Hectic Re-centering

At my old job, a long time ago, in an office far away, I traded precious metals on a computer screen. (To the observer, the whole experience could easily have been confused with playing video games all day.) I watched a visual representation of a metals market, displaying the bid/ask prices and quantities of the current market. It was a long and lean, red, blue and gray display that reminds me somewhat of a cribbage board, but not. Anyway, the screen is in almost constant motion, reflecting the market activity. There is a horizontal line at the current trading price, at the intersection of the bid and offer. With the double click of a mouse or by tapping the space bar, I could center the line/current price right in the middle of the screen. Either because of my nervous stomach or OCD or boredom, I was obsessive about having the current price right in front of my face. I couldn’t tolerate it being an inch off center. However, there were days, when the markets were really moving that re-centering wasn’t possible. The prices were breaking or rallying so fast, the horizontal line bounced around like a soccer player juggling the ball. Then there were times when the horizontal line would just suddenly disappear one direction or the other off my screen, accompanied by a wicked medley of, essentially, ringtones—bells, alarms, and sometimes, yes, squealing pigs, meaning that I had a position in the market. As exciting as that was, I always felt better once the line was back in its happy middle. Since no personality or behavioral idiosyncrasy was too small to be part of the constant commentary in our office, I was, ‘Newman,’ in the play by play, ‘with the hectic re-center.’ In a sometimes silent room, with a little or a lot going on, you could hear me almost continually double clicking to re-center my market.

After about 5 weeks in my new land, I have finally been able to re-center my market. I have been hectically, but completely unproductively, trying to get a hold of the current cross. It’s been a bit brutal, as I have desperately tried to gain perspective—feeling disconnected with myself as I learn where the best place to re-place a broken baking dish is when there's no Target, learn Xhosa names and introductions, share a car with my dad (that portion is over,) mediate between witch doctors who object to Bible study at work and missionaries, remember that the right lane is the fast lane, not the left, think in Rand terms, and wonder what I’ve done in coming here in the sense that this is just a life and not some gauntlet that’s been thrown down—or is it? Now that I’ve felt my center click back into place, it all seems like, of course I would have felt those things, but at the time I felt so in it, my face submerged underwater and not able to lift it up to see the sun shining. I’ll try and use this better feeling I am having to relate some of what I’m seeing and doing around here—which according to my Aunt Sissy is what she’s been waiting for—some good letters from me.

This week also marks my first demonstrable professional accomplishment. After a cold-calling experience last week, wherein my colleague (and by colleague, I mean hilarious Zululand, been everywhere selling used cars and advertising friend) Darren and I went to tour bus companies, encouraging tour operators to make a stop at our retail outlets because we really do offer something unique right on their way to significant tourist attractions, I followed up and actually got one company to commit to regularly stopping at our strip mall—with the promise of financial kick back, of course. Aside from the new, immediate business this brings us, it brings me hope—for more jobs to offer to the people group we work with and for myself. There’s a lot to the discussion about what good, if any, non-profits do around the world. Moments occur where I wonder if we are contributing more to problems than helping to solve any. (This isn’t good for my morale, by the way, but it’s an undeniable possibility.) On the flipside, when there are 12 people in the room and 9 of them are HIV positive, running to the grocery store for them seems like a positive no-brainer, and I can't think of a more practical way to help someone. In the midst of all of this, I want to apprehend hope--that Goodness is at work, regardless of my circumstances.

I’ve been reading this book about the importance of knowing one’s life story in understanding how to participate in your own future life with God. The following is a quotation (taken from a second source about screenwriting) from the book.

“But then there’s an event—in screenwriting, we call it the ‘inciting incident’—that throws life out of balance. You get a new job, or the boss dies of a heart attack, or a big customer threatens to leave. The story goes on to describe how, in an effort to restore balance, the protagonist’s subjective expectations crash into an uncooperative objective reality. A good storyteller describes what it’s like to deal with these opposing forces, calling on the protagonist to dig deeper, work with scarce resources, make difficult decisions, take action despite risks, and ultimately discover the truth. All great storytellers since the dawn of time—from the ancient Greeks through Shakespeare and up to the present day—have dealt with this fundamental conflict between subjective expectation and cruel reality.

Good stories tell about the intersection of desire (‘subjective expectation’) and tragedy (‘cruel reality.’)”

So there are a ton of things I see and am experiencing right now that I would characterize as an absolutely uncooperative objective reality—I use this term with a glint in my eye and laughter close behind because I think the last five weeks of watching my subjective expectations—which were refined to the point of gold and highly protected by me—collide in slow motion, epic, movie style bombs going off is, now, just damn funny and UOR is just a really academic way of saying life is hard. Desire and tragedy make life really good, hope necessary, and my story mine.

That’s what’s new with me. You?

The pictures: #1 Clouds coming over Table Mountain...as I'm standing on it
#2 My edgy, urban pictures of our jewelry, that we're not using on the website
#3 Mandy and I in our two layers of wetsuits when we were the NSRI's Women Overboard Dummies in like 14 feet swells

Spinnin'

So, apparently this blogging business isn't coming as naturally as I thought it might. I just want everyone to know I'm doing well!! Mom said I'm not writing her enough information in my emails. This is true. I seem to be just a minute late all the time and showing up to the grocery store just after it's closed EVERY TIME, EVERY DAY. (I'm not going to the grocery store everyday, but I'm just trying to tell you I'm always a bit out of it and definitively a foreigner in my botching up of things.) It's not that there's nothing to share...quite the opposite. I just don't know where to start, how to sum up, nor have had I time to process half the stuff that's coming my way. (That's the view from my flat to the left.)

My first week at work was fairly a disaster, but the second and third have improved mightily. Tomorrow I'm going to downtown Cape Town to visit tour bus companies in the hopes that they might visit our strip mall on their way to major tourist attractions...our little store is located right in the middle of everything, but no one seems to see it. We're hoping this might be a way to get some more business. I had a cool experience on Friday where I was (briefly) forced to go it alone at the store and although I was nervous none of the crafters would understand me or care what I was saying, I discovered they speak much better English than they let on and they know my name! I was thinking they didn't even know that yet. We communicated and almost completely achieved our goal for the day (for an order that was due yesterday.) Anne, my American boss/missionary, is so vocal in her appreciation of me and that is very encouraging. She's been doing the work of at least 4 people for a few years now.

I live with the busiest person I know and she's nice enough to include me in a lot of things...but sometimes I'm busier than I would like to be. When I was in Malawi, I could journal about the taste of an egg for hours (not that I did that) because there wasn't a whole lot else to do and here there's enough going on/to do that I'm quite rushed and more scheduled than I had thought I might be. I've done a bunch of the tourist stuff that I somehow didn't get to in my time here last year--Table Mountain, climbing Chapman's peak (kind of), a wine tour. I thought I might space this out over some months, but I've made a new friend from NYC who's only here for a month, so when she asks me if I want to do something, I say, 'Yes.' Everyone else I hang out with has done that stuff 100 times. My reference to halfway climbing Chapman's Peak deserves further explanation...but I think I have to write it in complete form. Let's just say, next time I think I see someone too far out in the ocean, I'll think twice before I call the NSRI (the SA equivalent of the US Coast Guard.) One helicopter, 4 boats and 1 truck later, we were damn embarrassed.

I've been running on the beach, which is my happiest place, and doing a 'Pilates on the Ball' DVD in my flat--this is as hilarious as it sounds, but a good workout! Today I went surfing for the second time. Actually I just got good and smacked around by the waves, but I donned a wetsuit and 9'2" board and expended a lot of energy...it's a stretch to call this 'surfing,' but I choose to.

I haven't seen one moment of the Olympics. I mostly don't know what I'm missing, but from everyone's Facebook statuses and the Yahoo homepage, I know there's big stuff going on. It's weird to be out of the country and not watching. You know I love musical montages. My (American) friend Amanda watched the Opening Ceremony, narrated by BBC announcers. Apparently, after very respectful, panning shots of heads of state as their countries were marching out, when they got to GB, the announcers said, 'Here's a face we all know.' Interesting. One of my favorite things to do is talk to South Africans. About anything. It's just fascinating to hear what's on their minds and their opinions about world politics. On Friday night I met a South African woman who lived in Chicago for two years--in 1960!! She was hilarious--a bartender--and asked me, 'Do they still have that intersection, Rush and Division?' I laughed, looking at her a little sideways, and said, 'Yes.' She said, 'Can you believe my boss took me there? I was young and green and a little plump and he took me to the intersection of Rush and Perversion as soon as I got off the airplane.' I laughed and may never refer to that intersection the same ever again. There is just a lot of chatting that goes on and I wish I could do a better job of recreating it for you, because it's interesting, stimulating, and hilarious most of the time.

Now you know that I'm still alive. Just not as articulate or over-thinkery as normal. Miss you.

The agony and the ecstasy...

That's a movie or something, right? Right now it's my life. It's my own personal evolution in the sense that each hour, I feel a little different or know a little more than I did the one before. (I've re-written this like three different times because it's outdated faster than I can approve my own content ;)

On the whole, I probably should have been a little wiser to my own impending adjustments from Chicago to the western Cape, but somehow I didn't see any of these conflicting feelings coming and I'm road kill--splattered, inside out and wishing I'd turned a different direction. There's probably no way I could return to somewhere I've been without having some expectation of what it would be like, but Sun Valley is different than I remember it--maybe it's because I'm staring down a nine month long barrel? It's winter and rains sideways some mornings; I don't quite know as many people as I thought I did; I don't speak the same language as 97% of my new co-workers; jet-lag did a nasty number on me and I've completely lost my voice (don't know if I'm actually sick or just hoarse, but since I'm working with people who have suppressed immune systems, I can not risk getting them sick)...so when I have heartrending loneliness, I can't even articulate it. I'm just alone in it.

Yet, there's the ecstasy part too. Blessedly, it keeps surfacing. I am convinced I am where I should be. I've gone surfing for the first time and have an excellent flatmate. And the sideways rain only lasts a few moments before the sun comes back out and there are riotous rainbows all the time. When I am welcomed, I am welcomed full stop, as they say. I am glad this is just a single entry in what is to be a long time gone.

Lord. That all sounds so dramatic...now that I'm just back from brunch (my favorite meal out) and ice cream on the beach, in the middle of winter. See? Perfect example of the ecstasy part.