Chapter Eleven: Case of the Mondays
February 19, 2007No further meetings were called. In fact, they never had another conversation—not one—about whether they ought or ought not to head home. Sentimentalists might say they were home, but it wasn’t as simple as that. Cynics might deride them for wallowing in the romance of exile, but it wasn’t that simple, either. The door to novelty is always slightly ajar: many pass it by with barely a glance, some peek inside but choose not to enter, others dash in and dash out again; while a few, drawn by curiosity, boredom, rebellion, or circumstance, venture in so deep or wander around in there so long that they can never find their way back out. Villa Incognito
I really don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think about writing all the time. What I will, what I should, what I probably shouldn’t, what I can’t and what I eventually do write about. It’s just that when it comes time to actually sitting down, opening Word and getting my thoughts on to the computer screen, I constantly find something else to occupy my time. Lately, everything including The Sopranos on DVD comes before my rhetoric. It’s such a shame; especially for someone who just might, if she’s lucky, find herself doing this whole silly, occasionally vain, yet absolutely beautiful, artistic thing for a living.
In this world that God (or Mother Nature) created, it is always hazard and novelty—hazard and novelty—which assert themselves, thereby rendering notions of fixity absurd. Incongruously enough, however, when we allow ourselves to fully accept uncertainty, to embrace and cultivate it even, then we actually can begin to feel within ourselves the presence of an Absolute. The person who cannot welcome ambiguity cannot welcome God.
I suppose I’ve grown so accustomed to life here in Jety-Oguz that writing about what now seems to me a banal existence, lacks exigency. A fellow PCV said to me the other day that he likes living in Kyrgyzstan as a volunteer because everything he does, even the smallest thing, is exciting. I suppose he’s right, but that excitement, that zeal, at least to me, has become so mundane, I forget what it feels like to be able to get things done without the plethora of impediments that await me. Even a simple trip to the post office turns into an ordeal: trudging through the unpaved roads, veering out of animal traffic, responding to 19,234 “hellos” in a strange foreign tongue and having to wait in a non-existent line system, only to find out that no, the package that I’ve been waiting on for months is still not here. Although it’s always different, in a sense, I’ve been doing the same thing, everyday for the last year and a half. And frankly, I’m tired. I’m finding myself more often than not, looking forward to the day when I’ll be home, alone in my car, driving to the bank, free from the inevitable obstacles and am able to grab a tuna melt at the local sandwich shop without interruptions in record time. Ah, I don’t know, I’m just down in the dumps. This too shall pass.
I think what I want and what I need is simply for winter to come to an end. This is the winter of my discontent. A part of me feels bad about not embracing the now and praying that the snow will magically melt overnight, when, at this very moment, a good friend of mine is serving in Micronesia, sweating because he’s simply alive and fending off mosquitoes from his already swollen feet. He didn’t get winter; he didn’t get snow. But here I am complaining, and I get to experience all four seasons. The same seasons, however more severe, that I’ve had and known since I was a little girl, growing up on the north shore of Chicago. Despite all that, every ounce in my soul is ready for spring, for school to come to an end, for summer in Kyrgyzstan, the beer tent in Karakol, the waterfall hike past the resort, my first and probably last trip to the southern oblasts, the completion of my secondary projects.
I know no one likes a complainer, and if you were anywhere within physical reach of me, I’d gladly accept a slap on the cheek, but it seems that everyone else in Central Asia has already put away their Sorels and embraced the changing of the seasons. Why Kyrgyzstan’s south shore wont give winter up is beyond me, but that, along with my school’s vice principal forcing double groups on to my already delinquentesque students, is the icing on a rather depressing excuse for a cake.
Come March, the weather will warm and the roads will be infested with “bat kak,” pronounced “butt cock,” which is the Kyrgyz word for “mud.” The random holidays will call for early dismissal, parties during school hours and potato planting sessions. Before I know it, the year will be over, and if I get replaced by a K-15, my life as an English teacher as well. Since I see no good reason to leave this country early and have always valued seeing things I start through to the end, I’ll be here till my K-13 group’s Completion of Service (COS) in November. I just need this school year to end. Soon. Or at least a student or two to finally catch on and apply what I’ve been trying to teach them since the beginning.
All of them, Goldwire. All of them. No particular god gets to preside over bullshit, or else they’d fight among themselves for the privilege. The gods tolerate the human race for no other reason than our talent for bullshit. It’s the only thing about us that doesn’t bore them to tears.
What about love? Dickie thought to yell back. What about our capacity for love? But by then the door had swung shut behind him.
I just read Tom Robbin’s Villa Incognito, and while I found his writing to be fairly erratic, it was delightfully imaginative, overflowing with truthful metaphors for the human race. Reading and finishing that book were the best part of my week. And so I’ve decided to sporadically, and if for no other reason than because I like the way he strings words together, share a bit with you.
The brighter the mind gleams, the softer the silence of the eventual no-mind, just as the overturned bucket that was once brimming seems so much emptier than the bucket that never held milk in the first place. Thanks for filling my little pail.
-------------------
My parents called my cell this morning before school. It was the Sheila and Larry Pep-Talk Special. When they asked me why I hadn’t updated my blog since the Thailand sessions, I informed them that in fact I had just finished a new entry, but that it would now come as no surprise to them because everything I had just said in the last ten minutes was its content. They responded, and I admit quite brashly, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Words to live by.
Tomorrow I head into Karakol to get a move on things. I have a final farewell dinner with our country director, who has come to the lake for one of his periodic visits. Then I’m off to Bishkek to attend the K-13 Man’s Day/Improvised Mid-Service Training (MST) this weekend. Next week I hope to gain entry into the US Embassy to get some research done for a grant I plan to write for school textbooks, and on Tuesday night I will partake in the World Wise School’s conference call, where I will speak to a group of high school students from Hinsdale, Illinois, and hopefully clarify that Borat, contrary to popular belief, does not live in this Central Asian country. Da Vai! Kettik! Vamanos! Let’s go!
posted by C @ 4:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home