Sunday, September 16, 2001
"Idioms are sometimes grammatically in the clouds."
-- Juliette
(August 24)
"Who is this Juliette character, anyway?"
you ask. "You seem to like
her quite a lot, but all you ever say about her is that she's short,
German, and her English is a little funny. What's her story? Are you
guys, like, a couple or what? How could you just leave her in Bangkok
without making plans to see her again? And by the way, does she know
you're publishing her life for all to see?"
Okay, slow down, one at a time. First of all, yes, she knows what I write.
She even gave me permission to write whatever I wanted about her, no matter
how personal -- that was actually to call my bluff; I'd said that it's
difficult to write personal things about me because it often reveals
personal things about other people. To some extent that's true, but I
think she's right -- a lot of the blocks I have are more to protect
myself than to protect others. So I'm working on it.
By the way, a while ago I mistakenly told you that her name was
pronounced a strange way...I lied. It's pronounced just like in
English, except with a soft "J" because it's French.
"You live a monky life in your journal," she says. I'm pretty sure she
meant like a monk, not like a monkey, though perhaps both are true. Actually
I don't think my life really is so full of vices these days -- I hardly
ever smoke, drink, or gamble -- but perhaps I represent myself as even more
innocent than I am. For example, in China I developed the habit of spitting.
I stopped since then, but it was hardly very honest not to have mentioned it.
In India I started making loud throat-clearing noises in the morning, and I
think I still do that sometimes, but frankly so do a lot of monks, so I
don't think it violates any precepts.
Anyway you asked about Juliette, not me, so I'll try to steer my soliloquy
back in that direction.
Like attracts like, they say. Of course, they also say opposites attract,
so I'm not sure how much I trust them, but I have to admit there's
evidence supporting both sides. But for now, let's examine just the
former maxim and leave the latter for another day.
"Are you afraid of wild elements?"
-- Juliette
Juliette falls into a category I call "fiercely independent" -- it
means her sense of independence is more important to her than an
easy life. She'll defend it if necessary by refusing help if
she sees it as a threat to her independence. I'm actually worse
in this regard because I have a tendency to forget that everyone is
dependant on others for everything, but in any case we have that
desire for independence in common. One of our first conversations
was about how difficult it is to travel with someone if you're
totally dependent upon each other -- there's no freedom of choice
whether to travel together, because you do it out of fear of being
alone rather than enjoyment of companionship.
"He's not fat, he just has big pockets."
-- Juliette
Another characteristic I see in her is that she's on a path -- meaning,
she has a strong intuition about the nature of her future, and is taking
steps toward that. I've seen this kind of intuition developing in myself
over the past few years, so I count it as something we have in common.
Her path, or you could say goal, is to be a healer -- it's not about
a job or career, though she'd like to be a doctor of eastern medicine,
it's about relating to the world. It's about helping others to grow
beyond their limitations. That's how I see it, anyway. My path isn't
so clear, but I have a vision of living a life that can inspire other
people positively in some way -- the first step toward that goal, for me,
is to learn how to avoid intentionally hurting people. It's harder than
it sounds -- it has to do with being aware of personal desires that
conflict with the desires of others, and purifying negative thought
patterns like judgments and self-limiting thoughts.
Oops, I'm talking about me again. Anyway, the nice thing about traveling
with someone who's on a path and knows it is that they love to hear about
what they do wrong -- it gives them something to work on. Not to say I'm
always complaining about Juliette, but it's easy to bring something up if
it bothers me. We can laugh about each others' "issues" instead of just
being annoyed by them.
"You must think creativity is very important...you talk about
it a lot."
-- Juliette
Another facet of Juliette is her innocence.
She doesn't think of herself
that way, but I use the word to characterize her lack of curiosity
about the darker sides of life. I'm sure there are plenty of
people more innocent than she, but I certainly don't know any.
She doesn't watch television or movies, so her pop culture
comprehension is even worse than mine -- she's missing out on so much
sex and violence! She doesn't drink, she doesn't smoke, and she
doesn't do drugs. But none of those things are what I really mean by
innocent -- it's that she doesn't understand why people do things that
seem to hurt them, nor does she want to -- she knows they're not for
her, and that's enough. By contrast, I usually do feel the need to try
things, at least to understand them better, before I can reach a
conclusion for myself. But at least for now we both seem to have
arrived at the same place, being tea-totalling travelers living more
or less monky lives. More or less, I say -- I noticed that I'm
completely unwilling to bring up any subjects about which I'm not
living monkily, so I guess you'll just have to wait until I'm either
brave enough to discuss them or I stop doing them.
"For a minute of a second ..."
-- Juliette
To complete my synopsis, I shouldn't forget
Juliette's strong will.
This is her super power, her ace in the hole. If she decides she
really wants something, she takes this strong will out of its
holster, aims it precisely, and squeezes the trigger --
nothing can stand in the way of Juliette's will once she's fired
it, not even herself. Usually, though, she's careful about using
it for good and not for evil, and she never leaves it lying around
loaded.
So there you have it -- the essential Juliette, according to Ult.
I wrote all that on the plane home.
As it turns out, she managed to catch her flight home that very day.
We really had no idea at that point what the future would bring,
and whether we would ever see each other again. "Happen what happen,"
Juliette says. There is nothing to do but accept reality.
A few weeks later, Juliette and I were discussing the possibility of
visiting. A series of emails arrived from Germany entitled, "soon...?",
"perhaps soon...?", and "definitely soon!" This last one had a flight
itinerary -- Juliette was flying out to visit on the 14th! Three days
before her flight, some airplanes ran into some important buildings
in New York and Washington, beginning a new series of emails: "not that
soon!", "soon or not - we don't know", and "i still dont know".
America had closed its airports. The country was in a panic. Europe
was panicked too, the whole world was confused and afraid. All those
who had anything to say seemed to be calling for immediate retribution,
regardless of how little everyone actually knew. The media provided as
much fodder for public anger as they could dig up. Nobody seemed to
want to hear why a group of people would be so desperate and angry
as to commit mass murder and suicide to be heard. Nobody wanted to
hear that America's past political actions were the cause of this
anger -- that basically we had done this to ourselves. So much
easier to attribute it to insanity, regardless of how organized
and resourceful those responsible must have been.
The subject of the most recent email to come from Germany indicated
a bit of skepticism, a little frustration, and some hope. It's
title: "wednesday?!?" Juliette schrieb, "if nothing else happens
and the americans dont close the airport again, i will come."
So listen up, Americans -- don't close the airport on Wednesday, okay?
Meine kleine Juliette is on her way.
(August 24)
"You live a monky life in your journal," she says. I'm pretty sure she
meant like a monk, not like a monkey, though perhaps both are true. Actually
I don't think my life really is so full of vices these days -- I hardly
ever smoke, drink, or gamble -- but perhaps I represent myself as even more
innocent than I am. For example, in China I developed the habit of spitting.
I stopped since then, but it was hardly very honest not to have mentioned it.
In India I started making loud throat-clearing noises in the morning, and I
think I still do that sometimes, but frankly so do a lot of monks, so I
don't think it violates any precepts.
Anyway you asked about Juliette, not me, so I'll try to steer my soliloquy
back in that direction.
Another characteristic I see in her is that she's on a path -- meaning,
she has a strong intuition about the nature of her future, and is taking
steps toward that. I've seen this kind of intuition developing in myself
over the past few years, so I count it as something we have in common.
Her path, or you could say goal, is to be a healer -- it's not about
a job or career, though she'd like to be a doctor of eastern medicine,
it's about relating to the world. It's about helping others to grow
beyond their limitations. That's how I see it, anyway. My path isn't
so clear, but I have a vision of living a life that can inspire other
people positively in some way -- the first step toward that goal, for me,
is to learn how to avoid intentionally hurting people. It's harder than
it sounds -- it has to do with being aware of personal desires that
conflict with the desires of others, and purifying negative thought
patterns like judgments and self-limiting thoughts.
Oops, I'm talking about me again. Anyway, the nice thing about traveling
with someone who's on a path and knows it is that they love to hear about
what they do wrong -- it gives them something to work on. Not to say I'm
always complaining about Juliette, but it's easy to bring something up if
it bothers me. We can laugh about each others' "issues" instead of just
being annoyed by them.
Another facet of Juliette is her innocence.
She doesn't think of herself
that way, but I use the word to characterize her lack of curiosity
about the darker sides of life. I'm sure there are plenty of
people more innocent than she, but I certainly don't know any.
She doesn't watch television or movies, so her pop culture
comprehension is even worse than mine -- she's missing out on so much
sex and violence! She doesn't drink, she doesn't smoke, and she
doesn't do drugs. But none of those things are what I really mean by
innocent -- it's that she doesn't understand why people do things that
seem to hurt them, nor does she want to -- she knows they're not for
her, and that's enough. By contrast, I usually do feel the need to try
things, at least to understand them better, before I can reach a
conclusion for myself. But at least for now we both seem to have
arrived at the same place, being tea-totalling travelers living more
or less monky lives. More or less, I say -- I noticed that I'm
completely unwilling to bring up any subjects about which I'm not
living monkily, so I guess you'll just have to wait until I'm either
brave enough to discuss them or I stop doing them.
To complete my synopsis, I shouldn't forget
Juliette's strong will.
This is her super power, her ace in the hole. If she decides she
really wants something, she takes this strong will out of its
holster, aims it precisely, and squeezes the trigger --
nothing can stand in the way of Juliette's will once she's fired
it, not even herself. Usually, though, she's careful about using
it for good and not for evil, and she never leaves it lying around
loaded.
I wrote all that on the plane home.
As it turns out, she managed to catch her flight home that very day.
We really had no idea at that point what the future would bring,
and whether we would ever see each other again. "Happen what happen,"
Juliette says. There is nothing to do but accept reality.
America had closed its airports. The country was in a panic. Europe
was panicked too, the whole world was confused and afraid. All those
who had anything to say seemed to be calling for immediate retribution,
regardless of how little everyone actually knew. The media provided as
much fodder for public anger as they could dig up. Nobody seemed to
want to hear why a group of people would be so desperate and angry
as to commit mass murder and suicide to be heard. Nobody wanted to
hear that America's past political actions were the cause of this
anger -- that basically we had done this to ourselves. So much
easier to attribute it to insanity, regardless of how organized
and resourceful those responsible must have been.