Coffee in a cold (and rainy) climate

Since nobody helped me in the search for a name of 'the force' that I described a few weeks ago, I am going to try to give her one myself, but I shall remain open to suggestions...
I'm still struggling with her and my dad told me on the phone yesterday that he is, too, which gives me a mixed feeling of relief and alarm. Yesterday she got the better of me, today I'm riding her with tight reins.
But today I have a helping hand and together we're riding the force (with two people it's much easier to put your weight down and get control over a wild mare like that). I have a very funny relationship with that friend who's sitting behind me - I can't exactly say that I like him, in fact I detest him most of the time (I think he himself is indifferent about me), but he is incredibly useful. So in order to make use of him, I have to overcome my distaste for him every now and then. It only happens once in a blue moon that I really need him, but it does happen. I first met him in Paris about 2 years ago. It's hard to describe him, since - as I said - I hardly ever meet him, ... although he always seems to be in the house. In short, I'd say he is very strong, quite dark and 100% Arabic(a).

But back to the force... the more I'm writing here, the less control I have over her - she's flinging her head around and pulling the reins out of my hands, so I better hurry to name her, wich will conclude this episode and give me the strength to hold her down.
I have decided to give her a situational-specific name, because she does vary and come in different strenghts and uses different methods, but in my case, she is probably best described by the name "dissertraction".

(-;

P.S.: for more stories on coffee and climate change (but less on horses and weird things like that, I think) go to http://coffee-in-a-coldclimate.blogspot.com !

Lotf'Allah

I found this photo of Lotf'Allah Mosque on my computer today and I really liked it. I had completely forgotten I ever took it.
Standing under that powerful and richly ornamented dome filled me with tranquility and awe, when I was there. I remember there was a little boy playing on the ground, who didn't pay any attention to what was going on around or above him, completely absorbed in his play, while everyone around him had their heads between their shoulders, admiring what towered above.
Lotf'Allah means "the gentleness of God". In this case it is a beautiful mosque in Isfahan, on the Naghshejahan Square, which is about three fifths of the way to Kathmandu from here, I think. (-;

New Dawn

Kathmandu...

"... I'll soon be seeing you. And your strange bewildering time will keep me home."

So sings Cat Stevens from my new, old record player next to the fire place, now for the 12th time at least this morning. It's morning again, just before dawn. This time it's not for lack of sleep, but excess of coffee.

"Kathmandu, I'll soon be touching you. And your strange bewildering time will hold me down."

There's something in this tune that really catches on to what's been brewing inside me these days and now especially. It speaks of departure and travel, of indefinite journeys to unreachable destinations and of change. And that is all my heart yearns for: travel, departure. departure from here, from this town, from this section of my life and from this all-so-familiar culture. Departure to new horizons, to a new culture, a new chapter. Departure. I am ready for departure, I think.

And as the first birds raise their sweet trilling voices and mingle with Cat Steven's melancholic, but ever-so-inspiring voice, I wish to travel - not all the way to Kathmandu, but again to Syria.
Like the other morning, but different this time.
This time I'll not just travel through my imagination feeding on medieval Arabic texts, but for real. I'll pack my rucksack as ascetic as I can and get on the road, thumb out in the air...
That moment, where I leave my house in Bavaria with just a little backpack filled with a few things and a camera, with a year of uncertainty and adventure ahead of me.... that is what I've been dreaming off for the past few weeks.

It'll be the ultimate moment, the moment that every moment until then is worth. And every moment after that will be new land for me. Completely new. Maybe that's why I'm so impatient for it, because at the moment everything seems all too familiar and it all mirrors an image of ME back to me, that is not much like the ME anymore that NOW lives inside me. Well, of course it still is in many ways, but it was created a few years ago and the experiences that were made through it have changed what it was carrying, which is ... the essence of me, I guess - my soul.
So like a skin that a grasshopper sheds as it grows, I've come to the point where that skin I've been wearing is itching everywhere.
And that itching gets worse the more it gets confronted with what has shaped it into what it now is. So sometimes I almost withdraw so as not to notice the itching so much.

I'm waiting for the moment to shed. To shed the part of my life that is then going to lie behind me, that I am now still in.
Or can I shed now?
Do I just need to find the YKK zip somewhere to take this skin off -- like a boiler-suit?
Or is there a time-lock on it?
I guess I want to shed not only when I am ready, but also when circumstances are right. So that the new skin that will then be exposed to life gets the right influences, the right ideas and experiences to form into something that will hopefully carry me further than this skin has, and for longer.
The moment when I leave the house in Trostberg will be just right, I think. Everything after that, at least for a few months, will be subject to abrupt changes, to many uncertainties and to much adventure. To life at its most basic and challenging, to new people, voices, bodies and faces that will shape me anew.
"The only constant in life is change", the Dalai Lama once said. I want to submerge myself (can you say that?) in CHANGE. I've had a lot of apparent constants in my life lately, but I'm looking forward to seeing that part of them crumble, which lives on inside me even though I shed the skin they shaped.

"Kathmandu - I'll soon be touching you."

Abdallah my camel

I open the curtain and lo - it's already light. It seems like it was only just 4 AM about half an hour ago, when I sat down to do some work because I couldn't sleep. But it's after 8 AM now and the first shy rays of the morning sun are falling onto our dark blue velvet curtain and the yellow-blossoming plant on our window-sill, making the grey backdrop of the houses on the other side of Hutchison Court seem a lot more apealing.
I look around the room - the fire is burning on a low flame, some heavy volumes of medieval Arabic hadith-compilers are hanging out in scattered groups on the floor and the table I sit at is covered in the sources for my dissertation: dozens upon dozens of copies from those volumes, drawn over in various colours and mediums to highlight certain passages, explain others or note references to again other passages - and as my tired eyes calmly scan the pages and look back at the computer screen, I realise that I haven't actually been in this room for the last four hours. None of my short term memory's memories are located in this room, in this town nor even in this country.

I spent the last four hours in Syria, believe it or not. In the desert on a trip to the little town of Bosra, where the monk Bahira lives in a remote cell above the caravan route.
Me and my fellow Qurayshi merchants were hoping to do some trading on the market there and we had a young lad among us, who the noble and influential Khadija had sent with us on his first business trip, because his uncle Abu Taleb, who had adopted him after his father died, was getting old - the strenuous rides on the uncomfortable camels, the desert sun and the sand storms were becoming too big a burden for him. His nephew was about 25 I'd say and his name was Mohammad. Everybody spoke very highly of him and there was many rumours about him, especially since he recently received such generous attention from Lady Khadija: she had offered to pay him twice what she usually pays the rest of us to sell her stuff on the markets in Syria. Although you couldn't find a fault in Mohammad, this priviledged status he enjoyed was reason for prejudice. So he often walked alone, just a few yards away from the rest of the caravan, leading his five old camels that were tied up in a row like everyone else's. He was of strong build and held himself much unlike any of the other Qurayshi lads of his age: so upright and calm was his posture, so straight and determined his look and so kind and gentle his interaction. I eyed him through the arch of my lead camel Abdallah's neck. He couldn't see me because of all the tassles I had tied to Abdallah's hair that were dangling in the early desert sun. Sometimes I couldn't take my gaze off him for whole minutes - there was something mysterious and undeniably attractive about him.

We arrived in Bosra late in the morning and rushed to the Sooq, from where the buzz of the Saturday market could already be heard until far into the desert. We had trouble finding empty stalls in the small and tightly-packed market square and were soon busy getting the loads down from our camels - bags of rice and spices, Qurayshi rugs and daggers, pottery and other goods. And only when I put a heavy bag of woven linens down to take a breath, did I notice Mohammad resting under a tree. Despite his tough physical appearance, the journey seems to have tired him out and my friend Ghalib leaned over his stall-table and whispered to me with a spiteful grin on his face: "Looks like he isn't used to the kind of work he's being paid for, eh?!! Ha!" I could't agree more with him.
Meanwhile Khadija's slave, Maisara, who she'd sent to accompany the young Mohammad, was doing all the work by himself; and just as he had finished unloading the last of their five camels, a man dressed in white rags and holding a grubby wooden staff stepped up to him. I had to blink before I recognised him - it was Bahira, the monk from the hermit cell above the caravan route, who always looked down on us when we passed, but never came to speak to us.
He was speaking to Maisara, pointing at Mohammad lying under the tree and I saw Maisara's eyes open wide with an expression of awe. Using Abdallah as an excuse, I went closer to listen.
"...noone has ever rested under that tree at this time of day except if he was a prophet and the last one who did rest there at this time was Jesus son of Mary. Ah, of course - he must be the prophet thas has been foretold in our scriptures to appear among the people of the Quraish this month..." Bahira said with an hushed voice, but I could see the excitement in his eyes:
"Maisara, listen: Take him back to Mekkah, he isn't safe here or anywhere in Syria. Great things lie ahead of him and he shall be a light to all of us, but if the Jews get their hands on him, they'll see in him what I have seen and they will want to do him harm, for they are of a jealous kind. They know the next prophet is coming at this time and they want him to be another son of Israel. Hurry back home with him and protect him from the Jews!"

The sudden passing of a dark brown mane of beautifully curly hair by my window brings me back to Scotland, to St.Andrews, to Hutchison Court - one of the neighbour's cute children is jumping past on her way to school. My curtains are now fully opened and the sun is streaming in. Reminder calls from my bad conscience begin to infiltrate my thoughts: "you better get back to your dissertation"... I turn off the fire and smile at the "His Master's Voice"-1960s-record player on the floor, which a much awaited postman brought round yesterday - God, I'd missed listening to David Bowie, Telonius Monk Quartet, John Coltrane and most of all: Cat Stevens.
Apart from the appearance of a new prophet in the Hejaaz, the record player was definitely yesterday's highlight.
Let's see what today has in stall for us.
One thing is for certain: I'm going back to Syria.
Right now! Byebye