2009: The Year with No New Clothes
We’re down to the last two weeks of the year that was 2009. This time last year I was convicted of the amount of clothing bursting open the doors of my closets and also my penchant for idle shopping. These two factors were heightened by life in Qatar where consumerism takes on new heights because much of the population is very affluent and rest are borrowing money ala middle class America to keep up appearances.
I gave up shopping in 2009 as a way to bring this impulse under control and you’ve been kind enough to read along with my (mis)adventures. At times I did better than others but in most instances I was confronted by the truth that set me out on this quest: there were many lovely things in my closet I wasn’t wearing through no fault of theirs. I simply couldn’t see many things because they were so crammed onto hangers or in drawers.
Two unexpected things happened from this self-imposed diet: I was much more careful with the items I chose when it was my birthday, anniversary, or other gift giving opportunity. I would identify the one thing I really wanted and when it was given to me, I treasured it like the new possession it was. The second was more inexplicable: trimming back on clothes raised an awareness of the multiples I had of other items such as the twelve bottles of perfume on my dresser that I determinedly worked my way through. I suddenly wanted to use up things to the best of my ability and it also made it much easier to let them go: whether a bottle of mousse or sandwich I couldn’t finish, I realized the value of stopping when you’ve had enough of something. And you’re that much less likely to order with your eyes rather than your appetite if you see how much is leftover on your plate.
The other slightly wonderful aftereffect is that slight tinge of guilt when I wander the racks this holiday season. More often than not, I’m saying no, rather than yes, to most items. The sales tags which used to scream to me $15!! now clearly explain why a certain item was overpriced to begin with.
I set out in 2009 wanting to be content with the things I had and maybe by default, my life. I certainly developed an appreciation for the tried and true items like handbags or shoes.
The natural question is what is next in 2010. Giving up something is a good way of shaping a habit.
I’ve been contemplating the idea of giving up my time in 2010 to do something that was a central part of my weekly activities before I moved to Qatar: communal worship. The fact that services are on Friday morning – the equivalent of Saturday in the Middle East- made it a weekend in reverse. Private worship is something I never gave up and to this day do a devotional in the morning in bed. But you miss an important aspect of spirituality if you only pray by yourself. There is a missing element when you forsake gathering with other believers. The question is: am I missing it enough to make it a year long commitment?
Are you contemplating resolutions? Or ridiculing the January ‘lose weight’ promise? Tips for successful year long campaigns are welcome.
The Trouble with Christmas Trees
There has been a fierce debate in Qatar recently over the lack of decorations for the Eid al Adha holiday – one of the holiest periods in the Islamic calender as everyone reflects on the lesson of Ibrahim and Ishmael – but there seem to be wall to wall decorations for Christmas in all the hotels and malls. Along the corniche there are triangle shaped lights waiting to be lit up for national day on Friday, December 18th. Unfortunately these triangles resemble Christmas trees.
An angry editorial to the newspaper explains that while Switzerland has banned minarets as outward structures, Qatar promotes Christmas.
I was neutral on this debate since growing up as a non-Christian in the U.S. I often felt forgotten by Santa, the world wide jolly giver who somehow always missed our apartment.
Then I walked into one of the five star hotels and saw for myself what must be shocking to some Qataris or other Arabs: a nine foot (maybe even taller) Christmas tree extending to the ceiling with presents wrapped underneath in wrappers that said “Happy Christmas” (what the British or Europeans say).
For me, even now as an adult convert to Christianity, the tree was slightly gratuitous. Right in front, right when you walk in the door. Lovely, yes. Gorgeous, even, sure. The hotel’s parent company is Canadian. But could it have been placed ten feet inside the entrance instead of four? Could it be to one side instead of in the center?
Is this a symbol of Qatar’s tolerance or example of how Muslims are being crowded out of the public sphere?
It has been raining here for two days straight and a continued deluge may dampen the excitement of the annual parade on the day of nationality, solidarity, and honor.
I just hope that when they light those triangles they aren’t red and green.
The Question No One Wants to Answer
In writing my second novel — working title WAITING FOR SUNSET — I was having a lot of fun. The characters were lively; they said outrageous things, behaved in outrageous ways, and in general made fiction jump off the page. But then as the story progressed into part two, I began to wonder: is this how people really behave? Or rather: am I depicting how people fall in love accurately?
The theories about the function of art and writing vary. Some think that they should imitate life, vera similitude and really let the reader see things as someone might experience them in the ‘real’ world. Others think art is a mirror for us to understand ourselves and sometimes that can mean the mirror of a funhouse at the fair.
I had a basic question that I put to everyone I encountered over the course of week three of getting through my first draft: how do people fall in love? The answers were discouraging to say the least. Although love is a topic we all talk about irrespective of race, religion, or gender, no one wanted to go ‘on record’ and give me their opinion. A group of married men, all practicing husbands with ten or more years under their belt of relationships, children running all around at a two-year-old’s birthday party — evidence of their love with their mates — were hampered perhaps by the proximity of their spouses and unhelpful. I was dismayed by the generic answers I was getting from these friends, each of whom I knew their personal journey to their spouse. One met her at the tender age of 16 as a foreign exchange student. Another while a first year student at college. Still another while working in D.C. On average they had a 1.5 children (one couple 2, one couple 1 with one on the way, skewing the dynamic).
“Married people know nothing about love,” I said that day, fulfilling a stereotype that actually isn’t true. Married people know more than anyone in any industry that spins the cobwebs of love that love is a daily choice of loyalty, fidelity, and head working in conjunction with heart and the other parts of the body to honor commitment. But this doesn’t mean we can verbalize how we come to make this strength of bond to someone else over all others. I am also included in this non-expressive bunch because although I had a ‘love’ marriage as most South Asians would call the act of choosing your own spouse, three years later, I couldn’t identify what drew me to my husband. Not to say I didn’t remember how or why we were attracted: my memory had erased the moments when any such union between a monolingual Lao-Thai American and converted South Asian Christian could have been in doubt.
“It was our destiny,” I said to my Indian friend and her husband and the other couple at the table at her husband’s birthday party when I raised my question and they pointed out both of their marriages had been arranged by parents. “We had no choice but to get married — it all funneled in that direction.”
I suppose I was making an argument for divine arrangement – that while true and in fact how it happened when the two of us met in Qatar — it was still an easy way out of the kind employed by my male friends at the toddler birthday party.
My own personal inability to answer the question only fueled my fire and the novel was a secondary benefit. I had to know why people didn’t want to talk about love in a definitive way even though all music: English, Arabic, Tamil or otherwise is about love; movies whether Hollywood, Bollywood or Egyptian feature star crossed lovers, and each of us during adolescence to adulthood searches for a lover who will stay true throughout life.
I went deeper into my search and got more answers at our early Thanksgiving potluck.
“Poise, confidence, and beauty,” a six month newly wed said, as he twirled the hair of his new wife.
“Things start tallying up until there is an aggregate of positives that tips her over,” another friend said.
“Common interests,” my husband said (which is hilarious because we actually have very few).
“Immune systems,” my other friend said, “I read that women can sense men with stronger immune systems and so biologically they want to mate to make strong off spring.”
I mulled these over and came back to my characters, Abdulla and Kavitha, who meet in an apartment in London unexpectedly and sparks fly. I tried to distill together what I had grasped from the various conversations, with men in particular because women will love as easily as we inhale air, and came up with the following skeletal list:
Attraction — check.
Strange circumstances — check.
Polar opposites — check.
Small discoveries of similarities — this is what needed developing, I decided, “the meat” missing out of the story and the heart of how people come into proximity and decide not to look at anyone else any longer.
After a few weeks of asking, I feel a bit like Carrie Bradshaw and still don’t know that I have a concrete sense of how people fall in love: it is ethereal, indescribable, ever present, and yet, just beyond our grasp.
What I do know that is that for Abdulla and Kavitha it will be each of these things and none of them. For each love story is it’s own unique tale.
My first novel (currently seeking representation) started in early drafts about how two people fell out of love: the anatomy of a breakup. This second one explores how two people who seemingly have nothing to gain, find the world in each other. The third one I’m researching on this trip to Laos and Thailand has early hints of the first and a bit of the second: Why would a woman leave her eleven year old son and father of her child for the wide world?
I’m not sure how long the idea of love will interest me as a writer but for now the cultural and social dynamics of how we choose our partners is fascinating, perplexing, and great fodder for fiction. Perhaps I am a romance novelist at heart but minus the graphic covers and sex scenes.
Share with me your experiences or thoughts about love and help enlighten the path of my characters – and the rest of us in real life.
You Don’t Notice Until It’s Gone
A few weeks ago I traveled to Sharjah, a nearby emirate, for a quick overnight business trip. I arrived in the wee hours of the normal after a frantic day working in
No makeup was a crisis at eight a.m. because I was in the GCC. If I had been at the
I come home, wiped out, about twenty four hours after I had left. I go upstairs, get into bed, and sigh into our lush Egyptian cotton sheets. A luxury that rewards every one of the few minutes I’m home to enjoy them. At five forty five the next morning a sound like a jackhammer going into the foundation of our house woke my husband and I up. Before six a.m. in a Muslim country on a Friday was unheard of. Why were the guys working on their day off? The reason we could hear the work on the new hypermarket going up next to us – sure to complicate an already horrendous morning experience with even more traffic issues – was because while I was away the compound transitioned from generator power (which we had been on since May) to the city grid. The constant hum of the three generators that kept the lights on in all of our houses was gone. And with it any shield or white noise to balance out our friend the jackhammer user. I asked my husband to turn on the air-conditioning which provided a small but not as substantial cover and also put in earplugs. I could still faintly hear the noise – apparently they are fusing each of the bolts in that building with a solitary hammer on a hollow pipe – and I missed the generator.
From perfume to cars, life is better used up
During my year of no new clothes — buying them for myself anyway — I’ve tried to focus on using up anything that I have. The last month I noticed the row of perfume bottles on my dresser. Many of them were given to me as gifts by my female Qatari friends for birthdays, my PhD graduation, or new jobs (there have been three in the last five years). Needless to say I had no excuse for ever smelling like anything but roses. Fourteen bottles of chemical delight are more than any woman needs so I decided to share the designer love. My mother got the Cartier; a student the Dior; I confess to re-gifting a few here and there as the occasion required. I was not immune to the power of Duty Free after several trips with my students to other countries. One of the most purchased items on these excursion was invariably perfume.
I was feeling so good about using up the endless perfume supply and getting down to only four bottles that I even went ahead and bought myself a bottle at the tiny branch of Jo Malone at the Frankfurt airport. A few days ago however, disaster struck my plan. I was getting to the seemingly endless bottle of Narciso Rodriguez For Her when the top flew off, never to be seen again. Under the dresser to hide with buttons and dead skin cells, I contemplated the half empty bottle. The opaque pink surface did not give me any assurance I had done my best by the scent. I felt cheated when I threw the bottle away. Another dilemma: Chasmere by Donna Karan had a hole in the bottle from our house cleaner and I could see each time he came to visit a little more leaked out. I think I may go and douse myself later this weekend to put it and me out of our misery.
Using up things to their maximum before getting new ones is my new motto after this year of not buying clothes; the restraint has spilled over into many areas from shoes, bags, perfume, to cars. Today I was in the fourth car accident of my five years in Qatar. This one was not my fault; a young driver, no more than eighteen years old, sped into the roundabout in front of me. In a blink he was there and so was I. I gasped outloud at the smash. I wasn’t fiddling with the radio or my iTrip or my phone although these are all things I do everyday. In fact I had just reminded myself to focus only on driving when it happened. Of course my day was thrown off kilter and I will write later about the procedures one has to go through in Qatar to register a traffic accident.
But the impact made me realize that the last thing I need is a new car. I need old, old things so that when they are damaged or lost, I won’t have regret but know that I fully used up something that I bought.
The ‘bugy’ as my car is known has been through it. A hazard of being owned by me.
A dropped phone means dropping from modern life
While leaving Arabic class on Tuesday and heading back to the office, I dropped my phone. In slow motion the phone hit the ground, causing the cover to pop off, the battery to eject, and then the handset to spiral through the air into a tiny half foot wide water canal nearby (there for aesthetic purposes).
I snatched it out of course.
But the damage was done. While the screen remained active for a few minutes, soon it died. I took it immediately to the Nokia store, considering the phone was only a month old — a gift from my husband — and they asked what was wrong.
"I dropped it," I said, feeling it unnecessary to share too much information.
The service clerk took the back off and said, "This phone has been in water."
How did he know? They all come embedded now with a tiny white dot, less than the size of a fingernail, that turns color after it’s been wet.
They kept the phone for five days. In the meantime I had to go back to a phone several years old because my most recent one I gave to a friend who had been eyeing it. The friend is a student and we all remember wanting things we couldn’t have at that age. I didn’t it any longer, I reasoned, since I had the newer and better model.
Well the phone from 2007 was quite an adjustment. I could barely remember how any of the buttons worked and even less how to send message with just one finger (I had full keypad on the newer model). There were people in my life now who had no history in the old phone; there were entries from 2007 I had long since forgotten.
The photos were another jolt even from a mere two years ago; I saw a friend’s baby, coming up fast on his second year, with a wobbly head and infant onesize, nowhere near the ambulatory prowess he shows these days.
I miss my phone; I’ve tried baking it, leaving it a bowl of rice, putting it on the dash of my car in the Doha heat. I can’t fathom that once I was a person who walked around saying that I didn’t want to access the Internet on my phone or take pictures, just talk on it. Mind you, I haven’t become a crackBerry addict nor have I started using the camera phone as my chronicler of all memories. But it is nice to have the option when there is free wireless to hop on and check in. Like when you’re on the sofa and have a few minutes. It’s amazing to have all those letters at your fingertips to shoot back messages that to me now seem novel length.
I hope the phone comes back. Red, shiny, and expensive it is a confirmation of what I’m constantly telling my husband: "I’m not to be trusted with expensive things".
In the meantime if I’ve declined your call it was by accident; and if I’m not texting you back it’s not out of anger. I just can’t get my thumb to move that fast. I hope to come back to civilization soon. The phone works; it just won’t register signal. Got any remedies?
A New Generation for War Guilt
I’m at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week; the World Cup, Super Bowl, World Series of all book fairs. The scene at book fairs would surprise most readers because it does not involved authors or readers but rather agents, publishers, and distributors. There are stalls in the tradition of all vendor gatherings where companies display their brightest wares. Whether the Cairo, Abu Dhabi, or Frankfurt book fair, there are deals being made by the back offices of the publishing industry from rights sales of books into various languages and markets as well as bookstores agreeing to take on specific numbers of copies of various titles.
Being in Germany is always interesting and this trip is no different because there is always a small shadow that falls across a conversation that includes references to the Second World War, Hitler, the death camps, or any combination of the above. In my current job I only have two German speaking colleagues but also many people with ties to Germany living in Qatar. I know this generation feels no personal guilt over deeds done long before they were born; movies/books such as THE READER are examples of the disgust and horror the younger generations feel about what happened.
I was as surprised as anyone last night at dinner when a reference came up to a Nazi run labor camp that I suddenly felt a similar twinge of guilt. Not for Germany’s misdeeds but America’s in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last near decade of America pursued conflict has left me cringing anytime anyone mentions recent presidencies as well as shrinking away from questions about why Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace prize.
I am fully aware of the depth of the next sentence but will write it anyway: in the last few years it has been embarrassing to be American. If you’ve been to a comedy night at the Ramada in Doha you’ll hear comedians call out everyone in the room by nationality. When it’s the Americans turn things are uncharacteristically silent. There’s always a joke about this and a lot of ducked chins and sheepish grins around this time. I’m suggesting for a moment that two Iraq wars and incursions in Afghanistan equal anything near the death machine of the Third Reich; the comparison is not to scale but rather as symbolic. At the very least, as in recent observation, the result is the same conversation stopper for the person of that nationality during a discussion.
The good news is that regardless of the Nobel committee’s motivation – leftist conspiracy to under Obama or international prodding to hold true to promises – it is easier to lift my head in the world as an American now than It was in 2005 when I moved to the Middle East.
But our sins are not erased, they are just diminished. I do pray for wisdom for the man who might be the most scrutinized individual in the world. He has become president at the lowest moment in American history. But already he is demeanor, passion, and character give me much to be proud of.
The youth of the world
During our visit to Jerusalem last month I was amazed by how many young people there were in Israel who were serving either at the border patrol, or in fatigues touring historical sites such as Yed Vashem, the holocaust memorial.
And today I heard a few high schoolers on the BBC World Service speak about how they didn’t want to inherit a broken world given to them by world leaders in two weeks at the Copenhagen summit on climate change.
Or the Harvard students who created a banker’s code of ethics, sick of not being able to hold their heads high after the irresponsibility of their industry sent the world into a global tailspin.
I’m encouraged because the youth of today who are generally suspected of being spoiled and disinterested in the world are showing otherwise. In Qatar, where I live, this generation is the one making meaningful choices between tradition and modernity to live their own lives. They shake hands with people of the opposite sex during meetings; they eat at the table with non-relatives, they go into homes of people of other nationalities, cultivate friendships, and talk about the taboo. These may seem like small acts but they are mighty in a culture of solidarity and emphasis on the collective over the whole.
They give me hope and inspiration to keep living a life of conscious choice and meaning, breaking the old habit of falling under the spell of mediocrity.
Any recent choices you’ve made to do things differently? To be a trendsetter not because its in but because of your conscious?
The night before Eid, the second day of Roshashana
Eid is a conflicted time for me and this my fifth Eid Al Fitr - the end of fasting in the month of Ramadan - is no different. Everyone in any majority Muslim country can feel the population groaning as the nights get longer. The last ten days of Ramadan are the most holy and there is one night every year when all your sins can be forgiven if you pray all night. This year it was the 17th. I am saddened by the onset of Eid because it means the shared meals, early evenings, and general focus of the period of fasting will be lost in the melee of visiting family, even more feasting, and then a sugar induced food coma as life returns to normal.
While the young generation of Qataris don’t really enjoy the family visits and endless cups of kahwa, Arabic coffee - one student said ,"Our grandparents enjoy seeing us all together."
There is a similar scramble in the ex-pat community to get travel booked. It is outdoing the Joneses at the finest; those who are newly arrived sift through a dizzying array of recommendations from those who have been in the region for some time. Those who have been in the region have already been to the ancient city of Petra, rung in the New Year in Dubai, and are chasing the outer edges of travel. China, South Africa, Chile, the conversation at birthday parties and wedding receptions before Eid include sharing travel tips and recommendations. It is a slightly laughable version of "what is your benefits package?"
I confess we are not immune; my husband and I are now on the third day of a trip that was on my list of things to do by the time I turned thirty (See this for my entire list: http://tiny.cc/aOJkk). We are touring the Holy Land and spent the afternoon floating in the Dead Sea and then running to shore to wipe out the stinging sea salt in my eyes.
What has struck the most thus far on this particular journey is how similar these two cultures that are locked in a political impasse.
In both communities the women wear their hair long (I can attest to the Arab side from the women only parties I’ve been to).
In both communities, the holy day means all businesses are closed (unlike in the West where Sunday has all but vanished).
In both communities, the animal mistakenly named for causing H1N1 is prohibited as food.
And this weekend, both communities are sharing two significant feast days: the Jewish New Year, and the aforementioned Eid al Fitr.
More ironies to follow as the next two days feature a tour of Jerusalem.
Inciting Change
In college we had a friend who didn’t like change; avoided it like the plague and dread most people reserve for finding out that their leg has to be amputated.
But having left my birth country at the age of four, I only knew life as constant change. Every few years my family moved somewhere else so that my father could work on a different research project at yet another university. In my twenties I lived in Raleigh, NC for six consecutive years while finishing a bachelors and a masters degree, this was only the second time I had ever lived in one city for such a long time. The other being Gainesville, FL for middle school and high school – seven years.
Starting my fifth year in Qatar has brought a feeling many would consider comfort. Mind you in the last four years there has been enough change in the city as well as my personal life to challenge anyone: on those lists of "major life events" I’ve been able to circle at least five since 2005. Moved to a new country, got married, moved houses (4 times), finished a PhD, and changed jobs three times. Despite all of this and the accompanying adjustments, I’ve managed to change in negative ways as well.
Bad habits have crept in – long afternoon naps, too much time in front of the T.V., poor eating habits.
And now I find myself deliberately trying to instigate change in this steadying stream. I don’t have to go to a group exercise class to work up a sweat.
I can break out the Bose and try the video it came with, right in my own home.
I can snack on green grapes, a taste I love equally as much as the chocolate I’m used to reaching for.
I can stay in the office and do one more thing instead of going to the study at home where I’m likely to waste time on social networking sites.
It’s conscious, steady and deliberate but I am claiming my life back from those seconds which spill into minutes and the minutes that slip into hours which drain my life away slowly but surely into nothingness and mediocrity.
Share anything you’ve found to embrace or encourage change. And let’s remember in the words of the late Michael Jackson (how weird is it see that in print?) if we’re going to change anything in the world, it has to first start within.
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