Just Write - Sept 20

Doing time at a desk, writing technical for a living.  Living technicalities. Hate it.  Soul pushes at the skin and rebels at the desk.  Give me a window.  With a lake view.  How I miss my home.  Miss my dog, my so called Muse who would force me out into the fresh air.  Outside my head and my bed to see what God has put in front of me.  I need to write and read surely as I need to breathe.  I need to do the things that rob my soul so that I can afford to nurture a soul that has been robbed.  Vicious cycle. 

 

Here I am a fish out of water.  A fish in the desert.  So obviously different from those around me and if God, this is to teach me a lesson, then I am now knowledgeable (and will spell check that one Sistah before I print).  Holly says these trials are an invitation from God and sometimes when she says that I just want to say “Well I’m not in a partying mood, God.  Invite someone else.”  Though I know she’s right and I have grown something awesome that I don’t know what to do with.  Some sort of empathy for those who are fish out of water.  But I miss my nest.  I miss my tribe.  I miss growing gracefully in a place where I can contribute and give. 

“Of all the things I lost, I miss my mind the most.” Was my favorite bumper sticker.  And is it freakin’ silly to be missing my dishes?  Because what I want to unpack first when I get home is my plates and bowls and mugs and set a gorgeous table.  With candles and wine glasses and bacon and friends.  When I cook here, often sharing with a grateful flatmate, it isn’t the same as dinner parties with my tribe.  And while the masses around me eat out of discount market plastic plates, if they are lucky, or ornate gold leafed French china (is it French or is it Chinese?) at the other end of the spectrum,  I am an ungrateful child for my Ikea plates.  Ikea everything in a flat that is temporary and thrown together but fine.  I want my white stoneware.  My lettuce leaf salad plates.  My Swiss dot bowls gleaned from a sweet beach town shoppe (spelled shoppe of course).  As long as I am missing, I miss my Eiffel Tower Lamp, my pink leather armchair and my lemon boxes. 

 Now back to the tables and statistics and links to Appendices and Figures and reports that nobody will read as here they are all about the weight of the document and the graphics and the bulk of material that says so much but means so little and in the end won’t really mean much as they’ll do what they were planning on doing all along. 

For Heather @ the Extraordinary Ordinary

On Passing 9/11 in the Middle East

The alert from the Embassy notes to use caution

Heightened Alert Status they call it

And somehow I feel safer here than I might at home 

The Middle Easterners whom I know,

And  whose paths I cross, are not a threat

At worst a recoiling (as when forced to stand too close in an elevator)

Typically an indifference (no eye contact)

Often casual conversation (about the hot weather)

Sometimes real relating conversation (rarely, but some treasured sometimes)

Only occasionally a mean taxi driver from Afghanistan or thereabouts

But mostly the drivers are friendly once I show my friendly cards in hand 

I do not like living here

It is not home

It is a sentence that needs an ending.

It is sometimes anxiety, sometimes frustration

Often surreal

An opportunity.  A blessing if I look hard enough. 

I know I have not done enough personally to heal the wound

Only the little things to indicate there is not hate

There are only people: me and them

Side by side

Peacefully

Hopefully enough