July 3rd - July 10th
if you thought i lived an isolated life in the woods, you might be wrong... the villagers communicate with us --- some live in the camp, others we see when we go get our food... on Sunday night, after three of us got back from our misadventures on our return journey from Homorod (via Fagaras, no less), and everyone else got sufficiently drunk and happy, one of the Romanian girls apparently tried to pull a prank and called some thugs, who showed up at camp. Mishi 1 and Mishi 2 ended up in the hospital. fist fights outside our tents, shouts. previously, drunken comrades stumbling over other people's tents ''Hey Abby, let go of the Big Agnes". it is no good when I have to exit the tent in the middle of the night to take a piss, cold, wet ground, tall grass, darkness. the next day the girl gets sent home. we've got a sort of godfather figure at camp, the professor... Costea... the romanians really only listen to him. In the morning police shows up. unpleasant, odd. Piere shows up and he is probably not even thirty but he looks fifty. he's an extra man. he's all manly and mighty and has a soft beard and only drinks five liters of water a month and eats meat for all the meals. it rains on monday and tuesday, we barely work on tuesday before we have to book it. wednesday is long day at mosquito. nowhere to sit. pedestals everywhere, pottery barely held up by these small mounds of dirt. yeah, there are artifacts everywhere, which is cool, but dancing around them in the trench is a bitch. it's cold in mosquito, and the bugs are all over the place. on thursday charlie and i get left behind, so I hop in and over the stream, grab a bunch of firewood, do as I please. Friday is alcatraz, and somehow I don't slip, which is pretty exciting for me. People have found a piece of a stone axe, iron stake in alcatraz, burnt wood from god knows when, too. in mosquito they found a fertility figurine. alcatraz is easier to sit in, more space, even if it's in the sun. the tics are pretty annoying all around. we're finding more and more pottery, large chunks, so troweling goes slower, but at least we are certain that this new trench is not in vain. our days are longer now, we are trying to make up for the time lost to the rains.
as it stands, I have changed, irreparably, I hope. i don't want to come back. I don't want to come back to city life, civilization, access to things, whatever else. I am not romanticizing, not now. things will be as they are meant to, I suppose. it will be hard to adjust again, to some old life. I am happy to begin rebuilding when I return. reading Doris Lessing.
Dreamscapes. Wish I knew what I've been dreaming.
Went to Sighisoara yesterday. Dracula's birthplace is now a restaurant, overpriced of course: clearly all is well.
*
June 20th - July 2nd
Second week is all nat geo killing our mojo and picking up artifacts from the trenches (we are to try leaving larger things we find exactly in the same place/position as we discovered them, pedestal them, as we say, not move them). it is strangely uncomfortable to have people with cameras everywhere, especially since they don't really talk to us. i am assigned to stay behind on wednesday to wash pottery and clean up camp, and it's boring, but what's a girl to do. next day I am sent to alcatraz. the way there is down the hill from hell, the "slip & die"as we call it. the steepest motherfucking hill i ever climbed, that is for certain. going down it is so bad that most people position themselves on all fours, crab-like or otherwise, grabbing on to saplings -- even goddamn sting nettles -- to make our way to the trench... now on the way from Alcatraz we haven't a choice but essentially pretend we're rock climbing. lamb roast when we get back. slaughtering by the stream, spit through the body. we wait until after 10 pm to eat it, finally, ripping meat with our hands, in some strange carnivorous bliss, primitive. I don't do this, but I do so. Andre leaves at the end of week 2, and Alec is in charge. We have an early day on Friday so everyone can make it onto the 4:20 train to Brasov, where we celebrate Charlie's birthday and make our lives sound infinitely more exciting than they are to the people we meet in hostels. We also purchase peanut butter. It's pretty damn exciting.
on our way back from Brasov on Saturday we get caught in a hail/rain storm; we haven't anywhere to hide or go but the camp, so we keep at it, bags full of food, everything muddy under our feet, slippery as we slope up and down with the road, cross small streams, rock to rock. waterproof or not, nothing is dry. we sing as we walk -- better to be loud in case bears are about. the ants go marching, made up lyrics, we get to 83. we make it back to camp, somehow, eat, are out for the night. adam's tent falls victim to the gale. next day is all luxury, but my tent gets broken. duct tape, splints, stubborn magic of fingers and souls; it stands again. i decide to buy justin's tent anyway -- he leaves at the end of the week and it costs me some 25 dollars. monday is freezing in mosquito 2. we wear gloves, people go back to camp to fetch warm clothes. the promise of hot chocolate keeps us going until 2 pm.
Tuesday in Alcatraz, rain after an hour of work. We run up the slip & die hill, leave the tools hidden in the bushes. it rains a lot. it rains almost constantly for the rest of the week. things are in a stasis of sorts: we can't dig, can't do much of anything, really, but split up into groups based on necessities: some go to town to get provisions, some procure firewood, others photograph and catalog artifacts, and others still cook, clean. helen arrives, we've got someone new to figure out, adopt, allow for. the roads are all mud, small streams, the deer trails we get by on turn swamps. we can't bathe because the stream is muddy and the current is incredibly strong. we collect rainwater in the crevices of the kitchen tent's tarp, then deploy it into pots, boil it for consumption. wednesday we go out for firewood. people find a huge, thick log that needs to be chopped into four parts so we can carry it back to camp. it takes 2-4 people lift up each part. I help with the chopping; first time with an axe; Abby and I alternate, Alec finishes it off. it is raining thoroughout. we dry our shoes by the fire, some catch on fire and melt away until someone notices and shouts. how do you keep anything dry anyway, grass is tall enough to wet our pant legs almost to the knees, the way to the latrine is swamp enough to soak our shoes first thing in the morning. ants lay eggs all over my trowel, shoes, climb into my backpack... these items live outside my tent, under the rain fly -- keeps them dry and prevents dirt and stink from entering the tent, but in this rainy weather ants and spiders invade like nobody's business. I have found two tics on my body, both removed completely.
on Thursday we have a dry shampoo party in the kitchen tent, which is the only place a lot of us can actually hang out.. it isn't so mucha tent as a bunch of poles with a big tarp on top of them. we reward ourselves this week by cooking somewhat extravagant meals: fried rice, veggie stew, eggs in a basket with cheese and tomatoes (and salami, sometimes), and the crowning jewel (don't laugh) -- egg salad (two food groups pull together for this one... mayonnaise is more exciting than sliced bread, to some people). the mud underneath us makes most people give up on shoes and prance around barefoot. I chop one of the parts of the big log in half using a double-edged axe. it takes me a while, and my aim isn't the best, but I do it... and so I can. the Romanian guys who work in mosquito 1 laught at me, and I laugh with them. they find out it's the first time I've done this and cut me some slack, say it's pretty good for a first try. Kayleigh and Adam go to Brasov early in the morning to pick up mici, which is seasoned meat that comes in these bags... and we have 30 kilograms of it, plus mustard. we roll the meat into mini sausage-looking things and grill them. By this point, the morning greeting is something like "good morning, filthballs!" because we are all quite the sight. Friday the weather is finally all right and we go up to Alcatraz. Shannon and I have our big backpacks, full of dirty clothes, because we are leaving for Sibiu from site. The slip & die is particularly awful and muddy due to the rain... people fall, others decide to simply slide down on their butts. the backpacks make things hard. it rains a little here and there, we spend most of the day troweling mud from between the rocks. We head to Sibiu, where I am now, once again. Laundry, shower, flushing toilets. These are things we worship. the dance of clean clothes. the exultation over not smelling like trash fire. the blister on my left hand from the axe. slight touches of makeup, clothing that is not in the least bit practical.
there are stories from the boys going to the racos disco and slapping the bar owner's ass in a drunken attempt at amusement. there are stories of things going right and wrong. they are all impossible to contain. there are stories of carrying 25 eggs in a plastic bag for 3 miles up a mountain and only breaking one. we've heard wolf howls. i am terrified sometimes. there are flooded tents, cut up feet, foxes rummaging in our discarded cans pile. there are things I don't like. we're a tribe, sort of, a strange concoction of insanities. it's a microcosm for things of sorts, the way we interact, hold ourselves together, refrain from snapping. the rain week was tough because we were bored, because we got on each other's nerves that way. because some people aren't pulling their weight. because toilet paper, chocolate, cigarettes, condiments (mustard, mayo, salt, pepper, spices of ANY and ALL kinds), fruit and chips are hot commodities. but we sing songs, if we can ever agree on or remember any; the miniature guitar is a popular tool. at this point you can tell who's playing without having to look. it's the three week mark, a changing of the guard -- some people have left to go to an osteology workshop, some have left to go someplace else. seven newbies arrive on sunday, six of them girls.
there is not so much "I" in this because times runs out too quickly to attempt significant introspection -- there is food to worry about, and warmth. though I retreat frequently enough and try to read, listen, write, it never lasts too long because inevitably sleep overcomes me. the cassettes are nice. on the rainy afternoons I play them quietly in my tent and fall into dream-like meditations, and for the first time in so long, I can feel my mind going blank, letting go of everything. I've had few dreams that I recall, but one involved picking ants out of a block of cheese using a trowel [by the way archaeologists use mason trowels -- small, flat and pointy]. The Paul Auster novel I started reading takes place in Brooklyn. A character named Marina appears within the first five pages. It's coincidence at play: I picked up the novel without reading the book jacket at my hostel in Budapest. I'm not ready to come back. I don't have to, yet.
*
June 12th-19th
june 12 we get into Brasov and meet our field director, Andre, who looks like a sort of evil Santa Claus/ Dacian warrior/ bear and definitely a metal head. His main assistant reminds us of jack black, the other one is a girl with very long blond hair. a horse-drawn carriage takes our luggage. we hike 3 miles up a mountain. it starts raining as we set up tents. we do it anyway. we set up stairs to get to the common areas: they are all mud because of how rainy it is. water run -- 10 minute walk, then down past stinging nettles, one small bit of the mountain stream which has good drinkable water. we fill up our bottles, go back, eat whatever we've got with us. then palinka, which is pretty much moonshine but flavored. it warms us up. next morning fire wood upstream, we are covered in dirt. we dam the river to build the beer pond, where people hang out after digging, feet in the cold water, beer passed around. first bath in the stream. it is cold, rocky, we learn how to dunk ourselves in the water to wash off the soap. somehow, the freezing water isn't so bad. the afternoons are hot and good for drying clothing, and oh boy do we need to wash our clothes, though we've collectively given up on the bottoms of our pants. first beer pond experience. Afterwards we sit around the fire and play instruments. Andre gets my tiny casio keyboard and does not let go, he presses every button and annoys the hell out of everyone, but in a hilarious way. first food run into town. same 3-mile hike. next day we see the sight, get a lecture. we split up into food groups, dig latrines, then another food run. it is odd to now rely so completely on strangers. I haven't the time to describe my team in detail now, but there are characters, as one would expect.
wednesday digging starts. we uncover the trenches. they have names: mosquito 1, mosquito 2 and alcatraz. currently I inhabit mosquito 2, but soon most of us will be sent to alcatraz. even on the first day we find bones, lots of pottery, possibly a wall, though we're not yet sure. this is how our days go. we wake up every day at 6 am. latrine, breakfast, pack lunch, grab a bucket full of tools, hike up a mountain for about a mile, dig dig dig for 8 hours, hike back down, wash, water run, laundry of some sort, dinner, fire. The locals are with us at camp. Our mascot, Mishi, who helps around the camp, is perpetually drunk on palinka. one of his legs is useless. the younger guys work in one of the trenches as well. mosquitoes are a bother, but I get by. knees, necks, backs, hands hurt at one point or another. it is lovely, in a way, to know that getting food will take 2.5 hours. that the bathroom is across a swamp. that water is not to be attempted after dusk. that over the weekends we can go to Brasov, which is where I am now, and it will take us almost 3 hours. that the bed, the chairs, the shower will seem strangely luxurious. it's only been a week; I've got four more, but this is changing me. I can't get down on paper most of the craziness of this experience; I can't even describe a fraction of it. I have limited time here, but I must mention how absolutely stunning my everyday surroundings are. The Carpathian mountains are gorgeous, covered in woods. The views are incredible; the photos will probably do it some justice, and I will send them at some point. god, I don't mind this life at all, though appreciating these everyday luxuries is new. Somehow, I was reluctant to touch electronics, but I wanted to get this out. I had a decent idea of what I was getting myself into, but I can do it now, I know. life does us good this way, when the worries are about having bread, or not wanting to leave the tent at night. this sounds cheesy, I am sure, but it is crazy, and I am crazy for it, and it may be the best decision I have so far made. on our walk to Racos one day we saved a man named Atilla, who had an air rifle and binoculars from a diabetic coma by feeidng him vodka out of his bacpack. this is what happens here, things come out of nowhere. we are isolated, and yet we are entrenched. here, they hate gypsies. it is sad how much. it is sad that people have bad experiences with them too -- luggage stolen etc.
national geographic is coming on monday. lamb roast on thursday. being a vegetarian does not work here, so i gave up, for i do not want to go hungry. they say here that I look like a 70's archaeologist in my everyday outfits, and I don't mind. we worry that our conversations are much too inappropriate and silly for Nat. Geo, but will we try to help it? still reading beckett. these woods are home, these trenches are a kind of puzzle. we will turn mountain goats. a few stones are a path. we can cross streams with arm-fulls of firewood. i wonder, sometimes, how the hell did this happen, and it's only been a week.
*
June 11th
I will be on a train tomorrow night that will take me to Brasov. From there, Racos. A 4-5 Gonciar hike through the forest with all our gear, to the campsite, which promises to be wet.
I am going always it seems. This will be a kind of permanence. Five weeks of a very strange kind of stability.
I've met the people who will live there, in this foreign-ness with me. We've already started making jokes about the field director's seeming inconsistency when it comes to our distance from Racos (2 km... then 3 km... now it's between 4 and 5 km, sometimes it's 3 miles...) We've therefore invented a new unit -- a Gonciar, so named after our field director.
Somehow my hands feel small. My clothing is in the washer.
*
June 7th-8th
What kind of poetry do you write? asks coughing guy at my hostel in Budapest one evening. I can't possibly answer that now, can I? Can I? Descriptions are a lie, but one so inadvertent and unavoidable that to relinquish them is nearly, if not entirely, impossible. And in finding labels a sort of puzzle emerges and is solved -- quickly, painlessly, as if the world is to be put together and aside all at once, piece by piece, each word stacking slantwise on top of another -- a makeshift model that is there to stay -- until, of course, it is time to revisit it, replace the former understanding with one so blindingly fresh that it is still impossible to see the roughness and evaluate the odd angles at which it collides with its neighbours that oscillate upon its arrival and sometimes even come entirely undone.
Long ago, everything was for me a form of denial and repetition. Who is to say this has changed. There are such simple pasts at stake, and memory -- the faultiest weapon, the unreliable defence, supports the manufactured versions. How much of our lives is spent in such creations, embalmed in belief and recollection?
*
June 5th
Done with Motherless Brooklyn. And on to my second Beckett novel of the journey, Malone Dies. Running out out out, time to buy more books.
*
June 4th
recap: jolly Englishman in Constanta, runs the hostel, free beers, breakfast vodka. [i decline]
forty-four Jews
we climbed the minaret; on the walls somewhere as we went up the spiral staircase, in thin, large blue letters CANNABIS.
jellyfish, clear and present, clear and pleasant, peasant. jeff afraid of them, I go on, they touch me twice, no danger.
finished Molloy. alloy alley lollipop poop coppola pupil loophole moot loy andrew lloyd weber frank lloyd wright molly comes on Monday, jeff leaves on Monday. one week from tomorrow thirty three days of dirt start. reading a book where the narrator has Tourette's: Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem [borrowing from Jeff]
think I might have an idea of where I want to plant myself once I return
running out of books, maybe the magic mountain will tide me over.
the man on night train said romania is a third world country, said they've decided to kill the stray dogs, not sterilize or shelter, said back to canada. average salary 300 dollars a month. romanian ice cream 75 cents a cone.
we're in budapest. we'll be going to a bookstore, a synagoge, thermal baths. it's a last hurrah kind of deal.
wilderness is imminent.
June 3rd
Timisoara
*
*
May 28th-29th
Bucharest
H & M might be the biggest building.
Stray dogs, extremely new vehicles of public transportation.
Eastern European absurdity. Old city half-demolished, half-brand-new. I am in the midst of total reconstruction of the grandest scale. The renovations in Moscow even struck me as more subtle, when they went on in my presence, that is.
I realize that the old buildings are in need of repair, yet I've developed an affinity for decrepitude, and crooked dilapidated houses give me a sense of comfort.
Having fought off an army of ants that came to attack a crumb I inadvertently dropped while eating the last of my Sibiu-bought bread. Another overlap with Cortazar & Dunlop -- only this morning I read his long tirade against ants.
*
May 27th
The interval between Sibiu and Bucharest feels like a subway ride to Brooklyn -- these six hour trains have become customary.
Still life with tractor. Possibly dead dog. Snow-capped mountains in the background, almost blended with the sky, hardly discernable.
*
May 26th
I realize I have been neglecting history. It isn't that I am not learning it; it is that I am waiting for it, still. Pliny on the making of glass. Guns with beautiful wooden handles smooth and ornamented. One room full of tombstones. Here's a name: the lapidarium. Heavy armor not so heavy compared to us. Swords too long to be lifted. Welcome to Transylvania, where it is perfectly safe to step on train tracks.First gunshot fired in 1269. The single musket ball that goes home; the porable cannon. You say cannon now, and I think of the camera, despite the difference in spelling.
Mandatory fear of Bucharest. Sleep schedule... what sleep schedule? Dehydration. hair: better, seems to stay in one place.
*
May 25th
First day in Sibiu. First day I've actually felt lonely. The town itself is a mixture of run down and done up as these places tend to be, I guess. You go places, just walk for a while -- no aim or destination; old women with black kerchiefs.
Power of coincidence -- I started Autonauts of the Cosmoroute on the day their journey starts in the book -- May 23rd, and I didn't realize it at all until today when I saw another date on a page in the book -- May 28th -- an important day for me for at least three reasons. I was going to read it first, too, but The Names suddenly struck me as an utter necessity, and so it all came to be. I feel some manner of divine intervention is at play. My hand hurts somehow, it is getting hard to write. I may need to invent some kind of shorthand if I am to continue a journal. Money as always worrisome. Shoulders have backpack-induced bruises.
Stealing from Cortazar and Dunlop the idea of naming things... stealing from God? My backpack shall forthwith be Julio, my tape recorder -- Fernando, my cameras -- Doris (film) and Carol (digital). My tent will be Shot'a. I'm calling my pocket knife Don.
Tim, the Kiwi I met in Cluj, has arrived here in Sibiu. We discuss: slang, Shakespeare, Joyce, jobs, Murakami, WWII, climate, wind vs stillness, economy, nukes, James-the-Texan, teaching, music, geniuses, Russian tsars (a nearly mandatory confusion on all sides with the Alexanders and Nicholases), Savior on Spilled Blood, rural life, the next big war (the last big war?).
I want to get rid of things, memories, magnets that have me pinned like a dumb photo to a refrigerator. In so many ways, I long to dismiss.
Sibiu. Broad daylight, unforgiving, every other building a historic site, placards and all. Cultural capital of Europe... who makes these decisions? Organist rehearsing. Haunted sound. Repeat, repeat, repeat, I record. I could listen for a long time. So many thoughts I begin to recognize as not my own. Goddman group identity. Have I become some auxiliary in a larger machine of oddities? I am hating things, vehemently, from afar. I try to shake off common interest, shared obsessions. Separation of self from self.
Unity of vacuum, helplessness that comes with ailment, but the strength that replaces it... is it worth the wait?
Am refusing to turn off the light. Seven empty beds. A noticeable deficiency of protein in my diet, too much bread. Broken sidewalks, an opera based on the life of Emil Cioran -- do all philosophers have lives that translate into librettos? When I finish Autonauts, I will have no more untarnished books. The rest -- Beckett, Mann, Pessoa, Rustaveli -- will bring back other people; I do not want this. I say that about a lot of things.
I could live here. Grapevines, gardening shears, tiled roofs. I could live here, but will I? Will I ever wake up un-surrounded by associations?
*
if you thought i lived an isolated life in the woods, you might be wrong... the villagers communicate with us --- some live in the camp, others we see when we go get our food... on Sunday night, after three of us got back from our misadventures on our return journey from Homorod (via Fagaras, no less), and everyone else got sufficiently drunk and happy, one of the Romanian girls apparently tried to pull a prank and called some thugs, who showed up at camp. Mishi 1 and Mishi 2 ended up in the hospital. fist fights outside our tents, shouts. previously, drunken comrades stumbling over other people's tents ''Hey Abby, let go of the Big Agnes". it is no good when I have to exit the tent in the middle of the night to take a piss, cold, wet ground, tall grass, darkness. the next day the girl gets sent home. we've got a sort of godfather figure at camp, the professor... Costea... the romanians really only listen to him. In the morning police shows up. unpleasant, odd. Piere shows up and he is probably not even thirty but he looks fifty. he's an extra man. he's all manly and mighty and has a soft beard and only drinks five liters of water a month and eats meat for all the meals. it rains on monday and tuesday, we barely work on tuesday before we have to book it. wednesday is long day at mosquito. nowhere to sit. pedestals everywhere, pottery barely held up by these small mounds of dirt. yeah, there are artifacts everywhere, which is cool, but dancing around them in the trench is a bitch. it's cold in mosquito, and the bugs are all over the place. on thursday charlie and i get left behind, so I hop in and over the stream, grab a bunch of firewood, do as I please. Friday is alcatraz, and somehow I don't slip, which is pretty exciting for me. People have found a piece of a stone axe, iron stake in alcatraz, burnt wood from god knows when, too. in mosquito they found a fertility figurine. alcatraz is easier to sit in, more space, even if it's in the sun. the tics are pretty annoying all around. we're finding more and more pottery, large chunks, so troweling goes slower, but at least we are certain that this new trench is not in vain. our days are longer now, we are trying to make up for the time lost to the rains.
as it stands, I have changed, irreparably, I hope. i don't want to come back. I don't want to come back to city life, civilization, access to things, whatever else. I am not romanticizing, not now. things will be as they are meant to, I suppose. it will be hard to adjust again, to some old life. I am happy to begin rebuilding when I return. reading Doris Lessing.
Dreamscapes. Wish I knew what I've been dreaming.
Went to Sighisoara yesterday. Dracula's birthplace is now a restaurant, overpriced of course: clearly all is well.
*
June 20th - July 2nd
Second week is all nat geo killing our mojo and picking up artifacts from the trenches (we are to try leaving larger things we find exactly in the same place/position as we discovered them, pedestal them, as we say, not move them). it is strangely uncomfortable to have people with cameras everywhere, especially since they don't really talk to us. i am assigned to stay behind on wednesday to wash pottery and clean up camp, and it's boring, but what's a girl to do. next day I am sent to alcatraz. the way there is down the hill from hell, the "slip & die"as we call it. the steepest motherfucking hill i ever climbed, that is for certain. going down it is so bad that most people position themselves on all fours, crab-like or otherwise, grabbing on to saplings -- even goddamn sting nettles -- to make our way to the trench... now on the way from Alcatraz we haven't a choice but essentially pretend we're rock climbing. lamb roast when we get back. slaughtering by the stream, spit through the body. we wait until after 10 pm to eat it, finally, ripping meat with our hands, in some strange carnivorous bliss, primitive. I don't do this, but I do so. Andre leaves at the end of week 2, and Alec is in charge. We have an early day on Friday so everyone can make it onto the 4:20 train to Brasov, where we celebrate Charlie's birthday and make our lives sound infinitely more exciting than they are to the people we meet in hostels. We also purchase peanut butter. It's pretty damn exciting.
on our way back from Brasov on Saturday we get caught in a hail/rain storm; we haven't anywhere to hide or go but the camp, so we keep at it, bags full of food, everything muddy under our feet, slippery as we slope up and down with the road, cross small streams, rock to rock. waterproof or not, nothing is dry. we sing as we walk -- better to be loud in case bears are about. the ants go marching, made up lyrics, we get to 83. we make it back to camp, somehow, eat, are out for the night. adam's tent falls victim to the gale. next day is all luxury, but my tent gets broken. duct tape, splints, stubborn magic of fingers and souls; it stands again. i decide to buy justin's tent anyway -- he leaves at the end of the week and it costs me some 25 dollars. monday is freezing in mosquito 2. we wear gloves, people go back to camp to fetch warm clothes. the promise of hot chocolate keeps us going until 2 pm.
Tuesday in Alcatraz, rain after an hour of work. We run up the slip & die hill, leave the tools hidden in the bushes. it rains a lot. it rains almost constantly for the rest of the week. things are in a stasis of sorts: we can't dig, can't do much of anything, really, but split up into groups based on necessities: some go to town to get provisions, some procure firewood, others photograph and catalog artifacts, and others still cook, clean. helen arrives, we've got someone new to figure out, adopt, allow for. the roads are all mud, small streams, the deer trails we get by on turn swamps. we can't bathe because the stream is muddy and the current is incredibly strong. we collect rainwater in the crevices of the kitchen tent's tarp, then deploy it into pots, boil it for consumption. wednesday we go out for firewood. people find a huge, thick log that needs to be chopped into four parts so we can carry it back to camp. it takes 2-4 people lift up each part. I help with the chopping; first time with an axe; Abby and I alternate, Alec finishes it off. it is raining thoroughout. we dry our shoes by the fire, some catch on fire and melt away until someone notices and shouts. how do you keep anything dry anyway, grass is tall enough to wet our pant legs almost to the knees, the way to the latrine is swamp enough to soak our shoes first thing in the morning. ants lay eggs all over my trowel, shoes, climb into my backpack... these items live outside my tent, under the rain fly -- keeps them dry and prevents dirt and stink from entering the tent, but in this rainy weather ants and spiders invade like nobody's business. I have found two tics on my body, both removed completely.
on Thursday we have a dry shampoo party in the kitchen tent, which is the only place a lot of us can actually hang out.. it isn't so mucha tent as a bunch of poles with a big tarp on top of them. we reward ourselves this week by cooking somewhat extravagant meals: fried rice, veggie stew, eggs in a basket with cheese and tomatoes (and salami, sometimes), and the crowning jewel (don't laugh) -- egg salad (two food groups pull together for this one... mayonnaise is more exciting than sliced bread, to some people). the mud underneath us makes most people give up on shoes and prance around barefoot. I chop one of the parts of the big log in half using a double-edged axe. it takes me a while, and my aim isn't the best, but I do it... and so I can. the Romanian guys who work in mosquito 1 laught at me, and I laugh with them. they find out it's the first time I've done this and cut me some slack, say it's pretty good for a first try. Kayleigh and Adam go to Brasov early in the morning to pick up mici, which is seasoned meat that comes in these bags... and we have 30 kilograms of it, plus mustard. we roll the meat into mini sausage-looking things and grill them. By this point, the morning greeting is something like "good morning, filthballs!" because we are all quite the sight. Friday the weather is finally all right and we go up to Alcatraz. Shannon and I have our big backpacks, full of dirty clothes, because we are leaving for Sibiu from site. The slip & die is particularly awful and muddy due to the rain... people fall, others decide to simply slide down on their butts. the backpacks make things hard. it rains a little here and there, we spend most of the day troweling mud from between the rocks. We head to Sibiu, where I am now, once again. Laundry, shower, flushing toilets. These are things we worship. the dance of clean clothes. the exultation over not smelling like trash fire. the blister on my left hand from the axe. slight touches of makeup, clothing that is not in the least bit practical.
there are stories from the boys going to the racos disco and slapping the bar owner's ass in a drunken attempt at amusement. there are stories of things going right and wrong. they are all impossible to contain. there are stories of carrying 25 eggs in a plastic bag for 3 miles up a mountain and only breaking one. we've heard wolf howls. i am terrified sometimes. there are flooded tents, cut up feet, foxes rummaging in our discarded cans pile. there are things I don't like. we're a tribe, sort of, a strange concoction of insanities. it's a microcosm for things of sorts, the way we interact, hold ourselves together, refrain from snapping. the rain week was tough because we were bored, because we got on each other's nerves that way. because some people aren't pulling their weight. because toilet paper, chocolate, cigarettes, condiments (mustard, mayo, salt, pepper, spices of ANY and ALL kinds), fruit and chips are hot commodities. but we sing songs, if we can ever agree on or remember any; the miniature guitar is a popular tool. at this point you can tell who's playing without having to look. it's the three week mark, a changing of the guard -- some people have left to go to an osteology workshop, some have left to go someplace else. seven newbies arrive on sunday, six of them girls.
there is not so much "I" in this because times runs out too quickly to attempt significant introspection -- there is food to worry about, and warmth. though I retreat frequently enough and try to read, listen, write, it never lasts too long because inevitably sleep overcomes me. the cassettes are nice. on the rainy afternoons I play them quietly in my tent and fall into dream-like meditations, and for the first time in so long, I can feel my mind going blank, letting go of everything. I've had few dreams that I recall, but one involved picking ants out of a block of cheese using a trowel [by the way archaeologists use mason trowels -- small, flat and pointy]. The Paul Auster novel I started reading takes place in Brooklyn. A character named Marina appears within the first five pages. It's coincidence at play: I picked up the novel without reading the book jacket at my hostel in Budapest. I'm not ready to come back. I don't have to, yet.
*
June 12th-19th
 |
| photo credit: Livia Arnold |
june 12 we get into Brasov and meet our field director, Andre, who looks like a sort of evil Santa Claus/ Dacian warrior/ bear and definitely a metal head. His main assistant reminds us of jack black, the other one is a girl with very long blond hair. a horse-drawn carriage takes our luggage. we hike 3 miles up a mountain. it starts raining as we set up tents. we do it anyway. we set up stairs to get to the common areas: they are all mud because of how rainy it is. water run -- 10 minute walk, then down past stinging nettles, one small bit of the mountain stream which has good drinkable water. we fill up our bottles, go back, eat whatever we've got with us. then palinka, which is pretty much moonshine but flavored. it warms us up. next morning fire wood upstream, we are covered in dirt. we dam the river to build the beer pond, where people hang out after digging, feet in the cold water, beer passed around. first bath in the stream. it is cold, rocky, we learn how to dunk ourselves in the water to wash off the soap. somehow, the freezing water isn't so bad. the afternoons are hot and good for drying clothing, and oh boy do we need to wash our clothes, though we've collectively given up on the bottoms of our pants. first beer pond experience. Afterwards we sit around the fire and play instruments. Andre gets my tiny casio keyboard and does not let go, he presses every button and annoys the hell out of everyone, but in a hilarious way. first food run into town. same 3-mile hike. next day we see the sight, get a lecture. we split up into food groups, dig latrines, then another food run. it is odd to now rely so completely on strangers. I haven't the time to describe my team in detail now, but there are characters, as one would expect. wednesday digging starts. we uncover the trenches. they have names: mosquito 1, mosquito 2 and alcatraz. currently I inhabit mosquito 2, but soon most of us will be sent to alcatraz. even on the first day we find bones, lots of pottery, possibly a wall, though we're not yet sure. this is how our days go. we wake up every day at 6 am. latrine, breakfast, pack lunch, grab a bucket full of tools, hike up a mountain for about a mile, dig dig dig for 8 hours, hike back down, wash, water run, laundry of some sort, dinner, fire. The locals are with us at camp. Our mascot, Mishi, who helps around the camp, is perpetually drunk on palinka. one of his legs is useless. the younger guys work in one of the trenches as well. mosquitoes are a bother, but I get by. knees, necks, backs, hands hurt at one point or another. it is lovely, in a way, to know that getting food will take 2.5 hours. that the bathroom is across a swamp. that water is not to be attempted after dusk. that over the weekends we can go to Brasov, which is where I am now, and it will take us almost 3 hours. that the bed, the chairs, the shower will seem strangely luxurious. it's only been a week; I've got four more, but this is changing me. I can't get down on paper most of the craziness of this experience; I can't even describe a fraction of it. I have limited time here, but I must mention how absolutely stunning my everyday surroundings are. The Carpathian mountains are gorgeous, covered in woods. The views are incredible; the photos will probably do it some justice, and I will send them at some point. god, I don't mind this life at all, though appreciating these everyday luxuries is new. Somehow, I was reluctant to touch electronics, but I wanted to get this out. I had a decent idea of what I was getting myself into, but I can do it now, I know. life does us good this way, when the worries are about having bread, or not wanting to leave the tent at night. this sounds cheesy, I am sure, but it is crazy, and I am crazy for it, and it may be the best decision I have so far made. on our walk to Racos one day we saved a man named Atilla, who had an air rifle and binoculars from a diabetic coma by feeidng him vodka out of his bacpack. this is what happens here, things come out of nowhere. we are isolated, and yet we are entrenched. here, they hate gypsies. it is sad how much. it is sad that people have bad experiences with them too -- luggage stolen etc.
national geographic is coming on monday. lamb roast on thursday. being a vegetarian does not work here, so i gave up, for i do not want to go hungry. they say here that I look like a 70's archaeologist in my everyday outfits, and I don't mind. we worry that our conversations are much too inappropriate and silly for Nat. Geo, but will we try to help it? still reading beckett. these woods are home, these trenches are a kind of puzzle. we will turn mountain goats. a few stones are a path. we can cross streams with arm-fulls of firewood. i wonder, sometimes, how the hell did this happen, and it's only been a week.
*
June 11th
I will be on a train tomorrow night that will take me to Brasov. From there, Racos. A 4-5 Gonciar hike through the forest with all our gear, to the campsite, which promises to be wet.
I am going always it seems. This will be a kind of permanence. Five weeks of a very strange kind of stability.
I've met the people who will live there, in this foreign-ness with me. We've already started making jokes about the field director's seeming inconsistency when it comes to our distance from Racos (2 km... then 3 km... now it's between 4 and 5 km, sometimes it's 3 miles...) We've therefore invented a new unit -- a Gonciar, so named after our field director.
Somehow my hands feel small. My clothing is in the washer.
*
June 7th-8th
What kind of poetry do you write? asks coughing guy at my hostel in Budapest one evening. I can't possibly answer that now, can I? Can I? Descriptions are a lie, but one so inadvertent and unavoidable that to relinquish them is nearly, if not entirely, impossible. And in finding labels a sort of puzzle emerges and is solved -- quickly, painlessly, as if the world is to be put together and aside all at once, piece by piece, each word stacking slantwise on top of another -- a makeshift model that is there to stay -- until, of course, it is time to revisit it, replace the former understanding with one so blindingly fresh that it is still impossible to see the roughness and evaluate the odd angles at which it collides with its neighbours that oscillate upon its arrival and sometimes even come entirely undone.
Long ago, everything was for me a form of denial and repetition. Who is to say this has changed. There are such simple pasts at stake, and memory -- the faultiest weapon, the unreliable defence, supports the manufactured versions. How much of our lives is spent in such creations, embalmed in belief and recollection?*
June 5th
Done with Motherless Brooklyn. And on to my second Beckett novel of the journey, Malone Dies. Running out out out, time to buy more books.
*
June 4th
recap: jolly Englishman in Constanta, runs the hostel, free beers, breakfast vodka. [i decline]forty-four Jews
we climbed the minaret; on the walls somewhere as we went up the spiral staircase, in thin, large blue letters CANNABIS.
jellyfish, clear and present, clear and pleasant, peasant. jeff afraid of them, I go on, they touch me twice, no danger. finished Molloy. alloy alley lollipop poop coppola pupil loophole moot loy andrew lloyd weber frank lloyd wright molly comes on Monday, jeff leaves on Monday. one week from tomorrow thirty three days of dirt start. reading a book where the narrator has Tourette's: Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem [borrowing from Jeff]
think I might have an idea of where I want to plant myself once I return
running out of books, maybe the magic mountain will tide me over.
we're in budapest. we'll be going to a bookstore, a synagoge, thermal baths. it's a last hurrah kind of deal.
wilderness is imminent.
June 3rd
Timisoara
*
June 2nd-3rd
Mice injected into a blood stream as medicine. My ability to fill silence. Never knew I had it, a compliment perhaps. What do I fill it with? Neuroses? Calculations of financial instability still to come? Hierarchies that haven't an outside application? Burdensome convictions? Daydreams of a place in *** ****** which I sublet while I camp in the back yard?
The sea was calm today as it had been always. By always I mean during my stay. We will be in Timisoara in the morning. I don't know what to expect exactly. It will be warm. It will be nearer the end.
*
May 28th-29th
Bucharest
Stray dogs, extremely new vehicles of public transportation.
Eastern European absurdity. Old city half-demolished, half-brand-new. I am in the midst of total reconstruction of the grandest scale. The renovations in Moscow even struck me as more subtle, when they went on in my presence, that is.
I
*
May 27th
The interval between Sibiu and Bucharest feels like a subway ride to Brooklyn -- these six hour trains have become customary.
Still life with tractor. Possibly dead dog. Snow-capped mountains in the background, almost blended with the sky, hardly discernable.
*
May 26th
I realize I have been neglecting history. It isn't that I am not learning it; it is that I am waiting for it, still. Pliny on the making of glass. Guns with beautiful wooden handles smooth and ornamented. One room full of tombstones. Here's a name: the lapidarium. Heavy armor not so heavy compared to us. Swords too long to be lifted. Welcome to Transylvania, where it is perfectly safe to step on train tracks.First gunshot fired in 1269. The single musket ball that goes home; the porable cannon. You say cannon now, and I think of the camera, despite the difference in spelling.
Mandatory fear of Bucharest. Sleep schedule... what sleep schedule? Dehydration. hair: better, seems to stay in one place.
*
May 25th
First day in Sibiu. First day I've actually felt lonely. The town itself is a mixture of run down and done up as these places tend to be, I guess. You go places, just walk for a while -- no aim or destination; old women with black kerchiefs.
Power of coincidence -- I started Autonauts of the Cosmoroute on the day their journey starts in the book -- May 23rd, and I didn't realize it at all until today when I saw another date on a page in the book -- May 28th -- an important day for me for at least three reasons. I was going to read it first, too, but The Names suddenly struck me as an utter necessity, and so it all came to be. I feel some manner of divine intervention is at play. My hand hurts somehow, it is getting hard to write. I may need to invent some kind of shorthand if I am to continue a journal. Money as always worrisome. Shoulders have backpack-induced bruises.
Stealing from Cortazar and Dunlop the idea of naming things... stealing from God? My backpack shall forthwith be Julio, my tape recorder -- Fernando, my cameras -- Doris (film) and Carol (digital). My tent will be Shot'a. I'm calling my pocket knife Don.Tim, the Kiwi I met in Cluj, has arrived here in Sibiu. We discuss: slang, Shakespeare, Joyce, jobs, Murakami, WWII, climate, wind vs stillness, economy, nukes, James-the-Texan, teaching, music, geniuses, Russian tsars (a nearly mandatory confusion on all sides with the Alexanders and Nicholases), Savior on Spilled Blood, rural life, the next big war (the last big war?).
I want to get rid of things, memories, magnets that have me pinned like a dumb photo to a refrigerator. In so many ways, I long to dismiss.
Sibiu. Broad daylight, unforgiving, every other building a historic site, placards and all. Cultural capital of Europe... who makes these decisions? Organist rehearsing. Haunted sound. Repeat, repeat, repeat, I record. I could listen for a long time. So many thoughts I begin to recognize as not my own. Goddman group identity. Have I become some auxiliary in a larger machine of oddities? I am hating things, vehemently, from afar. I try to shake off common interest, shared obsessions. Separation of self from self.Unity of vacuum, helplessness that comes with ailment, but the strength that replaces it... is it worth the wait?
Am refusing to turn off the light. Seven empty beds. A noticeable deficiency of protein in my diet, too much bread. Broken sidewalks, an opera based on the life of Emil Cioran -- do all philosophers have lives that translate into librettos? When I finish Autonauts, I will have no more untarnished books. The rest -- Beckett, Mann, Pessoa, Rustaveli -- will bring back other people; I do not want this. I say that about a lot of things.
I could live here. Grapevines, gardening shears, tiled roofs. I could live here, but will I? Will I ever wake up un-surrounded by associations?
*
May 24th
 |
| Ethnographic museum, Cluj Napoca |
A cemetery n the middle of an open field. Fresh graves. An hour later, Alba Iulia; two doves courting on top of a metal railing. One man walking from Germany to Constanta., sending back clothes. My legs, he says, get more tired. I've been walking for fifty days, I write in my journal, I don't know what will happen to it.
Reading Autonauts of the Cosmoroute by Cortazar. Bataille, Artaud, Rimbaud, Mallarmé -- talking to a French couple. She mentions Pynchon, Ellis, Auster, Tugrenyev, Flaubert, Chinese literature. We sigh about Proust. We exchange book recommendations. He plays slide guitar.
*
Yesterday in Turda, walking some kilometers. Salt mines already closed. I start walking back to the city centre, a car stops: two guys in the front, older lady in the back, techno music. The driver seems amused and surprised by my presence. Car ride back to Cluj finds me fighting off a middle-aged man who's had a few. He doesn't speak English or Russian or anything but Romanian and keeps asking how I like Romania while trying to hold my hand or arm or whatever he can reach. It is comic, on one hand, and unsettling on the other.
Yesterday in Turda, walking some kilometers. Salt mines already closed. I start walking back to the city centre, a car stops: two guys in the front, older lady in the back, techno music. The driver seems amused and surprised by my presence. Car ride back to Cluj finds me fighting off a middle-aged man who's had a few. He doesn't speak English or Russian or anything but Romanian and keeps asking how I like Romania while trying to hold my hand or arm or whatever he can reach. It is comic, on one hand, and unsettling on the other.*
Train ride to Sibiu. A Japanese woman gives me some bread and a pastry, we talk for a while. Old man with a bandage on his chest sits across the aisle from me. He gets up every half an hour or so, walks around the train car. He offers me an orange at some point. Bitte, he says. I show him my bag of clementines, smile, he smiles back. I offer him chocolate, he points to his bag. It is odd to have entered the zone of pointing and smiling, laughing and guessing. Eventually, we have a sort of conversation with the aid of my dictionary. He opens his book and shows me pictures of Harry Truman, Henry Kissinger, Jeronimo, Bush -- he says "mason". Then he says something about Jews and finance. The train starts going backwards at Vintu de Jos. I assume that we have to change rails or add more cars. The conductor makes a sort of funny face at me as the train passes him by (he stays on the platform). My hair is falling out.
Train ride to Sibiu. A Japanese woman gives me some bread and a pastry, we talk for a while. Old man with a bandage on his chest sits across the aisle from me. He gets up every half an hour or so, walks around the train car. He offers me an orange at some point. Bitte, he says. I show him my bag of clementines, smile, he smiles back. I offer him chocolate, he points to his bag. It is odd to have entered the zone of pointing and smiling, laughing and guessing. Eventually, we have a sort of conversation with the aid of my dictionary. He opens his book and shows me pictures of Harry Truman, Henry Kissinger, Jeronimo, Bush -- he says "mason". Then he says something about Jews and finance. The train starts going backwards at Vintu de Jos. I assume that we have to change rails or add more cars. The conductor makes a sort of funny face at me as the train passes him by (he stays on the platform). My hair is falling out. *
May 22nd
 |
| Ethnographic museum, Cluj Napoca |
I have finished reading The Names.
*
May 21st
Cluj Napoca. Ethnographic museum. Illegal photographs (it cost five times as much to take pictures as it did to enter... they caught me, in the end... a few pictures scattered throughout the posts) 
*
May 20th/21st
On the agenda: Keleti train station, nothing else. After I fall asleep at 8:30pm mostly because I can't keep my eyes open, and wake up just before midnight, I end up speaking at length to a Canadian of ambiguous gender, who hails from Northwest territories, and whose name I never find out. We then end up talking to the receptionist about Bela Tarr. I stay up all night. The Dutchmen return.
*
On the train to Cluj Napoca.Hungary is a blur, but Transylvania finds me more awake. Stunning lush lanscape, perfectly misshapen haystacks, rock face covered in so much greenery, one can hardly tell it's rock face. My backpack now contains a pair of wet socks, feels more familiar, almost lighter. Hair straightener short circuited. It came to me in a short of sleep sometime during the journey -- I ought to consider leaving New York more seriously.Take a job somewhere -- anywhere almost, and go with it. What job? Don't know, whatever seems to fit. New York feels, right now, so final.The train gets progressively hotter, and by 1pm it is quite uncomfortable. Nothing I can do about that, but grin and bear it. I've eaten a lot of yogurt (3), bread and bananas. One small meal in Cluj should do it for the day. It's nice to know that I will have 3.5 days in one place because in the past 3.5 days I've been in New York, London, Budapest, and on this train -- four countries-- that's at least one too many. Something distinctly Germanic about this area, no surprises there. A big relief came when Romanian became the language of and outside of this train -- I stand a chance at guessing now. Cucută -- hemlock. No reason.
*
May 18th/19th
A late departure, will miss my connection, but nothing I can do. Sitting next to a Ukrainian girl, who thought I was British, so far so good. Where do you live, she asks me. My first response is Manhattan, Harlem, but I correct myself: actually, I say, nowhere, I am effectively homeless. My backpack weighed in at 23.2 kilograms, 51 lbs.
In London due to the delay, taking a flight some 12 hours later than planned. Hotel by Heathrow: Crowne Plaza. I get to my room, start a bath, put on the qawwali tape Adam gave me. The bath feels like the thing to do, and as I sit in the warm water I realize how strangely uncharacteristic, in the best possible way, this bath is. I realize that I am relaxing instead of worrying. Enjoying instead of planning. British Airways gave me a little "overnight" bag of toiletries, and in it is a white tshirt, which I decide to wear, but only after I draw on it. I've only got a black pen, but I doodle for a while. The qawwalis play on. I have a hard time thinking of New York, though I know it is omnipresent in me.The familiarity of having grown apart.
The utter boredom of dwelling on losses. The actions taken. Reading Don DeLillo's The Names. Started twice before, but got interrupted. Threw it into my bag, last minute because of a gut feeling. It fits. It's exactly what I should be reading. That or Beckett, I suppose. Obama speech, live Jerusalem... television screen in the lounge. My body weight in tea. If I write a novel, who would it hurt the most? Maybe this is why I've never been able to write one, this kind of thinking. "Our commitment to Israel's stability is unshakeable." Unrelated characters. Made up, composite personae. Compilations, revivals. Revenants bludgeoning everyone to near death with how petrified everyone is compared to them. A few quiet chants and the work is done, the sequestering of self is finished. I didn't break out into song at any point today, but I wanted to. "Humped crossing".
*
Reminders. They are everywhere, inadvertent baggage. I wanted to leave it all behind, and what do I do? I bring mixtapes that I didn't make. I bring The Magic Mountain. I'm forcing nostalgia as if it didn't have a way already. Robin warned me about this. Still, the autonomy is nice. New. Terrifying. I'll be just fine. Will I be just fine?
Here means this bed in Budapest. Here means it's dark and I can't see what I'm writing. The unavoidable nap in London seems to have screwed things up for me sleepwise. God, it's nice to have nobody else to consider for this while. I am only alone for ten days. Nine even, I've made it through one of them. My muscles hurt. There is a constant reminder that I'm growing stronger. My body is ready, prepared. The pain feels like an accomplishment in a way, something to notice and accept, say "hey, get used to this, it's here to stay". I want to believe, in part, that I am starting over.Loud drunken singing from somewhere down the corridor, rhythmic clapping and stomping. These are quite likely my compatriots. They sound so distant, eerie, they could be anywhere. The only song I recognize out of the slew of pop is, to my dismay, The Scientist by Coldplay. Oy.
I'm thinking now, of a part in Vertigo where Sebald expresses regret at knowing and understanding the language of drunken Tyroleans at his hotel. I usually would feel quite the same. But somehow, not now. I don't mind these guys with a guitar and their distant pop songs. Maybe it's because I am not trying to sleep. Maybe it's kind of funny. I go to the courtyard area where I find an employee and a fellow guest who tell me that the singers were actually Dutch, and apparently there are forty of them.
*
5/18/2011
And off I go!
5/15/2011
My Romanian train tickets have a rather peculiar rule that states that
"CFR online tickets do NOT allow the postponement, anticipation or trip interruption."
I guess I should stop anticipating.
*
5/10/2011
for now, this goes here:
May 19th: Land in Budapest
May 21st: Train to Cluj-Napoca
May 24th: Train to Sibiu
May 27th: Train to Bucharest
May 30th: Train to Constanţa
June 2nd: Trains to Timișoara
June 4th: Train back to Budapest
June 11th: Train to Brașov (overnight)
June 12th-July 16th: Archaeological excavation near Racoş, Brașov county.
July 16th: Train to Budapest (overnight), then flight to London, layover and...
July 18th: Back in New York City
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