When Hell Freezes Over

"One day, I'll manage to break you down, baby. One day, you'll realize what a great opportunity you have with me, and you'll kick yourself for wasting all of this time, baby..." says my neighbor on the first floor.

Apparently calling me "baby" and attempting to remind me about his prowess in all things that I may (or may not) find desirable is his way of reaching my...pants? Or not.

"You seem to always know what I'm thinking," he said the other day.

"Really," I replied dryly.

"Like I bet you know what I am thinking right now," he said.

"Actually, yes. I think I have some idea. And in response, I will tell you that there's NO CHANCE IN HELL."

I consider him warned. How about you guys?

Namaste

On Aging

"Wait, what? You're 31?"

"Yes."

"Really, you're really 31?"

"Yes."

"I can't believe you're actually 31..."

In meeting new people, this has been the central conversation of my life for the past few days. I find that the admittance of my age translates into various stages of bizarre facial expressions, especially by those in their early to mid-twenties. The facial expressions are followed by utterly banal statements which go a little something like this:

1. Unsuppressed shock--"Wow! Holy shit. You seriously don't look 31."

to...

2. A sudden searching gaze that is far less than subtle that extends more closely to inspect the skin around my eyes. The fact remains that some 22-year-olds are more aged in this area than I am. This is when I laugh and try to change the subject, but instead I get, "Well, I mean, like, I can't believe you're 31, but I guess that's cool..." (As opposed to what alternative, exactly?)

to...

3. The final stage of furtive glances of pity and mixed admiration. As I walk away, I hear the range of, "Dude, can you believe that chic is actually 31?" to the typical female response of, "Oh my g-d, I will kill myself if I get to 30 and I'm not married. That's soooo sad."

In a part of the world where child marriage seems like the only way to socially preserve order and some women continue having children while their oldest daughters turn them into grandmothers right about now, I realize that I am quite the anomaly...

Let's just say that I won't be breastfeeding my grandchildren any time soon.

In the meantime, here's to 70 spf sunscreen. Tea. Plenty of water. Sleep. And laying off the booze.

Namaste

Silver Diner

I will not go into the tedious logistics of how I managed to get myself roped into a blind date on the same evening that I flew into the DC area last week. It was both a favor to a friend and a means to an end. But I will let the story speak for itself:

It is not that I necessarily have anything against the selection of The Silver Diner as the venue of choice for meeting, greeting and eating. While I have never actually eaten at this establishment, I reluctantly tacked it on the list of 4 possible places in the area to meet for a meal. Among the other possible venues were two privately-owned American grills with menus that caught my eye and the Cheesecake Factory chain, which is generic enough to never fail. Generic American cuisine is far from the top of my personal list of choices, but, let's face it folks, this date was never about me in the first place...

Underscoring the list of choices were two matters of red-flag importance: First, he lives in Maryland and was admittedly not familiar with the Tyson's Corner area, so my 4 selections involved easily-accessible places from the highway. Despite the fact that he has lived in the area for over a decade (and maps are readily available?) he claimed to "never leave home without a GPS in hand". Second, when I suggested a cheap and tasty Vietnamese place close to the highway, he revealed that he does not eat spicy or "exotic" foods due to an irritable bowel issue, so it had to be "real American food or nothing at all". (Holy shit, I thought to myself. All...pun... intended.)

On both counts (as one might imagine) a few red flags entered my veritable line of vision. On the matter of the GPS (and no doubt his making a substantial issue of it), I realized that I am by comparison a self-reliant sort of traveler. I take real pleasure in finding my own way, and only occassionally use a map. Out of necessity, I will just memorize the directions I need and work from memory. To this end, I truly think that anyone who relies on a GPS beyond the tracking of Osama Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan is a somewhat of a self-proclaimed idiot. Following suit, the matter of the bowel issue was definitely too much information far too soon, but not entirely something I could blame on common sense, and I certainly cannot punish the guy for lacking a photographic memory on this one. So I rightly accommodated his food issues by supplying him with a list of places that could serve his needs. Yet, what surprised me the most is that after the small mountain of time he spent in pursuing me through our mutual friend, after the countless (and admittedly highly effusive) emails and phone calls, and ultimately getting me to agree to this date in the first place...he...chose...(drum roll please)...

The Silver Diner?

Eyebrows raised, I reluctantly agreed. With the map of restaurant locations in my mind, I knew that the location of the Silver Diner was the nearest to the highway and, thus, the easiest to locate. Not that this earned him any points in my mind. After all, we're talking about Northern Virginia here. Navigating on his trusty GPS from the suburbs of Baltimore is not rocket science. It is not like locating a friend of a friend in the middle of the Greek islands with no phone, no email and just a rough sketch (in transliterated Greek) on the back of a menu from two years before. It is sure as hell not using the sun and one's own senses to get out of a forrest of landmines at the Syrian border. Even though it seemed to me that he was looking for the path of least resistance (location-wise) by choosing this particular venue, the act of doing so rang flat for me. Very flat. The choice was deliberate, yes, but also deliberately generic. And, yes, I will say it--it was cheap. Extremely cheap. Not only unambitious, it was uninspired.

But it gets better...

After the meal, the question was asked about how I liked the Silver Diner? Tongue in cheek, I truthfully replied that this was actually my first adventure into the Silver Diner, like, ever. (Keeping some sense of perspective, it was honestly not so bad at all. It was certainly far from the worst place I have ever eaten, but again, this is not about me.) Obviously looking for some sort of affimation for his decision making capacity, he stated that he chose the Silver Diner because of its extensive menu. He added that he liked the Silver Diner because it is so laid back. Then, without pausing for air, he said:

"I figured that there is a time and a place for getting dressed up for a really nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. But since we're just getting to know each other, I wanted to save that sort of date for when we do something really special--like celebrate an anniversary or something..."

Then, out of nowhere, he started singing. Across the aisle from us, a private juke box began to play. He began singing and snapping his fingers to the music, and said, "See what a fun, laid back guy I am? I just like to keep it happy and simple, you know?"

Much to my personal amazement, I stayed upright in my chair. I did not fall over or slide down to the floor in an attempt to flee as quickly as possible. I even politely refrained from laughing at him, at this, at everything. Yes, I stoically refrained from bolting out of there, inducing myself to vomit on the sidewalk surrounding the Silver Diner, and getting myself to my favorite Vietnamese place down the street for something spicy, decent and actually healthy to eat...

While the endless possibilities of what I could do rolled through my mind, I smiled and endured this extreme amount of insipid stupidity, knowing that in 15 more minutes, I would never have to see this guy again. Ever. In fact, what got me through the moment was a rolling recollection of memories from the number of awesome dates and amazing meals more recently shared with my guy friend in New England. From haute, local cuisine to our fast and furious evenings of "slumming it" in places that only serve drinks in plastic cups, there was never a hang up over our pretentiousness, or lack there of.

Perhaps not ironically, the conversation never managed to get around to the part where I bring up the fact that my father worked as a chef for years. Accordingly, it never crossed my lips that my brother is also a product of one of the world's leading culinary schools, or that my own cooking will knock your boy boxers off. I left my culinary snobbery on the highest shelf, and left aside the fact that I consider eating at the Cheesecake Factory an average, if not an extremely sub par way to spend an evening out when the mood strikes. Moreover, I did not reply with the thought that I don't prefer to celebrate relationship anniversaries outside of marriage in the first place. Instead, I watched him prattle on about the first and only time he left the continental United States for a recent work-related adventure in Asia. Not only did he bring all of his own food to eat (because you apparently can't trust Asian food, you know...um...where is that Vietnamese place, again?), but he also specially purchased a webcam to keep in touch with his parents for the whole two weeks he would be on the road, and he reportedly missed his cat "a whole lot" while he was away...

Of course, I haven't mentioned that the guy doesn't drink alcohol but claims to "always have fun", even though he admits to hating to go out. Nor has he ever voted in a single election, local or otherwise because he doesn't "believe in it", but could not explain why he pays taxes. I might have overlooked the fact that it took him 6 years to graduate from college, or even that he received his Master's degree from an on-line college. On the voting issue, I found some difficulty digesting his argument that he did not want to vote for Barack Obama in the first place because "black people were voting for him just because he's black, and he's not even really black anyway." But the matter of the GPS was what nearly made me want to call the whole thing off...

And don't get me started on the Silver Diner.

Just don't.

Namaste

Exit Strategy

"Vertigo," according to Salman Rushdie, "is the conflict between fear of falling and desire to fall..."

I have been cherishing the dwindling sunlight and the last few days of the season that are warm enough to still spend time outside. Living in New England in the fall is one of those remarkable life events, in my opinion. I live in a place where people wave from their yard work as I run through town with headphones in my ears. Today, in fact, the dean of the college slapped me a high-five as we passed on the sidewalk. Under the leaves and the late afternoon sun that is now making its annual trip farther away from the earth, I stop, stretch, consider my pulse and practice a few yoga postures on the boathouse deck on the lake. The water laps beneath me, and the sun shimmers upon the lake just beyond my fingertips as I look down past my out-stretched fingers in a strong, triumphant warrior pose. Later, I hear from a few favorite students that I was "spotted" running through town again. I smile and jovially invite anyone to join me in my regular work-outs. They each giggle, of course, but no one appears to volunteer.

In a short time, I will be leaving this place--this place where the leaves fall, and my groceries are always placed in the cloth bags that I trot along with me to the only grocery store in town. I will be leaving this town where sushi is still considered an exotic food, the only coffee shop is closed on Sundays, and it is far more convenient to buy my vegetables in coin tender from the local farmer's kids who spend their summers sitting in self-made stalls along the side of the road. Of course, I will be leaving behind the migraines that never fail to bring me to my knees when the weather changes to snow or rain. I am also tempted to think that my insomnia of the past year will remain in this particular American zip code.

Two months until the semester ends. Two months until my contract is over. Time is up. Game over. Do not pass go. Obviously, with the leaves now falling, I take this as a sign to begin stripping myself of my short list of "trappings". In this, I have begun to concentrate my efforts on my "exit strategy". I need a new passport. I am inwardly tossing around the novel idea of selling my car. I am sticking closely to my budget and monitoring flights to Tel Aviv like a hawk. I have begun to begin again, which is refreshing. Perhaps you can take the girl out of the fire of the Middle East, domesticate her with a job and break her heart a few times. Maybe she'll leave it all better than she found it. Maybe she'll even be sweeter as a result. But, in the end, you can't take the fire of the Middle East out of the girl...

I am forward looking, simply because of the vertigo I feel if I allow my brain to even consider the whirlwind of this past year. When I run through town, I watch the leaves fall to the ground, and if I am not careful and deliberate with my state of mind, I feel the temptation to fall along with them. Ideally, a part of me fancies the idea of "settling in" for another long winter, but this is obviously not an option--not for me. Yet, the same part of me knows that another winter for me here would be suicide. Perhaps one day, I will look back and wistfully reflect upon how this year of my life was a perfectly encapsulated moment of yin-yang. For every moment of personal beauty there has been an equal amount of personal tragedy. It is what it is, or rather, it was what it was. I have taken the lesson. The wind is blowing. The time is coming to take the lesson and move on.

I fantasize regularly about how little I plan to pack. It instantly clears up the vertigo.

Namaste

Within the Story

"But how can I write about it," she asks me on the phone, "without sounding bitter and cold?"

A dear friend of mine is in a career transition. Like the majority of my 30-year-old compadres, she is in a state of reconfiguring who she is now that she blinked and realized that she is 30. The existential crisis hangs in the air: Where has she been and where is she going? Has the train missed her, and is she willing to jump the train and run to catch the next bus? Whether we like it or not, we are all pondering these questions. Some of us are simply louder and more raucous than others, but we are all there, whether we admit it or not...

She tells me that she is a writer now. Not only is she a writer, but after she writes her first book , she is going to be "A Critically-Acclaimed New York Times Best-Seller" kind of writer..."like Paulo Coelho," she says.

I listen to her and take sips of real mint tea with too much sugar in between the mmm-hmmms I murmur from my end of the phone.

I glance beyond the window pane at my desk and tell myself that the wet leaves outside have turned even more orange and yellow since this morning. I scribble a few of them into the margin of an article I was reading before she called. I write a haiku about fallen leaves and the epidemic of broken-heartedness that seems to be tearing through my dearest friends this season.

(Broken-heartedness. There's 5 syllables, you know...)

I continue to listen. I sip more tea. I inhale her angst and assure her that she is going to be ok.

No just because I love her. But because she is. Going to be ok, that is...

I don't snarkishly or even subtly look for ways to squeeze in the fact that I am certain that Paulo Coelho did not tell his friends that he would one day be a "A New York Times Critically Acclaimed Best Seller" before he even had the idea for his first book. Also because I love her, I fail to introduce the fact that a writer is someone who exists to write, and that calling oneself "a writer" feels like an oxymoron to me. But I don't challenge her dream, because it is hers, and it is every bit as precious as anyone else's dream. Because I love her.

Because I love her, and because what I love most about her is the passion she has for searching for her own truths, even if it means that I have watched her spend the past 12 years stumbling and tumbling in a petulant-yet-honest desire to find her truths amid her excesses. I love her because of her searching and in spite of her searching. I love her.

I love her for this, and for her obstinacy and implacable boldness. This time, where I play the part of the roommate from college who silently revels in overcoming the mountains I have within me, she is the golden haired lead player in the drama who conquers what is only seemingly beyond her material reach, while I look on and drink tea in the scenes where I am summoned to be optimistic, encouraging, intellectual and vaguely erudite. Obviously, it shouldn't matter what motivates us to get to the top of our proverbial mountains. What matters is how we go about doing it. Indeed, this is our story, this is everyone's story. We are wedded to it before we have even encountered our lives. Although I am yet to figure out if we are our story, or if our story makes us who we are...

Because I love her, I assure her that there is a way to write it all down. I tell her that there is a way to do it and to be smart about it. First, I muse that it may be necessary to see the big picture. Second, it might be helpful to realize that there is story in all of it, but the best stories are honest ones, the ones who cry inside us until they are written. And finally, the way "to do" it is to write...just write...be bold, petulant and grammatically incoherent. But just write it all down, let it breathe and let it come out without needing to control its force and unpredictable execution.

But what do I know, really? I only write because I find myself unable to exist if I do not. So maybe writing is just an expression of my own narcissistic longing for external validation, and I am equally obstinate my quest to "matter". Or maybe this is just a story about another story.

Because I love her, I probably won't tell her that I wrote this, simply because this is my side of the story.

It is what it is.

Namaste

What Really Happens on Sabbatical

Some time ago, I happened to befriend a diplomat. I suppose the story of the moment of our befriending is interesting enough for another posting some day, but what is perhaps more compelling is the exchange of emails we are now sharing. Sometimes, in lieu of a composition, he sends me a song.

Today was one of those days for me. It started out well enough. My first alarm was set for 6:30 am, but my body preferred to lurch between levels of consciousness for another hour. By 8am, however, I was fully on the verge of global domination--- dressed for the gym, sipping upon a steaming cup of yerba mate with milk, and letting my brain tumble back down from dreamland by pouring over my daily dose of world news (in no particular order). It happens that I began the the Israeli news here. Thinking of Israel took my mind to my diplomat friend, who last sent me an email some weeks ago from his electronic Blackberry companion, whilst a hired driver steered him somewhere along the road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Hmmm...

Thinking of him and his latest diplomatic endeavors, I absently wandered over to my email account and noticed the emails that landed in my small orbit over the last few hours of the weekend. A wonderfully-written email full of ex-pat snark and well-humoured comments on the weather from a friend in Thailand told me that maybe the humidity in Upstate New York this summer isn't so bad after all.

Various other unread emails seemed to speak to me from the corners of what has otherwise become a very distant and contemplative moment in my life. An email from my dissertation adviser with detailed remarks about my latest written submission made me suddenly feel like the room was devoid of oxygen and the sky might really be falling...

Deep, brown-paper bag sized breaths restored me from yet another emotional asthma attack...

Another oddly-expressed email from a childhood friend-turned-bride-to-be, who wrote to inform me that if my hair is long enough to be fastened into a low bun by December, then it is ok....I will not have to buy a hair piece with fake hair as a part of my bridesmaid's duties. I chuckle. I then allow only one rolling of the eyes, and discipline myself not to highlight the utter frivolity of this issue in my gentle and supportive response to her obvious stress. After all, stress is stress, right? I take note of my sourness and tell it to go away.

Ten minutes later, I am at the local "gym", the one where I am the only one getting a proper workout while the cardiac care patients have their run of the treadmills and rowing machines, while a certified nurse with a high pitched laugh comes along every so often to monitor their heart rates. I am on an elliptical machine by 8:20 am, and because the cardiac patients are not allowed to use the elliptical machines, I stay on that sucker for 65 minutes. By the time I make my glorious, sweaty dismount, I have run the course of all of my favorite, trashy hip-hop work-out songs. I have been "G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S" with Fergie and done plenty of "Holla Back" at Gwen. And yes, the Pussycat Dolls have reminded me once again why I am out of bed this morning, utterly awesome, and why every gynephile from here to Timbuktu would absolutely want his "girlfriend [to be] hot like me"...

On the way home from the gym, I notice that my trusty Blue Honda (aka "Betty Blue") is making a sound like she has a Honda sore throat. She's raspy and loud, and I find myself wishing for the Knight Rider car that could self-diagnose. While I wait at the light, I reach for my cell phone to call Bro. Bro has recently become an expert in Honda crappiness, so I thought he might be able to help to diagnose the noise. Just as the phone was ringing, I feel something drop beneath me, right beneath my ass. With this, the sound of the engine changed, becoming louder and far more urgent than a distant phone call to the hills of Virginia. I hang up on Bro. It sounded so much like a gear shift that I instantly looked over at my drive shaft, but of course, there was no way that the car could have changed gears will sitting in neutral. Fortunately, I was just a block away from home, so I gently coast to the nearest safe spot and discover that the middle part of my exhaust system is sitting on the pavement.

Yay, Betty Blue! Yay, me!!

Ten minutes later, I am sipping on a post strength/elliptical work-out protein shake and calling the appropriate numbers of my insurance company, etc. While I wait for the tow truck to arrive, I shower, clean the whole of my apartment, and even set about doing laundry.

It was not yet, like, 11am...

At noon, I start working. I simply cannot bear to return to my adviser's email, so I decide to do the busy work of making new bibliographic notes from a book that I read over the weekend. Fair enough. Progress isn't always linear, I remind myself.

When it is time to change over the laundry, my extremely depressed downstairs neighbor hears me and emerges from her apartment to ask about my car, but really, to tell me that, yes, she is still extremely depressed. Since she has been bound to her bed for the better part of the past 6 weeks, I invite her to dinner at my place this evening. I have two salmon fillets, and suggest my best recipe, but she declines. Out of self-interest (due my lack of transportation) and further concern for her well-being, I invite her to attend a yoga class with me in a nearby town tomorrow evening. She says that she can neither eat nor "think that far ahead", but requested that I come back for a drink later this evening. According to her, an evening drink or two mixes very well with the other narcotics she is using at the moment. I smile at her kindly, and tell her that I will see her tonight. I refuse to judge her, knowing that I could be her. After all, she has only recently completed her own doctoral dissertation, and I intimately know how this process can drive the most well-balanced individual to a bit of disequilibrium.

Hours later, yet another summer rainstorm is passing through the day. I am writing, re-writing and honestly wanting to throw dear Mango, my trusty Macintosh laptop, across the room. I become aware that I have been clenching my teeth somewhere in between my thoughts of escapism (my latest muse happens to be the idea of the Croatian coast next summer) and my stress over this latest impasse in my writing/research. I remind myself to be patient.

The phone rings, and the blue-collared male voice belonging to the Honda Doctor tells me that Betty Blue needs a new "intermediate muffler system". He tells me that this cost around $220. I tell him "cool", and to rotate Betty's tires while he is down there. Poor Betty, I lament. Maybe Dr. Honda Doctor won't charge me for the tire rotation when he meets me and I put him under my very special "Namaste Spell for Car Doctor Men". We shall see if he can resist, (I muse...)

And so, the day ends with a whole lot of spinning and very little progress. I check my email at the close of business to find two new pieces of electronic information in my Inbox. The first is a matter of business from my so-called "work" world, concerning an issue which has been ratcheting up my stress to some extent. Because I am not expected to handle these issues myself, I pass the email onto my fabulous, grounded, and ever-supportive immediate superior, who will no doubt do the dirty work on my behalf. With everything that I am thinking about at this moment, it is a relief not to have to think for myself on these matters. Yes, it is moments like this that I am sooooooo relieved to only be an adjunct professor with no power, no voice, no choice and, hence, no responsibility beyond teaching the children well. (Praise the baby Jebus.)

But the second email? The second email lit my soul just a little bit. The second email was from the diplomat who happens to be working in Jerusalem at the moment. And, there was an attachment to the email, the thought of which filled me with a small spark of girlish glee. A picture from the Holy Land, perhaps? Whatever it was, I was certain that it would be something interesting and sent specifically to me with intention and meaning...

The note said, "I hope you are having a good week. I am thinking of you. For now, I am sending you a song instead of an email."

Obviously, that wistful, girlish part of me hoped it to be a song from the older, worldly diplomat that would brighten an otherwise extremely banal day. A song sent from so far away should have that quality, shouldn't it? I mean, if I was the person sending a song to someone I hardly know very well, I would go to tangible lengths to make it an appropriately happy song. Per the usual array of men in my life, the diplomat claims to "love" my "smile", so he would this not compel him to send a song to match how he perceives me in his mind's eye? Right? Heck, look at me--I would even accept a patriotic song that speaks of Israel for what it is worth. A song of passion or substance, right? A song in Hebrew, perhaps? Call me absolutely, batshit crazy, but doesn't this make sense?

So, I download the file and bite my lower lip a little while waiting for it to load to my music. Then, I listen. Without looking at the title or artist, I dig myself out of my mountain of books and papers. I put everything to the side, sit back and close my eyes. I listen...and I hear a chord strike in minor. I listen, and what I hear is this.

Wow...

For the record, my eyes shot open immediately. But also for the record, I listened to the whole song. Out of respect for my friend, I listened with an open heart. And as I listened, the music moved me to tears.

In some ways, I guess it is refreshing to know that I am still open enough to let things in. In other ways, the song was a reminder that I am still wounded enough to allow those dark, liminal spaces that exist within me to cry. It has just been a really challenging year. That said, I don't think that my diplomat friend intended this reaction in me, nor do I have the need to share with him the darker side of the details.

The day is now over. The afternoon rain has cooled everything to a more bearable level of East Coast summer simmer. My downstairs neighbor and her well-stocked bar await a libational celebration of, as she said earlier on the porch today, "The fact that it is Monday". I am going to join her for an hour, but I am only going to have a glass of tonic water tonight. It is certainly tempting to want to momentarily escape from the issues of the day, but I have a preference for escapism on a much larger scale. And, after all, nothing will erase the fact that the sun is going to come up again tomorrow morning, and I already know that I want to be ready and able to tackle the day...

Namaste

A Little Secret

So, here's a little secret: I am a fan of Post Secret. I saw this image last week, and it appealed to me, so I saved it to my desktop. From time to time, when I actually take a break from [my on-going existential crisis of] dissertation writing, I refer to the image above and remind myself of what is important here.

Without a doubt, so much time to myself leaves me reflective. Sometimes I can border on downright pensive, but this is nothing new.

What about you guys? Any good secrets that you are willing to share?

Namaste

Oh, Starbucks...

ojalá

"Ojalá" by Silvio Rodriguez
(If you like, dear reader, you may click to play as you read.)

Ojalá is one of my favorite words in the Spanish language. Loosely, it means "G-d willing". It comes from the commonly used phrase in Arabic, "Ensha'Allah" (إن شاء الله). In Latin, it is Deo volente. In Portuguese, it is oxalá. There is a phrase in Hebrew, too, which denotes the same thing: B'ezrat Hashem (אם ירצה השם). Farsi and Urdu speakers invoke the phrase in Arabic, too.

Ojalá...

Hope.

Aside from loving the sound of this particular word against the backdrop of my (admittedly limited realm of) Spanish vocabulary, I particularly love that the word has its own, far-reaching history that spans lands and people. How the word came to exist in the modern Spanish lexicon is a story of hope, a singular, three-syllable testament to what it means to survive, to create, to shout one's intentions to the Universe (according to Paulo Coelho), and maybe...just maybe, leave the world better than we found it through our willingness commit to the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to live the life of our dreams.

The etymology of ojalá is rooted to the tale a single survivor who did great things in his life. He was a son the Ummayad dynasty in Syria, who managed to escape the tragic event of his family's butchering by the rival, Abbasid clan. Orphaned and alone, he traveled all of the way from Damascus, across the deserts of Northern Africa, and ended up making his way to Southern Spain. By the year of 752, he established the grand caliphate of Al-Andalus, which was once situated on the banks of the wide Guadalquivir River, in Córdoba, Spain. Córdoba, a once-glistening, marvelous place to live, produced the likes of many great thinkers of the world. Gifted linguists, mathematicians, scientists, doctors and philosophers all called Córdoba home. Among them was the Jewish thinker, Maimonides. Another is one of Islam's most famous and imminent scholars, Avveroes, who can only be described as the founding father of modern secular thought. Of course, the Roman scholar, Seneca, happened to be born there in Roman times, but I digress. My point, of course, is that ojalá wouldn't be ojalá as it has traveled through time to land on our lips today, evoking that romantic mysticism that hope brings to a life of myriad travails and opportunities. That is to say, if it was not for the bravery of one small person who refused to give up hope in the middle of the desert, or the belief that his life had purpose and value.

"Life without hope is not life at all," says Sri Chinmoy. Without hope...life doesn't get to happen...epic stories of sacrifice and triumph fail to exist. Risks are never taken, cities are never built, civilizations don't get to reach their zenith moments when philosophy and art flourish and considerable progress on the side of humanity gets to be made. Devoid of ojalá, we fail to consider how we, as tiny flecks of this great, swimming cosmos actually matter. In essence, we never get to make real, important, powerful love to the world, much less to each other. We fail to take ourselves seriously, we fail to take our lives seriously, and we look at the world with the sort of nihilism and emptiness that veritably takes us and everything around us back to the Dark Ages. We block the light from our lives. We stop living for the sake of living, loving for the sake of loving, and simply become confined our darkness because we see ourselves as the victims of fate rather the writers and real creators of our own dreams.

In our void, such those terrible, late-night places where the men are aggressive and the women are materialistic and practically made of plastic, we attempt to seek our purpose under florescent bulbs of pulsing blue and red, hoping that the unnatural light will not only mask our empty sadness, but allows us to disguise and forget our aching sense of loss at having misplaced the singular thing of greatest importance to us in this world: our hope, and our sense of purpose based so simplistically, so primordially on a believe that what we do today will reap better returns tomorrow.

Ojalá we will all do what we were put here to do. Ojalá we will live the lives that we will put here to live. Ojalá we will find what we are looking for. And, ojalá, if we are lucky enough to find our way back to this source, we will hold onto it with as much vigor and steadfastness as we did when we went looking for it. Ojalá, when we find it, we won't let it go.

Ojalá.

On Eccentricity

I admit that I am a little bit eccentric. To be fair, I come from a long line of eccentric people. Of course, it is rare that I actually give myself the credit for being anything like my interesting and colorful forebears. It stands to reason that I shouldn't be blamed for attempting to avoid the comparison to my father, for example, who has been known to get drunk enough to drive his 4x4 Jeep around his muddy property in the hills of the Appalachian Mountains, only to crash the front end of the vehicle into one of the large, swooping decks that were built around the house. These decks, mind you, were designed with the express purpose of allowing my father the freedom to "piss of my own back porch any time I please". My father, you see, hated urban living and always longed to live in the middle of nowhere. On a good day, when he is not splitting wood for the pot-bellied stove that acts as the only heat source for his over-sized wood cabin home (for the over-sized boy scout who resides therein), he can be found jamming out (in the nude) on his Spanish guitar, wailing away in one of his many, made-up "foreign tongues" and periodically, yes, you heard it here folks, pissing off his own deck. Amen.

While I could devote an entire 10-part series to the genius-madness complex that courses through my veins, I would just like to discreetly point out that my brother keeps chickens in his backyard. He also owns a Post Office. A working one. For real. Why? Because it was such a bargain! ... My mother currently has 25 United States patents (which Bro and I stand to inherit one day) in a variety of assorted "inventions" that she has created over the years for disabled people. Yes, it is quite amazing what a glue-gun can do...

Very few people know this, but my maternal grandfather was obsessive compulsive long before it was cool. He inscribed his name with permanent marker on everything that was his. EVERYTHING. He also put the date. Because he was a member of a steal worker's union, he also had a number associated with his name. The number was 769. If he didn't have enough space to put his name and date on something, he would just inscribe his number. 769. 769. 769. Every week, he played the lottery with these numbers. Now, whenever Bro and I play the lottery, we only use this number. We each have a key chain with a small, hand-pressed piece of scrap metal that my grandfather once melted down in his shop. Upon it, he melted his number. 769. The key chain never leaves me now. In meditation, I rub my thumb over the numbers when I drive long distances, and think of my grandfather with the hope that he is with me from the beyond now. I guess...I'm superstitious like that. Not that I am a tattoo person at all, but Bro and I have recently discussed the idea of getting 769 tattoos this summer to honor the man. If this happens, mine will be very tiny, and most likely done in white in a discreet, remote place on my body that would never see the light of day, whereas Bro's will be prominently displayed on muscle, and most certainly done in black. My greatest consolation in this is that at least we are not wearing vials of blood around our necks. Now that would be really weird...

Today I attended a little lunch that was catered in my office building. After the lunch was over, I wandered back to the room where it was held and noticed that there was a bunch of leftover bananas that nobody ate. There was also a small bottle of Diet Pepsi that no one drank! Oh, and a couple of apples. I guess I shouldn't neglect to mention the extra brownie and couple of strawberries that I swiped, too. Of course, I don't blame my klepto behavior on anything more than the fact that I am getting paid such a small amount here. So small, in fact, that I can't afford to buy treats for my classes. I am poor, therefore, I improvise...

Since I had a couple of students coming to my office this afternoon to discuss a project that they are working on, I decided to swipe the goods and insist that we all sit down on my office floor and have a picnic while we discuss their big ideas. Of course, they loved it. Loved it! And per my usual, I served the tea of the Quakers...

Of course, the person who did not like this was the food service worker guy who walked in the meeting room to clean up the lunch just as I was about to leave with my arms full of culinary contraband. Yeesh. The fortunate thing about this is that the worker guy confused me for a student. I, of course, didn't miss a beat, as I smiled with as much cuteness as I could muster and innocently told him that I was just making his clean-up job easier. He laughed uncomfortably, and I made sure to scuttle out of there without dropping anything, looking over my shoulder to see that he didn't see me scramble into my office...

Suffice it to say, at least I haven't turned my office into a glue gun animal farm. Oh, and I am not peeing on anything.

Yet.

Namaste

Status Update

Good news hasn't fallen in my lap yet, but I feel it coming. Last week, the director of the search committee for the full-time teaching job I applied for asked me to forward him my course syllabi and student evaluations. In the next few weeks, I will finally know what is to become of me for the coming academic year, whether I get this job or the post-doc position I applied for in New York. Ensha-Allah (G-d willing), I will be earning a livable wage soon, and yes, health insurance. Quite a luxury.

Spring still isn't here yet, but I feel it coming, too...

My dissertation writing took a GIANT leap forward last week. The ocean I swallowed a few years ago when I undertook this project does not nearly feel so deep and unknown as it once did. Sure, it is still deep, but my subject has revealed itself to me. I am now fully engaged and producing. Finally.

The rabbi doesn't know it yet, but I have been putting myself through the motions of moving on with life, and I feel this happening, too. Crying, snotting, kicking and screaming (on the inside, of course), I have strapped my running shoes upon my feet and dragged myself to the gym every day. Like a robot, I have placed my Ipod ear buds in the two side orifices of my head, stepped onto an open treadmill and commanded myself to run. Five minutes into it, I start to feel like I can do five more. Ten minutes into it, I feel strong enough to push through ten more. Twenty minutes later, I am alive again, warmed up and ready for some cross training. An hour after I arrive, I feel the healthy burn in my chest and legs from a solid cardiovascular work out. The burn rewinds me, unwinds me and boldly reminds me that life is about living, accepting and...well, forward motion...(even if the cold outside still confines me to a treadmill).

...in this momentum, I have recently procured a new bathing suit for summer. Since everything that managed to travel with me through the Middle East for the last three summers is now old, faded and tattered from travel, I decided that a new navy blue and white bikini for my impending trip to Miami in two weeks is in order. I am also outfitting myself in a few new things for spring and summer, including an outrageously priced pair of designer jeans (which I managed to find on discount, mind you, but was born to wear), matched with an extremely demure, V-necked pale brown cotton blend shirt that...makes me...want....to hump myself because it is so gracefully flattering to my form. Yes. Out with the old, in with the new...

And finally, in light of all of this, I have started to clarify and put my intentions in to action. It has been a long time since I spent a summer in the United States. (Oh, poor me.) Similarly, it is also been a long time since I had a summer of silly fun. With these two things in mind, I have begun my plotting. At the moment, it is my intention to spend the summer, with the Great People's Republic of Manhattan as home base. My reasons for this are multi-fold, but all fall back upon the general idea that I have always wanted to live there, I'll be sure to find a small, temporary job to support myself, and this feels like the right time, if not the last time I will have the opportunity to do such a thing. I have a fantastic crew of friends there, and one dear friend from college who works far too hard on Wall Street and has more than enough room to spare in her sprawling apartment on the Upper West Side. In the city, there's an ample Jewish community for me to dabble among, tons of yoga studios, and all of the art, culture and diversity I am craving right now, without having to leave the country. Yum. I already have visions of lugging my laptop to various coffee spots and taking the opportunity to write. My working plan is to have a draft of my dissertation by the early fall. With all of the glorious distractions that NYC offers, it's ironic, I know, but I'll actually be able to keep on task. After all, I won't be fully consumed with where I will sleep at the end of the day, or where my next falafel ball was coming from...

So that's the update. I'm heading to the gym. Treadmill #1 has my name on it.

Namaste

No Hell Like Home

"Wars don't simply end. And wars don't end simply," writes Cynthia Enloe in a book called, The Curious Feminist. As a scholar on gender, militarization and international politics, Enloe's work is the foundation of my own intellectual pursuits in this messy world of men, mommies, babies, milk, human rights, or the lack thereof. However, in that intersection where this particular portion of my "art" happens to mirror my life, War just isn't such a far cry from Home.

"In war, we take no prisoners," my mother once pointed out to me in the acerbic tone she regularly used when referring to my father. Eventually, at the behest of my pleading and insistence that she would leave the marriage in order to save us all, she did--finally--manage to leave him. During this time, the Cold War ended, Saddam was the new face of terror, and yet there was no greater instability in this world than the one I lived in at home. In fact, it was there, in that small, hopeful starter house in the semi-suburbs of All-American intellectual complacency, that I learned more about darkness, inhumanity, violence, poverty and extreme despair from the within the walls of two people who gave me life with the same amount of narcissism that they used to imprison me in their pain.

Fortunately, Bro was there, too. More than pawns in the game we were born into, we were the peace keepers and diplomats of external affairs, endowed with the responsibility of appearing as "normal" and "happy" children, unhindered by the horrors we faced at home. Naturally gifted as athletes and charmers, we were survivalists, and so we moved between our public and private lives with adept intercultural fluency. Because of our intellectual quotient scores--deemed exceptionally high by the local public school system--we even "passed" as bourgeois in our acceptance and participation in those highly coveted after-school programs for "The Gifted". Clearly, we must have come from two equally exceptional over-achievers. Yet, no one, especially in my circle of friends and administrators, had a clue that I went home every night to bathe my angry, bi-polar, wheelchair-bound mother, while my abusive, alcoholic father alternated between putting food on the table and throwing it across the room at any particular human target who may or may not have "looked at him with disrespect". For that matter, it is safe to say that Bro and I did come from some pretty stellar chart-toppers. In fact, what was truly exceptional was their achievement in guaranteeing that there really was no hell like home.

Bro and I did make it out of that place, which we now abstractly refer to as "then" or "there". For obvious reasons, we clung very tightly to each other in alternating rounds of need and support. As siblings, it has been us against the world. In these alternating rounds of need and care, we have loved each other very coarsely at times, only because we mutually recognize our mettle. After all, we were crafted in the same fire, and so we know how easy it can be to slip up, slide back down from the mountain we have climbed, stumble and burn.

Even now, after all of these years, Bro and I do not even have to confer when it comes to being on the same page with regard to these two people whom we once shared meals and living space with, these people otherwise known as our parents. In our adult years, we have chosen to face them together, or not at all. We have chosen to see them as people, though not necessarily the kind of people we would have over for dinner or trust to care for our own children for any length of time. We see ourselves in them, but we define who we our in many our divergences. We have forgiven, I suppose you could say, but we have not forgotten. In fact, it is the memory of the hell that we came through, which forces us to be overwhelmingly conscious of where we come from, careful to not re-create the chaos of our childhood for the mere sake of fulfilling what was externally bestowed upon us as a sense of "identity". We are vigilant with each other, using every day as an opportunity to practice the good habit of being centered and content people inside and out. More than most people, we are the walking manifestation of the power of conscious choice and personal accountability.

Nowadays, life continues to be unevolving and extremely sad for the two people who respectively claim to be drunk and stoned on that fateful day of their nuptials, way back in that hazy time and place of the mid-1970's. My theory, based on the evidence I have managed to gather since the legal dissolution of their union in the early 1990's, is that they were two very heartbroken people long before they found each other. What brought them together was their mutual and undeniable heartbreak with the world, or with the "hand of cards" they had been dealt, as my father regularly liked to say. There was once a time, in the calm of that post-war moment, just after their divorce, that I consciously hoped that they would each find a sense of strength and integrity in his and her independence of the other. Unfortunately, each of us has our own story, and we will live it as we feel we must.

"War is hell," General Sherman once remarked at the scorching of Atlanta. "War is hell," I similarly muttered through tears the last time I willfully misjudged my father's love for manipulation, emotional abuse and physical harm. Nowadays, my parents--neither of them--are in particularly good health. In their physical decline, as in their younger days of strength and glory, neither are beholden to the idea that "grace" might be a particular virtue. Stoically as ever, Bro and I are conscious of the fact that we are each waiting for the inevitable phone call that will summon us to our birth-given duties to care for those who failed us in our birthright for safety, care and protection.

And so, I guess it's kind of funny how all of this leads me back to Enloe:

Wars don't simply end, and don't end simply...but who are we if don't seek to resolve the wars we have within, let alone the ones we make on each other? Obviously, Bro and I have chosen to work a little harder at this, to be the people who won't turn away with malice, and yet, in facing our earliest oppressors, the temptation is there to become the enemy whom we most deplore, especially in this extremely uncomfortable moment of power exchange. Even now, as adult children, what little power we have in this situation lies not in exacting revenge for our abuse and neglect, but in demonstrating compassion in our commitment to uphold human dignity and peace, most especially in matters that are so very close to our most raw human sensibilities. As I write this, I am reminded of the time I responded to my mother's referral to her children as prisoners of war with the remark that her viewpoint on the world was shaping her reality. Isn't it funny that after all of this time, none of us are winners per se? Perhaps it was because it was never a zero-sum game in the first place.

And they wonder why war zones don't scare me...

Namaste

Birthday Follow-Up

Good news! My paper proposal did ultimately write itself. Why? Because I am a total bad ass.

The funny thing is that a year ago, I couldn't have brought myself to even think about doing such a thing. I had absolutely no confidence in my ability to lend any critical voice to much of anything. Yes, I had passed my preliminary exams, but even then, I wasn't entirely sure that the process had been rigged. Why did I pass with distinction while my more studious (and highly competitive) colleagues had to wait six months and take them again? I had no idea what made me "distinct".

In other news, the birthday was a SUCCESS. A big one. I'm officially 30...and..it...is... fantastic. Aside from the usual barrage of wonderful phone calls from friends and family all over the country, one particular call made my day. The story remains officially untold, I know, but what is official is that the Universe somehow managed to carry me to this moment. I'm not sure how many days of karmic goodness I had to pay forward for all of this to happen, but it has happened in a most...serendipitous...way.

I have some more travel essays in my head to write. Per the suggestion of one fabulous reader, I am starting to look for a venue to publish some of my travel experiences. As always, I am most open to suggestions...

Love!

Namaste

Empathy

After years of horizontal head-shaking to the contrary, I have very recently begun to admit to myself that I have some rather amazing empathic abilities. I would say that these abilities border on a somewhat psychic dimension, though not fully. Well, not really. I have an aunt who is completely confident that this ability runs in the family. For example, she's the one who actually "sees dead people", whereas I can bump or brush against a person on the street and have a very vivid and precise image of who they are in a Monet-type of impressionistic way. Yes, I have seen/felt everything from child molestation to cancer in perfect strangers. The best way to describe this is a feeling that comes in the form of flashes. It's very curious. Sometimes a person's energy can literally take the wind out of me. In particular, I have been known to flee from closed spaces where an adverse energy throws me off balance. Elevators, parties, and buses seem to be my specialty.

Since my arrival back in the US five weeks ago, I have begun to add up the number of empathic flashes I've had. Oddly enough, all of them have been successful in tuning me in to situations that I'm fairly certain most people wouldn't think twice about. I don't think that I can claim to be psychic per se, as a matter of fact, I strongly dislike the description because it can be used so pejoratively. Nevertheless, whatever ability this is allows me to sense when an individual is lying, or when someone is attempting to hide their sadness or fears. I have a particular meter for just plan crazy sorts of folks, but I'm just really good at gauging the regular sort of disingenuous fluff or the usual pathologies associated with human ego.

In light of this, I've begun to process the past five months in a way that feels more spiritual than microscopic. Obviously, it takes a certain type of personality for a person of any spot or stripe to jump on a plane and land feet first in a war zone and somehow always manage to have a smile on her face. It causes me to wonder if the time I spent learning my two newest Semitic languages and living on the razor's edge of the human condition was preparation for this moment, or if I have been preparing all along? Here, I'm starting to ponder the lessons that I learned, in addition to the survival skills that it appears that I unconsciously honed in my baptism in the fiery Holy Land. Thus, I've begun to consider that this innate ability I seem to have for human empathy isn't such a scary thing after all. Without really being conscious of it, I've made an art out of being honest with myself about my "gut feelings", even when they seem almost surreal and difficult to stomach. I may flee from certain energies in the confines of trapped elevators or airless apartments, but I'm also the first person to always land successfully when there isn't a net in sight...

Still, I don't think I am psychic. It may just be that I'm really just damn lucky...

tequila.

KT: "...I love Jeff Tweedy. He's so freaking hot, Namaste. Yeah, I'm going to marry a musician..."

Namaste: "...I think it's because you're way more into sexually androgenous men than I am."

KT: "You think Jeff Tweedy is sexually androgenous?!!!??? Are you kidding???!!"

Namaste: "Well, no, I think he's straight, and talented...but he's not "my" kind of straight. He's so conflicted and greasy and stuff..."

KT: "But have you seen him in concert? Can I tell you, when he tells the crowd to "Shut the F-ck Up because he's going to "Electrify their World"...and he does...electrify them...that's fu--ing better than sex...

Namaste: "Umm..."

KT: "...I mean...

...better than the sex I was having at the time...not maybe you....

..I mean...

Well, that's neither here or there...

...because at least I'm done with that now...and I need some permanent reminders on my refridgerator of why I'm done with that man...

...and why I need to move..."

Namaste: (giggle.) "Um, can I blog about this?"

KT: "Oh, the SHINS are on! I LOVE the Shins!!! How cute is that man?..."

Namaste: ",,,"

KT: (does air guitar)

Namaste: "Is tequila spelled with two L's or one?"

KT: "Dude, do you see that chic? That's the chic from Viva Voce!!!" (More air guitar.)

Keeping in Touch

Do we ever silently stop loving those whom we once loved out loud?

Hmmm.

More to the point, it's funny who we keep in touch with.

Once upon a time I boldly stood on the rooftops, beat my chest in the moonlight and declared that I had met the one in whom my soul delighted. It was match. Or so I thought. Two years later, as plans were coming together for us to build a life together, I started paying attention to the signals that I had long been ignoring. The problems with his character were no longer endearing quirks, and I found myself suddenly without the ability to turn the other way. Without much more deliberation, I ended the relationship swiftly and cleanly. It was over. Let us spare ourselves the drama and the fighting. No need to drag it out. Rightfully so, he was angry with me, and after the fact, never failed to remind me how much I wronged him. After the 5th psychological guilt trip down memory lane, I summarily lashed back, and we are no longer in each other's lives.

Yesterday, I was driving into the downtown area, and for the first time in a very long time, the thought occurred to me that the person who was once the greatest love of my life and I are once again living in the same city. Or are we? When people have asked me about him, my honest response was that we had purposefully lost touch with each other. He could be living in Timbuktu for all I know. (Although I seriously doubt it. He wasn't much of a risk taker.) I suppose if I wanted to contact him, I could find him where he (probably still) works, but that would take some effort on my part, and really, what would there be to say? Who knows, maybe I'll run into him one day, but this is a big city, and I'm not going to hold my breath.

In the meantime, I still keep in touch with other various and sundry love interests from along the way. One, in particular, is still very much a part of my life, despite the demise of our relationship two years ago. It took a few months after the fact, but he still calls to touch base with me every few weeks. We chat, we give updates, encouragement, and don't hold each other hostage to our failure at not making a go of the "happily ever after" paradigm. No hard feelings. Yesterday, he called me to tell me that he was in the throws of a new relationship with a girl he really liked, and I genuinely was all smiles for him. Funny how that happens. Perhaps the reason for this is that, prior to our involvement, we were good friends who kept in loose touch for years. And even when we were together, we were still best of pals. We never fought. Not even once. We always had a really great time together. Even when the relationship ended, it was so cordial and respectful that we didn't even need to shout about it. I think we were both a little sad about what happened, but neither of us were in a place to take things further. It was mutual parting of ways.

As I sit here writing this, I'm thinking that the ones we do ultimately lose are the ones we really loved the most. Either that, or they are the ones who hurt us the most. I suppose there has to be some direct correlation between love and the ability to get hurt. Anything that intense opens the door to too much air, only fueling the interpersonal fire. Hmm.

"You Can Check Out Any Time You Like...

...but you can never leave..."

Maybe I'm a little behind the times, but my new favorite song is the Gypsy King's cover of
"Hotel California" on the "Big Lebowski" soundtrack. Aside from the fact that the Gypsy Kings have been one of my favorite groups of my semi-adult life, the Eagle's rendition of "Hotel California" is probably one of my all-time, most relied upon soundtracks ever. Whether happy, sad, feelin' in "the mood", or just trying to kick back and cook something splendid, "Hotel California" has it all right there. Not only this, but it's pure poetry. Think about it. It's life. It's love. It's learning that you can't escape from your demons, bad habits, what have you. Maybe for some, it means that you'll always go home, or back to what is comfortable to you. For others, it may mean that we can't wander too far from our true paths in life, as we'll always get pulled back. "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

Hmmm....

Actually, thinking about it now, I believe there are perhaps three songs that one should live by. In no particular order they are:

1. Kenny Rogers: "The Gambler" Even though I shouldn't pick favorites, this is my Favorite. It's the best all time advice ever, ever, ever. When in doubt, Kenny will help you out. Best thing is that he won't lie to you: "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run." I can't think of any better possible life advice, and I'm sure that I've lost count of how many times I've known when to walk away, and when to run...

2. Rolling Stones:
"You Can't Always Get What You Want" Because it's just true. You can't always get what you want. And you won't if it's not what you need. Sure, we could get into the whole ontological debate of wants versus needs, but let us not split hairs and just accept the proof in the proverbial brown sugar, shall we?

3.
Eagles/and now Gypsy Kings: "Hotel California". I also particularly like the "mirrors on the ceiling" part, but perhaps we shall save that for another day...

Climacophobia

It's only within the past couple of years that I've been able admit that I'm not quite right in the head when it comes to some pretty random stuff. And while there's a sliding scale for these things, perhaps I'll just throw it out there and see what you all have to say.

First, I was at a Medieval Fair, like, 10 years ago, and there were these women dressed up as fairies, walking around on stilts. For whatever reason, this deeply disturbed me. In thinking about it, I don't like anything which walks on stilts. Fortunately, in my daily life, this issue has never become much of a problem.

Perhaps more pressingly, however, I have a profound abhorrence for pet birds. It's not a phobia, per se (well, ok, a little--they do kind of scare me), but it's more of a real and very deep hatred for such a barbaric act. When I see a bird in a cage, I immediately conjure up images of the Middle Passage, and I want to vomit. A few years ago, a friend of mine referred to this issue as my "endearing and poetic personality tic" because I refused to dine at a friend's house who kept her birds in the kitchen. I refused to budge on the matter simply because I cannot eat with a caged bird looking at me. My friend said that she would cover the bird so that it would go to sleep. Oh, even better!, I said--Smother and alienate the damn thing on my account??--No, I will have no part in this! Call it what you will, but birds are feathered reptiles, and they belong outside. Not only do I detest the smell of a bird in a cage, but I have an automatic aversion to people who keep birds as pets. People who keep birds as pets, whether they know it or not, are my sworn enemies. May their bird one day find its way out of the cage and shit all over them as they sleep for being so cruel and inhumane to our ancestors.

Next, I have a serious fear of head injuries. And for good reason. A friend of mine was in a terrible accident several years ago. She barely survived, and now she will never, ever, ever be the same. She lost her whole life in an instant. And yes, she was wearing her seatbelt. But she wasn't wearing a helmet! I believe in wearing helmets, and I sincerely wish that I could have a special helmet designed for me that I can wear when in a car, and especially in a taxi cab.

Finally, saving the biggest issue for last, I have a serious issue with moving staircases, otherwise known as "escalators". Really, really big ones bring me to the edge of a panic attack every time, even though I try to prove to myself that I'm more rational than my irrational fear. It's definitely linked to a few things: failure to trust my fellow man, fear of falling, and fear of head injury. My biggest thing is that I'm scared that someone else will lose their balance and come toppling down on everyone else going up, and I will not only fall (and definitely incur a head injury) but I will be flattened by some huge fat woman or man who couldn't keep his/her balance. The image frightens me so much that sometimes I just can't bring myself to step upon the moving staircase. Considering the fact that a direct ancestor of mine actually invented the escalator (and elevator), the phobia itself is beyond ironic.

What Do You Want on Your Tombstone?

Several days a week, I go for a morning run at the Rivanna River Park on the outskirts of town. It is in the neighborhood of Woolen Mills, one of Charlottesville's more historic, yet lesser known areas. Once upon a time, Woolen Mills was a bustle of immigrant workers who came from all over, yet left little of themselves behind except for the oddly-constructed boarding houses in the area, which remain scattered throughout the hillsides in the now-gentrifying neighborhood. It was only in the latter moments of my undergraduate career at UVa, that I ventured away from the noise of the University nucleus, only to discover the quaint world of old Charlottesville, the places where students are seldom seen, and real people of the town go about their lives.

On the way to Woolen Mills, there's a very odd intersection. Across from the store with no name who's only sign reads "Mexican Products Sold Here", there's an entire plot of 50 or 60 gravestones. In the middle of the plot is a tiny brick building with "WA Hartman Memorials" squarely set in stone across the top fascia of the brick. For what it's worth, this has always been a very unsettling sight for me. The gravestones in the lot appear to be advertised like used cars. In my mind, I envision balloons rooted to last season's sale items, maybe even "buy one, get one free" sales, or even an on-going "discount to the undead" promotion. Places like that always make me wonder who shops there and what exactly are their purchasing objectives?

Perhaps because my values and subsequent views of life and death are largely due in part to the fact that my lifeview embodies that of modernity, I have a natural reticence to modern graveyards. I don't live and breathe on the soil of my ancestors, and when I allow myself to think in abstract with regard to my "final resting place", I have never once seriously considered that a large and expensive stone on top of me with my name on it is properly symbolic of my existence on the planet. As far as I'm concerned, cemeteries are an archaic throwback to the past of long-eclipsed pomp and circumstance. More importantly, they are a waste of precious land and material resources. If, after all, the body is a vessel, my desire is to be reincarnated through organ donation, and cremation seems like the most palatable organic approach I can imagine. Yes, put me back in the earth by planting me in a garden or giving me to the sea.

In today's world, we are largely devoid of the ancient sense of community and ritual, which was at once nurtured, needed, and represented in the symbolism of community burial grounds. Interestingly, as a young child, I was profoundly exposed to what these rituals mean. My grandparents were first-generation immigrants from that fantismal "Old Country". They unconsciously clung to some semblance of cultural identity despite the fact that their own ethnic inter-marriage was symbolic enough to prove that nothing about the evolution of an immigrant culture is ever permanently set in stone. Far from the land of their ancestors, they gave me and my brother what their parents and grandparents instilled in them: sanctified religious ritual based on the cycle of life and death.

I spent every summer with my grandparents. Every Sunday after Mass, we always spent the day visiting relatives. Interestingly, however, sometimes this meant changing our clothes and trekking to the old cemetery on the hill to replant the flowers upon the graves of those who came before us. I grew up in this cemetery. I played hide and seek with my brother while my grandparents planted and prayed aloud to the spirits in our midst. I spent afternoons holding my grandfather's hand as he toured me through the finer points of the cemetery microsm. It was where I learned who my great-grandparents were, and how they struggled to be Americans. When I grew older, I often ventured to the cemetery by myself, just to get a breath of air from noisy and stressful family gatherings. The cemetery overlooks the city, down to the river below, straight to the old steel mills on the water, where so many of the men and women buried on that hill spent their lives, including my grandfather, his brothers, cousins and friends.

I'll never forget the time after Mass one day when my grandfather insisted on driving up to the cemetery to show me and my brother the place where he and my grandmother chose to be buried. Instead of picking an old-fashioned plot with a double heart headstone like everyone before him, my grandfather opted for the new mausoleum, which was just being built at the time. He referred to it as the "high rise", and told us that this way no one would have to tend to his grave because, after all, he wouldn't be in the ground. I suppose my grandfather was looking out for all of us in his desire to minimize our efforts in maintaining his grave. I wondered if maybe he resented the fact that he had spent so much of his own life's energy tending to the graves of others. In my opinion, however, I don't think that he saw that the mausoleum approach to burial was (and remains) the first step of modernity's bastardization of human ritual. In my grandfather's defense, he didn't want us to have to work to visit him. However, now when I visit him, I'm also visiting a wall of 40 other dead degos, and I have to crane my neck up thirty feet just to see his name. Oddly enough, aren't cemeteries the place of life's affirmation? We use them as places to go and find silence and introspection, to commune at an organic level with the earth, energy, light, and air around us. Perhaps these are the last sacred places on man's earth. After all, the Amazon Rainforest will be long bulldozed, slashed and burned before my grandparent's cemetery is paved over for commercial use.

At any rate, even after all of these years, it appears as though WA Hartman Memorials is going strong. Yesterday, as I was coming back from my run, I saw two retirement aged couples milling around through the merchandise. They looked as intent as people shopping for mattresses.