whetstone

I have heard that Saint Petersburg is beautiful in the cold of winter, its palaces and bloody history, clean ice and long dark nights. I want to visit a friend of my mother’s, a Russian who lives there and works as a guide during the tourist season. She says that I can stay with her, and borrow her furs.

I’m vegetarian, but in the winter in Russia, I will wear fur.

i went out in the inside passage in a kayak, at night. the water is full of phosphorescence, so your hands leave little swirls of light when you trail them in the water. we paddled out to some kelp, where we could sit and not drift. underneath the water we could see the passing fish leave streams of light in their wake.

i copied this blog entry into a post here, but if you don’t find it:

http://emilywhetstone.blogspot.com/2005/09/homesickness.html

i’ve avoided writing about morocco because to write about it would mean i was just remembering it instead of living in the memory. i feel as if the friend who invited me gave me a gift in a small box, and when i opened it a huge spill of golden light came pouring out, like the sun. it seemed very light for him when he handed it to me, but when i realized the weight of what was inside i was left speechless.

when people ask me where i went and what i did, i don’t have an answer that makes a good story. we stayed at home, went to the market, slept, ate. his mother made three meals every day, which we ate with our hands. there was one cup for water on the table, which we all shared. meals were sometimes silent, sometimes noisy, filled with talk in three languages. when they made fun of me too much i would talk back in japanese, or imitate his mother talking; “kat kat kat.”

we sat on the roof of his house, which looks out over the old maze city of fes, talking of light things or heavy ones, politics or family, cooking, love. when the time was right the sky would be filled with calls and cries, laid over each other like the reverberations in a concert hall, not so much beautiful as they were primal and a little frightening. they filled me with a wild joy, like i could spread out my borrowed robe and leap off the roof to join them in the air.

my friend’s sister told me her secrets and listened to mine. his brothers dusted off their old languages, forgotten since school, and teased me like real siblings. his mother went to the police station to get a notarized form saying that she was responsible for anything i did and anything that happened to me, a requirement to staying with a family in a country with strict controls on ‘guides’. she gave me the paper and told me i was her daughter now. she walked behind me on the street, pulling my shirts down, holding my hand in the crowded squares.

in the old streets, grown up out of the earth a thousand years before i was born, my sense of direction was useless. i could remember each street, but not how one place turned into another. the streets were a deck of cards, reshuffled every night. ten days was not enough time to learn to count the cards. every street was like an image from the tarot, like a dream remembered since childhood, like a face – full of concealed layers and symbols, regarding me with thoughts of its own. i was lost in that crowd of faces but safe with a family not my own.

only ten days, it’s not a long time. but when i came home, beside the usual strange perceptions that travel gives you, i was filled with such loneliness. i miss those street faces that make up the crowded city, i miss the mother and brothers and sister around the table.

the second day home i was sending instant messages to the youngest brother, trying to tell him how much the welcome his family gave me meant to me, trying to explain the strange closeness i felt with them. i said to him “you know i don’t have any brothers and sisters…” but he interrupted me. “no. you are my sister.”

and ignoring the office moving around me, the televisions chattering and the ringing phones, i put my head in my hands and cried.

i said it once and i’ll say it again…

http://emilywhetstone.blogspot.com/2005/07/happiness.html

i went ocean kayaking with the tour company northern lights. i cannot possibly recommend them enough. the inside passage tour took us out for a week, from island to island. the temperate rainforest floor makes a hollow sound when you walk, and the water is full of seals and whales and delicious fish. you see so many bald eagles you stop noticing, and occasional black bears ambling on the rocks by the sea. at night, the water is full of phosphorescent plankton, so when you put your hand in the water it’s like watching spiral galaxies spin off your fingertips.

no question. you must go.

visited my aunt, who lives here. we spent two weeks on the following schedule: wake, eat a late breakfast, swim in the mediterranean, eat a late lunch, nap, read, eat a very late dinner, sleep.

it was heaven.

the sun and the great food and the history and the general exuberance and friendliness of greek people didn’t hurt either.

the entire country felt a little like a giant shopping mall. not to say that isn’t interesting… the cleanliness and planned feel of everything is truly fascinating.

we stayed in a chinese hotel in malacca across the street from a mosque. every morning the call to prayer would wake us in our red room. there is such a profusion of cultures here, malay and indian, chinese.

the food was fantastic, and the jungle in the cameron highlands is a wonderful place to hike.

watch out for the durians, though.

somewhere outside of chiang mai, there was a little temple. the trees there all had mottos tacked to them on little pieces of wood. from these we learned that

“handsome is as handsome dogs”

and

“many a little makes a mickle”

now, what is a mickle? we don’t know. this proverb is now used in our family to back up any position. it is quite convenient.

thailand is magical. i love the silks, the colors, all the gold, the temples that look as if they are dripping upward.