Birds of Paradise

And so we arrived in Zanzibar. A brilliant white communal terrace, with a second story view of coconut and pink flowering treetops over rusty, ribbed tin roofs. To my right, the stony guts, of a half demolished building, tropical birds flying in and out of the severed rooms letting sunlight pour in. We arrived in the pouring rain, our taxi in Dar swamped by hustlers selling tickets and looking for tips. Then running aboard a damp ferry alongside cardboard crates full of chirping yellow chicks. We left Dar drowning in its own misery on that choking, pouring hot day. The seas were calm and foggy, and we slept the entire 3 hours over in first class, by a lucky break we hadn’t paid for.
Five hours later we were pouring konyagi into a coke and swaying to an African music festival outside in stow town. We got lost in the dark on our way home, certain we would get robbed on the lonely streets but turned up just fine at our sweet little budget hotel just in time to crash out on the bed under the white whir of the fan. It felt like heaven to us, sea breezes through the window, slightly better foam mattresses than in Bag, a double sized bed instead of a twin and - for the moment - both water and electricity. This morning we have a few minutes to sit out here and reflect and enjoy, regroup nod talk about those we have met.

Traveling is tough. They aren’t joking when they say it takes a certain kind. The learning is large and it does not always come easy. The best thing about this kind of travel is that you find truth in backwards ways - most especially the truth about yourself. You may find that - to your dismay- you are not a spirit that is so free of that which you take for granted. Or that you were born to travel. Or that you can shake free the marking of first world philosophy and the citizenship of privilege for long enough to open your mind completely. Here, to your own disgust, you might find that you are simply without a passport. But your mind still misses hot showers, your body an endless selection of food, your heart both solitude and familiar company. You have dismissed convenience for this adventure but it stalks you when you are not looking, pulling at your mind that should be focusing on the moment. And so, there are so many moments you spend apologizing to yourself and to those that believed you when you pretended to be flexible, selfless, capable, rugged. But here under the splendor of queen-like palm leaves, dressed in colorful local fabrics and dogged by weeks of diarrhea, you wake up tired. And then you plead guilty to fraud. There under the eyes of a rippling white sky, you ask for forgiveness for that trespass on its honor. Because you cant wait for a clean shower, a big salad, a big ole bed to yourself, even while you walked among those who sleep on the floor or mud huts and eat the same three staples for every meal for their entire lives. You try to wean yourself from that indulgent mother, America. To quite the voice that spends these precious, living moments wishing and missing like a pathetic fool, like the Blanche who lives in you clutching her petticoats as you wander the heat of this streetcar named desire.

Now on a break from mainland life, you straining to get used to an island of paradise, you get ready to try again. On up the continent you will chase what made you come here. Always in search of true, real humility that you can drink like homemade wine and not wake up sober and superfluous once again. Always in search of the current moment that is coiled underfoot the whole journey through.