"Where is Kneeee-pawl?" My Tennessee grandmother asks.
"In the Himalayan mountains."
"Oh well. It'll be cold. Watch out for 'em avalanches!"
For my other kin-folk, a quick history of 'kneeee-pawl".
Nepal, the size of North Carolina is bordered by India, which is fives times bigger than Texas, and Tibet, which is almost six times bigger than California. Nepal is the little fish in big ponds. Although one-third of the country was lost to the British East India Company during the colonization of India, Nepal was never conquered. Nor was its neighbor, Bhutan. The rugged Himalayan mountains bordering, what is today known as Sikkim, India's most Northern state, tremendously helped Nepal's sardine sized army compared to Britian's during the wars of the eighteenth century.
Why I am comparing fish to this landlocked country?
Because I compose from the shoreline of Palm Beach, a land that has me gasping for air the more I reflect on Nepal's awakening waters. I drive down perfectly paved roads lined with shiny cars and nearly empty public buses. Mile long plazas edged by hedges manicured as perfectly as the women who shop them. Target, Tj-Maxx, Burger King, Wendys. Target. Tj_maxx, Burger King, Wendy's. Target Tj-maxx, Burger King, Wendy's. Safe in our own A/C bubble at the red light, we politely only look ahead. Or down to check Facebook. The stillness has me biting my nails. I press the windows open. The silence spooks me.
. The third most polluted city in the world according to the Kathmandu Post. The city is one of the fastest growing ones in Asia at 4% per year. 2.5 million people are live in the Kathmandu valley; in 2001 it was estimated to be around 600,000 people. Still Nepal is basically rural with only 17% of the total people living in cities according to World Bank. If you visit, these far away random facts will choke you. Be prepared for:
Operation Kathmandu
I long for Kathmandu's rush hour suffocation as I cruise through monotonous south Florida. The exhaust of retired old buses other countries sell for cheap. The bicycles overloaded with oranges or balanced by wicker baskets of greens. The scooters the entire Nepali family squeezes on. The cows drinking from cloudy puddles. The tourist only taxis and the Mercedes of government officials. The uniformed school kids, the colorful saris, the monk's crimson robes all wearing face masks. Without marked lanes, the streets are home to thousands of independent shops stacked atop of one another. Somehow, I never once saw an accident. Some spontaneous current sweeps everyone along, as did the human traffic lights. Their was a strange sense of calmness in the midst of what appears to be mayhem. People yell without anger. Boys pound the sides of the jammed buses without threat. The passengers touch like the shops, finding space and naturally filling it. Yet, when the fumes still linger through my face mask and refuse to rise from the city's oven-like buses, I long for Maine's vacant highways and fresh air.
I land in Kathmandu fifty hours of travel later. Of the five immigration kiosks, two are working. The fit Americans here to rebuild a school are in my line. They kill time playing a game called bouncy, stretch and 'stay hydrated' as the Chinese, Indians, Europeans and I looked on from our stiff places in line. The mystery meat I blessed during the flights has my belly rocked; if only my body could agree with my prayers. The excited Indian children are too shy to join when invited. We Americans, the confident, spoiled, happy babies of world.
"Would you like some help?" the self appointed American assists my line with the finicky screen. His kindness, makes me question my own as we fill out my form.
"And purpose of visit?"
"Pilgrimage." I select the button beneath the tourist option. I am not just another foreigner here to take pictures. Nor am I here to build something new. I am here to learn the sacred Vajrayogini dance.
Apparently, Port-au-Prince's humbling has worn off. In Haiti, my theater project at an American summer camp forced me to take off a costume I didn't realize I was wearing: Cool and in control. Entitled to teach. The Haitian dance troupe I joined gave me a new costume I reject: the privileged American; One that Nepal would teach me to wear with humility.
Its past midnight by the time I clear customs. My Nepali friend, Shilpa, spots me in the crowd of bewildered tourists and shouting taxi drivers. I am chauffeured to her home. After spending the summer working minimum wage at a bakery in Ashland, Oregon to pay for expensive dance classes, sleeping on a friend's couch, and scrounging meals from the refrigerators I was babysitting for, I awake in palace life.
The marble staircase ascends five floors before leading to a rooftop of the world: a view of the Himalaya's white silhouettes looming above the city's smog. Every floor is filled with statues and paintings taking one back into a time when Kathmandu was at its royal height; days far gone. Shilpa's Newari family, one of the original peoples of the Kathmandu Valley, has been creating Buddhist art for generations. The lineage of artisans her father continues to support can be seen working in his building across the street. Each morning the works in progress are brought by for review before being delivered to his curio shop in a Durbar Mar, the Worth Ave of Nepal. The leisurely morning routine of tea and the door bell ringing with art has been replaced by coffee and scrolling Craig's List for last minute holiday help ads. Most of the South Florida gigs require slutty Santa suits; too bad I'm in a fat phase
The five foot golden Tara statue in the living room captures me whenever I pass. Tara is a tantric Buddhist deity who is known as the "the mother of liberation". I look at her beautifully carved abs, slender fingers in mudra, meditative stare and golden jewels with awe and envy. Her three eyes are slit open and 'gaze compassionately into emptiness'; an expression I read about over and again, but have no realization of. All I know is I want to embody Tara and not my flabby clumsy limbs that cannot remember much of the choreography I spent all summer learning. Tara's deeper meanings would remain oblivious to me until the final days of my journey with Shilpa, one that led me to the heart of Buddhist dance.
Dance as an offering. Dance as prayer.
I snap out of fantasizing how I can get as hot as Tara when called to breakfast in the courtyard. Her mother serves the first of the sugary, strong 'milk tea' that replaces the coffee addiction I developed in freezing New England. A plate of hard-boiled eggs that have been lightly pan seared and dusted in turmeric is served. Following Shilpa, I use my fingers to scoop the cumin flavored cauliflower and potatoes into freshly baked roti bread. Her mother fills my plate asking rhetorically if I'd like more. I would not learn to fend her off until (like her husband and children) I cover my plate with both hands and refuse to move them until she puts the pan down. Most of the time, I only pretend to stop her. I want seconds, thirds, fourths, anything to stop the battles between my head and heart: Writing vs meditation. Memoir writers seek the I, my, me. They try to solidify identity into a story, while true Buddhist meditation seeks to undo the story and dissolve the I, me, my. Traditional dancer vs. free form artist. There is form to be followed to receive the lineage's wisdom. Who cares? I want to make up own dance. Buddhist nun vs. motherhood. Kids = real job! All the facets of self glaring at each other, not realizing they apart of the same diamond. A diamond in the ruff.
Kathmandu's hidden lessons for "the dancer on pilgrimage" are ones I am still trying to understand. Why are the well educated, well off Americans so at war with themselves? Maybe its just my war. Everyone else seems to be happily Christmas-ing along one item at a time.
This war is exhausting. I've been fighting it for so long. It feels normal to fight against how things are and how people are. Stuck in how things should be. How I should be. How to get to the next best place. Its never enough: more more more. next next next. America makes the battle lines within me more violent. I am trying to hide from the draft in Kathmandu.
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