a hereness is four

head fill dream of sauntering. my body prostrates before my imagination. a difficult day. moving in and out of tibetan people i am forced to recall i am a westerner. seen as a westerner. the pushing past feels more familiar now. in korea i can get away with my western self more; here it is not tolerated and i am constantly reminded of its presence. i am slowly facing my western ways; not in an attempt to change who i am, but understand more about how others live. how they see me and what it means to be seen. to be living side by side easterners as i integrate more and more into an eastern culture. in my imagination, i am of an eastern mind in certain respects, but i forget that no one can see my imagination; it is my body seen and translated instead.
any hope for communication is between our bodies, not our words.
what does it mean to embody an eastern mind inside of a western body as one might have it when they look upon you in an attempt to know you? that is, how can i learn from an eastern mind that is the body?

she at market stand
grabs one arm
more cheap
handle situation?
pay her respect
you obvious consumer
but did not want
to compromise myself
prey on
my humanity
i have no money
you saavy business woman
eye communicate
thank you softly
thank you softly
thank you softly
momentary human moment
weary situation
today a difficult day

affected by our interaction i could not get past muddy puddles and a band of unacknowledging monks who walked in the central compound of meru serpa monastery. we were flagged away. potala to no avail. no at the west gate. no at lhasa's tourist agency. a couple wanted to travel outside the t.a.r. but could not afford the permits.
a pilgrim's peaceful ways seems very treacherous and dangerous to understand. i do not understand it, but i can respect it. it seems that to be peaceful requires a certain amount of aggression. it is really difficult to feel this.
to see pak la buk cave relief paintings and a monastery. a very young monk makes eye contact with me as we cross pass the wicks burning in yak butter and wax. we pass right past each other. he looks out the window for a long time. she looks in the window of the cafe, who, i do not know. i only held my peripheral vision there. we wait for the pilgrims to pass through before us, a long line, always moving clockwise in these holy places. tibetan children are the most directly demanding. one boy tried to stop me in my path for the length of a block; i continued to walk forward acknowledging him under a soft voice with words he could not understand. it was difficult to get around him. he only held one hand up and shoveled food into his mouth with the other. never once looking me in the eyes but clinging to me as though i were his mother.

how to get past the other before the "i"?
i struggle with this. it. is. not. about. me.

i am uncomfortable most of the time here in tibet, but it is necessary and it is not easy. still it feels of home in the light and i came here initially for that. despite my discomfort, i still love it here. i love it because it is authentic out of necessity. tibetans use everything here. they depend on each other like no other people i've met.
they sat under a tent carving scripture into stone tablets they broke from the rock of the mountain. they take from the mountain and give it back language so that language is embedded literally into the mountain.
so that rebirth of language continues.
rock hives. thoughts of andy goldsworthy.
they didn't say no to photos so we were careful.
he paid for her portrait.
i recorded the sounds of the rock carvers.
knowing the day is beautiful.

it does not seem you can negotiate with tibetans; that is, you cannot negotiate with a spiritually-inclined person. you cannot make a person laugh or cheat themselves when they are asking you to truly acknowledge them despite their apparent begging.
i did not acknowledge him in the way he wanted, but i let him see how i was acknowledging him through my act of writing:
i am doing this right now and will not leave my creativity. you may stand there or even sit next to me. but my creativity should not cease until it needs to.
i apologize if we cannot understand each other in this moment.