3 Days of Rain

**But first, a little Wednesday wisdom: When breaking the seal on a new bottle of water, be sure you aren't squeezing the bottle. The water may spill out alll over you. And your couch.**

I'm not big into New Year's resolutions. Or small into them. Or, really, into them at all.

I did, though, commit to doing a few things better this year. One of those is taking pictures. I have a friend who's doing a photo-a-day project for 2011, and I thought that was an awesome idea! But it didn't come to me until the 10th, and by then it was almost midnight, so my first picture looks like this:

I call it 'unpacked!'

That is the (flattened) duffel bag I took with me for my two-week trip in Egypt. Those are the fuzzy blue socks I wore around the ship because I forgot to bring those grey slippers. D'oh!

Aaaand I forgot again the next day, so I got this picture, taken well after midnight (but whatever. It still counts!)

Unfortunately, it's not what I was going for. I've never seen fog like that--just wisps, snaking through the air. It was eerie. I took this picture and ran inside.

Ah, look! A picture taken during the day:

And what a beautiful day it was.

One morning this week, the sky looked particularly amazing. This picture doesn't quite capture it, but it's the best I could do while driving...

...an activity I am not practiced at, I swear!

This was yesterday afternoon:

It's been raining all week.

Last night, Halina and I went to the mall. We ate Thai food until I had to unbutton my pants, and then we spent an hour digesting in Border's.

And then, when we were good and ready for more gorging, she introduced me to PinkBerry.

It's no SpoonMe, but it is delightfully aesthetic.

Tonight, I am excited because Halina saved me an empty Mayonnaise jar.

I am not a fan of mayonnaise, but I am a fan of bread, and I am really freaking excited to try making my own SOURDOUGH!

I have more pictures, but they are on my phone. One day, I might get around to uploading them.

In the meantime, I plan to do a whole lot more exploring around Dubai, and hope to bring you many wonderful pictures of the city and the people in it. It's my last year here. It's about time I did some exploring.

The Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr

is one of my heroes. My all-time favorite speech EVER is I've Been to the Mountaintop. I'm sure I've heard it well over a dozen times. It's just to powerful and beautiful not to listen to over and over again.

I'm sorry I missed his birthday celebrations yesterday, but his message is relevant--and crucial--across all days and times and so I figure now is as good a time as Monday to dedicate this post to him. May you take it to heart.

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiples violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

And to leave you with his final (publicly uttered) words:



I get chills every time I hear them.

Welcome to 2011

Wow, we are already over a week into the new year. Time just flies on by, don't it?

For reasons I can't put my finger on, I am really looking forward to 2011. I think it's because I did a lot of self-discovery last year and you know what I found? I'm freaking awesome. You know what else is freaking awesome? Life. Life, and me, and my freaking awesome life ROCK. 2010 taught me that there is a me-shaped hole in the universe and I am having one hell of a time filling it.

I hope you will too.

You-shaped Hole**

Sometimes the world feels inhospitable.
You feel all the ways that you and it don’t fit.
You see what’s missing, how it all could be different.


You feel as if you weren’t meant for the world, or the world wasn’t
meant for you.


As if the world is “the way it is” and your discomfort with it a problem.


So you get timid. You get quiet about what you see.


But what if this? What if you are meant
to feel the world is inhospitable, unfriendly, off-track
in just the particular ways that you do?


The world has a you-shaped hole in it.
It is missing what you see.
It lacks what you know.


And so you were called into being.
To see the gap, to feel the pain of it, and to fill it.


Filling it is speaking what is missing.
Filling it is stepping into the center of the crowd, into a clearing, and
saying, here, my friends, is the future.
Filling it is being what is missing, becoming it.


You don’t have to do it all, but you do have to speak it.
You have to tell your slice of the truth.
You do have to walk toward it with your choices, with your own being.

Then allies and energies will come to you like fireflies swirling around
a light.

The roughness of the world, the off-track-ness, the folly that you see,
these are the most precious gifts you will receive in this lifetime.

They are not here to distance you from the world, but to guide you
into your contribution to it.

The world was made with a you-shaped hole in it.
In that way you are important.
In that way you are here to make the world.
In that way you are called.

**by Tara Mohr. Her complete book of awesome poems can be found here, and I do recommend a read.

A Reflection

In September, I posted a quote from The Book Thief. It's one of my favorite quotes from the book, but it's incomplete. Actually, the complete quote is this:

I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race--that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.
None of those things, however, came out of my mouth.
All I was able to do was turn to Leisel Meminger and tell her the only truth I truly know. I said it to the book thief and I say it now to you.

"I am haunted by humans."

I am haunted by humans.

Most of the time, I see us like this:

If the history of humanity were the clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be: chronic paranoid delusions. a pathological propensity to commit murder and acts of extreme violence and cruelty against his perceived "enemies"--his own unconsciousness projected outward. Criminally insane, with a few brief lucid intervals.

--Eckhart Tolle

It's deeply cynical, and I'm not proud of it, nor am I soothed by it for it omits the human propensity to do good, and the incredible talent of joy.

How can humanity be both criminally insane and compassionate? I wonder this all the time, and consequently find myself talking about it all the time. Conversations about delusional, selfish humanity, that exploits young girls, and works to exterminate entire races. The humanity that abuses animals and betrays loved ones. I can't help but marvel at its cruelty.

A few weeks ago, it came up with my roommate and we shared stories of maids and enslaved migrant workers, and about the elephants she saw being beaten in Sri Lanka. I told her that the night before, I had a dream about rescuing a cat from a sadistic cat-torturer. It was only a dream, but I was disturbed by it because I knew it was also a reality. From the comfort of our living room, we looked out over humankind's depravity.

Later that afternoon, I went to Ikea. The conversation was still fresh in mind as I stood picking through sheets.

What size is my bed, anyway? None of these say 'single'. Does Ikea really expect me to know the dimensions in centimeters? I wondered. And why am I even bothering with sheets? I already have sheets! And a bed. Some people don't even have a bed, and I'm stressing about sheets.

My rationale argued back. The point isn't to deprive yourself of sheets; The point is to live so that everyone can have a bed with clean, non-scratchy sheets. Not buying sheets won't make anyone else's circumstances better, including your own.

Okay, but what color? And threadcount? Do these even have threadcount? Ugh. Threadcount. Can't I just be grateful for the sheets?

I wandered to the next aisle, still unsure of my mattress size, the color I wanted, and why I was even bothering.

A toddler with big rosy jowls and a smile like sunshine waved at me from her cart.

Hi! Her whole face was a smile.

Hi! I returned the wave, and her grin gave way to a fit of giggles. She excitedly waved again. Hi!

She was so excited, I couldn't help but giggle, too. I'd never seen someone so happy to be in Ikea!

I lifted a pack of sheets so it covered my face, then moved them quickly away again. Hi!

Oh, how she laughed!

And in the middle of that busy Ikea, surrounded by (surely) ill-fitting sheets, I did too.

How could I not?

One minute I'm guilty over buying sheets, and the next I'm laughing with a stranger. Isn't that just like humanity?

Her mom came up then and together they began walking to the aisle I had just come from. She looked past her mom, to me, and waved again.

Ma Salaama! (In Arabic, 'goodbye' is actually '[Go] with Peace'.)

It stunned me. She looked Asian, and too small to be able to speak.

Her mom turned to me and laughed a little. Yeah, she says 'Salaam aleykum! An Arabic greeting that translates to, Peace be upon you. Sometimes she gets mixed up and says, 'Ma salaam aleykum!'

Amused, I smiled at both of them, then lifted my hand and waved goodbye to the girl. Ma salaam aleykum! Goodbye! I called after them.

She waved back. Go with peace!

She was beaming.

I beamed, too.

_____


I am haunted by humans. And as I think this, another line from The Book Thief comes floating back to me: I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.

Hmm.

What I've Been Up To

1. Work. So much work.

2. Travel.

3. Doing 2 for 1.

4. Halloween, for which I did not dress up.

5. Achieving Parallel Parking Victory!

6. Touring Philadelphia (see #3). It was fantastic.

7. Falling back in love with the US. I've decided to move to DC or New York. In 2012.

8. Visiting my BFF in Atlanta, and buying a brand new computer (because during number 7, I left my computer on the plane. Sha-WING!). Other fantastic highlights: fall in Atlanta (WOW), trying every flavor at Wonderful World of Coke's tasting station (we made a suicide of all 60 flavors. YUM)

9. Finding a heart-shaped radish leaf.

I have pictures for all of these and I was going to post them, but man, posting pictures is a pain, so Imma just ...

10. go to bed before 10. It's what I do these days and boy howdy do I adore it. I will give you a much more interesting (and visual!) update soon.

Much love,

This Little Ray (of SUNSHINE! :D)

So Legit

Hey! Remember that time I tried to parallel-parked?

Well, this weekend I went out with some friends for some delicious, authentic, affordable Asian food (YUM) in Dubai. Like most urban areas, Dubai has few parking options and so I went with the only one I had: to park parallel busy urban road.

DID I SUCCEED?


*ahem*


Front wheels:


Back wheels:

I KNOW!! Such exactness! Such perfection! Such parallels!

I was made for the city.

Another Thought

"If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life?

It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth."

Mitsugi Saotome

I've been thinking a lot about the purpose of life lately, and about the purpose of Death, too. I have nothing to say about this quote except that it resonates with me. Life is meaningful because of love, and you can't have love without each other.

But, the cost of love is hate and misery and tragedy--and people bring these things about, too.

Is that our collective purpose in living? For Harmony?