Day 1069: What We Truly Possess
July 31, 2008 - Filed Under computing & internet, kuwait, new orleans, the game of life
It is NOLA Bloggers week over at The Rude Pundit.
Today, it’s Humid City’s turn. BigEZBear writes:
Over the last few years, a lot of us have learned that “nothing” is what we truly possess. Everything we think we have, everything we think defines us, is ephemera. We are, each of us, alone. We know this now.
Time, place, things, social situations and lifestyle constitute our being as much as air, water, good health and beliefs. So defined, Life #1 ended on August 2nd, 1990 with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Life #2 almost ended on August 29th, 2005, but I was lucky enough to come back to it, to come to terms with it. But, things aren’t precisely as they were before. Call this Life #2b then.
Nothing is what we truly possess. This is what I have to remind myself when walking through the house and making a mental account of the sheer amount of stuff I’ve accumulated in the last eighteen years. Where did all of this crap come from and do I really need it? But, all of this crap makes up my home - my possessions placed by me in a spot for which I pay. Is this really home if it can all be taken away by war, theft, wind, fire or a flood? Can my former home really be my home if it no longer exists? What is home?
After the Iraqi invasion and Gulf War, my parents insisted that I study hard, excel at school and, together, we almost drove me to the point of burnout several times. I kept chugging. When I’ve asked my mom what she feels of her post-K(uwait) life, she says, “They can’t take your education and values away from you.” Admirable, but not really comforting enough to be convincing.
D is often the object of my envy, what with his ability to visit the house in which he grew up because his father still lives there. Three generations of his family came into the world in the same damned general hospital, the one in which my godchildren and their parents and their parents and grandparents before them were born. That’s more than a century of place, something I’ve longed for all my life, but D shakes his head when I vocalize these thoughts. “That town is where I grew up, where my family and friends are, but that’s not home. My home is in me, wherever I go. My home is with you.”
Nothing is what we possess. Nothing is what we came in with and nothing is that with which we will leave. Things aren’t people, thank goodness; the people in our lives count the most and we now know and have the ones who came through for us, as we’ve done and would for them. They don’t belong to us, either, but are our most cherished, our mirrors, sometimes merging into our own selves. I was able to start Life #2 with my family intact and Life #2b with my D. Should Life #3 ever become a reality, nothing I have right now would be necessary but the love of family and friends. I must try to remember this when scrambling to pack up everything that will fit in the truck before the next evacuation.
We hope to alleviate one another’s despair. We hope to care enough to stand there and take the punches from our wounded brothers and sisters that are not really meant for us but for “them.” And, in our loneliness, we pray that we will manage to be there to reach out to one another and help hold each other up.
Until the end.
Day 619: Battle Dancing Pioneer
May 9, 2007 - Filed Under funny, kuwait, weather
According to John, Man Dies From Battle Dancing is currently the big story on CNN Headline News. America is at war, people are starving and the first named Atlantic tropical disturbance gyrates off the coast of Georgia three months prematurely, but “apparently it’s newsworthy that if you do acrobatic moves and fall on your head on a hard surface, you can injure or kill yourself.”
Where was CNN when I proved at the age of 1, and in a most spectacular fashion, that conducting acrobatic maneuvers off hard surfaces and falling on your head is hazardous to one’s health? I invented battle dancing before it even had a poser name, y’eard? Follow.
Day 576: Nineteen-Month-Delayed Aftershocks
March 27, 2007 - Filed Under We Are Not Ok, hurricane katrina, kuwait, new orleans, photographs, recovery
Last night, I exited the grocery store while D animatedly bemoaned our house’s distinct lack of indoor plant life. “Bring your planter back from work and let’s refresh it with fresh bamboo stalks. What about palms? I want more greenery around.”
Barely audible, I replied, “Ever since Katrina and the flood, I’ve refrained from loading up on plants and overfilling the refrigerator. What if we have to evacuate and stay away for a month or so again this season? The bare minimum of perishables, please.”
Undaunted, D went on, “Everything dies, Maitri, including humans, plants and pets. What about your dad’s garden in Kuwait? It died during the unexpected Iraqi invasion. I’m not going to let my life be dictated by the odds of another Katrina type event occurring here. Besides, the chances are higher that we get hit head-on in which case the whole house goes or that nothing happens. All we’re going to experience this time is another Ivan, if that.”
From his mouth to god’s ears. “Yeah, everything does die, D. But, at least the humans and pets don’t die unless they’re left behind like the garden, houseplants and refrigerator.”
That’s when I lost it. Travelling down beautiful Prytania Avenue, hot, inexplicable tears rolled down my cheeks and my chest heaved and sank, heaved and sank. The same way it did on August 28th 2005 as we headed to Texas and Katrina prepared to make landfall. It hasn’t gone away, has it, that acquired fear of premature impermanence? Now do you know why I seized my independence so vigorously after 1990, mom and dad? To the rest of the world, now are you aware why most New Orleanians still celebrate Mardi Gras, Jazzfest, the Saints and every recent party like there’s no tomorrow? Because New Orleans is unusual and it may not have a tomorrow, so we carpe the bloody diem NOW. Oh, am I wrong? Do I not have faith?
The failure to build New Orleans-area hurricane levees and levee walls as part of an integrated, well-fortified system doomed the region during Katrina and remains the key finding of a revised report released Monday by an investigation team sponsored by the Army Corps of Engineers.
… The task force still must complete a chapter on risk that will include one set of detailed maps of the New Orleans area that explain the risk faced by residents and businesses once repairs on the levee system are completed. A second set of maps will outline the reliability of the existing levee system: mainly, its ability to withstand future hurricanes.
Bailing is not an option now, but I’m scared, like everyone’s scared. We have but one life to live, but when that life starts to resemble bits of unrelated movies hastily spliced together, it becomes a hard thing for the mind and heart to reconcile. It’s not easy to just pick up and move, much less “move the city” as some have suggested. Not knowing, however, is the hardest part.
Day 561: Options
March 12, 2007 - Filed Under culture-society-history, global, government, kuwait
A South American friend, let’s call him B, recently moved to the States and informs us that what he finds the most astounding about this country is its plethora of options. Having recently mastered English (in his own mind), B visited an American grocery store for the first time. At the checkout counter, the cashier asked the customary, “Paper or plastic?” “Cash,” B replied proudly. Embarassed on learning that he was being asked what kind of bag he wanted, B skulked away to dinner.
At dinner, B was asked how he wanted his steak done. “Why, cooked, of course,” B said with astonishment. “No, no, do you want it rare, medium rare, medium, medium well or well done?” Exasperated and amazed, B took the medium option.
So many picks. Options. Choices. The land of the free offers so much variety … take a little, leave a little. However, many forget that there is a vast difference between excess and freedom. What use is a gilded cage, especially one we build up around ourselves?
Of late, the United Arab Emirates is exploding with so much money they don’t know what to do with it. Forget the amazing Burj Al-Arab, get a load of
- * the Louvre opening a branch in Abu Dhabi,
- * the Palm Jumeirah, and
- * Halliburton moves global HQ from Houston to Dubai
The game is certainly afoot in the United Arab Emirates, it is “the place to be,” but at what cost? A 2003 Human Rights Watch report cites that 90% of the Emirates’ workers are migrant labor and are paid poorly to work in hazardous settings. Additionally, a State Department memo reports human rights abuses related to these workers, specifically those working as domestic help.
The first fifteen years of my life were spent in Kuwait, where I witnessed first-hand the treatment of highly-educated and dedicated foreign nationals at the nouveau-riche egos of their bosses. My ultra-competent mother, who singlehandedly ran her division and represented Kuwait at UN meetings, would never make top banana because she was a) a woman and b) an Indian woman. Yes, we lived and did extremely well in Kuwait, but would I want my parents to swallow that crap again, just to ensure good lives, educations and options for their children and respective families back in the Old Country? No. Will I ever live in a misogynist religious oligarchy again? No. Not for all the money in the world. There is lifestyle and then there is life.
And that’s the difference between freedom and excess. Freedom is equal rights for men, women and foreigners, the fair treatment and compensation of all labor, and political and religious freedom - it is choice, in the purest sense of the term. Excess is the product of that labor held up above all else. The hope of true freedom is what keeps me an American.
Day 463: Le Christmas Tree Is Up
December 4, 2006 - Filed Under culture-society-history, family & friends, food & drink, kuwait, new orleans, photographs
And my various and wacky Bonifacian trinkets with it.
While PH Fred finds it hard to survive New Orleans and others the city and world over suffer in a similar fashion and differently, I am thankful and content to have pulled my intact tree and ornaments out of storage and put them up, albeit after two long years.
As a Hindu child growing up in Muslim Kuwait, I didn’t have the opportunity to open presents under the warm glow of corded lights and glass baubles once every year. Each Christmas, however, my parents ushered me to parties at the homes of Christian family friends and colleagues, where I would stand before the tree and compare its ornaments with the personality of the one who put it up. Not once did I fathom living in America with my own personal fir … nor did I care with fresh fruitcake on the line, lovingly baked by my pediatrician (Dr. Sara Mathews, whom I refer to as Dr. Aunty to this day) and Mom’s friend, Ansa. Yes, Virginia, there is a Fruitcake Junkie, and she is me.
Kuwait. India. The Midwest. New Orleans. Houston. New Orleans. It sure brings back memories. All of the beautiful heirlooms my mother and her friends lost in Kuwait to the war, the Christmas tree that Sharon will never put up again, the blue Christmas tree R shared with me last year, friends lost and gained over the years. (Just in case you think I’m all weepy, remember that a sense of humor balances out the tears every time).
All of the things I have remind me that this is a time for giving more than we normally do in post-Katrina New Orleans. The season also turns me into a utilitarian Martha Stewart - I clean house with a rabid zeal, get rid of things no longer required and combine disparate objects and find a use for them. For example, I unearthed a corkboard and a bolt of raw silk, which I turned into a display pallet for necklaces. Dangerblond and I ought to star in our own local cable access TV show, along the lines of Mission: Organization. I’ll tackle the insides, while she works her magic on the yards and gardens.
Boxes and boxes of clothes and shoes were taken to Covenant House, while strictly following my new rule for personal purchases - for each new piece of clothing I buy, one piece of existing clothing goes to charity or a friend. We collect so many things and much crap over the years; living in this city shows how much we can and cannot afford, and what we are to prioritize. Not replaceable things, but people.
There is one thing I saved from a trash pile in destroyed Lakeview. How could I pass up a cute monkey? Doesn’t he look adorable in his new home holding up the Christmas coconut tree? Happy season, y’all. I can’t believe it’s been a year already.
P.S. Where will I be this Christmas, you ask? Bien sur, at the last Packer home game of the season. Favre will never leave the Pack, but on the off chance that he retires after this year, I’d like to be there for the last home game of The Best Quarterback Ever. Besides, what’s more fun than taking on the ViQueens?
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