time to go?

Ok, two words.
Animal slaughter.

Ok, well actually three words.
Live animal slaughter. (of course, it has to be live if it is slaughter...)

So we'll go with four words.
Live, PUBLIC animal slaughter.

With all due respect to Abraham and tradition,  is it REALLY necessary to import goats, sheep and cows into nations (such as the one I am currently a resident in)  who celebrate Eid and to slit the throats of animals literally right in the street where we walk, run, play, ride bikes, etc? In front of children.  Close to where they are also picnicing and bbq'ing?

As I was on my regular weekend run a few days ago, I kept thinking to myself as I happened upon several large brownish, red, puddled and smeared stains ("Wow! That looks like blood!  Did they slaughter something here?")   At the time, I was simply having an involuntary and uneducated monologue in my head and had no idea that YES, it was in fact blood and YES something had been slaughtered there!! Where in the heck am I and what century is this?

Filing this under "culture horror", not culture shock.   And, note to self, perhaps I am not as tolerant as I have labeled myself.  This is why I shy away from labels.  I know I can't live up to them, so why try?  Just makes me a hypocrite.

I suppose this gives more credence to why I have been advised to "lay low" and "stay away from large crowds" during the Eid celebration and in general.

Damn.
http://www.animalsaustralia.org/media/press_releases.php?release=145

Idealism, Rivers, Complete Suckitude and Reality...

Lest anyone reading think I am a bungling idealist and believe that people can sustain themselves on love as mentioned in my River/Dam post....No, that was not the point. A dream of a wish, yes - but not the point.

Yes, of course we need financial freedom, and gainful employment, and capitalism and opposing viewpoints, laws and culture and the ability to pursue an education and evolution and revolution all coupled with the freedom to choose our own thoughts, friends and actions. Although I don't suppose you can "couple" that many things... (digressing)

I'm not advocating a cult or communism or suggesting anything that is to insinuate that a utopia is attainable by love. Nor am I naive enough to believe that anything I propose is actually real or attainable on the universal level.  Not when humans and their nature are involved. That post, although idealic,  was merely my own musing about my own life to this point and what I know to have been missing from it pretty much so far.

I'm a pragmatic realist who sees romance in idealism and thinks we could all use a bit more of it in our lives.

As for where I am right now, I'm feeling a bit like Rapunzel stuck up in the tower wanting nothing more than to go home and trying to remind myself that to be happy there, I have to be happy here and all that other "power of present thinking" nonsense that I remind everyone of all the time.  And it isn't nonsense...it just isn't always practical nor human and I find at the end of the day that I am excruciatingly and gloriously human, I'm afraid.

I came to this oil rich country on the Persian Gulf four months ago for many reasons.  Adventure, escape, HEALING, time for ME, to work in a field that I love, to pay off debts, to save money, to travel this side of the world and to learn what all this Muslim/Middle East stuff was really all about.  And for the first two and a half months it was pure adventurous bliss. I found that I fit right in and immensely enjoyed (and still enjoy) the wonderful team of people I have been able to work with.  I did pretty good things.  I broke some records in recruiting.  I made impressions with people who thought recruiters were all liars and snake oil salesmen.  I made peace with customers that had lost faith in our recruiting system.  I promised them results and I delivered and then some.  I gained their trust.  And to anyone who knows me, THAT is everything as far as I am concerned. With trust, respect and love and interdependence and real idea sharing and mixing can occur.

Then, it all started to break down.  Word of losing our contract started to spread and then rumor was revealed to be truth.  The ministry stopped issuing visas.  They told us it was because of Ramadan and the government was closed down during that time, which is true - but not why they stopped giving us visas.  They had simply decided we were "out", so didn't see fit to give us visas anymore till they felt like it.

I started having to do a song and dance every day at the direction of my bosses for my candidates and my managers who were waiting on people to fill critical positions in their departments.  Visas eventually loosened up.  We were give the GREEN LIGHT for continuing to hire and that the contract award was in protest and could go on for months, even years. (Mind you, I was not naive enough to believe this...but I thought we had 6 months or more.)  Then the ministry threw another residency requirement in to the mix that stalled mobilizations.  We got through that and then were given a new directive by the USG requiring clearances never before required of new hires (and existing) before mobilization.  So people, living breathing humans with lives and homes and families and medical needs and bills to pay continued to get pushed through new hoops and roadblocks.  And god love 'em, they were frustrated as hell, but they did every single thing they were asked to do and we only lost the smallest handful to the extensive timeline.  I would never have made it here myself in July if all these requirements had been in place.  All these changes happened in a blink.

Now...as of mid last week, the final expiration date has been given to the contract.  All protests are cleared and we are not a consideration of any sort.  All bets are off.  Everything the company has been telling my team to tell our candidates is null and void.  (Even for us). We are the phase out and clean up crew now. The message and the mission has changed entirely. It is anarchy and every man/woman for themselves.  And my bliss has turned into misery.  Sickness at what I have put people through who have been trying to get a job here.  People who believed ME, who bought into ME.  Who trusted me to give them the scoop, the skinny, the status of where we are today with the changes.  Some of them quit their jobs in their home country already and are just waiting on a plane ticket from us.

They will never get here.  These people are not widgets.  They are not products.  They are human beings. Real live people. People from all over the world.  People who want to come here from India and the Phillipines and Pakistan and Africa...to make a tiny fraction of what the Western employees make.  And it is still much more than they could make at home.  People who leave their families, their children, to make money to send home and only get to visit their families maybe every six months.  I get to tell them this news starting Monday.  Now the record number of people I hired will be the record number of people I tell there is no job for them. 

They will be angry, sad, confused, frustrated, in despair...they will be in total disbelief.  They will tell me how they have been holding on and counting on this for so long and NOW I tell them this news.  Some will cry.  Some will curse me.  Some will say, "that's life on a contract". Many will tell me their stories of hardship and sickness in their family and how much they need this job.  I just have to listen and try to help and try to reassure them and then probably come home at the end of the day every day feeling like a shitbag and have to figure out how to pick myself up and go in an do it again the next day.  This will go on for weeks. WEEKS.

So, no, I am not an idealist.  I am not even the queen of positivity you might think and I am most certainly not sitting around on my cloud of oblivion thinking happy thoughts about butterflies and rainbows. 

But I do enjoy those images.  I do believe in the beauty of simple things.  I do believe that there is an awful lot of good in this world and in people everywhere.  I do believe that to be happy there, you have to be happy here...at least in the most basic everyday sense.  I know there are life altering things that happen everyday that can make here less enjoyable than there, and vice versa.  I know that life can quite literally just suck sometimes. 

I will go so far as to say, I don't believe in a heaven or hell - at least not in the biblical depiction.  Heaven above. Hell below.  Live for  your death so you can be saved. No...thank you very much.

I believe heaven and hell exist right here on earth and the salvation is in realizing that you can deliver yourself into either by choice.  That doesn't mean bad things won't happen to good people.  Or that good things won't happen to bad people.  It just means that how people deal with the good and the bad generally sets the stage for what the majority of their life experience will be. 

So, no, not an idealist.  A realist who has lived the "realest" of life's darkness already.  Born into it.  Raised to a teenager in it.  Saved myself from it by leaving home for college and never looking back. Some friends have romanticized it and likened the experience to the "Phoenix" rising from the ashes and there is a lot of truth to those ashes.  And to my apparent inability to lay down and take defeat. (Oh crap, is it "lie" down or "lay" down? I can't remember.)  They are kind.  I am better because they are in my life.

But all that self salvation and perseverance leads to immense loneliness.  And I have spent years filling that loneliness with the wrong person or people.  For the sake of not being alone.  Living to please others for love, instead of finding someone who loved me just because I am me and that I loved.  (Being raised by wolves teaches this pattern, but it has also given me insight to see my mistakes and to learn from them, finally, and to insist on something better. And to know that if I don't find something/someone that can have this river love I waxed all dreamy about with, then I am cool being a loved one for my friends and family - a group that is growing worldwide, and can dig my own company. I am not lonely.  I genuinely see the world glow and know this journey is mine and I really wouldn't change a thing because I like who I have become.

I haven't come this far or learned this much to throw it away or to give up. So you'll still see the idealism sneak in from time to time.  I'm ok with that.  Because idealism in the way that I am using it is just a wish, a prayer, a desire....maybe even a fantasy that gives the wisher hope.

This wisher has hope. This woman believes. This ME knows there is beauty in substance and deep conversation and passion and shared silences and experiences.  I caught a glimpse of it recently. It was so awe inspiring, rare and such a departure from anything I have encountered that it reassured me it was definitely possible.  It was damn near mystical because it was exactly my shade of love.  If it did nothing else, it reignited a spark in my spirit and my heart that has been missing for so very long.  And for that, I can only be grateful.

And so it goes...

Frankly my dear, I don't river dam....

Sometimes, you want to give someone a hug because you know they need it....and other times, you want to give a hug because you know that you need it.  Either way - everybody wins as long as both hearts and sets of arms are open. 

Or as a beautiful Indian Hindu Guru says, "In this universe it is love that binds everything together. Love is the very foundation, beauty and fulfillment of life." Amma (Mata Amritanandamayi Devi).

How right she is.  Of course she's right, because I mean, what else is there?  What else can there be? The answer is "nothing", but even those who deep inside know the answer, do not live it.   So many believe life isn't successful without "things".  Cars, houses, status, titles, the exclusive club, the "right" circle of friends, clothes, wars, political ideals.... it seems we are judged for the very most unimportant things imaginable - yet the things with the most importance placed on them.  Worse, we judge ourselves in this same way.

I like to think of life and myself being as a river, and also know that as the choice to "be the river" exists, so must the choice to "be the dam."  The analogy is easy here, and simple.  Most things are simple - it is just that we as human beings do our best trying to complicate them.  The RIVER is a fluid, free flowing, ever changing, adaptive source of energy and life and sustenance.  It carries with it countless life in the form of fish, plants, reptiles, algae, plankton, minerals...and nourishes life through hydration of animal bodies and plant life.  Did you know that there are more plants and animals found in salt and fresh water than on land?  You did. You may have just forgotten. 

The river, then is love.  The river is you. The river is me. The river is choice.

Oh, and the DAM?  Well, while the dam can serve a purpose, and does serve a positive purpose in some cases - for pure metaphorical argument here I will point out that its very definition is that it is "a barrier" for water.  A place for impoundment or containment.  The downside is that it can lead to stagnation.  Disease.  A breeding ground for the stoppage of growth that inhibits the natural flow of the river and the ability to continue along nourishing everything in its path.  Apply these terms to love and you can get a very different perspective.  As soon as you try to impound or contain love, a barrier is effectively thrown into the mix and stagnation begins.  Many live their whole lives this way. I might have once.  I won't again. I'm still learning how to figure this out.  I think I am on my way.

This may sound familiar to you as well.  Have you found yourself flowing happily along like a river only to catch yourself, and then CHECK yourself and for reasons maybe you can't even fathom - find yourself building a dam to stop your flow? Perhaps to keep yourself from continuing on what may be an unforseen or even unconventional path.   Danger.  The unknown?  The "outside the cul de sac" thinking that might be seen as heresy? The seemingly instinctive desire to be seen as "normal" and do what is expected of you? 

The dam represents safety. Security.  Containment.  But can that be a barrier?  An impediment to yearning, growth, experience?  To exposure....giving of oneself all that one can and in return - getting back so much more in return?  Love? Back to love.  Yes, it does always come back to love.

I want to love like a river. To be loved like a river.  To flow and mold to some shapes while carving out others.  To carry with me the diluted memories of a past that has shaped me while flushing out the toxins that might keep me from trusting or believing or giving or really living.  To nourish myself and nourish another.  To experience togetherness while retaining the ability to change.  To be one, but also be two.  To drift slowly, steadily, sleepily in summer night dreams full of promise and hope...to meet at the rivermouth with a kindred soul river...a meeting which causes turbulence stirring up the rapids and passions of the heart that together carve through rocks and "barriers", cul de sacs, unknowns, dangers, fears, hesitations, and unfulfilled destinies.  To be able to accept the opposite flow of my kindred river spirit and form an alliance that we define ourselves.  And in doing so, find that this brings peace, and nourishes love, and fulfills the wishes of a thousand genies trapped under heavy desert sand in old dry lamps who find themselves enraptured when their soul awakens to the sound of the river. 

three wishes

Dear Universe....

As November is the recognized American time for giving thanks, I am sending a profound and deep gratitude your way for the fortunes of adventure and love and friendship and travel and reinvention...as well as the  infinite chances given to me to live a life that makes me sparkle.  And let me tell you, I am sparkling on overdrive.

I am humbled by your generosity and your capacity for showing me the beauty in every single moment today and every day.

Love,
Me

Methinks there's magic afoot...all you have to do is choose it...

Sometimes...oftentimes really... if you slow down long enough to pay attention and listen to your own heartbeat and to the heartbeat of the people and the places around you - the world is a wondrous and magical place with a capacity for renewal and rebirth and reinvention that is astounding.  (And Harriet McDonald might note that my capacity for creating a run-on sentence is astounding as well...I'm sorry, Mrs. McDonald...it's that stream of consciousness thing I always tried to turn into profound transcendentalism, but just never could quite accomplish it.)

In spite of this everyday magic and earthly splendor.....things, events, circumstances, people and situations can sometimes still surprise you.  And in surprising you, give you the very distinct feeling that all is new and fresh and that all things are possible.  At these times, the world seems to be painted more vividly, the light more illuminating, your heart and your thoughts - more kind and forgiving.  How does that old saying go?  Hope springs eternal?! Yes.  I think that is it.  Hope.  A small word with so much meaning and depth.  So much mileage and so many eternities wrapped up inside it. 

Hope.  The feeling a seed has before it becomes a tree. The feeling a new parent feels when gazing at their newborn. The excitement of the young teen on his first date.  The angst of waiting to hear about that job interview.  The worry of the family by the side of a hospitalized loved one.  The anticipation of a newer, brighter, richer economy.  Waiting for the first rain after a long, tough drought.  The dream that war will end.  Again.  From the trivial to the profound.  The banal to the extraordinary.  Hope turns on a dime and opens up worlds of endless possibilities. 

And then, there's magic.  Many say it does not exist.  I can only imagine they haven't seen it or felt it then and my hope, (smile), is that they will someday - and soon!

Think about it.  Magic~  nothing mystical or witchcrafty.  Everyday stuff.  The first green of spring (or ANY green while in the middle east). The first snowfall of winter (especially if you are a child of any age).  The stranger that ran down the street to return your purse or passport which you absentmindedly left behind.  Making it home alive in insane driving conditions that I refer to as Kuwaiti Traffic Roulette. Your child's first steps.  Your first kiss.  Even better, your LAST first kiss.... (looking forward to that one).  Someone returns your lost dog home to you safe and sound with the reward poster in hand but doesn't take the reward.  Ordinary stuff that seems extraordinary because it just FEELS that way to you.  It makes you think something otherworldly has happened or is happening. 

Magic is like the other side of hope.  It is what happens when you have that hope and live as authentically and genuinely as you can and then - BOOM!!! BAM!!! It happens.   With hopes fulfilled, you experience magic.

I've seen magic all my life and it's been kicked up quite a few notches of late.  And do you know what I am going to do with it?  I'm going to enjoy the hell out of it.  Because life really is too short.  And as someone I haven't met yet recently stated "Doctors say I only have 40 to 50 years left to live...I intend to make the most of the short time I have remaining." 


This brings me to choice.  Choice.  With the power of choice, and it is ALWAYS within your power to choose, even to decide that you have the power... lies the foundation for hope and the catalyst for magic. Choose to create your own magic and the spread hope in others.  There are plenty of negative and destructive contagions in the world.  What so few realize is that hope, love, good deeds, positivity, magic, and laughter are contagions as well.  I've even heard it said "where there is light, no darkness can exist" and in sheer metaphorical form - I believe it. 

The universe recently told me...ok, so it was a fake quote from the universe, but it sure sounds like something the universe would say if it were talking to me.... 

"The path to enlightenment is not a path at all, it's actually a metaphor for the time it takes for you to allow yourself to be happy with who you already are, where you're already at, and what you already have - no matter what." - the Universe

Choices.  I decided some time ago to follow my curiousity and to choose the life that is defined by me and colored by those I consider myself lucky to have in it.  So far, I'm digging it.  Choose your magic.  Choose your life.  Own it.  And for crying out loud - make the most of it, even if you only have 40 or 50 more years.

  

 

if this all sounded live babbling drivel to any readers, my deepest apologies.  It is 11PM, I've been up since 3AM and might just be delirious... Ma'salaama, my friends.  Till another day.

Bedouin BBQ's and November in the Middle East

Yesterday, I was sitting in front of my rather large window that is situated right on the Persian Gulf, unmarred by any building or obstructions, but unfortunately with a dangerously busy street separating me from the water. It was a little after 4PM here and I was watching the day's Bedouin BBQ.

While the Kuwaiti's are ridiculously rich and have everything (houses, electricity, monthly stipend, etc) provided to them by the government oil reserves, they still haven't lost their bedouin heritage. They picnic anywhere and everywhere. Whole families start to gather close to sunset. They bring grills, coolers, pots and pans, pitchers of teas and juices, persian rugs, tables and chairs...and they plop down wherever they please and start cooking. It's very interesting. It is endearing, even.  Family is extremely important to them.  They are very tribal. 

A popular Bedouin saying is "Me against my brother, My brothers and I against my cousins, then my cousins and I against strangers". This saying speaks to the hierarchy of loyalties based on closeness of kinship that runs from the nuclear family through the lineage, the tribe.   Disputes are settled, interests are pursued, and justice and order are maintained by means of this organizational framework, according to an ethic of self-help and collective responsibility.
Bedouins traditionally had strong honor codes, and traditional systems of justice dispensation in Bedouin society typically revolved around such codes. They still practice the bisha'a, or ordeal by fire, which is a well-known Bedouin practice of lie detection.

What is maddening, is that they leave their garbage everywhere when they leave. Huge piles of it. With 100's of families doing this every single day, you can't imagine what the garbage looks like before the Bangladeshians (is that a word?) come and half heartedly clean some of it up.
 

 
As I have often shared, my view is amazing, the Gulf...but I would not so much as dip a toe in the water. At low tide the stench of sewage actually can take your breath away as I often find when on one of my later afternoon runs down the beach boardwalk. 

It is November now, and I hear talk of frost and freezing and even snow back in my home in the US.  Here?  It is still quite warm, which I am thankful for since I have no winter clothes with me whatsoever and the only shoes I have with covered toes are my running shoes and my hiking boots.  Looks like I might have to do some shopping as they tell me it will get cold here eventually.  Right now, it is like a beautiful VA or NC June day.  Hovering in the 80's and low 90's with low humidity.  The sun sets around 5PM or a little earlier.  It is quite amazing to think that just a few months ago it was 40 - 50 degrees HOTTER.  Oye!

Last weekend, I went to Dubai.  It was lovely - very much like Kuwait visually EXCEPT that they pick up their garbage!  It was clean everywhere and that was a welcome sight.  There were still random picnics everywhere.  Pink taxis (for the ladies, complete with lady taxi drivers....this charmed me beyond belief.)  Yes, there are pink taxis in Dubai and they are specifically for solo female travelers like myself or for families with children.  They don't pick up men and they don't pick up couples.  It made me feel safe and my taxi driver was a drop dead beautiful young woman from Ethiopia.  I can't remember and could not pronounce her name. 

I was able to buy wine in Dubai and exercised my right to enjoy a full bottle by myself.  In the end, though, I didn't finish it and was quite content to just sip and enjoy.  I walked, took a water taxi, explored, sunbathed by the pool, did some reading, spent 4 hours in the Mall of the Emirates.  What an enormous place, and that isn't the biggest mall in Dubai!!  Being the non-shopper that I am though, after four hours (which I was of course really using for exercise), I purchased three books in English *(YAY!) and two bars of soap that were the scent of, well - clean soap.  I think they are made of goat's milk or something.  I passed Zara and Gucci and Chanel and Prada and Louis Vouitton and Armani and all the other high dollar designers without a purchase.  I went inside, of course...and I tried things on, of course, but I haven't reached the place in life where I can justify spending that kind of dough.  The indoor ski slope was a hoot, though!  I didn't go in, but watched from the massive windows in the food court outside the ski slope. 

The evening was topped off last night after a long workout when I went to the roof of my building to do my standard pushup and crunches, and was surprised by a wondrous fireworks display going on all around me in the distance in several cities.  Amazing.  Fireworks are always fun - but surprise fireworks?  Well, that's just plain magical.  I feel the winds of change blowin' in again.  We'll see where they take me.