Updates

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Impression of UAE after a few weeks

I originally wrote the following on January 8, 2008:

People keep asking me, “So what do you think of Abu Dhabi?” That’s made me really think about my impressions since I’ve been here and try to come up with something coherent. Usually I respond, “It’s . . . interesting . . . crazy . . . different . . .” or some other disarming word that leaves the questioner with nowhere to go. I don’t want to give them my real thoughts or offend anyone. I haven’t loved it since the beginning, but part of that may have just been jet lag and the circumstances around my arrival.

Really, I find it awe-inspiring, beautiful, dirty, extreme, restricting and easy. I’m pretty annoyed about some of the people that live here, but I’m struggling to ensure that that feeling isn’t just resistance to anything different. I never thought I was that kind of American. I’ve always had a dislike for things about my own country, so I’ve gravitated to other cultures and an understanding that there are a lot of difference between people on this planet, but that doesn’t mean that one way of doing things is better than the rest. I was overseas more than three years when I was in the Army and I always enjoyed it and thought I had an appreciation for the different cultures and peoples.

Maybe it’s been too long. Maybe the surroundings here are too opulent. It doesn’t feel dirty and real enough to me. Most of the people here are expatriates. A small percentage of the residents are nationals and account for the majority of the wealth. They are all entitled to a piece of the country’s wealth and seem to lead privileged lives. I imagine the way they feel might not be dissimilar to the elitism of whites over blacks or the Nazis over Jews. That may be extreme, and maybe the feeling I have is just backlash from having been reduced in status from a white American to something less here. Of course, I could always choose to look down on the Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos and other ethnicities that make up a lot of the working class here, particularly in service industries. (I have to qualify that by saying it is a sort of joke, a mockery, and completely outside the realm of what I am actually capable of. Besides, it’s not a solution.)

It also seems like rather than choosing to work smarter or harder, here the choice is just to pay more. In fact it seems like there is a lack of common sense about business and development decisions here. Because there isn’t a need to worry about cost or scale, they don’t take time to consider some of their decisions or impacts. Yesterday I met someone who works for the local government in the area of urban planning. He was reviewing a proposed development that will become a city of nearly 200,000. It may be well designed, but it is planned for construction in the middle of nowhere. There isn’t a need for housing or development where it is being planned. He quipped that rather than give them any guidance about particulars of the plan he would like to tell them it is a bad idea from the ground up, but doesn’t know how. There’s another settlement being planned outside of the city and away from any other urban development that recently got approval to build up to 40 stories tall. There’s no need for it since there is plenty of land available around it so space isn’t an issue, but they insist on building big and expensive here.

Again, maybe this is all just my Western perspective having difficulty understanding something different. I guess time will tell, but other people that have been here for a few years still talk incredulously about things that happen here every day, and many of them are from countries other than the US.

I think I gained a better understanding of Abu Dhabi and the Middle-East in general after another two months spent in country, but a lot of what I wrote above remains true, especially at first blush, the glancing at the surface without seeing further into the depths. I won’t elaborate now, but perhaps in the future.

No one called

Happy Easter, Universe.

Alone

Alone. It is probably best, he thinks. It’s not how he feels, but considering his past experience maybe it is the best thing. He’s been alone for most of his life, never really went on dates, never worried about it too much. He’d always wanted a relationship, a girlfriend, but it always seemed too hard. I was scared, that’s it. Always scared of girls, not able to talk to them or be comfortable unless they were unobtainable. Not because they were too gorgeous or too rich for him to talk to, but because they were already with someone; married, dating, a friend, a sister. These were the types of women he felt comfortable around and could talk to.

Past experience, he considers, has taught me that I always feels worse, more alone, after being involved with someone. If he’d never been ensnared in the first place, he wouldn’t really know what he’d missed. He believes it is probably true that you can’t gain the same satisfaction by living your life alone, never trying or putting yourself out there, as if you do take a chance and learn what it means to love and be loved. But it’s a real pain in the ass in the end and it’s hard to go back to the way you were.

His past experience is all bad. Does everyone look back on their love life and think that until they’ve found “the one?”, he wonders. There were the prostitutes. At least there, he thinks, you know what you’re going in for and it shouldn’t leave you feeling jilted. Despite that knowledge, the first one left him feeling unsatisfied and alone. There was a beautiful woman in Korea who lived in the States, there visiting family. He went out on a limb to meet her and it worked. They went out, met up, several times over the next few days. Then suddenly, she was gone. Presumably she went back home, but she wasn’t supposed to leave yet and there was no warning. Poof, she was gone. Alone.

Then there was a girlfriend in Seoul. They were always drunk at night and got a hotel room. His Army buddy dated her friend. They went to an amusement park together, did other fun things aside from the club scene. Then one night they weren’t supposed to meet he ran into her with another man. I don’t think I fell in love with her, but it was still a betrayal. That was the last connection of that kind he shared with a woman for a long time.

He had a one-night stand in Texas, a completely random occurrence and not one he had hoped for or imagined. It meant nothing. He had a crush on one of his friends, maybe even loved her. I think she was my first love, he sometimes tells people. They tried dating formally once for about a week, but it felt forced and awkward. Evidently they were better as friends who occasionally saw each other naked but never had sex for lack of a condom, and he could be her sexy man when they went to a ball together: he singing karaoke on stage, she running her hands all over him, slithering up and down as he tried to concentrate on the song and wondered about her superiors watching them from their dinner tables. Later, she decided she liked women better than men. We’re still friends, though.

And then nothing for a long time. Alone. He had friends, roommates, hobbies, but no love interest. I was okay, he thinks. Depressed and bored with my life at times, probably drinking too much alone at times, but okay. Then something happened. Through various events and gossip, he realized he was attractive to the opposite sex. He’d never felt it so acutely. Married friends told him he was a catch, that they might pursue him if they were single. It gave him new power. He wanted more. There were suddenly options for him. A married friend was going through separation and a divorce, and she was clearly interested. Strangely, at the same time, he’d become fixated with another married friend whose marriage was struggling, and who he’d become closer to. He was someone for her to talk to about her problems, but at the same time there was something else developing.

It ended up becoming more than friendship. They never dated much, maybe a couple of times that could be considered a date. She got divorced and they moved out of town together. They lived together a couple of years. He reminisces, We were so crazy. Happy, fun, passionate, dramatic–so into it. They went through a lot together, put each other through a lot, and eventually got engaged. Not long after, they broke up. But they were still sort of together. Then they broke up again. I was so alone then, he remembers. Nothing could make me feel better, and I was so desparate and crazy. I cried; I begged and pleaded. I was a fool. Eventually he started to move on, to get over it, and learned to relish being alone again. Then they got back together. They even got engaged again, but somehow it was never the same as before. They tried to make it work, but one or the other couldn’t keep it up all of the time, or maybe one or the other didn’t really want to, deep down.

It didn’t work. They broke up again. He is alone again. It is probably best, he thinks. Alone.

The Life Stage

Sometimes things just come together and make you smile. Today was not one of those days. I’ve been pretty miserable, close to tears at times, trying to drown my sorrows in alcohol most nights the past few weeks. This morning wasn’t any better; if anything, it was worse. But then I talked to a friend I love and a sister I also love and respect. I did a little bit of thinking. Felt a little better. Then, Life conspired to show me something.

I drove the minivan to get coffee, iPod plugged into the stereo. Happened to be playing “Truckin’” by the Grateful Dead. I like that song. Then I got coffee, and the kids working behind the bar seemed cool, had a good vibe. A cute girl smiled at me. The day seemed nice as a I left, even though it is definitely still winter here in SLC and it was gray and not sunny at the time. Coffee in hand, I went to the supermarket. I grabbed something extra that I saw my sister needed at her house, waited in line behind an older lady, watched the interaction between her and the clerk. Another cute girl walked by. Then I was paying and leaving the store after my exchange with the clerk, a nice woman who was envious of my coffee, and something caught my eye.

One of the bag-boys was wearing a hoodie sweatshirt with some writing on the back. It was in the style of those No Fear shirts, but I don’t think the saying on the shirt was really their style. It said, “If All the World is a Stage, I Want to be the Trap Door.” I had to smile as I realised that is the way I feel sometimes, but not right now. I usually enjoy people, and share the belief that people are generally good, like my sister expressed the other day. It’s nice to remember that, to feel that way again. I’m sure I won’t always, but it helps to try and remember it when Life has shifted your focus to other areas, away from the player in the spotlight, center stage, toward something or someone creeping in the darkness, just outside of the light, something that makes it hard to focus on the figure bathed in brilliant spotlights, even though the thing in the darkness is nothing more than a notion, a mist, undefinable, just a suggestion of something there, yet we can’t take our eyes off of it for trying to figure out just what that is, in the dark.

Good to be back

Ah, Portland. It’s good to be back. I wouldn’t have said that a day or two ago. My homecoming was not the most exciting return ever. I was wearing jeans, flip-flops, a short-sleeve shirt and a light jacket as I walked out of Portland International Airport into the gray, steady drizzle that IS Portland. I’ve been freezing my ass off since. I don’t know if it’s because I spent three months in the desert, avoiding the cold weather of a North North American winter, if I just haven’t dressed properly or what. But the cold temperature and high humidity has been killing me. I thought about moving to Tuscon.

Add in jet-lag and a general feeling of “What the hell do I do now?” and you get the idea. But today the sun was shining. That’s happy moment #1. I had some more good coffee, produced by my own hand and 40 pounds of gleaming stainless steel. (Not the first time since I’ve been back, so I guess there were happy moments yesterday–every time I made coffee and felt the rush of making and consuming it cut through the gloom and doom of GRAY and “liquid sunshine.”) So happy moment #2 of the day. And then I decided to go for a bike ride.

There’s something very comfortable about familiar routines, right? We all know it. We’re creatures of habit. It was nice to experience the familiar sensation of getting ready for a ride. I pulled my bike down from the rack, made sure the tires were pumped up and the chain lubed, wiped her down with a rag to clean off the dust, pulled on my undershirt, tights, warm winter jersey and arm warmers. Thin skull cap to keep in the heat and cover my ears. Warm gloves. Shoe covers. Helmet. Glasses. Money and a jacket in the back pocket, along with my cell phone to call for help. This is nice. #3.

And then I hit the road. I decided to do a loop, longer than I probably should after no riding for months and not much physical activity, but I’m always a glutton for punishment on the bike. It feels good. Natural. Like riding a bike. Something you never forget. And it’s a special bike, at least to me. Smooth. I used to race. Everything just feels right. A little discomfort, but nothing I can’t handle. A ride. Happy Moment Number Four. Ahhh.

Riding through familiar neighborhoods, seeing some of the landmarks of Portland, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, the Columbia River, the Willamette, the St. Johns bridge, Broadway, downtown. And these people. The familiar wave from certain motorists who recognize cyclists on the streets and accommodate them. The people wearing funky jackets, boots, hair. “Keep Portland Weird” is a popular bumper sticker. There are rugged individualists, hippies, writers, artists, cyclists, coffee geeks, beer geeks, friendly faces. It’s a city where it’s easy to connect with strangers. I’m waiting at a stop sign for the cross traffic to thin out, next to a woman waiting to turn left in her car. One of the cars crossing the intersection has a window rolled down, the female driver looking around, not sure where to go, I think, talking to her passenger loud enough that I can hear but not tell what is being said. She suddenly decides she needs to turn right halfway through the intersection, still talking, looks to her left at me and the cars that are waiting. It’s humorous to watch so I smile. She laughs a little and smiles back. Little human interactions like that happen all the time, and they’re priceless. Happy moments #5,6,7,8…

It’s good to be back.