Catch 22 and Me

I have been meaning to read Catch 22, the 1960’s classic by Joseph Heller, for the last several years ever since I began noticing its repeated reference within the books that I tend to read. I finally initiate the task when, after helping my parents pack up and move out of their home of 40 years, I stumble across a decaying edition of it. I have seen the spine of this particular book among one hundred others throughout my entire childhood sitting on our basement bookshelf. I select it out of an already packed box that is waiting to go to the thrift store and tuck it into my bag. I am its new owner. It feels that I now have a new responsibility.

I haven’t any idea as to the plot, themes or political views of this book. I must admit that I do not even know that it is about war prior to opening it. I only know that it has been an important influence on American literature for the last half century and I am curious.  My book is missing the first 15 pages but I do not let that deter me. Not in this wondrous age of technology. I am quickly able to find the first chapter online and rush to read it so as to be able to return to my preferred paperback method.

This book does not grab me as I had hoped it would. I am frustrated by its intentionally circular dialogue and painfully redundant themes. I understand this is part of the point of Catch.

Now, I tend to read a few books at a time so that, depending on my mood and circumstance, I always have something (or more appropriately “someone”) fitting to turn to. Once I get started it is slow going over the first two months. I seem to want to choose just about anything else to read most of the time. However, I am determined to finish it. I make a private pact with myself to complete it while away on my upcoming travel overseas where I plan on having more time and energy to devote to it. I am about half way through the book when I embark on my journey.

During my trip I consider opening Catch a number of times but find myself consistently turning to another book I had brought along for company which is one of my all time favorites. “High Fidelity” is not exactly literature but it is a friend and a welcome, familiar voice while I am in a place that is entirely unfamiliar.  Hornby’s character, Rob, wins out over Heller’s Yossarian every time I turn to read which is surprisingly little over the 2 weeks.  Catch does not receive any of my personal attention other than the necessary and careful removal of its already examined and detached physical bits and pieces.  This book is falling apart as I travel and I work at placing its various disintegrating pages in the most humble of locations throughout my airport travels through the US, Qatar and Sri Lanka.

While I am at my first departure gate on my return home I am firmly aware that I have not made good on my pact. This is unusual for me; I tend to do what I set out to do but this time I really seem to be stuck. I give myself some grace and know that I have 35 hours of travel time before I land in Vancouver.  I will get to it, for sure, on my second flight that is 16 hours. But, no. I strangely turn to the TV screen for familiar sit coms and North American humor to begin the process of easing back into real life. This crumbling book is burning a hole in my backpack and becoming my burden.

The last flight home is a 6 hour trip from Houston to Vancouver. I am so tired but know that I cannot close my bleary eyes should I hope to sleep tonight when I arrive at midnight. As luck would have it, I find myself sitting beside a young woman who captivates me and we spend most of the flight falling in love, as I tend to do with people now and then. We share our travel stories, our lessons and reasons for returning home.  We laugh loudly, I cry, she peacefully departs learned wisdoms and alternative views. We seem to be on the same frequency and are clicking in all the right spots. Nearing the end of the flight, with about one hour to go, my new friend needs to rest her eyes. She tosses her shawl over her head and quickly claims some sleep.

I seize this moment. In the last leg of the last hour of my time away I grab Catch and commit. It takes some time to get reacquainted with its non-linear style and occasionally non-sensical dialogue. Soon enough I settle into it and start enjoying the humor. I can feel the gradual build up to the climax where gruesome truths are revealed. With only one chapter remaining, the yellowed pages can hold on no longer and fall out into my hands with each turn. There is little left of this important novel, only the words which I have yet to read.

This trip across the earth has been an epic undertaking for me. It has required great commitment, planning, effort, compromise with my husband, consideration for our children, courage to stand up to the spoken and unspoken messages that ‘mother’s don’t do this’, and an internal motivation to seek answers to questions that I have been unable to even articulate. This travel experience has had a gear-shifting impact on my life. Something inside me has been awakened. It was a calculated risk that I took because I needed to, for myself, my life and those that rely on me. In some informal way, it was a call to duty.

In the dark and quiet of the late night airplane I approach the final pages of Catch 22. I am engaged with this story in, what is quite literally, the final hour. I don’t know how it is about to end. I have no sense of what is coming. Yossarian is in a predicament, a catch, where he has a decision to make that will forever change his life. He ultimately decides to flee the war and abandon his contributing role in the senseless and seemingly endless violence and struggle to merely survive. He chooses what he knows is best, not only for his mortal self but also for his soul, his fallen comrades and humanity.

My eyes widened and my pulse quickens as I read these words on the final pages.

“But you can’t just turn your back on all your responsibilities and run away from them,” Major Danby insisted. “It’s such a negative move. It’s escapist.”

Yossarian laughed with buoyant scorn and shook his head. “I’m not running away from my responsibilities.  I’m running to them. There’s nothing negative about running away to save my life.”

I should say that before I left on this trip, I had told a few select people that I felt like leaving at this time might, in some non-lethal way, save my life. I cannot explain how reading these words of Heller’s at this moment in time makes me feel. It is profound and validating.  And, just when I think it can’t get any better, he ends the story with this:

“ 'Goodbye, Yossarian, ' the chaplain called. 'And, good luck. I'll stay here and persevere, and we'll meet again when the fighting stops. '

'So long, Chaplain. Thanks, Danby. '

'How do you feel, Yossarian?'

'Fine. No, I'm very frightened. '

'That's good, ' said Major Danby. 'It proves you're still alive. It won't be fun. '

Yossarian started out. 'Yes it will. '

'I mean it, Yossarian. You'll have to keep on your toes every minute of every day. They'll bend heaven and earth to catch you. '

'I'll keep on my toes every minute. '

'You'll have to jump. '

'I'll jump. '

'Jump!' Major Danby cried.

Yossarian jumped. Nately's whore was hiding just outside the door. The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.”

THE END

I had jumped, too. Took a leap of faith in the direction of Sri Lanka and finding myself. I feel understood. It seems an awful lot like a gift. I close my tired eyes and experience deep gratitude. Touchdown. 

Doha

Doha International Airport is a destination that I have twice passed through, each time staying for only a few fleeting and stimulating hours.  It is a place where cultures meet: central Africa with the traditional Middle East, Greater Arabia with Southeast Asia and truly, anybody else that may fall in between. A few who do not fit the “in between” category, including myself, can also be seen here though we are few and immeasurably uninteresting through my eyes.

Arabic and English seem to be the languages chosen for mass communication here in the forms of loudspeaker announcements, business transactions and pleasantries. People of every color busily congregate or determinedly navigate through the tight spaces full of human energy. The variety of skin tones are so astounding that if one were to organize these travellers and their skin shades from lightest to darkest it would be a visual illusion where hundreds of soft and subtle browns graduate ever so slightly, one by one, to eventually reveal a palette ranging from the extremes of wedding white to deep-lake black. 

The facial features of these temporary nomads are extraordinary and even more diverse. Noses are flat and wide, un-bridged and flared, narrow and monolithic.  Eyes bear colors only of our planet earth: blacks, browns, greens and blues shaped in forms of slitted and narrow to wide set and wide open. And gracing these varied eyes can be found eyelashes that are reaching, filigreed or fanning.  Brown, pink, red and black are the color of the lips, gums and tongues of these foreigners. These moving lips are thin, billowing, smiling, mustached and veiled. All of these features rest upon faces that have no common form. There are sharp jaws, chiseled cheek bones, sprawling foreheads, facial outlines as round and full as a harvest moon, cherubic and ample, gaunt and hanging. Faces bear expressions of warmth and friendliness, aggression and threat, intensity and lust, angst, fatigue and curiosity.  It seems that I can see everything here, all at once and I am awed. I cannot choose a face to rest my gaze on for more than a moment before I am distracted by yet another.

What seems to most amaze me, however, are the dramatically different sounds that these ranging and roving mouths make. I hear noises in languages that communicate messages as mystical and unknown to me as that as a frogs’ ribbit or the bugling of an elk.  I cannot even discern the tone, mood or intent  behind their words. They are sounds I am hearing for the very first time in my life and I wonder how it is that they can make any sense to anybody.  My head is swimming as I come to experience just how big our world is and how little my experience within it has been.

I sit, watch, listen, lower my eyes, stay quiet and try to look demure. I resist taking a single photo at this multicultural intersection for fear of being seen as rude, intrusive or far too North American for my own good.

The most dramatic of our human differences is demonstrated in our attire, our costuming, so to speak. While nothing that I wear feels much like anything traditional or cultural, I suppose that in some ways, it must be. And it would seem that we all wear our cultures in one way or another. I marvel at the eclectic collection of styles, fabrics, formalities and colors found throughout this small space. I see turquoise and gold saris, shirtless men wrapped in white sheets and scarves, sheiks in robes and headdresses, women in salwars and hijabs, the occasional westerner in jeans and a t-shirt, bare feet. Most alarmingly, for myself personally, is to see for the first time, in the flesh, women in full black burkas. Head to toe coverage in heavy black fabrics, including gloved fingertips. Nothing but a narrow window in a drape for the eyes to indicate that inside is a human being. I am saddened, uncomfortable, outraged, biased. There is no way of knowing that there is a woman inside and whether she is 18 or 80, happy or pained. They glide along the airport floor like floating black and untouchable souls.

This place, Doha International, exposes me to many of the world’s cultures from which I am entirely removed. It is an educational experience that leaves me feeling beholden to the place and time in which I was born.  There is no way, alone, that I can better understand what it is that I am seeing and so what I do is this: I try again to sit, watch and listen but this time, as best I can, I absorb the experience of humanity, without judgment or value. We are all human. And, we are all going somewhere.

Ayurvedic Means What?

I am nearing the end of my two short weeks here in Sri Lanka and today I decide to splurge a little. That is if you don’t consider an elephant safari, snorkeling trip, constantly eating divine food or having peace and quiet in the mountains a splurge. I accept an offer via my hotel to have a full body Ayurvedic massage. My calves ache from climbing steps of temples and tea plantations and my shoulders are rock hard from lugging around my pack. I am up for some physical unwinding although I have no real idea of what I have signed up for.

My tuk tuk driver brings me to a run down local looking place with a paint-peeling sign that I think reads “Spa”. But then again, it might not. A man greets me and takes me directly to a back room to show me pictures of their services: head massage, full body massage, steam bath and herbal bath, all with photos depicting North American-type services and standards. I opt for the two massages and make it painfully clear that I will require a woman.  This was a tip that my newly aquired Tamil friend had given me based on a story I had recounted to him earlier regarding an introductory Ayurvedic massage where I was rather easily persuaded to lose my shirt in a spice forest at the hands of a young male masseur. That, though, is another story.

After taking my 3000 rupees ($30) upfront he leads me into a dingy, windowless room with a fold up chair and slab massage table. The walls appear to have once been a bright turquoise but now are somehow covered in filth and strange stains. It feels gritty but I try not to look too closely. A woman my age welcomes me in a thick accent and immediately tells me, “Out”, while motioning for me to take my clothes off. I start with my top and then look to her for her approval. “Out”, she points at my bra. I shrug, more to myself than anything else, and shed the bra. She is standing watching me and appears to be slightly amused at my reluctance and confusion. “Out!” she says again and points at my skirt. Oh, brother. Off comes the skirt. I quietly commend myself for having worn underwear today though it is only a thong and gives me little security. I have been going without undies often due to meager packing and laziness. I remember back to this morning when I came across the clean pair that I am wearing now thinking at the time, “Ooh, clean undies! Today could be a big day”.

So, there we stand face to face, me pretty much naked, she fully clothed and smug looking (at least in my current state she seems smug). To say I feel awkward is putting it mildly. There is no door to this room, only a curtain that is partially closed. I can easily hear the Bollywood movie playing on the TV in the room down the hall.

My “masseuse” offers me a smallish sheet that I snatch from her and attempt to wrap around me. She motions to me to sit in the chair and so begins the head massage. Oil is poured onto my head and she carelessly works her fingers through my long and unkempt curls. She has very strong and slender fingers that rake at my scalp in interesting ways. I tell her she is strong which she seems to understand and says thanks you. I am asked if I want, “ hard massage?” I say, “yes, hard”, she says, ”yes?”, I say, “yes”. We do this a few more times until we eventually come to understand that I am not here for a gentle pat and tickle. 

Some of her technique is slightly relaxing but much of it is unexpected and intriguing. She slaps my forehead, whips my hair around and taps dots and swirls around my face. I have to admit that I am thinking ahead to the “full body” portion of this experience and trying not to panic at my imaginings.

At some point during the head massage her cell phone rings and she stops to answer. This happens repeatedly during our 45 minutes together, which I find both bizarre and funny but strangely, not out of place.

Then comes the moment of truth. She tells me to get up and lay down on the table. We negotiate that I should be face down on the sheet she has given me, naked body in full splay. Really? Damn. All right, I lie down. Starting at my feet she lubricates me like a rusty chain moving her arms up and down my lower extremities. I am marinating in essential oils. She puts a rolling pin to my calves and makes me squeal. We both laugh. Now I know this woman is some kind of “pro” and that my body, sadly, is her canvas, but when she gets to my upper thighs I am reconsidering this whole idea. She is vigorous and working hard with audible grunts and heavy breathing. She occasionally sighs which I refuse to take personally.  She is fearless in her attack of my groin and backside, gliding her slippery fingers back and forth through my body’s folds. I can’t say that I am relaxed at this point. Plus, my mind naturally has already jumped ahead to, “what is next? Is she going to get me to turn over?” The answer is a matter of fact yes.

Jeez, what is she going to do to me? I am buck naked except for a small triangle of fabric in a strategic spot that ultimately is inconsequential to her. I am slick and shiny and feeling very much as though I would like a big towel and some privacy.

And then, exactly what one might think would happen if you were to consider the entire body the subject of a full body massage, she goes to it. She fills my belly button with oil and dances her hands around and over my abdomen and breasts. I do not know whether to burst out laughing or try to find some bliss in all of this. I am rather paralyzed by the complete foreignness of it all.  

By the time she finishes with me, I am dripping oil from my toes and fingers tips. She brings another sheet and roughly rubs what excess oil that she can off of me. I am instructed not to shower for 2 hours while I dress under supervision as quickly as I can which is, to say, slowly due to the tackiness of my skin. I struggle to make eye contact with her as I tip her then say goodbye. Stepping outside I catch a glimpse of myself in a window reflection. I look…worked over. I leave not feeling relaxed but, in all honesty, satisfied at having suffered such an alien experience and lived to tell the tale.

It should be noted that following the completion of this account, the writer bravely pursued Ayurvedic full body massage yet again. This time, at 5,000 Rs she received an entirely blissful (and entirely naked) experience that redeemed the ancient art.

Conflicted At Sea

Sometimes I just wish I could enjoy experiences on a sensory level without my conscience having to clear its phlegmy throat to remind me of its presence. You know what I mean? Today was one of those days. I have been looking forward to Pigeon Island since I planned this trip from my couch back home. I love water and have a comfort and interest in things aquatic. This would be my only opportunity to do some snorkeling during my stay in Sri Lanka and I am jacked.

My day starts off poorly with a major misjudgment in lagoon depth that results in a quick but fatal dousing of my camera in seawater. I am pissed. Here I am headed to a tropical island paradise and I no longer have my right hand man, my Nikon. This trauma is not easy to put out of my mind but I reroute my focus to the mental imagery that I will need to collect and hold on to for the next few decades of my life.

I ride to Pigeon Island in a boat where I am an addition to a Russian party who are staying in a swanky resort down the beach from my sweat pit that I am currently calling home. No one in the group is particularly interested in me and I accept that this will be a day of just me with the fishes. Truth me told, I prefer it this way.

The island is small and covered in white coral beach. The water is that dreamy azure blue we all picture when we think of an island paradise. Just steps off the beach into the water are boulder formations that look somehow both miniature and gigantic at the same time. The palm trees perform their hallmark sway in the breeze routine. When I approach through the dappled shade of flowering trees I see there are already some visitors here. Most of them are international, many are wearing life jackets and all of them are ridiculously loud given the wonder of the surroundings.  I remind myself that I will soon be in a blissful underwater world and hurry to gear up.  The water has such salty buoyancy and I am strong enough a swimmer that I opt out of using flippers. I spit into my mask and attract a few stares. And then, the gaseous world in which I live disappears and I am drawn in to a peaceful liquid universe.

It doesn’t take long to find the fish although abundant they are not. The longer I explore the more variety I see. There are fish in every hue of every color and some in colors that I have never even imagined. They are spotted, striped and speckled with some having a ludicrous mix of all three. I watch a beautiful, pink mosaicked fish move slightly while grazing on coral to show that in fact it is orange, and then move again to tell me it is silvery brown. They are as big as my forearm and as small as my fingernail. I am in awe of their ingenious beauty. I see a brightly colored, flat fish make some fluttery movements that so amuse me I laugh and choke and am forced up for air. It doesn’t take me long to learn how to smile with a snorkel in my mouth.

A four-foot long haggard looking shark cruises by me and I shriek into my snorkel. Surely, this is normal I think to myself and boldly force myself to carry on. While I am hovering and observing a transparent, pencil shaped creature a Sri Lankan man appears and enthusiastically gives me an underwater two thumbs up. I agree and gesture back. He motions for me to follow him out further and I comply. At one point he grabs for my hand and hugs it close to his chest to bring me along which, admittedly, is something I am not entirely sure about what to do. I allow it and he leads me to a deeper more plentiful area that I would not have found otherwise. Eventually I pull my hand away and surface to clear my mask. He asks if I am okay and I say yes but that I would like to head back. Like an underwater Tarzan he dives down deep along the bottom and quickly undulates away from me, turning to wave goodbye.

Now wouldn’t it be grand if this were where the story ends? But that pesky conscience, that part of me that is sensitive to those living things around me and the quality of their existence, grabs a firm hold of me. I find it impossible not to notice the lack of color in the coral, although I can see that it is trying with glimmers of pale blue or purple here and there. But it is dull and covered mostly in what looks like scum. I do not know a great deal about fish but I do know that these beautiful and intricate beings were made to look this way for a reason. This reason is camouflage. These fish are about as camouflaged as I, myself, have been while wandering the streets of Colombo and Jaffna as a white woman. Not at all.

And this concerns me. So much so that I have to get out of the water to find my guide and attempt a broken conversation. I learn that this is, in large part, due to the tsunami. It makes sense, the ocean turned itself over and disturbed its bottom, causing a dust that now chokes the coral. An act of God, an act of Nature, bad luck. Whatever you call it, it’s no one’s fault. But you would have to be living with both of your fingers in your ears and humming pretty loudly not to know that our oceans and the coral and fishes within them are in big trouble.  Reefs are dying all over the world due largely to the human race’s consumption and output.

I think about this as I heavily reapply my sunscreen. Huh. It occurs to me that I am a part of that output, directly, today. I could not be out snorkeling in 40-degree heat without sunscreen. Maybe that means that I should not be out snorkeling. On a tree swing I sit and contemplate this conundrum. Damned conscience.

Somehow I come to conclude that I will go in one last, short time. Give my inconsequential, though sincere, thanks and respect to these creatures and their home. I feel conflicted and not entirely happy with my decision.  In the shallows I swim past a decomposing pair of men’s underwear. Bits of plastic catch my eye, glimmering in the sun light like iridescent fish.  A plastic bag brushes up against my forehead. As I swim around collecting my final memories, I silently apologize to the inhabitants of this wounded place. I apologize for the film my sunscreen is leaving in their lungs, and for the boat gas that brought me here that pollutes what they breathe and eat. And, I apologize for a man who somehow lost his shorts.