leaping into the void

Or at least that’s the way it feels, five and a half months from the leap. We’re intending to return to my home state, our home country, at the end of this latest bout of expat-ing.

This choice, more emotional than logical, was based in part on how I was feeling two summers ago, after our first year in Doha- so enormously relieved to be back in a place with mountains and green and people who drive slowly. Back then I decided we should make moving back there the goal for when my husband’s contract finishes in Qatar. Since then I can’t say I’ve grown to love Doha but I have grown to tolerate it, with great affection for certain people and certain corners. The whole process has reminded me that anywhere can become home eventually and has weakened my resolve that there is one most perfect place for us to move.

Another factor is that in all our moves, none have landed us in places where we knew more than a handful of people. My home state has a web of connection with family and friends and the idea of that is very appealing.

  

I have fears and misgivings. Having never, as an adult, lived in one place for more than three years, I’m not even sure that I can, even while we talk about this next move being to the place where we will see all the kids grow up and graduate from high school.  As if we can possibly know enough to make the right choice, especially as the stakes seem to get higher with each successive move. The part that doesn’t let me go back to sleep when I wake up at 3am is the part about how there is no long-term anything without an income, and the planning so far has not included jobs.

And then recently, just when my trust in my own decision-making was at a very low point, one of my favorite people suggested moving to her hometown, and except for the fact that it’s thousands of miles from my home state, it has everything- mountains, friendly people, indoor and outdoor climbing for one kid, horses for another, great schools for all three. I couldn’t not put it on the list of possibilities.

I know that it’s better to talk about this in terms of “intentions” rather than “plans,” as I'm aware from abundant experience what can happen to plans, and very quickly too. I also know how hard it is to “re-pat”: to re-orient and re-calibrate to the culture and pace of one’s home country after living abroad. We surely have plenty of work ahead of us, no matter where we end up.

P.S. also going to keep in mind this one, about how it isn't really a void at all.

When Doha gets me down

I’ve been stuck for a while on what to write.  I don't want to seem like I'm always complaining, or always grasping for some shred of what I appreciate about Qatar so it won't seem like I'm always complaining. The weather’s getting hotter, friends are busier as the school year winds up and I am dreaming of a certain little valley in Vermont every single night. 

Doha can seem like a microcosm of all the worst ways of humanity: greed, laziness, disregard for environment, poor treatment of animals, starkly stratified class system, how much human civilization has been about manipulating everything we can reach for our own ease and glory.  It gets me down and makes me fantasize about living elsewhere.

Dreamworld interlude (meaning I don’t have to be fair and balanced and realistic): I want to live in a little cabin within walking distance from my nearest neighbor.  I want to have a garden and some fruit trees that provide most of what I need to eat, a large pantry for storing food and a big fridge and freezer. I want a porch with some rocking chairs and a table with benches for eating at and a screened-in part for sleeping in good weather.  I would like a few goats and some chickens for milk, cheese, eggs, and meat. I would like a toolshed with all the tools I will need to work and maintain the place and an art studio with big windows that can open.  I want friendly neighbors who are as welcome at my house as I am at theirs.  I want mountains and trails nearby. I want seasons I want to be able to avoid getting in a car or going to a store for days at a time. I don’t want to be global anymore, I want to be thoroughly locally connected to the people and land around me.

Exit dreamworld (because it will not happen anytime soon and I have responsibilities in the here and now)

What to do? Sink into the sofa for hours and weeks on end staring into a tiny handheld screen in hopes of connection with someone anyone from the outside because my living room windows just look out onto a wall ten feet across our brick-floored backyard? No, except for sometimes.  Find other expats who loathe Doha and meet them at Starbucks so we can tear the place down over lattes? No because I am very picky about the friends with whom I choose to complain. Do I follow the advice of the cranky people on the internet who say if you don’t like it then leave? No, obviously. I have committed to staying for one more year, regardless of how I feel about this place, because I still believe it's best for my family and will provide us with more choice in the long run.  

And so I work hard on it.  When the ridiculousness of it all starts to get me down I narrow my focus to kids, art, and long walks, appreciate small connections, try to minimize time spent in traffic.  And then out of the blue I get a gift like the one a few weeks ago: my youngest had been stuck inside all day so we decided to go for a walk to a little store to get ice cream.  The path leads across huge empty lots both paved and gravelly, past compounds, rubbish heaps, mansions under construction and mansions fully decked out with gardens and fountains and expensive cars. There is one spot where the sand is full of shells, though we’re miles from the sea. We decided to take the long way around to say hello to some horses and came upon some Qatari people apparently having a party.  They invited us over and then a few minutes later we were up on camels having rides!

I've been appreciating the hard part of the work because then I can feel very acutely what’s wrong, what’s out of balance, and not slip into complacency. And there are still powerful examples of the good parts of humanity here too, like the Qataris who shared their camels and these people who are helping the porters in the central market, that I can start to feel more hopeful that we aren’t totally at the mercy of these people who spend millions on license plate numbers. No way I will fix it but maybe little by little I can shift my momentum in a more positive way.

temptation, hard work, appreciation, relief

Last summer was magical.  It was stark contrast to my life in Doha- the people, the hills, the air, the water, the lack of traffic, the music. The peace.  Coming back was hard, but then a job posting came up that seemed to offer an opportunity to bring us back to that area year-round. It was work I could surely do well and was qualified for, a chance to move somewhere that wasn’t entirely new for a change, to be the one with the anchor job, to stop trailing once and for all. 

I applied.  I got an interview.  You can’t interview for a job without wanting it completely and convincing yourself that you would be the best possible match for the position.  You have to tell yourself that it’s better to go than stay, find reasons to justify that the move will be worthwhile.

Hope is ridiculous and wonderful. We keep doing it despite overwhelming evidence that life is hard and often unfair. I know that it would have made more sense to let go of all hope the instant the interview was over –and then it would be that much more exciting if I was chosen, that much less painful if I didn’t get it. I didn’t let go entirely but I did work hard on keeping it in check.

It’s been a strange week, full of rich conversations with friends and lots of thought about what it would mean to go, what it would mean to stay.  I’ve been able to see, for a moment, what I gain from  living in a place that is hard, that contradicts so many of my values and that deprives me of so many of the things I thought I needed in order to be happy.  My search for beauty here has made me more appreciative of my surroundings, and having shared it with others they now encourage me to keep up the practice even when I’m wishing I were elsewhere. 

I’ve also thought deeply about how wonderful it would be to move someplace where I already have friends, where I know my way around, where there are seasons and mountains to climb.  It seems worth the stresses of looking for a new house, figuring out schools for the kids and easing them through the many layers of their transition.

Today, checking my e-mail before I even got out of bed, I received an impersonal note thanking me for my efforts and informing me that someone else had been chosen.  I got up, made a sandwich, and walked out into the cool air of the Doha winter dawn, surprised to be more relieved than sad.  

I’m sure that over the next few days and weeks there will be moments that I will be more sad than relieved, wishing that the next time I get on a plane to leave Qatar I will know I don’t have to return. I don’t have a lot of time for internet lists that tell me how to behave and feel, but I came across one the other day that had a point that has carried me through the suspense of this application process, and continues to comfort: 1. Know that you’re not seeing every option. This is not new news to you or me but still a good reminder when I thought my heart was set on one particular way that my life could play out.

face to face after too much Facebook

Summer vacation is a week away. The kids and I will embark on a classic expat pilgrimage back to my home state to soak up as much fresh air and green as we can before we head back to Doha. We will be seeing many friends with whom nearly my only contact during the past few years has been via Facebook. When we’re far apart it’s easy to imagine that we’re all caught up with one another because we see posts and comments from some friends on a daily basis, though we haven’t had a real-life conversation in years. I had an experience a few years ago at a reunion when an old friend I hadn't seen in at least a decade said "I feel like I know exactly what you've been up to, thanks to Facebook," and suddenly I didn't know what to say to her. There was so much I hadn't shared but I didn't want to make things any more awkward by announcing that. 

I don’t know anyone who shares everything about their lives on Facebook.  Omission happens when I’m maintaining the privacy of my family and friends or because I’m too busy to share. I try to present a balanced picture in what I do share, but I know that despite all efforts my life may end up seeming more exciting and fun than it really is.  I only say this because it’s certainly the case for me- I see your adventures at the beach and festivals and mountains and exotic vacations and homey barbecues and your wacky Halloween costumes and daring sports and think wow we are so very dull.

The grass is perpetually greener on FB. 

Yes, there are exciting and fun moments for all of us but more often my days are about hauling kids to school and back, being stuck in traffic, grocery shopping, putting off laundry, dealing with whining and bickering, struggling to keep my cool.  Part of the challenge is to make those daily routines fun and exciting, more for me than the kids, so I take pictures of the surprising parts, play hooky with camels, and think of funny ways to present a situation that might not have been so amusing in the moment.  

Since it’s hard to know where to start off once we’re face to face again, I’m writing you all a letter about how I imagine I’d like it to go:

Dear friends,

I am so excited to see you!  I am so excited to hear about what you’re up to and what you’ve been doing since our paths last crossed, about your kids and adventures and ideas. 

It's been great to keep up with you via Facebook. I have loved sharing the celebration, from afar, of your birthdays and announcements of achievements, weddings, and new babies! I love how we rally round friends who have lost beloved people and pets, and support those who are struggling through challenging situations. I even love that there are a tiny handful of you whom I haven’t yet met in person, but whom I know will be great company when we do manage it (until then I think of you, fondly, as my “imaginary friends”). I would always much rather catch up with you in person than on social media but FB is far better than no contact at all.

Now, in preparation for a real-life reunion, please throw the FB-generated version of my world out a virtual window and I will do the same for you and let us all start fresh with each other. 

And when you meet my kids, especially if it’s for the first time, could you please not reference FB at all?  Instead, could you say “I heard about [whatever] from your mom” They know I share some things about them and they know I post pictures also but I want them to get a fair start, not to think of FB as defining their identity any earlier than they have to. Hopefully they won’t ever feel that way but it will be up to them, ultimately.  You could say I shouldn’t mention them on social media at all then, but they are a huge part of my life and if I'm going to share any of it I cannot not mention them at all, though more and more I ask their permission. As they get older and eventually have their own accounts I will leave it up to them to decide what to share.

I hope to be offline as much as possible this summer, in favor of tangible connection with people and our immediate environment and I am so happy that you will be part of that! I can't wait!

love, 

Maria

finding beauty

We’re coming to the end of the school year with all the tension involved in wrapping up the term -assignments and portfolios to be found and finished, performances rehearsed and attended, last-minute preparations for our summer back in the USA, which for me includes paperwork and planning for the first full-time job I've had since before I had kids.  I’m working across time zones to try to sell our house in the US.  We recently took in an orphaned newborn kitten who requires a bottle of formula every few hours. The heat outside has been rising, forcing us all to stay indoors much more than we'd like. I’m using most of what little attention remains after two weeks of nights broken up by kitten-feedings on making sure everyone is fed and that we survive the school runs through Doha’s ridiculous traffic.  On top of all of this,  I'm one of the unlucky few who coffee does not help.  What does help is finding ways to connect to and try to enjoy where I am, in the moment. What follows is the best way I've found yet.  So good, in fact, that I'm going to take a chance and suggest you try it too. 

I got a DSLR a few weeks ago, as a much-hinted-for late birthday present.  I started by just bringing it along with me in the car on school runs, on my morning walk, to the camel market with my daughter. I took pictures of all the things I’d noticed before but to which I couldn’t do justice with the tiny lens and limited pixels of my iPod, no matter how many filter apps I downloaded.

It isn’t that I am instantly taking stunning pictures, but that the more beauty I look for, the more I’m finding.  I have a new appreciation of the quality of light in Doha, whether it is the harsh glare of mid-day, the long afternoon rays, or the rainbow colors that light up the shrubbery in my neighborhood and the mosques and the skyscrapers at night. I love the patterns from the shadows, that moment when the light is shooting out between the ever-present layer of dust near the ground and the early morning clouds above it.

I can try to capture exactly what I see, I can draw out the few colors that break up the sun-bleached drab or I can even frame them tightly, imagining for just a moment that my world really is entirely made up of the flame orange and glossy green of the blossoming trees in the park.  Now details are popping out all over, some that can make me laugh out loud even when it’s just me and the dumpster cats out on the street at dawn. The thickly-eyelashed, silky-nosed curious camels at the market have made me love the color beige after all.

I usually won’t tell you what I think you should do in order to be happy. I can’t stand that kind of bossing around.  But, for a change, I will make a suggestion for you, especially if you are not feeling entirely happy with your current situation wherever and whatever it may be: Get out your camera. Buy or borrow a new camera if you don’t have one that gives you some control over exposure, aperture, sensitivity. Take notice of any and all beauty around you. Seek it out. Take pictures. My new camera has been exactly what I needed, perfect for this disgruntled sleep-deprived expat housewife looking for beauty wherever she can find it.