Ineedtogrowroots

It has started to dawn on me that I have no roots. Not even in Kathmandu, which has always been my home. The older I grow, the harder I find it, to associate with places and things and people. I have begun to feel like what I need to do in life is to let a place grow on me now, so that I can allow roots to grow under me and help me find stability. I haven't been able to grow roots, because all my life, I have run. Mostly from pain, but also from pleasure and love. I've been so afraid of love. I need to unlearn everything and learn. I need to learn to accept love. I need to grow roots.

Time warp

I feel like the Kathmandu in my memory is now imaginary. It is rife with the feelings I have attached to it, most of which is love for you all I left behind when I moved here. But when I see pictures of Kathmandu on the news, it is a bit jarring as I'm reminded again of how much anxiety I experienced because of everything around me. The stray dogs and cows and their suffering. The stress to get to work on time and not be late. The pressure from different people around me to do things or to deliver this and that. This and that. Literally. And I often feel that I was trying to cram so much into my days in Kathmandu, that felt limited. There never seemed to be enough time for anything. But here, I seem to have so much time and no one to meet or to do anything for. My days are usually spread wide across space and time. Space-- which is wide open spaces and pretty skies and beautiful trees. Time-- which is just about punctuating my day with things to do. Much of it is work and that is taken care of. Work has always had its way of taking care of me. I'm allowing it to do that for me right now. I'm working and teaching. And that keeps my mind on its toes. I feel that if this year is taken care of, the next year will find some direction as well. You know how ironic this sounds... people often try to save time, wait to do things within so little time. Here, I don't think of saving time. I have enough time to just sit and stare at the sky, at strangers, do whatever might help me pass my days. Have you ever known this kind of luxury? Have you ever know this kind of a trapping of time? It's like a time warp.

blue

dead ends...decay...should not have been the words as spring crossed into summer. but how else should it have been? we never discussed that.

the city has started soaring above us again, lifting in a heat we are calling "global warming". i think of it as claustrophobia. and i think of claustrophobia as a feeling of people breathing down my neck- all of them pushing me into believing you will not return.

i've often thought of how you spring from my entrails, consume my fears and lie low inside me again like you never changed anything. but what's that to the city? the city, like I said, has begun to rise. i see it in the honking, the swirling of dust in the afternoon wind and the stench lifting from massive gutters that were once rivers.

the city has no memory of rivers. only the sewage now and the stone spouts that trickle drops into plastic containers.

the butcher's wife stands across the street and looks up at the sky, shielding her eyes with her hand stained in blood. With the other hand, she clutches her apron- soaked in blood. flies swarm her best chicken breast. she waves a hand at them and looks up a the sky again.

the sky is blue, blue, as though they draped an ocean over the city. not a single hint of cloud. the butcher's wife must love the blue.

but she turns away to look at the city and i follow her gaze.

i don't love the blue anymore. it reminds me of these endless spaces where i cannot find you. and the city is a constant reminder that you don't live here anymore.