coffee with one's elders

the last few drops of my coffee were cold. i held them in my mouth for an extra moment. 'coffee' was a generous word. but the schnapps still felt warm as it worked its way to my stomach. i readjusted the contents of my backpack. a hand claimed the glass mug that i had been drinking from.

i looked up again. the mug had returned, restored to its former full, warm glory. "ah, sorry, i am just leaving."

"no, stay. he is buying." the thumb protruded from a purple nylon jacket. dirty beige coveralls feigned indifference.

i stayed. something about the windbreaker and the coveralls felt disconcertingly familiar. i made fast work of my second round of coffee and schnapps.

i still had 10 or 11 miles of hiking ahead of me, but they would mostly be downhill. in any case, it was getting late. i dropped a large coin on the rough-hewn table and shivered at the prospect of stepping back into the indecisive precipitation. it looked like it was going to be rain right now. ten minutes before it had been snow.

an hour earlier, four days of stubble had called at me from behind a glass bottle and a carafe at the table where i now stood. "i have coffee and schnapps. come drink some."

i was a little bit concerned about the time, and wanted to make it the last half-mile to the top of napf, the highest hill in the area. "will you still be here in half an hour?"

"it depends on the animals. if there is a problem, i will have to go be with them."

i had taken my chances, and had returned in the promised 30 minutes to purchase my reward.

i had already hiked 11 miles that day from the town of trub to the top of napf. the temperature wavered between the low and mid 30s all day long. i had about two hours of good daylight left when i left the schnappshop, but i would probably have some visibility for at least the first 30 minutes of twilight. that wasn't a whole lot of time to go 10 miles in, but i figured i would jog when convenient.

ridgelines emerged from fog. occasional beams of light illuminated the trail. i jogged most of the way.

i was on the main road an hour and a half later. as i walked the last two miles to my ancestral home, i recognized the men who had sold me schnapps. they were my grandfather--it must have been the 1960s.

i must and shall return/dom

i really like cologne, germany.
i was there for a conference. my hotel was a mile or so from the university. i didn't really have a paper written, but i was going to give a paper.
turkish folks sold me food, and i felt like they were my friends.
i got a disconcertingly good deal on no notice at a very nice hotel. i was able to sleep there. i stayed warm.
it was late may. it snowed a little bit.
i walked toward the main road. "hey mzungu!"
sometimes when i travel i just feel like i'm in not-home. that makes it hard to tell where i actually am. but 'mzungu' is not what americans are normally called in germany.
i turned around. terrill and robert. "Oh, hey guys! terrill--i have your barbies and velveeta cheese in my room." (that was the truth).
we went to the cathedral. it's over 500 feet tall. it has the largest facade of any cathedral in the world. the second tallest spires.
when i had arrived in cologne the previous day, i climbed stairs up out of the train station. the dom suddenly became the earth to the meteor of my consciousness. it was irresistibly beautiful and ornate, but too much. too much size, too much detail. my mind sizzled into nothing.
we heard prayers. we climbed to the top of one of the spires.

























we parted ways. terrill and robert went to the netherlands, and then back to their home in uganda. (robert has since moved on to south sudan. i'll be in their neck of the woods this spring--but more in uganda than in south sudan.) i went to switzerland, and then back to the united states.
i had a a few hours to spare my last day in europe. i spent them on trains between switzerland and cologne and back, with a cold overnight in basel. i spent about 18 hours on trains. i had about four hours cologne.
i walked across town, ate at my turkish restaurant, and left.

the book got wet

i went to switzerland in may. and i spent a little bit of time in germany.

i couldn't afford bern.







after a few days i felt settled enough to go for a walk. so i picked a section of the grenzpfad napfbergland, so kindly referred to me, and carried a little piece of plastic, a book, a snack and some water for a while. there were fields and surprise restaurants.













i still didn't quite have my bearings, though, and felt occasionally confused.



coming to a picturesque barn, i drafted a comedy of errors.







it doesn't do much for one's street cred to say 'i lost my way on a poorly marked trail featuring hotels and restaurants every few miles in one of the most developed countries in the world because i wasn't paying attention to where i was going but i saw a nice cow and i went to the same wrong village twice and the schoolgirls asked me if the bus had passed and i sat on somebody's porch at five in the morning in order to guess the best way back to bern where i didn't want to go so i could get to trub where i did want to go', but let's be honest, that's pretty much what happened. after i regained the 600 or 700 (or so? who even remembers these things?) of feet i had lost on a poor routefinding decision, i crawled under my little piece of plastic in the 40 degree rain and let my glasses get foggy for a few hours in anticipation of another day of poor routefinding. i woke up in fog-shrouded forest. the book got wet.

aspect

i had a blog once, and then i didn't update it for four months. oops.

it snowed all through march. and april. and the first of may.

















fires, salmon, wine, and moonrise.



rye and fieldwork; sanitas at night.



earning homebrew; earning baked goods.





there were little women.



i.
we are not who we think we are
when we know that we think.
we think we are
what we think we know—
we are not what? what
we think we know,
knowing not what we know
is naught.
not what we know—
we are what we think
when we do
not know that we think.
when we do
what we do not know
that we know;
when we do not think;
when we are;
when we are and we do not think—
we know who we are.

ii.
you knit airy thoughts in the ether
when we only know how to process the past as an unanalyzable whole.
we relate with georgian ergativity
when in perfective moments the independent subject
is obviously one with the object,
and our doing entails only unitary thoughts in the ether.

iii.
some rocks slide
and some stay still.
until we arrive safely home
we’ll remain unsure of which to step on.