Seven-ping Sunday (6)

When a ping is the sound of silence itself. Neither here nor there, but everywhere.

A blur of a week, but in the best possible way, because I’m partial to the liminal freedom jetlag offers. Confusion-inducing at worst though it is, a part of me loves that limbo land, the distended space between time cycles, where one journey ends and the next reality begins. Nothing like an altered state to reflect or recapture standout moments and decisions, as your inner clock processes the hours missed. (I also did daily stream of consciousness exercises – 10 minutes of free-thinking free writing -- to take advantage of my more accessible subconscious.)

Coupled with the peace-in-the-soul feeling with which India always leaves you, regardless of the chaos you might have to endure to realise that there is a rhythm to it all. An underlying karmic kind of vibe, which raises self-awareness and makes for plenty of person-to-person pinging. And travel memories on my side.

Zen ping: Twas the tail end of the monsoon season and my eldest brother, a practising Buddhist, was still alive. Scatterbrains both, we had never undertaken to undertake anything other than short journeys across the peninsula to see each other, which invariably resulted in long intellectual debates, each of us dancing around the other one, for fear of surrendering or laying down a definite hat lest the banter hit a dead end. Skippy and Dippy, my boyfriend called us, sparring partners for life. So when he said he was coming to visit and travel with us in India, my spirits (and my anxiety) rose. This would mean serious organisation and I was up for it! Tibet would’ve been first prize, but was just too much schlep (and there was a China factor to consider), Bhutan too expensive, so spotting Tawang Mahayana Buddhist monastery in the north-eastern province of Arunachal Pradesh, bordering Bhutan, Tibet and Myanmar, was an instant call to make it objet de desir. Like the others, all travel required a permit and a tour guide, so I tracked one down on the internet and did the calling on a landline – after much to-ing and fro-ing and miscommunication, one Biddyut Das was assigned to us. A bright, cheeky, informative dude who kept us engaged from the moment he met us at the gateway to the north-east, Guwahati, in Assam, through to an indigenous festival near Tawang, the point of entry for the 14^th Dalai Lama fleeing Chinese control in 1959.

The second largest in the world after the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the white three-tiered monastery is perched on a Himalayan hill at a height of three-plus kilometres, with deep views of the Tawang-chu valley. We had accommodation in a nearby hostel and got up early in the morning to meditate and explore the monks’ living quarters and kitchen. The whole exercise was profound, simple and surreal – it felt like we levitated our way through the meditating halls, as young monks in training came out to greet us and literally impart joy. Much later, we joined the locals at a nearby village to celebrate a traditional festival. We did Sikkim too, Darjeeling, Delhi and Sri Lanka, but four years later, Skippy skipped the mortal plane on a skip down an Eastern Cape mountain. At least I got to give him the little Buddha from Nepal.

Local ping: Without a more thorough understanding of all the issues at play, it’s hard to pass a judgement, but it seems like Cape Town flower sellers are in a bit of pickle since the City proposed an informal trading plan. The plan proposes that 20 trading bays be demarcated, the structure upgraded, trading hours limited from 6am to 6pm and permits bought for R148 a month. The flower sellers insist they are not informal traders, object to paying R148 and say they need to stay open till late because there’s always a demand. What’s your take? If you want to sign the petition, it’s here.

Dip of the week: And then there was bright Tourist Land in a heat wave, with temperatures reaching 44 degrees. I got in a quick cold water immersion (or bob, as we call it) at Camps Bay tidal on Tuesday morning, but noisy crowds had taken over later on. Wednesday afternoon gave us a gap for the lesser-populated Maiden’s Cove (just before Camps Bay on the road from Sea Point to Hout Bay). Into the blue to allay the blur.

What I’m listening to: Blurry by Puddle of Mudd.

Movie of the week: Blue Moon with lyricist Lorenz Hart played by Ethan Hawke, who aptly described it as a “howl into the night” exploring “a broken heart”.

Substack of the week: How to journal like Haruki Murakami: “Paradoxically, recording the dry facts of my day gave me a clearer picture of my mood than my actual feelings did. Spending two paragraphs describing a storm told me more about my state of mind than simply stating ‘I’m sad.’ The focus on the grey light and the oppressive dampness revealed the heaviness I was trying to ignore”.

Quote of the week: From Matt Trinetti, co-founder of London Writers Salon, ‘This is how you write (Part 2)’. “Anything with a screen or ping goes in another room.” Tough one, but I have managed a few morning pages in ink. It can get wild inside!

Till the next batch,

Ta for pinging along,

Sharonski