264. Erzurum, Turkey

Erzurum, Turkey: I buy a ticket to the border of Iran and spend the day waiting for my bus in the frosty depot. The waiting room is crowded with big bearded men wearing black or dark colored clothing. All are “smoking like Turks”, which means lighting a fresh cigarette from the burning butt of the old one. The air in the room is practically unbreathable. Now and then a small boy appears in the haze carrying a tray of stale bread and a pot of weak coffee—much better than nothing, but the smoke is making me cough and my throat raw.


Late in the afternoon a pretty woman comes in escorted by a very tough-looking, hairy brute of a man. She is the only female in the crowded roomful of men. When her escort leaves for a moment she comes over to tell me she is studying English in Istanbul. It is pleasant to hear a female voice speaking a language I understand, but I hope her man is not the jealous type since I am no match for him and no one is going to be on my side in this off-the-wall dump.


My bus fills with men and I bid farewell to Erzurum, hopefully never to return.


About midnight and still 35 kilometers from the Iranian border, the bus comes to a halt and the driver informs us that this is as far as the bus goes. 

...

263.Gazientep, Turkey

 Cold and clear. Part of this town is carved right into the stone of the mountainside. The bus depot is in the middle of a busy marketplace with lots of taxis, horse-drawn wagons and trucks. This is probably a very nice place in the summer, but I only stay for two hours and then continue in a new, luxurious bus heading northeast into a gray afternoon snowstorm.


I get a seat in the very front of the bus across from the driver so I get to watch the heavy globs of wet snow splat on the wide windshield and get piled into sloppy heaps by the wipers. The highway tarmac soon disappears under the snow and the bus seems to be sliding down a tunnel plowed through six-foot drifts into the night.


Dawn: still snowing, everything is white or gray; no forms are visible—only differences in light intensity. I don’t know how the driver manages to tell which is highway and which is snowdrift and I guess he can’t either because we slide off the road into a snow berm.


Everybody gets out to help push. Holy smoke-- my feet and hands are freezing! I’m really not dressed for this kind of thing—no gloves, no boots and only Adam’s thin reversible trench coat. I am thankful when the bus slides back onto the road and we can get back in.


Mid morning, the bus stops at a stone cabin for a tea break.


Inside the room is cold and wet, but since I am the only foreigner on the bus, they kindly offer me one of the few chairs near the big potbellied wood stove.

...

262. Onward

After the usual border formalities, I wander around looking for some transportation. A businessman buys me a cup of tea and suggests we share a taxi and the expenses of the ride. The ride seems expensive but to get stuck here in World’s End, Turkey seems worse, so I go.


The farmland we drive through shows feeble signs of spring. There are fertile looking valleys and steep, snowy mountains.


At the first village I transfer to a carryall vehicle bound for Gazientep. The highway passes across the middle of a plain flanked by rose and blue colored mountains dusted with snow. We pass through several cozy looking villages with clusters of stone cottages with earth roofs.


Colorful gangs of hardy countrymen and women are out working in the fields of snow and mud.


My fellow travelers try several languages on me but I don’t know any of them so we are reduced to smiles and hand signals.

...

261. Turkish Border

Aleppo, Syria: It may just be me, but when the bus pulls in at ten in the evening, I would swear that this is one of the dirtiest, ugliest, coldest towns in the world! I find a cheap hotel. My room has two beds and the manager says I should expect a roommate sometime later in the evening—but since it is already midnight, I think I may spend the night alone! Then I remember Ishmael and Quequeg in Moby Dick, and turn in with some misgivings. Later when the roommate does appear, he proves to be no harpooner but only a frail, elderly gentleman wearing a black camelhair robe. I can sense that he is not exactly delighted to share his room with an infidel either, but I have learned all the polite expressions in Arabic so he is comforted


Morning: I wake up feeling great! It’s time to blaze along. Aleppo is just as ugly by daylight but I find a taxi going to the border of Turkey and climb in with a collection of seedy traveling salesmen. Soon, in a desolation of barren hills, the Turkish border.


A bunch of old wool coats, robes and rags with people inhabiting them, huddled at the border would make an extraordinary photograph, but I have learned that if I show my camera, things immediately change and never for the better, so I keep my camera in my bag and the image in my head.

...

260. Syria in Winter

The hills to the east that were dry and brown when I last passed his way are white with snow. It is still winter, but for me there is no turning back.


The Syrian border is closed. There is too much snow on the highway on the Syrian side for traffic to move so I lose the money I paid for the trip to Damascus and the driver lets us out at a village near the border where I get a cheap hotel room. It’s wonderful to be free!


Up early. After a short wait standing in the snow I catch a cab. True enough, there are rows of trucks stuck in the ice on the Syrian side but our clever driver navigates us through to Damascus in four hours. In Damascus I change a little money and board a bus to Aleppo.


Northern Syria is about as interesting to cross in the winter as west Texas.

...

259. Free Again

We go to the embassy. He has only a vague idea about what he wants to do in America but I suppose it would be a boost to the career of any young Lebanese to live in the states for a while, but the counselor turns him down flat!


On the street outside the embassy he turns on me with rage. Why didn’t I get him his visa?!


What a jerk.


I don’t argue. What could I say? That I’m sorry he’s so stupid?


After his blow-up he seems much calmer. Now he says, he feels better than he has for weeks. Now he is free to open a branch of his father’s clothing store here. Nice to have an alternative plan!


He walks with me across town to the Damascus Taxi Stand. I pick one and when it fills with passengers, we’re off and I’m free again!

...

258. Disappearing Act

After the army is finished clearing the bandits out of Old Town, I return to live in the old Mosque/tomb.


I am awakened very early one morning by hammering on the street door.


It is one of my rich English language students. Today is the day I am supposed  to go with him to the American Embassy in Beirut where he wants to apply for a student visa to the USA. He has asked me to go with him for company, moral support and to perhaps put in a good word for him though I have told him I have absolutely no influence with the US government!


His jaw drops when I bring my backpack with me.


I have decided to move along and I will leave without saying goodbye. I just want to be free again and I don't know how my decision to leave would be accepted--it might cause trouble.


The student is reluctant to take my stuff to Beirut in his car, but I tell him I’ll simply catch a bus if he won’t; and he wants me to help him get his visa, so he agrees to what I think he thinks is a trade-out. He probably thinks I am an American spy so that if he helps me out I will help him get his visa.


Man, these people are so messed up with their propaganda and paranoia and this seems to be a dangerous place to be for an ignorant country boy like me!

...

257. Women Unveiled

I have seen Adam several times since he brought me to Tripoli and one evening he takes me with him to meet his cousin who is married to an American woman.


As I have said, men and women are totally separated socially in this traditional Moslem society, but this evening for a few moments at the cousin’s house I am actually in the same room with two unveiled women, one American and one French, and several Lebanese men! Shocking, isn’t it?


As soon as politely possible all the men except Adam and Adam’s cousin leave the room. I am left alone for perhaps five minutes with Adam, his cousin and their foreign-born wives. I ask the American wife how she likes living in this Moslem society. She says that at first the rigid sexual roles practiced here drove her almost crazy but she has grown accustomed to the life. Besides her husband is very rich and they live six months of every year very well in the USA. (Ah, love!) She also tells me that women have a much larger share of the real power here than is apparent to a stranger like me.


She invites me to visit her home but sex being what it is here I doubt if a visiting male would be tolerated by anyone and might be fatal for me!


For example, I saw a pretty shop girl in the Old Town when I was walking with one of my Moslem friends and told him I might come back later and ask her for a date. He said, “Oh no. Don’t do that! Her brother would have to kill you.” --and he would too!


This is the House the Guilt Built.

...

256. Baby Girl

The four-year-old daughter of the sheikh comes into my room when I get up every morning.

Her brown hair, eyes and checked pajamas and smile are a welcome “good morning” for me. In a soft, low voice, she repeats the names of things that she points to in the room in Arabic. My part of the “game”: is to repeat the names after her. What a kind and gentle little language teacher she is. Then she tells me (in Arabic) her plans, dancing on baby bare feet, moving her arms in a baby ballet to better convey her thoughts to her foreign friend. Her friend, smiling behind his whiskers, himself changed by the blows of the years, wishes for this newly fleshed soul a cycle not too full of sorrow and pain—though being born in this country at this time is not too promising.


In another year and for the rest of her life, this child will not be permitted to be in the same room unveiled with any male not her blood relative or her spouse.

...

255. Old Tripoli Raid

.

Tripoli, Lebanon: 

Late January. I leave the freezing, empty flat which sheltered me during the December holiday season and return to the modern apartment of the Sufi sheikh in Mina. It is not comfortable for me to be back. I feel strange and out of place. The sheikh has shaved his head for his pilgrimage to Mecca and wears a fitted gray wool cap that is not flattering. He looks like Ming of Mongo, the villain in the old “Flash Gordon” comic strip.


The police have sealed off the old city of Tripoli where the old mosque and the apartment where I have been staying were, and martial law and a curfew were declared. Six hundred soldiers and policemen set about routing the “bandits” sheltering in the maze-like galleries of the Old City.


Everyone expects a number more people will be killed and photos of the dead appear in every edition of the Arabic newspapers.


It looks like I was brought out in the nick of time.

...

254. End of Tape

Writing every day in this log—though it has often been only a few lines, has made me critical of my own writing skill and more appreciative of other writers. I especially like writers who are honest rather than arty with words. No, I don’t care for “cute” writing, though I do enjoy some cleverness with words like I sometimes read in the national news magazines. For me the best writer is the one who has something interesting and helpful to say and who says it in most natural way. I like writing that is conversational, simple, direct and sometimes profound.

The writer who puts the great thought into the few precisely correct words is the one I like to read and the one I would like to be.

Well, there isn’t room on this tape to go on and tell you more, but it’s been a pleasure talking to you folks. I hope this tape reaches you in good health. I’m enjoying generally good health myself so in a way I’m sorry I read you the not so funny “diarrhea” pages of my diary but you know there are lots of high times as well as low times when you’re traveling!”

...

253. Last Page

Here is the last page of my diary. I will be finishing it in Tripoli, Lebanon. For me there have been better and worse places.

Being “out in orbit” like I have been I have seen how valuable friends, worthy, true, honest, upright, faithful friends might be and how very few of these I have made and held on to over the years. Acquaintances, plenty—but friends, only one or two; women, not many since sex and possessiveness interfere, and men—no, since most are only work colleagues—maybe I have just been unlucky in meeting men who are interested in the same things I am and who would help me as I would them without competition. A real friend would accept me as I am, of course, and not try to change me into something I am not.

I have met a lot of people in this last year but I have been moving so fast I feel rather certain most of these contacts will be lost rather quickly. No matter. What does matter is that now I see what makes a good friend and when one appears I will cherish him or her.

...

252. Resolution

I think I am now keeping a better log than I was in the beginning and I like that.

And since this is the last day of an exceptional year I wonder if I can pen a New Year’s Resolution? 

Here’s one without thinking: In the coming year I will try to use everything I know and continue to follow the flow. And it even rhymes.

Exactly one year ago I heard of Elizabeth’s death in the plane crash. Nothing in my life has shocked me more. I’ve sure been hurt and bamboozled but for plain, consuming shock and grief, that news a year ago takes the prize. I lost a real friend and I’m still “waiting for my visa” out of this life. In the meantime, I sometimes think of her energy and joy in the small, ordinary things in life and try harder myself.

...

351. Just Me

.

And wherever I am living I work to increase cooperation, peace, health and happiness.

I also expect “give and take” and don’t think everything will always be easy or go my way. Your ways are not my ways, but I want the same freedom for you I want for myself and I am willing to change when you show me your ways are better than mine.

I do not want to be automatically categorized by religion: I am not a Moslem or Christian (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or…), Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or anything else!

I am myself. Just me.

I’ll accept the good I find in every “way of life” or religion or economic or political system, and let the rest go.

I want to live a human life and to me that means free. Free and responsible!

...

250. Me Free

I tell my friend that I have missed the prayers for two consecutive days for lots of reasons, the most important being that I can’t be a Moslem. . They are always asking me to be a Moslem, but I tell them “No”. Following their peculiar rules is contrary to my nature. They lock off too many of life’s experiences.

I am not interested in being some great sinner, but the puritanical code has got to go too. Also the idea of a “chosen people” or that “MY guru is better that YOUR guru!” or that women are not as good as men. I see that Moslems are defined here as anti-Israeli pro-Arab Palestinian nationalists or something else economic or political—I am not even sure what—some kind of insane vendetta that started thousands of years ago and is still going. 

For me, to be a Moslem would be a big step backward.

I have worked too hard to develop the little independence permitted to a citizen of the world at this time, and I do not want to lose any of that independence of mind and action. I treasure that independence and obey the lawful rules of the place I inhabit.

If the rule of law in the place I find myself does not allow the freedom I cherish, I remove myself to somewhere that does!

...

249. Winter Riot

And now, back to the logbook: “I have the bad feeling that I am only killing time waiting for my retirement check from Hawaii and warm weather. I would rather be on the road. But here I’ve got to stay so I am going to relax and enjoy it as much as possible.

It’s as cold as the arctic but I take long walks for the exercise and for the change of scenery. A kid pedals his bike by with about thirty live, clucking chickens hanging on a framework by their claws. I arrive at a street blocked by burning tires. I walk around them but see at the next crossroads more burning tires. A big, cheerful fat man taps me on the shoulder. The only word I understand from his polite speech is “go”. It looks like I am walking into a riot of some kind so I gladly go. This is a lousy, miserably cold day for a riot! Much better to stay home by a toasty fire today! I buy cauliflower, some beans, onions and even some canned corned beef and stew up a great meal on a borrowed stove and then I fix some hot tea!

A friend comes over in the late afternoon. We go out to a sweet-bean sidewalk stand where we buy a bowl of beans for five cents. Than we walk downtown for coffee and chess at another café. I lose the chess games by one-move margins. Oh, those one-move margins! I’ve got to get myself together in those one-move margin games but even more in the Master Game of Life and that means work!

...

248. The Routine

About three o’clock a.m. I wake to a different sound of shooting. It might be a real quarrel with lots of mixed weapon fire and not done in the usual artistic rhythmic patterns, but just random blasting, like people trying to kill each other. Then along with the shooting there are some big definitive explosions—have the cops entered the fight with mortars and grenades? Then, at four a.m., amplified chanting from six or seven local mosques comes on and the firing diminishes. This chanting is not just a simple “call to prayer”, but entire chapters from the Koran being sung. I can simultaneously hear at least four singers clearly and others more indistinctly—all singing different words at different pitches and to different tunes. It is very musical in a bizarre way. One thing sure, no matter how cold or dark, nobody is going to sleep through the “call to prayer” here.

So it’s shooting through most of the night

And praying in between

And I hope I don’t stay here long enough

To get used to the routine.

Incidentally, the police and the army forced their way into Old Tripoli in early January and drove out the “bandits” that had taken over the neighborhood so there is no more shooting.

...

247. Tripoli Noisy Nights

Tuesday 31st December, Tripoli: I wish I had a tape recording of the noise here. From about 4pm to about 9am there is more or less continuous firing of weapons—mainly pistols, I think, but there are plenty of shotguns and machine guns too. This racket lends a very circusy air to the town. It is not so continuously noisy as the carnival in Chiapas, Mexico, but that was the sound of exploding firecrackers and sky rockets, not weapons being fired. The psychological effect is quite different.

It is impossible for me to get a full night’s sleep here. Someone fires a machinegun in the street outside my door and I’m wide-awake! Maybe the residents sleep through it, but I doubt it. More likely, they get up, shoot their own guns a few times and then go back to sleep.

Why? I am told that the area where I am living, Old Tripoli, is ”off limits” to the police. Ain’t that odd? The constant noise of weapons serves to remind the local cops that the citizens are awake, armed and ready, so they had better not intrude. Second—constant use keeps the weapons in good repair so the owner is sure of his equipment.

Perhaps these people like the exciting sound of guns firing since it might add a bit of color to their bleak poverty-stricken lives

...

246. Luz y Amor

In my dreams recently, I have been told the relationships between the old Egyptian Gods. I am shown transparent drawings that are pretty pictures but, when overlaid on other drawings; reveal deep symbolic meanings which I cannot comprehend. Still, I suspect that all information is retained at some level of the unconscious mind and I am grateful for even this fleeting exposure to what seems to be valuable knowledge.

I read another good quotation as I wait for the counselor: “The conditions of a solitary bird are five: the first—that it flies to the highest point. The second—that it does not suffer for company, not even of its own kind. The third—that it aims its beak to the skies. The fourth—that it does not have a definite color. The fifth—that it sings very softly.” and the person who wrote that was San Juan de la Cruz in “Dijos de Luz y Amor”.

Then, by reading the fine print on a price list, I get out of paying a fee to get my retirement check document notarized by the counselor. 

...

245. Casteneda in Beirut

Well I’m going to continue reading: “Monday 30th, Tripoli to Beirut and back to Tripoli. I left home by moonlight. It was cold and clear. Walking fast through the empty streets with my hood up. (I was given a thin coat with a furry hood.) Bus to Beirut, walk to the American Express office, but find it costs twenty-two pounds to renew my expired card so I can cash the folk’s check for fifty dollars. That’s more than a fifth of the check, so I decide not to.

I walk to the American Embassy. There I see the usual nattily dressed employees. Embassies always attract pretty women! Tanks are parked outside the embassy and guards with machine guns make me feel a bit guilty as I walk in. Honest guys, there’s nothing in my bag but a travel-worn camera, some “Kleenex” and a broken wristwatch. All the doors lock both ways. I get a visitor’s pass and am escorted to the counselor’s waiting room where I read a little of Carlos Castaneda’s new book: “Tales of Power”, which is excerpted in “Harper’s Magazine”, September 1974 edition.

Castaneda talks about “looking at your hands” in your dreams and I think he is on to a clue to directing your dreams. I have tried to “look at my hands” in my dreams, but he is right about the difficulty of doing it. Shortly after looking at my own hands, my mind tricks me awake.

...

244. Tripoli December Letter

Now I think I’ll read you the last pages of this first volume of my logbook. I’ll start on Saturday, 18th of December. 

Tripoli: cold and rainy. I run out of the house to buy some gasoline for my ailing stove and some food. (My little camp stove was not working very well and now it doesn’t work at all.) I dash back to the mosque and spend some time finishing Abdullah’s portrait and some other pen and ink doodling.

The day is short. I’m so cold I spend most of the day on the mat wrapped in blankets. Not complaining; just stating a fact.

Sunday 29th: Lightning, thunder and lots of rain raised the temperature. I think I’ll hike over to Mina, that’s the little port, and check my film and also stop by the post office. Nothing is open. The movie theater is doing a lively little-kid business with karate movies. By nightfall it is very cold.

(I wonder if you can hear the “call to prayer” in the background? That means its noon. They say: “Allah u akbar”, “God is Great”. That calls all the good Moslem men to the mosque to pray or to pray wherever they are if they can’t go to the mosque. At first it was very strange, but you get used to it like you get used to church bells some places. You hear these calls to prayer five times a day: once in the morning—about four in the morning I guess; you can barely wake up to hear the call—then through the day four more times—at noon and the early afternoon, at sunset and a little after sunset.)

...

243. Israb-Arali Chicken

And here’s a story I thought of on Sunday but was too sick to write it down until today:

The Israb-Arali Chicken

Once upon a time a man made this experiment.

He went downtown to a chicken store and bought the egg of a hen famous for producing great, fierce fighting roosters. He kept the egg warm, turned it properly and in due time a fuzzy male chick hatched.

The man raised the bird with the greatest love and tenderness, giving it food, drink, exercise and every fatherly attention. The chicken never knew fear or frustration—only peace and plenty, love and goodness.

At last the chicken arrived at its prime. It was a beautiful large creature with glossy blue-black tail plumes, yellow beak and red comb.

Covering the cock’s head with a hood, the man carried it to a nearby cock-fighting arena. He arranged a match and, feeling a little pang of sorrow for what he felt might be the murder of his peaceful protégé, he laced the razor-sharp steel fighting spurs to his cock’s spurs.

At the signal for the match to begin, the experimenter removed the hood and tossed his cock into the pit. At the same instant, the owner of the opposing cock tossed in his killer-trained bird.

For the first time in his life the pacifistically raised fowl saw another of his breed and in a feathery flash the battle was over.

In two deft strokes the peaceful bird had cut the throat and pierced the heart of his opponent.

The Moral: Genetics Rule: some creatures are born to kill.

...

242. Sick Again

During these months of traveling, I’ve had a chance to go over some of my life—I’ve had the time to think about what’s happened—and it’s really been fascinating. I don’t think I’ve ever done it before. I’ve been too busy running around and keeping up with the latest.

I’m gonna read you this whole section since it’s kind of funny, I guess. I wrote it on December 8th, on a Sunday, in Tripoli, Lebanon.

“My stomach is a bit queasy, but I’m OK. Must be the pickled cabbage. The bright electric-pink dye of those pickles undoubtedly is used to conceal some pretty ghastly vegetables. Ali brings over his chessboard and then Hussein arrives and invites us to lunch. Hussein’s mother has prepared a delicious rice and meat dish with walnuts. I’m careful not to eat too much. Evening: I go with Muhammad to his sister’s place. His brother thinks I should be made a sheikh so I could go and promote Islam in America. I explain that what I want is personal knowledge, and only when I’ve reached the levels I feel are true will I be willing to teach anything. I need to learn, not teach.

Then there is falafel for food—I got sick last time I ate it, but I want to try. I don’t want to offend anyone, but soon after returning home I am hit with a terrific attack of diarrhea, cramps and pain. Man, it is bad going! The squat-pot toilet is plugged and stinks but I am so sick I don’t much care!

Monday—next day: in bed all day; only up to visit “the John”. Yuck! Nobody comes by and that’s good. All I want to be is to be left alone so I can enjoy my suffering! I can groan and swear and nobody hears!

At sunset I fix some chicken soup from powder on my portable gas stove. It’s good. Abdullah comes over and commiserates with me and brings a lemon and oranges for my upset stomach. I sleep better.

Tuesday: not well, but better. I heat water and wash my face, beard and hair. That usually makes me feel better.

...

241. Bobby Sox

I wrote this little ditty that I like to hum while I walk:

“Bobby Sox”

Boy:

“Ain’t it grand in the grandstand?

Ain’t it grand from the box?

Ain’t it grand from the front row

In your bobby sox?”

Girl:

“Yes, it’s grand from the grandstand

And it’s grand from the box—

Even grand from the BACK row,

In my bobby sox!”

(“Bobby sox” were girl’s white athletic stockings, which were rolled into a thick cuff low on the ankle just above the shoe top. When I was a teenager in the 50’s, the era of “Rock Around the Clock” and young Elvis Presley, the girls wore “bobby sox” with their pink rubber-soled brown and white or black and white “saddle shoes” or “penny loafers”. They also wore bobby sox to the “sock hop” dances held in high school gymnasiums since regular street shoes were not allowed on the beautifully polished wooden gym floors of those days. No matter what they did or where they were, American teenagers constantly celebrated an enormous joy of life in those days and wasn't I lucky to have been one of them!)

...

240. Lifeguard and Swimmer

The Sufi’s have a lot of teaching stories. Here’s another one I remember because it is a familiar theme told in a different way:

The Life guard and the Swimmer

“Once there was a popular beach which was always crowded but because of currents, was also dangerous for the many swimmers who frolicked there.

One person got into trouble swimming, cried for help, and was rescued by the lifeguard who had been stationed on the beach.

But as soon as the same person caught his breath on the beach, he dashed back into the water where he again got into trouble and again cried for help.

There were many other swimmers in the water who also needed the lifeguard’s attention.

How many times do you think the busy lifeguard would rescue this same foolish person?”

The popular but dangerous beach represents the thoughtless life style and the pursuit of pleasure of ordinary people. The man crying for help represents an awakening person who understands that there may be another more spiritual purpose to life. The lifeguard represents the spiritual guide who may be able to “rescue” the awakening person, but since there are so few “lifeguards” and so many “drowning people”, the chance of being “rescued” more than once are very slim.

See, BEFORE you get the Word, the “message”, you are in a State of Natural Grace, innocent; but AFTER you have heard “The Truth” you are Responsible, and will suffer if you do not act appropriately and “be saved”.

Ignorance IS bliss, as it were!

I have heard this same sales pitch from Christian Missionaries, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baha’i’s, Hari Krishna’s and others who offer The Truth” for “a limited time only” to a select few. Now I hear it from Moslems! 

...