Choices

I just extended a hand of friendship. Now I learn to detach.

Home and family are becoming a state of love after one has traveled far away from the physical and created ties in places unimaginable. My sister cracked me up today. She always does. I tell her time and again she ought to write a book. We were discussing a certain essay someone decided to write on a ridiculous topic based on “self confusion.”(1) She said to me that if I were ever to have a friend in this state of delirium, I should remember, in her very words that “Some people come into our lives and leave, so make room for those who will take us to a better level. You are like a tree; the delirious one is a leaf whom the wind will blow away. But I am firm, am the root your sister who is going nowhere.” 
 

My Paris friend called today, she is a delight. We talked of men. Rumpus believes that, “we're often reflected in our friends and especially our partners. I'm not sure you can really know yourself without that reflection. it can take months to learn something about yourself a stranger can notice in an instant.”  I like to think this is true. I have learned so much about me by relating with my friends. Another friend has this statement on his signature email, "Our choices,We make them then they turn around and make Us. Choose wisely." If I have said nothing else today, this says everything I am working at. Everyday I am more aware of the choices I make, they do turn around and make us in the end.

Ref. note: (1) A state of mind - usually a very unattractive state of mind which is in essence a delusion that one believes they know for sure who they are and refuses to learn anything else about themselves.  A general and or simple description can be a conscious decision one makes to be confused – am certain this is how my dad would describe it.

Just another opinion

When I was in grad school I looked forward to the weekends, now am out I look forward to weekdays because it is when I get to hear about job applications. Both of us are so wound up with writing job applications. It’s practically done our heads in. I want my own space so I retreat; I even started walking around the house wearing ear plugs, because I need to listen to myself. She is crying sometimes and wondering why the A man is acting the way he is. She talks of moving to City T, thinking she will get a job faster if she can get to speak with people. I doubt it. Everything seems to be done over email these days. So much for the computer age.

There is something to be said of confessions, last week I came to the realization that I really do want to meet someone who is as passionate about me as I he. I also want to have children together NOT alone. I thought once that I could adopt a child, yet now I know I do not want to do this. I am of the belief that children need the experience of growing up in a household headed by the two different sexes on earth. Now you’ll probably start calling me homophobic. I can’t for the life of me, stand terms like this. You probably already know how much I hate boxed terms. Why can’t people just have opinions and go with or leave behind. Everyone should for the sake of their own mind be allowed to have an opinion. I do not see why Obama supporting gay marriage matters at all. If he had said otherwise y’all would have been bitching about him. I think people should have opinions based on their beliefs and values rather than us expecting them to think the way we do. Remember it is a democracy. Why can’t voting just be enough? Thing is I can only speak what I know, I will never claim to understand anything I do not really know about so I hope that I can have children and give them the life and love I had growing up. 

Soul Mate

Sculpti. I told you about him a couple of weeks ago. We played guitar together for a few minutes. He said he was awe struck by the African rhythms I played. Today he sent me a message in the worst way, ‘I need you. You will save my soul if you come down to Ville tomorrow to try out a new guitar I have finished making.’ He makes the most beautiful and strong guitars from bare hands, I daresay. And I like a man who uses his hands. Maybe he has made a special one for me. Maybe he thinks I fell in love with him. It was only a moment. He taught me some country tunes; I taught him some African tunes. We connected. Not the lock and key kind. More like the connection Coelho talks about in Brida. He could be a soul mate – a mutation of our original soul.

So here I am sitting on a rocking chair in a corner at the end of the stair case with my legs up on a table that is home to a big bushy plant with romance slowly dying on me. I just sent off a job application for the job I am going to have for the next two years at least. You wonder why I am this certain. Well my name looks good by the position title. Am sure y’all will enjoy my daily rants while in New York. It’s going to be exciting living there. I want you to be as excited as I am because we are sort of in this together.

Yesterday, we hang out at the Veterans pub in the creepy little town where most people that die either kill each other or commit suicide. A friend came down from Canada to play Bagpipes at a funeral. This was a natural death occurrence, presumably a first. The culprit was a World War II veteran. Our friend wore a kilt and played. He looked good. We listened. Standing outside the church under an umbrella watching from a distance while the family got handed over the flag and the twenty one gun salute was made. I know several other people whose funerals will go like this. I do not want to have a church service funeral. I want to be cremated. Get done with this earthly body. I am not particularly interested in having any remains on earth. I want my family to take a trip to the Indian Ocean and scatter my ashes there and then have a day and night of partying – where everyone should eat as much chocolate as they can. This will be a memorial. I want people to make happy in memory of me.

Arabic...Nike's...Eye candy & an ex...

Arabic is the language of love and poetry. I am not sure there is any other language that makes poetry this beautiful – and I know only a little of it. “la la lala, bas el sa… lei….wahash…eh la kulu… lei fey kulu, mel mel biti…keda mosh sahl…” and it goes. I intentionally left out the ‘habibi’ part. This is why I have said over and over again that I am going to learn Arabic until it’s the language of my soul. Not to mention I have an Arab lover, he does not know this yet but he will find out soon enough that I am the one he has been waiting for. Sometimes I think he shut me out because once when I was harassed in Egypt I told the world on Facebook, before I could determine who could and could not see my postings that I hated Arab men. Do I sound like a stalker? Please do not answer.

This afternoon I am positioned as a writer sitting on a high bar like chair in the kitchen overlooking lentil fields and listening to Arabic music. I had weird dreams last night that I was sitting for a high school exam. Twice now I have had the same dream. Either I am getting prepared for a test or there is some kind of transformation coming up. I can’t really interpret dreams, yet I think this one has some significance to it. He just asked me where my second trainer was. I left my sneakers at the kitchen door adjoining the garage. He thinks the wind blew it when it blew open the door. I can’t see it across the fields or the yard. He thinks we should check at the next farm, because while he was fixing the Volvo head light for our trip tomorrow he left the garage outward door open and the dogs from the farm across could have taken it. We leave tomorrow at exactly 11:15am. 

Last week at 11:45am there was a sizzling border guard who seemed sweet on me at the border. So we have decided that whenever we have to go to Canada we will leave when he is at his shift. This is what it has come to. Even if nothing happens with him, this will be enough eye candy. I decided to start heading across the other farm on foot, he came driving towards me and said he had found it at the next farm. It was right by the door. Why or why do dogs think this is funny? These are the best sneakers I have had in my life! They are grey and pink and are Nike’s! Even though they cost about $100 dollars I was only given them as a gift. I have already spent an hour trying to understand the mind of a dog. Why steal a shoe and take it to your home and leave it outside the front door? If you are stealing anything go hide it. And then there were shoes right at the front door belonging to him and yet they still went for mine that were in the garage! My sense is that they came looking for the English mastiff we put to sleep and because she is nowhere to be found, they probably think the person with the new smell must have something to do with her whereabouts.

You know how therapists think that when you finally start raising your voice as opposed to being polite there is hope for a relationship. Well, I just raised my voice in an email to my ex who clearly has some kind of moral or mental problem: is there a difference? And even I know this is the end, or it was a long time. I am so fed up of being polite and going around in circles. When I listen to Amr Diab singing ‘B2adem 2lby’ I honestly feel like I am making love and when I listen to Wust-el Balad singing, ‘Arabily’ I think of the main singer’s eyes. I used to hang out with him and his friends at a little coffee shop on Falaki Street in Cairo. I tried having a crush on him but I kept remembering that he was married. 

Two Deaths

We just got back from putting the dog away in a big hole that he dug. She is gone. Coelho says about death – it is God’s way of teaching us about life. I thought I would go be with her while the vet put her down, I changed my mind. When she came back covered in a blue sheet, I could not look at her. I helped carrying her out of the car into the hole under her favorite tree on the farm. We laid her mattress in the hole and buried her with her favorite toy. We cried and prayed. We drove back the same way we went, two She’s’ and I in the back of the truck. I cleaned the house; we ate turkey and watched golf as we talked about her. She will be missed. I broke down after we put her in and walked away to sit by the truck. Away from her grave I talked with the dog. I said sorry to her. Sorry that I could not do a thing for her pain save give her meds. Sorry that I did not pet her because she was such a drool-er and I hated to get the drool on me. Sorry that we had to put her to sleep without asking her opinion. The one thing I learn as I grow older is that I do not want anyone to see me cry. There is something about crying that is intimate, it’s almost as if I am speaking with myself and me is answering in tears. Whenever I have cried and someone came to me, the crying ceased. I and I stop sharing the moment. Today I know to cry away from any intrusions. Sorry this is about the dog. So she’s gone. I am washing all her sheets. I wonder what’ll happen to her stuff.

So my roommate broke up with her boyfriend a few minutes ago. She came down stairs sniffing. I stopped giving she-who must be obeyed a pedicure and comforted roomie; which involved calling the now ex- a hole and joining everyone in judging him on his dodgy excuse for ending the relationship. I see his point of view and yet I also do not see it. But what does it matter they have broken up and nothing I say or analyze here will make a difference. Someone said, ‘what a day it has been. Too many deaths.’ I think it’s just life happening for us to move on to the next stage. Now it’s clear this is not where she needs to spend much time anymore. She has always wanted to go to Toronto. She will go and I will head down south to North Carolina. Maybe even New York when a job comes through. It’s almost midnight and am hungry again. I must be ovulating; I want a friend who can go down with me to the kitchen and eat all the food there is to quench this hormonal craving. She came with me. I just had turkey and a diet 7up. I miss my parents. Sometimes I honestly believe that they are the only consistent love affair in my life. So my face is evidence of my encounter with chocolate this past week. I hate the pimples but love the chocolate. It does things to me nothing else does. Ida recommended the movie ‘nine and half weeks’. It frightened me at the same time made me smile. It’s a sick movie. A horrific- romance tale of two people with insatiable desires, and I daresay pretty dim-witted. Now that I think of it, am sure most people are insatiable, culture does the taming. I told her I had two dates this past week; she refuses to accept and says, a group date is no date. I enjoy being with him in other peoples company.

It’s raining. I love rain. There were so many Wild Deer walking around the farm today. I wrote two emails, happy ones. I only do happy these days. We were reading Coelho’s quotes as we drove down yesterday and one of them said, ‘there is no sin in being happy.’ I used to think it was cool and romantic to be melancholic. Sounds like the sick part of the romantic horror of a movie I just saw.