Starlings Love Figs and Blackberry Stomachaches

08.07.04 02:46 pm
I don't know how the starlings know exactly the moment when figs are perfectly ripe: instinct, controlled repetetive sampling, second nature, or sixth sense, but they do. I had been warned of the birds' descent, and the subsequent sticky fig-mess that follows by my lesbianlandladies who have the misfortune of having to park their car's beneath the fig tree's chartreuse foliage. I had been going out every cool morning and picking bowls of figs, bringing them to work, to school, to my mom, to the Tacoma art museum, you name it. I skipped a couple days, knowing I might live to regret it, and when I went back out they were all gone. Strips of maimed figs hung from the ends of every branch, at every level. The ground was pink with stringy, seedy figgage. The starlings' precision amazes me, not even the lowest branches were spared. The only ones left were hard and tiny, sour and unyeilding to even the sharpest beak. I, on the other hand, have no such ripeness insight. These days my runs through seward park, rainier beach and beacon hill, are punctuated by compulsive stopping to eat roadside blackberries. It doesn't make for the most consistant heart rate, but let's be frank, its not like I'm in Olympic training mode. Even after a lifetime of PNW urban harvesting I have no feeling for the ripest berry. I can see it when they're about to fall and they're overripe fizzy sweet but I never fail to eat three or four deceptively black ones that hide a few telling red kernels on the top and taste super tart and curdle my stomach. The salmonberries are good too, but rare to find and I'm always nervous that they're not really salmonberries and instead of the blackberry sideache Im used to running with now, I'll be on the roadside, stiff and foamy, from a nightshade poisoning. Last friday, I went to Lake City to a small thai restaurant to see Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan's nephews sing Qawaali. I wasnt prepared, I was wearing a skirt and a little stupid filmy shirt but I really wanted to go and all my Pakistani clothes were wrinkly and in RB. It was an incredible show. Only in Seattle would it be at this little unsuspecting restraunt with fifty people. They're playing something like the Staples Center in LA. Anyway, it was divine. Their skill, their connection to the most high, and their flawless seamless interaction and wordless communication with each other is hypnotic and captivating. They improvise on a theme (rhythm and or melody), and pass the lead through the different instruments (voice, harmonium, tabla, clapping) one of the clappers feeds the lead voice a verse and he improvises off of it, everyone else weaves themselves in to his style and then someone else takes off. They are young, younger than me and its clear that their bodies are incidental to them. They don't look particularly healthy; drinking ghee may be good for the vocal chords but its at the expense of the body. In any case, it was a transportive and divine experience even with the drunken and admittedly obnoxious punjabi sikh dancing guys element. It reminded me (on a much smaller level) of the out of control feeling I had in the crowd at the Junoon concert in Islamabad. I was irritated at how selfish these guys were, distracting the focus and dancing wildly in the front when everyone else was seated on the floor,especially since Sarah was sitting next to me feeding me info about alchoholism and DV in the Sikh community. Plus SabraAuntie was totally unamused by their antics, and it seemed like the performers wished theyed give it a rest. Here is where paired experiences comes into play. The very next night, my mother had roped me into going to see 60's new age leader and self help guru Ram Dass. I had some trepidation agreeing to go, but I thought first of all, my mom is nobody's fool and she loves the man. Plus, he was into Eastern philosopy before the herds of fung shueiers and yoga mat toting ponytail neohippes could even say the word chattarangadandasana. I figured, it won't hurt me to have an open mind and hear this spiritual teacher. Plus, it'll make my mom happy. Well, I went for a long Burke Gilman run after work on sunday and was helluv sweaty and feeling weird being at the robot-no-bodyfunction-University Village. And Im starved, despite all blackberry pitstops. So my sister, generously enough, offers to let me go shower at her house and she would pick me up to go downtown before the talk. I reluctantly walk to my car, drive in my soaking clothes up to 15th, climb her stairs with my bags, find that my key no longer works, call her and she says she forgot to tell me they changed the locks. Suffice it to say I was hot about it. Now I'm faced with changing, homeless style, in the Victrola bathroom. We fought about it, and she has yet to allow that I had reason to be as pissed as I was. Plus most of what we were fighting about was that I kept hanging up on her. I know, its childish, but I was really done talking and i didnt feel like being well mannered. Nobodys freaking perfect. I showered at my friend Laurie's house, which was weird, and my mom and sister called me about every fifteen to twenty seconds to tell me some breaking news about where they were leaving the ticket for me or how I should be sure and call if I wasnt going to come. You can be sure I really, really didn't want to go by this point. But, filial piety triumphed. I went, parked illegally, didnt feel spiritual or the least bit open minded and was presented with some of the most outrageous bullshit I've ever seen in my life. Town hall was packed. I couldnt find my mom anywhere and I really didnt feel like playing Where's Waldo for her in the sea of dowdy, predominantly greying, ponytail, white people. It became terribly clear there was to be chanting as some more dowdy, greying white people took the stage and sat down on pillows in front of the self same instruments I had seen played with such authentic fervor just the night before. Krishna Das (1 ess, not two, white as Barbara Bush) began to tell some story about how he got this chant from a sadhu in the mountains of India. The audience had an uncanny way of knowing which esoterically placed pauses to laugh at, as if to show him "aha, uh huh we know what you're talking about, we understand." Then he breaks into the chant, first in english "let your light shine on me," for about 20 mins then a traditional harehareramaramaharehareharekrishna type thing, only I've never heard one in a major scale like that. He sounded more like woody guthrie. Actually Ariel and I decided, having put our animosity aside for the moment, that it sounded like the as yet undiscovered Eagles; the Chant Album. The audience whipped themselves up into a frenzy of pretentious nodding, off beat clapping and flailing arhythmic "dancing." The chant went on for 45 minutes. At first I thought either I would have to run screaming or my head was going to explode but as my aesthetic senses numbed themselves to the assault of twirling sarongs and birken-teva-naot-clark shod tapping, I busied myself looking for someone in the room who didnt need a haircut. One couldnt be found, but I did finally see my mom and went to sit with the fam. Finally they rolled Ram Dass (two esses, not one) on to the stage in his wheelchair. His trademark white hair is long, thin and puffy. His pause before speaking was so long that I thought, with alternating horror and relief that perhaps he wouldnt speak but just hit us with some kind of Zen mendicant silent teaching. But, no. Ariel informed me he had had a stroke and therefore spoke very slowly. I wonder if maybe they should consider an alternative to speaking engagements, but who am I? He speaks slowly yes, but not just that. He began to sound very, very familiar. To the irritation of the people around us, it slowly dawned on Ariel and Me that he sounded but exactly, EXACTLY like the giant wise tortoise from the Neverending story. I mean to the point where I want to watch the credits and see if maybe he didnt do the voice. After that dawning realization, it was pretty much over. Inner hysteria prevailed. He spoke about some good stuff, honestly he did. Nothing that was real suprising or informative, but nothing really off base either. People kept shouting out (as an alternative to actually thinking of a real question) "speak about fear," or "speak about death." Things they already knew his opinion on, had already read about, had listened to on his tapes or (shock of shocks)could have thought about on their own, you know? I guess its like asking Bob Dylan to play Subterranean Homesick Blues when you know all the words and can sing along like karaoke. Maybe if I hadnt been at the Qawaali just the night before, seen and felt the authenticity of that experience, it wouldnt have seemed so starkly bad. But it was just so canned, so weird and such a comfortable, created, predictable atmosphere to talk about such wild, organic, definitively unpredictable things as fear and death. And to see all these white people excercising their "mastery" of these instruments, this philosophy, and to so plainly see in contrast to Rizwan and Moazzam Khan, what a mediocre, dispassionate grasp they had on it all, it was depressing as hell. Im glad people are interested in the spiritual plane, I really am. And this is doubtlessly better than nothing or better than attending the RNC, but man, have some respect for the way things are really done. Prostrate yourself to the hard parts and the discipline of these traditions too if you want to claim them, dont just wear the beads, stretch frequently and call yourself a freaking yogini. I left when I started falling asleep. I wanted to go visit my girl Janelle at Harborview. Shes been there for three weeks following a devastating car accident she had as she headed south on I 5 from B'ham last month. Her leg is...god, its bad. It pretty much imploded at every joint. Plus the seat belt broke her collarbone and her arm broke when the car rolled into the median. Then someone who knew she wouldnt be home for a while broke into her apartment and took everything she had. She thinks its probably her Sister. I cant even integrate that into my spectrum of understanding We are at a very very low place in our ethical fabric as a nation, and I think it's really trickling down (as it often does) to individual moral fiber. Life can be a real hurter. Put that in your lecture, Dr. Dass, I'm sure you've figured it out. Just one or two beauty school tidbits this week. We are learning perming. Its challenging, to learn the wrapping and get the dexterity of papering the rods and getting them in exactly right. But thats not what I want to write about, cause nobody cares about perms, they're over. What is so outrageous is the fundamental disrespect for the English language that is evidenced by the categorization of different kinds of perm solution. Ok. Endothermic Waves and Exothermic waves. Get this, its keeping me up nights. Endothermic waves need heat from an outside source and Exothermic waves provide their own heat. Id repeat it for emphasis but i guess you can read it as many times as you want. It'll still be BASS ACKWARDS!!! It kills me! I guess its all well and good if you dont know what endo and exo mean anyway and this is the first time youve heard it, as seems to be the case for my entire class. Then you just memorize the words like a freaking foreign language and call it a day. But for those of us who actually remember things by WHAT THEY MEAN, its rediculous! Ms Denise said she thought some cosmetologist thought the word probably sounded cool/technological and decided to call it endothermic with no real reason. Somebody tell me something. I gave Nathan a ride home and asked him about his relationship with Amber. He said she was a mix of immature and disrespectful. I told him that didnt sound like a great mix and he had to agree. He also said that he was ready to find his girl and settle down, that if he could, he'd be married right now. He said he's always telling his playa homies that they're messing things up for guys like him. He said he knew I wouldn't believe him, but that it was all true. I couldnt shake the feeling that he thought that was what I wanted to hear, but he seemed really sincere so I tried to take him seriously even though I dont think he's any more ready to settle down than Chingy. The kid is 20. Then after a long courage building pause; "So, where your boyfriend at?" I told him his name was Enrique Iglesias and he was on the road a lot. Actually I didnt say that, but it would have been a cute response. I told him I didn't have one. He said, "Man, I dont see how anyone could miss the chance to mess with you, youre off the hook." You're sweet, I told him. "Naw, for real, you're so cool and mellow, you're smart but you're funny and you can dance. Some cat is gonna be really lucky, man. " It was so cute, I can still pull the youngsters, baby! I told him he was gonna make someone very happy as well, even if it isnt Amber, and dropped him off at the bank on Henderson. Now he touches my arm in class and pulls out my chair for me, like we have an understanding that if it werent for those pesky ten years between us...He really is a good kid. Know any nice 20 year old girls lookin' to settle down?