Jon’s wedding…

I’m really tired so this will be short…

Had Christmas with the fam today. Not really a departure from the norm, except for the wonderful exception of having Jack for his first Christmas in southern california. He spent the better part of the day jumping on the furniture and playing with his new dog friends. Also, Mom and Dad welcomed him in with a Chirstmas present (toys).

Hope everyone had a great one. I’ll be in Slo for a few days this next week, then back down to the huntinton area for about a month or more or lesss who knows…

Here’s a few pictues:

Someone said nip…

You, Orion, work as a clock, touching the eastern sky as the last throws of purple are bewitched to blackness. Never mind these skelaton oaks reaching out to shield the earth from your beauty. They too will freeze along with this ground and pass with the contant ticking of time. Nevermind them, for your path was set in motion long ago.

Answer me this though: how is it that you never grow tired of your destiny? Each night you move across the dark winter sky like a ticker tape on a blue mass set in heavy rotation. Every morning you move into latency, welcoming the daybreak; welcoming the time when your feet touch the deep blueness of the sea on the western horizon. Just look at you. Placed by God as dynamic sculpture in the stars, given life by human imagination.

Orion, do you see me among these oaks? Do you watch me on the earth night after night as I stare back at you wide eyed, transfixed by the flickering planes cutting across your sky? Oh Orion, these are hard times for dreamers, but you inspire me in your path as a constant, never wavering. I envy your resignation. The night’s bitterness is lost on you.

There’s just something about watching the rain hit the stray blades of grass out on a ranch that puts one in a sort of a contemplation mood. I sat for an hour the other day watching the rain hit the skeleton of an old lantern that sill hangs from Jed’s old veranda. In the distance the creek was filling with rain as it had every winter for the past few years. It’s nice to see that some things are so consistent.

I couldn’t think of a more appropriate place to end my stint in San Luis Obispo. Over the past few years the ranch has sort of been a fixture among all the other times that have changed. It’s always been rather relaxing. I tell you what; you’d be surprised how rejuvenating a sunset session of shoveling manure is to a mind inundated with ink and equations. Furthermore, there’s something great about putting on a pair of boots and getting dirty. For someone who grew up working with their hands it’s really quite grounding.

I suppose it has also provided a decent environment to work through some inherent uncertainty that comes from changes such as those occurring right now. College graduation is similar to that scene in Forest Gump when he runs from coast to coast for a few years and then just decides to go home. Up until now I was always running somewhere. Now? Now I have no idea. I hate not having direction. I don’t like it one bit. My friend Jenny keeps trying to tell me that indecision is ok. Obviously Jenny is, therefore, stupid.

Totally kidding Jenny… ps did you notice that a reference to Forest Gump was in the same paragraph as you?).

To tell you the truth as I sit here berating my friends while I claim the necessity of a general framework, I think that I’ve had one all along. Now stay with me here, it might take a little while to work through.

I got to talking to someone about the difficulties they were having opening up to people. As I sat there over a wonderful batch of Tahoe Joe’s nachos and a margarita, it hit me how different I’d look at the world if I were able to see everyone around me as if we were all 10 years old. Imagine seeing everyone without eyes withered from bitter experiences and caution. It’s true, really, what they say about a child’s eyes being quite different then the set that one has on their deathbed. So take it a step further: imagine if everyone were able to see each other as the same. There’s a line in a song that I’ve been listening to recently that goes something like “why can’t we see that when we bleed we all bleed the same” (muse). It doesn’t seem like such a foreign concept to me, but apparently we need borders, locks on our doors, wars, and sanctioned discrimination because the mindset is rather uncommon. Naturally.

Lately, perhaps as some attempt at self-support for these bouts with societal discrepancies, I’ve been thinking that the greatest lesson that I learned over the past 5(ish) years have nothing to do with the curriculum that I studied. Personally, I think it a personal triumph to know that every Muslim has a family just like me, despite being raised in the last great vestige of conservatism in California known colloquially as Orange County. No history book or calculus equation ever said that the divides of family, blood, skin color, religion, sexual orientation, etc etc.. were only surface deep. Now I don’t mean to play up this realization as any sort of magical thing and I will refrain from usual preaching (at least for this paragraph), but it serves as an example of assimilating a far greater concept then any econ book could ever give.

As a natural extension of this, I’ve come to think that college is not as important as people claim per se. Being here at the pinnacle of my educational success I thought I might feel differently. Nope. Sure, it’s for some people, and western society certainly tends to value a degree of some sort. That’s societies values though. This society. Bleh… In the end, however, what does a degree really mean? I feel that it should say that you learned a great deal in your classes and came out with an understanding and interest in the topics that you were introduced to. To often it seems that people I speak to tend to think of it as more of a “get through it and get a piece of paper at the end” sort of experience. Why be here then? In my opinion it comes down to a “Hidegarian they” / “the box” type of conversation that I will not go into here.

My general framework is, therefore, to do something with my life that has a direct effect on people, something that effects society for the better. I would like to live my life without the “thou should’s” that I’ve been under for the past few years. Of course I’d like to be in a position to not have to ask good ol’ mom and dad for money when I’m well into my 30’s, requiring everything I do to have a significant measure of sustainability.

I started talking to some people like Rach about what it is that makes them passionate. For some it is green things, for some it’s indigenous rights, some it has to do with discrimination, yet for others it has something to do with income disparities. For me, I think that discrimination encompassing indigenous rights is what really get’s me thinking. The beautiful thing about it is that it’s all tied together. For instance, indigenous rights in the Andean highlands have forced deforestation and erosion as the indigenous are forced to go further and further up the hillsides for farming practices.

I’m also really amazed by the fact that whatever topics are on my mind seem to be on the ones of my best friends as well. It’s really encouraging, and serves as a wonderful reminder to do what I’m passionate about.

Having said that, I’ve started looking into some different NGO’s lately. I may also end up getting a specialized graduate degree in microfinance. I could really see myself doing that in the future. It even satisfies all the requirements too. Beyond that I may try to take a job in South America teaching English so I can complement this whole International Business thing will a foreign language.

Wrapping it up, maybe Jenny isn’t so stupid. Indecision is ok. Well now that I realized that I have a general framework it is. But if I’m upset about how things are going, she is. After all, the world revolves around my whims. Obvio.

But in anything, faithful blog reader, hold me to the un-negotiable that I put forward. Don’t let me work at a desk for a paycheck for the sake of the paycheck. I’m counting on you. That’s right you.

“To be nobody-but -yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.” -E.E. Cummings

I haven’t posted in quite awhile. Honestly, I have a “blog” in the works but I don’t have time to finnish it. You see, I’ve kind of stoped blogging in the spirit of blogging. I think i’m more into the essay writing side of things now. For this, I blame Paul (ark) who’s blog is in my links. Perhaps it’s because I won’t have any more esssays to write for a long time. Rather this will occur as soon as I’ve graduated (Saturday NBD). Could it be? Am I subliminally sad about having to write school essays? Am I unhappy because I will not be compelled to pull any all-nighers explaining the shift to asymetrical warfare, the virtues of a parlimentry democracy, or problems with the IMF? Nah…

Anyways, I hope all of you out there are well, I will get a hold of you when I decide not to light my candel (nay, bottle rocket) on both ends.

On another note, I need a job.

Acha… Till tomorrow.

Keith

Outside on this dreary night the sounds of drunken college students, humming streetlamps, and the patter of rain is once again submitting to the deep faint rumble and crack. How many times have I heard the same sound, my feet up on the railing, cup of coffee in hand as I listened to the whistle disappear in the darkness? Yet tonight it has a somewhat different feel, for I realize that this is one of the last times I’ll hear that train powering up from my loft, over and through the black, drenched grade, through the Salinas valley and on to God knows where. THAT train. That train, as if it was the same one each and every time. I suppose it might as well have been. In a way it became the sound of home (well that and Jack’s standard kitchen counter perched “meow” as I walked through the door). How excited I was when I found the place I’m in right now. How disappointed I am to be leaving it now. I suppose that even now it’s not so bad though. Tim Martin used to say a quote that went something like “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” What a good perspective and as good of a lead in as any to my headline..

Back in the mid 30’s the good scientists at Kodak developed Kodachrome. Over the years the film has become synonymous with longevity and color accuracy. Yet when I think of Kodachrome, for some reason, I think of old 8mm movies of family vacations. Now old super 8 home movies are known for anything but color accuracy, but it is wonderful to think that they get the point across in, perhaps, a better way then anything digitized now days.

Two days ago I was sitting in the backyard of the house I most equate with my childhood pondering the brilliance of Poe’s “House of Usher” when I suddenly was hit out of the blue with a spell of nostalgia. It came on rather suddenly, and in my defense there was no time to duck out of the way. Perhaps I should avoid the firing line for as it were I was sitting at the now rusted out outdoor metal patio set that looked out at the most defining 20 yards of my pre-teens.

I’m sure I’m not the only one, but normally when I think back on old times I’m able to muster up a still frame, a feeling, and, if I’m lucky, a short clip. This time, however, things seemed to come like an old kodachrome super 8 movie complete with theme song and the ever-present projector flicker. No, I wasn’t on anything. It just happened that way. But… and here’s the theme song… “Lend me your ear and I’ll sing you a song, and I’ll try not to sing out of key…. “. Ok so I had a wonder years moment, can you blame me? I was sitting at the table I used to bring the butterfly’s that I’d catch in the front yard, the table where my grandpa gave me my first beer (Odules mind you..), the same spot I have photo’s with my mother in at my first birthday, right next to the patch of yard where my grandpa would throw the ball to my first dog, which is next to the pool where my grandma taught me to swim, being surrounded by the tropical trees that produced the best cousin (and little brother) stabbing sword leafs in the world, which follow the pool around to the forest where the monsters lived and my dad taught me to fire a BB gun. I don’t mean to throw down any zang attitude, but I believe my wonder years moment is justified. Is it not?

Out in front of the old pool with the acclaimed cousin stabbers in the background…

In the same way I feel that much of the last 5 years has been carelessly edited into one big jumble. Of course, by this point we’ve moved onto digital and the theme music has changed dramatically. There’s, of course, the Metallica (mmm.. shall we say infested?) first year of trucks, dunes, and endangered species hating, which ushered in a stevie ray vaughn/bob dylan inspired second year of fatties pizza, bunk beds, and bill cosby records. Of course, few things stand out better then the blissful tranquility of heavy metal, Johnny cash, pipes, and dirt bikes that characterized year number 3. Year 4 came about with the wonderfulness of all night design projects, M. Ward, good movies, big rooms, Radiohead, and walking around downtown taking night shots (the photographic kind). Fifth year, being the most recent and henceforth taking up the predominant portion of this flick found me taking night shots of a different kind, in a relationship, doing lots of school stuff, planning trips abroad, listening to ray lamontagne and spending many nights here in this same loft listening to THAT train.

Summing it up, condensing such defining times of my life it seems a rather empty assertion. It may be true that over time our memories tend to jumble up into one short clip, but when you break it down they are just that, defining. I suppose that in the end memories and experiences are what they are. Some have a sting that we wish we could forget, but in the end they serve to make who we are in life. It’s true that in time the rumble of the train will be a distant memory, but in the end, it’s come to symbolize one of the greatest rollercoaster periods I can remember.

I’ll be the last to be so masochistic as to say that hard times hold a special place in my heart, but it is also true that I have learned the most through them. Many of my friends have been there through so many of them, always with a word of encouragement or maybe more so a heart of understanding. Thank you very much. So many of you have changed dramatically over the years. It’s nice to look back on it now. All of you that have come and gone over this period have my sincerest respect and admiration and I hope that year 10 finds us in touch. While I doubt that I’ll ever have a wonder years moment thinking back on these times, I wouldn’t rule out “the boys are back in town”

So… goodbye house. Goodbye Jack’s window. Goodbye cramped loft. Thanks for the good times and the bad. It’s been a great ride.

-Keith

As you might of guessed from the title I have been feeling the winds of change lately, so I went to the salton sea and got married. My appologies for not telling any of you, hopefully you understand. 

So as of late I’ve taken to writing down plans and things to do on my mirror with a permanent marker. No, I probably shouldn’t say lately; it’s actually been happening for awhile now. Last year I remember Pam and I would write down inspiring quotes or something like that. Over the summer it migrated into the inspirational/blow off the world type (with empasis of the blow of the world), and upon my return it’s been a chaotic jumble of things to do (which end up staying on there for awhile). To be honest, I’ve been tempted to further the migration into art. Now I’m not exaclty talking about the design oriented art or a favorite lithograph. I’m talknig about a much more deranged variety such as drawing an old man curlie que mustach on my reflection or something of that variety.  What on earth does this have to do with anything? The answer is not much, but it provides a decent illustration of how things have changed over the past 1.5 years. Encouragement- blow off the world - slight insanity, same mirror. It’s a really predictable pattern if you ask me and one that is more then evident in conversatoins that I’ve had over that period of time. 

I’ve been loosing track of some intersting people lately. That is really a bummer. I’m so predictable. Times get confusing and I go wandering. The truly unfortunate part is that a few of my friends have been going through some hard times lately, and I find myself not being as understanding as I normally would be. I’m not so sure this blog is going to be a turning point either. That is rather unfortunate and a blog is no place for consoulment, but I will go on to say that these times happen for a reason. One never grows durring the easiest of times, but more so through struggle. I’m not so sure how much help I can be, but there is a glass of wine with anyones name on it at my place. Stop on by…

What’s on the docket? For starters, I’ve been putting together some of the stuff that Chris and I have taken at the Salton Sea over the last few years in addition to trying to compile stuff from my time in SLO. 

The Salton Sea trips are so bittersweet. On the one hand, it’s hard to see such an aweseome place shunned by much of the environmentalist comunity. It’s really odd, but it’s one of the biggest lakes in California. Yeah that’s right. A reeeally big freekin lake, that nobody knows about exept for the colloquial description “that thing that smells” by people on their way to glamis. Go ahead, ask someone to try to locate it and you’d think you’d asked them where Iraq was. On the other hand, hanging out, getting buzzed off 2 dollar hefenwizen’s with grandmothers, dudes with eye patches, and the token bar fixture (in this case his name was Bob) is really neat. Really really neat.

Oh yeah, marriage. I did a wirlwind visit to orange country this weekend for Jon Shuler’s wedding. What a great experience. The pastor’s talk about balancing was right on, and I really came to appreciate that view of relationships. Being able to complement one another is by far more importaint then finding someone that is similar to you. As a disclaimer this is my view of relationships circa November 13, 2006. It is bound to change (most likely by November 14th). Anyways I had the pleasure of doing some “blue tape” with Jon and Erica a week or so before the wedding. Again, a really good experience.

So anyways if your reading this and thinking “wow this sounds a bit different then some of his other ramblings”.. good. You got the point. Hope all is well with everyone, and if I haven’t talked to you lately, bear with me. I’ll come around.

-Keith

So it has been awhile since i’ve posted anything. Rest assured, there is no particular reason for this… well not really.

I’ve suprisingly enough been marginally busy with school, yet this doesn’t really compare to other quarters. So what else have I been doing? That’s really a great question, and one in which i’ll dodge for now. We’ll just call it the dark ages. Alright then…

I have, however, also been getting the future tense of this question as well: “what are you going to do (after you graduate)”? Now, I don’t mean to sound too forward about this, but If we could all just come to a consensus on a few points we’d all be able to put our minds at ease (i know you all are loosing sleep over the course of my life and all)…

Keith:
1) … does not, nor ever will, have a definate plan.
2) … does not have any such plan, including a tenative one, at the moment.
3) … is mildly worried about the fact that he doesn’t have any such a plan at the moment.
4) … knows he would eventually like to get a graduate degree.
5) … needs a source of income come January.
6. … likes having a general framework for what he will be doing (see: #1, #3)
7) … has developed an odd sort of friendship with his cat which some find disturbing.
… thinks that he would like to try to travel for a few months after January (see: #5).
9) … wants to persue photography for a little while after graduation (see: # 1,2,3,4,5,6,8… and… oh, why not… #7 as well).

So yeah, a consensus, that would be greeeeaaat… thaaaanks.

Anyways, in the true spirit of procrastination, I decided that I would spend the morning hiking around the dunes south of guadelupe. It’s always really nice out there, and it provides a good fourm for some life pondering.

So, picked up one of these for 30 bucks last night:

and spent the morning doing this…

The dunes really made me think about some good times hiking around out there and about how much things have changed since then. Like I said, it’s a really good place for some pondering.

Anyways, I’ll try to be a little more up to date on this thing…

-Keith

(ps.. in reading over this post I realized I’m starring to develop the real… oh maybe.. “self improtaint” attitude. This is unintentional, but that in itself is a little worrisome… hmm.. maybe we should come to a consensus on this…

Keith: …
1…..Just kidding.. kind of )

On Friday I headed back with the sun on the longest day of my life, starting with the sunrise in Dubai, ending, with my head hitting a pillow in San Francisco after a brief stop in New York.

Oddly enough I ended my trip in the exact reverse order I started it in: cab from the airport, Nolan’s fire escape, Zeki’s bar, food at the pizza place, and a greyhound bus back into SLO. It was extremely surreal. I just walked into Nolan’s place around 10 PM on Saturday night and sat in the dark for about 15 minutes listening to somebody play Weezer’s blue album through the wall and trying to figure out if I just went to Bangladesh or not. Say it ain’t so indeed…

I’m clearly very sad to leave. Honestly, I really didn’t anticipate that being my sentiment heading back this direction. I sort of thought I’d be happy to come back, as if the trip would rejuvenate my appreciation for California. It is true that I am going to be happy to see some friends and chat over a cold beer that doesn’t require a trip to a supper dodgy joint, but I really felt that I could have stayed for much longer.

So then, was the trip was a good one? Yeah. Absolutely. It’s a little early to say, but I can probably claim life changing. It most defiantly altered my perspective and helped me define what I really want to do with my life. Most importantly, I learned a lot about myself figuring out my way around Bangladesh.

Would I do it again? Without a doubt. In fact, I’d love to go back to the subcontinent sometime in the relatively near future. Would I try to divide my time between an internship and shooting photos? Nope, one or the other. The internship ended up winning out most of the time.

My last two days in Dhaka were rather stressful wrapping up work, so I didn’t get to say goodbye to everyone that I wanted to. If your one of those people, I apologize. As I was saying, I really like Bangladesh (Bangladesh khub shundor). I have a distinct feeling that it won’t be my last time there.

Transitions seem to come at once as I guess my time in San Luis Obispo is probably coming to an end as well. I’m looking forward to graduating in December and moving on to more things like this in the future. I really hope (sorry mom and dad) that this is the start of some major geographical transitions.

Anyways, if anyone would like to get together for that beer or coffee please let me know. I loaded up on a few more fun classes (Espanol / African history) so Jack may be twiddling his paws by his lonesome. I should have more time then I did with last year’s ridiculous unit load, however, so I’m looking forward to seeing more of you still in SLO.

Anyways, here’s a narrative I over wrote and never got around to publishing about the last two weeks…

Hope to see you all soon,

Keith

P.S. I’m sitting in uptown right now waiting for my first class to start at 8. I only mention this because I just noticed the dude that usually sits in Linneas’s and writes down his dreams is hanging out right behind me doing just that. Deep breath … exhale… awwww slo.

I was lying on my side, my head cradled in my arm. A small desk, concrete floor, and red curtains were the room’s most notable attributes faintly lit by the yellow candlelight flickering against the wall from a slight breeze blowing through the window. The sun having retreated 30 minutes earlier, left the sky in it’s last throws of grey. Faint music was tempered by the sound of a million crickets somewhere in the night. In the distance a woman was arguing with her daughter, their faint rambling voices complementing the moan of a cow across the street.

Like a moth approaching light, the night watchman entered the doorway. He was a short, quiet man with a limp in his mid 60’s whom made a rather ritual experience out of his profession. As he approached the doorway his face faintly light up with the candlelight. I acknowledged his presence and quietly placed my head back down on my arm. We both knew that we had already exhausted our common vocabulary. As he recessed back into the darkness, new and old experiences competed for my attention:

————————————————————————–
I had left Dhaka following an eventful beginning to the week. After Sunday’s nationwide strike, Monday’s torrential downpour, and Tuesday’s political opposition rally I become anxious to return to the villages. For some reason, I had always looked to the city and country fondly, as the extremes of commotion and relaxation. Dhaka, however, is like a Thelonious Monk solo, just as complex and difficult to fully appreciate.

A glass of port and a jazz record watching the stars move across the sky…

My exhaustion was really my own fault, with the trip to Cox’s Bazaar and the difficulties in Dhaka finally catching up to me. I aggravated this on Tuesday when I decided that covering the political rally would be more productive then Grameen Bank’s head office. It didn’t occur to me at first, but after about an hour of relatively peaceful demonstration I noticed that most of the photojournalists were wearing motorcycle helmets. When the exchange ceased to be about ideas and became more about bricks, tear gas, clubs, and fires, I found out why.

The quiet California summer….

The next morning I made my way to the bus station: rather dingy scenes flush with lepers, cripples, and children beggars with the rare combination of all three. The children, being eerily accustomed to the lifestyle, were always the most difficult to see. From here, I hopped the early bus out of Dhaka, crossing over a large bridge 3 hours later. My destination was a rural town devoid of most Bengali maps.

A lesson that places are never as important as people…

After my arrival and a brief lunch, I rode off to a group training session in a rendition of a rickshaw fondly referred to as a van. As we walked on the high roads separating the rice paddy, we came to a village with children playing mud football under the shadows of a mobile phone tower that provided the only discernable landmark among the endless fields. Poverty was so prevalent here. But you wouldn’t know it from their faces.

The world through a child’s eyes…

Save the occasional close call with a bus and the crackling of a rickshaw chain in the distance, village highways are generally silent. We waited for a few moments till a man showed up with a small motorcycle to carry us back towards the main town. Using as much sense as possible, we managed to fit three grown men onto a 150cc bike and rode weaving in and out of the rickshaws as the headlight bounced of a sea of insects, forming a tangible beam pointing the way.

My last trip to the desert…

For the most part, my final village trip went well. I tried the whole thing without the interpreter. It was frustrating at times, but it really forced me to get down some basic Bengali. Furthermore, while it’s true I escaped Dhaka, the rain followed me. I guess that’s what you get for visiting during monsoon season though. Thankfully it let up my final afternoon, allowing one of the staff to bring me out to a Grameen fisheries project on a large lake.

Family and Friends…

Friday morning found me heading for Dhaka on a bus whose driver was braving another rainstorm along with his own ambition. I was only there for a quick turnaround on my way to the English tea estates in Sreemengal with Paul. After a quick lunch in the POSH section of Dhaka we made our way back north on what ended up being a beautiful afternoon. At a bus stop we made our way to the roof and braced along the luggage rack (clearly, the best way to see the Bangladesh countryside). We spent the better part of the next morning trying to rent a couple of motorcycles or a car so we could tour the countryside. After some difficulty, we finally succeeded in obtaining one small 2-stroke motorcycle that had seen better days.

Of all things, Colin’s scooter…

Sreemengal turned out to be one of the highlights on this experience. On that motorcycle, despite our confidence being shaken by the headlight falling off within the first hour, we decided that India was defiantly within reach. We careened down the sandy back roads and dodgy border towns toward East India stopping along the way to ask for directions in broken Bengali and English. I didn’t have my passport and I was pretty sure this border wasn’t equipped to admit foreigners, but we thought we’d at least see it. We were correct, and upon arriving at the border we were told that it was closed and we’d be shot if we tried to go any further. As blindly optimistic as I’ve become, I make no claims of being bullet proof. We did gaze upon a section of India not many foreigners see though, afterwards doing our best to limp the tired bike back through the tea estates in the dark by drafting a TATA truck and praying the bike didn’t die for the 200th time.

Motorcycle diaries…

——————————————————————–

All these memories swirled around as I slowly lifted my head back up to watch the bugs encircling my candle. Hours had passed and sleep would arrive soon. Through the window I watched the moon and stars compete with the clouds for earth’s attention. Darkness always comes so quickly here.

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