If two cultures participate in the exchange of goods and services, do they not also allow themselves to exchange their cultural practices as well?
What if all you knew boiled down to one moment in time thousands of years before you lived and all else was the happenchancehappenstancehappiness effect?
What if you could sum up your life with four or five websites? For instance:
- http://www.makezine.com
- http://www.carolina.com
- http://www.appalachiantrail.org
- http://www.organicgardening.com
- http://www.siggraph.org
Thank goodness for humour. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to take the joke that I get or see there is no butt of the jokester's punchline. Ashes and dust. Hallbergmoos and Port-au-Prince. Star-shaped buildings (not pentagons), built for modernity, withstanding earth-shattering moments, linked to Hu Jintao, Ted Turner and Doc Chevalier.
There is no argument here, no cause to cause causes to fight for, no words worth spouting from broken rooftops.
There is this planet, and other planets and motorised planet cruisers. There are practical jokes a-plenty, tricksters stealing hodrods and hopping planets to pull pranks on unsuspecting planetudinal planetoids.
Laughter is not restricted to Earth. Knowledge is local but also universal.
Being a new character in this new book, my sarcasm and wit are restricted. I am the cantankerous, cranky next-door neighbour. I am the bedeviled, toothless wunderkind from a bygone ear, wax and ear hair clouding my aural vision.
I am the yellowed tissue on old balsa wood flying models. I am the dust on the windowsill. I am the voice no one hears in the market square.
Such is my present. If you only knew my past! The future...well, it's not so long in the making, less time for the taking, fewer gold claims for the staking.
And what I know? Well, you don't have time to listen to all my tales. I am an old person, an elder, wise in years, full of wisecracks and cracked skin, able to tell stories of leaping tall buildings and saving lords, ladies and damsels in dis dress I'm wearing. Why am I wearing this dress? Ah! See, senility has its advantages. A wardrobe is just a closet to me, the clothes I put on no longer distinguishable, their cultural heritage unimportant to my poor eyesight and fading memory. This is not a dress, you say? It is a desert herder's clothing? So be it. Is my backside covered? Good. Then let's sit down and talk.
When I was young, an old Guatemalan woman found me wandering the streets alone. She knew where my family lived and made sure my parents were distracted for a while. Then she took me into her travel trailer. There, she showed me the wonders of her past, her beauty in youth, her grandmother's wisdom, and the path her male heirs were taking. She laid a burden on my chest, a bag of trinkets some would say, the collection of her life as she had lived, full of love and compassion and knowledge of the world outside of books - the whole universe, as a matter of fact. I was two, maybe three years old. I had a small vocabulary of my local language but a vast understanding of people's thoughts and feelings.
Time has wiped out many of my memories. I no longer remember her name but I remember the precious items she gave me. A can of salt-preserved soup. A carved wooden bird, like a chickadee. A lock of black hair tied with a ribbon, handmade, of many colours of thread. A small pocketknife, sharp but its blade tip broken. A dried flower, perhaps a petunia. A small book, written in Spanish, about mischievous creatures who live in the woods. A photo of the old woman as a teenager (what beauty, still preserved in the old woman's smile!). An adobe brick. A small stick with notches along one side.
She spoke to me in a mixture of Spanish and English, holding my hands in hers, making sure I knew that this world is but one world and there are many other worlds yet to be discovered or understood. I felt like I had been with her for days but when I returned to my house my parents acted like only 30 or 45 minutes had passed since I disappeared. In their hustle and bustle and worry and smothering me with love they did not see me put the small bag in the corner of the storage room.
I was a normal boy, doing what little boys and girls do. I thought the bag of those items so important to the old woman were like treasure chest relics. I showed them to my preschool mates, making up stories about the trinkets, giving them names and histories going back many generations. With time and age, my friends made offers to me to trade their precious toys for my trinkets. At first I didn't relent, thinking that I should keep the items in memory of the old woman, who never showed back up in my life. Then, as my friends accumulated high-value gifts from their parents, such as watches and rings and windup race cars, I traded most of my bag's contents away.
Today, here is what I have left for you - the broken pocketknife, the hair (I traded the ribbon), and the dust that's left of the dried flower that has fallen apart over the years, and of course the bag.
See, this knife has never rusted, the hair is still as shiny and smooth as the day it was cut off the woman's head but the flower is gone. Or rather, the flower is now crushed petals and pollen. I looked at the pieces in a microscope once, able to see the veins in the flower petals.
I still believe what she told me, that this world is one of many, that we are but one set of mischievous creatures wandering this planet and that all we have is what we give others. I know what she knows, through more scientific and deductive methods, but arriving at the same conclusions. She carried the wisdom of the lineage of generations and I discovered the wisdom spread out among the members of generations living at one time.
Which puts us here together in this moment. I am old. The days ahead of me are few. I have accumulated much monetary wealth, which has no meaning to me. Instead, this bag and these trinkets are all I really own, all I can truly give away. You will find in my home many more treasures I've collected, some personal, some simply souvenirs of a life of travel and adventure. Look at each one carefully. They, like this old woman's bag, are clues. Some you will need. Some you will not understand. All of them were important to me at one time but may not be important to you now or ever.
Like the old woman's male heirs, you may not be the one to use these clues for a better life. Feel free to give them away, trade them or sell them. Clues have a way of finding their owners so don't spend much time deciding who gets what. Just let them go if you think they have no meaning to you because you'll probably be right.
Life, you'll see, young lady, is like that. You may be three or four years old today and think everyday is like forever and you'll be right. You'll also find that forever gets shorter and shorter as you get older. Don't worry about the relationship between your life and time. They are one. Spend time getting to know those around you and you'll discover what forever really means. It is inside and outside of these trinkets. It's in the words I say and the warmth you feel of your hands in mine.
When you discover the secrets that others want to hide from you, do not brag about what you know. Let them keep their thoughts that they hold something precious and dear to themselves. Instead, put the secrets to use in the world around you so that others may find the clues for themselves, too.
I know you're getting antsy and want to go. You're not going to remember everything I tell you, especially since you don't speak English, so take this bag and enjoy your life. I am leaving this household to you when I die, childless that I am. Your parents will not know why. Only you will know when you get older, look at yourself in the mirror of your thoughts and wake up for the very first time. Just as I did and the old woman before me. I wish I could be there and hear your thoughts when you see that time does not exist, this place does not exist and all is not what you've been led to believe. But that moment is not for me. It is yours alone, to interpret as you will, every one of us seeing in our own individual ways. Have a great life, dear child. Know that I will always miss you and you are not alone. Be free...
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