And so she went away
years ago
To her island of white couches
And blue ocean walls
She said good bye
To the risk of knowing
The risk of standing
Erect in the face of it
She went to heal
In the soft nook of down bedding
And sunshine afternoons
She left the world
To care for herself
To avoid the chaos of others
To feel silence
And sense control
Monday, June 30, 2008
Gait of Comfort
Her sister was waiting for her in front of the newly built, trendy bureaucrat style of a shiny glass building. She had left her phone at home that day so she couldn’t call her from outside the building to tell her when she arrived. Instead she called her from her office and they timed it at exactly a 10 minute walk from one office to the other. Her seemingly older, younger sister was dressed in lawyerly black pants, a white button down and some stylish jewelry. She was in barely-ironed white with Spanish sandals.
They started to walk in an unknown direction. Her sister took off the sweater that warmed her in the over air-conditioned offices of the massive law firm. They started the mid-afternoon news catch up. It went in no particular order. The first topic could be the work day, something which they both viewed with little emotion and more resignation. Work was a necessary, at times amusingly childish, evil. Despite their vastly different work, they had both realized early that their identities were barely, if at all, attached to their careers.
They passed Starbuks and moved on to the daily communications from the outside; friends, family, suitors, exes. Their conversations were exceptionally efficient. Somehow it took a sentence or two for them to describe even the most emotional exchange. “He said he misses me, wishes I was around him.”
“Yea, I bet he does. What are you going to do?”
“Just wait and see how I feel later and write him back, probably along the lines of ‘why don’t you do something about it?’”
“Sounds good. Have you talked to mom?” Her sister's small torso and long legs contrasted her longer torso. Their little arms and faces were similar, at times, superficially identical. Their gait was easy, their rhythm intuitive.
“No I keep forgetting to call her. I feel bad, I just get into my own world and fall asleep and wake up realizing I forgot to call her again. Have you talked to her?”
“Yea, she is fine, but we need to buy our plane tickets soon. She had a party this weekend and she was really excited about it. All the ladies came.”
“What about the family, what is going on with the Farhad and Pooyan?”
“I don’t know, mom and Khaleh are talking about the baby shower. Farhad made his move back to Nashville, and Susan and Arya are moving into their place.”
“I am going to call mom when I get to the office.”
“She is in a funk today; I don’t know what is going on.”
By now they had turn two of the four corners of their walk. They were heading back, the 15
minutes was coming to an end. “Yea I think she just needs some daughter intervention. Her mind is probably getting polluted with all the designer purses her friends carry.”
“Yea call her and see what’s up. She was getting on my nerves.”
“Wait do you want some food?”
“Yea can we get some lemonade? I think the sugar will be just right today.”
“I don’t want some, it has been off for me lately. I think it’s too sweet but you can get some.” They walked into the overpriced sandwich shop and picked up some strawberry lemonade. As they walked out of the store she handed the cup to her sister. They started towards the last corner. “Yea its too tart sweet or something.” She tried it.
“Mmmmm..Oh its perfect for me today, I need the sugar.”
"Hows your stomach?"
"I am still constipated. I can even eat anymore because my stomach is so full. What about you?"
"Its fine but I keep getting nauseated. I don't know what it is."
"Are you stressed? Maybe it was that thing at work. You were fine this weekend."
"No, everything is fine. It could be..." They talked about all the events that could cause the nausea, including meals out and family conflict. Nothing seemed to present itself as a candidate. They moved on. In a few days the issue would make itself known.
They slowed their walk and stood in front of the gargantuan piece of real estate again, their words began their conclusion. “What are you and the hubby up to tonight?”
“Nothing, what are you doing?”
“Probably meeting up with the girls for an hour or so at Basil.”
“Ok, so I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yep. Have fun in the cave.” She squeezed her little sister's stomach as they hugged good bye.
“Thanks enjoy this weather walking back.”
“Yup.”
They started to walk in an unknown direction. Her sister took off the sweater that warmed her in the over air-conditioned offices of the massive law firm. They started the mid-afternoon news catch up. It went in no particular order. The first topic could be the work day, something which they both viewed with little emotion and more resignation. Work was a necessary, at times amusingly childish, evil. Despite their vastly different work, they had both realized early that their identities were barely, if at all, attached to their careers.
They passed Starbuks and moved on to the daily communications from the outside; friends, family, suitors, exes. Their conversations were exceptionally efficient. Somehow it took a sentence or two for them to describe even the most emotional exchange. “He said he misses me, wishes I was around him.”
“Yea, I bet he does. What are you going to do?”
“Just wait and see how I feel later and write him back, probably along the lines of ‘why don’t you do something about it?’”
“Sounds good. Have you talked to mom?” Her sister's small torso and long legs contrasted her longer torso. Their little arms and faces were similar, at times, superficially identical. Their gait was easy, their rhythm intuitive.
“No I keep forgetting to call her. I feel bad, I just get into my own world and fall asleep and wake up realizing I forgot to call her again. Have you talked to her?”
“Yea, she is fine, but we need to buy our plane tickets soon. She had a party this weekend and she was really excited about it. All the ladies came.”
“What about the family, what is going on with the Farhad and Pooyan?”
“I don’t know, mom and Khaleh are talking about the baby shower. Farhad made his move back to Nashville, and Susan and Arya are moving into their place.”
“I am going to call mom when I get to the office.”
“She is in a funk today; I don’t know what is going on.”
By now they had turn two of the four corners of their walk. They were heading back, the 15
minutes was coming to an end. “Yea I think she just needs some daughter intervention. Her mind is probably getting polluted with all the designer purses her friends carry.”
“Yea call her and see what’s up. She was getting on my nerves.”
“Wait do you want some food?”
“Yea can we get some lemonade? I think the sugar will be just right today.”
“I don’t want some, it has been off for me lately. I think it’s too sweet but you can get some.” They walked into the overpriced sandwich shop and picked up some strawberry lemonade. As they walked out of the store she handed the cup to her sister. They started towards the last corner. “Yea its too tart sweet or something.” She tried it.
“Mmmmm..Oh its perfect for me today, I need the sugar.”
"Hows your stomach?"
"I am still constipated. I can even eat anymore because my stomach is so full. What about you?"
"Its fine but I keep getting nauseated. I don't know what it is."
"Are you stressed? Maybe it was that thing at work. You were fine this weekend."
"No, everything is fine. It could be..." They talked about all the events that could cause the nausea, including meals out and family conflict. Nothing seemed to present itself as a candidate. They moved on. In a few days the issue would make itself known.
They slowed their walk and stood in front of the gargantuan piece of real estate again, their words began their conclusion. “What are you and the hubby up to tonight?”
“Nothing, what are you doing?”
“Probably meeting up with the girls for an hour or so at Basil.”
“Ok, so I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yep. Have fun in the cave.” She squeezed her little sister's stomach as they hugged good bye.
“Thanks enjoy this weather walking back.”
“Yup.”
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Okay
They were sitting in the candle lit dark, four women, young but old, not 25 not 35, in that age of decision making or prolonged avoidance. Eyes locked, minds focused, upper bodies leaned forward. Their eyes looked at the other with such admiration and attention, the intensity was hard to avoid. Only one drank wine, the rest sipped on water. Two shared one chair.
Looking at them from the bar it was hard to believe that they were so young or so attractive or dressed so well for this. Their focus was inward; they noticed no one in the locale, as if they only came there for the chairs and table. They engaged in one another like it was utterly personal, like they were determining each other’s fate, the stakes were high. Their Saturday night commitment and care was abrasive to outsiders. They held on to each other’s words tightly and finally relinquished the place for the apartment. No more yelling over the increasingly intoxicated and intrusively present patrons.
They walked to the closest apartment and went straight for the bedroom. All four lay on the bed their stories strung between them. They communally processed the failures of the past. Though their fears gripped them each in a way unique from the other, their shared optimism inspired laughter. One of them dozed off to sleep. Believing that the past gave them the artillery to face the future, they kissed each other good night. In four separate apartments, in four separate beds, four square blocks away from the other, they each sent a message to the other “I’m home safe-good night.”
The next morning at 9 AM the plans for breakfast buzzed on four bedside tables.
Looking at them from the bar it was hard to believe that they were so young or so attractive or dressed so well for this. Their focus was inward; they noticed no one in the locale, as if they only came there for the chairs and table. They engaged in one another like it was utterly personal, like they were determining each other’s fate, the stakes were high. Their Saturday night commitment and care was abrasive to outsiders. They held on to each other’s words tightly and finally relinquished the place for the apartment. No more yelling over the increasingly intoxicated and intrusively present patrons.
They walked to the closest apartment and went straight for the bedroom. All four lay on the bed their stories strung between them. They communally processed the failures of the past. Though their fears gripped them each in a way unique from the other, their shared optimism inspired laughter. One of them dozed off to sleep. Believing that the past gave them the artillery to face the future, they kissed each other good night. In four separate apartments, in four separate beds, four square blocks away from the other, they each sent a message to the other “I’m home safe-good night.”
The next morning at 9 AM the plans for breakfast buzzed on four bedside tables.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Iran Foreign Ministry Spokesman
Talks about how irrational war with Iran would be-
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/06/iran-americans.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/06/iran-americans.html
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
half moon hearts
their half moon hearts
sporadically sent out spinning
spirals of energy
jetting into her
she depleted
her radiation
apprehending them
as she regenerated
her matter solidified
illuminating
and exuding
the coils
of their dim lights
failed to peirce the star
and fell from its sight
she spouted herself
into a new galaxy
there she found a sun
their glows enhanced
sporadically sent out spinning
spirals of energy
jetting into her
she depleted
her radiation
apprehending them
as she regenerated
her matter solidified
illuminating
and exuding
the coils
of their dim lights
failed to peirce the star
and fell from its sight
she spouted herself
into a new galaxy
there she found a sun
their glows enhanced
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Civil Society and Infrastructure (to be edited)
The presenter clicked through pictures shown on the screen. We were sitting at Columbia University, it was 2004. The pictures were of Baghdad from 2002-2003. I had been somewhat bored by the presentation up until then but once the pictures came up, my stomach turned into a complete knot. My face dropped. The guy across the room who had smiled at me when I came in, looked back and in his face I could see the impact of my own countenance. I felt pale.
One of the pictures was of the palace. It transported me to view from the Ministry of Irrigation, Water Resources and Environment in Afghanistan where I worked the year before. The view was of the two palaces nestled at the bottom of the mountains in Kabul. The palaces were skeletons and though only their form remained, it was apparent that they were once beautiful, magnificent, royal places. They were teasers almost, letting you know of the type of peace that once existed that allowed sufficient time for such palaces to be built and lived in. And then you came closer to the buildings and all you saw was bullets, bombed in walls, and all of this from a bit of distance because there were still mines throughout the building. It was a sobering image of the past and present, of failures, of war and peace.
Adding to my utter sickness, was the pictures of streets, street lamps, exit ramps. I had spent my year in Afghanistan obsessed with infrastructure. Good old fashioned infrastructure. Roads and dams. I thought about dams practically every day. How to build them, how to get money for them, who to build them, how to get money for them, who to build them, who to build them. This task was impossible not just because the development aid agencies were on 2-3 project cycles, not just because they couldn’t imagine giving 20 million to one project in one province only, not just because every project was politically motivated. This task was impossible because of security, because of the brain drain, because of the lack of local investment. Seeing the fancy and clean roads in the pictures of Baghdad made me sad because I knew they would be gone in an instant and never be built with the same amount of resources for a long time.
In America we haven't thought about dams since the Hoover Dam, (actually Hoover was finished in 1935, the last big dam built in the US was finished in 1979) we don't do long term projects like that anymore. We do three year projects. But you can't build a dam in Afghanistan in 3 years, you need 10 years and you need 10 years worth of security, 10 years worth of money, 10 years worth of steady and skilled workers and managers. These things don't exist. Well, as far as I am concerned they don't.
And the bureaucracies in the US/West don't care so much anymore because we don't really remember what it is like not to have a dam or a road that leads to a market, to a city, to a port. And to be honest, why would the West care, it isn’t their country, it isn’t their people they are accountable to. They answer to their own voters. And we don't remember that without roads we wouldn't have an economy. Or we don't have the timeline or attention span for it. This is not to disparage the US, it seems like it is just the way of the world now, our timelines and resources are shorter. Our vision is limited because we have electricity, dams, and roads.
During my time in Afghanistan I visited Tajikistan with a handful of engineers and managers from the Ministry. We were attending a conference and took a day trip to the Nurek Dam which is a legendary peice of infrastructure. It is 300 metres/984 feet high, which is the highest dam in the world. It beats the Hoover dam which sits at 223 metres.
The Hoover took 4 years to build, apparently the Nurek dam took 19 years. Hoover provides 2,074 megawatts of electricty, Nurek provides 2.7 gigawatts. Nurek cover 99% of the whole country's electricity. When they gave us the tour, we walked straight into the dam into an operation room that resembled all too closely the front deck of the seventies version of Star Trek. There were flashing lights, lots of buttons, and everything looked retro. But it was an impressive set-up. Talking to a friend who works on World Bank loans for dams, she said nobody would ever fund a project like Nurek again, the net present value would never be positive in the cost benefit analysis of the project.
I meander. The point here is that these projects take a long time, a lot of investment and have a huge benefit to these countries. In Afghanistan several of these dam projects were started in the 50's and 60's and some of them were even finished. Electricity was going to become a reality. But the war happened. Now the dams are all half finished or bombed through. Convincing any donor to pay for them, even back in 2003, was impossible.
But lets say dams are bad, bad for the environment, hard to do, not worth it. How about roads? Roads are ridiculously important and good ones are hard to build. These countries don't take taxes to pay for them and sometimes they don't have the technology. I remember what my friend said one day as we were riding in my car in Nashvile. He develops real estate in Nicaragua, and as we were about to get off an exit ramp he noted that it cost at least $500,000 just to build the exit ramp we speeded off of. These things were on his mind because he had been trying to get some built in Nicaragua so that people would have access to his properties.
So when I see the infrastructure in Iraq ripped apart, I get ill. Because I know its close to impossible to rebuild. Which leads me to Iran...
Bombing Iran.
There are million reasons not to bomb Iran. But I have two: infrastructure and civil society. Without roads people can't go to school, without electricity, an isolated country like Iran can't turn on their computers to see what is going on in the rest of the world, without roads people can't run their businesses, without water people can't grow food. Without electricity, roads, and water people can't worry about democracy. Bombing Iran kills democracy. In the 80s Iran was in an 8 year war with Iraq. The war injured or killed close to a million people and ruined a lot of the country's infrastructure. During the war the country was in a state of shock and survival. People couldn't worry about democracy or freedom. In the 90s people started to feel safe again, though depleted. In the 2000s we have a country with a civil society that is bubbling, growing, changing, evolving despite the harsh restrictions.
An example of this civil society is the recent story of the girl in Zanjan. She is in university. A teacher threatens her that if she doesn't satisfy his sexual demands of her, he will fail her. She tells her male friends. They come up with a plan to film him making these moves on her. And they do, they catch him undoing her chador. And suddenly the whole university knows and there is a protest of 3000 people according to AFP.
Though organizing is hard in Iran because it gives the government a target to dismantle, the Islamic Student Organization of the university, which had been recently banned, seems to be leading the protests. They have asked for an apology from the Ministry of Education and the removal of the harrasser who is also the vice-chancellor of the university.
This week the government puts the girl in jail and blames her. The protests continue. The youth, the society is aware, is growing, is doing its bit of civic action in whatever way it can despite the ridiculous restrictions on people's general freedoms. Another great example is Earth day. Several local environmental organizations ran a campaign to get as many bloggers as possible to post the environmental day emblem on their blogs. In a country with 75,000 bloggers, that can be a decent campaign.
This civil society did not exist before. It has never been so grass roots, so spread out through the country, so dynamic. Its new, and its crucial for political development in the country. If Iran gets bombed, the government has an excuse to quiet everyone in the interest of self preservation. So while the government can be down right scary at times, the people are finally getting to a point to determine the trajectory of their country. Give them time (like 30 years) and a home grown democracy will result. But they need stability to deliver that.
One of the pictures was of the palace. It transported me to view from the Ministry of Irrigation, Water Resources and Environment in Afghanistan where I worked the year before. The view was of the two palaces nestled at the bottom of the mountains in Kabul. The palaces were skeletons and though only their form remained, it was apparent that they were once beautiful, magnificent, royal places. They were teasers almost, letting you know of the type of peace that once existed that allowed sufficient time for such palaces to be built and lived in. And then you came closer to the buildings and all you saw was bullets, bombed in walls, and all of this from a bit of distance because there were still mines throughout the building. It was a sobering image of the past and present, of failures, of war and peace.
Adding to my utter sickness, was the pictures of streets, street lamps, exit ramps. I had spent my year in Afghanistan obsessed with infrastructure. Good old fashioned infrastructure. Roads and dams. I thought about dams practically every day. How to build them, how to get money for them, who to build them, how to get money for them, who to build them, who to build them. This task was impossible not just because the development aid agencies were on 2-3 project cycles, not just because they couldn’t imagine giving 20 million to one project in one province only, not just because every project was politically motivated. This task was impossible because of security, because of the brain drain, because of the lack of local investment. Seeing the fancy and clean roads in the pictures of Baghdad made me sad because I knew they would be gone in an instant and never be built with the same amount of resources for a long time.
In America we haven't thought about dams since the Hoover Dam, (actually Hoover was finished in 1935, the last big dam built in the US was finished in 1979) we don't do long term projects like that anymore. We do three year projects. But you can't build a dam in Afghanistan in 3 years, you need 10 years and you need 10 years worth of security, 10 years worth of money, 10 years worth of steady and skilled workers and managers. These things don't exist. Well, as far as I am concerned they don't.
And the bureaucracies in the US/West don't care so much anymore because we don't really remember what it is like not to have a dam or a road that leads to a market, to a city, to a port. And to be honest, why would the West care, it isn’t their country, it isn’t their people they are accountable to. They answer to their own voters. And we don't remember that without roads we wouldn't have an economy. Or we don't have the timeline or attention span for it. This is not to disparage the US, it seems like it is just the way of the world now, our timelines and resources are shorter. Our vision is limited because we have electricity, dams, and roads.
During my time in Afghanistan I visited Tajikistan with a handful of engineers and managers from the Ministry. We were attending a conference and took a day trip to the Nurek Dam which is a legendary peice of infrastructure. It is 300 metres/984 feet high, which is the highest dam in the world. It beats the Hoover dam which sits at 223 metres.
The Hoover took 4 years to build, apparently the Nurek dam took 19 years. Hoover provides 2,074 megawatts of electricty, Nurek provides 2.7 gigawatts. Nurek cover 99% of the whole country's electricity. When they gave us the tour, we walked straight into the dam into an operation room that resembled all too closely the front deck of the seventies version of Star Trek. There were flashing lights, lots of buttons, and everything looked retro. But it was an impressive set-up. Talking to a friend who works on World Bank loans for dams, she said nobody would ever fund a project like Nurek again, the net present value would never be positive in the cost benefit analysis of the project.
I meander. The point here is that these projects take a long time, a lot of investment and have a huge benefit to these countries. In Afghanistan several of these dam projects were started in the 50's and 60's and some of them were even finished. Electricity was going to become a reality. But the war happened. Now the dams are all half finished or bombed through. Convincing any donor to pay for them, even back in 2003, was impossible.
But lets say dams are bad, bad for the environment, hard to do, not worth it. How about roads? Roads are ridiculously important and good ones are hard to build. These countries don't take taxes to pay for them and sometimes they don't have the technology. I remember what my friend said one day as we were riding in my car in Nashvile. He develops real estate in Nicaragua, and as we were about to get off an exit ramp he noted that it cost at least $500,000 just to build the exit ramp we speeded off of. These things were on his mind because he had been trying to get some built in Nicaragua so that people would have access to his properties.
So when I see the infrastructure in Iraq ripped apart, I get ill. Because I know its close to impossible to rebuild. Which leads me to Iran...
Bombing Iran.
There are million reasons not to bomb Iran. But I have two: infrastructure and civil society. Without roads people can't go to school, without electricity, an isolated country like Iran can't turn on their computers to see what is going on in the rest of the world, without roads people can't run their businesses, without water people can't grow food. Without electricity, roads, and water people can't worry about democracy. Bombing Iran kills democracy. In the 80s Iran was in an 8 year war with Iraq. The war injured or killed close to a million people and ruined a lot of the country's infrastructure. During the war the country was in a state of shock and survival. People couldn't worry about democracy or freedom. In the 90s people started to feel safe again, though depleted. In the 2000s we have a country with a civil society that is bubbling, growing, changing, evolving despite the harsh restrictions.
An example of this civil society is the recent story of the girl in Zanjan. She is in university. A teacher threatens her that if she doesn't satisfy his sexual demands of her, he will fail her. She tells her male friends. They come up with a plan to film him making these moves on her. And they do, they catch him undoing her chador. And suddenly the whole university knows and there is a protest of 3000 people according to AFP.
Though organizing is hard in Iran because it gives the government a target to dismantle, the Islamic Student Organization of the university, which had been recently banned, seems to be leading the protests. They have asked for an apology from the Ministry of Education and the removal of the harrasser who is also the vice-chancellor of the university.
This week the government puts the girl in jail and blames her. The protests continue. The youth, the society is aware, is growing, is doing its bit of civic action in whatever way it can despite the ridiculous restrictions on people's general freedoms. Another great example is Earth day. Several local environmental organizations ran a campaign to get as many bloggers as possible to post the environmental day emblem on their blogs. In a country with 75,000 bloggers, that can be a decent campaign.
This civil society did not exist before. It has never been so grass roots, so spread out through the country, so dynamic. Its new, and its crucial for political development in the country. If Iran gets bombed, the government has an excuse to quiet everyone in the interest of self preservation. So while the government can be down right scary at times, the people are finally getting to a point to determine the trajectory of their country. Give them time (like 30 years) and a home grown democracy will result. But they need stability to deliver that.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Brave
Don't look into my pupils
for your image
go the mirror
You will find me there
You opened your eyes
and laid still before
me
counter me
I thought you were brave
the one who could
You held me when I was weak
You enjoyed me when I needed you
When I strengthened
you lost purpose
I smile in my solitary company
my existence is not
to buoy you
for your image
go the mirror
You will find me there
You opened your eyes
and laid still before
me
counter me
I thought you were brave
the one who could
You held me when I was weak
You enjoyed me when I needed you
When I strengthened
you lost purpose
I smile in my solitary company
my existence is not
to buoy you
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The Bafflement is all Yours
Their erratic frissons leads to a bit of garboil and bafflement, which I quickly gain hold of and chuck back to them, recognizing it is not mine.
Words
The heavy heat had been trapping itself in her little apartment all week. Refusing to selfishly pull energy from the world to cool the whole apartment, she enclosed herself in her bedroom every night around 10 PM and faced the guilt of turning on the AC.
Though they were there for her when she woke that morning, she had deferred savoring his letters all day. She waited for the moment where she could lay in her bed and read his confessions, his observations, his heart, his bourbon, his way, his day. She loved the way the words sat next to each other in his sentences. In their aggregate and as separate individuals, their external forms, shapes and sounds and their internal meanings described exactly who he was at the moment he wrote them. Together they formed an essence. A person. It was like she was both drinking him and the distilled him simultaneously. The line between the two was neither pivotal nor intelligible for her. Was he first or his words?
She read them and her heart covered her skin, expanded and spread as rapidly as an earnest cancerous cell making a crackling sound and covering her brown skin so that the world no longer existed. Dates, inventions, time, age, people, weather, it was all gone. It was an infinite moment with his words and her mind. They straddled each other, walked away from each other, sat across the room from each other, fought with each other, and finally jumped into each other’s arms.
She adjusted her pillows and turned off the AC, it was too loud. Staring at the computer, she felt immense love but equally colossal distance. They, she and him, were words-immaculately meaningful and desperately vapid. He was not there, they were not in real time, they didn’t share life, they described it. Even so, she couldn’t resist the fact that this edited exchange was the foremost authentic dialogue of her life. She paused and began to write him.
She woke with her hands still on the keyboard. The light was on; the computer was hot and begging her to shut it down, but staying awake in case she could do more. She sent whatever words were there on the screen to him. He would understand. He knows her. She couldn’t rise to the occasion of his outpour, but he would know she loved it, although her words did not match it.
She turned off the light.
Though they were there for her when she woke that morning, she had deferred savoring his letters all day. She waited for the moment where she could lay in her bed and read his confessions, his observations, his heart, his bourbon, his way, his day. She loved the way the words sat next to each other in his sentences. In their aggregate and as separate individuals, their external forms, shapes and sounds and their internal meanings described exactly who he was at the moment he wrote them. Together they formed an essence. A person. It was like she was both drinking him and the distilled him simultaneously. The line between the two was neither pivotal nor intelligible for her. Was he first or his words?
She read them and her heart covered her skin, expanded and spread as rapidly as an earnest cancerous cell making a crackling sound and covering her brown skin so that the world no longer existed. Dates, inventions, time, age, people, weather, it was all gone. It was an infinite moment with his words and her mind. They straddled each other, walked away from each other, sat across the room from each other, fought with each other, and finally jumped into each other’s arms.
She adjusted her pillows and turned off the AC, it was too loud. Staring at the computer, she felt immense love but equally colossal distance. They, she and him, were words-immaculately meaningful and desperately vapid. He was not there, they were not in real time, they didn’t share life, they described it. Even so, she couldn’t resist the fact that this edited exchange was the foremost authentic dialogue of her life. She paused and began to write him.
She woke with her hands still on the keyboard. The light was on; the computer was hot and begging her to shut it down, but staying awake in case she could do more. She sent whatever words were there on the screen to him. He would understand. He knows her. She couldn’t rise to the occasion of his outpour, but he would know she loved it, although her words did not match it.
She turned off the light.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Bounce on the Couch
The song came on. And she looked at her younger sister, the bouncing, twirling, air-guitar playing bride, and saw what she expected: a mouth wide open and eyes to match indicating immense love for 80’s rock. Her sister’s love for this song, hard to imagine, surpassed the previous ones and she had to express her love for the words "I don't want lose your love tonight" in a more honorable form. And that’s how two suits, an evening gown and a wedding dress ended up jumping up and down on the couch.
When Leila went for it, her dutiful sister followed her and as she ascended she saw Ali quickly take off his shoes, and leap up. Eiman, the play seeker, soon joined them. Its unclear how they all knew what to do, or where Ali and Eiman had been only seconds before, but it was as if there was a radar sent out invoking their childhood reflexes for play.
To balance themselves on the classy ballroom couch they put their hands on each of their shoulders and bounced in synch, though far off from the beat of the song. Looking at them, it was apparent that these four had done stunts like this before, though it had been 20 years. As their arms linked to one another, something far bigger than the song was at play.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Stupid, unsophisticated diplomacy
On Friday at a press conference in Tehran, EU president presents an incentive package similar to the one in 2006 and says “We are ready to cooperate with Iran in the development of a modern nuclear energy program based on the most modern generation of light-water reactors. We offer legally binding fuel supply guarantees, or to work together in designing a system to provide these fuel guarantees. We can help Iran with the management of nuclear waste. We can support Iranian research and development, including in the nuclear field once confidence is being restored. If we can settle the core issue, the nuclear program, the door would be open to cooperation in many other areas.”
This sounds good…then after a quiet weekend…
Gordon Brown and Bush get together today and have a press conference to talk about a new set of sanctions on the biggest bank in Iran saying:
"We will take any necessary action so that Iran is aware of the choice it needs to make."
Then in the same AP article it becomes clear that Solana talked to some people in Tehran this weekend and didn’t get such a great reception to the package.
“The EU has not yet announced stronger sanctions. But Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs and security chief Javier Solana, said EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday were prepared to take formal action and agreed in principle on the need for stronger sanctions… ‘It is clear they are ready to move further. We will definitely take a formal decision,’ she said. Gallach would not speculate on the timing of a final decision. Solana met with Iranian officials last weekend before an EU leaders' summit in Brussels later this week.”
Ostensibly, a very subtle, crafty, and sophisticated carrot and stick process.
And Europe is on board with the “diplomatic” process:
"Britain will urge Europe — and Europe will agree — to take sanctions against Iran," Brown said.
Well…sort of…
“EU foreign ministers refused to comment on the timing of the tighter EU sanctions…Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said the exact timing of the launch hinges on "how positive — or not — Iran's response will be to the economic incentives package."
Meanwhile, in the past couple of months the Iranian hard line newspapers have been saying indirectly to the west and about the incentive packages: Are you guys really this out of touch with reality? Do you know who we are and what we want?
As to who they are: Their popularity in the region grows. The oil which funds their “projects,” good and bad, grows. Their power to influence in Iraq grows.
As to what they want: Iran is after some serious respect. An incentive package that is only slightly better than one 2 years ago, coupled with George Bush’s policies, will never win them over. They want a new tone, a new respect, a true break from the past. And they seem to know better than Americans do, that this will not happen in the US even with a democrat as president. Something I am sadly starting to understand myself.
Though the Iranian government is nowhere near respectable in many of its policies, it has tried to be diplomatic with the US and it was beaten down. And part of me thinks the Iran of 2008- unprincipled, uncooperative, self-destructive and irrational- is in response to the rejection it got from the US in the 90s and early 2000s when it was trying on a new image and aiming to be enlightened, progressive and pragmatic. It was the Clinton administration that started the first round of sanction in the mid-90s and it was Bush that called them the Axis of Evil after their cooperation in Afghanistan.
I believe there are people that reside in the US that understand how to do diplomacy in difficult situations. I just don’t know if they are employed. Perhaps they all retired in the 80s.
This sounds good…then after a quiet weekend…
Gordon Brown and Bush get together today and have a press conference to talk about a new set of sanctions on the biggest bank in Iran saying:
"We will take any necessary action so that Iran is aware of the choice it needs to make."
Then in the same AP article it becomes clear that Solana talked to some people in Tehran this weekend and didn’t get such a great reception to the package.
“The EU has not yet announced stronger sanctions. But Cristina Gallach, spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs and security chief Javier Solana, said EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday were prepared to take formal action and agreed in principle on the need for stronger sanctions… ‘It is clear they are ready to move further. We will definitely take a formal decision,’ she said. Gallach would not speculate on the timing of a final decision. Solana met with Iranian officials last weekend before an EU leaders' summit in Brussels later this week.”
Ostensibly, a very subtle, crafty, and sophisticated carrot and stick process.
And Europe is on board with the “diplomatic” process:
"Britain will urge Europe — and Europe will agree — to take sanctions against Iran," Brown said.
Well…sort of…
“EU foreign ministers refused to comment on the timing of the tighter EU sanctions…Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said the exact timing of the launch hinges on "how positive — or not — Iran's response will be to the economic incentives package."
Meanwhile, in the past couple of months the Iranian hard line newspapers have been saying indirectly to the west and about the incentive packages: Are you guys really this out of touch with reality? Do you know who we are and what we want?
As to who they are: Their popularity in the region grows. The oil which funds their “projects,” good and bad, grows. Their power to influence in Iraq grows.
As to what they want: Iran is after some serious respect. An incentive package that is only slightly better than one 2 years ago, coupled with George Bush’s policies, will never win them over. They want a new tone, a new respect, a true break from the past. And they seem to know better than Americans do, that this will not happen in the US even with a democrat as president. Something I am sadly starting to understand myself.
Though the Iranian government is nowhere near respectable in many of its policies, it has tried to be diplomatic with the US and it was beaten down. And part of me thinks the Iran of 2008- unprincipled, uncooperative, self-destructive and irrational- is in response to the rejection it got from the US in the 90s and early 2000s when it was trying on a new image and aiming to be enlightened, progressive and pragmatic. It was the Clinton administration that started the first round of sanction in the mid-90s and it was Bush that called them the Axis of Evil after their cooperation in Afghanistan.
I believe there are people that reside in the US that understand how to do diplomacy in difficult situations. I just don’t know if they are employed. Perhaps they all retired in the 80s.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Hafez Ghazal
I am reading lines 1-4 and lines 11-14 of the above ghazal at my sister's wedding. Below is my translation of those lines...
The days and nights of separation from the beloved are over
I made my wish, my lucky star answered, and the matter is done
All of the dalliance and vanity offered by autumn
Was ended by the coming of the spring breeze
I still can not believe that in the perfidy of our times
The tales of sadness have ceased in the presence of my beloved
Saghi (wine bearer) you are gracious, may your jug always be full of wine
Your prudence has ended my withdrawl
......................................................................................
It was explained to me that the wine bearer, ever present in Hafez ghazals, indicates that in order to love, to fall in love, to be in love, one must shut off the mind, because the mind is incapable of understanding love in its fullness, in the same way that it is incapable of understanding the universe. To love is to turn off the mind, or to calm it, to intoxicate it so that the love can be felt... Linear thought, analytical calculation furthers one from love.
This poem says that the times of heartache are over because love has come and thanks to the Saghi for intoxicating us to be able to experience it.
Something like that...
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Needles
He would gently places the bottoms of his four fingers on various places on her body and move them back and forth like he was erasing something delicate. It felt, quite possibly, like the most tender gesture she had ever experienced from a man. Though it was a comfortable thought, it wasn’t true. Spread out and distinct in her history, there was a kiss on her shoulder in the morning, a kiss in her hand in the middle of the night, the tracing of the back with one finger, and the embrace that lasted an eternity- all given by men. His motive was different, he was hurting her and he had to counter his painful touch with some care, so she could keep going. It was a necessary touch and one that glued her pain to him.
She started to breath and they got into their rhythm. She breathed in, long, full, as if she was scuba diving and trying to maintain her depth under water. He put it in, she tried not to anticipate the pain, and was constantly relieved each time when it went in without her really feeling it. “Wait you are putting them in my neck. I thought you weren’t going to.”
“I thought you said you wanted them in your neck.”
“No. Oh well. Here we go.” He had already started. There was no going back. Her neck had been in knots for two weeks. She was afraid the muscles would grip the needles like a tug-of-war rope.
He was getting into her shoulders, another set of bumpy muscles. She was worried about the needles in her neck and along with that worry she lost her focus on breathing right as he put one in. With her deep vocal chords, she exclaimed “owwww!”
“I thought we were on rhythm.”
She spoke into the floor, her head nestled into the cushioned hole. “We were, I just started focusing on my neck.”
“Oh. Is it okay now?”
“Yes…wait.” He waited.
Somewhere along the way that trust had developed. They had duties. It was her sole responsibility to know how she felt and to tell him. He listened. He could not and would not feel for her. When she first came into his office months before, she was prepared to be his passive patient, to listen to him about her problems and for him to fix her. But he could only give her information about what he told her. So she started to talk about her strange pains and their strange places and her hypothesis for how they came about. He listened. He explained the body to her. And each time as each acupuncture session delivered different results, sometimes she felt better, sometimes worse, she realized that her pain is hers. It was not something to be interpreted by the doctor cleric. Her pain was the interpretation, and they would have to understand the actual cause together. They had to use his knowledge about the body and hers about hers to solve this problem. Her body's management could not be outsourced. The unspoken rules guided them.
She got back into her pace. “Ok go ahead.” He dropped a few in and then hit another soft spot. She screamed. Her hands stretched out, facing the ceiling. He erased her lower back with his fingers. She was distracted by that touch. Seconds passed and he put his hand in hers. That’s what she wanted, she needed his hand. She squeezed it.
“How many more?”
“Two.”
She focused on him and where his movements were so she could time her breath. Her breath in was when the needle had to go in. The breath out gave her no protection. She felt his fingers hover above her spine, he was finding the spot. He nudged the muscle, he was getting ready, he said “deep breath” she did, her body rose and he put it in. It was getting to be difficult. She felt like she was in a torture chamber, and her mentor, her guru, her samurai was testing her to bring her to herself.
Immediately she was in tears.
“Oh no, come on no.” Her emotions were ahead of her, racing past her, that she felt that perhaps there was no sadness, instead the tears were a tool, a way to escape the task at hand and surrender. She breathed and halted the tears. They were endless and she had needles in her back, time was not a luxury she could afford. He began to erase her lower back. What hurts?”
“My neck.” He took the two needles out of her neck.
“How’s that”
“Better” She couldn’t really know, all the needles and the muscles had smushed into a ball of sensation and it was becoming impossible to pinpoint a specific spot of discomfort or pain. She feared the rest.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Can you do my lower back separate from my upper back?”
“Then you will be here for hours.”
She knew he would say that. She just could not muster the courage to take any more needles but she wanted, for the sake of understanding her body, to continue.
“How many are going to do?”
“Just those two that we talked about.” Before she laid on the table that day, before she had changed into her robe, they had discussed the last session. She canceled her first appointment the week before because she didn’t have the gumption to go. He had put two needles symmetric to each other, which he hypothesized was the cause of her continuous diarrhea the week before. Apparently the spot loosened a muscles that squeezes the stomach. He wanted to test his hypothesis. She did too.
“Okay.”
He began to touch her bottom vertebrae as if uncovering delicate artifacts under a pile of sand. He pushed around each vertebrae until he found the one he was looking for. He then moved away from it, only using it as a marker. She felt him search the map of her back for the magical point. He found it. “Deep breath.” She breathed in, but this time it was no protection, the pain was real. “Wait.” She needed to recover.
He started to feel for the next spot. She heard him turn to the table, pick up a needle, unsnap its plastic top, throw it into the box. She breathed in and he put it in. The last one was gentle. She was relieved it was over.
He put the remote buzzer in her hand, to call him if she needs him. He covered her in the silver wrap like a stick of gum and pushed the heating lamp onto her. As he opened the door she delicately mentioned as if she herself was unsure “I am not sure if I will last the whole twenty minutes”
He walked back to her side.
“Why?
“My whole upper back is uncomfortable.” Each needle felt like it was pulling on the other one to make her back some sort of pulled piece of burlap. She wanted all of the needles out so the pain would disappear, she wanted immediate relief. She wanted to remove her porcupine back and curl up into a ball.
He was erasing her arm. “Oh well that’s, here, in your head. You can control this”
And that was it. The words. She had heard variation before, in pop psychology books, in great epics, in the stories of the mystics and in Hollywood. It wasn’t the ingenuity of the words. It was him. And it was her. She trusted him. He was so convicted about it, she believed him. “Okay.”He left.
She thought the way out of her head was into her body by breathing. But she had been breathing all along. So she started to repeat what he had said out loud “you can control this.” In repetition she stated the words over and over again. Her back and shoulders melted into the table as if she was sinking into quicksand. She felt them relax and stretch out. Her lips stopped moving but the words kept being said. She drifted into a place between awake and asleep.
Twenty minutes later he openly the door. He removed the needles. She couldn’t tell which were in and which were out so she asked him, “did you get all of them?”
“Yep, you can turn over.”
She peeled her face from the cushioned hole. The tears still sat on her eyelashes. Her face reflected emotional exhaustion, as if she had been told news that kept her in shock. She rolled over like her bones were made of baby cartilage, she could neither exert energy nor move fast. She laid there staring at the ceiling.
“Ok we are only going to six on this side. All of your parasympathetic spots, because your sympathetic system is in overdrive right now.” She breathed, he put two in her ears, two in her hands, two by her knees, and two into her feet. The hands and feet were always painful, always too much. She anticipated them, feared them, and breathed to forget them. They went in. The pain was minimal. She was alright. The hard part was over. He put the aluminum wrap on top of her and moved the heat lamp over her.
He came back twenty minutes later. She was fine. She could barely open her eyes. He began to pull the needles. Her left hand ached. The largest acupuncture spot, it touched the large intestine. He took out the needles and she curled into the fetal position. He had a magnesium and vitamin d shot for her. He stabbed her left gluteal muscle and pressed the spot so the serum spread throughout. She curled. She felt empty and incapable of movement. He leaned over her, "are you okay?"
"Yea."
"Take all the time you need to get up."
"Okay."
She did. She eventually pulled her body off the table. Her body's ability to do that surprised her, in her mind, her body had no muscle left. She buttoned her shirt. She was slow and low. Her face showed it. It felt like sadness, but it was more like defeat. Her young, ambitious, relentless mind and body succumbed to the needles. Though she had defeated the pain, her mind had been humbled, it was forced to stop fighting and let go. This was in some strange way a defeat.
She wanted him to hug her. She paid for the doctor's session and left. "see ya kiddo."
An old couple passed her as she walked slowly to the metro.
She started to breath and they got into their rhythm. She breathed in, long, full, as if she was scuba diving and trying to maintain her depth under water. He put it in, she tried not to anticipate the pain, and was constantly relieved each time when it went in without her really feeling it. “Wait you are putting them in my neck. I thought you weren’t going to.”
“I thought you said you wanted them in your neck.”
“No. Oh well. Here we go.” He had already started. There was no going back. Her neck had been in knots for two weeks. She was afraid the muscles would grip the needles like a tug-of-war rope.
He was getting into her shoulders, another set of bumpy muscles. She was worried about the needles in her neck and along with that worry she lost her focus on breathing right as he put one in. With her deep vocal chords, she exclaimed “owwww!”
“I thought we were on rhythm.”
She spoke into the floor, her head nestled into the cushioned hole. “We were, I just started focusing on my neck.”
“Oh. Is it okay now?”
“Yes…wait.” He waited.
Somewhere along the way that trust had developed. They had duties. It was her sole responsibility to know how she felt and to tell him. He listened. He could not and would not feel for her. When she first came into his office months before, she was prepared to be his passive patient, to listen to him about her problems and for him to fix her. But he could only give her information about what he told her. So she started to talk about her strange pains and their strange places and her hypothesis for how they came about. He listened. He explained the body to her. And each time as each acupuncture session delivered different results, sometimes she felt better, sometimes worse, she realized that her pain is hers. It was not something to be interpreted by the doctor cleric. Her pain was the interpretation, and they would have to understand the actual cause together. They had to use his knowledge about the body and hers about hers to solve this problem. Her body's management could not be outsourced. The unspoken rules guided them.
She got back into her pace. “Ok go ahead.” He dropped a few in and then hit another soft spot. She screamed. Her hands stretched out, facing the ceiling. He erased her lower back with his fingers. She was distracted by that touch. Seconds passed and he put his hand in hers. That’s what she wanted, she needed his hand. She squeezed it.
“How many more?”
“Two.”
She focused on him and where his movements were so she could time her breath. Her breath in was when the needle had to go in. The breath out gave her no protection. She felt his fingers hover above her spine, he was finding the spot. He nudged the muscle, he was getting ready, he said “deep breath” she did, her body rose and he put it in. It was getting to be difficult. She felt like she was in a torture chamber, and her mentor, her guru, her samurai was testing her to bring her to herself.
Immediately she was in tears.
“Oh no, come on no.” Her emotions were ahead of her, racing past her, that she felt that perhaps there was no sadness, instead the tears were a tool, a way to escape the task at hand and surrender. She breathed and halted the tears. They were endless and she had needles in her back, time was not a luxury she could afford. He began to erase her lower back. What hurts?”
“My neck.” He took the two needles out of her neck.
“How’s that”
“Better” She couldn’t really know, all the needles and the muscles had smushed into a ball of sensation and it was becoming impossible to pinpoint a specific spot of discomfort or pain. She feared the rest.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Can you do my lower back separate from my upper back?”
“Then you will be here for hours.”
She knew he would say that. She just could not muster the courage to take any more needles but she wanted, for the sake of understanding her body, to continue.
“How many are going to do?”
“Just those two that we talked about.” Before she laid on the table that day, before she had changed into her robe, they had discussed the last session. She canceled her first appointment the week before because she didn’t have the gumption to go. He had put two needles symmetric to each other, which he hypothesized was the cause of her continuous diarrhea the week before. Apparently the spot loosened a muscles that squeezes the stomach. He wanted to test his hypothesis. She did too.
“Okay.”
He began to touch her bottom vertebrae as if uncovering delicate artifacts under a pile of sand. He pushed around each vertebrae until he found the one he was looking for. He then moved away from it, only using it as a marker. She felt him search the map of her back for the magical point. He found it. “Deep breath.” She breathed in, but this time it was no protection, the pain was real. “Wait.” She needed to recover.
He started to feel for the next spot. She heard him turn to the table, pick up a needle, unsnap its plastic top, throw it into the box. She breathed in and he put it in. The last one was gentle. She was relieved it was over.
He put the remote buzzer in her hand, to call him if she needs him. He covered her in the silver wrap like a stick of gum and pushed the heating lamp onto her. As he opened the door she delicately mentioned as if she herself was unsure “I am not sure if I will last the whole twenty minutes”
He walked back to her side.
“Why?
“My whole upper back is uncomfortable.” Each needle felt like it was pulling on the other one to make her back some sort of pulled piece of burlap. She wanted all of the needles out so the pain would disappear, she wanted immediate relief. She wanted to remove her porcupine back and curl up into a ball.
He was erasing her arm. “Oh well that’s, here, in your head. You can control this”
And that was it. The words. She had heard variation before, in pop psychology books, in great epics, in the stories of the mystics and in Hollywood. It wasn’t the ingenuity of the words. It was him. And it was her. She trusted him. He was so convicted about it, she believed him. “Okay.”He left.
She thought the way out of her head was into her body by breathing. But she had been breathing all along. So she started to repeat what he had said out loud “you can control this.” In repetition she stated the words over and over again. Her back and shoulders melted into the table as if she was sinking into quicksand. She felt them relax and stretch out. Her lips stopped moving but the words kept being said. She drifted into a place between awake and asleep.
Twenty minutes later he openly the door. He removed the needles. She couldn’t tell which were in and which were out so she asked him, “did you get all of them?”
“Yep, you can turn over.”
She peeled her face from the cushioned hole. The tears still sat on her eyelashes. Her face reflected emotional exhaustion, as if she had been told news that kept her in shock. She rolled over like her bones were made of baby cartilage, she could neither exert energy nor move fast. She laid there staring at the ceiling.
“Ok we are only going to six on this side. All of your parasympathetic spots, because your sympathetic system is in overdrive right now.” She breathed, he put two in her ears, two in her hands, two by her knees, and two into her feet. The hands and feet were always painful, always too much. She anticipated them, feared them, and breathed to forget them. They went in. The pain was minimal. She was alright. The hard part was over. He put the aluminum wrap on top of her and moved the heat lamp over her.
He came back twenty minutes later. She was fine. She could barely open her eyes. He began to pull the needles. Her left hand ached. The largest acupuncture spot, it touched the large intestine. He took out the needles and she curled into the fetal position. He had a magnesium and vitamin d shot for her. He stabbed her left gluteal muscle and pressed the spot so the serum spread throughout. She curled. She felt empty and incapable of movement. He leaned over her, "are you okay?"
"Yea."
"Take all the time you need to get up."
"Okay."
She did. She eventually pulled her body off the table. Her body's ability to do that surprised her, in her mind, her body had no muscle left. She buttoned her shirt. She was slow and low. Her face showed it. It felt like sadness, but it was more like defeat. Her young, ambitious, relentless mind and body succumbed to the needles. Though she had defeated the pain, her mind had been humbled, it was forced to stop fighting and let go. This was in some strange way a defeat.
She wanted him to hug her. She paid for the doctor's session and left. "see ya kiddo."
An old couple passed her as she walked slowly to the metro.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Her Colors
Her Colors marry black and white
Her Words evade silence
Her Curves tempt straight lines
A woman
In her own light
In her space
If only all women could
If only all women would
Her Words evade silence
Her Curves tempt straight lines
A woman
In her own light
In her space
If only all women could
If only all women would
Saturday, June 7, 2008
inconsolably sad
...i am sad that hillary is gone and i am scared obama might not win and though i am usually quite calm and cynical about politics it makes me sad to think mccain could come and wreak more havoc on the world for another 4 years. but what makes me most sad is to think that it will mean that more people prefer him to obama, which means more people have feelings and understandings so far from what i believe to be fair, open, or compassionate.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Envy
Like kudzu Envy choked the life around itin a tunnel
under the vines
a lone flower remained and pushed to the sky
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Storm Cloud
The storm cloud
Came horizontal from the west
Like a big stomach
Bifurcating the sky
From the tenth floor
Leaves twirled
And raced past
The window
like frantic birds
The sky was yellow
And I was here
Watching
Carefully
I stuck my head in the storm
And walked in
Closed my eyes
My heart beat the only
Sound I could hear
The blast of ceaseless wind pushed my shoulders
And raised my feet
My legs stayed erect
My stomach turned
Infinite time passed
The wind turned into a breeze
My feet came down on the
Ground
I opened my eyes
The rain had cleared
I remained
Came horizontal from the west
Like a big stomach
Bifurcating the sky
From the tenth floor
Leaves twirled
And raced past
The window
like frantic birds
The sky was yellow
And I was here
Watching
Carefully
I stuck my head in the storm
And walked in
Closed my eyes
My heart beat the only
Sound I could hear
The blast of ceaseless wind pushed my shoulders
And raised my feet
My legs stayed erect
My stomach turned
Infinite time passed
The wind turned into a breeze
My feet came down on the
Ground
I opened my eyes
The rain had cleared
I remained
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Hillary
I love Hillary. I hate everything around her, and the bad decisions that were made by her including the meaningless yet dramatic use of the word obliterate, her stupid advisors, and her inability to demonstrate her genuine care. The last one I attribute more to years of being in Washington as a woman and not any conscious decision on her part.
I think that she was advised by people that were powerful in the nineties, that had little freshness to offer in terms of language, approach, and meaning. From the outside, they seemed arrogant with their finely tuned campaign machine.
But I love her because in her I saw an extremely capable person, who felt it was her responsibility to know every issue like it was her child’s illness, who could switch between talking about sovereign wealth funds, healthcare, mortgages and educational policy with ease. She raised the bar in terms the amount of information required and the articulate manner in which it was delivered in the debates. She didn’t treat her audience like we are a bunch of morons looking to feel good.
I love her because her presidential nomination campaign forced the newspapers to write (a few) articles about how the playing field is not so level, how women are still discriminated against, that their so-called options are just more societal duties, that the media is still biased against women.
I love her because she changed what it takes to be competent, it doesn’t mean you are just a fancy talker, it means you work and you work hard to be president.
I love her because every time a double standard occurred, it was documented in the press, whether the press knew it or not. It would be great to go through and see how many pro-Hillary articles the NYT wrote and how many anti.
I love her because she is ready to fight ideological Republicans because she knows that one cannot negotiate with dogma, one must defeat dogma with reason.
I love her because she was a great example of how overqualified women are as leaders.
I think that she was advised by people that were powerful in the nineties, that had little freshness to offer in terms of language, approach, and meaning. From the outside, they seemed arrogant with their finely tuned campaign machine.
But I love her because in her I saw an extremely capable person, who felt it was her responsibility to know every issue like it was her child’s illness, who could switch between talking about sovereign wealth funds, healthcare, mortgages and educational policy with ease. She raised the bar in terms the amount of information required and the articulate manner in which it was delivered in the debates. She didn’t treat her audience like we are a bunch of morons looking to feel good.
I love her because her presidential nomination campaign forced the newspapers to write (a few) articles about how the playing field is not so level, how women are still discriminated against, that their so-called options are just more societal duties, that the media is still biased against women.
I love her because she changed what it takes to be competent, it doesn’t mean you are just a fancy talker, it means you work and you work hard to be president.
I love her because every time a double standard occurred, it was documented in the press, whether the press knew it or not. It would be great to go through and see how many pro-Hillary articles the NYT wrote and how many anti.
I love her because she is ready to fight ideological Republicans because she knows that one cannot negotiate with dogma, one must defeat dogma with reason.
I love her because she was a great example of how overqualified women are as leaders.
Monday, June 2, 2008
From Far Away
From far away I watch
the flower opening
like a gradual smile
If I came closer
I would change
its nature
I immerse myself
from over here
the flower opening
like a gradual smile
If I came closer
I would change
its nature
I immerse myself
from over here
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