August 26, 2004
operation desert soul mate
I’m here in UAE for one very simple reason. I’m supposed to be here. Where else would I (or should I be right now), considering my bits of life up to this point scattered between the plains of West and East Africa to the Alberta prairies. Because I can DO this with no debilitating wounds showing. I can EXCEL here easier than a single-country-born and bound guy. Fortunately, or un-so, I am designed for this sort of stuff, despite big holes of unrequited phantasmagoria now quelled by actuality of life. But I cannot claim this ability as something I came up with, as my own. It’s a gift given to be utilized well. It’s a mantle to be worn. I hope I am utilizing my gift well. I hope the mantle has been and will be worn well. That doesn’t stop me from being a big worrier still. That doesn’t stop me from focusing on the REAL adventure instead of wasting time abstractly perfecting the art of imagining successful adventures of the mind. Some have said I’m driven. Mom outright asked me why I insist on going upstream all the time. I was confused for a day or so by her question. Because I thought surely by now she knows why I do. When I had formulated my answer I went to Mom and dad’s for a supper. I told her my answer to why I “insist”. It is my inheritance, didn’t she see. She and dad taught me the current-be-damned stroke, didn’t they? She and dad gave me this drive, this wanderlust, this (now determined to be) wholesome homelessness to me to use if not directly by inheritance than certainly indirectly by the manner and model of their own lives, didn’t they? She shook her head and told me my stubbornness would do me in one day.
Now it is my wife that asks me why I am so stubborn - almost every week. It is my inheritance. I don’t say that to my wife because she’d just point and laugh at my primitive philosophical notions. Instead I smile at her and say because you would not have me any other way - because we need someone just as stubborn as each other to stand against things that try to move us. Together we are a stone wall, my wife and I, as long as we agree. Damn, I’ve had some lively and lovely debates with her already in the last two years. I love her a whole lot. Meeting her and marrying her is the best thing that happened to me as far as my whole being, spiritual, social, and emotional, is concerned. I’m glad I found her here in UAE. Some guys hang around the hometown and find their soul mates in the same neighbourhood. Others of us, by our inheritance, must first travel 14000 kms from the hometown driven by some ridiculous, if not self-made mission, and then suddenly, quite unexpectedly, in front of our noses, God provides a soul mate who is also there from half way round the world. And it only works because it’s been designed well already by a master designer. Timelessly, but also seemingly effortlessly, I have lived with her in the same life space. We make it work because it’s been designed to work. Thank God for his (and my wife’s) unlimited measure of accommodation on behalf of all the human foibles I’ve brought to this “project”.
Now my definition of my existence includes and is better described interms of family. The selfishness of single living loses itself, pales greatly, in comparison with a loving and caring wife and a family identity that one can relax in, be proud of. A family structure from which the individuals therein can grow outward in every aspect of themselves. Step by step, The Byromaniac, the Prince of Numb Bards, is learning little applied truths here and there, and is learning what maturity is made of and just how much it costs. He’s learning how much reward there is in sacrificially reaching out and embracing a higher level of maturity, of responsibility.
Now it is my wife that asks me why I am so stubborn - almost every week. It is my inheritance. I don’t say that to my wife because she’d just point and laugh at my primitive philosophical notions. Instead I smile at her and say because you would not have me any other way - because we need someone just as stubborn as each other to stand against things that try to move us. Together we are a stone wall, my wife and I, as long as we agree. Damn, I’ve had some lively and lovely debates with her already in the last two years. I love her a whole lot. Meeting her and marrying her is the best thing that happened to me as far as my whole being, spiritual, social, and emotional, is concerned. I’m glad I found her here in UAE. Some guys hang around the hometown and find their soul mates in the same neighbourhood. Others of us, by our inheritance, must first travel 14000 kms from the hometown driven by some ridiculous, if not self-made mission, and then suddenly, quite unexpectedly, in front of our noses, God provides a soul mate who is also there from half way round the world. And it only works because it’s been designed well already by a master designer. Timelessly, but also seemingly effortlessly, I have lived with her in the same life space. We make it work because it’s been designed to work. Thank God for his (and my wife’s) unlimited measure of accommodation on behalf of all the human foibles I’ve brought to this “project”.
Now my definition of my existence includes and is better described interms of family. The selfishness of single living loses itself, pales greatly, in comparison with a loving and caring wife and a family identity that one can relax in, be proud of. A family structure from which the individuals therein can grow outward in every aspect of themselves. Step by step, The Byromaniac, the Prince of Numb Bards, is learning little applied truths here and there, and is learning what maturity is made of and just how much it costs. He’s learning how much reward there is in sacrificially reaching out and embracing a higher level of maturity, of responsibility.
