Only moments before, the ancient Russian Lada taxi I rode in had been swerving along a mountainside, pocked with trees in their death throes, smelling of musty wool and the driver's stale cologne poured on in a vain attempt at odor cover-up. We had jolted to a stop upon my request for a picture, and our exhaust caught up to us as I unfolded myself out of the car. I squinted into Uzbekistan's southeastern desert, wind and life together disappearing beyond the horizon in Tajikistan's frontier, and sighed.
It wouldn't be long now, I thought, rounding the car and avoiding tasting the metallic stench of baked sun coming off the hood. Carefully watching for truck drivers intent on running down pedestrians in the baked back hills of Samarqand, I approached a worker's insanity. Cross-leg seated below tables centimeters off rocky soil, clothed in a multitude of cotton patterns flapping weakly in the limp breeze, five ladies and a teenage boy were selling what can only be described as dried yogurt balls. Drizzled and dried over a fine mesh screen, this yogurt was then collected by hand, rolled and glued together with a touch of water to create the world's saltiest snack.
I looked down at the women, whose only portion of skin showing was an eye slit in the turban rolled around their heads, two eyes basking in the only shade for 300 km, then back up at the horizon, where land cracked and crumbled like a lizard two days dead in the sun, and shook my head. "Insane," I muttered, "why this spot? Why now?" Shuffling between tables, my head and shoulders bent awkwardly forwards to accommodate the angle of sale necessary to talk with them, I bought three yogurt balls, a tiny glistening black crystal to lower blood pressure, a bag of withered tea leaves to pacify anger, and a small glass of kumiss, fermented mare's milk. The people of the Asian central steppes do not advise drinking this kumiss later, so I downed as much as my constricted throat would allow without gagging. The locals watched me carefully beneath their scarves and turbans, silent laughter hidden beneath glittering eyes older than sand; laughter whipped away by a rising wind. One of the ladies gestured for me to eat the yogurt ball next, and I dutifully popped the mini golf ball sized treat into my mouth. I teared up instantly as my mouth screamed for water, while the orb happily jolted salt through my body in waves and waves of skin-crinkling grimaces. "Rrrr..ahhma...t," I garbled in an attempt to say thank you, with my cheek popping in and out like a squirrel gone crazy for nuts.
I walked slowly over the edge behind where they sat, a ravine slinking downwards at a crazy grade for at least 250 meters, and gently nudged the ball out of my mouth, into my sweaty palm and over the edge. Its bounce down and out of sight reminded me of when heads were thrown at the feet of the defeated in medieval times. The staggering view held me entranced for a few minutes, and I stood subdued, small and insignificant compared to the reaches of sand cresting and rolling downwards and outwards, halting only a few miles in their march towards the horizon by a small lapis-lazuli shaded lake in the shape of a chopped-up leaf. With the women's small bursts of noise behind me, and the sweat from a piercing overhead sun crawling lazily down my spine, I felt almost at peace. Almost to a content memory coated in sea-brine and drowned salt gods. Almost.
--
The stone and cable suspension bridge linking solid land to the lighthouse perched on a thick chunk of rock sliding 300 meters out of the eastern Atlantic ocean, on Mizen Head's point in Southwestern Ireland, is terrifying.
This does not mean I do not stop in the middle to feel the bridge's slight sway in the face of relentless winds, or close my eyes to the gigantic pieces of rock the color and shape of broken knuckles on a bruised fist, continuously slammed by vicious waves. No. In fact, I stop and stick my head through a gap in the spiderweb of cables and stare straight down, wishing every boy's fantasy of flight, birdsong and sharp fish-catching talons. I could tell the guard's voice at the other end was telling me to stop, but I let the wind whip and whistle his cautions away as I popped my head backwards and continued to the other end. I mused as to why they would caution me on the bridge, when to arrive at this same bridge one had to cling to a cliff-side "path" with a feeble one meter tall "fence" bordering the left side sheer drop into a salty oblivion. I have talked to myself for years, and now was no different, as I stated aloud to nobody in particular that it's the dizzying heights that make everything come into focus for me.
Safely climbing the rocky crag connecting bridge to foundation stone, I continued the story stream in my mind of what it would have been like to build such a lighthouse in 1854, and how many men fell while they worked, screaming or silent into a watery grave. Weaving my way around a few bedraggled tourists trying to keep their hats on in the howling winds, I finally made the lighthouse, squeezed through a few dusty rooms with ancient newspapers describing Fresnel lenses in more depth than I cared to ever know about, and exited onto the final jutting point of Mizen Head's rocky insanity. This outpost, easily 200 meters straight up from the turbulent surf far, far below me, welcomed roaring sea-winds from three directions, producing such a violent gale of noise, sea-salt air, and brine-soaked mist it nearly knocked me over the slim railing connecting the rock to the adjacent lighthouse building.
Holding fast to this same rail with one hand, I attempted to shield my eyes enough in order to actually see the ceaseless blue, the angry blue, the siren blue that pulls you downwards. I imagined a worker's curses thrown furiously from one crude scaffolding to another, the shrieking, pinging, clanging, groaning work of erecting such a lighthouse on the edge of an ocean that deems the importance of your survival nominal at best. I imagined again the false grab, scrabbling, slip and fall of a man's fingers clinging to only air. I wondered if they felt peace as they fell. I wondered how my feet had come to rest back on land, ignoring the ugly glances from security as I crunched on small pebbles back to my rental car. I wondered, before closing the door and barring sound, where the crashing and tumbling of what I had just seen would lodge itself forever in a corner of my mind. I never imagined it could have found partners in deserts and steppes, and how peace can seep into you at the loneliest moments.
--
The Lada protested loudly as it was cranked into third gear, grinding up under the merciless heel of my taxi driver. I looked back through the grimy rear window, just in time to catch a glimpse of one of the women's scarves flap and shake violently in a gust of wind, as I absently thumbed the crystal rock in my hand. It had unrolled itself halfway before it thought better and whipped back, covering her face just as the sharp turn of our car obscured my vision with an unending picture of dark and light browns sliced only with the fading blue of my day.
It wouldn't be long now, I thought, rounding the car and avoiding tasting the metallic stench of baked sun coming off the hood. Carefully watching for truck drivers intent on running down pedestrians in the baked back hills of Samarqand, I approached a worker's insanity. Cross-leg seated below tables centimeters off rocky soil, clothed in a multitude of cotton patterns flapping weakly in the limp breeze, five ladies and a teenage boy were selling what can only be described as dried yogurt balls. Drizzled and dried over a fine mesh screen, this yogurt was then collected by hand, rolled and glued together with a touch of water to create the world's saltiest snack.
I looked down at the women, whose only portion of skin showing was an eye slit in the turban rolled around their heads, two eyes basking in the only shade for 300 km, then back up at the horizon, where land cracked and crumbled like a lizard two days dead in the sun, and shook my head. "Insane," I muttered, "why this spot? Why now?" Shuffling between tables, my head and shoulders bent awkwardly forwards to accommodate the angle of sale necessary to talk with them, I bought three yogurt balls, a tiny glistening black crystal to lower blood pressure, a bag of withered tea leaves to pacify anger, and a small glass of kumiss, fermented mare's milk. The people of the Asian central steppes do not advise drinking this kumiss later, so I downed as much as my constricted throat would allow without gagging. The locals watched me carefully beneath their scarves and turbans, silent laughter hidden beneath glittering eyes older than sand; laughter whipped away by a rising wind. One of the ladies gestured for me to eat the yogurt ball next, and I dutifully popped the mini golf ball sized treat into my mouth. I teared up instantly as my mouth screamed for water, while the orb happily jolted salt through my body in waves and waves of skin-crinkling grimaces. "Rrrr..ahhma...t," I garbled in an attempt to say thank you, with my cheek popping in and out like a squirrel gone crazy for nuts.
I walked slowly over the edge behind where they sat, a ravine slinking downwards at a crazy grade for at least 250 meters, and gently nudged the ball out of my mouth, into my sweaty palm and over the edge. Its bounce down and out of sight reminded me of when heads were thrown at the feet of the defeated in medieval times. The staggering view held me entranced for a few minutes, and I stood subdued, small and insignificant compared to the reaches of sand cresting and rolling downwards and outwards, halting only a few miles in their march towards the horizon by a small lapis-lazuli shaded lake in the shape of a chopped-up leaf. With the women's small bursts of noise behind me, and the sweat from a piercing overhead sun crawling lazily down my spine, I felt almost at peace. Almost to a content memory coated in sea-brine and drowned salt gods. Almost.
--
The stone and cable suspension bridge linking solid land to the lighthouse perched on a thick chunk of rock sliding 300 meters out of the eastern Atlantic ocean, on Mizen Head's point in Southwestern Ireland, is terrifying.
This does not mean I do not stop in the middle to feel the bridge's slight sway in the face of relentless winds, or close my eyes to the gigantic pieces of rock the color and shape of broken knuckles on a bruised fist, continuously slammed by vicious waves. No. In fact, I stop and stick my head through a gap in the spiderweb of cables and stare straight down, wishing every boy's fantasy of flight, birdsong and sharp fish-catching talons. I could tell the guard's voice at the other end was telling me to stop, but I let the wind whip and whistle his cautions away as I popped my head backwards and continued to the other end. I mused as to why they would caution me on the bridge, when to arrive at this same bridge one had to cling to a cliff-side "path" with a feeble one meter tall "fence" bordering the left side sheer drop into a salty oblivion. I have talked to myself for years, and now was no different, as I stated aloud to nobody in particular that it's the dizzying heights that make everything come into focus for me.
Safely climbing the rocky crag connecting bridge to foundation stone, I continued the story stream in my mind of what it would have been like to build such a lighthouse in 1854, and how many men fell while they worked, screaming or silent into a watery grave. Weaving my way around a few bedraggled tourists trying to keep their hats on in the howling winds, I finally made the lighthouse, squeezed through a few dusty rooms with ancient newspapers describing Fresnel lenses in more depth than I cared to ever know about, and exited onto the final jutting point of Mizen Head's rocky insanity. This outpost, easily 200 meters straight up from the turbulent surf far, far below me, welcomed roaring sea-winds from three directions, producing such a violent gale of noise, sea-salt air, and brine-soaked mist it nearly knocked me over the slim railing connecting the rock to the adjacent lighthouse building.
Holding fast to this same rail with one hand, I attempted to shield my eyes enough in order to actually see the ceaseless blue, the angry blue, the siren blue that pulls you downwards. I imagined a worker's curses thrown furiously from one crude scaffolding to another, the shrieking, pinging, clanging, groaning work of erecting such a lighthouse on the edge of an ocean that deems the importance of your survival nominal at best. I imagined again the false grab, scrabbling, slip and fall of a man's fingers clinging to only air. I wondered if they felt peace as they fell. I wondered how my feet had come to rest back on land, ignoring the ugly glances from security as I crunched on small pebbles back to my rental car. I wondered, before closing the door and barring sound, where the crashing and tumbling of what I had just seen would lodge itself forever in a corner of my mind. I never imagined it could have found partners in deserts and steppes, and how peace can seep into you at the loneliest moments.
--
The Lada protested loudly as it was cranked into third gear, grinding up under the merciless heel of my taxi driver. I looked back through the grimy rear window, just in time to catch a glimpse of one of the women's scarves flap and shake violently in a gust of wind, as I absently thumbed the crystal rock in my hand. It had unrolled itself halfway before it thought better and whipped back, covering her face just as the sharp turn of our car obscured my vision with an unending picture of dark and light browns sliced only with the fading blue of my day.
