Forward-Thinking

Climate change presents the world with a beautiful opportunity to re-empower those voices, the voices of the yin (if you'll indulge me) which we have been gagging, to restore balance within both the human community and the larger ecological community. The potential for this radical reconciliation is my wellspring of energy.

But make no mistake, it also presents the opportunity for the powers-that-be to justify the expansion and tightening of their authority. As I watched negotiations in Poznan, Poland, it became clear from my vantage point (focusing on deforestation issues) that this is a distinct risk we must acknowledge. For what better excuse to trespass upon liberty, to consolidate authoritarian power than the very preservation of the planet? Right now, the only people talking about this risk are those who still insist that climate change isn't happening and is only a global conspiracy. Why aren't those of us who are calling for solutions to climate change talking about it too, for preparedness' sake?

Climate change is a unique problem in that it is, by definition, international. The climate is no respecter of state boundaries. Building walls to the north, south, east and west won't neutralize this threat. The global character of climate change makes its effective and timely resolution, definitionally, a threat of historic proportions to the nation-state system that has governed the world since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

Those of us who are agitating for a forward-looking climate change policy must keep in mind several things:

1. It is clear: we must address climate change -- hard and fast.

2. It is highly unlikely that industrialized sovereign states, the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, will legislate hard or fast enough to avoid catastrophic climate change in high-risk regions of the world. Domestic legislation will not satisfy global imperatives because domestic legislation isn't supposed to satisfy global imperatives -- it's supposed to satisfy national imperatives. Domestic law-making simply wasn't designed to address problems with scopes that are as unambiguously global as that of climate change.

3. Currently, the only institution with a shred of de jure international political authority is the United Nations (there are plenty of others with de facto international political authority, but we're going to ignore them for the time being), but for better or worse, as it stands, the UN has no "teeth". It has no monopoly on the legal use of force. It can only ask, politely, that countries sign, ratify, and implement treaties. Enforcement of law is still under the purview of sovereign states.

4. If we can't rely on domestic action to "fix" climate change, an international body, like the UN, must be invested with real authority, i.e. the legal use of force, so that it can (ostensibly) ensure that individual states reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and thus avoid global catastrophe. Who would invest the UN or some such body with authority? The UN, for example, is controlled by the permanent members of the Security Council, France, China, Russia, the UK, and America. Ultimately, such a choice would be theirs. Many would say that there is no way that you're going to convince all the permanent member states of the Security Council to relinquish, piece by piece or in one fell swoop, the sovereignty of their states -- unless, of course, they see that there are gains to be had by doing so, and these gains outweigh the costs. I do wish that the virtuous, enlightened philosopher-kings at the helm of the Security Council would count the preservation of our common home as gain enough. Sadly, they don't.

5. By gain, of course they mean money, land, and votes. If conceding sovereignty would beget more money, more land, and/or more votes for the puppet-masters, such a concession will be made. And, mind you, there is already lots of cash to be made, land to be acquired and votes to be secured in this erosion process.

6. Empowering the UN in order to address climate change is going to have repercussions far beyond that particular issue. The character of these repercussions will be in large part, up to us.

It is not that the process of political globalization is necessarily bad, but it should be acknowledged that (1) the organizations guiding the process are at this moment decidedly undemocratic and lack transparency and (2) the circumstances under which it's happening are not particularly stable. In times of fear, many look for strong, centralized leadership that promises salvation. Many are willing to compromise their liberty in exchange for alleged security. We've seen it happen time and again throughout history, no? It will be no less so as the heavens and earth begin their wholly-justified revolt against us, only on an entirely new scale.

We must pay attention and consider honestly all the potential ramifications, good and bad, of our endeavor to address climate change. Solve it we must. We must also be nimble, forward-thinking, and prepared enough to cut off at the pass the grave risks that arise from our doing so. Acknowledging and equipping ourselves to meet these risks only makes us stronger.

International Youth Delegation

Intervention to the SBSTA Plenary Session, Dec. 10, 2008
Marcie Smith (US), Josh Wyndham-Kidd (Australia), Guppi Bola (UK)

------------------------------------------

On behalf of the International Youth Delegation, thank you for this opportunity.

It is well known that forests play a critical role in regulating carbon in the atmosphere. But they are also the home and source of the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people. They protect our watersheds, regulate water flow and disease, and recycle nutrients. Their contribution to the world’s biodiversity is unparalleled. We cannot continue to view forests in a utilitarian, compartmentalized, reductionist manner. Forests are more than trees and carbon. Forests are life.

Given the crucial roles played by forests, the International Youth Delegation has been closely monitoring the negotiations surrounding REDD. We are encouraged to see that REDD is a priority here in Poznan, but are gravely concerned about certain proposed features and omissions within the REDD mechanism and the weak recommendations SBSTA has made to the UNFCCC.

Any REDD mechanism must be first and foremost a mechanism for forest protection and climate stabilization, not a mechanism by which Annex-I countries avoid domestic mitigation actions. Offset markets and massive corporate profits are not, and should not be, the aims of this scheme. Buying a plantation in a developing nation cannot replace genuine reductions at the source of the vast majority of global emissions – in nations like mine, the United States.

Going back to first principles, it is vital that the UNFCCC definition of forests be changed to exclude woody-crop plantations. They store less carbon, less securely and less permanently. We are truly astounded that this seemingly obvious point requires comment. The conversion of natural forests to plantations is deforestation, pure and simple. The perverse outcomes of the Kyoto definition have shown us that. Moreover, forest degradation should be holistically defined as any loss of carbon carrying capacity or any harm to biodiversity.

Critically, a REDD mechanism must clarify and strengthen the land tenure rights of local and indigenous peoples, not further degrade them. It was shocking to hear yesterday that some nations here – including my own Australia – wanted to negotiate away the rights of first peoples. Our message on Human Rights Day is that these rights are non-negotiable. Representatives of indigenous peoples have come all the way to Poznan to speak with you here. Why should they wait until February 15 to submit this recommendation to the UNFCCC? How can we expect someone to be a responsible steward of the land if he or she knows that it could be wrested from them at any moment? Land scarcity and insecurity have been at the root of countless conflicts throughout human history, but we remain confident that we can find a way to secure Green Carbon that won’t ultimately require the deployment of the Blue Helmets. I know that the indigenous peoples here, and the International Youth Delegation, will express our views to you throughout this process, for as long as it takes. Just be aware that, for many peoples, and the ancient forests that sustain them, every day that we take to deliberate is another day of irreversible destruction.

Your children are tired of dressing up like polar bears and penguins in and effort to convince you to act in a manner consistent with science and conscience, a manner that respects the natural cycles and systems that govern us. Your children are tired of being called foolish for prioritizing the preservation of our common home over profit margins. Your children are tired of reminding you that we are here to safeguard the survival of all countries and all people. I once heard that the single thing that all humans share is a desire to pass on to their children a secure future. Please – give us a reason to believe this is true. Give us a bold, binding and just climate treaty that features science-based targets, effective LULUCF rules, and an equitable REDD mechanism.

"No coins. It's change I need."

Dec. 10, 2008. Poznan, Poland.
UNFCCC COP14

We're tired of dressing up like penguins and polar bears in effort to convince you to act in a manner consistent with science and conscience, in a manner that respects the cycles and systems that govern us.

Dec. 10, 2008. Poznan, Poland.
UNFCCC-COP14

Stork and Crow

Are you my stork, I your crow?
From this distance, I hope.
Are you a solitary bird
With a peculiar gait?
You can commune here in joy or grief
Or quietude by my river bank.

But wait – do you understand?

I need not the rehabilitation
Of my former, fallacious wings
(The restoration
Of breasts newly-budded.)

These aren't scars at all, see.
Do you understand?
Just some residual evidence
Of undercover blessings.

I need not your affirmation
That I am powerful and whole
(Don't waste your words, my darling,
Convincing me of things that I ought know.)

If you're confused by silence,
Disdainful of soil,
Preferring to its wisdom
The vagarious dignities of fearful men,
Or if you are not awestruck by both loins and womb --

If you do not have the courage to meet the giant
With your five dry loaves and two small fish,
Having resolved that they can indeed nourish the world --

If you do not see that our home is carried in whole
On the wings of butterflies, and that it is no less captivating
Or fragile --

If you cannot see and hear and feel clearly
This, what they call shabbier,
but what I know is stronger
self --

If I move my hands
And in the soft space under my arm
(a secret, but unguarded)
You do not recognize the bounty --

Ah, darling, don't fear, I'll still love you.
I'll spread my wings wide and I'll bless you.
But fly on in peace.
I am waiting neither for a teacher nor a pupil
Neither for a mason nor a tool
But for my Stork,
Against whose feathers, mine will be brighter,
And who against my wing, will be more radiant.

When paired together, who knows what could be illuminated?

But if you do recognize, make no sound:
Come, here, quietly.
Sit with me.
Let me feed you,
The best fish you have ever tasted,
Fresh from my most hidden places.

Before we take flight again, together,
Still warm with the miracle that we
are both seeing and being seen so clearly –
And that the energy of this rarest glow
Is healing our earth
More than ever we could know.

Whence we go

I remember when we used to make
Cookie-cutter virgin mothers
Snow angels and fervent promises
Sealed them with a glitter lip-gloss kiss.

Translucent faces and tidy nails
We wore our hair up in Lolita tails.
We used the lunch box to run the shirt
That made the boys want to touch us.

Where did we go?
Where did we go?
I’ve been waiting for the answer
But the postal service has slowed.
So I’ve been biding my time
Over Scotch whisky and legends
Knowing that with every page
We’re slipping further and further and further away.

I’ve known the city and her allure
Her sin-rouge lips refused to be ignored
She sang rock ‘n roll and played the tambourine
She spoke in the language of artist’s dreams.

I read the black market book of spells
I wondered why my heroes went to hell
I’m sorry if I spoiled your plan
The siren song, it shook my steady hand.

Where did we go?
Where did we go?
I’ve been waiting for the answer
But the postal service has slowed.
So I’ve been biding my time
Over stale coffee and theorems
Knowing that with every page
We’re slipping further and further and further away.

I remember we got in trouble when
We used the scissors to cut our bangs
Now no one even notices
Our bandaged wrists and noses.

Where did we go?
Where did we go?
I’ve been waiting for the answer
But the postal service has closed.

A Signal for Respite

“Despite appearances,” she said
“I bruise deeply and easily.”

Please reserve your blows
For another day,
When she is whole and strong
And remembers how to use words.

But today, let her mourn
The involuntary passing
of her former, gentler self
Into the annals of virtue.

The Judgement of the Withered-Branch Peony Tree

The withered branch,
Come spring, was bare.

Though unfamiliar with this tree
We knew the Truth and it decreed
The dried-up womb be severed
And burned.

Humble servants, we obeyed.
We axed the gnarled limb and gave
It to the ready flames and watched
It burn, easily, proof we were right.

We succeeded. We made room
For boughs that know when they ought to bloom.

How sad, how sad,
For had we waited
We would have seen
Come darkest winter,
When we’re starving for color
And a cause for hope,

Blossoms,
On the branch
We, in our wisdom, exterminated.

Home

You are my primary cause
A hot, bright thing to make me leap and gleam.

I am sorry
I have seen the suspended egg,
full of sticky life yolk
and straining to hold fast for us.

I cannot un-sense it,
Because the sight tore something,
And created a new color impossible to forget.

Some mornings I cry because
It cannot love me as you do,
It is a chasing after the wind.

"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

But a stain is a stain,
And something was torn, I tell you,
And bled a new color onto my brain.

The color of not-but-almost-sorrow.

Dust to dust, it is a comfort,
I will go, sweet and soundless.

But while here, I must attend
To the silver cord, the golden bowl,
The pitcher, the wheel,
The dust, and the spirit.

But always,
You will be my primary cause
The hot, bright thing that makes me leap and gleam.

A Napkin Found Under the Diner Table

I found his paper napkin
Only half-wet from mayonnaise

"Lights out. Pronto. Mangoes 8/20."

Do you love him
Very much?

With his choice words
And penmanship so fine
And a taste for mayonnaise
I wish he were mine.

Untitled

Weathered old man, I study his type:
The Automaton.

Creaking and clicking into his seat within the chanting Mass.
But no – his soul decries his context.

Don’t waste your sympathetic smiles;
What need has he for your instruction, Voltaire?
What unfamiliar lesson could you teach him, Diderot?
Gaia is teacher and muse.
What you have detailed in sundry volumes of high and mighty word,
He inauspiciously gives living form, under her discerning eye.

At your invitation to the perfumed salon, a polite declination:
“No, thank you, I ought to get back. Horses ha’int been fed.”

He sees his smallness, taught him by a life wrestling the earth.
He knows his fallibility, taught him by solitary, dawn-lit walks home after weary nights spent by the side of a dying calf.
He understands life, its instrumental purpose, taught him by solemn slaughterings and his own broken body.

He sees his smallness; I see a crown of humility.
He knows his fallibility, and so keeps his sword of judgment sheathed.
He understands the instrumental purpose of life, and so mocks the approaching dragon,
Death.

He touches my arm and tells me my skin is beautiful and brown like my mother’s
And that my heart knows best,
And I remember blackberries so ripe they could be gathered with concentrated breath;
I remember the tulips, my compass, every spring returning to spell out our heritage;
I remember racing -- downy legs on hot horseflesh -- through tobacco fields toward the place where copper clouds meet Kentucky bluegrass;
I remember the land, something so secure – something that will outlast us both,
Enduring despite our limitations, our forgetfulness.
Line by line, I see the impression of his soil-stained hands on my heart.
I see us on different sides of the semantic chasm, bridge-building, plank by tender plank.
As we cry together, understanding the misunderstood.

Tardiness

I waited for you
In the azaleas
That one spring.

The air began to sigh and pace.
I decided to begin --
How to know?

I have finished the lemonade now
And the cherries are almost gone too.
I'm afraid only the pits are left.

You have missed
All the sweet things.

(How could you?)

Untitled

My dear manic shape-shifter
My coy coyote, dancing for pennies
Performing, always,
With a flourish, you turn your face dark
Your curl up into yourself
And turn 'round the mirrors
And I have lost your real eyes now.
They are all so lovely:
Some morose, sucking on a cig.
Some clownish, aching for the break of laughter.
Or angry and bewildered, a boy-child raised by wolves, alarmed by hush nows and cluck clucks.
Some absent, raking over the brick-a-brack that so bores you, calling for heads to roll for distraction's sake.

Slow down so that I can see the wound
And balm and wrap it.

The Massacre One Morning Of The Ancestors

We arrive on our spaceships
Highest of hopes and good intentions
We plant our gardens vast and green
Harvest our grapes and olives and corn
We build our cities tall and white
Stretch out the road, through land and space
Pointing -- "Hark, the promise of it!"

The monuments we raise, tempting fate,
We scrawl our names over them,
Condemning ourselves.

Here comes the army now
The angry, quill and brush wielding legions
Remembering us hateful, our own children
They paint our gardens and cities and roads
with their ever-growing palettes of words and colors,
But we recognize none of it.
Were not our sylvan-scapes pleasing?
Were not our Babylons and Romes pleasing?
Were they not the fruit of honest toil and imaginations as bright as any's?
Were not our hopes and intentions high and good?

I am old now, I am your mother and father
Baffled by your condemnation
Head on the chopping block, but
Was I not yesterday a promise, a hero?

Go and see!:
My name,
the now-ashen monument, still standing, if bowed and melancholy, in the center of town
bears it!

Alas, and at that, the ax falls:
"It is your fault, these miseries: these ill-conceived cities, these poorly managed gardens, these inefficient roads. One must pay for errors in judgement and deficiencies in information."

It's a bloodbath to make Robespierre blush --
The baby-faced victors, they arrogantly brandish their advantages, youth and no damned Congressional Record.
To be something other than the tormented practitioner, living in the gray,
Was not our lot.
God forgive us for our ignorance, we suppose, but
We stand proudly by our lives --
Even as we damaged, we repaired
And even as we destroyed, we created,
Which is the story of our race, the young ones will soon see.
- - -
Ah! How can I?
Defame the wombs and truncate the loins
Of teachers, explorers, innovators, and artists?
How can I bear their shamed confusion as they are led to slaughter,
the Old Guards, which were, one must remember, at one moment, the New Guards?

"Did I not yearn and strive," they ask me,
"Much as you. Did I not ponder stars and with a butterfly net, chase them, much as you?
Did I not encounter puzzles in new places, puzzles without a key, that I struggled to answer, but likely failed to understand, much as you?"

As they set to us these questions,
Which we answer with silent, stony piety and a finger toward the history books, the verdict,
Our own children look on.

They are sharpening their pencils and wetting their brushes,
Already conspiring against us and our endeavors.
They know, as we knew, that the battle has already been taken.
They will prevail.
With their vigor and technologies from on high and lessons learnt at a tender age from our own missteps,
They will prevail.

Reservoir

With every lash
(And there were many:
There were the raspberry stripes due her,
But also those she bore for the temptresses, ingenues, and bitches
To whom she had given agency)
With every one
It seemed like she was opened,
Stretched a little further
On the medieval machine.
Given the ability to feel more and more
And overwhelmingly more.

Now she has this great reservoir in her chest,
Poorly supported by loose flesh,
Of surplus emotion --
Emotions that don't even belong to her! --
And she is terrified
Of the person who will
Come and with his dynamite kisses
Fell the great wall
And be her ruin
Loosing the flood,
Drowning the voice of her better judgment
That has labored for so long buttress the vulgar dam
(But her dam, nonetheless).
Some call it bounty
But she's afraid of it --
Afraid of a crack, rumble, and spontaneous dissolution
Of many moons of blood, sweat, and tears
Wrought by the hand of someone who may
Or may not be aware
Of the power of his touch.

Map-makers

Map-makers
Charting the stars,
The mountains and oceans
The movements of our ancestors and ourselves.

Likewise, color-coding our bodies,
Our temples,
Graphing the subtle clicks and turns of our hearts
And testing for the tripwires of our minds.

Extracting meaning from the random,
Creating coherency from absurdity.
Measured music; balanced portraits;
Exposition, Mounting Action, Climax, Resolution.
Formulas and chronologies,
Created in frustrated attempt to understand ourselves.

All the while, trying to accept
The futility of our endeavors
To conquer the unknowable.
Trying to find a way
To love ourselves and love eachother
Because
(rather than 'in spite')
Of our limitations,
And our potential --
Who knows which of the two is more difficult to live with?

My Body Climbed a Mountain

My body climbed a mountain
The tallest in this country.

This body that I thought was my ball and chain
It carried me up a mountain
The tallest in this country.

In front of this alien mask
Through the looking glass
Wishing it ill
Hating the soft places

It stifled my Spirit of St. Louis
Kept my red-letter flight grounded
It corrupted movements of sentiment
And made me vulnerable to the vagaries
Of men's attentions
And women's criticisms
And a brutal moral climate.

Vulnerable is not my color.

I resented it, even as I exploited it.

But my body climbed a mountain, I said.
The tallest in this country.

We worked together,
My mind and my body,
Over boulders and through falls
And at the summit,
We communed
For the first time in many years.

Vahaza Woman

Vahaza woman
Donnez-moi; Donnez-moi; Donnez-moi
Les bonbons (literal or figurative, one never knows)
Eyes - in them a melange of desire and self-contempt, bitterness and is that a pinch of malice? -
On les grandes seins
Comme tous les images de
The apple-pie Jezebels,
The fertile blow-up dolls
Who shake their Vahaza goods
On all the televisions
Every night,
From hill to dale
Translucent tits paired with hot-cross-buns.

Yum Yum.

Or half the body for half the price -
Cropped at neck and knee -
No need for these -
Too tough to chew through.

These eyes want the prime rib, baby.
Only the best cut for this fine gentilhomme.
Would you like me to trim the fat?

Vahaza woman
Humanitarian or harlot?
Il n'import quoi.

Snap.Snap.Snap.
Raise your eyes.
My mouth is moving,
Asking questions, telling stories, proving my personhood, something divine.
In between my chin and my nose.
Northward troops!
You're getting warmer.

What do you see when you look at me?
Damn sure it's not capability,
Or heart and mind riddled with funny notches (won't call them scars) borne of absurdities,
Or contradictions of unflagging tenderness in my spleen but gravel in my gut,
That, if you bothered, you'd understand were far from contradictions.

But you see a blur of white, indistinct,
(Because we all look the same, you admit as much)
You see a lasso in my hand to capture the stars for which you're straining
(You want the Big Dipper; No interest for the Southern Cross).
I am simply the means
To achieving dreams.

But I am not a tool.
This is not cultural insensitivity --
This is me
Telling you
That I will not be the object of either your fears or desires.
Re-pocket your hand; I will not be your garden hoe or milk cow.
I will be but your equal; ax sharpening ax.
I will be but your equal; flint against stone, together performing impossible, making magic.
I will be but your equal; our unique wisdoms paired for stunning clarity.

So retrain your eyes -
Find my mind, the seat of my history and my potential -
And we, together, maybe,
Can then begin to heal.

I Think You Must Be Savage

“What have the Christians brought us? The concept of hell and the fear of death.”
-- Anosy elder

My family has a painting of an Anglo-Saxon Christ on their mantel. (Their conduit to salvation looks suspiciously colonial).

My little sisters love playing with my hair and my mother loves braiding it. They tell me it is beautiful and glisse (just like their poupees).

My mother plays me high church canons that she has saved on her cell phone. (Why are they un-translated and why are there no original Malagasy hymns to sing on Sunday?)

I was expected to make a contribution (a significant contribution) to my grandmother’s charity – the object of which is to build a new Lutheran church in a “poor, remote village”. At the charity luncheon, I was the only vazaha.

The good vazaha who is expected to nonchalantly present 10,000 ariary to the dear people of the poor, remote village to help them find God. Bring the babies to me, let me hold them and kiss them. The vazaha with the silky hair and the slender nose and the lacquered pout lips will bless the babies and good fortune will be upon them. Would you like a picture? I would like a picture to remember those I have pointed to salvation. I need it for my newsletter, which I write to inform the brethren of my Good Deeds in the Lands of the Lost, the Lands of the Possessed. Did you know you were possessed, sir? Possessed with deamons sent from the Devil to trap you in your loincloth and lice? You must be possessed, because you think that the earth gives you life, which is the creed of the Blinded Pagan. Don’t be a disciple of the Devil, good man. It will land you in hell! Be a disciple of Christ.

You don’t know what hell is? It is a place for the wicked; a place which cannot be described it is so frightful. Christ will keep you from the flames, if you cling to Him. How? Invite him into your heart. Repeat this prayer and be baptized. Hone your faith through memorization and practice of the Scriptures.

Well, some of them. The Old Testament is a little dusty, so we’ve made for you a list of the pertinent rules…pork is economically important and quite delicious (as are shellfish), so disregard rules concerning the avoidance thereof. We don’t have priests anymore (only the Catholics have those, and they worship Mary and the Saints – should be avoided), so don’t bother yourself with discussion of the sons of Aaron, et al. However, if the rule is in regard to sexual relations, you ought to pay attention. There is a small chapter on the subject we have chosen to respect in Leviticus – be careful you find the right one…it is hidden deep amongst other silly passages that are irrelevant to the modern man and you wouldn’t want to make a mistake. Additionally --

What have you heard? Ah, love for one’s neighbor. Loving your neighbor is important, you’re right, but saving his soul is paramount – that end cannot be compromised. Don’t be soft, man!

Speaking of which: sir, what do you do for a living? You grow manioc?

I think you must be poor, sir. Can you afford a dress comme ça for your wife and daughters? Can you buy shoes? What, sir? You wife makes your clothes? You share shoes? Tstststststs. That, sir, that is what we call poverty in the United States, my land which flows with milk and honey (mind you, it’s all privately owned, the milk and honey, not owned by me, necessarily).

You know, sir, I have shown you the One True God with my 10,000 ariary, but I can show you wealth as well. I can show you prosperity – for that is what the Lord desires for His Chosen Children. Thrift and industry! Efficiency and progress! Modernity and morality!

See that yonder mine?

That yonder mine, where the minerals are scraped out of the earth (Remember, the earth is inanimate. Cast off your Pagan sentimentalities!) – that mine is where you will find prosperity. Leave your paltry fields and turn toward the sun. You will make enough paper money to buy your manioc…and dresses and shoes and butter and televisions and taxi cab rides.

You don’t want to leave your paltry fields? That is what we call sloth in the United States, land of milk and honey. That is what we call a poor work ethic, lack of gumption, not appreciating Western technological benevolence. Do you want to be poor forever? Do you not want dresses, shoes, butter, televisions, taxi cab rides? No?

Then I think you must be a savage.

“Maintenant, tu peux voir que les gens de Madagascar sont trop pauvre, oui? Pas comme Washington. Nous sommes très pauvre ici. Tu dois être très content que tu es une Américaine, oui ?” my host mother asks me. Yes Neni, these people are poor – poor in spirit, in intelligence, in amenities – I am so glad that I am an American. I am so glad to have the truth.

“Poor wretches,” thinks the vazaha.

Growth and Subsistence

I've been in Madagascar for two weeks and two days now.

I was encouraged, before I left, to "absorb now, process later". It's impossible. 'To process,' for me, is synonymous with creation. We absorb and then create -- using different media, of course -- I use language to create an image of the personal evolution I sense transpiring as I see (the sunsets at Acouba, the sand at Libanouna, the street vendors, the port at dusk, and the sunken ships), feel (moist heat, hands on my waist at L'Hotel Gina, mosquitos, the trade winds, my burning lungs at the summit of Pic St. Louis, a new cockroach friend down my shirt), smell (mofo akondro, her sweat, his sweat, my own sweat, the outhouse, ylang ylang blossoms, aloe), hear (Tay be!, incontrollable laughter, zebu, roosters at 5am -- Transylvania should invest in a couple and let them run around back circle...fewer students would miss class -- Salame vahaza!), and taste (zebu, rice, rice, rice, brown rice, rice water, lentils, dust, hint of mint -- not my own). I become despondent when I can't enjoy my process, enjoy my creation. I become despondent when my words cannot make known to you the effect of these miracles, all around, that are seeping into me, that I am photosynthesizing, like the peeling trees, through the skin and into the unknown places, changing the composition of my head and heart.

For this reason, I'm finding it incredibly difficult to transition into exclusively speaking French and Malagasy. My desperate and battered words can't evoke anything but laughter...they don't draw pictures...they do not synthesize subtle, nuanced sentiment...they turn my heart into something almost vulgar and incoherent. I cannot focus on theme; I must focus on conjugations and articles and sentence structure. I cannot create with these words...I can only cling-for-my-life. I can subsist but I cannot grow.

And that hints to a more fundamental problem, perhaps. I become despondent when I feel I am not growing.

But I know that stillness is not stagnation...I talk about it all the time. One can certainly experience a swelling of the spirit within physical subsistence. Have I told you of the marriage of two halfs, yin and yang, the arrow and the orb? Have I told you how much I want to realize this union in my person? Have I described a picture of God, balanced and whole, fully empowered and how I want to understand?

Ironically, Madagascar is, both for logistical and cultural reasons, forcing me to be still. It's forcing me to spend a lot of time in my head. I have not been able to hide from things that I hoped would remain stateside. And it is clear that those things from which I'd hoped to hide are hands-down the most critical to explaining who I am.

I didn't leave bad habits or insecurities. I must have hid them, subconsciously, in a invisible zippered pocket in my enormous internal frame backpack. My security blankets.

I didn't "leave my past behind". I am the product of twenty years of roll-with-the-punches "past"...and I couldn't very well leave me behind. So along the past came.

No conclusion here. Only a final observation: I am both growing and subsisting. I don't understand it entirely -- a clever trick that the Divine can pull -- but I have faith. Specifically, I have faith that subsistence isn't a punishment and that the growth it stimulates is of an unfamiliar type. I have not experienced this type of growth, and I feel the pains of it (remember when we would wake up howling, clutching our legs when we were eleven?), the pains of mind and body shifting and grinding into new positions, shooting through my whole body. I am malformed, I fear, because I haven't known growth through subsistence. Not malformed forever though. I'm confident my body can correct itself. Our bodies are all so resilient, you know.

Wondering Where the Wonder Went

I'm leaving for Madagascar in a little over two days. I'm not nervous; maybe that should be worrisome. I've tried to whip up what seems like the appropriate amount anxiety -- luckless. I'm sleeping, eating, focusing well...which is a shame. I remember when I was a little girl, in the days leading up to my family leaving for Vermont at Christmastime: I was living the countdown. I kept my own calendar in the kitchen next to mom's and sliced through the days one after another; stealthily creeping upon "LEAVE FOR VERMONT". Its box was decorated with stickers and exclamation points. I carry a brown leather planner now. January 29 doesn't have stickers or illustrations - in the bottom right corner I have printed very unobtrusively "Flight to Paris: 4pm, JFK". It is sad when the awe is lost, isn't it? I think that is one reason I wanted to go to Madagascar -- if any place can restore my wonder at this grave and comical (comically grave? gravely comical?) planet, it is the red island.