Dark rains fill the day and leave me anxious. Am I still a foreigner in my own country? How long will it take to assimilate? I suppose it wouldn't be too hard if I knew what people around me were talking about. I still haven't learned the streets and their whereabouts. Having a car, having a bicycle would help.
Yesterday I had lunch with two ladies from the Assisi Institute, this strangely unique place that is managing to find common ground between the East and the West, and when the bill came I had to excuse myself: 'Living a life of voluntary poverty means I don't eat out very often' and I went and bummed ten bucks from Tom who was sitting at another booth. I know I didn't impress them with that little maneuver and I was a tad embarrassed but this is the wheel I am in now and nothing comes easy.
At fifty I got at least twenty years of teaching left in me and it's hard to not keep looking outside the US for work. Oh I know so many who would die to be in my position, ok, not necessarily where I am right now and doing what I am doing right now. But this is a beautiful area even if winters will be dark and cold and depressing. I miss the twelve hours of sunshine the Arabia peninsula gives. I've never missed snow. How in the world am I going to adjust? What do I need to do to assure myself this is where I need to be and be happy about it?
Getting involved. While I continue to say how grateful I am to be where I am, I can't let waves of melancholy rob of what is good in life and working with the folks in the hospitality room, well what is good in a life that sees their own darkly ceiling? What potential is there for those who know themselves well enough that nothing isn't going to get better? Well, what's wrong with sitting down with them each day, and trying out some Joseph Campbell lines on them? Taking the piss out of the negative isn't that difficult. Hey, the wheel of Ronald's life is stuck in the mud, how do you get him out of the rut? A smile, a few words of encouragement, the tiniest Higgs Boson acts of kindness have to have an effect on him. They have to because it's all we can give. "Brother, be happy you're miserable and that you got nothing, and you fried some neurological wiring in your head up with drugs and booze. Fuggeddaboutit, you brought it on yourself, accept it and it will make you stronger. Affirm you're crazy, embrace it, and use it to brighten your disposition." I don't know if this is going to work, Dr. C.
And how will it leave me feeling in the end? Will I accept that where I am now is most likely because of what I did four years ago? I am not a shaman, I did not ask the spirit world to turn me inside out, what can I do with this experience that can help others and myself?
And if I never see those two ladies again, though I probably will, and eat pancakes at Dennys with them, which is most unlikely, will I desire my mission to live in poverty end?
Yesterday I had lunch with two ladies from the Assisi Institute, this strangely unique place that is managing to find common ground between the East and the West, and when the bill came I had to excuse myself: 'Living a life of voluntary poverty means I don't eat out very often' and I went and bummed ten bucks from Tom who was sitting at another booth. I know I didn't impress them with that little maneuver and I was a tad embarrassed but this is the wheel I am in now and nothing comes easy.
At fifty I got at least twenty years of teaching left in me and it's hard to not keep looking outside the US for work. Oh I know so many who would die to be in my position, ok, not necessarily where I am right now and doing what I am doing right now. But this is a beautiful area even if winters will be dark and cold and depressing. I miss the twelve hours of sunshine the Arabia peninsula gives. I've never missed snow. How in the world am I going to adjust? What do I need to do to assure myself this is where I need to be and be happy about it?
Getting involved. While I continue to say how grateful I am to be where I am, I can't let waves of melancholy rob of what is good in life and working with the folks in the hospitality room, well what is good in a life that sees their own darkly ceiling? What potential is there for those who know themselves well enough that nothing isn't going to get better? Well, what's wrong with sitting down with them each day, and trying out some Joseph Campbell lines on them? Taking the piss out of the negative isn't that difficult. Hey, the wheel of Ronald's life is stuck in the mud, how do you get him out of the rut? A smile, a few words of encouragement, the tiniest Higgs Boson acts of kindness have to have an effect on him. They have to because it's all we can give. "Brother, be happy you're miserable and that you got nothing, and you fried some neurological wiring in your head up with drugs and booze. Fuggeddaboutit, you brought it on yourself, accept it and it will make you stronger. Affirm you're crazy, embrace it, and use it to brighten your disposition." I don't know if this is going to work, Dr. C.
And how will it leave me feeling in the end? Will I accept that where I am now is most likely because of what I did four years ago? I am not a shaman, I did not ask the spirit world to turn me inside out, what can I do with this experience that can help others and myself?
And if I never see those two ladies again, though I probably will, and eat pancakes at Dennys with them, which is most unlikely, will I desire my mission to live in poverty end?
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