communication sous entendu

it does seem rather unlikely that i am in india, sitting barefoot in a dusty internet joint above the beep beeep, beepbeepbeep beep beeeeep street, gently perspiring into my gently clinging shirt, wondering where i am going to wee when the time comes. i speak next to nothing of tamil.  however, all the well-dressed young males on the street so far have been obliging and english-spoken when imparting information regarding buses.  after some bus information impartation, one youth inquired whether i was here on business and then inquired where i was from.  "ah scotland, very nice place"  i was thinking of what response i could give to this "very nice place" and the first thing that came into my mind was, it is cold in scotland.  i also thought, the streets are very peaceful and orderly in scotland.   what is a place if it is not different from other places?  i thought of Stirling Castle, the Myth of the Loch Ness Monster, the Pap of Glencoe, the Isle of Lewis, the town of St Andrews, the Standing Stones of Stenness, the Linn o' Dee, the Brig o' Balgownie... i brought to mind the image of all these places and surmised that that youth's comment was a fair one: Scotland is a very nice place.   he was probably referring to education and health care.   i took one look at the boys running after the crowded buses ahead and then jumping and grabbing onto the exterior railing, letting their feet dangle inches above the fast spinning road, and thought: i have always wanted to be in India.  disinterest in considerations of safety, grabbing on for dear life, palm trees and woman wearing beautifully swishing saris, sitting on the ground to eat, playing adroitly with the rice dish on one's plate, forming it into a pickupable ball before adroitly flicking it into one's mouth, just as matthias told me, in asha niketan, the l'arche community in chennai.   mary, the current head of the community rolled her head from side to side, as a gesture of welcome, of agreement, of complicity, of are-you-following-what-i-am-saying? just as matthais told me.   mary was draped stylishly in a rich dark green sari and rolled her head from side to side in a most captivating way.  i already had written to asha niketan a week before i arrived, but having received no response, i decided to phone them directly the second day after arrival.  the person on the line listened to my story and said "could you wait a minute?" then someone else came on the line who listened to my story and said "sorry could you say that again a little slower?" then after a while said to me: "yes, come any time you want"   i went through the gradations of directness of communication, from an email to a phone call to actually finding their address and walking in and shaking their hands.  an email is like waving to somebody from afar, from the other side of a wide river, phoning is also akin to waving from a certain distance, but much closer.  and presenting oneself directly in front, hand extended ... there were great handshakes full of friendly welcome as soon as i walked into their dusty strip of ground flanked by buildings, palm trees and young banana trees.  there was an instant acceptance, a quality handicapped people are famous and wonderful for.  i don't know if all of them realised that i spoke no tamil - one woman certainly did, for every time i crossed paths with her she would break into smiles of joy and exclaim gleefully: no tamil!   me not speaking tamil was the least of our concerns because there was so much joy in her eyes. with another call member (call members they are called in that community) i tried to imitate the sounds he was making which at one point included a singsong na, na na na na naa! which i duly imitated and thenceforth often the crossing of our paths was heralded by such singing to each other.   there was one guy this morning who became intent upon revealing some fascinating pieces of information to me as we were sitting outside on the wall.  perhaps it was a story he was retelling.  it involved lots of engaging hand gestures. quite frequently i discerned the word chennai, and knew he was telling me something about the city.  samira was another frequently discerned word, and i imagined it was the name of a girl, whose exploits he was recounting to me with great intensity of emotion.  at one stage i thought i could also pick out the odd word in italian, or french or german, or even english, phrases such as: allontonare or allons-y or geben mir or wishfully or perhaps even pontificate.  i told myself that it was very improbable that he was in fact using such words that were known to me, they were but sounds familiar to my ear which i desperately wished to attach meaning to.   well, i began responding in a bit of german and in a bit of english anyway, as well as accompanying his flowing speech with regular mmmms and aaaah yeses, in order that the conversation were not so one-sided, and, rather than mocking his offer of communcation with my show of fictitious understanding (something which did cross my mind), i graudally understood he did actually understand every word which i offered in response, that there was a great stream of sous entendu communication taking place between us, and what was produced a veritable frenzied exchange of our impressions of life.  he became very eloquent with his hand gestures, at times holding his hand palm upwards and making a little thrusting forward motion, indicating something quick and snappy, other times adopting a sort of surfing pose, one arm outstretched confidently, communicating to me the idea of great elegance and balance and poise, and other times it was a simple finger held in front of his face that gave a deft little wiggle.  i reproduced all of these gestures as best i could and his face beamed with enthusiasm and after more than half an hour it seemed that such rich communication between us could have gone on indefinitely.

franci (one of the few call members whose name was not so unfamiliar to my ears that i could recall it) was one of the few call members who did not smile, rather she pouted, and fixed me with an apprehensive little glare.  however, she did want to communicate things to me and did so by grabbing my hand and leading me on a walk, sometimes to the prayer hall - a small round low building - where there is a copy of the bhagavad gita, the bible and the koran all placed side by side on little lecturns on a table at the front.  there is also a candle and incense spot at the front next to a wild wavy flowery circular design made with little grains of rice on the floor.   she chose a wicker seat by the wall and i sat down next to her and there we simply looked at each other.

flight time

it seems improbable that before a week is up i will be in india.   unlikely and improbable.
here i am wrapping up warm everytime i venture outside the house.  i have become accustomed to the yellow peeling leaves and the cool scottish air in autumn.  the cool autumn air in scotland.  here i am accustomed to cutting up root ginger into little pieces and letting them boil in water and infuse the water with fiery ginger warmth which makes the body glow from the inside.  somebody told me that they use a lot of ginger in their cooking in india.   sure enough, every time one scans the ingredients of a collection of spices called curry powder, ginger will be there.  how do i even know that india exists?  i have so far had no empirical proof, just documentaries seen on tv, and everytime i open an atlas i see the representation of a pointed mass of spicy land thrust southwards from the himalayan chain, protruding into the indian ocean, full stopped by a signature sri lankan teardrop.

it seems improbable that saudia arabian airlines have agreed to take me with them to india.   however, all i need to do is go to my emails and there is the invoice corroborating that i will indeed fly with them.  improbable and unnecessary.  why do i need to be whisked through the air at such a speed?   i wanted to travel gently, sensitively, i wanted to observe, i wanted to inch my way across the land, i wanted to feel the entire length of turkey, i wanted to traverse iran, to meet the iranians and meet the pakistanis and feel myself getting closer and closer to india.  i wanted.... i wanted...... it can't be lamented now.   i can't believe how much arbitrary authority those visa authorities have, at the mere flick of a pen they can decide the travel itinerary of a poor visa applicant.   first of all i applied and they objected to my passport being tatty.   "damaged" was the word they used (admittedly i had not looked after it over the years.)  then i reapplied with a shiny new passport and they informed me that i could not enter india in may, as i had requested, that if they were to give me a visa it had to become valid immediately.  how do some people manage to achieve adventurous long-distance bicycle itineraries in the face of such adamantine visa limitations?  perhaps if i had gone to the visa application centre in person and voiced my objection in a resonable tone of voice and with a look of sincerity in my eyes... perhaps, in a less principled society, i could have slipped somebody a note somewhere and thus have been granted my desired visa and granted permission to follow my desired path.

in any case, i am cognisant of the great freedom of choice in my movements across the planet which puts me in a far more privileged position than the majority of world citizens who are cornered and clustered by the authorities in the same way that a crochety shepherd herds his troop of sheep.

i couldn't really give a comprehensive account of why exactly i have chosen to fly to india.  i could call it a calling but i could likewise say that i simply want to be there.  it actually feels like there is an invisible cord which links me to the indian landmass, and which has been tugging at me with undisguised insistence for the last couple of years.  it is like an attraction between two people, or between two magnets, undeniable, irrepressible, implacable, unflagging.   i think maybe i will meet somebody there who will change my life, or maybe someone else will meet me, and i will change their life.   in any case, i feel that this tugging has gone on for long enough now, and the most opportune thing for me to do at this juncture is to forget about cycling (toilsome activity that it is) and to just fly there and get shot of the thing and then be able to get on with my life.

a wee walk up bin hill

it sometimes happens in autumn that you get crisp clear sunny days

 mum and i took a wee walk up bin hill yesterday afternoon

 shafts of sunlight were streaming through the trees

it was still nippy in the shade, but we got climbing the hill and soon our moving bodies generated their own warmth

i climbed a tree.

i thought i could capture the flaming orange beech leaves contrasted against a faroff pale blue sky with my camera.

but, in reality, it was better in reality

(a pale off flar bue sky)

mum was waiting for me at the top, and walked in front of the sun just at the moment when i pressed click

there was a certain nippy wee edge to the breeze that nudged its chilly way across the top of the hill

so we climbed down a bit

and got the flasks of tea out. 

i took this photo of us two while the sun was shining bright and making me squint a little

mum was alright cos she had tinted glasses

it is great to get out and fill your lungs with fresh air and fill your eyes with good views. 

a little bit of exercise also makes you appreciate your evening meal all the more.

it is nice to be outside but it is also nice to come back to a warm house.

on the way back home we noticed that somebody had streaked the western sky with flamboyant pink and yellow lines

i was so impressed i got mum to stop and i jumped into the field to take another photo

mamma mia, bello bello -  una bellezza incantevole

i can't help talking to myself in italian in matters relating to Beauty.

remarkable encounters

"the leaves are very similar to those of a beech tree - it could actually be a beech tree - but the leaves are glossier.  they seem somehow more robust.  the branches, certainly, are more robust.    a little lithe branch the size a little thicker than your thumb would hold your weight.   however, its littleness and litheness does not compromise, by any degree, its strength.   the whole tree in fact shines with robustness, exudes Robustness and Beauty and Grace.   the tree rises to about, about the height of a three-storey house and then the big robust branches spill down gracefully like the water after an upward jet in a fountain, but actually growing gradually outward, in the shape of a steep pyramid.  like a candle that severely loves to melt.

an exemplar of a tree of the same genus, here in Hyde park, London
(photo courtesy of friend francis)

man, what a tree.

a noble tree.  we climbed from the inside, never straying far from the dark trunk.   friend francis cautioned against being spotted by the police officers, which we had just seen as we entered the park.  what!  i thought, how could they object to the beautiful action of getting close to such a tree?   the inside of the tree is like a tepee because you can't see beyond the flowing curtain of glossy leaves on the outside.
being at the top gave an unparallelled sensation of being at the top of something really sacred and noble and monumental, like a little himalayan peak, in the shape of a tree, in a park in oxford.   friend francis was like a monkey.  he climbed down one of the downward flowing external branches.  i didn't have enough confidence.  i was archly aware of the distance separating me from the ground, and slowly picked my way down, keeping close to the trunk in the gathering gloom".



i was telling this to brother finlay as we were heading to the abandoned house, just outside st andrews, when suddenly we caught sight of exactly the same noble tree, only a little less tall, and a little less conical,  its downward flow interrupted by the excrescences of exploratory uprising branches.

we set about climbing her immediately, unhurridly.  the diaphanous daylight of the midafternoon was the ideal occasion to become aquainted with that tree.  to become aquainted with a tree, to become intimate with her.  to hug her branches with all of one's will, it is an embrace which is intimate and necessary for one's safe passage along her lithe but robust limbs.

a lithe tree, a beaming, green tree.

a tree growing exultantly.

a tree to be proud to be aquainted with.








another remarkable encounter was produced a few days later, after spending the afternoon hitch-hiking to aberdeen, after standing at a layby in the gathering gloom thinking: most likely i will head into those fields and pitch my tent somewhere, then being picked up by a geologist who told me about his project to build a house on the ruins of an old farmhouse overlooking the sea to the south of stonehaven, then walking through the streets of dark aberdeen, in the direction of seaton park where i planned to sleep by the river, and then catching sight of steve addy, an old acquaintance from the university of aberdeen climbing club, who strode past me in his characteristic brisk pace.
"steve!" i said.
"carson!" he said  "i half wondered if it was you . . . fancy coming to my house for a cup of tea?"

a cup of tea, which turned into a plate of pasta, which turned into an evening of pleasant conversation.  i told steve about my plans to head soon to Iona, and do a painting of the beach there, and steve told me about finlay wild's paintings of familiar scottish highland peaks, made unfamiliar through his use of wild flamboyant colours for sky and hill, only recognisable by the unique shape of the hills.   at one point steve got out his african bongo drums and we had a session in his kitchen, which was very satisfying - feeling our way through a repertoire of rhythms recorded in our memories, looking at each other quizically every so often, wondering where the rhythm would take us.  after a cosy night's dreaming on his living room sofa, and after some breakfast the next morning, i said to steve: "i am very glad to have been deflected on my route to seaton park."




another remarkable encounter had been produced when i was hitching to the vineyards.  i got as far as reims, then misread the bus timetable, then spent a while admiring the imposing cathedral (see photograph below), then discovered i had missed the last bus and walked in the gathering gloom to the big road which leads to the motorway south and stuck my thumb out and thought: "most likely i will sleep somewhere in the park, then get the bus tomorrow, and miss the first day picking grapes" but very soon a sleek low-slung sports car stopped and a business-looking man ushered me in saying "it was only by faulty-route-finding that i was passing through the centre of reims".  he was going all the way to geneva.  he told me that he had hitchhiked in his twenties through USA and canada, and had lived in the USA for seven years.  i told him that his english accent was incredibly english sounding, with no hint of US twang.   he replied crisply: "yes, i was careful not to let myself become . . .
infected"   
everything he said he said crisply and deliberately.   he said that he commutes regularly between geneva and his company somewhere north of Reims, and every so often he stopped for hitchhikers, but added: "i do not stop for every hitchhiker that i see.   there are some that would make my car . . .
smelly."

conversation was sparse.  towards the end of the lift i asked him what he worked as and he told me that he had set up a company that gave pilot runs for the fastest newest cars on the market.   he said that the car we were in was capable of doing 300km/hr, but that it often wasn't practical to go at such a speed.  for me it was my first experience of sustained fast road travel, for he cruised along the motorway at a steady 180km/hr for over an hour, gliding easily past all other vehicles and very soon i had been dropped off near Troyes.  there remained about 25km to the place where i would pick grapes, of which i walked about 10km along a quiet road under the stars until someone else stopped for me, having spotted my piece of cardboard upon which i had painted "Les Riceys."  he said to me, "i knew you would be here for the vendanges, heading to les riceys with your rucksack."

it felt a bit miraculous to walk into the salon at 11:30pm and be welcomed by a little group of that year's grape-pickers, among whom was marie, who gave me a big hug and insisted that we had met at a party in paris back in february.

it took me about twenty minutes for the memory of that encounter to come back.

it is funny that it can take about twenty minutes for one's memory to dredge up an event which is actually lodged firmly in one's mind but which initially remains concealed from memory's probing feelers.

Reims cathedral

after the grape-harvest

uuuuuun rayon de soleil

sur ton si beau visage

those words sung in the happiness-filled reggae cadence of william balde entered my ears through the mp3 player which virginie from montpellier had lent me one afternoon, and seemed to me to be the perfect soundtrack to the grape picking season - a ray of sun on your so beautiful face - the rolling cadence of the land strung with vibrant green rows of vines sometimes as far as the eye could see in southern champagne.   the eye could see.  the swollen song of solomon bunches of purple grapes - the bountry of nature, nature's harvest, her fruit at the end of a year's growing and energy transfer.  investing one's interest in those grapes, seeing nothing but those grapes, the secateurs going clip clip clip, working as a team of thirty, clipping in unison, giving each other bleak looks of back weariness towards the end of the week, but strength in our thirty-strong unity, exchanging back massages in the evening, i look for her eyes in the vineyard, the sun is warm and bathing, across the rows and rows of greenleaved vines everyone is crouching down, clip clip clip, she stands up and looks for my eyes and we instantly smile and lower our gazes, the grapes, stained with white powder from the sulphates, clipping, a bucket filling up with bunches of grapes.  adele, she called herself; belle adele i called her, i said: elle s'appelle adele et elle est belle.

thirty people all come together, and not all the time does each person know what to say to the other people.  benois was sitting across the table from me one evening.  until then all we had done was exchange wide probing smiles so after asking his name for the second or perhaps the third time i said: "benois - that must come from the latin blessed.  it is a good name.  it recognises the favourable general situation of being alive - being blessed - being favoured by god, god in his favour has said: be alive benois"
what i wanted was to say something positive to benois.  i often find myself commenting on a person's name when i learn it for the first time.   for example gery introduced me to solange a few nights ago and i said "hmmm solange, never heard that name before.  first of all it makes me think of the english expression so long, and then it makes me think of the french word louange, which comes from louer...to praise, doesn't it?"   she said yes and gery said "tu vois, carson est un peu...particulier"
it reminded me of how marie described herself once.  "je suis"
then lowering her voice, as if confiding a hushed tone "un peu differente"

un peu differente was the perfect description of marie.  in a hushed tone.  i had first met marie in a party in paris and had picked up on her use of the word mec, "doesn't mec have a masculine value, like guy or dude in english?" (marie spoke english like an american and so understood perfectly) she said yes, but you know i feel more male than female.   blonde-haired marie; once she crammed her bosom full of grapes and stuck bits of vine and leaves in her hair and crept along the vines to 8-year-old margot and there stood rigidly against the vines saying "shhhhh, je suis une vigne"
marie studied theatre in paris and loved to impersonate other people.   so much so that i strugged to form a good idea of who she really was.  it seemed to me that she really wasn't; she was but a vehicle for impersonating other people.    i can understand her being fascinated by other people, and wanting to try to impersonate them.  as we advanced along the rows of vines her voice could be heard moodily, sultrily, nonchantly impersonating some stereotypical blasé french attitude that has made an impression on her. 
"bah, franchement, je m'en fous, tu sais?"
je m'en fous.  one spends time in france, listening to the french and perceiving something of their attitude.  the je m'en fous attitude.  menefregismo.  i couldn't care less, i don't give tuppence, twit-twoo i don't give two hoots, i don't give a damn, i don't give a dickeybird.  i don't give

not give


give


after i said that benois gave me a little rundown of his life philosophy, unblinking, his eyes devoid of warmth, he said "bah, franchement, i really have no opinion about the fact that i am alive.  i could just as well not be alive, for all it concerns me.  of course, i am not going to go and commit suicide, but franchement the notion of death holds absolutely no fear or dismay for me"

it remended me of the indifference shown towards life by the main character of albert camus' l'etranger

but there was warmth and flickering happiness in benois' eyes when our eyes met at other times, and i know that his je m'en fous words were not completely sincere.

17-year-old hugo, at times displaying a wisdom far beyond his years, but at other times undeniably 17 years old, asked me what were the typical characteristics associated with the french.  i had commented on the rather widespread readiness to express irritation at little everyday contretemps, and hugo had responded "ah, but we are not really irritated you know.  we say putain merde often only in mock irritation"

the words ah, putain - merde - ca fait chier - ca m'enerve quoi entered my consciousness and i started to think like that too.  when learning a language you are essentially imitating the way the native speakers speak. however, within that group of native speakers one must discriminate.   griet taught me about discrimating between words when i swung past l'arche community on the way back.  a new volunteer - a lithuanian learning french - had exclaimed putain, reenacting the very common exclamation of surprise or irritation on the lips of the french, and griet responded "ah, j'aime pas ca, c'est pas la bonne usage de ce mot-la"
he had taken the putain's name in vain.

fabri and i were fond of filling the vineyard with vibrations of taize chants of praise, sometimes soft and tenderly intoned, other times extravagently low and solemn sounding:

Ostendi nobis domine
misericordium suam
amen, amen!
maranatha, maranatha!

other times a long rumbling rendition of jeff buckley's rendition of leonard cohen's alleluya, along to the clip clip clip of our secateurs.  little hugo would say aimlessly "they are church songs aren't they?" and then fabri would go off on a tangent and laugh like a hyena, or else we would send up dog howls, a mournful orchestra of howling dogs which other vendangeurs would join and it would end in a cacohpony of baying bleating barking neighing miaoing and cockadoodle-doing from across the animal kingdom. the best was the horse's neighing but the absoulte best was melanie's extraordinary imitation of a young goat bleat . everyone laughed then and she would distribute her bleats throughout the day, often at the table in the evening, at a moment when conversation had largely subsided, the goat would give her pathetic charming bleat and everybody would laugh.

petite and charming, with sparkling eyes, that is why it suprised me on the last day of the vendange to hear melanie exclaim "ah, j'ai marre de cette vigne de merde!"

apres les vendanges, after the grape-harvest gerard gave us all about three bottles of champagne each and we all headed off in various vehicles to jean-batiste's house fifty kilometres away in the countryside - a beautiful place to stay - a simple wooden chalet surrounded by pine woods and caravans for everybody to sleep.  we got a big fire roaring and roasted potatoes over the embers and grilled chops of pork and sat around the picnic table eating.  from somebody's van stereo toots and the maytals were playing.   copious bottles of champagne had been opened - pop pop pop! - and got us feeling fine.  i said:  that is another characteristic of the french - well, at least a characterisitc which one finds with a certain frequency among the french - a real appreciation of the good things in life.  good food, good wine, good music, a good fire.  an incredibly sexy language.  ah oui, i can really sympathise with that french national pride.  i think that if i was born french i would love that fact.

afterwards fabri and i didn't know what to do.  fabri had suggested we go to the alps and climb mont blanc and usually when we are together and one of us suggests that we climb a mountain the other one says "okay".  we got on the same train as adele and celine, going south, and when we stopped at macon i said "hey, lets go to taize!"   all the songs that fabri had heard me sing, but had never heard himself were sang in the church that evening, and next morning: Ostendi nobis...!

and

il signore ti ristora
dio non allontana
il signore viene ad incontrarti....viene ad incontrarti

and

tu sei sorgente viva tu sei fuoco sei carita
viene spirito santo, viene spirito santo

and in between we camped in the woods, opened a bottle of champagne by the fire and played chess until at one point droplets of water began to fall.  fabri suggested that we seek shelter in the church but instead i pitched my little tent, and we snuggled in.   then at one point it began to really lash.  my tent is not of the best quality, and largely lets lashing water in.  however, the one impermeable impenetrable part is the groundsheet and there a pool of water grew.  we stuck it out anyway and i lay with heart throbbing as everything outside the tent was illuminated by flashes of lightning, then the enormous cracking thunder split the atmoshpere in two and it seemed that even the earth beneath us was rumbling.  
the next day we got the bus back to macon and there i decided to head back to the uk and get cracking with applying for visas while fabri said he would return to southern italy.  before we parted, we opened the last bottle of champagne and sat drinking on the street, stretching out the tent and sleeping bags to dry in the sun and played a last game of chess, before the owner of a nearby carrefour addressed us and told us we had five minutes to clear off because, franchement, camped out on the street like that, (it didn't take her long to find the word) was dégueulasse.

fabri and i spent a while impersonating all the french people we had met before returning to our respective home nations.

jumpin aff the pier

"wis it cal?"  a couple walk out on the old pier as i am climbing on my bike, dripping

"no, nae really"

i amend my answer: "aye, a wee bit chilly" 

"refreshin - it waks you up"

journey home

i heard her whistling before she came into the room and looked at me with arched eyebrows and looked closer to see the title of the book i was reading as i was lying on the bed.  i was going to get a portrait of the young artist as characterised by instability, full of passion and feelings needing to be expressed.  that was one of the first things cristina said to me when describing herself:  i am an artist.
later i said: what do you think it means to be an artist?  she said something about being creative.
i said maybe you could say that every body is an artist in the sense that they create their own being in every moment.   she considered this a may be

later she said: why didn't you smash your glass?
- i was going to ask you why did you smash your glass.
she had said: let us drink the last drops of muscat and smash our empty glasses.  i thought she was jesting about smashing the glasses.  i had only ever heard about that from joni mitchell "and we'll laugh and toast to nothing, and smash our empty glasses down".  cristina wasn't toasting to nothing.  she said that the wine represented luck - everything that we imbibed, everything that we wanted to affirm in ourselves - whereas the glass, in that glass-smashing ceremony, represented negative elements which we wished to chase away.

after she said that i marvelled at the human capacity to grant meaning to anywhich action in this ritual of life.

the next night i was lying on the bed again reading and evening had fallen when a young woman and a young man from the mountain rescue came in asking me if i had seen a girl who had borrowed a sleeping bag and not returned it.  ten minutes later i could still hear them up in the attic.  i thought i had better tell them that cristina had gone to sleep in the refuge the next valley along.
however, i didn't get to tell them anything.
when i climbed the outside staircase to the attic i quickly had to withdraw the light of my torch and climb back down again because i had caught them in a moment of passionate love-making.  i knew that it was something that i shouldn't have seen.  the contrast struck me, their officious arrival ten minutes earlier, "we are from the mountain rescue, looking for a girl and a sleeping bag" and then rolling and squirming on the beds.  the thin line between our real passionate selves and the officious task of inhabiting the material world.

mihai bursesc had read my couchsurfing message about me coming to bucharest and had written to me saying "well, if your itineray changes there is a bed for you here, a place to charge your batteries"
at the rezetat national park, 600km west of bucharest, romania.  i was happy to change my itinerary and charge myself with the majesty and grandiose feelings that come from being in the mountains. 
mihai had a simple wooden cabin in the village salasu de sus with "free accomodation" painted bright and friendly on the fence.  he loved to welcome travellers and offer tea made from the dried plants of the surrounding countryside.  i spent the day sleeping in the room full of beds - after a largely sleepless night in the train from bucharest.  mihai spent the day gathering wild berries.  in the evening i was charged with sleep and walked up to mihai's other mountain cabin, also painted with the words free accommodation.

lots of stillness there, lots of ancient wisdom in the stones.  in the early morning i climbed up and pricked up my ears to the Stillness and Beauty and Ancient Wisdom of that place.

Mountain therapy.

i was thinking about hitchhiking all the way home but i didn't like the thought of all the waiting i might be letting myself in for.  Paul had told me that i would struggle to get lifts in romania because i didnt exactly have a normal appearance and romanians only liked to pick up people who looked normal.  i think he was talking about my abundant facial hair and less than elegant choice of shirt that day.  when i heard his recommendation to slide through the countryside in the nicely-priced night train i decided not to ignore it.  Paul stopped for me as i was walking out of town one evening.  i said "bucharest?" paul said, "i am only going half an hour - you are better getting the train"  i said "could you please give me a lift even for just for half an hour?"  after waiting for so long i simply wanted to sit in somebody's car.  first off paul wanted to see my passport.  later he said "i don't know why i stopped for you, i generally never stop for hitchhikers".  he invited me to a coffee at a roadside restaurant and we stayed up till 02:30 talking with Dan, another friend of his.  english words came to them slowly, interspersed with rolling eyes and "ahh, talking philosophy in english is difficult!" we lost track of the hours.  it showed the power of wanting to communicate, despite their imperfect grasp of the language.  romanian words mostly didn't come to me at all.

i spent the next day at paul and adela's house, watching youtube videos of traditional romanian music and dancing, getting beat by paul at chess, eating adela's tastiness from the kitchen and tasting their neighbour's freshly distilled plum liquor. adela herself ate only a plate of vegetables at lunch, explaining that it was an orthodox custom to eat vegan on wednesday and friday.  paul added that it was a fundamentalist orthodox custom and there was laughter.  their son andrea was eleven years old and spoke near perfect english learned, as he explained to me, by discussing how to make software on online chat facilities.  his brother bogdan was nine years old and communicated with very winning smiles. i told paul that he was like my good samaritan.  i had been at the side of the road not knowing anybody or exactly where i would go.  he said that i was also like a good samaritan for him, causing him to think about and reevaluate his lifestyle.  i think he said that just to be nice.

coincidently, just as couchsurfer mihai's invitation of mountain repose came to me, paul and adela told me about their visit to that same part of the transylvanian mountains just the week before, and in particular the prislop monestary, where father Arsenie Boca - who can perform miracles if you ask him to - is buried.

i arrived with my rucksack in the rain.  i was wearing my long indian skirt because i know that shorts want to be avoided by the monastic community.  they saw my skirt and said "it is okay to wear shorts".  i wanted to attend the evening liturgy in the church but instead they invited me to eat food with them in the dining room.  there was maria - a very friendly woman who i supposed was a nun because of her attire - and a very friendly well-dressed man, and a young boy who spoke english well and translated everything they said to me.  maria took me to father Arsenie's tomb after the meal.  it was surrounded by a profusion of flowers.  she told me to make a wish in front of his grave, but rather than feeling at ease and knowing exactly what to wish for, i was feeling that all my senses were pricked up and curious about this new social situation and what would happen.  we were walking back and maria asked me what did i think of this place.  the air was filled with cool moisture, the evening light infused the place with a soft rosy glow.  there were church bells gonging softly and soft green conifer covered hills.  i said:  e foarte frumos.  it is very beautiful.
the well-dressed man asked me where i was going to sleep.  i said "i usually sleep in the forest"
we looked at the dripping wet trees and felt the moisture all around us.
he said, "you can't sleep in this monestary, but if you come with me to the village. . . come to my car"
i shook hands with maria, who always radiated genuine friendliness. i said, "mulţumesc... esti gentil"
they found it funny for me to say gentil.  it reminded them of gentleman.  
esti amabil.
her response was "sunt romana", as if that explained everything.  she said "you are always welcome here when you come back"
in the village the man knocked on a couple of doors and found somebody with a mattress space on the floor.  they told me they already had a room of people sleeping that night.  it seemed they were used to accomodating people who had been at the monestary.

the next day i was sitting reading in the park in the town of deva, waiting for the bus that would take me to london, when i came in contact with some of the people that i had been told to watch out for in romania.  "bad people" paul had said, "all they do is beg and steal" a file of women filed past me asking for money, indicating that they had babies to feed.  i gave them my bread and when i had no more bread another woman came and asked for money, indicating that she had babies to feed.  i said no and she asked for a "cuţit",

cuţit? i enquired. 
she communicated the meaning of cuţit by making the gesture of slashing her dress
"cuţit, cuţit" she repeated.
why did she possibly want me to give her a knife?
when she shuffled off, i quickly left that park too.  i didn't like the image of a knife slashing a person's clothing which she had implanted in me.  most of all i didn't like the look in her eyes, or the tone of her voice.   as much as i didn't want to give credence to that belief that some people are by nature "bad", i had the warnings of other people in my head, and the words of Jonus-the-Austrian-who-was-walking-to-Jerusalem, who told me that he had been surrounded by gypsies brandishing knives in the woods of romania, when, miraculously, the police turned up.
when your feelings tell you "get away from this person" it is better to listen to them. 

i got on the eurolines bus which slid for two days along the motorways.
i slid into london slowly.      ever   so        s    l    o     w     l        y   
i was biting my nails thinking "most likely i will miss my megabus connection" i was feeling gloomy about missing my megabus connection, then a reprieve came when i saw a clock and realised i had an extra hour of british summer time.  those sixty minutes were being consumed in the 7 a.m. traffic jams of the streets of london.  i was back to biting my nails.  all i could do was grant myself more reprieve by reasoning that missing my megabus connection was a very minor detail in the big scheme of things.  
and thus liberated from my gloomy nail-biting i ran with my rucksack through bustling victoria station to board the bus to glasgow which slide off thirty seconds later.  

what a privilege to be rolling along the motorway towards glasgow.  great britian seemed like a vast green island where a cool temperature was always maintained by a vast moist blanket of moisture.  i loved to hear the glaswegian accent again.  i was looking at everyone, all the elderly people, and picking up subtle british character traits which would have been lost on me had i not been abroad paying attention to everybody else's character traits.  there is generally a lot of politeness in british people.  a lot of respect and non-intrusion.  generally.   even the co-op employee in lochgilphead chose to say "excuse me, can i help you?" when she meant to say "what are you doing?" when she saw me looking in the bins.
there are a lot of fresh feelings in the british isles.  swimming in the sea makes your blood go that much more tingly.   there is always a little cool breeze coming from somewhere.  when you have a direct view to the sun shining in the sky it is a special occasion.  you can pass someone and say "lovely day"
and they will respond "aye, it is just glorious!"   they really mean it    it is glorious. 
the clouds are always hanging about, ready to obscure the sun.   every moment is a billowing shifting cloudscape.  not always billowing, sometimes subtle and muted.  in august.   summer doesn't mean "very hot" it could likely as not mean rain.  colours are dense and real, vibrant and profound.  or else faint and airy and ethereal.  there is a feeling of freshness in the air.

being in britain for me means family reunion.

family therapy.

having roots

the conversation of familiar energy fluxes

fortified with connections.

the roots look for those special nutrients in the soil, and draw them up, and grow gladly.