Not appropriate honeymoon fare

We've been in Cochin (Kochi) since the evening of 15 Mar. That morning, we didn't put enough pep in our step before discovering the last morning bus to Munnar was leaving about an hour earlier than we were prepared to board it. So, we weighed our options (stay in Kumily or leave) and decided to skip town for Kochi. This way, we're done with all our long distance bussing and can dawdle around here until departure.

Kochi is at the northern tip of a peninsula, like San Francisco. It's a rather quiet, tourist centric burg, for having been the center of the Malabar coast spice trade and pursuant duelling empire drama for much of the last five centuries. Its position at the inlet of a bay made it suitable for a fort in those days. But Ernakulam, the Oakland to its SF, and more directly accessible from the spice, rubber, and coconut plantations, has taken over its business responsibilities. And much of the shipping is loaded and unloaded from Willingdon Island, built like Treasure Island on landfill dredged up from the bay around it. So, it's a little like stepping into an alternate universe, wherein, among other differences, the ferry across the bay only costs five cents.

We'd called ahead from Mickey's Cottage to Alice's friend, Sheeba, at Greenwoods Bethlehem Homestay. She said she had a room open, but only a small one. Turns out, on the roof of their three story home, they've built a thatch-roofed pavilion; and within that, they've built a row of thatch bedrooms, with a thatch WC at the end. Looking out from our thatch "hut", the view was almost entirely of surrounding treetops and birds, as though this place were a jungle -- and it's a pretty dense little residential area, so that was cool. But less cool was that the walls were as thick as a sheet of woven palm leaves (oh, that reminds me: we bussed down from Kumily on Palm Sunday and passed a lot of families walking home from church brandishing palm leaves). Also, we'd had about all we needed on this honeymoon of non-en suite bathrooms in Kumily. So, although Sheeba and her husband Ashley seemed like exactly the friendly hosts we'd like to spend a week in Kochi with, we had to move. They're very busy there, even now in the "off" season. Apparently, they have a good write-up in the Lonely Planet South India guide, but as Sheeba pointed out, "there are over 300 homestays in Kochi". So, we decided to find ourselves a more honeymoon-suitable abode.

And so we've moved into Leelu Roy's homestay, a little closer to the travelers' action center of Fort Cochin proper. She reminds me a little, maybe, of my mental picture of Mama Celeste -- a big, opinionated Italian woman who likes to cook. She teaches a nightly cooking class, anyway, which always seems to be full. We're taking it tonight, so we'll see how dinner goes with Mama Leelu. Anyway, we're happy to wind up our days in India upstairs from her.

Despite the comforts of our new home, we both had trouble sleeping the night before last. Deb thinks it might've had to do with the few sips of Coke she had in the afternoon. Maybe she's right for the both of us: I drank the rest of the bottle, but I haven't ever noticed caffeine having too pronounced an effect on me. Also, I went to sleep pretty quickly when we turned in, around 10. It was only when I woke up around 2 that I thought I might be up for the night. My mind was whirring through the run of the mill set of frets: love, money, growing old. Maybe it was kicked in by the creeping awareness of the impending end of our vacation. Prob'ly a little by flipping through nbsigns gmail the night before, and looking at checking account balances. Not appropriate honeymoon fare.

I'm not especially worrisome about love of late, but on the busride down from Kumily, Deb and I split up the iPod headphones and shared a listen to the Valentine's Day episode of This American Life. They spent the hour with couples who'd been together for many years, investigating the qualities of love long, long past its "falling in" date. The first story was from Richard Bausch, about a man on his 70th birthday, whose 45+ year marriage had lately become argumentative, testy, distant. He tries to grasp (and explain and assert) that the memories of the early highs of love are worth everything that ensues; that had he been given foreknowledge of the antipathy he and his wife are in now, he still would have chosen the whole package. So, in the middle of our first night at Leelu's, I began imagining a future of antipathy with Deb. Not a recipe for sound sleep. And absolutely, not appropriate honeymoon fare!

The antidote to this line of thinking wasn't making itself apparent in the shadows cast by the moon across the spinning ceiling fan blades. I suppose now it's to be present in the present with the comfort and security and passion that we have, as much as I can. That awareness certainly isn't permanently "on", but it's not likely to ever be more frequently on than it is right now. So, dig it, brother. Richard Bausch seems to suggest that being mindful of this, here, now, is going to make our later troubles worth it.

But as I say, I opted on this night for worry.

I noticed on a couple of occasions I was lying on my left side, unusual in its novelty. Not only haven't I been lying on my left side for the past couple of months while my broken arm's been in a brace; I haven't been laying on that side much for... well, since spring of '06, when I came back from an afternoon of surfing with some pain in my shoulder that I never got diagnosed, but which never really went away; at least not until I broke my wrists and stopped noticing it. Now, lying on my left side, I notice I'm not completely comfortable per se, but I think I can sleep there: in fact, I think I did eventually fall asleep there. I mean, my upper arm is in its brace, which has to be placed just right if it's gonna tolerate me laying on it. And the outside of my forearm is a little sensitive and/or numb (I can't tell!) due to radial nerve damage from the humerus fracture, ha ha. Maybe that'll have some bearing on how aware I am of the screws and plate in that wrist in years to come. And that's how I started thinking: if I just keep breaking things, it'll help diminish the pain of older things broken. And thus shall I age... NOT APPROPRIATE HONEYMOON FARE!

We took the ferry to Ernakulam earlier that day and visited a tailor, to have a suit made. Alice and Thomas had recommended this place, Raymond's, on Marine Drive. I was anticipating an odd experience. It turned out to be less exotic for being in India than for being a trip to a tailor to have a suit made.

Deb and I talked out in advance how much I was willing to spend on a suit. It's a tough proposition. I've got two suits I'm happy with. One, that fits me perfectly (I think), I bought at a vintage store on Haight Street for $40. But it's a sharkskin, and therefore not suitable for more dour or professional occasions. The other suit, a charcoal pinstripe wool 3-piece by Saks, I bought at Goodwill for $15. A few sizes too large, it sat in a pile in a bedroom corner for a couple years before I had need of it. I think it was Amber and Colin's wedding. Nothing dour or professional, but as I recall close enough to some other besuited occasion at which there was sufficient crowd overlap to warrant a change of suit. So, I took it to the Chinese lady on Mission at 18th, with my sharkskin over the other arm, and said "Make that suit the same size as this suit." And she did, for $70. So, two used suits that fit well and look good, for $125. What's a new one worth?

Nothing, if it's not what I want. The key item for me to bear in mind during the process was to be clear I was getting what I wanted, in every detail. I know I'm prone to compromise, and to diminish the value of my wishes. So, I had to struggle to remain assured that the points on which I was willing to compromise weren't worthy of defending, and vice versa. And frankly, there are a lot of things I'm not sure about in a suit. Like, I was pretty sure I wanted it double breasted, but then part of me was also leaning toward 1964 Hard Day's Night. I let Deb talk me out of double breasted, and I dropped the Beatles look, too, because both are a little too uncommon, and I'm already treading unstable ground for me. I want something that looks good and right for suity things. Not too attention grabbing.

And blah, blah, ble-argh -- I'm boring myself to tears with suit talk. Three button, side slits, flat front, wool/poly blend, brace buttons, no belt loops, pocket flaps, lapel notches, boutonniere hole, extra pockets here, here, and here -- it all got worked out. But not before they had me try a dozen off the rack suits; and Henry, the Scot who we'd met in Alleppey, came in to influence what I want with what he wants (linen!); and I very nearly settled for less; and ultimately: I got something that might be too flashy -- I can't tell anymore. I'm bored with it. What was my point?

Walking back to the ferry from Raymond's after my big purchase, I was a little more cognizant of people asking for handouts. There aren't many, although maybe more per square mile in Ernakulam than in other places we've been. It's a bigger city. Still, less than in SF. Nonetheless, the poverty and disfigurement is often more dire, or at least apparent. And I began to wonder that night, what a suit is worth on a global economic scale. I'd just established its value to me. I didn't even try haggling (I'm no good at it anyway) when they told me my suit would cost Rs 7613. Rs 2500 is for labor, the rest is fabric. I met Stanley, the man who would be sewing it. I don't know how little of the Rs 2500 is his in the end. I know Rs 2500 is not much less than I paid the Chinese lady to alter my suit a couple years ago. She was the boss there, and her seamstress was very appreciative of the $10 tip I gave her (which reminds me: I've got to have a decent tip on hand for Stanley when I go try it on -- it's a very tip-centric economy here). I'm sure the boss at Raymond's must haggle much harder for the fabric when he buys it, than I did for the suit. So, somewhere, Mr. Raymond is tipping his chauffeur with the profit he made on the fabric for my suit, maybe even buying his family dinner as well. And Stanley may put a little extra in the plate on Good Friday, time off for which he took into account in determining whether or not he could get the suit to me before our flight out. How much further down does the suit money trickle? Indeed, even had I bought a suit at Nordstrom's, in SF, instead, some portion of that money might tickle the palm of a rickshaw wallah somewhere on the subcontinent before it's through.

The day we left SF, we stopped at Get Lost travel store so Deb could get a small bag to carry valuables. Looking at their book collection, I decided on a whim to pick up Mike Davis' Planet of Slums. NOT APPROPRIATE HONEYMOON FARE! I've been slogging through its litany of horrors and bleak prognoses for the future of city life for billions and billions of us. We haven't been anywhere near a slum, or even a sizable city on this trip. Yet, when I see how tenuously the infrastructures for water, electricity, waste management, and transit hang together in these more rural areas, five years into a regional economic surge, amidst a much longer national boom, and without any of the pressures of overpopulation, it's all too obvious how it plays out in a "maximum city" like Mumbai, or in Bangalore, and in cities all over south Asia, east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and so on.

It's enough to keep one up at night. So, I've decided not to read it anymore, for the remainder of the holiday. I'll stick to the other book I brought along and have been neglecting: Norman Fischer's Opening to You: Zen Inspired Translations of the Psalms. Parts of it read like Rumi's love poems, or like the readings we included in the wedding. Much more appropriate honeymoon fare.