As The Crow Flies

We have a foot, maybe more, of snow now. I feel very fortunate on my daily walks through the snowy forest of pine, fir, and aspen to be here.

My daily walks are a 7-mile loop where I have figured out a way to mail a Netflick movie and receive one on the same walk– by putting the one I‘m mailing in a guy’s mail box on the other side of the street– he doesn‘t get his mail until much later then mine.

It’s weird to have things so sunny but so cold, like a hot fudge sundae. It’s a little disorienting, because it seems like summer, it’s so bright, but then you get the nice coolness of winter and the beautiful sparkling snow.

This morning when I woke up, it was 9 degrees (-13 C) outside and 28 degrees (-2 C)inside the cabin. Which you think would feel cold but it didn’t. I’m so lay-back about my heating that I hadn’t brought in any of my snow covered wood the night before and the propane bottle that is connected to the Mr. Heater was empty. I walked out in the darkness with my headlight to hook up another bottle of propane. With the moon shining and the light of my headlamp making the snow sparkle I thought, “Wow, I‘m so lucky.�

The person that lets me use his mailbox to mail my movies, invited me for Christmas dinner with his family. He lives in a normal house with running water, grid electricity–the whole package. I accepted because I didn’t think it was friendly to say, “No thank you, I like to be alone.â€? Then this morning I woke up with a headache and I decided that was a good reason to call and cancel. For some reason, I felt a little guilty about it, like I was playing hooky, but I also felt happy that I didn’t have to go. One of the great improvements in my life has been that I no longer have to endure large holiday gatherings, because all the elders in my family are dead.

I think people see me as the poor hermit that lives on the hill, all alone in a cold cabin without running water and a bucket for a toilet. For me, it’s my dream life.

It’s overcast today. The solar panel does little work on a day like this. I have to charge the storage batteries with the Honda generator when the sun doesn‘t shine. For some reason the batteries aren’t taking a full charge this morning. That’s the thing about a solar system, they’re not really as easy and lovely as they’re made out to be. You pay a lot for the tiny amount of electricity that you use.

Good thing my 2 watt OLPC computer has arrived. I don’t have a dial-up modem for it yet, though. The keyboard is small but I’m getting used to it. It’s a great computer for kids. It teaches them programming. They can program everything on it to fit what they need. Soon there will be little yo-yo‘s available to charge them with but now they only come with a AC plug. I bought a iGo DC universal adapter that is for charging cellphones and DVD players, for mine, so I don’t have to run an inverter to charge it. I bought it off e-bay for 5 dollars plus shipping.

They are only letting individuals buy the laptops until December 31st. No one makes any money off of these laptops. They are a non-profit educational project.

UNIX master, Laen Finehack, is getting one too. I’m thinking I can get him to program and set up everything the way I want it on his and then he can send me his and I will send mine to him.

Merry Good Life!

I was wandering around Yogyakarta, a good-sized town in the island of Java in the country of Indonesia.

In Yogyakarta, they have these things called gangs. A gang is a small alley–too small to get a car through– lined with shops. They have a magical feel to them– as if you are living in a time before cars existed.

So, I’m walking up one of these gangs, and I come to a little restaurant that is advertising Javanese massage classes. I turned in and inquired. I signed up with Mr. Gabriel for a 4-day class in Javanese massage to begin the next day.

It was just me in the class so I got the benefit of one-on-one instruction.

Mr. Gabriel had first learned massage while he was imprisoned for political reasons. He was taught by massage masters who were also imprisoned. He said massage was how they made it through 7 years of imprisonment without much food or medicine.

He had made up a book complete with pictures and taught a thorough class. He brought his daughter for a female model to practice on and for the male model he brought in a man that swallowed glass (not without injury) for a living.

When the class was done, he asked me where I was headed next. I told him I was off to Borobudur. I told him about a woman I met in Bali that told me, the most wonderful experience of her life was watching the sun come up from atop Borobudur. But, the gates into Borobudur don’t open until after the sun comes up. So, if you want to watch the sun come up on top of Borobudur you need to stay in the hotel inside the grounds, which cost 40 dollars. 40 dollars is a lot to pay for a room in Indonesia but I figured for the possibility of having “the most wonderful experience of my life� I would splurge.

Gabriel said, “No, you will come home with me, I live near Borobudur and I know someone who can get you in before sunrise.â€? So Mr. Gabriel and I rode the bus back to his home and he arranged with his friend– a gregarious woman named Rinney who was stricken with some disease like MS– to get me through the gates.

When Rinney and I got to the gates early the next morning, she did a bunch of talking to the guards. When the guards turn to me and asked, “Lama?” I just nodded and smiled. Whatever she said got us in before it opened and without paying admission. The stairs spiraled up the monument for three miles (4.8km) or you can take a shortcut and walk straight up which is what we did because we wanted to get to the top before sunrise and it was hard for Rinney to walk.

Up on top, the sun was just coming up. There was an artist up there sketching. We sat for awhile and watched the sunrise and talked to the artist. Then we started hearing people singing. It would get louder and then almost fad away as the singers spiraled up the monument…Then even louder, until they finally reached the top. They were a large group of Westerners with their spiritual leader, a lama.

Back at Gabriel’s house, he wanted me to learn massage of the belly from an old woman master, so, as a Christmas gift, he paid for me to have a massage with her. I went to the home of one of his childhood friends to have the massage. She was a beautiful wealthy Chinese woman who had gotten the windows in her house broke out when the Javanese went on a rampage and started attacking all the Chinese in the country 2 years before.

The old masseuse arrived and with the woman of the house watching, I got my massage. I don’t know what they were saying but I think it was at the urging of the Chinese woman, that the old masseuse pulled out a coin and started raking it across my flesh. It hurt but not as bad as it looked. By the time she was done with me, I looked like someone should be in jail. I looked whipped. All over my back and front, I had long red streaks where she had raked that coin over my skin. It was bleeding under my skin but she came just short of breaking the skin. The signs of my massage didn’t go away for days.

After the massage, the old woman left. Gabriel, the Chinese woman and I talked in the living room, with Gabriel having to interpret everything. Gabriel appeared a little embarrassed by the coining thing. It’s not something he does. From what I could gather, it looks to be something woman do more then men.

Gabriel was a catholic, a fact that the Indonesian government finds so important that it was on his ID. He took me to evening mass at the Catholic Church. Later that night I went out with Rinney and her friends to a party with karaoke. Rinney and I sang a duet: Kay sera sera.

I think about Gabriel and what a good teacher he was and how nice he was to me. He said his daughter was not industrious so he knew he would have to make arrangements for when he got old. He said he had it all arraigned.

If you ever find yourself wandering the gangs in Yogyakarta, stop in at Anna Restaurant and meet Gabriel for a great Javanese massage class with a wonderful teacher. I found a site on the Internet that is listing his course; it says the price of the 4-day course is 350,000 Rp, which is about 40 U.S. dollars. Which is a phenomenal deal considering that this is a serious class with expert instruction.

We have been getting snow lately–everyday now for a week. It’s warm though; hovers around freezing all the time, even at night. The cabin is pathetically easy to keep warm. Every once in awhile a warm wind comes and everything starts melting. Still, things are white and pretty and I’m enjoying large pots of snow with lemon juice and sugar on it.

A couple days ago, we got a lot of snow. I was reminded how much harder it is to walk in snow when I didn’t make it home from my walk till after dark.

People are starting to talk to me more around here. They used to be much cooler. They are seeing me as a resident. I’m starting to see myself as more of a resident too. When I first came here, it seemed like I was just a visitor and felt like I was pulling a scam getting a mailbox and a library card. I still kind of feel that way. I like moving through the world as if I’m an alien from another planet just visiting.

Still thinking about going but not so much; I’m settling into winter.

When I first lived in my cabin in BC, I read all day long. A month or more would pass and I wouldn’t see anyone.  I would wake up, grab a book, and read all day–day after day.    Nothing to distract me, just reading.

After awhile, I started dreaming in words.   Sometimes I would read, fall asleep, and in my sleep I would continue to read the book.   Other times, I had dreams that had nothing to do with my current read, but I had to read them.  The dreams weren’t in pictures but in words.

I was invited over to my neighbors cabin for a luncheon today. It was nice to meet some of the other people in the area. They seem like nice and interesting people. I’ve been here three years but I don’t know many people because I’m content to hang out at my cabin.

If I haven’t been with people for awhile and get plopped into a social gathering it sends me reeling; I can’t quit thinking about all the people and the stuff they said for a long time afterwards. I was thinking, with the introduction of the Internet in my life, that it wouldn’t be such an adjustment, but it still is.

Sometimes when I’m living peacefully, alone, I start to think I have found a profound and lasting inner peace but then a big rock is dropped into the tranquil pond of my life and I realize it’s not inner peace that I ‘m experiencing, but outer peace.

Once, I lived in the industrial section of Portland, in a house that had Forest Park in its backyard and a highway running through its front. Besides the howling junkyard man, I didn’t have any neighbors.

My lawn was often so tall that there was at least one person in Portland, who thought the inhabitant of the house was lying dead inside for months.

I kept getting visits from a landscaper, asking if I wanted my lawn mowed. I always said, no that I was going to get around to it. But, one day, when I was in a particularly good mood, he stopped by and I said, “Okay fine.”

He mowed my lawn and when I asked him how much I owed him he said, “No charge�

“Oh no!� I said, “I have to pay. Please, I do not want someone mowing my lawn for free.�

He then said, “I see you have a pile of wood that needs chopping. I will come tomorrow and chop your wood for you.”

“No!� I said, “I chop my own wood. No, I don’t want any help.� I handed him some money for the lawn but he refused to take it.

Then he looks at me and says, “You don’t wear makeup. I like that. You can see what you’re gettingâ€?

“AaaaaaaaH!” I screamed in my head. “This is why you shouldn’t be friendly to people, stuff like this always ends up happeningâ€? I thought.

Then he starts telling me about how he just got out of the mental hospital and how he had gotten into a little trouble with a woman that had reported him as a stalker. He said he was just being friendly to her.

He starts making plans to plant those stupid little cypress bushes out in front of my house. “No“, I say, “I don’t want cypress bushes.� Then he says that maybe we could have a beer together. I tell him that I don’t drink beer. He says, “Well what do you drink?� I tell him, “I drink Diet Coke, but I never go out because I like to be by myself.�

Some how I get rid of this guy. That night he shows up again but I don’t answer the door.

When my son goes to use the car, he asks, “Why is there a can of Diet Coke on the car?” I tell him that a crazy man that just got out of the mental hospital and has a problem with stalking women, mowed our lawn and now I think he is courting me with cans of Diet Coke.. My son thought it was funny and put the Diet Coke inside and laughed.

The next day when I get home from work there is a can of Diet Coke on the porch with a flower and a note saying that he was just trying to be friendly and that he was sorry if I took it wrong.

He came again that night but I didn’t answer the door. I never answered my door at night for anyone, not just crazy men. If someone wanted to visit me, they would have to call first. It was just my policy, living along a highway and all.

The next day I get home from work and there is another can of Diet Coke on my porch. So, I left it there.

I left it there for a year, maybe two. People would ask me about the can of Diet Coke on my porch and I would tell them that it was my power object to keep crazy men away from me. It worked.

Keep them guessing.  People are reluctant to approach anything they don’t understand.