Trials of another sort

Delving back into my mind I slip past Tuesday and enter into Monday in my attempt to find a valued experience worth relating... I'm sure a couple exist.

The hour has passed and the moon begins its silver arc down the bottom half of the sky. Norm, Karl, Robin and I sit uncomfortably on the wooden sunbed firmly planted in the silky soft sand shifting beneath our feet. Norm's hands beat out an irregular, yet steady beat as the drum speaks to the wind and mingles with the crashing surf. There is no doubt who will win in that contest of endurance and power, yet his hands continue their path through the seams of music and the contest endures. Karl compliments the setting, more weary than in previous nights, but his classical guitar streams out flamenco as bright and pure as the silver arrows flickering on the crests of those slightly surging waves. With my head falling between the notes of nature and experienced fingers, I rest my mind and relax my soul.

We left Palolem Wednesday morning on a voyage up the world to another beach, Anjuna, land of the forgotten salesman. That sorrowful face who reappears every wednesday to try his fate against the horde of callous moneyholders who don't realize how little time he has to win bread for his family's survival in the next lowseason. I do realize, and yet retain my callousness proudly. Sticking to my firm conviction that you should never wear shoes within a kilometer of the beach I wander through the rainbow colored stalls, 4olb sack biting into my shoulders as my attention wanders and returns, searching for those items which flit from consciousness to reality, brushing past Kashmiri hawkers, bikini clad adventurers and Tibetan silversmiths. Each irregular stone bites into my beleaguered feet but stubborness does wonders for endurance. Finally finding my way to a Canadian hippie's leather stall, I fortuitously find the leather hip satchels I'd been searching for the past few months and make my one nonconsumable purchase for the next few weeks. After a spirited discussion regarding the "police states" of America and Canada we part our ways and I rejoin my slightly annoyed companions, who deigned to show up 15 minutes early at the ordinated time. Obviously they did not understand how Indian time works and chose to use their watches rather than their internal organs and the sun to dictate their timetables. Having found potential parties, Norma and I part ways with our erstwhile companions, wishining them well and begin our solo journey to find accomadation down even more pebble strewn paths.

The party never appeared... wandering from bar to bar, club to club, meeting other unfortunate Magellans, we begin our trek home down the moonlit beach. All of a sudden my abnormal, and slightly psychic senses pick up a taste of bass over the crashing of the waves. Stopping on the beach at the head of a short trail from which only fields and trees could be seen, my ears tune to the sound, du du du du... silence... a whisper in the night, one which my exasperated comrade wants to ignore in his search for the peace of sleep. Luckily, I am far less "wimpy" and choose to follow the thrumings of the earth to their source. Perhaps in kindness but more likely in fear for my life, Norm decides to join in my quest. "Do you know how far sound can travel at night?" should have been a question I paid more attention to when we began, yet after the first few steps and the definite retrieval of those deep frequency waves from the atmosphere, my heart was set and my soul in motion. Still barefoot we set off, down darkened lanes, beneath shadowed trees, across moony fields of snakes and cow manure, up stony paths of pain and misery, our travails finally paid off, finally bore fruit, when all of a sudden, the sounds, so promising from afar, grew and encompassed us. In eden they talk of nice apples and the occasional scantily clad female depending on how many times you wanted to turn 360 degrees. In front of us blossomed a scene from another eden. One which expanded and contrasted with the glow of laser lights against the canopy of the jungle, where the red sand of the dirt mixed with the sweat of undulating bodies crisp in the darkness of the fallen moon. Where the relentless pounding of the speakers bounced waves of music to crash against those more natural brethren of the ocean 6 km distant. Our journey complete, we settled into the hilarity of our arrival upon this rave of indefinite proportions, where beautiful women danced in spheres of isolation next to the ironclad bodies of those tan conquerers of the sun.

Success.

Falling into the pounding of the Earth, I barely noticed when the sun clipped the edge of the trees from their anonymity, or when the clouds spoke in tones of red and blue. Only the beat preached to me, its rythym carrying me in turns and circles, beyond dimensions of sanity and rationality. I danced, and was free. Well, until Norm tapped me on the shoulder, reminded me it'd been 30 hours since we'd last slept, and guided me to the taxi we bartered to fit 8 people into, and led me home. Dawn arrived, and left, and arrived again, or so I believe.

Somehow, with some people, the cycle reoccurs and hangs out, then says see you later, only to stop by again... So it is with the two of us. Somehow we always end up on buses 10 minutes from breaking down, heading down hills with no brakes on the wrong side of the road, glimpsing magnificent forts on hills and eating food made to tempt man from the realm of healthiness. To say I do such things on my own would not be a lie, but when I continually end up with my life above my hands, out of reach, clambering of the cliffs of riverbeds while surrounded by some God's creations, whether manmade or natural, I begin to think there may be a similarity of motive and of presence. So it is.

With pictures I might elaborate, adding a thousand words for every captured moment, but then, I don't have any of those, except in my head. I wish I could relate to you a sunset in Hampi, where dozens of those of us who enjoy watching the sun slip behind its own shadow listened to a lonely Indian girl find her friends through the power of her voice as she sang to the gods who darkened the cliffs and spires of temple and monolithic statue. I don't think I can express to you laying on a marble surface as the guitar sings and the drum beats to the crash of the relentless surf while the sun lends its heat to the warmth of the cool beer sliding impatiently down a throat wet with the insignificance of time. Its not possible to give you a dance that pulsed and streamed through countless hearts from dusk until dawn and beyond, with feet red from the earth, and eyes black, blue and red from the sky. Who can describe a temple stolen from the pitch black of a mountain to form slender curves and squares of overwhelming complexity and outstanding quality. Can you see the bats as they stream away from the light of my torch, screaming in their voices of tiny fury as they echolocate past our placid and flinching heads. Unless you've been there you won't understand sleeping in a compartment of six elderly indians, waking and finding one leaning over you and your bag and watching nervously as he scratches his head and deciphers incredulity from the chaos of his beleagured thoughts while deciding whether to kick his wife out of his bed or not.

I have no pictures, and can not give you these images, but maybe these words will help.