On Connectivity

What does it mean to be connected? Is it requisite, or luxury? How does it affect our experience, our quality of life?

One of the reasons I took this mostly-temporary leave of the States is to disconnect, to remove myself from the web of support that I felt was making me lazy and apathetic. Part of this was the need to see whether I could achieve something without the comfortable familiarities of home. But more than that was the desire to break free from the incessant connection to media of communication and information. No matter where I went in the States, there was a cell phone, internet, billboards and advertisements, and a million different ways to feel connected to uncounted people and bits of information.

In these intentions, I seem to have failed. Or perhaps I haven't failed, but rather have discovered that it was not my location but my choices which demanded the connectivity. Here, a third of the way around this rocky globe, my pocket still holds a cell phone, my fingers are still leashed to the threshold of the internet, and I can't break from the desire to seek contact among my friends, my family, and in hundreds of websites, the sources of empty entertainment and counter-productive distractions.

But if the distressing attachment and exposure to such distraction is the price of saying the occasional 'hello' to those close to me, I'll gladly pay it ten-fold.

PS-- apologies for the delayed post, again. Internet was down, and has finally come back up.

Thanksgiving in Non-USA

[Note: Apologies for the delayed post. My internet was down, and I had to go to Chisinau to post, this week.]

The deconstructionist in me takes every opportunity to cast doubt on the significance of anything by examining the value of everything in every way. The romantic in me wants to feel, and in doing so works in perfect counter to my deconstructionist side. My approach to holidays is therefore torn, and end up valuing my holidays substantially, but not usually for the common reasons.

I'm sure we can all identify holidays that are important to us. Among international (not to say 'global') holidays, I'm sure the Christian flagship celebration of a certain individual's birth jumps out to a lot of people. Somehow, the 'secular' though historically-Christian-based American culture has managed to give their Christmas to non-believers by turning it into a celebration of both miraculous birth and incomprehensible consumption. Hence, Christmas isn't really my favorite time of year. I enjoy the opportunity to connect with family and friends, though. Giving gifts is a great concept, too, but I appreciate that my family doesn't go over the top on the commercial side of this holiday.

I identify Independence Day (4 July) and Thanksgiving as the two most significant American holidays. All the others are either relatively minor religious holidays or little more than weak excuses to have a day off of work or get drunk or both. The Fourth of July is a blast, and I have a fondness for the fire-risk. But ultimately, I'd have to say that Thanksgiving is my favorite, among holidays.

Whether I'm studying at university or living in downtown Portland, I see little of my family. Thanksgiving is one of the only times of the year that I get to catch up with those most important to me. We gather at the house with the largest table, labor over amazingly simple traditional family dishes (made complex only by their vast quantity), and rediscover all the qualities we love and hate about each other.

This year, I'm volunteering half-way around the world in a country which either doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving, or celebrates it so frequently that it no longer considers the feast a holiday. Because it is not a holiday in Moldova, we volunteers do not get the time off. Nonetheless, several of us have banded together to create a belated feast this Saturday. There was turkey, stuffing, huge mounds of mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce (if you're into that sort of thing), warm rolls, pies, and all the trappings of a standard Thanksgiving dinner. We connected with each other like some sort of family: dysfunctional and slightly estranged, but generally happy to be in good company.

In all, it was great success -- I now feel tired and weighed down by the excess of food I consumed. Look for pictures, to come.

P.S. -- my contribution was a Zundel family drink recipe: Orange Slush. It was a great hit, and I have been asked to pass the compliments along to those who shared it with me. Thanks dad!

On height and width

Tall, thin, blue eyes, blond hair, primarily English heritage (meaning "white, for the most part"), casual. These are the basics of my physical appearances, and thus the most common bases of how others identify me. In Moldova, the colors of my eyes, hair, and skin don't give people much to think about as they shamelessly stare at me while I walk by. And, to my reasoning and observation (yah, I'm covering a priori and a posteriori here), neither should my height and width -- or, rather, the plenitude (not overabundance) of the one, and the deficiencies of the other. There are plenty of men and women all over this country who are both taller and thinner than myself. Whether those tall, thin Moldovans receive the same 'care' and 'attention' as I, a foreigner, I cannot say.

Let me preface by noting: one of the most common questions any young person in Moldova (whether a citizen or a foreigner) is asked is, "are you married?" If your answer to this questions should, unfortunately, be "no," then the next question is usually something like "why not?" or "let me introduce you to my [son/daughter/niece/nephew/sister/brother]." In some parts of the world, the frequency of such interrogation would be border-line harassment, but I have been assured by many that the incessant inquiry into my marital status is intended entirely for my own benefit, and I do not doubt it. I'm glad to know that so many people (who I've usually only just met) have such an interest in my well-being.

Moving on...

I am the humble inhabitant of a body that has an unchecked and out-of-control metabolism, which burns through anything I ingest as fast as it can, and then waits hungrily for the next meal. You may think this is a blessing or a curse, but for me it is just a fact of life. I've gone seven years without gaining (and keeping) a single pound. After about the fifth, I stopped caring. But the rest of the world didn't. If the most common question I am asked by Moldovans I have just met is, "are you married?," the most common question asked by Moldovans who know me is, without a doubt, "why have you lost weight? Have you been eating?"

Yes. In fact, I eat about as much as I can, but after seven years of trying to gain weight and failing, believe me: I've forfeited the struggle, and now wait for my metabolism to find a more profound preoccupation in life than burning through everything I throw at it. For now, I'm pretty content with my weight. Now I just need to learn how to say that in conversational Romanian.

My height not only compounds the 'problem' of my weight. Measuring in at a few fingers over six feet, I am taller than most of the people in the world, but by no means am I in the top fifth percentile. Those three fingers (meaning about an inch and change, for those of you who don't have normal-sized fingers) give me a real edge in life, and especially in Moldova. I catch the edges of door frames, low-hanging ceilings, and tree branches hanging over pathways. Usually I catch these with the sensitive spot right on the top of the head, but sometimes I also catch them with the forehead or even the brow. It stings for about an hour, and sometimes it leaves traces of blood or even scars.

...Oh, did you think I meant 'edge' like 'advantage'? No, no. I don't even like basketball. And I wouldn't mind having to climb on a chair to access tall cupboards, if it meant fewer headaches.

Solutions? I've taken to slouching and puffing out my cheeks when I leave the house. If I don't gain some weight by Spring, when my many layers of warm cloths will start to melt away, I may have to find additional solutions. If not, I may face enough (albeit well-intentioned) interrogation about my weight to finally break me down and give me body image problems. Potatoes soaked in butter and then fried with all manner of tasty meat? Bring it on!

To experience...

Adapting to a new community is difficult, no matter where in the world you find yourself. Something makes you different, and that difference is often more of a hindrance than a help, when it comes to integrating into a new neighborhood or city. For me, that something is that I am American, and that I'm just not from around here.

What does that mean? It means that I don't fluently speak Romanian or Russian, and that no significant proportion of the families in town share my surname. It means that the closest thing I have to friends in town are the 10-year-younger students who attend my English classes. It means that I can't drink the well water, because I didn't develop a resistance to Giardia when I was a young child. It means that I drink my wine occasionally, and generally only in sips. And sometimes, it means that I spend a lot of time in my room, reading or typing emails or blog posts, because "becoming a part of the community" is going to have to wait until either the temperature goes back up, or my metabolism slows down enough to allow a protective layer of sub-dermal fat to develop so I don't chill to the bone when I decide to go say "buna ziua" to random people on the streets.

But I find that the town I'm in has a way of infiltrating me, making me feel warm and fuzzy, despite the frozen water-vapor that appears before me at each exhale. Sounds wash over me as I walk to school or the community center: the sounds of bells and chants spilling out of the church, like fog, slowly filling the valley; the muffled accordion playing cheerful melodies for the children inside the gradiniţa; the clicking of scoundrel dogs scampering across the pavement behind me. Autumn, come almost to a close, still strikes me with colorful, impromptu art installations -- sometimes at the tops of trees, sometimes at their feet.

Am I still happy here? I have to ask myself this question a lot, especially after a bad day in the classroom or unprompted social drama from my fellow volunteers. I came here for change, and to do something meaningful (again... for a change). While my happiness fluctuates pretty wildly, and the challenges are often frustratingly insurmountable (can I use an adverbial modifier on this absolute adjective? Why not.), I have to admit that I am still happy. The preconceptions I had before coming over were all completely overturned, but I'm still experiencing change. And with that, hopefully growth, as well.

Weekly Posts

I had a request to start posting more regularly, and more frequently. Fair enough. Fridays, being my least busy day of the working week, will be my goal. (Even nominally attempting to post regularly to weekend days is a joke, as they are, consistently, up in the air.)

I'm going to shoot for a post every Friday. I'll set a loose deadline for about 2:00pm, my time, but I am not going to be as strict about the time. I have a lot of ideas for posts just sitting in my head, collecting dust with all the other unexpressed musings. Keep your eyes open for Friday posts.

On Fog

A few days ago, fog engulfed the valley in which I live. I woke to a haze of subtle grey, which left me rather uninspired to leave the warm fog of my sleep. Nonetheless, a shower, some breakfast, and a hurried look at my watch, and I was out the door to school. Outside, walking with or against me, the people of my town seemed to carry not only the burdens of their daily chores, but also the weight of the oppressing fog.

Walking in fog that morning gave me a sense of blindness. The process of losing the sense of sight intrigues me more than almost any natural process I can comprehend. On the other hand, the ultimate fruit of the process terrifies me to at least the same degree -- and this despite my archetypification of the unsighted Borges. As the world dims, only the fool may resist savoring absolutely every hue and tone, knowing that such vivid forms and shades will one day exist only in his memory and his imagination.

To walk in fog is, necessarily, to wander. As I followed my normal path to the school, my landmarks appeared slowly before me, first as ominous shadows, then as undiscerned solids, and finally as dream-like self-impostors, their colors and details failing to reach full resolution. People, too. As if walking among my imperfect memories of my town, vague forms passed of people at whom I may once have casually glanced, but whose features were never committed to memory. And just as in a dream, only the shadows of those people and those landmarks which serve some active mental capacity manage to resolve into anything functionally recognizable.

On another note: Living as the only American in town often feels like living in a fishbowl. I can't say for sure, but I imagine that fish feel a bit more anonymous when their owners fail to clean the tank for a few weeks.

What are your thoughts on fog?

On Flies

I can hardly wait for the cold of Winter to arrive. No, I'm not being facetious. Let the temperature drop far below the zero mark, and bring a smile to my tired eyes. Why, you ask? Certainly not because of shorter days or heavier clothes, nor for the pleasure of seeing my breath freeze on every exhale or the extra attention required while walking over ice and snow. No, I simply cannot wait for the opportunity to revel in the extinguished lives of flies, albeit temporary.

At this particular time of year, the Sun rises at precisely too early an hour every Saturday and Sunday. These, being my days of rest, often find me in bed well after the Sun has peaked the horizon. I say "in bed" and not "asleep" because of no other reason than the unfortunate existence of flies. These light-sensitive embodiments of foulness rest on the walls and ceilings until the first rays of light appear, at which moment they burst into their uninspired airborne dance. Attracted to light as well as warmth, they find the only warm thing in the room, and direct their gyrations toward my slackened face. I, unconcious and usually enjoying some pleasant dream (not involving flies), am jolted from my sleep and unkindly reminded of the existence of evil in the world. At best, I can stubbornly refuse to remove myself from bed, instead pulling the covers entirely over my head.

Many graceful and majestic creatures possess or are possessed of the sky. The lark swoops rapidly in delicate patterns, like a dancer in the Russian ballet. Dragonflies flutters chaotically, turning heads where ever the breeze may carry them. Even large birds of prey, despite their inherent violence, cast shadows over their terrified potential victims, below. The lowly fly is, perhaps, the only creature which fails utterly to properly inhabit its airy medium, instead possessing those erratic qualities and crass behaviors which seem fit only to counter and destroy the elegant and eloquent reputation of flight.

An examination of its name, "fly," we find clues of history's loathing toward this insect. As a verb, this word indicates the action of flight. As a noun, it may refer to something that stands or exists apart from the other constituent parts of its larger whole. As a reference to the insect, however, this word seems to signify the only positively impressive quality of the entire genus -- that is, its capacity for flight. It is as though those who first applied the name were saying, "Let's not expend more breath or thought necessary in order to signify the existence or presence of this wholly nuisant and obnoxious insect. Such is its vile lowliness."

But perhaps there is more to this insect.

I have developed an alternative* theory on the nature of flies, derived from a slight interest in the fundamental tenets of early spiritual systems such as Animism and Shintoism. I have observed that flies often seem to appear out of thin air, usually when there is a foul scent or decaying matter nearby. It is my theory that flies are actually the physical manifestation of the spirits or the god of stench. They are not simply attracted to bad smells or decomposing matter; indeed, they are these frowned-upon aspects of our world.

In any case, my fly-catching (that is, killing) skills have become rather expert. I fully intend to commence study of this new fly theory, as soon as my Moldovan Cloud research is sufficiently concluded.

*Perhaps partially jocular.