Christmas Eve

It's 10 a.m. Christmas Eve, and I'm at my office. I finished the letters of recommendation, threw away the mouldy banana that's been staring at me for a week, and am ready to go home and start the holiday season with my family. Jennie arrived on Monday, Jamie arrived a week ago Sunday. Tomorrow we start an 8-day holiday tour to Bagan, Inle Lake, and Ngwe Saung Beach.

Jamie brought with her a virus from Beijing. It's not a supervirus, I believe, but still plenty strong--Robin if not Batman. Jamie was suffering, but I was the one who got knocked to the ground, as the virus symptoms turned into an upper respiratory infection. The SOS clinic here is good--a fine French doctor who believes in mitigating the symptoms, not just the cause, and who says that a _little_ wine with my antibiotics is probably ok. I'm on day 4 of Augmentin, and still battling, though every day is a little less bad than the one before. Enough of that. . . I sound like I"m 50, which in fact I may be.

Yesterday we went to the main pagoda here, which is a national symbol. I see it constantly from my apartment window. I'd been saving the visit for the holidays, and was glad I did. It should be the last pagoda one visits. I can't write about it now--I need more than adjectives for this.

Jamie has made the decision to teach here full-time in the spring term. Students will quickly discover that she is a much better teacher than I am--smarter, prettier, warmer--and that should take some of the pressure off of me. She needs to teach in order to replenish the research account, meaning that she'll be able to return to China, or go to Tanzania, for the second half of the summer.

Jamie and Jennie will go to the monastery this afternoon--I'll probably stay home, as I don't want to risk infecting the monks--and tonight we'll eat at a nice little restaurant called Monsoon for Christmas Eve dinner. Jamie bought a little Yellow Palm for my balcony--we'll decorate it, open presents, have a glass of wine, and turn in early for our 7 a.m. flight tomorrow.

I'm not sure what religion we all are anymore. But I believe that if you wanted to assemble a new World Religion--one with genuine spirituality, compassion, awe and piety, a commitment to human well-being both on earth and in the hereafter--you could pick up all the components right here. That's not how religion works, of course, so in the meantime we'll be like the blind men and the elephant--to me a rope, to you a tree trunk, depending on what part of the elephant we touch. So here's to the Elephant. And here's to how it reveals itself to each of us, right where we are. And here's to you and to me, the blind.

Merry Christmas.