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Published: August 25th 2011
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I was obviously going the other way. Everyone else was headed that direction. That direction being, all the tents I saw from the window of the ferry. Traveling from Victoria to Seattle was easy. The “Victoria Clipper” was a lot like a plane on water with seats, trays, stewards, and a movie.
Customs was easy too. A woman asked me where I lived,
“Bloomington, Indiana.”
Done.
I walked away from Pier 69 heading east. Being in opposition of the crowd was a delight, like a front row seat in a people zoo. I had a good sense where these people were headed, but no idea of why. At first, I thought fair or concert. But, it could have been a sporting event, or some occasion like the arrival of an important ship, or departure of someone famous. Something about the hundreds of neon socks, high top shoes, leather head bands, blue and purple eye powder, tattoos, and big hats led me to think it wasn’t a public speech or political event. A woman walked by chained to another, one wore a prom dress the other daisy dukes, a teenager in a silver see-through dress held the hand
of a young boy, a man with dreads yelled at “that guy in the green hat” (whose ass he is going to kick), and a handful of curvy black girls in skimpy shorts slinked by.
I liked what I saw, I didn’t know what I was seeing, but I liked it. It has been a long time since being in a parade of people, and this one was really good. I think it took this thousand person parade headed in the opposite direction, to realize how deeply inward I’ve been during the last month. Hakomi and wilderness travel has turned me inside out.
As I moved, I gave myself complete permission to gaze. People appeared less like dressed up skin, and more like complex universes with distinct essence, miraculous cellular spinning expressions, gorgeous. I thought, far out…. far out about how much travel is done through attention alone…how deeply inside attention can go, and then in a second how broad and miraculous the mind can expand.
I made a left on Pike St. without forethought, and I found myself in the center of the market on a Friday afternoon, an hour before closing time. Oh yeah…I’d been
here before. But I’d forgotten what it was like, or I was unable to see everything that was happening….how cool, I paused…only now it was not a good time to pause.
Me: stalled out in the main aisle way of the market, with a rolling suitcase looking at passing faces, bouquets of colors, iridescent dead fish, spices, beef, and jeweled peppers .
Others: busy with market shopping.
I managed to step to a corner where a mother pushing a stroller took haven.
Us: two ladies with bulky items on wheels, smiling.
A man stopped at a stand raised a fish and asked,
“What’s a good side dish with this?!”
He held up the frowning carcass,
“Asparagus!”
That was it…. that was what did it. In that moment, my attention shifted and I was back again in the
alleyways of the Islamic district in Cairo, Khan el-Khalili. Last time I was in Pike’s Place market, I hadn’t been to Khan el-Khalili, yet. I remembered Khan el-Khalili - walking down dirt alleyways with my German guide, Carl, on a search for a particular type of gift ribbon and a hidden “carpet school.”
We never found the “carpet school.” Instead, we became lost in the back alleys of Cairo. Our winding led us into darker parts of the area where loose wires hung from open windows, and dirty men smoked hookah. After a long time of asking and being led astray, we were thrown into the center of the Egyptian market, as if being spit out by a whirlpool. Carl’s embarrassment from being lost turned into blind determination to find the exact piece of ribbon he needed. Through hundreds of tiny boutiques, shouts in broken English,
“Hey you, beautiful lady and man, how can I take your money?”
Carl remained headstrong. I followed the best I could. He managed to stop at several particular booths through hordes of people to ask,
“Ribbon…how much?!”
Each time he didn’t like the price, he would yell,
“Bandits!”
And walk off. Keeping up was like running for my life.
Three hours later, he found a piece of ribbon that was just right; he was pleased. We bought a kilo of dusty pomegranates and went home.
I’d been seasoned since my last visit to a trippy market, this one was
easy. The language was more familiar, the spices less hypnotically potent… fewer flies on the fish and meat. I felt less nauseous here….. but, this was so like that.
I came back to the present moment and noticed that I went that time. I noticed where I went. From the moment I pulled off to the side of the crowd in the market and stood with the mother, my attention shift from the present to somewhere else, absorbed completely in a living memory. I wonder how I looked, if my face became blank, and what happened to the time. Not much had passed, but in a flash that whole memory was alive before my eyes, and I was engulfed. I wonder about that.
I found a portal back to now in the face of the man behind the fish. He was blue grey, born from a line
of men who all lived at sea. He hailed raised hands of people screaming for fish, with an unchanged expression. Across the cobblestone, I saw a pepper stall. All the men looked like fire with bright eyes, scratchy beards and wide smiles. They were like the women at the homemade pasta stall who all seemed full, wholesome, and filling. All this travel has gotten me “leaning into” the reverent, blending in with faces. In an alleyway coffee shop, off the main drag, I pulled up a stool to rest.
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