Although I haven't read it yet, my auntie gave me a book about the concept of home. For Christmas. This is the nutshell within which my recent weeks have swirled and danced. Tomorrow I will fly to Nepal, after one month, more or less, back in Australia. Home to Brisbane, home to Melbourne, then home to Kathmandu. With many homes I never knew along the way. The traveller's greatest asset is an invisible snail's shell, a comfortable space which folds up into his pocket. A home built out of movement, and lightness.
In a few hours I will go back to that airport. I was trying to write about my month in Australia, a month dotted with hilarious misadventures and unnecessary complications. Good material in there, police encounters, whirlwind romances, mythical creatures, and oh such dancing, if you could only have seen it! Last night I tried for hours to write about these and other things, but the world kept intruding, and besides, I just don't write travel-journals. Suffice to say that these kinds of stories have been told many times before.
I met someone in Delhi, a theatre-director, who told me that he loved the name Ivan. When he was little, the only books he could afford were Russian folk-tales. And the hero's name was always Ivan, and my eyes widened as he told me that the hero was always the third son, and that this Ivan was always finding himself in some kind of mess, as some kind of simple situation would spiral out of control. There, at the darkest moment, a lady would come to him, and say something like "You should get some sleep, these are daytime troubles. Never deal with the daytime's problems at night". And so young Ivan would sleep, and little did he know that the lady was actually a good witch, and in the morning she would give him some objects, like a piece of string, a fish, that sort of thing. And she would tell him that he would know what to do with them when the time was right. And sure enough, everything would work out in the end. I thanked my director friend and told him that I was indeed the third son, and would look out for my witch.
That's more or less how it went down, except that nothing ever really ends. There are still loose ends untied, but they are manageable. And the good witch was not a crone, but a hauntingly beautiful woman with incisive, piercing eyes that appear to take in the darkness and beauty of the world all at once. And even though she gave me no fish or pieces of string, and offered no such advice about the daytime's troubles, she showed me the way forward, and as I left she picked up a rock from the ground and threw it. "Go!"
In a few hours I will go back to that airport. I was trying to write about my month in Australia, a month dotted with hilarious misadventures and unnecessary complications. Good material in there, police encounters, whirlwind romances, mythical creatures, and oh such dancing, if you could only have seen it! Last night I tried for hours to write about these and other things, but the world kept intruding, and besides, I just don't write travel-journals. Suffice to say that these kinds of stories have been told many times before.
I met someone in Delhi, a theatre-director, who told me that he loved the name Ivan. When he was little, the only books he could afford were Russian folk-tales. And the hero's name was always Ivan, and my eyes widened as he told me that the hero was always the third son, and that this Ivan was always finding himself in some kind of mess, as some kind of simple situation would spiral out of control. There, at the darkest moment, a lady would come to him, and say something like "You should get some sleep, these are daytime troubles. Never deal with the daytime's problems at night". And so young Ivan would sleep, and little did he know that the lady was actually a good witch, and in the morning she would give him some objects, like a piece of string, a fish, that sort of thing. And she would tell him that he would know what to do with them when the time was right. And sure enough, everything would work out in the end. I thanked my director friend and told him that I was indeed the third son, and would look out for my witch.
That's more or less how it went down, except that nothing ever really ends. There are still loose ends untied, but they are manageable. And the good witch was not a crone, but a hauntingly beautiful woman with incisive, piercing eyes that appear to take in the darkness and beauty of the world all at once. And even though she gave me no fish or pieces of string, and offered no such advice about the daytime's troubles, she showed me the way forward, and as I left she picked up a rock from the ground and threw it. "Go!"
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