To Prayer Came In

Everyone has insisted we do nothing today.  OK.  It’s been billed as a do-nothing time.  It takes discipline to do nothing.  It’s a new place.  There is much to see.  I could introduce everyone to the fabled bluff on the other side of the volcano.  But that was not the idea.  Rather, relax and do nothing.  Vacation, my wife says.  Not “travel.”

Last evening the call to prayer came in softly.  It blended effortlessly with its surroundings.  The mosque wasn’t far.  The tone was not distorted.  The voice did not startle any birds to fight or abruptly end all other conversations.  Rather, like the tropical rain that is constant when it falls and then suddenly disappears, the time, now anointed as devotional, seemed fittingly so.  Presumably the second most important factor in all this is the voice of the singer.  If the person has style they can sing something compelling without the distorted amplification.  This guy knew how to trill a Phrygian mode. Paramount surely, remains the ears and the heart of the recipient. 

There’s an air of resolution to things as New Year’s approaches.  It doesn’t matter that it’s late in the day.  Let’s be off to the gym.  It’s just across from the lobby.  No one is there.  My daughters and I have the place to ourselves, which is merciful.  The space is small but functional.  I have done inclined sit ups with weights each day here and each and every single one feels harder than it should.  This machine over in the corner can be manipulated in one hundred ways.  I stop and consider a few routines that have me twisting and pulling.

Later we go next door.  The store there has its light on.  We need some things.  But the sign says “closed.”  The guard tells me: “Just a minute.  I’ll get her.”  We wait.  It starts to rain and we are looking at the make-believe torch they have in the entrance to the hotel.  How does it stay lit in the deluge?  My little one wonders.  No one is coming.  I inquire again.  And . . . again.  Finally, a young lady runs up through the rain and soon we are buying instant noodles and tonic water. 

Saturday, 12/30/17