Resting on a Cloudy Day

Finally got some rest today. I am back in Kunming City and woke up this morning to cloudy skies. Above is a picture of what I saw from my hotel room window. Highlights of my day:

• slept in … comforter feels good, pillows all soft and everything smells nice and clean
• had brunch on the 28th floor and watched the waitresses getting harassed by waiters, grrrrr!
• couldn’t get back into my room because the hotel key card wouldn’t work; found housekeeping staff at the other end of the corridor and used hand signals to explain my predicament; they were very helpful and proceeded to clean my room
• got my laughs for the day when CNN news featured the whole American media fuss about Hillary Clinton’s cleavage. I was so curious that I checked out this article on Washington Post
• got email from my friend who is getting married in August. I have been assigned to read the Second Reading during the wedding mass… oh my! Haven’t done that since I was 9 years old!
• added 698 songs to my iTunes library, current total = 11,043 songs
• sorted through the My Pictures folder of my laptop and discovered that I just might have another talent … photography! Here’s a slideshow of some pictures from Cambodia (go on, click it click it click it! ) : Angkor Wat, Bayon, Banteay Srei and Ta Phrom Temples

Embracing moments

(Scribbles from Guangzhou airport, June 2007)

 

Life is about embracing moments:

 

Seeing…

rainbows reflected on wet eyelashes

clueless beauty framed by rain-dampened hair

grimy puddles sparkling mirrors of neon lights

silhouette of tangled passions at dawn

Feeling…

warmth of a tea cup between one’s sleepy palms

mountain wind from opened car windows

furry smoothness vibrating on a purr

skipping of a heartbeat at the brushing of skin

 

 

Tasting…

chocolate icing from a serving spoon at midnight

burning sweetness of a bailey’s shot

juicy readiness of a ripened peach

trickles of passion on a velvet tongue

 

 

Hearing…

silence of a lonesome moment at dusk

street side chatter in alien tongues

humming of awakened forest streams

rustling of soft sheets and rested breath

 

 

Life.

Jazz in July

(drafted in Phnom Penh, Cambodia/finished in Yunnan, China)

Saxophone sex plays in

my mind. Half naked, I stroke

my skin – fresh and smooth

from a long soak. Perfumed bath

on a perfect night. Alone.

Mirrors reflect back

beauty beyond blurs

of memories. And jazz plays

right into July rains, fading

out with the early morning

silence. This moment is mine

Alone.

Celebrating Curves

Re-publishing this for Hannah’s birthday…

(written for H. on the 22nd of July 2005, Phnom Penhn, Cambodia)

“Real women have curves, wrinkles, and flaws. Each one earned with experience, perseverance and determination. There’s no computer to airbrush your mistakes. Let them make you who you are. Love every mark, every scar, every extra curve you wished to go away, Accept what you can’t learn to love, Then let go of what you can’t accept. Treasure them for their memories Like a worn love letter or ratty old quilt from generations of old. Each wrinkle comes with the wisdom only years of life can give. And life is not to be hidden or covered up. For life is how a girl grows into a woman And real women have curves.” Real Women Have Curves. By Alexx A. McCoy

With soap-lathered hands I traverse
The landscape of my own body,
Rising and dipping with the curves
Which you have taught me to celebrate.

The quietness of soap bubbles
A fitting tribute to the sensuous line
Which I begin to trace at the crown of my
Dripping tresses. Sliding softly behind
Curved earlobes, I continue the line down to
The smooth surprise of my neck.

Angles of my collarbone offer a welcome
Step into the mounds of my treasured breasts
As I inhale with the sideways dip of my waist.

Bubbles pop, fade and then come alive again
As I move my hand in gentle circles, reaching for
My hip and crossing my lower belly to awaken
Remembrances of nurturance, birthing, creation
That defies poetry, that defines poetry.

Returning, I lead bubbles to the dipping shadow
Between my legs. Remembrances of pleasures drown
The demons of long-faded pasts. Yes, there is more
Celebration that awaits. More.

My thighs whisper their stories to the dampness
Of my palms. And the bubbles quiver with unspoken
Echoes. I bend further to chart a half circle towards the
Back of my knees, squeezing out more celebratory
Heartbeats as I reach for my lower calves, to the final curve
Of my ankles, as the bubbles gather on my feet.

I fold myself into my own embrace and breathe in
The melody of my celebration. The bubbles disappear into
A gentle hum. And I am left alone with my silence. Ready to
Welcome new remembrances, in a continuing celebration of
My curves.

Of Massages, Music and Moonbeams

(Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China)

After a long day of battling with period pain, woozy head, stuffy nose, dry throat, feverish eyes, aching legs… all while conducting a training this side of China… I am gifted with more than two hours of the most fabulous massage! It is a wonderful ritual… it begins with your feet being soaked and scrubbed in a wooden tub of hot (scalding hot, but it feels wonderful once you get through the initial shock), black colored, chinese-medicine treated water. This while you sip hot tea and feast on spoonfuls of black jelly made from medicinal herbs. Then it is an hour-long foot massage where pain and pleasure hopscotch among thin lines but leaves you unquestioning with the tidal wave of relaxation that overcomes your tired brain. At some stage in this timeless moment… I open my eyes (I never even noticed that I had already reclined and my eyes had closed) and look out the window to see a picture perfect full moon staring back at me. The clouds rolling in slow motion behind it, giving it an occasional moment of added glow as the moonbeams find surfaces to bounce from. Music plugged to my ear, sensations being massaged into my weary body, moon shining on me… how can one fail to recognize a moment of grace?

It doesn’t end there… but now I have to sleep… a part two is in order…

Kunming… more rainshowers

(Kunming City, Yunnan Province, China)

It’s 17 degrees centigrade outside and am wrapping my cold hands around a cup of hot puer tea. Drizzling rain since I arrived yesterday afternoon. I have brought the wrong clothes with me. It was sweltering hot during my previous visit, just a month ago, so I thought the weather would not be any much different. Now I suffer underneath my thin cotton Thai pants, tank tops and open sandals — bless the denim jacket that gives me some amount of warmth!

Our new China office is on the 18th floor, is roomier and allows more light to come in through the windows. It is cloudy outside, even the buildings of the city look gray. Feels peaceful looking out with nothing moving but the sparse traffic along the city street. I could be in any other city, except for nearby building signs with Chinese characters on them.

Lunch time should be over soon but we still await other staff returning from a project site visit to a prefecture bordering with Vietnam. So here I am killing time by writing this entry.

My writing hand is rusty and my brain is filled with obstructions, like doors slamming shut when it senses the poking breath of an equally elusive muse. I have to go back to the discipline of writing. Need to remind myself of the no-rules rule of Wild Mind writing. And get comfortable again with expressing my truth… that is — all the sense and non-sense that flows through my sometimes restive, sometimes peaceful brain.

Coming home: monsoon rains

(Manila, Philippines)

Rain blurs the flashing red of tail lights and

drowns the roadside gutters with

waters blackened by dirt and night;

splashes of silver on a swelling stream

as street lamps flicker open.

Patience is fueled by a capella music:

counterpoint to the scream of

rain and slow-moving traffic and

rush-hour-weary drivers.

I am home.

Day 13, Yangon: REST

I did not realise how exhausted I must have been in the past week, until a knock on my door woke me up. It was housekeeping, asking if I wanted the room cleaned. I got up, irritated that they were disturbing my much-needed rest. Then I looked at my phone (which was useless as a communication device because I was not getting any roaming service here, but was very useful to tell time) and saw that it was half past one in the afternoon!

I sent the housekeeping staff away, saying I preferred to rest and for them to skip the cleaning. Then I freshened up… and went back to bed! Hah!

Watched “Patch Adams” on HBO. I almost fell off the bed when he started to read the first lines of Neruda’s sonnet to this girl, as they were being drowned in a room full of multi-colored balloons. I liked the movie. Maybe too full of idealism and passion for the cynics in all of us, but still, I liked it. And he continues the reading the sonnet in bed on the first morning they wake up together… and finishes reading it to her as she lies in a closed casket, barely above ground. If you wanna read the sonnet again… see Day 2 of this blog!

Anyway, I cried. Especially at the oddest moments of the movie. I probably needed it. Just to cleanse tearducts and relieve the soul. Felt good.

Off to dinner in a bit, with a mother of two and a mother-to-be. Women-talk.

Day 12, Yangon: Workshop ends.

Workshop ended today. With sparks and fire! Yup! Just as we were finishing the last hour of the workshop, the electric wires on the far end of the workshop venue let off a spark and then burst into fire!

We had been conducting this week-long workshop at the new building of the Yangon YMCA and construction is still going on in some parts of the building. I think we were the first to use the training hall. Electricity had been on and off the whole week. And today there was rain pouring for most of the morning. It was slowed down to a drizzle in the mid-afternoon. We were almost there, with me egging one of my local co-facilitators to hasten the brainstorm and organize in matrix form the technical support needs of program partners. Then the sparks, fire, smoke! Everyone seemed dumbfounded and frozen of a few seconds. Then some participants reacted in various ways… some running to put off electrical switches, some just running to the door. I look around and there is not one fire extinguisher in sight!

Anyway, after crawling fast in the electric line’s wire casing, the fire fizzles out on its own and leaves a trail of burnt paint and the smell of burnt wire. No one calls firemen, and no one from the building seems awfully worried!

We asked the participants to evacuate the hall and I just went straight to a closing activity at the building’s ground floor lobby. I tried to lighten the mood by saying that I hoped the fire was a good sign… that everyone was fired up with energy to begin the projects in the different sites! Eeoowwww, hard try! Everyone laughed and we ended in good spirits, despite.

Looking forward to some rest this weekend.

Day 11, Yangon: more on Windows

Peeling yellow paint and faded
cement finish crumbling
between window frames
revealing red orange bricks
underneath. It is mid-afternoon
and all the upper windows
remain closed, as they have
been in the past few mid-
afternoons. They usually get
opened at day’s end when
the sun starts to set and the
open windows cast shadows on
the outer walls.

Birds chirp. Pigeons and ravens
perched on rooftop edges, flying
past my window; fluttering from one
ledge to another, balancing on
electric wires.

Cumulus, cirrus clouds all
around. Barely there, this blueness
of Myanmar skies. Wind blowing in a
dense breeze filled with
remembrances of last night’s
drizzling rain.