Upside Down Kris

The Palm in Carnival The palm tree outside my window   is a tall reminder of nature on a street paved with tourists. A motorcycle rumbles and then roars down the road, cars grumbling behind it. The white noise of people chattering provides a background for the sharp slap of a dog's bark. But the tree is silent, or maybe her sound is muted by the bright pink carnival goers below. She is patient, crossing her lower limbs demurely in front of her as she faces me. She is rather slumped from the weight of her many fans drooping or dangling in the slight breeze. Out of her crown, proud palms protect her and bask in the sunlight. In the chunkiest part of the tree strings of peas make a decorative addition to her headress. One side is green as one would expect, but the other streams gold... As the window clicks shut, I exhale in relief. How can the palm stand it out there with all the confusion and commotion? The tree is striped–layers of growth or time spiralling up from the base. Yes, th...

  The After Carnival The lights were still on, but the machinery mimicked the insides of houses at that moment: ground down to a halt, the gears in off position. Shadows in human forms moved the air in front of café's yet to open. The idea of lights–this time bright white–contrasted with the solid shapes of humans yet to enter into that waking space. A person pauses in an entrance with a hood over her head, a shadow looking toward the light. Her hands grab onto the shape of an ivory umbrella which was to be set up outside, Moments before, a bulldog had been bathing his head in a pool of light from another open door. The rest of him had been hunched over in the dark, concentrating on his first poo of the day. I assume his owner was waiting to collect it–although the protagonist of the scene was the dog...the human only a hazy sketch in the background. Even people waiting on the side of the road seemed painted into the morning–already anticipating it in the dimensions of a bus almost...

Pickled Most people either love pickles or hate them. I used to hate them, convinced they highjacked any sandwich: a coup of the main taste. Then, I visited a friend in Warsaw who let me try her grandmother's pickles. Reluctant at first but not wanting to be rude, I cut a tiny piece off one and gave it up to my inner palate. Not only did it turn out to be the best pickle I had ever had, but it didn't make me pucker. Her grandmother's pickles were tangy, yet a slight sweetness lingered in my mouth after chewing them. My friend explained that pickles were an important food for her grandmother and many Polish people during WW2...it was pretty much the only source of vitamins they had, seeing as how they couldn't get fruit and most vegetables were scarce as well. Well, that was it: my pickle views did a 360. I realized that I didn't like most pickles (or any pickled vegetable) because of their too vinegary, unnatural taste.  I have tried other "natural" pickle...

Sparrow's Song Once there lived a russet Sparrow who rustled to and fro in the forest carrying messages. She took the croak of a tree frog to a distant tree. She carried the clicks between insects, the whistles and hoots between birds, the sound of breezes ruffling feathers or wings...She was forever flying back and forth between one creature and another–so much so that she had forgotten her own message. One day, tired of all the busy-ness and busybodies, she sat down at home and stayed there. Finally, she had some time to think. She thought and thought. "What is it that I want to say? What?" she wondered. Just as she was sure her thinking was getting somewhere, a squirrel suddenly pushed through the high grass hiding her home. He popped his head over the edge of her nest and a piece of straw tickled his nose making it crinkle. "Sparrow?" he sputtered through a sneeze. She made no answer, nor movement. Squirrel "ah-hemed". Still nothing. So, he decided...

Perception Dependent The way I see it, our world is a hodgepodge of sensations that we have collaged into meaning. It's not that the world is this way or that, nor is it that people "are" this way or that. We make them that way through our perceptions, and everything is quite situation dependent. This is why some people (and philosophers) would argue that reality is arbitrary–what I'm seeing is not necessarily what you're seeing. Maybe we miss details or look at a situation sidelong instead of head on. And let's not forget that our past paints events in shades of memories that slant our vision. Let's take one of my recent experiences as an example. I was in a cafe drawing a literal blank for the word sandwich in Spanish. So, I pointed to what the woman next to me was eating. "Un toast?" asked the server. Well, not exactly, but it was close enough and I loathed the idea of resorting to google translator. Consequently, I nodded yes. However, anot...

Love is in the Air "Love is in the air"...literally, you can feel it wafting about, trying to decide where to land on this lover's day. Of course, love's latches are various: latching onto your dear friends, family, even your pets (who stretch the latches more than one could imagine, becoming a member of the family.) Love is all about bonding, feeling that connection, and sometimes suffering when it's missing.It's about those ties that we create with the surrounding world which support us in the bad and good. In the end, it's that net we rely on, or that safeguard that makes us feel secure. And if in some way it has been subtracted–toxic, not there, or losing it through death or divorce–we find ourselves on a rocky shore unsure of our footing. Recently I attended a Buddhism seminar to find out the Buddhist take on love because Buddhism is based on compassion (yet another type of love). Yoga had led me there and I was curious to know more. I agree with many...