By good fortune I met Glenn Forbes Miller, poet and author, at Markham Ontario’s 16th Annual Art in the Park. While meandering the Markham Museum grounds in sweltering July heat I chatted with wilting artists, sculptors, artisans and jewellery crafters.
Dreaming Kathmandu by Glenn Forbes Miller
Markham resident, Glenn Forbes Miller, tended a remarkable collection of photographs taken by his son, Andrew, on a family vacation in Nepal. Glenn and his wife, Graz, had planned a 200-mile trekking adventure in Nepal in 2008. Their adult children, Andrew and Megan, who’d lived apart from them due to work and schooling, joined their parents for a once-in-a-lifetime trek through the rugged Himalayas at high altitude.
I admired the images of Nepal’s people, scenery and culture, and enjoyed talking to Miller about his writing process. As an emerging writer myself, with an interest in other writers’ first books, I bought Dreaming Kathmandu.
When you least expect it a gem falls into your hands. Miller, a retired English teacher, tells an honest story of family conflict that arises from familial confinement and generational differences. But when the wrangling ends, as it must for the trip to progress, Miller’s language flows as deeply and musically as the Marsyangdi River they follow for the first ten days of their journey from the gates of Kathmandu to the river’s glacial source, Manang.
Miller’s reflections on the elusive quality of memory resonates with all memoir-writers.
“Only the present moment has substance, ephemeral though it be. All the rest, the remembered stuff, is but a dream of what once was, a dream of our pasts that floats in mist-like oblivion, where time can blur and shift, and places can melt into one another; where memories become altered, overstated or understated, conflated, redacted, and massaged into a spin that we believe to be the story of our lives; and that story, like dreams, can be recalled only in the barest outline, if we can remember the story at all.”
Nepal shunned the world beyond her borders until the 1950s. Primitive (medieval) conditions were the norm in the remote country bounded by isolating mountains. Miller and his wife are at times disappointed but forgiving of the challenging rustic charms facing them: poor sanitation, limited food selections, lack of electricity, cramped sleeping arrangements on cots and weariness from lack of sleep at high altitudes. Conflicts arise when their worldly and healthy adult children complain about the food, the crudeness of the overnight facilities, and lack of modernity. In the end, they manage to overcome pettiness and impatience to plod one foot ahead of the other to their shared goal. Celebrating their triumph, in the company of their Sherpa guides, is what they will remember for a lifetime.
As a photographer Andrew’s photos (which appear in the book) capture the family’s interactions with the Nepalese people, the snow-capped mountain scenery, the villages tucked into ledges, and the dependable Sherpa guides. And Miller, The Diarist, sets himself apart to journal the details that bring the story alive: chance encounters with the native Nepalese and their costume and customs, overcrowded dining halls filled with exhausted trekkers, temples, prayer bells and pennants, belligerent tourists, and the bond between his family and the Sherpa guides, Dorjee, Thorang and Motee. Graz and Megan, alternating between athleticism and stoicism, altitude sickness, fear and flu, keep up with the men and at times supersede them.
Excerpt (first person):
“Morning on the hotel terrace. I shield my eyes and watch the sun blaze over the opposite hill and into the valley. Its glare fans into a flaring aureole; light streaks into the hollows onto a family of four scrawk-ing crows winging across the canopy of deciduous trees. From early morning fires, woodsmoke drifts over the valley floor like wisps of fog. The forest floor thins up the slope onto the green grasses on the west hill, slopes dotted with stone homes and rice-green terraces. On the lip of the garden terrace below my feet, silhouetted in the sun, broadleaf banana leaves are suffused in a luminous green. At Bahundanda, on the lip of the Mountain View Hotel terrace, light etches and space blooms.”
Altitude sickness is a genuine concern for trekkers over 8,000 feet, and the family planned to reach heights of 15,000 feet. Decreasing oxygen molecules in the bloodstream increase the breathing rate. Ill temper, headaches, nausea and dizziness can follow oxygen depletion, and differs by degrees for everyone. Andrew was most affected by the heights. Graz was most fearful of the rock slides. Megan had symptoms of flu, and Miller attempted to fulfill their dreams according to health, budget and schedule.
Excerpt (third person):
“Crossing the frozen, rutted road, he hunches his shoulders against the cold, his journal clamped under his arm. The pleasant bite of the tenters’ camp smoke slurs into memory: his grandmother’s wood-burning stove and the thick-creamed porridge that she gave him for breakfast dotted with blueberries picked from the side of the farmhouse; the ripping whine of the bucksaw and the fresh-cut smell of the stacked winter wood; the heat from the grey stovepiping overhead running from the stove through to the parlour with its burnt reek of brass ashtray stands; then his Nana’s gentle voice calling him, “Son, go tell the old fella to quit rakin’ his leaves and c’min for his tea.” This olfactory olla podrida of memories has slowed his walking, and he stops, wanting more, but self-consciousness had dispelled the stew — the memories are gone … gone with their revenants.”
Like me, you might need a dictionary handy. Miller is foremost a poet. He loves language and effectively melds beautiful English words into his prose.
Here’s a sampling:
erumpent, petard, lambent, candent, tintinnabulation, fulgent, ratiocination, figurant, cavil, intaglio and intagliated, provender, belletristic, cyanotic, carbuncular, wimples, solipsistic, glaucous, gibbous, similacrums, couloirs, laving, unnictitating, declivity, lutescent, swart, deliquescing, revenants, contrapuntally, clatterynge.
Together, the words look and sound archaic, but a gentle sprinkling in the right places is Miller’s talent. And perhaps when describing a culture such as the one experienced by his family in Nepal, one would be tempted to dig deeper into the word bag to anchor the images with the ancient, where much of Nepal continues to thrive.
Dreaming Kathmandu by Glenn Forbes Miller (2010)
About the Author
Glenn Forbes Miller is a retired high school English teacher but keeps his hand in by supply teaching for the Toronto Board of Education. His wife, Graz, is a retired high school biology teacher. Trekking and travelling are high on their priority list. In addition to their trek in Nepal, they have walked the famous
El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route across northern Spain; they have visited Athens and a number of Greek Islands and, in the same trip, Turkey; they have been to
Macchu Picchu in Peru and to the Amazon River; and they toured Morocco and surrounding areas in 2010.The author enjoys reading ancient history and writing poetry; and is into photography and outdoor sports.
Published by General Store Publishing
Writers’ Community of Simcoe Region has an inaugural meeting, September 25, and Writers’ Community of York Region, October 2. The launch committees worked for months with WCDR members to organize and present meaningful programs for sharing writing information and encouragement. The missing ingredient at this stage is your support of the event and hopefully your membership.
MARY E. MCINTYRE'S FORTHCOMING BOOK:
