Rest in Purple

People have been sending me condolences all day. I didn’t realize how much I talk about Prince, but I must. I must talk about him all the time. 

This morning, late to work as I am every Thursday, I didn’t have time to look at my phone. And instead of putting it face down as I usually do (it is always on silent) I had it face up as I typed furiously, attempting to catch up on the mountain of work that awaited me. 

The face lit up. Once. Twice. Five times. The flashing light caught my peripheral vision and piqued my curiosity. I never get that many messages.

A single swipe of my index finger and life is different. A single swipe and the world is forever changed. 

I remember where I was when news of Tupac’s death reached me, and I can see myself, more voyeur than participant, as people melted down around me when Michael Jackson died. But I never really understood. It never felt personal. It never felt like my loss, rather a thing that happened, a thing that happens. 

But this feels like I am missing something…or will be missing something. This feels like a slight. I flirt with the idea of full on temper-tantruming to show my dismay that there will be no next time to see or hear the genius that was and remains, Prince.

A Prince biography finally showed up in my library cue and, stuck on a cross-country flight last week, I eagerly cracked it open with Prince blasting through my earphones to properly set the mood. Mostly unimpressed with the book, it gifted me the inspiration to listen to more than the familiar songs on the 15 Prince albums I have on my phone. 

I’ve been listening ever since. 

Hanging out with my high school best friend in DC, driving in my car, plowing through research at work. Prince accompanied me through the week’s routines.

He sings to me with lyrics so familiar they could be my own name, and with undiscovered gems I didn’t know I would love.

And then he died. 

Just like that.

Last month I was screaming into the din of Oracle arena with 20,000 other purple lovers and today…today we collectively mourn the man who crafted the soundtrack to generations. 

A friend who I share a tacit agreement that if I ever had the opportunity to touch prince (or possibly pick him up, put him in my pocket, and run) that she would bail me out of jail no questions asked (except maybe, “what was it like to touch him?”) and who, after the Piano and a Microphone performance agreed to join me in Minneapolis this summer to go to one of his Paisley Park parties, wasn’t mourning with me today. Her eyes are firmly trained on what remains.

“He left so many gifts,” I could hear her smiling through the phone, “he gave us so much.”

I know she’s right. I know. But greedy I am…I want more.

I want the opportunity to sit in a crowd screaming so loud for him to return for an encore that the noise actually begins to sound like silence, like it did when I saw him at the American Airlines center 14 years ago. I want to wait (screaming and) patiently as he exits the stage for what feels like 5, 10, forever minutes before returning to regale me with encore after encore, like he did in Curacao at the North Sea Jazz festival. I want to watch him flirt with 20,000 people and forget that he isn’t actually flirting with me as he throws back his head, kicks over the piano bench, and marries random songs as if they were destined lovers because music is his language.

Music is his language.

He communicated love with his music…and prayer. He delivered the freak and the god in me. My soul weeps that I will never again stand among strangers pulled together by a purple thread of music beckoning us to go crazy under a cherry moon even as I am thankful that I once did.

I left him stranded there...

He looked lost and a little afraid. His eyes darted back and forth and he was pushing an airport cart heavy with luggage that telegraphed a long journey. I remember thinking how awful it was to land in America, not even able to access American currency, and being charged for the cart to haul your luggage.

He was small. 

Standing outside of DFW, cars and buses flitting to a curb and then away in ever thinning clusters.

I recognized his expression. I’ve worn that look a couple dozen time at an airport, any airport, in a new country. Knowing I stand out, knowing I don’t know what I don’t know. It is always the most exposed and vulnerable I feel in a new country. In Sri Lanka that look led to a $40 taxi fare instead of a $2 one. In Peru it led to an hour walking through town with my luggage until finally agreeing to pay for a taxi. In Ethiopia it felt dangerous, a late flight and a poorly lit parking lot and me with no convincing language skills to speak of.

This man was of my nomadic tribe. I recognized myself in him. 

I also recognized fatigue. In me. I’d been traveling. I don’t know where I’d been or how long. I think my flight had been delayed or maybe I’d had to check luggage and they’d misplaced it. I don’t remember the particulars, only that I was tired. I averted my gaze and searched through the glaring orange lights and receding darkness for my shuttle bus.

I stood on the curb too, a little bit away from this man. This man with all of his belongings in a cart by his side. I watched him look at the same signs repeatedly hoping, I imagine, that they might make more sense each time he looked. Disheartened that they didn’t. 

He scanned the few faces on the curb looking…looking for me I imagine. Not the actual me but the me that recognized myself in him, the me that understood his trepidation and could help. Our eyes finally met and I stopped searching the bus lane for my bus. At least for a moment he had my attention.

The details are fuzzy now, only my guilt is crisp and clear.

He was confused about where he should go. I remember pointing to the sign, repeating the information, having him repeat the information. I think I made a phone call on the airport information phone. I nodded encouragingly as I gave him information, hoping he’d nod comprehension back, and he nodded. I’m certain his nodding mirrored my nodding, wasn’t an indication of clarity. But he nodded, I told myself.

Part of the helpful crew from Bahir Dar

My bus finally arrived. After standing on the curb for what seemed like forever, I was tired and ready to go home. I boarded the bus, watched the small man from the window, assured myself he’d be fine.

But it was late and he was far from home. 

Its been late and I’ve been far from home. In those moments I am forever grateful for the people who recognize my carefully concealed terror. The old woman on a bus in Durban who fussed at the driver and demanded he take me directly to my hostel, the two young men in Bahir Dar who drove me to a less sketchy hotel, the nun in Flores who helped me figure out where I was going. I didn’t even have to ask, didn’t have to stand on a curb clutching my bags. 

I have basked in traveler’s grace.

I should have stayed. I should have walked that man on the curb to where he needed to be. I should have been his English translator; I didn’t know what language he spoke but I could have cared enough to figure out a way to translate his needs. People have done that for me. I should have paid it forward.

I think about that man often. I send good travel vibes into the ether and hope that they found him another one of our tribe who was not so selfish as to choose 20 extra minutes of sleep over helping someone lost in the transition that is travel. 

That man and he has become, for me, a reprimand, a reminder, a mantra for who I should be at all times, not simply when I’m well rested or flush with time.

Blog prompt courtesy of Daily Post: Sorry, I’m Busy.

Stolen Photos

Three young men...hardly...closer to boys from what I could tell...sat wrapped in saffron colored robes, heads touching, looking toward the reclining Buddha. The picture looks staged. A perfect moment caught on film. And I stole it. 

Stole is the only word I can think to use, because I didn't ask for permission. And while those young men cannot be identified because only the backs of their heads are visible, it is still a stolen moment. 

I can list all of the reasons that I didn't ask permission to capture that moment: language barrier, candid vs posed, harmlessness...they might have said no rings loud in my ears. Better to asks forgiveness than permission.

Still, that photograph is among my favorites. Although I don't have it displayed anywhere and I can't even put my fingers on it now if I wanted to; it is seared in my head. I can see the brightly colored robes juxtaposed against the gray stone. The young monks' heads, round in contrast to the angular lines of the Buddha.

I'm not proud of the clandestine nature of that photo. But I also can't say with any certainty that I wouldn't take it again if given the opportunity. A silly thought since I can't find the actual picture now and I don't really need it given that the image is seared so neatly into my brain. 

I don't make a habit of stealing photographs. In fact I often carry guilt when I take photos of people during my travels. Even when granted permission...mostly with permission. In Kenya I took a roll of film that included the famous splendor of the flamingos on the Lake Nakuru and, later, a family at the Masai Mara. Even as I snapped photos of the smiling family I felt funny. It all felt wrong. People on display for amusement parading as education. 

I was using my father's old Pentax K1000 then. It shot beautifully and only had one flaw, no window to let you see what kind of film you had inside. In the case of the flamingos and the Masai family, there was no film where film should have been. The camera was as empty as my soul felt doing the tourist gawk. I have no flamingo shots, no Masai photographs,  but again, the images are seared in my head, leaving me to wonder if I needed the photos to begin with.

There are photos I have taken while traveling, of people who offered up themselves in the moment. One of my favorites, I call African Gothic. The light was perfect, their skin shining, their faces unsmiling. There is a solemnity to it that picture, in their posture, that I can't explain. They were my neighbors in South Africa and maybe it is because we had a relationship that extended beyond the nanosecond it took for my shutter to close, that I don't cringe at the thought of asking their permission to let me capture their image for myself. 

I've been on the other side of the lens also. In China, people followed me around and asked (mostly) to take my photo. Pantomiming often because language was clearly an issue. I acquiesced in good humor, used it in trade.  "Yes I'll hold your baby and stand next to your wife if you will then take a picture of me in front of whatever thing we are all standing in front of." I was traveling alone and besides, I understood my novelty in that context. 

In Liberia it was more offensive. A Pakistani military/UN group wanted a group photo and I reluctantly agreed. Given we were in a country full of black people it felt odd to me to be singled out in that way. Later that day, two of the men followed me around continuing to take photos, even after I waved them off, even after I tried to hide. All of a sudden the invasive reality of photographing someone without their consent was front and center and I wasn't simply irritated...I was afraid. 

All of this reminiscing inspired me to search out the picture of the monks, of African Gothic...and through the unlabeled hodgepodge of photos shoved into one of my drawers, I discovered that there are several photos I've taken without permission. The most beautiful older woman I've ever seen, hair white, skin roasted coffee, hands clasped together as she craned her neck to see the dance the young girls of the village were performing. She, like me, was in the crowd. She was wrapped in multi-colored traditional Venda cloth. I remember spending my time trying to get a picture of her, but her face was always turned away at the moment I snapped. Maybe it was telling; I shouldn't have been trying. I hadn't asked.

Twenty minutes of rummaging and I still can't find those pictures...but I can still see them clear as the moment I took them. Maybe as clear as it was meant to be.

Anxious

Anxiety is new to me…at least the physical manifestation of it. Or maybe just this level of the physical manifestation. 

Before I left for the Peace Corps I couldn’t sleep. For a few days. I was up and packing. And then repacking. I was reading and rereading everything they had given me. But with the Peace Corps there really isn’t anything you can prepare for. I didn’t even know what language I’d be learning so there was no cramming for that. 

The two nights before graduate school started I broke out in hives. It was a first, something that was squarely in my sister’s domain- not mine. 

Last week I found myself in the midst of a panic attack. Pain in the center of my chest reminiscent pain, if wrongly placed, of the pleurisy I had so many years again and hope to never experience again. The panic didn’t hurt as much but it got my attention. 

And from panic, about what I don’t even know, to unsettling dreams that sit with me in feeling if not in substance, long after I am awake. I can’t help but think my body is telling me I need a vacation. That I need to settle my mind and body down for just a moment.

The kitchen offers me a small reprieve from the mounting crazy in my brain. Something about chopping onions and mincing garlic, grating ginger and sifting flour. I’ve taken to making things randomly, on work nights, at strange hours when I should be winding down. Instead my kitchen will be filled with the smell of yeast sparking alive and the warmth of baking bread, or last night- a final triumph of chewy oatmeal cookies. At last…AT LAST! I’ve been trying to make chewy oatmeal cookies for over a year and every time they fail, every time I’m left with crunchy cookies that I have no real desire to consume.

I can’t tell if the desire to cook is running in tandem with my anxiety or if I’m simply noticing it because it has a calming effect on me. All I know is that I read recipes and immediately think about what changes I might make, and try to conjure up when I might make them. I saw a recipe for a molten lemon cake on Saturday. Different from anything I’ve seen. And all I can think is that I need to buy ramekins so that I can attempt this dish. And then today I saw a recipe for some kind of Amalfi coast dumpling pasta made with ricotta cheese and nutmeg. Hater of nutmeg I can’t help but wonder what pulverized rosemary powder might do in its stead. 

And the angst lifts even in the moments when I am only thinking and writing about cooking, about eating, about food in some way or form. 

But in a moment, I am returned to myself and my chest feels heavy and my mind full and I am anxious for the weekend to find me again. For me to have an excuse to not think about what I must do for a few days. 

I worked from home today. Curled up with my laptop and 138 (now 150) pages of curriculum dedicated to AB 1629. And it isn’t happy stuff. Necessary. Powerful. Important. But not happy.

And everything can’t be happy. That isn’t how the world works. But for the moment I can’t help but look to the weekend and hope that it brings a new recipe to try out and whisk my brain and my taste-buds to some faraway place. Where my fingertips feel the  stickiness of dough and vegetables yield to the weight of my knife.

And maybe a good night’s sleep will waft in with the scent of bread and rosemary and I’ll yield blissfully to sleep.