The Polish

Yvonne and Ruth, how much more legendary could they get? Seeming to know all the sketchy locals in Jamaica, from the attachment to Richard at the hostel a moment after arrival, the texts from the Tamboo connection on the drive in from Lucea, the random guy outside Margaritaville to Garfield’s sweet ride and the fabulous Conch soup... So excellent to see the art of coarse travel is alive and well in Jamaica, mon. Yes mon. The jerk chicken, the jerk pork, the snapper sunset tacos. Even the dog-eaten goat curry, the lack of a proper sunset (and failure to spot the Yarmouth girls) not enough to disappoint.

How superior this day to the other option of the staid tour with the Brazilian couple – who at least like visiting the ganga fields everyday... Into Mo-Bay city proper and a sandwich while the first minutes of the Arsenal match played through poor reception, to (as was found out later) another defeat. Are they saving their miracle for Bayern? Does the Wembley failure bring the India option back into the mix?

"Inspirate" – I want to know why it is what it is. Who are these girls, and how are they so confident and comfortable in such chaos. And is it an admirable quality or no? That last is a question. As Antoine would say, for real. I think I’m with them. Their supreme assurance in face of strangers is not to be questioned.

“Ya gotta have the polish.  Black and Brown." So much else forgotten as always. I wish I could have seen him again, at the Mo-Bay bus stop or otherwise. Ya gotta have the polish!!

And Garfield's ever-presence! After we were slightly worried over the extended absence. His persistance rewarded. Sad a bit, in the way we had to end it, but I can see why he was insistent. Hard to compete with the locals, at times, in such circumstances. I wanted to write so much else. The hammock. The blow and fuck. Ah, difficult to blend in with the local girls because the imbalance is ridiculous.

Wondering about shades all the same, too, and how perhaps to end it. The magnificently cleansing rain. The security knocking. Hurry mon. Yeah mon. But enough to cause laughter and distraction. The security guy’s car won’t start. “I guess I’ll just get a guy on the street..” Yeah mon.  Good luck mon.

“You want the air condition?” Yeah mon.

It is the beauty of the country, that Ruth of Eritrea loves so much, the directness. They tell you straight what is on your/their mind, which never happens in Sweden.... what a fucking trip. Such legends.  How could you have done better, in a day in Jamaica, to sample the taste?

Oh Nick. See how I miss you. Oh Atlantic. See how I miss you so much too, with your waves and such. Even as I bathed in you yesterday. It doesn’t get much more absurd.

Trust and laughter and magic and ... how it becomes the soul. The lesson is in the persistence (of G and others), the uncaring effort. In the obvious affection. In the no hesitation to exclaim the desire. The don’t be in a hurry to get to eternity, and the could be dead if you pull ahead. etc. A country that knows of what it speaks, presumably.

How dramatically good was yesterday, compared to the possibility of anything else on offer in Jamaica, even? To have the trip down, the accommodations, the understanding figured out. Fuck if the girls spent a bit more than expected. Oh Garfield. And our man of the texts v. the more trusting of the guys, via phone first. Ha. Two girls who in Europe are not the first to be admired, yet here are magnificent and adored as they should be. Por que no? There must be something in that. In the majesty of the focus and belief and short-term nature of it. The link. The not-caring. The now-ness.

The rain this morning. Fresh and clean and (Y) true. Yeah mon. Can you get me to the airport for one thousand? Yeah mon.

I love the James Bond (ornithologist) connection to the country, discovered happenstance. Goldeneye. I love the thoughts of and for creativity in such places. In that idea of lightning striking. In a table of pints, or lager or rum or whatever. Ms. Stravel, how old we are getting. And yet.

You think of Bolt, and Blake, and how enormous the accomplishment it is, to run the 100 with such speed and beat all these other more pompous and ...

How brilliant and key the 6AM security wake up? To be through Lucea by 7:26 is really what you would have hoped in the best of backpacking scenarios, and certainly no chance if not the security bell. Oh Arsenal on Tuesday. Are you going to tell me to go to Delhi??  Eritrea. Can she really so easily cast out thoughts of what is next?

Yeah mon.  Oh all the rank craziness. I am a passenger. And I ride and I ride. And I left all those spirits behind.

And I....

8 Shot Last Night

(story on page 3, don't you know.  and don't forget the ridiculousness of the classifieds.)

So.  Where are you?  Mo-Bay, and not the Pogue or Mahone, at that.  Rich by even your standards of ridiculousness - welcome to Jamaica.  Yes mon.  Turn around and get your bearings and focus in on the little things.  The taking out of about CDN$ 10 with your first attempt at the Scotiabank ATM, just enough to buy paper and a 6-pack of the Stripe.  Then the wait for the special Goat Curry that was quickly devoured by the dog when you went back to get the memory card.  And so the stolen bread from the fridge as sustenance.  How good it tastes.

Earlier, seat 3D, the Yarmouth girls, and wine.  The leopard-print bikini's first flight at that.  A good reason to urge you on to Rick's Cafe tomorrow and its famous sunset, for a potential meeting at 5PM.  Por que no?  The signs seem to point to at least that attempt, with nothing doing tonight despite the universal praise for Pier One, and the Ocho Rios tour just not sounding as appealing as the public bus to Negril.  More randomness in how you get back, but who is counting?  And thanks to Matt's timely comments, of course the cash is there to be spent... 

So much truly driven by randomness... the craziness of last night, apparently, for this black Swedish girl who just quit her Finance job to travel here, surely worth another hour or two of conversation, and as a guide to the local art of cross-country travel. Oh, how hilariously quickly the other, Ivonne, moved away from the picnic table to (molest/grope/fondle/caress) our man who provided the keys initially.  The manner of speaking is not the only thing that's quick. 

To this random room, where locals and visitors are not allowed and where (famously?) Lucan no longer works. It does have at least the sense of security, for tonight.  Which is what you need.  Not enough enthusiasm to do the full bar thing solo.  There is the strangest anonymity of the attempts to be casual here.  How out-of-place touristy you clearly are in the crowds of locals.  What it would take, to feel ready to blend in...  In terms of time, and in terms of a change in outlook?  Another life of months.  At least.

There are three books here.  Fifty Shades Freed, something about Influenza, and "Ian Fleming Introduces Jamaica" because he apparently wrote all the Bond books here during his holidays here each year.  You learn something new everyday, truly.  Might pilfer this one.

The fourth of six Red Stripes looks to be the last of the evening.  A good one, if uneventful.  Now hilariously messaging the other still-water sister.  Because you seem to be drawn so much to the already attached, of course, you fool.  You fool You fool You fool (he smiles).

To bed with you.  Although end with this exchange... 

KS: I'm surprised a person would wonder why they like to travel.
M: Not "why you like to travel" as much as "why you like to travel above all else and to the point of sacrificing all other things (job, stability, relationships, etc) because they are not as important"
KS: ... just as I was typing "Or do you feel like you have a pathology in your desire to travel"
M: hehe
KS: i'm sure you're not alone in that ... hahah, which is not useful whatsoever.. i dunno, though, seems like you've got a pretty good balance going on - job, friends, family, and impromptu travel and long term travel thrown in there too.
M: No, I'm quite comfortable with it too, don't get me wrong. It is just the "long term" part that is the slightly disconcerting. And only at times.

Funny, the need to come to new places, to see old things from new perspectives.  And flirt with old acquaintances across/above the sea.  To what end?  And to what favours must she come?

Make us laugh, at that.

Said Oh Lord Jesus, it's a Fire

Sleepless nights and lazy mornings.  The search for that willingness to strike out into a routine of some merit, to find the discipline to chart new courses here, whether for the career and otherwise.  And thus far, nothing.  The freedom of the car conspiring to allow merely for easy access to the variety of unhealthy fast food and cheap literature options.  The freedom of the condo offering a spot wherein to bring the unsuspecting for clumsy, unknown purposes.  Will the freedom of the boat provide something more?

That text did come, and combined with a storm conspired to keep me in town for coffee Saturday past.  Antartica, of all stories as well, to keep me captivated, despite the ring in its shocking casualness.  And so you lay in wait again for the next round of response, in planning a truly ridiculous 14th.  It's not impossible, is it Rylance?  Stay tuned for updates, on all fronts I suppose.

Nostalgic tonight.  Casting back to similar February times in years gone by...  funny if not surprising to see London prominently intertwined in the imaginings.  It seems a particular time of year that the mind and body tends to drift away.  Just under a year since Achill (Did I write nothing anywhere about that momentous reckoning?)  Before that Cyprus and Barca and Morocco.  In 2010, conversations via Skype with KBJ and consideration of 555 days that have now long since come and gone.  Yucatan prior to the great escape in 2009, and celebrating the G-Men in 2008 with dreams of the Inka Trail still on the horizon.  Again just about in merry England in 2007, that last great Oxford homecoming and first taste of the Blarney...

So much time, and so much variety, and still insatiable.  Still here, at this same window staring into the same darkness, needing to mark down the hours of time spent on mundane items to fuel the wandering.  It is relentless - the longing, the yearning to see and be on the move.  C'mon Arsenal.  Give me the extra excuse for April.  And let the rest fall as it will, yeah?

 

Paraprosdokian

(being a figure of speech in which the second half of the statement causes the hearer to reinterpret the first part. Often used for comedic effect, the use in "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" is a rare use of the form as pathos.)

So to a much overdue blog post.  Where were we?  Just gearing up for Rabbie Burns, as I recall.  Can it have been just one Friday since, and only two since picking up the Teke man from Fred and learning of the Bahamas relay triumph?  You may be only a month old, 2013, but you have been memorable.  There is no doubting that.

The 25th was again a grand one, many oysters and some Scotch and a rousing Drysdale stabbing of the Haggis followed by the Casino and a random hallway art of the make-out attempt.  I'm sure I have noted "Here's a Health To Them That's Awa" before, but all the better now to toast young Chuck, and the poem found for the love-begotten daughter none too shabby for Ms. Sofia either.  And as always a precursor to St. Patrick's Day that resonates, with the old songs and the like.  "For these are my mountains" fast becoming a new favourite.

But to the complications...  strike that, looking at it that way is all wrong.  Although (he thinks) find a better succinct word for it all.  Leave it.  A very peculiar entry into a scenario that can only be considered dream-like, certainly not one to be believed straightaway if it had been pitched back in the fall.  Such a breakfast, and yet the disappointments and ever-present inabilities continue, for now.  Never a better chance to work things through, so slowly slowly through the awkwardness and see it done.  Por que no?  Good to see at this stage you can at least induce such shuddering.  Though added to that the other random opportunity, so random and out of nothing that it is a secret buried in a secret and makes things all the more hilarious.  And then a third, insignificant tangent - deeper and perhaps as complicated - the fleeting laughter with the sparkling eyes following a magical moment of atypical confidence. 

Will nothing come of the last, truly?  Must I send another final note, something like... "figured I would try one more time in case this is the right number.  had fun mocking people with you at the Palace and wouldn't mind doing so again (although maybe not at the Palace this time, eh?).  do let me know."  Heh.  Will you ever be  a VIP there again?  I would like to say I doubt it, but rather look forward to the absurd circumstances of the inevitable instead...


In the future ye shall know if such efforts were in vain, or to a larger purpose.  The uncertainty in the interim at least makes things interesting.  I know not what to think.  As the makeshift crew of unknowns next door continue singing bizarrely, sparking at least the title of this blog post, an email to Nick, and a smiling shaking-of-the-head at the absurdity of it all.

Ah, for that's what it always is, at its best.  Against Expectation.  A new favourite, then.  Paraprosdokian indeed.