A week ago I was writing about an imminent storm and then BAM, the power was knocked out and the school sent us all home. Today clear skies, pleasant sub 100 temps and a four day weekend waits. I booked a room in Muscat for two nights. Thanksgiving is in two days. How will I remember it? If there's a football game on, if I find a can of cranberry sauce. We'll see. The holiday simply isn't the same anymore. That is, unfortunately, of my own doing. Ten years ago I made the big meal and invited almost twenty friends to share the meal. It was good, nothing went amiss. The following year I did it again, my tiny Italian oven barely managed a 17 pounder, grease flowed out of the pan. The apple and sour cream peach pies were a hit. The mash potatoes, greens, rolls, I don't think the rolls were made from scratch, everything was good.
It's a time to be grateful and I am. While I whine and wallow in my own absurd internal pity party, on the surface I am ok. Things could be so worse. On the third floor of the A building I can see the Al-Ain mall and there breathing deep I smell Starbucks. The quality of one's life ought not to be connected with consumerism, right? It isn't the coffee I do not have access to, it's the freedom from having access to it and that desire, does it improve my quality of life? Freedom, in other words, gives quality of life and here, bloody hell, we're caught between a dusty rock and a hard empty place. When I lived in Salalah and Sarangkot the quality of life was content because of nature. Mind you having a beer once in a while was simply that, and I was grateful to have money, most of the time, to buy a beer on occasion. But to walk in the Himalayas was pure and one didn't need a coffee or a tablet. Walks along the Indian Ocean do the same. God is so easy to find when nature is so big. Here, you're at your wits.
So, for two days I'll indulge in things Americans and others take for granted. I am concerned though that coming back will leave me depressed. How can I stay here for two years? I'll walk along the beaches, cooler temps make the capital city very easy to manage. I'll also go shopping for grapefruit seed extract, books, and that's all. And I'll eat something different for sure. Cucumber, tomato and cheese pitas are beginning to tire. I haven't had a ramen soup for the last three nights, I've just tired of it. And with nothing other than a sauce pan I cannot cook a darn thing. What will I do? There is always the shwarma. Buraimi is a city of auto repair shops, barbers, and the 300 Baisa snack, chicken, tomato, cucumber and most deliciously, tahini.
The teachers leave. I am alone again. Keith Green is still nice to listen to. He doesn't convict me like he used to when I first heard him a few years after his death in a plane crash 30 years ago. I guess I really wasn't a good Christian, right? That's why people are convicted when they listen to his music because it's in your face stuff. Today, I listen to the Prodigal, and I don't weep or cry and don't see myself needing to return to anyone. I talk more to God now than I did then. Are we ok? Well, it could be better. God knows trying to love God the way a man can love a woman is impossible and unfair. If only I had that kind of relationship with anyone, God, female, tree, mountain, ocean. Instead we've got a flicker and a fizzle and there's silence, and God, well, I ask and pray and what the hey, nothing happens. God wants love, give me someone, you...you...ok I'll be nice and grateful for my health, a job, what else, shelter, basic sustenance. It could be worse and I'm grateful for having been spared. It's all about mercy, right? Oh Merciful Creator, have mercy on me, a sinner and a singer.
It's a time to be grateful and I am. While I whine and wallow in my own absurd internal pity party, on the surface I am ok. Things could be so worse. On the third floor of the A building I can see the Al-Ain mall and there breathing deep I smell Starbucks. The quality of one's life ought not to be connected with consumerism, right? It isn't the coffee I do not have access to, it's the freedom from having access to it and that desire, does it improve my quality of life? Freedom, in other words, gives quality of life and here, bloody hell, we're caught between a dusty rock and a hard empty place. When I lived in Salalah and Sarangkot the quality of life was content because of nature. Mind you having a beer once in a while was simply that, and I was grateful to have money, most of the time, to buy a beer on occasion. But to walk in the Himalayas was pure and one didn't need a coffee or a tablet. Walks along the Indian Ocean do the same. God is so easy to find when nature is so big. Here, you're at your wits.
So, for two days I'll indulge in things Americans and others take for granted. I am concerned though that coming back will leave me depressed. How can I stay here for two years? I'll walk along the beaches, cooler temps make the capital city very easy to manage. I'll also go shopping for grapefruit seed extract, books, and that's all. And I'll eat something different for sure. Cucumber, tomato and cheese pitas are beginning to tire. I haven't had a ramen soup for the last three nights, I've just tired of it. And with nothing other than a sauce pan I cannot cook a darn thing. What will I do? There is always the shwarma. Buraimi is a city of auto repair shops, barbers, and the 300 Baisa snack, chicken, tomato, cucumber and most deliciously, tahini.
The teachers leave. I am alone again. Keith Green is still nice to listen to. He doesn't convict me like he used to when I first heard him a few years after his death in a plane crash 30 years ago. I guess I really wasn't a good Christian, right? That's why people are convicted when they listen to his music because it's in your face stuff. Today, I listen to the Prodigal, and I don't weep or cry and don't see myself needing to return to anyone. I talk more to God now than I did then. Are we ok? Well, it could be better. God knows trying to love God the way a man can love a woman is impossible and unfair. If only I had that kind of relationship with anyone, God, female, tree, mountain, ocean. Instead we've got a flicker and a fizzle and there's silence, and God, well, I ask and pray and what the hey, nothing happens. God wants love, give me someone, you...you...ok I'll be nice and grateful for my health, a job, what else, shelter, basic sustenance. It could be worse and I'm grateful for having been spared. It's all about mercy, right? Oh Merciful Creator, have mercy on me, a sinner and a singer.
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