, but not surprisingly to say, I did not reach my zenith, I was not awash in enlightenment; I was achy and irritable. In retrospect, I’m a little disappointed I’m not writing a post about my spiritual awakening, but then again, perhaps my journey was to feel exactly what I felt; achy, despondent, irritable, depressed, and still, always still, grieving, and wanting my mother to be alive.
Although, as I mentioned above, that I did not view it as a spiritual exploration I still grabbed some of my mom’s ashes and put them in my back pack. I decided to take her with me. She never got to travel in her life and I thought I could take her with me now. If I made it to the peak then I would leave that little part of her there on that mountain top. It would be the closest I’d ever get to the stars (Everest is not in my future). If I made it.
Shawn didn’t have a lot of money so he insisted that we take the cheapest slowest train. Although, knowing Shawn I think even if we had money he would insist we take the slowest and the cheapest. On the fast train we could have made it to HuaShan in about three or four hours, but on the very slow train it took us about 8 to 9 hours. We did the overnight train. The idea was to sleep on the train and then to start our hike in the morning. If you have ever traveled on a Chinese train in a non-sleeping compartment you’ll know sleeping on the train is not that easy unless of course you are Chinese. I’ve discovered that Chinese people in China can sleep anywhere. On the sidewalk, on their e-bikes, bent over or smooshed between seats. They are like cats able to find any place as a suitable place for sleep. I had often been overcome with jealousy at this ability since I find it so difficult to sleep sometimes even when I am in a bed in a dark room. The train was packed. On these trains once the seats are all sold they continue to sell seats so sometimes there are people standing in the isles for up to eight hours. People are constantly switching seats around every time someone leaves in the hopes that they can sit for a couple of minutes. When you are sitting you have people leaning against you or over you. It is a crowded that most Americans in America will not ever experience. We were in a section of six seats. Two rows of three facing each other. Shawn and I were able to sit across from each other but Xiang Kai had to find a seat somewhere else on the train. I am bigger in size than your average Chinese woman, but I am also smaller in size and sometimes width of your average Chinese man. All the seats were occupied by men, sleeping men who had spread out as much as they could in the spaces available leaving me with very little room, and since I did not have the Chinese power of sleeping I was awake for the entire 8 to 9 hour train ride. This is not the way I would recommend prepping for hiking the most dangerous of the five sacred mountains.
Erqi Tower in Erqi Square, Zhengzhou, Henan, China.
Xiang Kai and Shawn in front of Erqi Tower, Zhengzhou.
Snacks for the hike.
Zhengzhou Central Station after midnight.
We boarded the train around 1:00 am and arrived around 8:30. We took a taxi from the station to the town at the base of the mountain, and began our hike around 9:00 a.m. We had three large bottles of water, some strange meat paste, a few bready bits of snack food, and a bag of spicy chicken feet. I kept thinking shouldn’t we have some trail-mix or something?
Chicken feet
For hard core hikers the beginning of HuaShan is not much of a hike in the sense that it is paved for a large portion of the lower part. You do not disappear into the mountains you stick to the path. Once you ascend deeper into the mountain the hike becomes more of a challenge and more of a climb and sticking to the path becomes necessary to keeping yourself alive.
There are steps on Hua Shan. These steps were carved deep into the mountain’s side thousands of years ago, all by hand, and by the monks that would make their pilgrimages to the top where they could meditate. On the side of the steps chains have been drilled into the mountain for you to hold as you pull yourself up. You need upper body strength to help you on the climb. Upper body strength that at times I thought I might not have.
ancient carved steps
Compared to most saturdays it was not very crowded by Chinese standards of crowds. It had been a rainy night and it was cloudy and grey. On one hand it was nice because you had a small bit of breathing space (to me it was still very crowded but I was aware of what a real crowd in China was) perhaps during our climb there were about 200-300 people climbing Hua Shan that day but at night during our descend hundreds of new climbers were making the midnight treck. In total maybe 800 people were on the mountain. Oh, and the thing of Hua Shan: there is only one path up and one path down. When you are coming down and they are coming up you literally have to crawl over one another− crawl over one another 1,000 meters high on a steep mountain side with wet steps and cold thick metal chains, and you are climbing backward. You get the picture. The downside of the rainy day was that the steps were wet and slippery and at times the dark clouds dropped so low around the mountain that you could not see two feet in front of you. Then you had to climb over someone, I need to add, without any safety harnesses or safeties of any kind.
A lying Buddhist
The base of the mountain
Mountain base
A Chinese mythical creature
The gate to the mountain
The park before the hike
Xiang Kai and I preparing to fight the mountain spirits
It took us another eight hours climbing vertical steps, sometimes through wet caves and on the edges of steep cliff sides. Shawn was our guide and he wanted to race to the top of the mountain. Often criticizing Xiang Kai and I if we wanted to sit for a moment or if we were moving too slow. I was grateful to have Xiang Kai on my side. Shawn was the adventurer climbing the mountain to defeat it, to reach the top a conquerer, and to reach the bottom in the fastest time possible. I’m not this person. I wanted to sit and reflect and bask in the nature, and the multitudes of people, around me. I did want to meditate, and reflect. I did want to absorb, but between the crowds and Shawn’s constant pushing us hiking Hua Shan felt more like a simulated virtual wii game than an actual hike and journey. I didn’t know what was in Xiang Kai’s mind except that he wanted to stop and sit as much as I did, and he would shoot me looks of disdain and irritation. Ignore him, he’d say from time to time, let’s sit, make him wait.
Burning incense and prayers
Prayers
A mountain of ribbons and locks for luck.
These men hike daily back and forth up to part of the mountains to deliver food and water to the shops and hotel.
The gate to the beginning of the real climb
When we reached a peak we did take a moment to take a million photos, but also to just sit and be. It wasn’t easy to reach the peaks (unless you took the tram that I didn’t know about but explained how some Chinese girls were able to hike in flats and skirts) and when we would reach a peak the crowds would disperse and only 20 to 30 people were able to reach certain points. We went from the north peak to the west peak and to the south peak reaching 2,080 meters.
The first set of stairs.
The top of the first set of many stairs
The stairway to heaven
This was a crazy vertical climb and took a lot of upper body strength and courage. This was after climbing many other steep and long stairs carve into the mountain’s rock walls.
Ancient step carvings possibly thousands of years old.
By the time we reached the top the sun was beginning to set and only five other people had made it to the top at the same time as us. It was cloudy but beautiful. Hiking to the north peak at 1,000 meters was the highest I had ever hiked, 2,000 meters had never happened in my life. I still thought the entire hike was absolutely crazy and badly planned, but I had survived the ascent and was now 2,080 meters above the sea level. Here I took a moment to pull out mom’s ashes and let her small bits of dust and bones catch onto the breeze and float away. It was actually more like that scene in The Big Lebowksi when they throw Danny’s ashes into the ocean and the wind blows the ashes all over them.
Shawn and I at the South Peak
Me and my mother’s ashes
As I dusted mom’s ashes of my sweatshirt I giggled because of course that would happen, and with my mom’s dark humor she would have been laughing. In fact we laughed so hard during that scene that she started coughing. This memory made me feel sad once again. Shawn asked me why I would bring some of my mother’s ashes to the mountain. “She’s not Chinese,” he said. I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “She’s never been able to come here before, I wanted her to get the chance to travel.” I didn’t really know. Part of her was in the California Feather river, part of her was in the Trinity National forest, and the Pacific ocean, part of her was in the San Francisco bay, I didn’t know why. In death she had already been to more places than she ever went to in her life.
Xiang Kai and I at the North Peak
Shawn and I
If you look carefully you can see all the people walking on the blade of a mountain pass. This is 1,000 meters up.
Success
A small spot for meditation
But, not an easy space to get to.
It was seven when we reached the top and the sun had set. It was now dark on a steep dangerous mountain and we needed to reach the bottom. There were some lights, but not many. Shawn informed me that this mountain was a really popular hike for college students, but most of them liked to hike up at midnight and then stay the night on the north peak in order to see the sun rise. He said we should do it the next time. As romantic and as peaceful as that sounded in words the reality sounded terrible. Hundreds of flashing camera’s trying to simultaneously get the perfect shot of the sunrise.
“Maybe off off season,” I said.
Through foggy woods
Wishes thousands of meters high.
A wish for peace
The only lights to guide us back down from 2,000 meters
At the time of writing this post there are six hours left until the New Year begins; for me that is. My friends in Australia and New Zealand have already seen the date change.
I think that if it were not for one event in my life, and a major event it was, I would chalk up 2014 to being challenging, but pretty thrilling, and damn- for lack of a better adjective: interesting. But, there was the main event that just broke my heart in a so-far-irreparable way: my heart was shattered. No one wants their parents to die (almost no one) and no one wants to know that that precious parent was found dead alone on a bedroom floor, and no one wants to know that that parent died of a drug overdose; prescription or otherwise. Yet, at the end of the year no matter how that loved one died, death is death. That life is over and you just have to let it go, and keep living.
In all honesty, I haven’t really dealt with it too much. When the thoughts of my mother rise, my brain goes into emergency mode: “You can’t think about it. Don’t think about it. You are not in a safe place. There is no passage here. Avoid it. Avoid those thoughts!” And so I mostly do.
Well, this is the New Year. I’m in Prague and the snow has fallen. Time is ticking and my year is nearly over- not that life is really gauged in years, but it’s a great way to write out a list.
2014
New Year’s Eve in Zhengzhou, China. The night starts out at Maddie’s with Bobby. We have too many drinks and go to Muse, a little smoky dance club next to Maddie’s apartment. Maddie leaves at a reasonable hour, but Bobby and I stay the whole night, have to climb stairs in the morning, and we wake up on Maddie’s couch. Bobby is covered in Gummie Bears. He fell asleep on them.
January
I travel to Ho Chi Minh City and meet a new friend who I had been communicating with via Facebook. We were on similar journeys. Took a trip on the Mekong River: One of my favorite moments in Vietnam.
Met up with a dear friend in Australia. We met new and great people in Sydney and Melbourne.
Sydney
February
The 13th read a message from my mother. She was excited to hear about my trips to Vietnam and Australia. I wrote her back saying I would write on the 16th.
14th back in Zhengzhou.
16th forgot to send an e-mail to mom.
19th around 10:00 p.m. in Chico, California: Mom dies.
20th around 2:00 p.m. after school, Zhengzhou, China: Get a strange message to contact one of mom’s friend’s. Skype to find out my mother died.
21st Fly to San Francisco, CA. Stay a night with a friend before another, my best childhood friend, Rachelle, comes to pick me up and drive me to Paradise, California.
22nd another of my best friends, Rosi, comes from Seattle to help me with mom’s funeral arrangements.
23-24 We pick up mom’s things from the police. Have her cremated. I don’t see her body (not sure if this was good or bad since I haven’t seen her since August of 2013). We clean her apartment with mom’s best girlfriends. She had really loving girlfriends just like I do.
25th- My birthday begins with cleaning mom’s apartment: she had so much shit. A regular little horder. My best friend Rosi and my mom’s friends kick me out of the apartment. Rosi says, “what do you want for your birthday?” I say, “I want to go to the psychic, Madame Ruby, who lives across the street.” I’d seen her neon palm in the window since I was a little kid.
Rosi leaves, and Sara N. comes from Portland. We pick up mom’s ashes and Rachelle and her husband drive us to Eureka to spread mom’s ashes. My only knowledge of the place is that it was her only place of positive childhood memories. We spend the night in Eureka and then drive to Trinadad. We hike up the mountain and throw some of her ashes into the wind above a dramatic pacific ocean. I don’t know what she would want. She didn’t plan on dying so soon. Some things are hard to plan.
Dad comes to visit and drives me around Chico to the places where mom and him met and the first place they lived.
I give some of mom’s ashes to her girlfriends, and put a few ashes in Chinese stacking dolls for me.
Last day of school
March-July
One last night in San Francisco before returning to Zhengzhou, China
Shao Boa, and Xiang Kia take me to Hua Shen, and we hike one of the most dangerous mountains in China. I toss some of mom’s ashes off of the sacred mountain. Now that she’s dead she can travel.
Hua Shan
Apple takes me to Luoyang and we visit the Longmen Grottoes and hike in a gorge outside of the city after being stuck in what may have been the craziest country Chinese traffic jam ever.
School ends.
Longman Grottoes
My students take me to Kaifeng for a three day trip. Me and five 16 year olds on e-bikes.
Kaifeng with some of my students
July- August
I work at a new school.
Trip to Xi’an and meet a new friend: Leslie a fabulous scientist! See one of my childhood dream sites: The Terracotta Army.
Terracotta warriors
August
Leave China.
One day and night in Seoul, Korea.
Seoul
Arrive in Prague, CZ.
Prague
September
TEFL training and certificate.
Visit Viktoria in Switzerland.
Switzerland
October
Go to Cesky Krumluv and Ceske Budejovice
Can’t decide if I want to stay in Prague
November
Decide to stay. Begin visa process
Go to Poland for Angloville- 5 days
Warsaw, Poland
Go to Berlin for Visa application- 3 days meet another amazing woman.
Back to Prague and begin new job
Go to Brno, CZ for first teaching job
December
Malacky, Slovakia for work.
Trenčianske Stankovce, Slovakia for work.
It was midnight when I decided to visit the Krumlov castle. It was dark and cool. I only felt small twinges of fear as I ascended a curving stone staircase that lead from the medieval village toward the castle. There wasn’t a need for this fear because the castle grounds were safe. It is not a common experience, for me, to feel able to wander alone in the darkness safely. I stopped to look through the black bars of an iron fence that was on both sides of the small bridge that preceded the main doors to the castle. On either side of this bridge 6 to 7 meters down (roughly 20 feet) were the bear pits. The famous bear pits. Not just famous to the castle but famous to me personally. To myself and friends from Garmisch, famous to the memory of a lost friend. Alex had fallen into the bear cage over 16 year’s ago.
I had been living in Germany at the time. Alex and a few others from Garmisch had taken a trip to Cesky Krumlov. I’m not certain exactly what had happened, but what I had heard was that he had been climbing on the wall and slipped and fell into the pit. He had broken his back, and it was amazing that he had survived. As I stared down and tried to gage the distance of his fall, I thought about the the bears’ reactions to this young German man falling into their dens. I felt a sudden wave of sadness. He had survived that fall, but five year’s later he would die in an avalanche. Too many young people from Garmisch had already died. Alex, Carley, Stephano, Sue…my dear friend Sue. There had been others.
I left the pit and wandered aimlessly the length of the castle. I thought of ghosts and history. I had the castle to myself for most of the evening aside from one couple that had followed behind me. They had their arms wrapped around each other for warmth and affection. They passed me as if I were invisible. I was an apparition silently standing in a haunted the palace. While I walked the streets of Krumlov after midnight, I felt like I could lose my fight or flight awareness that I had to carry with me when walking at night alone. It was exhausting always thinking of an escape route. Here I could just be with myself in the peaceful evening. The night itself is not bad, many beautiful things live in the darkness, it is man that makes the night terrifying.
The streets were narrow and each pathway took me through a a sliver of history that I did not know. I reached a church and began to walk the steps. Fresh urine dripped down the top of the stairs, the scent pungent and the piss was still inching over a step. It could’ve been a dog, it could’ve been a man. I heard a noise. I had a eerie feeling. I was probably being paranoid, but I decided to save the church for the next day. Still, my nervousness did not ruin my midnight explorations. I stood on a bridge and took pictures of the castle under the lights. Two drunk musicians were laughing and singing. One held out a beer to me. “Ne” I said with a smile.
In Czech he said, “you speak Czech?”
“Ne?” I said.
“Come have a drink with us!” He sang joyfully in English.
“Ne.” I said with a smile.
They shrugged and continued to weave and sing down the street toward a hidden pub.
I took one last night photo of a saint with the full moon in the background.
The idea of a native country, that is to say a certain bit of ground traced out on a map and separated from other bits by a red or blue line: no not for me, my native country is the country I love, meaning the one that makes me dream, that makes me feel well.
Gustave Flaubert
The Art of Travel, Alain De Botton
I am living in the Czech Republic, and I have 90 days to be here legally. Not only in the CR, but in all of the Schengen countries which covers most of Europe. When I was here in the late 90’s, the last hay days of the American dollar, if your tourist visa was about to run out, you could go to a neighboring country hang out for a while and then return to your desired country with a fresh new entry stamp. Those days are over. You have to go farther away and spend more money for that to work. If you become illegal in all of Schengen you will have an enormous fine and not be allowed to return to Europe for up to ten years. It is a race for the visas if a person wants to stay. I want to stay, and I know other Americans who are gambling with time for their visas and for the opportunity to stay in a place that is other then their birth place. It’s all politics and government.
When the ability to live where you have greater resources, or to have a better life for your children or to marry whom you love or just to live a new life in a new place is impeded by politics it doesn’t take an individual long to figure out how little they matter to politics, governments, and big corporate business, and you can feel very small and vulnerable. That’s how control works. Of course, everywhere in the world should be a good place to live, but this world is not equal.
Marek’s story was similar to mine except he was a Czech living in America. He had gone to America on a visa very much like I am doing now in the Czech Republic. He was lured to stay for romance which in my opinion can cause a human to take more risks. Most of the risks people take to live in a country other than their own comes from love. The love to be with someone, the love to take care of a family, the desire to have a better life for that family. A better life. Love for yourself. I don’t know why Marek had gone to the U.S. originally, but while he was there he met someone, and decided to stay. He became engaged to be married. Getting married and getting citizenship in a country other than your own is not an easy thing. You are often treated more like a criminal than a potential new citizen. It is a slow and long process. As Marek and his fiancé waited for the legal procedures his visa expired. He admittedly said he knew it went over, but he was going to be married, and was waiting for his green card, and he didn’t realize the consequences were more than a fine or the threat of deportation.
When it was discovered that Marek’s visa had expired he was arrested, and sent to a prison for 70 days. A prison with bars, and a number, and an orange jump suit. Not, because he had stolen, vandalized, raped or murdered, but because he overstayed his visa as he waited for his green card. He was 22 had never committed any actual crime, and he was sent to a state penitentiary. It wasn’t just the arrest or even some jail time that surprised me, what surprised me was the amount of jail time and that it was prison time. To me prisons should be used for real criminals, like rapists, child killers, murderers in general, companies that steal millions of dollars from people subsequently causing economic crashes and destroying lives- real crimes. I don’t understand why people who are illegal, whether they snuck across a boarder or overstayed a tourist or student visa, are being sent to prisons? Why not just deported? Does it cost more money to keep an illegal immigrant in our prisons then to deport them?
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Were these words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty ever true? I think, as I travel through this life, I gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be free. That this freedom can not be taken for granted, and many of those who believe they are free are not. Are our world boarders really protecting us? Protecting us from what? From people stealing our homes, our children, our dreams? Those things are stolen from us everyday from our backyards, our schools, our homes. It isn’t people who arrive illegally who take a person’s home away, it’s a very late mortgage payment and a bank that takes away that American Dream. Not one illegal Mexican repossessed an American citizen’s house. What is this freedom? Freedom is not about purchasing power it is about being able to make honest daily choices about how you want to live your life, raise your family, and how you want to love, it should also include where you want to live. The world is filled with plenty of successful unhappy people who believe they are free.
Marek got married while in a prison in America. He told me that he and his wife placed their hands on the glass that separated them, and he promised her that they would have a beautiful wedding once he was free. Marek obviously was free, and he came out of his 70 day’s in prison a new person with a new perspective on life. Life is precious, short, and can easily be stolen from you. He made simple promises to himself to spend time in the mountains, to appreciate life, to make the most out of it. To live now.
As I gathered up my belongings and paid my bill Marek showed me a picture from his wedding. The bride in a beautiful strapless white gown, and Marek in a dark suit kissing on a bridge with the Krumlov castle in the background, and a gorgeous pale blue sky. A fairytale wedding, as he had promised. Not everyone behind the prison glass gets to keep that promise because they are still waiting behind the prison glass.
At the point of writing this post, I still have time on my tourist visa, and if it was up to me I would have cut through the red tape, but it isn’t up to me, and the clock ticks as the days pass. It doesn’t matter that I’ve paid the required amounts to begin the work visa process all that matters is that the visa is approved before my time runs out. That is not up to me but, as far as I know, they are not arresting Americans for being illegal.
“There should be no boarders. We migratory creatures. We should be free to wander and free to stay. These “others” the corporate gods who live in the banks and government buildings high above our heads, they care nothing about us.They want to keep us in pig pens and call them boarders. They want to control our food, our water, who we love, how we love and live, and then they tell us to have pride while they make our pens smaller and tighter till we claw at one another. That’s not freedom that’s a factory farm.” – Annabelle, Zizkov
An Accidental Vagabond 