Homesickness, Poop Jokes With Monks

So far I haven't had too much of a problem with homesickness. Little bouts of it here and there, but nothing that ever brought me down so much.

Today is different. It's a little hard to pinpoint why, but sometimes when traveling a person can fall into such discomfort. The lodgings, the food, the surroundings may be just fine--but sometimes there is just too many different things to process. It makes me want to retreat into things familiar, and that is why for a couple hours I have holed myself up in a tourist-aimed cafe, equipped with cups of coffee and the internet. It's not like I'm down for the count or anything, but while some days it's easy to stumble through a rudimentary grasp of a foreign language, and while some days it's easy to make friend after friend out of stranger, and ask them to sing and dance and open up about their lives and culture--but some days, it's difficult to muster that sort of energy. You get lonely. You get hungry for Seattle rain, for Colorado mountains. For people who like to play bluegrass. For madrona trees and western red cedars. For the 71. For Hotchkiss. For musty used-cd stores. For real halloween. For Twisp. For knee-skinning sandstone. For family, for family, for friends, for friends. For Neumo's and SIFF, for King Chef and Mate Factor. For presidents who make speeches that make you want to cry. For the love of people who know where you've been, what you've done. For the loving of them. For thanksgiving. For log-cakes, with one of the first snows outside, maybe, if you're in the methow. For that fast yellow bicycle. For the backcountry. For the books. Even for all the goddamn hipsters.
(Zhongdian)
...So maybe tomorrow, now that I've made this exhale, I can inhale again. Inhale yaks, and strange but beautiful songs, and dances, and revelations, and set-backs, and sharp-edged mountains, and so many new people, and god damnnit it's so hard just to memorize two lines of this Tibetan song, the one about women and sun, the first one I'm learning, that comes off so easily for the locals, so rough and wavering out my own mouth--but tomorrow, steps, baby steps, deep breaths, one-thing-at-a-time goddamnnit you're from the other side of the world but this is still the same sun, this is still the same moon, and you've got the hearts of everybody who's important to you tucked right in there beside your own, and because of that, you've got everything you could ever need, you've got Seattle and Colorado and heck let's throw in Utah, and Montana, New Mexico, Nicaragua, yes, fine, and because somebody said 'wherever you go, there you are', you've got Zhongdian too, you've got it and you've got everything you need.

Now, after all that... As the title suggests, here's the best moment of my time here so far: Last night, Saturday night, the students of the Tanka center, Ashley, and me sat around the monk who everyone just calls "the master". Because it was Friday night, he said that instead of lectures we would tell riddles and jokes. The following was favorite:

One day a little boy was walking down the street when he saw two thieves robbing a vendor. One of the thieves wheeled around, spotted the boy, and pushed him into the mud. 'Don't say anything!' he shouted, and ran away with his counterpart. Angry but helpless, the boy decided to spend the rest of the afternoon by climbing up into his favorite tree. Lo and behold, not five minutes later did the boy spot the two thieves, who had come to sit beneath his tree to count their earnings. 'I'll get them back...' thought the boy. He pulled down his trousers, aimed, and pooped--but not a single fleck of brown fell onto the heads of the thieves. Why?

"...Was he still wearing his underwear...?"

*nod*

ahahahahahahahaha.


(The Master)

-s