The Lazy Cherub Enigma: Robin Williams comes to Xiahe

Wednesday 13 August 2014

Robin Williams comes to Xiahe

Robin Williams died and we are in Xiahe. Somehow these two inexplicable events are intertwined and now begins the process of untangling them. Where do I begin? This place – this place that is second only to Lhasa in its holiness. This man – this man who made laughing and joy holy. This loss – this loss of cultural identity paved and disrupted by forces it cannot stop. This death – this death because identity is hard to live up to when it never really is yours to own.

Labrang Monastery looms large in this town. 3000 meters in the mountainous grasslands it drapes the valley like a well-worn camel blanket. We pay 40 Yuan for a tour from the only monk who speaks English. He lives up to his Trip Advisor reputation which, is to say, he is not the most welcoming of souls. He would prefer this place remain holy and his. We come to take that from him. Robin – did we take too much from you? God knows, we expected a lot. We expected the monk to regale us with monastic tales of days gone by and share secrets of divine inspiration. He yells at us instead. “WHY ARE YOU HERE?!?! A young French man in our group replies, “We paid you to take us on a tour. You should answer our questions.” “GO ASK THE DALAI LAMA!!” bellows the monk. We paid you Robin to entertain us with your humor and humility. Should you have stayed because you owed us? Ken snaps a photo of the monk while he rests. Furious, he lunges at him and begins to tear the camera from his hand. “STOP TAKING PHOTOS!! STOP TAKING PHOTOS!!” Ken deletes the image but the damage is done. “It’s gone.” Ken replies, “See – it’s gone.” The altercation becomes more aggressive and physical. Did the paparazzi get to you too Robin? Your image never your own anymore? I try to get between the monk and Ken. His rage frightens me. A Belgian family tries to calm him down while shielding their children. Ken apologizes. “THERE IS NO SORRY!” screams the monk, “YOU KILL SOMEONE AND THEN YOU ARE SORRY?!?! ALL YOU WESTERNERS CARE ABOUT IS MONEY!!” Here is where it is easy. Easy to say the monk is crazy. He is irrational. He is inappropriate. Here is where it is hard – where it becomes something more than just yourself. Here is where you realize we all have demons and we all fight them. Here is where it is easy to love someone when they make you laugh. Here is where it is hard to love them when they speak their truth because truth cuts like a knife. And a knife makes you bleed.

Later that day I walk the three-kilometer Kora spinning prayer wheels until my arm ached. So many to spin. Some the size of mason jars others as big as cars. Size not correlating to ease of movement. The smallest things are often the hardest to change. Momentum is funny that way. I grab hold of a wheel that dwarfs me and begin to spin. Each rotation counted off by a chime. I spin faster. Ding. Ding. Ding. I hang on and careen into oblivion. In that moment, nothing weighs me down. I am the wing to the prayer. All too soon the spinning stops – the momentum lost. Were you tired of spinning Robin? Tired of keeping up the momentum of humor and kindness we needed you to keep? The prayer wheel stops. There are no more chimes. I walk away and someone else comes to begin the revolution anew. But your wheel stopped spinning Robin. You got tired. We failed to help you keep the revolutions going. We were too distracted by your chimes.

Robin Williams died and we are in Xiahe. I am untangling the threads. It’s time to weave a new tapestry.