"Where are you from?" What a loaded question for people like me. I'm an American born in Liberia and I grew up in Oman. I don't like telling someone new this...I like learning about other people and I don't like myself getting in the way. I was lucky to have 4 years at a traditional American High School. It was a good school. Across the street from A1A behind a Publix shopping center on the east coast of Florida. It was military brat heavy which I think helped me. The flat land, the moist air you practically breathed in. Sand everywhere and your clothes stuck on your skin, and not in the romantic way it does in New Orleans. You almost always need the Air Conditioner on. I hate the sound of air conditioners. It's a memory thing, it's the sound they make. I joke to my children that I have super hearing, because I could hear everything they always said and meant. I can hear the electricity coming from power sources. I hate it but it does come in handy. I was typing about air conditioners...when I was young we would travel back to the states for summers staying at either our maternal grandparents in Illinois or my paternal Grandmas in Massachusetts. They didn't have air conditioners. In Illinois I was surrounded by a forest with gullies and deer. It was peaceful. I could hear birds, soft voices, a squirrel scrambling up a tree to hide a nut. There was a winding path down to the lake for fishing and exploring. Green freedom where you could pick up the dirt and it didn't fall between your fingers. Swinging on rope swings across what seemed vast spaces filled with old beaten down refrigerators and house hold things that have 'gone to the other side' and had probably been used as target practice at one time. Fresh tomatoes off the vine and shucking peas for dinner. Making homemade ice cream in the churn. Sitting at my grandfathers grind and stepping on the paddle making it go as fast a I could outside of his garage with probably every tool man makes for engines and wood. There was an old refrigerator with a long pull handle in his garage filled with Pabst Blue Ribbon for my Grandpa and minnows and night crawlers in plastic containers, for our Gran Gran. I eventually stopped hating tearing the worm in half for the hook. When I go fly fishing now I don't care if I have the right fly. I love standing in the middle of the ice cold water as it rushes past me. Fishing is in my blood...it's on the women's side;) I'm just not good at it yet. Sitting on the old mower with the rusty seat, ergonomically shaped for a persons bum. Watching my Grandmother wring the chickens neck and plucking the feathers. The smell of fish scales and guts...but not like the fish laid out on the beach at the souk in Oman smell (that just made me giggle, and I thought of fish sauce). They caught their fish from their beautiful dhows, or a net cast off the coast. In Illinois it had a fresh smell, no salt. The lake water always smelled fresh and cool as the sun beat down. Don't let them take that...because they will given the chance. When we got home after our summer holiday the air conditioner hummed in the back ground, a constant reminder. A reminder of real life, dirt, learning, the call of Adhan and Ramadan. Men on the roof tops with guns so I couldn't play my favorite game, war...because we lived in the middle of one and war is not a game.
Seeb, Oman is my home town.
Be still and listen
One day I'll tell you a story
No comments:
Post a Comment