Too many adjectives

September 10, 2007

5:55 AM

Clearing over the main road and heading down the tiny dirt side road, I took a glance towards the heavens. All I could do was smile. I was looking at one of the most beautiful things I will ever see. I had seen these mountains countless times while running, but for some reason yesterday just felt different.

I was running on what has become my favorite running route. The route takes me on a forty-minute loop towards the lake and back. If I time it right, the run follows the sunset and adds to the serenity of my workout. My village is entirely surrounded my mountains (360 degrees) with a giant beautiful lake to the south. No matter where I run I will be facing mountains. My favorite running track takes me south out of the village towards the mountains and the lake. Eventually I will turn to head east, running parallel to the lake for while until I finally turn back north towards the village and more mountains.

I have been experimenting with running with music and not. I have been adding and removing songs from my “Running” (*****) play-list (damn you APL and your play-lists, they are contagious). Yesterday I added a few Hip-Hop songs to the list for the first time. They don’t have the perk and pace of some songs on the list, but they do have a soulful inspiration that I feel in my bones whenever I hear them. So I decided to try them out to see how they felt.

I think having the melodic piano beat of Talib Kweli’s “Ghetto Show” singing into my ears as I crossed the main road added to the tranquility of the moment. I crossed the main road, piano keys tip-toeing between my ears, and looked up to see the snow-capped monuments wearing their sunset eye shadow. All I could do was smile. There was nothing more to do. I was only about a minute into the run at that point and was still getting my heart going. Seeing this sight calmed me down and settled me quickly into a groove that I wouldn’t lose until I finished the run thirty-nine minutes later.

I have grown to love running. I love the peace and stillness it can give me in a day. I used to look at running solely as a means of exercising. I used to run for the cardio benefit it could offer me and help me stay in shape. When I run now, I know that there is still the exercise element to the run, but there is something more now. There is feeling of calmness I get when I run that I cannot achieve most other times of the day. I have tried meditating, yoga, writing, going for long walks, and more. In all of these, elements of peace come to my mind. None of them, though, reach the level that running has found in my soul.

It just touches a nerve somewhere deep in me. While my heart beat quickens and my breathing gets heavier, my mind relaxes and breathes in the thin mountain air. The more fatigue my muscles feel from the run, the more relaxed and loose they feel as they find their groove. After a minute or two, everything starts to weave its way into a groove and that is when I hit my stride. From that point on out I am, for all intensive purposes, meditating.

I love it. It took me a while to find this part of my soul, but I have found it. Like everything in life, there are still many things I have to learn and practice with my new form of meditation. I will work hard to improve it, but I know I have found at least one way to touch my soul. There are a million other ways in the world to do so, and everyone is different. I am just glad that I stumbled across one of these ways.

*****
• For those that are wondering or care, here is my latest line-up for the ever-changing “Running” mix. The mix is in the order it plays:
o Queen – “I Want to Break Free”
o Mr. Big – “To Be With You”
 (The two above play during my warm-up run and stretching)
o Common – “Be”
o Talib Kweli feat. Common – “Ghetto Show”
o Punjab – “Windadaya”
o Ozomatli – “Guerrillero”
o Coheed and Cambria – “Devil in Jersey City”
o Cake – “Tougher Than It Is”
o Fall Out Boy – “Of All the Gin Joints in the World”
o Panic! At the Disco – “Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off”
o O.A.R. – “Risen” (Live from Bonnaroo 2003)


September 11, 2007

7:00 AM

I left the house yesterday and found an unsuspecting morning veil waiting to coat my senses. The summer is coming to close now and every morning I walk out the door I feel the change of seasons more and more. There is something very unique to a mountain morning scent; a scent born from the silent battle of morning’s hot air with the evening’s lingering coolness. The scent started it’s descent upon me very subtly as I first stepped outside. Then, as I started to make haste towards my destination, the fresh fall scent sent all of its troops to invade my senses.

Haste proved to be impossible once the troops had infiltrated my senses. My scent was swirled with morning pollens in the air; my eyes shifted to the golden lit mountains. Drops of the lingering sweet morning dew was brushed on to my taste buds and suddenly every step I took felt like the asphalt had become a bed of silk.

I knew that I had been looking forward to the change of seasons. I miss cold weather and I am ready to feel the comfort of a chill again. I didn’t expect to walk outside yesterday morning into the most peaceful battlefield on earth.



September 14, 2007

7:00 PM

Upon arriving to school on the “first day of classes” on September 3rd I was abruptly smacked with the news that the class schedule was not ready yet. A year ago to date I would have quickly become incensed with this news. How can there not be a class schedule ready for the first day of classes?
After a year in Kyrgyzstan, I have learned to EMBRACE THE CHAOS. As much as I would like it to be, this country is very far from functioning in the timely or orderly manner us Americans, and much of the Western world, are used to. It may be even be accurate to state that this country may never function on in the same fast-paced manner that defines much of the western world.
To be angry at this thought or to be bothered by the chaos is to not understand the Kyrgyz culture; much more importantly, to not understand Kyrgyz culture is to not understand “Kyrgyz Time.” Time here is merely a leaf in the wind: If you try and catch it you will look foolish running with your arms waving and grabbing at empty air; but if you sit back and watch the beauty of its flight, you will soon find yourself wrapped up by the same wind that drives life here. As the wind embraces you, the mountains will open their arms to you, the Ak Sakals’ (Lit: White Beards; Respected Elders) smiles will warm your heart, and the sweet sound of laughing Kyrgyz school-girls will bring you back to what is really important in life: living.
As I made my way through the school on the “first day of classes,” I took the opportunity of the free day to go talk with the teachers about how their summer break was. After a few good conversations, I then started to wander the halls of the school looking for the students I had missed so dearly all summer. I missed their vigor and desire to soak in the world around them. I spent a few hours just wandering from classroom to classroom, hallway to hallway, small talking and joking around with the students of my school.
I eventually ended up finding some of my favorite students (yeah, so what, I choose favorites, we all do) and had a nice long talk with them about what we all did during the summer break. After some good laughs and funny stories, we then moved on to the big plans I had conjured up for our up-coming school year. I have a lot planned for our school this year and the students were going to be playing a big part in making it happen. As expected, they were pumped to hear about all of the plans and we all decided we would “meet” sometime in the next few weeks to further discuss the plans.
Walking home that day I was beaming. I had just left my school where a quarter of the teachers had not come back from their mountain pastures yet (where they work for the summer), there was no class schedule made, and my assistant director (the one who makes the schedule) drunkenly informed me that the schedule would be ready in “a few days, god willing – inshAllah”. All of this should have enraged me. “Should” is the key word. I have learned: You must embrace life before it can embrace you. Embrace Kyrgyz culture, especially “Kyrgyz Time,” and just like rivers flow from the mountains, it will begin to embrace you back. Only then will anything meaningful be able to take place.

Simplicity is complicated.