A not-too-very-much-sequitor-ish post for today

Spring time is here!

My spring reading is two or three big books: THE RECOGNITIONS, A SUITABLE BOY and... Gone with the Wind (total, 4,000 pages, thereabouts). And all three are not necessarily positive so much as reaffirming, taking the good with the bad and trying to make a place for yourself in this world. Even when sad things happen in them, and they give you, Proust-like, the chance to live a whole life through these characters, the joys and the heartbreaks.

''want to get on with getting on with things.. i can't do any of that here, can I?''

Well, I could have guessed this ahead of time, but reading that last book makes me homesick -- too many people in the first 10 pages are sitting on the porch by the dogwoods, nursing a glass of iced tea. But nostalgia never killed anyone, and as my birthday gets closer, it's nice to revisit my home, if only through the 1930's prose. And, its so big and I'm reading it so leisurely that I might finish it just as I board the plane to go back!


Leisurely... though, already heard of tornado-ish damage in the old home town. I thought of that yesterday when I saw 3 or 4 dust devils pass through the football match I went to. Of course, it didn't help that I also started a book about Katrina, Dave Egger's Zeitoun. And, sure enough, my sister told me this morning that a storm took down part of the roof of the shed at my aunt's/sister's house (And yeah, those are two different people, I needn't mention).

But I'm not too homesick. I've been walking around in this strange, weird mood of contentment that seems unrelated to anything in particular. Hope it lasts!

As Adriana wrote,

Blew out a candle in a Berber village cafe
made big wishes that will come true one day.
In these changing times I'm blessed to be here
with YOU all
the ones I hold NEAR and DEAR.

Since she came to my town and spent two days, I've had an interesting change in me. I wrote this in a letter to my friend Sam, as I thought about it while writing to him from this same cafe in the picture. It's a bit like, in your mind you have these half-submerged assumptions, not all of them nice, that you carry around with you about yourself and the people around you. You feel the gaze, and you add your own negative frame of mind, superimposing your doubts. And as a PCV in a tough-work site, those are plenty indeed.


Showing a guest your life here, though, so different than where they are, you're forced to reevaluate the things here as you introduce them and describe them. This makes you unearth those noxious half-submerged assumptions and decide again if that gaze, is it really malicious or is it more benign? I did this, and found, 'taint so, things here are possibly quite fine, and since then I've been in the public a great deal more-- sat out watching a football game, sat at the cafe, walked up to people, shook their hands, asked about their family and when they're going to come stop by for tea, seemingly all free now of those earlier burdens, that self-doubt and the quick & eroneous conclusion that they're judging me harshly. I can even spend 4 hours in the cyber and not feel too guilty about it!

Sure, one time way back when they judged me, but they did that a long time ago and now without this fake conflict, one emmanating more from inside myself than from them, I've felt my emotional connection to my town double and triple in the past few days. Sometimes, you have to learn to let your guard down-- and I hadn't hardly realized it was up! I suppose, it's like waking up, seeing noone's out to get you, and... letting go and relaxing, letting the moment envelop you such that you can't help but be excited, eager to rush out the door. This next song, by the same lady, is EXACTLY that feeling. I've not felt eager leaving my house in quite a long time. Though, I was happy and anxious and nervous when I showed up to take Z down to my town, for several reasons, and my heart melted when seeing N'Kob come into view and having the people there know my name.




Another video by the same lady-- I feel like they are two good bookends for this half-nostalgic, half-happyy-to-be-where-I-am (is there an adjective for that?). As the great writer said:

"What day is it?"
It's today," squeaked Piglet.
My favorite day," said Pooh."
— A.A. Milne

I feel like one of those players in the NFL that are on a streak, so they do everything exactly as they did before the last game, wearing the same socks, eating at the same time, the same thing at the same place, calling the same people, all hoping to not break the magic spell I seem to be under, one I'd say acting on me even despite myself. Tonite I was able to get exactly the kind of student I wanted: more than average English ability (only with an exceptional student do I enjoy teaching the beginner-level), young and outside of the school system (he can't get English any other way), totally informal, at the kitchen of the gas station cafe, no particular time that he's expecting me, and he knows French even better than Arabic! So tonite, the hour lesson just came alive in a way that has only happened with my host family, and that buoyed me even further.

Well, there's a great deal to say. Expect a ''everything's backwards'' blog post sometime soon. It came about last night, feeling inspired and I held up my glass of tea, piping hot, saying ''Woah Saida, would you believe that in the US, we make our tea, just like you do, but after it's boiling we put it in the fridge for the whole day before we drink it? See, we do everything backwards. ''

All those things like that. You should have seen her eyes get big when I pointed to the fridge Doesn't mean it's the wrong way, but it's our way and this is your day, and you might think it's crazy, but that's fine.