Thoughts on Solitude and Real Freedom

     Every culture has its laws of the jungle,,,often defined by economics.... but not always. There are surprises once in a while that will stagger. When I was 16 years old and on a juvenile spree in New York City some friends and I were robbed at knifepoint of all that we had. Suburbanites just vivibly sweat invitations. It was 3 in the morning with no way to pay the subway and train back to the safety of our manicured communities. After the incident we were running down the street happy just to be alive when a roly-poly gentleman who was entereing his brownstone stopped turned and said, "what's the matter boys"? I don't know how he knew we had a problem but then again suburbanites visibly sweat invitations. We explained what occurred. He listened then pulled a roll of bills from his pocket peeled off a few and gave it to us saying, "Go home boys". That was a surprise concoction of coincidence and kindness that I will never forget. Country people are definitely different. They, on the other hand are always inviting you into their house for cookies, jam, and dilly beans or tamales, mole, and a cahuama depending in which landscape you dwell.    

     In the world now trends are like barnacles that attach themselves to people's consciousness. "The Attached" are so engrossed in the vapid narrative that they don't even realize that the boat is slowing down. 

     I climbed up to Santo Desierto and the Carmelite Monastery via pie de monte. It was july and there was a mini marathon from the center of Tenancingo to the top over the highway. I climbed the shorter but much steeper back way while the participants ran up the  road. They beat me. I went around back of the monastery to visit El Balcon de Diablo. It is a cliff with an incredible view of the valley below. There, where the trail turned down towards Pachuquilla, I encountered two teachers walking up from the valley floor after their teaching day was done. Imagine teachers in the U.S. walking up a mountain for an hour and a half to go home after work? These two were very energetic about their profession. Young, full of zest, and dedicated to their work,,,,,yet who knows what will chip away at their desire over the years, a 6 year mortgage on a car perhaps. 

     I got up at what I thought was 6:30 and it turned out to be 5:30. I wondered why it was darker than a crow's asshole on the road this morning in my bicycle. There was no moon to speak of and there wasn't a car to light the way even for a few instants. I couldn't see the road at all. Riding blind I could have hit the carcass of a dead dog or a person. I tried to steer for the center but where was that? Riding blind,,like in a drunken haze,,,forward, but with medium control. Truth is like that. You know it or some part exists but when you are riding blind you are more likely to encounter it.

     The hours I have been keeping,,,,,,,,from the dark mornings in bicycle to here, the hotel, staying here until 8:30 at night have me a lttle exhausted,,,yet it is the kind of exhaustion that does not paralyse the mind,,,,just presents some bodily aches and pains,,,,,all I want is to go see a good cock-fight. Death is a cure for the tribulations of life. I have lived my life through books because I am vicarious,,,,,, yet I have a need to buy a motorcycle. When you feel a little down or a little restricted what is the cure but school or a motorcycle! One of Circe's cousins is organizing a trip from Mexico to the Panama Canal a year from October. Imagine that!  Dodging dilapidated trucks, and latter day bandits on the pacific highway. Mi sobre mi moto, solo mi en la tierra nueva. I just might continue to Ecuador, pull up on the beach put up some plastic to keep out the rain, and like Mersault said in A Happy Death by Albert Camus,  "I'd  buy myself a cabin on the beach, put some glue in my navel, stick a flag in there and see which way the wind blows".  I'd like to be like everyone else in Central America for whom the past and the future are non existant physics. I would be devoid of false promises and lacking responsibilidad to anyone. It might make the premise of a good, not great novel,,,,,,that person who chucks it all for a life of isolation on the beach,,,,,no no not the beach it is too cliched,,,but a small forgotten Pueblo in Equador, where nobody speaks English and you need to travel 60 miles to buy an elastic band. I haven't got the balls to do that. 

      However I see a novel with this fictional guy in the fogotten fictional pueblo in Ecuador who by chance comes across the collected stories of William Faulkner in English left by the last foreigner in town, a german student looking for another Troy on this continent to discover. For even though our fictional hero has made some friends in the Pueblo he knows that their conversation revolves about the specifics of their immediate families. Gossip is their tool of unification. Gossip is a social tool most often used in the present tense.They and their ancestors may have lived in this place for thousands of years but gossip about what happened yesterday and today is all that matters. He realises that the sum total of his own past is useless to him here. What good is your knowing Babe Ruth, Paul Robeson, Hank Williams, and the atomic bomb in this place. They would be met with blank stares.  He, out of sensual deprivation, far from his homeland reads Faulkner over and over and over again because there is nothing else. He begins to see affinities with the author and himself and comes to know Faulkner as he would the defects on his own skin,,,,,and yet somehow like magic there are always new relations to make between what he is encountering now and what he has brought with him from the past, but all prompted by the readings of the same book ,,,over and over. Dilsey and Sam Fathers and Icamatubi,and Colone Sartoris become his alter reality.  He finds in the characters of Faulkner a link with his past and a tool to deal with his present. His life, past and present become the verbal ghost of Faulkner's heart., and he is satisfied. He has metamorphosed from an alien to the easy going guero who can be often seen resting on his hoe when planting beans. He makes a spiritual life from his repetitions like a latter day buddhist,,,,,but sated with the chemistry of his past and armed with the world of Faulkner he needs no lover, no other routine........What do you think? Stupid no?