Episteme

Through technology, I am slowly (not quickly) falling behind. I don't feel guilty anymore like I used to over unread emails, unattended podcasts (dozens and dozens begging to be listened to), blog entries to write, interesting things to read, websites and blogs to check out - I never had any of these problems before...before...I can't even remember. I've always had a computer but with the proliferation of so much cool stuff, I have convinced myself I have time for all this stuff when I barely have time to make dinner at night. OK, I always have time to eat, but how do I cope?

I started unsubscribing to most of the emails lists I was on because I hadn't read them in months and I only kept them because I was convinced there would be some precious morsel of information I need, even though I rarely bothered to actually read them and figure it out. As the pile of "interest things" I committed myself to reading, writing, thinking about, pining over increased, time, the amount I actually have, has decreased in proportion. It's not like I got six extra hours everyday to actually do all that stuff. Nope, I had six fewer hours or six hours of more work to complete.

And despite having boundless information at my fingertips, ready to 24/7, I don't even need friends anymore there's so much to online, I didn't who Art Buchwald was until he died. And I still don't really know much about him other than he's dead now.

Posted by Dawn at 07:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's just after the holidays and I'm at an altitude of 7,300 in a city I'd never been to a year ago and that I now call my home. Looking out the window, which has new curtains on it (ordered by me and put up by a member of the other sex, drill in hand, curtain rods in tow), I see a city of buildings, not high like New York or charming like San Francisco, but just lots of concrete buildings that look like they went up in the 70s or 80s.
Actually that's not a trivial distinction, since if they were built in the 70s they survived the earthquke of 1985 in an area that was hit pretty hard, so the older buildings are the really tough, squat, thick walled structures, often with crud-covered art deco tiling that begs to be restored but lays silent, ignored, year after year.
Beyond that there are police sirens, cars honking in the distance. The clock ticking on the wall. My eyelids getting heavier, my head supported by my hand, my elbow propped on the strong pine desk where I like to write.
It's just after holidays and I'm reeling from a diet of presents, a visiting brother who wanted to see a real Mexican wrestling match, from a cream-filled cake of the three kings and from the fried chorizo sausage I just ate when what I really wanted was a light dinner. I'm reeling from a different conception (no pun intended) of the same holiday, from my boyfriend's family hugging me as the clock struck twelve on New Year's, from a little girl I'm starting to love. And outside all I see is the squat buildings, two higher ones on the sides, framing a soupy, reddish black Mexican midnight sky.

It's taken a while for me to feel at home here. I almost left a week or so ago. All of a sudden I wanted to cut all ties and go somewhere else, but then I started to panic at the very idea, and I went out to buy furniture. I took that as a sign that I wasn't ready to leave yet. All my life has been a journey, as are all of ours, but I feel like the most recent leg of it has been full of change, too much of it. I'm finding myself wanting to settle down for a while, let the dust fall, maybe get a doctorate, or something else that will keep me in the same place for an extended period of time. I want to find myself somewhere, instead of finding another place, Maybe it seems predictably Zen, but I now realize that I'm already here, I'm already in the place that I'm looking for. I need to be where I am instead of seeking the place that will please me. And trust me, it's not just the exchange rate and the low cost of living. I don't want to leave my soupy sky, my downstairs neighbors who turned the hallway into a lifesized model of the temple mount, complete with a duck pond and a little sleeping pet mouse (he is real and lives in a cage, unlike the manger beasts.)
I'm not ready to leave the white curtains, or the person who put them up, or the little girl who calls my name.

Posted by Kim at 08:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)