duty

That wicked, wicked word.

khalil gibran khalil

There is no greater testament to Khalil Jibran Khalil than an afternoon at the beach. I broke free of social restraints when I read a line that said, in other words, the wind longs to play through your hair- saying it was truly a denial of the natural order to live otherwise. It was a longer than average stride in my journey out into the world. Few people, perhaps even no one, know the role he played in my committment (philosophy) to living my life as sincerely as I try to do.

By chance, as I write this, a family with women in hijab are setting up a blanket near us. I cannot help but feel they have missed out on one of the most essential, basic, fundamental joys of living, of being. And have denied the ocean air its natural right.

beach

I love the colors in these- the storms, the water, the flowers, the sailboat, the grays, the greens, the blues.

kiss of light

The love affair with Hoboken continues. The kiss of sun on the tip of the Empire State building while the city is muted in a shade of gray. Like a violin with the muter- what is that piece called? It makes you take a step closer and lean your ear in- feel someone is whispering in your ear, a secret, an intimate exchange.

Walking home today I stopped at Les Dames for coffee- the owner remembered that I had been looking for an apartment near there a year ago- literally a year ago when it was still her (almost said 'their' because of Les Dames) first week in business. Still the best coffee. And delicious chocolate croissant- the Friday summer hour treat. I heard a bit about Hoboken politics- if you don't know people who can do you favors (very mafioso), it's tougher to have a business.





And the local bakeries. First I've never heard a bakery refer to itself as 'antique'. Secondly, couldn't this scene be from a whole list of different countries and from a whole range of decades?



And this little place. It looks like someone put up a sign outside of the door to the kitchen.

Then the local doctor's visit. But the doctor doesn't live in Hoboken- too expensive!

And bought a cute ruffly summery dress.

Ahhhhh..... Let the weekend begin.

michael jackson

Surprisingly, I'm touched. Troubled soul. Genius is a heavy load to bear, apparently.

birthday blues

A coworker who is getting married next weekend said, after planning her wedding for two years (!), that she was a little sad that her wedding would soon be over. And after someone mentioned the phenomenon of the wedding day blues, I realized that I should be allowed to freely experss birthday blues.

Don't get me wrong- I had a great birthday complete with a nice dinner out (at the best restaurant in town), extravagant flowers, friends with whom to share the occasion, friends sending me nice thoughts from afar, and good health. Oh and nice presents! Nothing lacking.

But I admit freely there were still some birthday blues after the fact.

birthdays

I don't feel my age. And that's either a good thing or at some point I'll wake up to reality and realize I'm suddenly 10 years older. A mega-birthday.

In many ways I've always felt like someone in her early-30s. I was maybe a bit out of place when I was younger. Maybe when I'm past that age, I'll return to feeling out of place. Maybe feeling out of place is just an inherent characteristic.

A day of reflection. And resolutions. (Thankfully?) I'm too busy for that this year. But this will require a good cup of coffee and some blank paper very, very soon.

ever since the literature of exile

I was going through my old papers (academic papers) last night and came across one of my favorites from one of my favorite classes: Voices of the Third World- Literature of Exile. It was a personal response to Edward Said's After the Last Sky, which was his personal account of Palestine and being Palestinian.

All those years ago I had apparently made the same comment- Israelis are stripping Palestinians of the culture and identity by incorporating Palestinian food (and I had also remarked on handicrafts) into the Israeli culture. The political mission has been to deny the Palestinian culture, and through this, the Palestinian claim on the land they had cultivated, loved, and ultimately been buried in.

So the same fire still burns in me, obviously.

My professor then, who was a writer and visiting professor at Hamilton, sent the paper to Edward Said. It meant a lot- I was deeply honored.

political statements

I did something I'm not entirely proud of. A note left at a "Moroccan" restaurant selling all sorts of "Israeli" food. Thanks for the good Arabic food, it read.

The politics behind "Israeli food" is subtle, but still cutting. Lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumber salad is now Israeli? But more importantly Arabic hummus and tahini and grape leaves and all of it.

Pretending, maybe even convincing themselves, that the Arabic food they found when occupying the homes of Palestinians (literally- houses left as they were, perhaps only gold and valuables taken or buried) or brought with the Jewish Arabs somehow come from their culture. Which culture? The Russian? European? The Jewish culture? Am I (and the world) expected to believe that the Jews of Israel created this culture? A claim not made by Arabs or South Americans or even people from the United States, ie a collective culture?

This culture was molded, in support of making a claim on land that was not theirs but actually and truly belonged- in that day, that hour- to the Palestinians. To support this claim that Israel belonged to the Jews thousands of years ago. When does that argument ever carry any weight? The story that it belonged to them (Semites- and who do you think we are?) and they have been trying to reclaim it all this time. History is rewritten.

And now they are claiming our food.

yawn

Sleep... Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

That's what I was thinking ALL day today. Yummy sleep. Like falling asleep on the futon mid-day in the sleeping bag. Things you shouldn't necessarily do regularly. Those sleeps are even more satisfying than normal night sleeps.

So late in the day at this point I'm hoping I stay sleepy right into bed tonight.

c-town, harlem style

Unless there is someone from Amman reading this, I do not think it will be fully appreciated.

C-town in Harlem.

The same as that in Amman, the landmarks of the city. That's what we use- we live near C-town in Tla Al Ali (neighborhood). I usually start by saying near Duwar Al Waha (near the Al Waha circle). There is a restaurant called Al Waha (the oasis) past this circle, if you are coming from Garden Street (garden, as in the English word). But most people seem not to know it!!! Life no longer ends at the circle, it continues past the circle into an area that used to be referred to as near the New English School (same as in Kuwait, I think, where Queen Rania went, I think).

But the city has grown and now people don't refer to the same landmarks.

Aside: we don't have actual addresses (well, until recently and so nobody uses addresses). Landmarks are how you get around.

So there are places like C-Town. Like Safeway. Or the new (Abdoun, Mecca) or old (Mujama' Jaber) malls.

I'm going to start using it- you know, it's in Harlem, near C-Town.

summer fridays

Love it. Somehow to me there is little that compares to sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of a work day, guilt-free, unhurried. It feels like I am getting an additional "enjoy life" card, a bonus. Go directly to GO, collect the $200, go for it, unburdened and free.

There is the whole carpe diem dilemma. Dead Poets' Society member since the 8th grade, Alice in Wonderland since always, strong believer in life is short and you need to be sincere in how you live it.

The other side of the coin is the part I'm learning now to appreciate. Carpe diem can almost be a burden, a weight. Because every waking hour needs to be special, useful, inspired. A long weekend like the one coming up (from noon on Friday to Tuesday morning) is a wasted weekend if it's not filled with adventure and excitement and emotion.

But peacefulness is seeping in. Spending an evening at home with nothing to show for it- no movie seen, no art project done, no new city explored- is beginning to seem even more like living fully than the living through emotions.

And so I approach summer hours with the idea of it as a practice of sorts, a meditation on life, bonus time, a free pass.

My coffee awaits.

what?!

What, Kris, American Idol Kris? Are you people crazy??!

I mean, really, can you beat this? Mad World or One (a classic)!!

This guy is phenomenal... How could they (ie, those ditsy teenage girls)?

ashtanga origins

Sri Pattabhi Jois developed the Ashtanga yoga system based in Mysore, India. I do not know much about him (always studying the way and not the teacher). For more information, here's the wikipedia link.

He passed away yesterday at the age of almost 94. I heard about it in a yoga class- the teacher was not mourning this as a great personal tragedy-he lived a long life, she said.

My favorite response to it is how my sorely missed yoga studio in DC approached it: the link.

I'd thought about going to Mysore at some point- still could. Was not ready for it but now not sure it would be different than taking yoga classes here. Anyway, an end of an era of sorts.

good ol' DC

Impressions upon my return:

- Pretty close to zero fashion sense as a city- or rather a single fashion sense- shared by most and overall dull. (blunt, harsh, not to say I'm better but just saying). It's inevitable when you compare to NYC.

- Not much has changed- the stores, the pace, even the rhythm of the traffic lights on the walk to Aldon from the Bethesda metro. Not even the corners on which the homeless hold their cups out to passersby- only the actual faces have changed, a passing of the guard. Granted it has been less than a year but still.

- Friends. You pick up where you left off.

- Buildings coming up in Bethesda- a more urban feel with the tall buildings. But Bethesda's charm was non-urbanism so close to downtown. Anyway, it's DC-style urbanism, which is softer, gentler.

Nothing profound. Just thoughts.

An aside. A coincidence? On the train ride down I caught up with a friend from lives ago who told me she lost her father to thyroid cancer. After our call I pick up the Nadine Gordimer book I brought along (hoping it would be as good as The Pickup but frustratingly disappointed) in which the first paragraph is a statement that the protagonist is isolated after a thyroidectomy and radiation therapy.

american idol

Yes, I voted. Why not? Why sit back and observe? Why not be a part of it?

One of 46 million votes. One of the masses- and most likely one of the few non-teenage girl demographic.

Alice was the only one who went through the rabbit hole. She wasn't part of the crowd. But isn't it really about experiencing it fully? And for certain things, it's particularly important to experience things from the belly button of the crowd.

LOVE seeing their talent displayed for my viewing pleasure. Go Allison and Adam!

I'll try to keep American Idol blogs to a minimum...

ennui

A little restless, a little bored of the routine. Grateful for it all. Yet my mind yearns for more, higher level, broader scale, to satisfy it, to quiet the mindless (meaningless) chatter. Looking forward to looking forward to, excitement, plans.

Currently frustratingly eager and optimistic.

jersey city excitement

Yesterday the fire alarm went off at work. Luckily we received the reassuring message- please stand by while we determine the nature of the fire. Hmm. Please stand by... I work on the 28th floor of a building with thousands of people and 2 stairwells. Hmmm. Usually the guy gets on with his super cool Carribean (Jamaican? see footnote) accent and says- this is a test of the system. But stand by while we assess the nature of the alarm? Not as reassuring. Coffee sounds good right about now.

So I headed down in the elevator- still running since there is as yet no determination made of a fire- and heard pieces of stories in the elevator- planes and fighter jets and circling. Before I made it to the coffeeshop I saw the masses standing outside and decided to check it out.

A plane was circling the building with fighter jets tailing it closely and it had gone twice around our buildings. People had come down even before the fire alarm. They were trying to call colleagues still inside to tell them to evacuate. One woman came up to me in a panic because she could not get through to whomever she was calling. Ambulances and fire trucks racing, sirens competing.

All of the tall buildings in Jersey City had crowds of people piling out, everyone calling or talking or silently questioning.

Long story short, announcements were made that it was a military exercise. Soon police cars were circling announcing on their loudspeakers that it was safe, merely a military exercise, time to get back to work, nothing to see here. It was at this point that I realized my emotions were high.

Here's an article from the NY Times. This building is across the street from mine- it's a beautiful art deco building, by the way.

A coffee and chocolate croissant later, having exchanged some words from the Arabs in the coffeeshop, and I went back to the routine of the day.

Idiots. Even if there was a legitimate reason why there was no prior announcement, they could at least have announced it 5 minutes before. Something. Lucky no one had a heart attack out of fear or something

(footnote: I find it amusing when announcers on the PA system have heavy accents- I mean this in the best of ways- eg the announcer at Union Station in DC has a very, very heavy French accent. It's funny because we all know it's nearly impossible to ever understand anything being said on the PA system. And on top of that it's like they are deliberately screwing with us by adding another layer of difficulty.)

overthinking

Potential Adverse vents:
Living a life of the mind (may also be referred to as living in one's head)
Contraindications may include perseverance of thoughts, often trivial and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. If unable to exit the mind, the body may become overworked and eventually completely exhausted and poop out. Important thoughts may no longer be identifiable among the soft background din of thoughts flowing into each other to the extent that they lose their individual colors and become a soft, hazy gray.

While sleep may often serve to quiet mind (at wavelengths audible to the conscious mind), at times the background noise of constant thought may prove more powerful and intrude into sleep time, quite often in the middle hours of darkness or early hours of light.

Periods of meditation may be necessary in these situations to relieve the mind for short periods, its sole salvation in extreme measures.

A feeling of peace may replace active thought. The absence of usual feelings of joy or elation should not be confused with nothingness but must instead be appreciated as the bliss of meditation. The swaying last night in the lush seats of Carnegie Hall to a beautiful Mendelssohn piece, having forgotten to think for those moments, that was a peaceful quieting of the mind.

coincidink

I ran into someone I know in New frickin' York. What are the chances of that? This wasn't running into someone somewhere that is associated with either of us. Just randomly at a concert.

Cool.