Open Windows

I feel like a million dollars.

I just had a flashback to India.

I had to take a bucket bath this morning.

The week before had concluded with a discussion of what we take for granted.  I had the students get in groups and talk about what they did that day, and who was responsible for them getting what they needed.  Someone designed the alarm clock, built it, shipped it and sold it, and then powered it with electricity.  The pipes had been designed, installed, and maintained to bring water.   The refrigerator kept the food in edible condition.  The subways, buses and cars were keeping us alive and on time to work (usually).  We had people to talk to, and so on.

Later that evening I opened my window after a long walk.  A few minutes later I leaned out to take in the night air.  Then the window slammed shut, literally on my face and my finger, causing a string of shocked expletives and then the action response.  I ran to the bathroom to survey the damage in the mirror.  Luckily nothing that bad.  I had a small scrape on my forehead that was bleeding, but the cut wasn't deep.  I looked at my hand and saw my left middle finger had a small chunk of skin missing.  I found antiseptic and luckily had three band-aids left in my apartment, enough to get me through the night.  When the initial anger and surprise subsided, I realized how lucky I'd been not to be hurt worse.  Sometimes I lean out the window.  It could have closed on my neck, or really smashed my face, or given me a concussion, or broken my fingers.  I should have known better.  The window had slammed shut before, just never when I'd been sitting there and looking through it.

The next afternoon the superintendent came to deal with the leaking ceiling in the bathroom, a problem that's been going on for weeks.  Once they came and put glue on it, and then they came and tore off the wallpaper for some reason, but it kept leaking.  Then one of the bathroom mirrors detached from the soggy wall, and this week the other mirror detached.  Shaving and trimming have been adventures.  So they finally came to work on it again, but all they really did was cut a hole in the ceiling and turn off the hot water and all water coming through the shower.  Of course, it started leaking again anyway, and they haven't worked on it for two days.  Thus, the bucket bath this morning.

I hadn't been reminded of the India connection until I woke up this morning and remembered how I'd had to pour cold water on my body to clean myself the entire first month in that country, and how once it was 40 degrees outside and I did it anyway.  But then I'd learned that there was hot water available.  So I heated some water on the stove, but not to scalding as they had done in India.  Now I feel incredibly excellent, similar to how I'd felt in the Dakota's when I'd jumped in a lake after a week without a shower.  Then again, all I had to do was camp back then, whereas now I'm about to go to the fashion district and teach a room full of pretty stylishly dressed peers from around the world, although at this branch, there aren't any students from central America, West Africa, eastern Europe or the Middle East.  At least not in any of the four classes I've taught so far.  They've been delightful Europeans, Asians and South Americans, and yes, they can afford to put a little more money into how they dress, one of an infinite variety of ways to express yourself or measure your own success.  I am happy to have clothes, and, as with most people, I usually feel better when I think that I look better, but I also had a cut on my forehead, which reminded me of something I wrote about in "Chung Fu and the Tiger-Leaping Buddha":

That according to this statue’s depiction of him, the Buddha supposedly had ten heads/faces and could simultaneously ride on four elephants at the same time.  That no wonder he felt enlightened, since you would feel that way if you had ten faces.  Then again, maybe you don't want to be enlightened, since you're not sure you could handle taking care of so many faces.  That maybe enlightenment has something to do with not caring so much about your face.  That maybe you do have ten faces, and the other nine are on the back of your head and you can't see them, and people just photo-shop them out of pictures they take of you because they don't want to freak you out.  That you're okay with this possibility.  That if the Buddha can handle it, and the Buddha is everywhere, then you can handle it."

As with most people, if I'm feeling good and smiling and people are smiling back at me, I'm happy to think that they might like what they see.  I also wouldn't want to be physically harmed in a way that attracted unwanted attention toward me.  Sometimes I wear certain clothes that help my spirits grow, especially when they're mixing with an already steady flow resulting from enjoyment of the world's show.  As for focusing on what other people wear, I don't particularly care, because I see people's souls in how they stare at the bear.

Speaking of which, I am very happy to see all these people from around the world.  You see, after they cut a hole in our bathroom ceiling Saturday afternoon, I went for a walk in Central Park just before dusk.  I found a great field to lay down and grabbed a handful of grass, realizing just how much I had taken the presence of the green carpet for granted during certain periods of life.  While I enjoyed being here, the sky changed colors, from light yellow to dark blue, so that the moon illuminated the field and the trees dancing with the breeze moved by seas of invisible infinities.  I enjoyed some music on my headphones because the day before I had finally gotten my headphone jack replaced after weeks without portable music.  After listening to my WOW wordless music playlist I continued walking through the park.

I was somewhere on the upper east side when I noticed the hockey game on TV.  The Rangers and Kings were tied at 4-4, and about to go to overtime.  The waitress asked me if I wanted a menu, so I sat at the bar, ordered some food, and watched overtime.  They were both excellent teams.  The goalie for the Rangers is named Lundqvist.  He reminds me of my mother's Swedish host family, the Lundqvist's.  One of them gave me a book when I was younger.  It was about a rabbit that smashed his thumb with a hammer, so his friend told him all of the greater pain he could possibly be experiencing, such as elephants stepping on his toes and such, and it made him feel better.  Life shouldn't always be an "it could always be worse" philosophy, but perspective is an essential key to living.  As for the game, I didn't care who won.  The first time I saw the hockey championship, it was the Kings against the Canadiens.  I wanted the Kings to win because they had Wayne Gretzky, the "Great One."  They didn't win, but the next year the Rangers won.  Wayne Gretzky would also play for them too.  So which one means I'm rooting for the former team of the "Great One"?  Whoever wins this year will be fine by me, as long as they continue to play well.  Both games have gone to overtime so far.  Meanwhile, the guy sitting next to me at the bar had to guess what was happening based on our reactions, because he could not see.  I don't especially enjoy watching hockey, but it was an opportunity to see some poetry, and unlike the man next to me, I can see.

When I had to go to work earlier today, it was pouring rain.  At least I wasn't in the same situation as my new roommate, who was starting a job at a financial company, had just moved in yesterday, and was wearing a suit but needed to buy an umbrella ASAP.  Of course, during the morning rush I misplaced the perspective and became irritated when my subway card didn't have enough fare on it, and I disputed it with the MTA employee, and then walked away saying some choice words to the machine in front of me, although I specifically said it to "the world," for which I apologize now.  I'm sorry world.  I didn't mean that.  I hope you can tell I wasn't even that angry when I said it, it just felt like the best way to release a lot of pent up stress.  I appreciate that you open windows at all so I can see your glory.

On Sunday I used my ability to see to read many of the stories on the site written in 2014.  One of them said that on journeys you usually need to face some familiar challenging experiences to remind you and test you on the lessons before any successful milestones.  Then I wandered across Harlem to the Bronx.  On the way I saw a teenager in the distance.  He was shirtless and walking with a pronounced limp.  When he drew near he began talking to me, so I removed my headphones.  There's always a chance you will learn something.  He asked me for some money to eat, because he hadn't eaten in two days.  He looked like it.  I asked him his name.  He said, "Christopher."  I have a teenage cousin named Christopher.  I asked him what he was going to buy with money.  He said it was for a sandwich.  He held up a few coins he had collected.  I gave him a dollar.  He smiled in what appeared to be a genuine way, but who knows...  He shook my hand and then limped away, and then I walked over the 145th street bridge to the Bronx and wandered up to Yankee Stadium on 161st street.

I don't like the Yankees, but any team's heroes can inspire me.  Babe Ruth.  The first American celebrity athlete.  I did know that he held just about every baseball record when he retired, and he also hit more home runs during his time than anyone could imagine.  I hadn't realized that he was born in Baltimore.

I walked around the stadium, listening to my favorite musical home run hitter, Hiromi, up to 164th street and then back to 161st.

On the way to the field there was another field where locals were playing.  It said on the side, "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."

I walked back through the Bronx, my former borough of employment, with a few hours to rest before returning to work in midtown the next morning.  I wasn't feeling too ecstatic, since it had been a very hot weekend and I hadn't showered in a couple days, and I'd been walking a lot in the afternoon's and evenings after days spent indoors with open windows so I could see the sunshine on the trees while I would write, read, rest and restore energies to be fully ready for new creative endeavors awaiting me.

As I reached the river I started to feel hungry, but obviously there are many more people who are hungrier than I am.  A few weeks ago I was the hungriest I've ever been while living in American civilization, as opposed to traveling abroad or being in the wilderness for a long time.  I don't know if that would mean anything to you though, because I don't know who you are.  Maybe you've known deeper hunger than I have, or you're simply really good at fasting for determined reasons, such as athletics, health, or spirituality.  It was my own fault anyway.  If I had saved money more carefully, I wouldn't have been so hungry those two weeks in May.  But if I hadn't been so hungry, I would have missed some poetry.  Besides, I had hope, which isn't a gift given to everybody.  I knew that in an emergency nobody was actually going to let me go dangerously hungry.  If anything I knew that limited consumption was actually one of the greatest keys to longevity, and that I still had plenty of food for essential nutrient energy.  I just put myself into the mind set of an athlete in training, willfully abstaining from food that I hadn't earned yet, a skill I should have honed a long time ago.  I'm very lucky that I have people who wish me well and don't want to see something happening to me.  That being said, taking care of myself is very important to me, and should be, because I'm a month from 30.  You can't always wander and live carefree.  As much as I love how that feeds me beauty and poetry, I find that I grow happier to a much larger degree when I share these with everybody.

That's why I give green paintings of pyramids to people who request them.  And that's why I'm having a difficult time re-questing through India, because sometimes, when I'm walking through my memories, starving shriveled faces begging me for money is all I can see, and then those calming voices who reminded me that it wasn't me and that the best thing to do for quality was to give money to a reputable charity instead of teaching people that they could get something for free... but what about me?  What about everything I get for free?  If someone asks me, I'm happy to give them an art work that represents what is already inside of me.

One of the happiest moments of this joyful spring was walking around on a hazy day, because I was so hungry I couldn't think of anything to say, and I held a dollar in my pocket, and I walked up to "Papa's" grocery store on 155th street, and I thought about the story I was told about my grandfather, Papa, surviving on sardines as his only source of protein when he was living his first year in Ithaca and becoming the first member of his generation to attain such a level of education.  Because of that, I'd finally embraced sardines as a reasonably healthy way to get protein, but on that night in May, I didn't have enough green.  But I could afford a can of beans.

I happily gave them the green so I could have the beans.  There would someday be more greens and more beans, but at the time, one-for-one was all I would need.

I hope I never forget how I felt walking home holding that one can of beans in my hands, triumphant, thankful, and blessed to be participating in reality.

When I ate dinner that night, those beautiful beans mixed with spinach and rice, I drank some delicious clean water and thanked the one you thank for life.

1

            Hi!

            Let’s catch up, shall we?
            I hope you have been enjoying your life in excellent ways every day.

            As for me, I think the summary of my recent journey begins on May 21.  I completed three days of substitute teaching at the Upper West Side branch of my language school, finished packing my car, and left Harlem and the island of Manhattan on a drive north three hours to my hometown of Cambridge.  My iPod headphone jack has been in need of repair for several weeks now, but I’ve been on a tight budget with schedules switching frequently, so I couldn’t use my iPod for music.  Luckily I had a few real CD’s from Hiromi and Art Tatum to take me up from the city to the paradise of rolling green hillsides and fully blossomed trees.

            Everywhere was very green, except the sky, which was very blue.  When I arrived home I savored a few breaths of clean country air and the sound of absolutely nothing, save for the occasional slight breeze through the green leaves of the trees.  I said hello to my parents and then walked up to the hill to have a campfire with my four closest friends from the area, all of whom live within a 30 minute drive of this hallowed place where we’ve been building memories since I moved up from Long Island in 1995.  After a few hours of laughs and catching up, they left the fire at 11, leaving me with an hour of solitude to meditate on the journey in New York City that had begun seven months earlier, in October, when I’d first moved back from California via a six day drive across the country.  The scene inspired a haiku as I watched flames flicker above the open fields and valleys solemnly existing within an infinite universe:

Peaceful with the fire

Train whistles through the valley

Stars swim in the sky

            I returned home by walking through the dark beneath the most stars I’d seen in the sky in a long time.  I had done this walk so many times that I didn't need a flashlight, despite the dark forests, some of which were trees I had planted with my father when I was only thirteen.  They are much larger, more mature and self-assured after all these years of growth.

2

            The next morning I drove through rainstorms in the Adirondack Mountains to meet my father at our family’s cabin, where we worked together to open the place for the season and, most importantly, turn on the water.  We shut it off during the winter so the pipes don’t freeze and burst.  It is finally warm enough, so even though we still experienced rain storms here and there, we spent the afternoon on the project.  He explained how all of the pipes and valves worked and then made adjustments while I turned valves and reported whether we had succeeded, the measure of which was if water was gushing from the hose.  The first few times we realized there were clogs in the pipes that were already in the lake, so my dad waded in the lake and handed me sections of pipe until we had shortened the length from the pump to the intake.  After that we tried again, and water came bursting forth with dramatic force.  Our mission was a success, and I knew more about plumbing.  One more Super Mario skill to check on the list.  We celebrated with dinner at a restaurant a few minutes down the road, just over the small mountain my grandfather and his brothers purchased and later sold decades ago, and, best of all, hosted my parents’ winter wedding in the 70’s, with several feet of snow, winter boots and all.  He went to bed early and I continued re-reading Huston Smith's book on the world’s religions, specifically, the section on Hinduism, and the paths to God.  I mostly read about the “way to God through work,” which seemed to fit the (3461) theme of the mission, especially since I was with my father.  I also read about the “way to God through love,” the “way to God through knowledge,” and the “way to God through psycho-physical experiments.”  Then I went to the lake to be peaceful with the silent waters, although the sky was still covered in clouds.  I could see the bright lights from Burlington, Vermont across the lake, and the shadowy darkness of the island I had begun exploring six years ago when I first started feeling the itch to escape from the city.

            My father returned home the next morning to work on his many projects around the farm.  He would come back a day later with my mother to enjoy the place for the weekend, but I still got to have the cabin to myself for one day.  I enjoyed relaxing to the sounds of the rain on the roof and the crackle of the flames loving the logs in the fireplace.  I worked on my book, ate healthy food, explored my imagination and memories, and when there was a brief break in the rain and a little bit of sun shined through the clouds, I took advantage of the opportunity to float on the water with my canoe for the first time anywhere in seven months.  I also returned to paddle around at night for a little while, even though there weren’t any stars visible.  Clearly this visit was a lesson in patience.  I had another fire in the fire place, listened to music, and slept in a bed that is much more comfortable than the one I have in the city.  I woke up after a few hours to use the bathroom, and when I emerged from my room I saw the sun rising from behind the Green Mountains of Vermont and reflecting gloriously from the waters of Lake Champlain.  Even better, you couldn’t even see the other side, because it was all covered in pure white clouds, made even more spectacular by the sun shining on them from above.

            My parents returned a few hours later.  We mostly relaxed, but it being opening weekend, there were many chores to see to, such as sweeping the porches, moving stacks of firewood, and, best of all, chopping firewood with an axe.  Despite all the swearing I’d do every fifth log, that one where the wood just wouldn’t let the blade cut any deeper than an inch or two, I mostly enjoyed myself and felt incredibly alive.  There were a few times when I heard the wind blowing through the pine trees, my grandfather’s favorites, and remembered how he dedicated his life to this type of work.  I also thought of how my grandmother had insisted he build this place.  I took another log from the pile, placed it on the stump, began a wind up similar to that of a baseball player and then swung with all my focused might, instantly splitting the wood in two with a satisfying thwack.  If only they were all so easy.  Then again, when it gets stuck and you need to swing the hammer down on the axe with your other arm, you feel like some sort of Norse god, and it’s all worth it.  Later that night I got to canoe under the stars for the first time since I’d come back.

            On Memorial Day evening I drove through the Adirondacks down route 87 to Harlem.  I got a late start, which blessed me with a spectacular sunset while driving amongst green mountains.  I arrived in the city at midnight, and went to sleep around 2.  Then I got up at 6 to begin my final week of work as a language teacher in the Bronx.  A week earlier I had finished my classes after seven months of employment at that branch, but one of the teachers went on vacation and my transfer to the midtown branch on 37^th street wasn’t for another week.

3

            I taught another teacher’s classes in the Bronx for five days.  Luckily, I got to teach many of the same students I had just taught during my last five week class.  I was very happy to see them again.  Even better, most of them were very excited to see me again.  Of course, there were fresh faces as well, which is a huge part of the fun.  Everyone has a unique smile.
             We had a great week together.  I taught them conditionals and noun clauses, vocabulary and expressions, and sometimes put them in pairs or groups and made them speak to each other.  I learned their opinions on a variety of subjects, the most gripping of which was the debate about the value of marriage versus being single.  I don’t know anything about the former from personal experience, so I could take their word for it, whether they were for or against.  Then I said good bye yet again on Friday afternoon.  I still had one more day at the branch though.

            On Saturday morning I taught a class that meets once a week.  I hadn’t met any of the students before, but it was a good class of people.  At the end of our four hours together I said good bye to the NYLC Bronx branch that has made it possible for me to live in New York City again, while simultaneously improving my English, communication, speaking, listening, cultural understanding and overall people skills.  Almost all of the students were from countries I had never been to, and many of them were the first representatives of their people to encounter me on the path through this dream world.  I didn’t know the depth of the cultural exchange I was moving toward when I read that e-mail in the front seat of my car one morning at a rest area in western New York State this past October, having just driven through the heartland of the United States in six days and woken up in that same driver’s seat ten minutes earlier at a parking area down the road.  I was used to that front seat by then, but I wasn’t used to teaching people from many of the places I would soon meet.  I had already planned to meet a different English school for an interview, but it was fitting this place should respond to my resume on the final day of my journey from life in California to a newer, hopefully richer life in my home state of New York.  I had spent much of four years traveling and residing in places very far away, sometimes as far as places my students came from.  I had seen plenty enough to ensure that my imagination will be sharing stories in the written and spoken form for years to come.  And of course, the rest of the world would still be there.  Any time I thought it felt right, I could always explore some more.  I felt very confident after all of the wonders I’d enjoyed and hardships I’d endured.

            Then again, despite all of my travels, regardless of how much I’d relatively roughed it, many of these people came from places that truly knew the meaning of overcoming adversity.  The people from Kosovo had survived a war, if not necessarily fought in it, as had those from West Africa and southern central Africa.  Students from Yemen are from the country with the most drone strikes but you wouldn't know it from their smiles.  Many Latin American students were from countries with the highest murder rates in the world, but some of them weren't even aware of it.  South American students were sometimes from countries with extreme drug trafficking, but it's not like that was part of their everyday lives.  Then again, who knows?  Many Mexicans told me of fleeing the drug violence in their hometowns and cities.  One of them even knew my hometown well because he traveled up to farms for his job on several occasions.  He said he stood out and even overheard a few racist remarks while eating in a diner near one of our rival towns which I've always put down, even though they're basically the same place in the world.  Puerto Ricans told me of relatives being murdered, and Dominicans told me of crazy players shooting everyone at nearby basketball courts in the Bronx.  One of my students was even named Amadou Diallo, who shares his name with the poor victim of police ineptitude that resulted in him being shot 40 times by four police officers simply because he didn’t speak English and understand that they were telling him to keep his hands out of his pockets because they thought he had a gun, when really he couldn’t understand that they were saying police, making him think they were robbers and that he should give them his wallet, or at least prove that he had the right to be in the country by showing his ID.  So maybe this English teaching thing is somewhat important after all.  Meanwhile, there were a few western European and East Asian students who livened up the classes, but they were in the minority.

            A few of them would commute from Harlem and Washington Heights in Manhattan, but for the most part they all live in the county from my home state which happens to be ranked last in just about every measurable quality of life.  The Bronx is ranked 62/62 in per capita income, and 62/62 in health.  That doesn’t mean their lives are less quality or that their days are necessarily less enjoyable than anyone else’s.  They’re all individuals living unique stories.  And the people I spend most of my time with may all happen to be together in the same classroom, or even share a neighborhood, but most of their life stories have been lived in their incredibly varied, rich and deep cultures in their native countries spread across the globe flying through space around and around the sun, shining light for everyone.  Even so, learning English will help them get better jobs, increase their standards of living and enjoy more of what this world has to offer.

            I don’t know what the world offers everyone else, regardless of how much I ask, but the world has offered the state of New York to me as my native homeland since I entered this land of humans almost thirty years ago. 

            I lived the beginning of my life in the crowded but fairly normal suburbs of Long Island, a reasonably diverse area of people, with many cultures represented during day to day life at elementary school.

            My ancestors who gave me my surname have been living on Long Island for almost four hundred years.  When I was growing up we lived an hour from the most influential, famous and multicultural city in the world, on an island that acted as the entryway to the Atlantic Ocean and the rest of the world.  When we swam at the beach we imagined looking at the other side of the sea where we could see the origins of our family, the linguistically, scientifically, literary and musically accomplished and influential island nation of England.  This place provided the language that gave me jobs in Japan, California, the Bronx and Manhattan.

            The ancestors who gave me (1346) the rest of who I am have been here for more than 130 years.  When there wasn't enough food to eat, they left that other English-speaking island, Ireland, which is even closer than their bitter rival England.  They journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean, past Long Island, and moved to the northern tip of New York State, near the border with our northern neighboring country, Canada.  They eventually found an area across a lake from our northeastern neighbor, the state of Vermont ("Green Mountain").  During summers we enjoyed the privilege of car rides that took us through Queens, the Bronx, Westchester, past the state capital of Albany and the summer horse racing town of Saratoga, up through the majestic Adirondack Mountains, the biggest range in the state, and the home of the 1980 Miracle on Ice Olympics at Lake Placid, all the way up to the wondrous waters of the longest largest lake in eastern New York, Lake Champlain.  11 miles across and two hundred miles tall, extending from southern Vermont and middle New York up beyond the border with Canada, the lake provided a stellar view of the Green Mountains surrounding Burlington, Vermont while we stayed for several weeks, every summer, in the cabin my grandfather built after returning from World War II.  The nearest towns around there are all very small, comprising a rural area named "the north country."  I spent a lot of time in the woods and my grandparents’ house on a hill overlooking the countryside, including the lake in the distance.  Sometimes my grandfather even took us into the evergreen forests where he tended large lots of woods to run his lumber mill, where he employed many men.  He knew everything about planting trees, raising them, growing them, making sure they lived to be strong, healthy and productive members of the ecosystem that keeps all life alive, especially through cleaning our air, because when we breathe out, they breathe in.  And then, yes, eventually he would cut them down, but so that they could be handled by masters who knew how to transform them into new service of life, making houses, beds, tables for eating and working, chairs for the same, boats and paper so that words could survive lifetimes and spread the life force eternally for all we know.

            When I was eleven I didn't know too much yet, although I did know that I was in for a big life change when we moved to a small town farm country area named Cambridge, which is midway up the eastern border of the state, about half of the six hour drive that connects the seemingly opposite worlds of Lake Champlain and New York City.  It’s named Washington County, after the first president and leader of the rebel army of the United States, which freed us from my ancestors, the English.

            I attended university in the center of the state, in the Finger Lakes region in one of the most progressive voting cities in America, Ithaca.  I was in a very privileged hilly area above the town and the lake, and spent four years working hard to understand the world through various lenses of comprehension.  It's funny how I look back to realize the sheer depth of just how privileged we all were to be there, and how privileged I had already been, because I wasn't always happy.

            After graduation I moved to the borough of Brooklyn in an African-American and Latino neighborhood named Bushwick. I lived there for one year while working in midtown Manhattan.  Then I moved to not only the most diverse borough of New York City, but the most diverse area of humans per capita in the entire world, Queens.  I stayed for two years while working in various parts of Manhattan, and then returned to Cambridge for eight months to experience small town America, explore the Adirondack Mountains, and reconnect with Lake Champlain before setting off on a journey around the world that continues every day.

            I began in India, a place that people had told me would be the most different and perhaps most difficult place to understand in the world, that is, for someone like me who was from the state of New York.  After having my mind thoroughly blown and then kindly reassembled through mysterious compassion from the unknown, I continued the journey through the Southeast Asian countries, most of which had been involved in American wars during the 1960’s and 1970’s.  I saw Thailand, a gorgeous jungle Buddhist nation with beatific beaches.  It also happens to be a leader in human sex trafficking.  Then I explored Cambodia, home to Angkor Wat, the largest center of spirituality in the world.  I also saw the jungle where the Khmer Rouge hid before taking over the government and presiding over a genocide of its own people caused by paranoia and mistrust taken to their unthinkable extremes.  Vietnam was and for some still is an American nightmare, just as America was and still is a Vietnamese nightmare.  It is also the source of entertainment and jokes years later.  I have enjoyed both.  I completed with Laos, the least overwrought with tourists, the most relaxed and playful, and also the recipient of the most bomb attacks in the world because of their unfortunate scenario of being next to Vietnam.  They were all beautiful places to be, filled with friendly, fun and hard-working humanity.  Well, maybe Lao was a little more laid back than most, but they’d been through enough to earn the mentality.  After a few months of those I got to know the country that everyone said was now our main rival in world power, ideology and economy, the evil empire, supposedly, that was not free despite its overflowing wealth of wisdom, culture and ancient history.  Taste the tea and you’ll see the truth inside you named Chung Fu.  These words were born in China, on the other side of the world from me, to describe a sensation that exists beyond everything we could agree this world should be, because it represents infinity.  After two months more of my journey to the East, I learned more about this beautiful source of magical force in Egypt, one of the cradles of civilization and the home to the most enduring expressions of art in the known universe, the pyramids.
               Afterward I was fortunate to visit my sister in the European landlocked nation of Germany, home to some of the most brilliant, spiritual, rational, efficient, violent and friendly manifestations of humanity, and also home to many of the ancestors in my family tree.  Some time over one hundred years ago they moved to the center of New York, near that university town, to meet with some of the English who had come to our eastern neighbors, Massachusetts, over four hundred years earlier.  They made my grandmother, who met my grandfather, a man descended from the Irish settlers in northeast New York.  They made my mother, who met my father at the same university I went to in Ithaca.  He was able to meet her because his father--a man born from the English who had been on Long Island for four hundred years--met my grandmother, whose father came from British ancestors and whose mother came from Poland, Germany’s eastern neighbor.  So many stories that had to be timed just perfectly for me to be me and helping you and me see just how free we can possibly be.  I was able to understand all of that a little more thanks to my visit to Germany, a previous visit to England with the family when I was sixteen, and the final stop of my first exploratory tour of the world, the Emerald Isle of Ireland.

            Since then I’ve explored all but four states in my home country (Hawaii, Alaska, Arkansas and Iowa).  I've also lived in Japan, that influential, artistic and accomplished island on the opposite side of England on the island of Eurasia.  As if I I hadn't had enough adventures already, I drove around the country, hiking and camping, and then lived in Sonoma County, San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, California, on the opposite side of my home country.
              I decided I was ready to come back to my people after a year in California, but now that I look back, I wasn't just finding my people who I already knew.  I was about to meet many more members of the family humans like to refer to as "my people."
              May 31 marked a successful seven month mission teaching in the Bronx, the home to most people who want to make a new start in my country, the United States of America, and do so by taking part in the many opportunities offered by the international circus known as New York City.

 

a listening/music class near the beginning of the experience...

 

a couple months ago...

The final class in the Bronx a few weeks ago.

I'd had about half of them in a previous class too,

and then again while substituting recently

 

 

 

4

                I felt very happy after completing the class, but also very sleep-deprived.  I took a quick nap, ate some food, and then got in that familiar driver’s seat to go through the Bronx and Queens to central Long Island for a very important gathering of family.  They had a memorial service for my Aunt Diana’s mother, Jean Lynch, who was affectionately called Mimi by her grandchildren.  She was the warmest and friendliest human I’ve been blessed to meet.  What’s more, she was the best audience and interviewer I’ve been fortunate to have ask me about my life and experiences.  She engaged everyone she met with enthusiasm, and asked excellent follow-up questions to show that she was interested in who they were.  She died in October after a long well-spent life with many laughs and long hugs, but the family waited until this weekend to remember her publicly.  Since she wanted it to be a happy experience for all involved, they served popcorn and ice cream.  My aunt set the tone by giving a moving, funny and emotional speech about her mother, and then opened the floor for others.  My father read a poem that my mother had selected, as she couldn’t come due to the unexpected arrival of some new stray kittens that needed her care.  After he was finished I read some thoughts she had written for the occasion.  Then I shared a few thoughts of my own, mostly thanking Jean for being the first person to earnestly interview me about that first seven month journey around the world, and for always making me feel special, loved and admired, a theme expressed by many of the speakers.  After a few more people spoke the gathering began to disperse and I got to see my younger cousins, all of whom I remember holding when they were babies.  The oldest is now at college near Lake Champlain, studying education for children, the middle one is about to graduate high school, and the youngest in all of our family is finishing his first year of high school.  Then I got to catch up with my uncle, that is, my dad’s younger brother, who is only 19 years older than I am.

            Completing an astounding week of memory lane, I was lucky to drive to my grandmother’s house to have the greatest pizza in the world with my father, uncle and grandmother.  This is the same house where my grandfather was born, my father was brought home from the hospital, and I was brought home from the hospital.  I also lived the first few years of my life there.  The day was also a milestone for this place, because my grandfather had died three years earlier on that date.  I had been teaching first and second grade students in Tokyo at the time he left, May 31, 2011.  That is, at the moment he left this world, I had just finished classes and was dancing on a train while wearing an army combat jacket I'd frequently sported during my adventures.  Then again, that was the only day I can remember wearing it to that school.  I liked it because it always made me feel like I was on a challenging mission.  I also felt like I was brave, like my grandfather, however much that was possible, since he had grown up during the depression and volunteered to be a marine, lying about his age at seventeen, so he could go fight against Japan in World War II, probably never imagining that one of his many grandsons would return decades later to teach the children English.
                There were plenty of happy stories to share about him as we sat around the familiar family dining room table, but we also talked a little about all of the things we knew he had seen during his war days.  Apparently the only time my grandmother almost saw him cry was when Mimi had asked him about the war a few years before he died.  It was something he never talked about.  He didn’t need to, because he was also a highway state trooper who saw more than his share of accidents.  He told me a few years later that he was just happy all of his children were alive and that he had survived them, because he knew that was a privilege, not a guarantee by any means.
                We lightened the mood with some exquisite birthday cake (it had been my uncle’s birthday a few days earlier).  I enjoyed telling my grandmother and uncle about why I loved living in the city and spending my time with so many people, and how much I’ve learned from them.  Then I drove back to Manhattan, my current “home.”

            The week had begun at Lake Champlain in northern New York, a place I had been going to since I was an infant, and concluded in the home where I began life, both places acting as enduring symbols of my grandparents’ lives of loving, laughing and learning.

            Starting tomorrow I will be teaching at the main midtown branch in Manhattan, on 37^th street.  I will also teach on the Upper West Side in the evenings, a practice I began this past week as a substitute.  That gives me plenty of time to continue work on the book.

            Speaking of which, I didn’t just teach classes in the Bronx last week.  I also began teaching evenings on the Upper West Side.  They had final exams, which was strange, because I had to review everything they’d learned with them, even though I hadn’t been their teacher.  Much better though was the speaking portion of the test, where they each had to converse with me for 4-5 minutes.  I’d barely met them during the previous two classes when I reviewed and gave them the written test, but on Thursday I had the privilege of sitting across from them, one by one, and asking them questions about themselves, using every opportunity for a follow up question that presented itself.  I was getting paid to meet people who are from around the world, yet still my fellow residents of the same city.  They were all friendly and mostly happy to get a chance to practice speaking.  That’s what it’s about.  Connecting with the people.  Making people (1134) feel valued and interesting, and helping them express themselves more accurately, creatively, and if possible, poetically.  And when you can give them something extra, whether it’s your knowledge, your wisdom, your creativity, or your imagination, by all means, the time is ripe.  I feel so lucky to have so much to share.  There are so many pleasures, people, passages and places to tell you about.

            I feel fortunate to give people whatever I can in a live setting for several hours a day before I put words on paper to celebrate this ability to communicate.

            More is on the way.

Patience Pays People

In the near future I will have my first visit to one of my favorite places to be alive since I drove across America to New York from California in October.  I drove straight to this lake for three days, and then to my family's home in farm land, for two days, and then down to the metropolis, and two days later I had a job.  Wow... it's been 7 months in New York City as of today.  It began in mid-October.  I interviewed my first day, interviewed and observed classes at another place my second day, got hired, went up to the Bronx for a second time to observe classes the next day (a Saturday morning), and then began teaching my first class two days later.  I began another class the next week, and since then I've been doing various schedules of teaching groups of humans for five-week classes.  During that time I had visited home several times to see the country side in the winter, or leafless spring.  I was surrounded by the mostly brown hillsides and desert landscapes of California the year before.  That means I haven't seen upstate farm fields and mountains in the height of spring in two years. And I was on journeys in Japan and China during the most beautiful season of the Earth the previous springs.

I have two days before I go to work in Manhattan for the first time since April of 2009.  Even though I've been working in New York City and living in Manhattan since January, I haven't worked on this island since my previous experience living and working in the city.  That time I always worked in Manhattan and lived in Brooklyn and Queens.  This week I will begin substituting to start my transfer to the Upper West Side branch, which is technically down the road from where I live.  I could walk there or be there in a few minutes via the 1 train.  In June I will have a full schedule of classes, which keeps me fed and pays my expenses in my otherwise financially modest lifestyle, one that allows me to practice writing every day and grow this book that is growing now, wherever and however it continues to grow.  But to do so, I must also work and be with humans to remember the whole reason I'm writing the book: getting to know and like each other, and love the world that puts us all together.  We don't have to all love each other, but we can make the most of this.

The Upper West Side branch is where I originally interviewed and got hired to work in the Bronx, where I have been for seven months as a teacher.  I've been teaching groups of international students, mostly immigrants, ranging in size from six to twenty-five.  When there have been many students, I've worked standard 35 hour work weeks, but with four hours of commute time per day while living on my friend's couch in Queens.  If my friend hadn't been so generous, I wouldn't have been able to start in this city again.  I've also worked as few as ten hours per week, at the beginning.  All of that has been in the Bronx, where students tend to come from continents and parts of the world I have never been, with cultural styles I could only have imagined from media.  New York isn't the easiest place to become acquainted with strangers, especially if you're the type of person who decides to switch coasts within two weeks, and then sleep in your car on some back road or in some rest area six nights in a row.  I've been incredibly fortunate to spend my time getting paid to stand in front of rooms of my peers and help them the way they expect to be helped, through improvement of their English language skills.  This will theoretically improve their chances of quality of life.  Since the Bronx is ranked at the bottom of all counties in my home state in many important categories, this is a major leg up for many of these people.  Some of them are college students from West Africa, others are Dominican, Mexican, Honduran and Ecuadorian mothers hoping to go to college or get a better job.  Many are Dominican or Mexican men hoping to get a better job or go to college.  There are people from all over South America.  Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Chile come to mind.  El Salvador and Guatemala also helped represent Central America.  Almost every class has had students from Albania and Yemen.  There were also people from Mauritania, Kosovo, Spain and France.  And although most people who live on the continent of Africa will simply say they are from Africa, they represent a vast swath of excitingly diverse cultures from very distant places that happen to be on the same enormous mass of land that also has the pyramids in a remote corner.  Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Guinea, Togo, Burkina Faso, C'ote D'Ivoire, and Congo have definitely been represented positively by their ambassadors who happened to be in the class given to me.  I had fewer Asian students than ever, compared to Japan and San Francisco where they easily predominated (and obviously in the former).  Still, I did get to meet great people from Japan, China, Vietnam and Bangladesh.  They've ranged in age from 17 to 60.  I'm excited to meet many more in the new location this week before going to my favorite place.

We have talked about just about everything groups of people could talk about thanks to the wide variety of book materials and activities, although some were much better than others.  Some of my students could rival anyone I'd taught anywhere else on the globe in ability, enthusiasm and personality, while others had no idea what it meant to learn something from someone in a formal setting with other people, or to consistently work on a skill.  Some of them complained they had nothing to do all day, while others worked 14 hours every day.  I know one guy who works 14 hours every day, and has for the last nine months with no vacations.  Maybe the occasional 10 hour day.  One day he will be the boss and won't have to worry about it.  He was from Yemen.  He ALWAYS was smiling.  Or the other guy from Yemen who works 12 hours every day but also admits he didn't have to work at all when he was a 19 year old at home the year before.  He bought me an elephant shaped clock for Christmas.  They didn't all have elephants to give, but they usually made some memorably delicious food for the parties that celebrated the end of every five week cycle.  Yesterday was no exception.  Great people and great food.

During this most recent five weeks, we covered a lot of grammar I wouldn't have known by name before I arrived here, and that's including all of my previous education and teaching experience.  I taught grammar in all of my jobs, but always as a smaller part of a larger curriculum.  It has been the predominant focus here.  It's been very helpful for me as a native speaker to understand how and why our language is organized the way it has evolved.  During 18 classes we learned present perfect, past perfect, present continuous/progressive, past continuous/progressive, present perfect continuous/progressive, past perfect continuous/progressive, future perfect, future continuous/progressive, future perfect continuous/progressive, modals, expressions of purpose, contrast connectors, reported speech aka direct and indirect statements, plenty of new words and ways to use them through listening, speaking and reading exercises, and even the occasional story from yours truly.  I got some good practice here and there telling simple stories that were interesting and unique without being completely crazy or mind-blowing so that my diverse audience could get a basic valuable lesson that at least some of them could learn from.  Besides that, we spent the last five classes reviewing.  Then we had the final exam, I graded them, and they socialized and shared food.  When I came back they insisted I eat their food and take pictures with them.  I finally remembered to bring my camera and did the same, but I can't find my flash connector right now, so they will be forthcoming. 

Whoever they were, I hoped they learned something from me, because I definitely learned a lot from them.  When I think about that combined with everything I've learned from and been honored to discuss with hundreds of students from teaching experiences in Japan and California, I know that this journey toward greater understanding of and affinity for all the wondrously unique people of this world is still going strong.  And it's even more than using voices to speak in person.  The journey of words on pages also continues.

This journey has been growing in Manhattan in the neighborhood of Harlem since the beginning of this year.  I have my own room with a window looking up at the skies and over the streets and people busily walking by, or socializing on the strip between the lanes of Broadway where many locals like to sit on benches beneath the trees, which finally have bright green leaves.  Sometimes they appear to be laughing and telling stories.  Other times they are sitting alone, thinking of who knows, if anything.  Others sleep there because they have nowhere else to go.  Some play music.  Others play cards and chess and drink from brown paper bags.  The trucks and taxis go by, and sometimes they have interesting things to say and I take pictures of them in between sharing stories on this laptop and writing the longer story, which is not an easy thing to do at all.  I am learning to respect it more, persevere and be patient, and I am enjoying the process.  It is difficult to adjust to the newness of today while reliving days before.  The best technique is to find the gifts and lessons in both, and this helps me focus on that unnameable feeling of aliveness one gets from the golden moments.  Some call it following your bliss, or living your joy.  If that's too high-sounding for you, just think of it as having a great !!!!!!! time.

Speaking of which, it's a beautiful day.  I'm going to go explore some more.

Maybe I'll float upon the waves so I may see Lady Liberty, who welcomes those wanderers, seekers and dreamers who have clearly already displayed the astounding, awe-inspiring and adventurous feat of journeying with the sea, the epitome of freedom and bravery.