MANICHAEAN
07-16-2025, 10:23 AM
I knew when I became an adult. It was in London when a policeman called me "Sir." Becoming old was more diffusive. The body slowed, but the mind was still acute. Perhaps it was a combination of: retirement, a cancer scare, or attaining eighty? I don't know. To my way of thinking, if Mick Jagger was becoming eighty two this month and still rocking, it was good enough for me.
But all this in serpentine stealth had taken a frustrating toll. Planning to travel to exotic locations, in five star hotels, with cool linen sheets and hot blooded women was off the table.
Luckily Fate entered and I became friends with a lady in Darjeeling, West Bengal. With due prudence as to how we came together, suffice to note, she needed a new phone & I was grateful for a daily update on life overlooking the Himalayas. I like to think of it as such as not overcoming solitude on my part, but of compassion holding its breath.
This might sound a bit cheap and sordid, but it stirred something in me. Perhaps it came from Hemingway's " The Snows of Kilamanjaro". The prospect of death, the leopard frozen in the ice near the peak, and the suffocating breath of the approaching hyena. And yet it evoked calm in a fear, not to be feared.
We are separate souls. She a fairly religious Hindu vegetarian, wheras my circumstances are that of an English carnivore, with indeterminate religious views. Have you noticed the lack of real knowledge between some races and sects? Indians and Jewish people are examples. For whatever reason they never really converse outside their own. Most Brits if asked about Indian culture know little of their ; history, customs, or beliefs. Pretty much limited to the difference between a butter chicken curry and a popperdom.
Now I gratefully absorb daily, at one remove; the beauty of Himalayian backdrops, steep sided valleys, and the early morning mists swirling in Hindu temples. A liaison important to both.
But all this in serpentine stealth had taken a frustrating toll. Planning to travel to exotic locations, in five star hotels, with cool linen sheets and hot blooded women was off the table.
Luckily Fate entered and I became friends with a lady in Darjeeling, West Bengal. With due prudence as to how we came together, suffice to note, she needed a new phone & I was grateful for a daily update on life overlooking the Himalayas. I like to think of it as such as not overcoming solitude on my part, but of compassion holding its breath.
This might sound a bit cheap and sordid, but it stirred something in me. Perhaps it came from Hemingway's " The Snows of Kilamanjaro". The prospect of death, the leopard frozen in the ice near the peak, and the suffocating breath of the approaching hyena. And yet it evoked calm in a fear, not to be feared.
We are separate souls. She a fairly religious Hindu vegetarian, wheras my circumstances are that of an English carnivore, with indeterminate religious views. Have you noticed the lack of real knowledge between some races and sects? Indians and Jewish people are examples. For whatever reason they never really converse outside their own. Most Brits if asked about Indian culture know little of their ; history, customs, or beliefs. Pretty much limited to the difference between a butter chicken curry and a popperdom.
Now I gratefully absorb daily, at one remove; the beauty of Himalayian backdrops, steep sided valleys, and the early morning mists swirling in Hindu temples. A liaison important to both.