True Reflection(s)

My “real rastaman” called today, asking me not to give myself away to any American, Jamerican or whomever, and to keep myself for him as he waits “behind these prison walls,” meaning, in Jamaica.



Considering that I woke up this morning in someone else’s bed, should the appropriate response have been, “Oops?”

I, of course, told A none of this. I’ve never really taken his advances seriously, but I wonder now whether I should have. I think I will in the future. He seems way too set on me for his own good. He apparently wants “a baker’s dozen” worth of children (from numerous women and not just one, I imagine), but is willing to settle for three from me. I’m not too keen on being one in a harem (and he has been quite upfront about the fact that he has a girl in Martinique and has various others in the country), and I’m also not too keen on any further exploration of the Rastafarianism that my choice of hairstyle seems to suggest that I associate myself with, so I’ll have to find some way to let him on to the fact that, as far as I’m concerned, he’s been sentenced to life as my friend and nothing more.

Some other time I’ll have to blog about the dangers of sleeping with your friends, but I’ll save that for when I have legitimate Internet access and am not sitting on my (closed) toilet seat in order to steal a wireless connection from somewhere else in the neighborhood.

[side note: I’m playing a game of online “Scrabble” (aka “WordScraper”) with my brothers and the game cheats heavily in R’s favor by spasmodically denying the rest of us portions of our hard-earned points. Not a facebook app I would recommend. Furthermore, R is so lucky that I missed when he played his last round (the game only updates me when M plays, since M is between R and me) – hoaxy? Rubbish.]

The beginning of school (Sept 2) is too soon for comfort. I still have a room to clean and two books to read, not to mention lesson plans and all that nice stuff to complete. It’s going to be a terrible Sunday/Monday. (Yes, as usual, I’ve left it down to the wire.) The person who was to sell me a bed cancelled on me today. I knew the situation would play out like this, so I wasn’t even truly miffed. I’ll buy a new bed from Costco sometime this week and have them deliver it. By the time that happens, my room will hopefully be clean.

I worry that my flatmate is a neat freak. I worry even more at the possibility that she is one of those people who is messy in a particular way, but gets annoyed at other people’s messes (because they are not her own). She has a plant in a birdcage and walks her geriatric dog in a stroller. She vacuumed and washed dishes while I was gone, but left the vacuum out and plugged in, as if to make the point that she had done it. She is certainly more efficient than I am. We’ll see how this goes. Pray for me.

Snapshot of life in Tarrytown: We went out to a restaurant the other day. It’s a seafood place. It apparently opens at noon, but we came (unwittingly) at 11:30 AM. On our approach, we meet two locals, who immediately inform us that the place doesn’t open till noon, but also counsel us: “Don’t worry, though. Go in! They’ll give you a drink. They at least can give you that!” Love it.

Much love,
Katherine

Live from Tarrytown, New York

Dear friends,

I have now survived one week's worth of life in New York state. I'm still unpacking, but can feel a moderate sense of accomplishment, now that I have the living room done. I owe KE and BB many thanks: they each donated a day and much energy, helping to get me settled. I have still to get a few key pieces of furniture, but I'm getting there bit by bit.

People have been kind to me here. The strangeness of the transition has mostly been two-fold: items like drinking glasses, nightlights and Pledge creep onto my shopping lists; I must now arrange my stuff taking into account the domestic aesthetic and not only whether all will hold in the space available to me. Furthermore, I now find myself in Yankee/Giants/Jets/Mets country, and I imagine this reality will only get stranger once the Olympics are done and the various sports seasons take over. I hear there's a Giants-Patriots football game on Thursday. Here we go.

This past week, I've watched the most TV I've watched since I was six, trying to catch glimpses of the Jamaican athletes. I've really missed being home, watching Bolt and Veronica and Shericka and Shelly-Ann and the other Jamaican athletes clear out the competition. My friends at home see the races before I do; I can never quite figure out NBC's schedule unless I'm glued to the TV. Meanwhile, the crowds in Half-Way Tree (in St. Andrew, Jamaica) cavort and bang makeshift instruments as their countrymen cross the finish line 14,000 km away. At the end of his 200m finish, Usain Bolt does the gully creepa (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL_VNI6kUYk), as does everyone else—a nation in solidarity.

My time at home finished up well enough. I managed to catch a little vacation at the end of my stay and didn't embarrass myself terribly at the swim meet: I came 4th, 6th, and 6th in my events. I was off most of my times by eons—I was really only in the races to finish—but did somehow manage to pull off a best time in the 50 back, which requires less stamina than the others and I haven't swum since I was 16! :) I still have to fill out some paperwork for the CLICK program (the photography workshop I was volunteering at), but hopefully, I'll steel myself to finishing that this week.

I hope you all are well; my internet access is a bit spotty at the moment, but—as always!—I welcome updates on your lives.
Two days till school starts!

Much love,
Katherine

Seeing the Happiness in Life

My mother’s views and mine differ on many topics. She is a product of her generation; I am, in many ways, a product of mine. She, for example, still believes that the financial support of the family is primarily the father’s burden. This is not to say that she thinks women shouldn’t work. She works, and would have done so had she still been married to my father. She just doesn’t think that wives should be the family’s primary earners. I certainly don’t believe that; I will be entirely (too?) comfortable if I earn more than my future husband (Insha’Allah!), as long as he too is comfortable with it. [If not, well, one may blaspheme and hope for a new husband, no? ;)] With this in mind, I can see her resenting my hapless chosen one for an economic choice that he and I may have worked out with each other long before the marital vows were said.

One of the biggest differences, I think, between her outlook and mine hinges on how and when one should see the happinesses in life. My whole family — father, mother, brothers, grandparents, me — are highly critical people. We often see the negatives of a situation before the positives come to light. It gets me into trouble on a regular basis: I have to be mindful about what I say to people and how often what I say is even mildly negative. I read somewhere once that, since people remember criticism more easily than they remember praise, for every negative comment you make to a loved one, you should make five positive ones to balance it out (if you hope for a peaceful, supportive relationship). I don’t know how true that assessment is — it could just be part and parcel of the American cultural tendency to worry too much about the psyche and the supposed flimsiness of one’s self-esteem. I do agree with the premise, though — although it’s easier to see the negatives, one shouldn’t let the positives go unnoticed. Although I don’t always practice this philosophy in my life, the practice of valuing the positives higher than the negatives is something I aspire toward. (In the same vein, don’t believe that I mean to say that one should never see negatives; balance is good, even if it may necessitate a 5:1 ratio.)

Our differing philosophies forced the discussion Mum and I just finished to an impasse. We were talking about about family, how it should be defined (she argues for inclusivity and the preservation of the nuclear model; I argue for a certain exclusivity and the ability to pick and choose), and how one should regard the dark side of the joy that family provides — the family skeletons that determine how the happy photographs are constructed. She believes that one should see the hurts first — the people who were left out, who were trampled on in the pursuit of the golden ideal — I believe in seeing the positives in the golden ideal, but in being willing to acknowledge those trampled on. I told her that I would be a rather sorry individual if the first thing I noticed when looking at a photo of my paternal first cousins, or of my maternal grandfather, were the missing mothers — the women like the allegorical child, from whom everyone turns away, so they may act on their new-found knowledge. I argued that one should see the happiness first. “Happiness?” she asked, before turning to walk away, herself. “What happiness?”

Love,
Katherine