Celebration at the End of the Earth

Last weekend found me again away from home, this time in what must be the remotest place I have yet to visit - Marquette, MI. I was expecting a small town. What I found was a last outpost of civilization, bordered on one side by an ocean of trees and on the other by the cold, blue waters of Lake Superior. It was an area of clean air, cool breezes, hordes of trees, and an airport smaller than the church (I counted the chairs for passengers - there were 50 total).

While Marquette was lovely, it was simply my destination, not my purpose. The purpose was to celebrate the wedding of Emily and Kendell, two of my favorite people. And what a celebration it was! Perhaps the best of it was spending time with others who were there for the very same purpose. Some of us knew each other already, some of us knew each other by reputation, and others didn't know each other at all. Nevertheless, a shared love of Emily and Kendell bound us into one great army of celebrants. I got to meet the legendary Faith - Emily's life-full, fun-loving friend since childhood - and got to see the rest of the Holmes clan again and spend more time with them. We all worked together, played together, lived together and generally enjoyed ourselves.

Of course, the wedding itself was wonderful. It was festive, the weather was divine, the cakes were delicious. Emily was gorgeous and Kendell looked like he was walking about a foot off the ground. And yes, when they were presented as a couple, I cried my eyes out (dry eyes were a lost cause from the start - I nearly cried watching the rehearsal). It was, in short, a perfect wedding and a beautiful celebration.

There and Back Again, Again

Continuing with the theme of travels, I find myself again (relatively) recently returned home, this time from Ireland (and a brief jaunt to St. Louis, but that wasn’t half so exciting – sorry Sarah). The trip was only ten days long, yet we – my parents and I – packed all the action we could into those days, beginning our trip in Dublin, driving south to Glendalough, Cashel, and Waterford, across to Killarney, then up the west coast through the burren to Galway and then back to Dublin.

Perhaps the first thing to stand out was the sublime beauty of the country. I know everyone says Ireland is lovely but it’s easy to think “Of course, in the same way that every countryside is lovely.” Apparently, however, they simply call it “lovely” because they lack the words to describe it. We kept a joint travel journal while we were there and by the second day it became a running joke that we would have to think of new superlatives each day to describe the sights we had seen. My best description could simply be that it was stable and sheltering, intensely majestic, and joyfully wild. Walking in the prehistoric stone fort of Dun Aonghus was a case in point. There the ground was covered in the softest and greenest of grasses, dotted with little yellow and white flowers; yet just an inch below that grass (and in some places poking through) was solid rock, which sheared away at one edge of the fort, leaving a knee-weakening 600-foot drop into the Atlantic. Not a tame country, but certainly a good one.

There were too many exploits and adventures to recount them all here, but perhaps a few snapshots will suffice to give the general flavor:

- Walking into a dimly lit room at Trinity College and seeing laid on a table before me the most ancient and beautiful manuscripts Ireland (and perhaps the world) has to offer. Their ornamentation was a flurry of saints, animals, knots, and spirals in patterns of constant play. And equally importantly, one could discern in their midst the beautiful and ancient words, faithfully copied that they might never be lost – In principio erat Verbum…

- Seeing the mountains and lake of Killarney National Park. Like the rest of Ireland, it was gorgeous – but even Ireland looks better from horseback (to which the Irish themselves would readily agree). And tearing down a muddy, tree-lined lane at a full gallop was a wild adventure not to be missed.

- Asking one of our guides what he thought about the Lisbon Treaty (an EU thing that there were lots of signs about) and getting a brief history of modern Ireland with the answer. He favored us with the story of his two uncles who fought in the IRA under Michael Collins in the revolution, one of whom assisted in bringing down the only wireless trans-Atlantic communication station of the time. He was everything one thinks of an Irishman being – eloquent, welcoming, independent, and fiery-tempered.

- Standing in the prehistoric tomb of Newgrange in the pitch black, watching for the light to appear as it would on Midwinter Day; seeing the outer stones bathed in warm gold and a thin shaft of light pierce even the deepest recesses of the tomb. It was a sign filled with hope and yearning. It was as if with this structure, man joined nature in saying, “Even the longest night cannot last forever. My deliverer is coming.”

It was, in total, a lovely trip. But, having been gone for four weeks of the past two months, I think I will be happy to hang my hat at home for a while… At least until adventure – and weddings – call me back to the open sky.

Recent Travels

Well, it’s been a while, for which I apologize. But part of that time I was busy “gathering material” for today’s post. For those who don’t know, I’ve recently returned from a trip to the Arabian Gulf (typically known in the US as the Persian Gulf, but don’t try telling an Arab that :)).

My trip stretched two weeks and touched Dubai, Bahrain, and Qatar. The countries were in many ways similar. The climate was universally hot (upper 90s, though locals swore it was beautiful spring weather), humid because of the maritime influence, and dusty. The cultural make-up of the countries was oddly skewed away from the citizenry, who accounted for 10-20% of the population of their own countries, and toward migrant workers from India, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Because of this dynamic, there was very little middle class; typically, the Arab citizens were quite wealthy – in many cases paid a stipend by the government – and the foreign workers were just trying to scrape together some money to send home.

I wasn’t sure how I, as a Western woman, would be received, but I found there was nothing to be concerned about. Firstly, the cities I was in were quite comfortable with the West, and Westerners were accorded a fairly high status (just below that of the Arab citizens). Secondly, the locals were quite polite – I did get some staring and pointing from the migrant worker group, but I chalked it up to a lack of good breeding and the fact that there’s a 3 to 1 male to female ratio among that class. The Arabs I ran into in general struck me as reserved, hospitable, fastidious, and family-oriented folk.

I considered talking about all three locations individually, but I think a description of Dubai should suffice. It is, after all, the measure by which the Gulf states are judged – and by which they judge themselves. Manama and Doha both want to be little Dubais and they have a long way to go. I almost feel bad for them; Dubai is a city where people who have more money than they know what to do with invest and where the planners smoke crack. If it’s the tallest, biggest, first, or best, Dubai has to have it.

Indoor ski slope in the desert? Check. (Ski Dubai, above right)

World’s tallest building? Check. (Burj Dubai, right)

World’s only seven star hotel? Check. (Burj al Arab, left)

Building man-made islands in the shape of palms… and the world… then the solar system… then the Milky Way galaxy? Building the world’s largest airport to serve the world’s largest amusement park? Check and check.

While the place has a definitely larger-than-life feel, it also offers some more traditional experiences. You can take an abra (water taxi) across Dubai Creek (an inlet that cuts Dubai roughly in half) for the equivalent of 30 cents and head off for an adventure in the souqs (markets). The souqs are covered walkways lined with shop after shop on either side. They are divided according to what they sell and my absolute favorites had to be the spice souq and the gold souq. The spice souq was the ultimate smell experience, with sacks full of saffron, dried roses, cumin, frankincense, and dried lemons. You could also find less smellful but equally interesting items like sea salt, pumice stones, and indigo. The gold souq was large (reputed to be the largest in the region – surprise, surprise) yet the amount of gold crammed into it was astounding. Some of the necklaces we saw must have weighed at least two pounds and were beautifully worked all over with filigree. They sell the gold according to weight and international market price – everyone was telling us we should have come a year earlier for some really good deals (ah well).

We also got to enjoy the beach resort area of Jumeirah a bit on our last day there. The water was startlingly clear and cool and the sands were white – much like what I imagine the Caribbean to be. The rules of dress and deportment were no different from an American beach (though at the “beach park” where we found ourselves, no photos were allowed and they did offer a special women-only day for the more modest). After browsing shops and walking alongside the little canals that connected the various hotels, we found a hotel bar (only hotels are allowed to serve alcohol) with a lovely veranda and view of the beach.

Sometime there, sipping my drink, watching the sun set over the Gulf, and enjoying the light show around the Burj al Arab, I decided – I really need to come back here sometime. Who’s up for Dubai ’09? :)

The Local News

Just for you, mon amie...

Life here has been busy-ish of late: the past four days featured both a retreat and a business trip. The retreat was with a church group and quite refreshing. Elise, my friend from many years ago, carpooled with me and it was nice to have someone there that I knew. It was at a YMCA camp, which had beautiful surroundings, a nice common building, and the hardest, crackliest mattress/pallets on the planet. So we spent a lot of time not sleeping. There was a little hike (yay outdoors!), a bonfire with s'mores, and a dance party (featuring music from the 70s to present). There was, of course, teaching as well, which all centered on Matthew 11:1-19 - a very interesting passage for the discussion of the problem of evil, among other things. The teacher was a really excellent old missionary who reminded me a bit of Dr. Hake.

As soon as I got home from the retreat, I took my things out of my bag, put a pre-positioned pile of work clothes in, and headed to the airport. The travel was uneventful and the trip was a good one. I was traveling with my boss, a quintessential ENTP - creative and high-energy - so it was an action-packed trip. (One day featured ten hours of work - mostly meetings - followed by some local sightseeing and dinner.) Lodging did step up a notch from the camp to "ritzy hotel with king-sized feather bed." So the sleep I did get was sound :). It was a highly productive trip that'll be useful for a project I'm currently working on and a brief change of pace and place is always nice.

I started into The Consolation of Philosophy on the business trip, because it was near the top of my to-be-read pile and would fit in my purse for the flight. It's interesting, though I'm not sure I like it so much - there seem to be some biggish gaps in its logic. But I'll suspend judgment until I've come to the end; perhaps things are not as they seem. I'm also technically reading Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco, but I've been moving through it very slowly. The writing style and thoughts expressed are such that it deserves more attention than I can give in the evening when I'm tired, and the plot is so incredibly slow it's not as though I feel the need to race through it. But I like it, so I'll finish one of these days :).

LOST is back, be it ever so temporarily!!! !!! My life is happy. Need I say more? :) The writers' strike has been a pain. Good TV is a form of literature, in my opinion, and the strike has killed the literature and forced the production of the equivalent of the worst sorts of paperbacks. So the return of LOST, even for just eight episodes, is like a spring in the desert of my literary landscape.

This concludes our evening broadcast. You may now consider yourselves "up to date" on my life, the universe, and everything :).

Cheers!

Typing

Yes, it has been for stinking ever since I last posted. Consider it... hibernation, or some such.

Anyhoo, I never seem to tire of playing with personality tests. Figuring out how the system on which the test is based works, how it applies to other people, etc. is as much fun as getting your own results. So, I have culled the web for some good ones and I present them here for y'all's enjoyment:

A familiar old friend, the MBTI, together with a newer one on intelligence types:

Here's one that's technically much older than Myers-Briggs, but newer to me - the Enneagram. In contrast to MBTI's focus on styles of taking in information and making decisions (which remain relatively static through adult life), the Enneagram type focuses on an individual's main drivers (what do you want, need, strive for) and can change throughout life. There are nine different types, designated by number. I exist somewhere between a 5 (knowledge seeking) and an 8 (power seeking) - today must have been an 8 day. You can read up on the system at this helpful site.

Main Type	Overall Self

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

And, last but not least, some fun randomness (based on the above system). BWAHAHAHA!

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Happy New Year!

Yes, you read that right. Sundown this evening will be greeted with shofar blasts marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the high holy Jewish New Year. It’s a time for considering the past year in penitence – in preparation for Yom Kippur – and for anticipating the coming one with hope.

“According to Talmudic tradition, the Ten Days of Awe which begin at Rosh Hashana are the time in which God determines the fate of each human being. On Rosh Hashana, the wholly righteous are supposedly inscribed in the Sefer ha-Hayyim, or Book of Life, while the wholly wicked are inscribed in the Book of Death. The fate of all others hangs in the balance until Yom Kippur. Consequently, it is a time for introspection, for taking stock of one's behavior over the past year and making amends for any wrongdoing.”

Let us rejoice that our names have been written in heaven as we listen for the trumpet call announcing the final judgment and the New Age.

L’chaim!

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I was recently forced to part with a dear friend – my daily companion, patient listener to my mediations and rants, comrade in my adventures, always willing to give his all, always smiling in that distinctive way he had – my blue steed Lapis is mine no more.

I (and all the kings horses and men) had replaced his left front wheel after that unfortunate incident on the Roosevelt Memorial bridge. I had replaced his rear suspension. When he began to hemorrhage transmission fluid and coolant, I figured it was time that I put myself out of his misery. So I drove him to the dealership and traded him (and a hefty sum of money) for a lovely white palfrey.

Her name is Lily, short for Lily-of-the-Valley. I like that flower and, in the Victorian language of flowers, it means “return of happiness.” I chose the name partly in jest on all my troubles with Lapis, but mostly to be a reminder to never lose hope since “weeping may last for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.”

She has been an excellent car so far. She’s well-mannered, responsive, and petite – that is to say, very well suited for the sort of driving I do on a regular basis. She’s also quite young and eats less, so that’s some comfort as I have to start making monthly payments. All in all, I am thoroughly pleased with her.