It’s July 1st, so I’ve been back in the Midwest for, what, three months? A quarter of a year.
After fits and starts, travel and more travel and D gone for half of each month, we are beginning to own our home, home-ownership and the giant yard that always needs tending. While D mows, I trim the plethora of plants we inherited and attack the weeds which threaten to take over after every rain. While he puts food on the grill, I sort through the piles of mail addressed to Our New Neighbor or Bamani Venkat (my new name, which I am sure is a result of the following thought process over at Ohio Snail Mail Spam Central: “Maitri Venkat-R … what? Aaaah, new name! *FREAKOUT* Damned furners. *FREAKOUT* I don’t know what to do! Let’s just put it down as Bamani Venkat. Next!“ I am told not to complain as this is a great way to cull the junk mail.)
I had forgotten how beautiful the midwestern countryside is. From atop a western hill, we often lose hours staring at the fields between our house and the county to the south, and the sun setting behind a limestone cliff. Or a wild turkey or ten and deer that invariably spring forth from the same spot in the woods to the southwest. D watches them without a single movement, like an Ent or a patient predator, while the city girl in me moves and tries to get as close as possible without scaring off the critters. I scare off the critters. Apparently, they have great eyesight and like neither bright colors nor sudden movements.
Summertime, and the sun takes forever to wane in these northern latitudes. At 10pm last night, patches of fuchsia and imperial violet sky peeked out from breaks in the trees and rocks. Breathtaking. And that’s when the fireflies and stars come out. As the sun sets, they rise higher and higher, until you cannot tell where the fireflies in the tall trees end and the stars in the sky begin. The stars. Oh, the stars. You can see every last one of them lying in the soft grass. The Big Dipper, Draco, Cassiopeia, the rest of the northern sky, they’re all there. I asked D if this is what it was like for him growing up in the Wisconsin back 40. He nodded. Wow. I grew up in the Kuwaiti desert, where few ventured out at night and the twinkling red lights over the city’s skyscrapers were all the stars you needed. Besides, living in the midst of the merciless urbanization of a coastal desert environment, the only animals we got to see were jack, squat and the occasional feral cat rummaging through the garbage. Now you know why I want to say “Yeah, and one day we put dear old Humpy down and ate him with buns and ketchup” each time someone asks me whether I grew up with a camel in my backyard.
Might I have been a different person raised in a country house surrounded by trees, fresh air and animals? Who knows? Was I envious of kids raised here? Possibly. I remember midwestern farm kids, though, who wanted to trade places with me, bored of shucking corn, scrubbing the horses and other endless chores. I may not consider a city, be it Kuwait City or New York City, an ideal place to raise a kid, but people live every which way and that is how it is, equally legitimate. The way to go then is to enjoy our geographic variety as a species and live alongside, with respect to. When I once asked my Barcelona-dwelling friend Annie if she would ever move back to northern Wisconsin, she replied, “It’s not a great place to be, but a wonderful place to be from.”
» Continue Reading…
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.
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.
» Continue Reading…
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.
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 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.
“Excess ain’t rebellion.”
