please, let's try again
And I was thankful for these friends that drink our mulled wine and help tend the fire so it lasts through the evening. Thankful that Over the Rhine is playing on Monday. Thankful that the Trans-Siberian Railway exists (so I can dream), thankful for this loping brown dog with mournful eyes, thankful for land that provides (the end of November brings evergreen huckleberries and round two of the arugula), thankful for music that reminds me of a place I never even knew.
The shorter days mean that we're well into the reading season. Periodically, the books that I'm reading will collide in one giant ideological explosion (this last happened in 2003 with my simultaneous reading of
Blue Like Jazz, A New Kind of Christian, and
Ishmael - the result of which was me storming away from the kitchen table one evening in a soapbox-induced huff, leaving my parents baffled as to what they had ever done wrong). This time around, it's still spiritual - but with a heavy dose of agriculture thrown in for good measure (
The Art of the Commonplace, Pagan Christianity, and
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle). I don't know that I've reached a resolution yet - and resolutions are never fun because they require an amendment of attitude. Whatever it is, it's been a long time coming.
you are the reason for all of this
Were it not for surprise sunshine, I don't know that I'd make it through the winter unscathed. If there was any doubt about it before, we're now making tentative plans to move towards Montana or Colorado in the next two years. Weather shouldn't be a source of anxiety, and I'm simply becoming ridiculous about it. I'm also idealizing everything about life in the Bitterroots, but all of that is to say- this weekend's sunlight was much needed.
Yesterday,
Katie and I took Montana on a hike near Mount Hood....very few people were out on the trail, and we were rewarded with a 360-degree view of Hood, St. Helens, Rainier, Adams, and Jefferson once we reached the top. Sometimes I forget the mountains exist - they're the reason for all of this rain, but they're so damn beautiful that you can't fault them for it.
We went hunting for chanterelles up by Larch Mountain again this morning....There's something that you gain from breathing in that earthy smell, being a part of the abnormal silence that comes from being surrounded by old coniferous trees, and getting your hands dirty while gathering your own food.
Spent the late afternoon on a walk alone through Rose City Park, accompanied by scattered thoughts....thinking about listening to Waterdeep more often, working to figure out what church actually means, considering talking to God more frequently, realizing that I have muddled the difference between tradition and religion, and trying to discern where healthy narcissism ends and selfishness begins. And now I'm here. With Neil Halstead and a cup of hot tea - but very few answers.
after the curtain
I never know what's waiting for me when I tutor my Iraqi family. Recently, it seems as if I've been teaching any of the random dozen-or-so people flowing in and out of the tiny apartment. It's constantly a party in there: the tea never stops flowing, and as the night progresses, the conversations get louder and louder to the point that I forget that I'm anywhere close to America.
Sometimes I teach the sixty year old mother, dressed in black from head to toe. Another week, it will be the pop-culture-obsessed eighteen year old daughter. Once it was a ten year old boy with a cowlick and toothy grin. Maybe it will be the 33 year old son, who knows very little English, yet he aspires to get his MBA (And then - he tells me - he'll get a job in Saudi Arabia. He'll hire me, and we'll both makes lots and lots of oil money. I'll like Saudi Arabia, he says. The hijab isn't that bad.) I stopped developing lesson plans months ago.
Last night I was asked to help a young girl I'd seen around before - she was always very quiet, and would slip in and out of the apartment largely unnoticed. I sat down with her at the kitchen table and tried to get a gauge on her language. Due to her shyness - I incorrectly gathered that her knowledge was fairly minimal. We were working through prepositions ("The book is on the table. The book is under the table. The book is above the table.") when she stopped me and said, quite perfectly:
"I want to ask you a question: Are you married?"
"Yes, I am," I answered, taken aback.
"Do you love him?"
"Yes, I love him - he's my husband!"
She was quiet. I asked her if she had a boyfriend - and she looked at me and whispered,
"I'm married. I have a husband. He is in Iraq, and my mother does not like him and does not know that we are married. I cannot even say his name in my house. He is moving here in one month. So my question is: How do I leave my family and live with him?"
Geez. I thought I was just going to be talking about the present simple tense tonight, not advising on cultural matters about which I know absolutely nothing. To act incorrectly on this could get me into a lot of trouble with the whole little community they've so carefully created.
I looked her in the eyes and tried to say,
"If you live with him, you may lose all of these people in the room - it would just be you and him. You may be lonely. You are already in a difficult situation, in that you live in a new country where you barely grasp the language and don't know the culture. You don't have a job, you don't have your own apartment, your husband doesn't know the language, and what if he's not the person you remember him to be? Your family has already lost so much - do they need to lose you now as well?" Except it came out as, "I don't know".
Her mother then walked into the apartment, and the girl quieted me with her eyes. The conversation was over.
