All posts filed under: Learnings

on knowing a place

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Last Friday marked 1.5 years since I’ve lived in Mali. Some people settle in to a new place quickly, but I like to take my time – observing, breathing it in deeply, engaging only delicately at first, slowly building a steady foundation for Living. But by now, I’ve learned a thing or two, and the arc of my life has bent in ways I didn’t know it could, to accommodate being lived out in this place. To wit, a few things I’ve picked up: – I’ve learned the neighborhood boutiques by heart, and I know which stocks flour un-infiltrated by insects, which keeps real butter, where the eggs are freshest, and where I can buy on credit if I don’t have CFA handy; -I’ve got Plans B and C vegetable stands, and I know that if one is out of cucumbers I might get lucky at the other, but if one is out of limes, there’s a high probability nobody has them; -I know the hours of the 3 fruit stands in the neighborhood, and who I can …

on broken hearts

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How many times a day does your heart break? Are you open to it, or do you turn away? Hearts are breaking, lately (Valentine’s day notwithstanding). And by breaking, I mean any state of disarray, from fully shattered to fractured, from weathered and worn to aching. Even those who remain intact still strain from the weight of fear, sadness, anger, deep confusion. Does your heart break from too little, or too much? Does it break on behalf of others, on behalf of tragedy or injustice, or on behalf of your own trials and more than the occasional tribulation? Does your heart break for questions? Do I love her enough? Is he the right one at the wrong time, or vice versa? Will she ever know what she means to me? Is this the sunset of a best friendship? Will she get through this without me? If they are good people, why do they do horrible things? How much hatred can the world withstand? What’s our breaking point? What’s mine? How will I know when enough is …

on abundance

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There are times when absence marks you, when it feels like a great black hole you’ve tipped into. There are times when the lack of something in your life overwhelms. It can be anything–a lack of money or appreciation, or material goods or confidence, time or love or a loved one. You know it’s absurd to seize upon this absence, maybe even obsess over it, when the universe provides as much as it does. But there it is: you’ve got a gaping hole, and it consumes you. The other day I was talking with a friend about desire, and he posited that you can’t desire something you already have; having and desiring are mutually exclusive. So desire is not a great basis for relationships, since it vanishes once the relationship is attained. I’d include our relationships with ourselves in that calculation; desire keeps you yearning and striving, but never satisfied, and never present. Sure, desire can motivate achievements, but as someone perennially affected by Grass Is Always Greener Syndrome, I wanted to brainstorm some alternatives. What can replace it? What …

on optimism

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I’ve been catching myself, lately, noticing thoughts or comments that betray frustration, negativity, disappointment, a lack of confidence. I see it, I hear it, and I don’t like it. Not liking it, of course, only furthers me down the road aways, and gives me another reason to be annoyed. The ugliness might be expected, considering the circumstances, but it’s not really acceptable, considering the circumstances. That is to say, perspective is key. The thing to admire about expats–and I use the word broadly, to include anyone who willingly lives outside their land of origin, and usually those who do so unwillingly as well–is that they’re a crafty bunch. They tend to be Make-Do Royalty, fully initiated in how to go about Doing Things Differently, Other Than Expected, or As Totally Unforeseen. They pivot, they wiggle, they patch and sew, they may squirm a bit. But their Go With The Flowabilities are unmatched by most. Ingenuity, creativity, and flexibility mark the expats I know, regardless of how close to perfection they otherwise come. They are scrappy, and I mean that …

on balance

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When extremes feel de rigueur, it’s a challenge to stay balanced. I want to walk life’s tightrope with confidence, as if it were a line painted on solid ground, but so often my thoughts – concerns, projections, expectations, memories – pull me in one direction, and then another, until my feet dance to the rhythms of my mind and they barely touch the ground. Yes and no, fear and courage, action and inaction, energy and exhaustion, pushing and pulling, intention and submission, giving and receiving, accepting and rejecting… But then, the extremes also feel natural, in a way that is wholly me, for better or worse. I wonder whether it’s the tension between them that keeps me upright–if not for that tension, Perhaps i’d have no momentum. Perhaps it’s the swing of the pendulum that keeps the clock ticking. It’s a bit frightening, as stillness of the mind is my ideal. But maybe i seek an unnecessary, false perfection. Perhaps movement is innate and, judgement aside, it can blossom into something steady, a thing to be counted …

on upheaval

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A good friend used to console me with the words of her father: The only thing constant is change. There are people who crave change, and others who crave consistency, and then people like me who want both, and neither. If change is on the horizon, I cower in fear; if the status quo is all I see for miles around, I become antsy to the point of agitated. That is to say, i’m not especially adept at riding the Waves of Life. I prefer to be out there on my life raft, hand on one hip in a panic, trying to boss around the tides. As you can imagine, i don’t regularly get my way. Leaving a destructive job is a big step; doing so in a foreign land with no back-up plan is a bit outrageous. Leaving a long-term relationship is a life-changing choice; going solo in a foreign land is, quite, literally, life-altering. Doing both in the space of one week is….let’s call it bold, shall we? Bold seems appropriately kind-spirited. The biggest urge during moments of …