11/9/2013
Today Max and I swam in the Bandar Jissah lagoon and in the afternoon, when the tide sucked back into the sea and left a shallow shelf of water I dropped my book on the chair and wandered into the warm ocean. I lay down, face to the sky, feet to the open water and let the waves roll up and down my body. Why I did this I am not sure. It just felt like the right thing to do. When I finally arose and walked back to my chair, Max told me he was seconds away from coming to see if I was still alive.
It was only when I got home that I thought of the section in Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert by environmentalist and nature writer Terry Tempest Williams in which she climbs into a tree and spends the morning within its branches. Trying to somehow bridge the voyeristic relationship we have with nature - we look at it, photograph it, draw it but we don't participate in something with it, two willing partners. I often feel out of my depth in nature. I am drawn to it and want to be in it, but I feel unequal to its realities in natural skills and general biological knowledge. I'm growing that knowledge, but it's slow.
I certainly didn't grow up around the sea - Utah being hundreds miles from the nearest ocean and the Great Salt Lake a body of water I have only visited twice, to my great shame. But each morning when Max gets up for work I think I'll ask him to drive himself so I can keep sleeping, but then I think of running along the beach behind the embassy with Buckley and I sit up with a grumble. I can't stay away and without exception when I get to the beach I regret not having brought something more suitable for swimming. I console myself by watching the dog chase seagulls into the water as far as he dares or sniff through banks of shells.
11/29/13
Last night we met the Afghany Ambassador to Oman at a publishing event. When the discussion turned to Arabic and Max said "You have to really feel it in your mouth" The Ambassador interrupted, flicking ash from his cigarette. "No, you have to feel it in your belly" he said with a slight smile.
12/1/2013
Today I found myself in front of a grocery store in what I've come to call "Little Pakistan" after returning a friend to her home. I waded through throngs of men dressed in white or light blue shalwar kameez' with my strawberry hair. As I rounded the vegetable isle I saw a booth with a sign that read "coconut carving" trailing a line of people holding coconuts. What else could I do but pick up a coconut and stand in line? As I got closer to the square opening in the box I saw husky coconuts go in and bags of milky white shavings come out. I caught the eye of a woman holding a baby standing next to her husband in front of me.
"What do you do with it?" I said, pointing to the sack in someone's hand.
They both burst into good hearted laughter.
"We were just talking about that and wondering what you were going to do with it!"
Or, in other words What is this American in those white jeans doing with this coconut in this line in this neighborhood?
"You use it with vegetables or salads" they tell me and answer follow up questions about curry leaves as well. "You can use the internet too" the husband tells me, noticing I will need much more help than their brief explanation. But he is not unkind when faced with the gulf of things I don't know.
