Osaka underground

"Do you know all the words in English?'
I was in the Indian Consulate to pick up my visa. There was a woman there, vacuuming the carpet in the lobby. This was how she started the conversation.
'Um, no. I probably know less than half."
She wrinkled her nose and walked into the hall. I too went out, heading to the elevators. When I got on, she was already there.
She didn't look Indian per-se, and I was sure she wasn't Japanese. "Where are you from?" I asked.
"Tibet'
"Ah--"
On the first floor she told me, "I have to the hoist the flag every morning and now I have to... What's the opposite word of hoist?"
"Take down?" Slight uncertainty in my intonation.
"Oh. That's easy. Do you know the word "Uber?"
"Yeah, it means, like, super. But it's German"
"What about tet-a-tet? "
"That's French. It means face to face."
"And gesundheit?"
"That's German. It means--"
"Bless you," we say in harmony.
She told me, "There was an American guy yesterday who didn't know most of these words."
"I read alot I guess."
She moved outside toward the Indian flag hanging near the corner of the building. "It was nice talking to you today. I'm Padmo."
"Ted. Good talking to you Padmo." I bring my hands to namaste, and move along the sidewalk.

My steps take me to the other end of the Indian subcontinent to a small Sri Lankan restaurant. I'd found it last Friday before the Kodo show. The owner, knowing I teach yoga in the Kyo, was surprised to see me again . He had made me a veggie curry without my asking, and seemed a little amused when I ordered beer. I ate to the songs of Billie Holliday on the speakers. He asked me a little about my visit to his country two years ago. He told me that it wasn't very safe now.

I have to hurry a little to make it back to the Kyo on time for my taiko lesson. The subway isn't crowded yet. I have to stand but I have room to read. When I hit Umeda, I pick up the pace, turning it into mindfulness training by attempting to walk in straight lines without yielding or changing my pace. At one point I decide to look past the backs of the people immediately in front of me and focus instead on the middle distance. After a few seconds of this, something feels strange. I assume it's because this isn't the usual way that one negotiates crowds, and that my eyes are rebelling. Then I realize where I am. A decade ago, CLo and I came to this place, in the depths of the subway terminal. It is essentially a huge open space, broken up by tall, white, almost Roman pillars. In our universe, there are an infinite number of points and an infinite number of lines intersecting them. What had so amazed CLo and I was that people seemed to be moving along every possible line of motion. It is a sight so seemingly impossible that it brought out laughter, then as now. A visual koan. So despite the chances of my being late, I stop and watch and marvel. It isn't everyday that the universe takes off her clothes.



On the turntable: Poe, "Haunted"
On the nighttable: Haruki Murakami, "Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman"