I am often struggling with the semantics of these identities. When I get a table at Nobu Doha, I’m an expat. When i have my mandatory medical exam to get my residency card at the prison-like fortress in the desert, I am most certainly experiencing a small slice of the immigrant experience, or even less dignified, the experience of the foreign worker.
Me, seeking permission to exist and work in a country that is not my homeland, completely at the mercy of ceaselessly-subordinated officials who have their own bones to pick – for neither is it their homeland. They too, are temporary, imported workforce with little to no authority over their own lives. If we grow old, get sick, or lose our jobs or local sponsors, we become ineligible to exist here. In my day-to-day expat life, i would be entitled to boss them around, but not on this day.
In the case of Qatar, these freaky-friday-level, power flips involve a clash of class, race, history, economic improvement opportunities, cultural norms, religious beliefs and practices, and language barriers – just to name a few.
The medical exam wardens are mainly women, in keeping with Islamic gender segregation principles, and burdened by a long-practiced requirement to appear stern, even cruel, in their ministrations to us, other prospective foreign workers, gathered in silent, senseless, snaking, paper-gown queues, stepping up only the two permitted steps at a time but never waiting until there are four steps… all to meet their punitive instructions. Non-compliance is met with brutal and immediate rebuke. Sometimes we, the applicants, just don’t understand the instructions, and maybe in my case, a blatantly rule-adverse white girl from New Jersey, perhaps i just don’t wish to comply with group abuse that feels undignified and absurd. A wish is a privilege i am fortunate enough to enjoy, most days. I won’t go too deeply into what happened next, but the example is meant to hint at a precarious identity when one is a guest worker or a slave in a foreign land.
As an often-ignorant American who had never experienced living in this part of the world, i lacked comprehension or anticipation of my expendability and identity in a place or a group where i would never have an opportunity to become a member. The US is a nation where foreigners theoretically can immigrate, can become American – as futile, impossible and even fatal as these attempts may sometimes be, immigrants are possible.
“Others” can theoretically join our club, become one of US. Where i live now, i could never, not with struggle, education, funding, desire, marriage, – whatever – i could never become Qatari, could never join that club. Loopholes are rare and fleeting and perhaps as inauthentic as an oasis mirage.
Although an experienced expat in other countries previously, before this experience, i could never have comprehended these realities. Even now it’s hard for me to grok. Preservation of ancestral and cultural heritage is a pursuit sometimes noble, sometimes not. We throw genetic lineage into the mix as well. The balance of ancestral pride and welcoming and learning about the ‘other’ is what i had the blessing of knowing most of my life. How little i knew about how extremely rare this time, this place, this mindset was in history.
PassingThe Expatfrightened and powerless is how it must feel for many foreign workers and immigrants
In the waiting area for the tiny plane to the private island, i’m slugging from the Grey Goose bottle i just panic-bought in the overpriced duty-free shop, upon landing. All around me, people are joyful; i remain remotely rigid. Smiling into the neck of the bottle, i thought of the beaming, young Qatari women who wished me a great stay. One of the pair had been here before. She motioned to her partner – “It’s her first time. You’re really in for a treat.” Once the big plane had landed, they shed their abayas, their aloof demeanors, and the burden of hiding their love. Habibti.
Our plane was late. Or in need of repair. “That was supposed to be your plane.” The manager showed me the mechanic working in the little hanger. “We are waiting for two more passengers. If they make it, we’ll be over our weight limit, so each couple will leave one bag behind.” Huh. Why had we packed so sparingly – so very irritatingly mathematically, weighing and re-weighing our small duffels, only to be displaced by some tardy honeymooners? I went back into the lounge and took another pull of the vodka, not really bothering to hide it anymore.
Years spent in the oft-touted-wealthiest-country-in-the-world can make a girl brazenly entitled. It had been four years of seemingly-limitless abuse and struggle in a furnace of nation and now our first break since surviving an impossible project. Entitlement and her sister, Disdain, almost always roll downhill. As a middleman, i had reliably superior aim, and, for my husbands happiness, i am a lioness. My dad had just died. I hadn’t saved him nor given him all the experiences he had still had a taste for — and i’d be damned if anything was going to get in the way of giving the man i had left everything he deserved.
My finely-tuned InshAllah seemed enfeebled by a fleeting and baseless sense of influence over the course of life’s events. When one’s relation to life loses the slipperiness of accepting everything, the resulting friction can be nearly lethal. With this hot antagonism, i greeted the holiday.
I just had to throw my weight around when our flight companions finally arrived for the transfer. An early-balder from the UK and his bambi-eyed1 bride. They had done nothing wrong and are, i assume, good people2. 😂 Exhausted and more than a little drunk now, Disdain was enjoying her party.
I have a rule – or superstition – about getting into helicopters recreationally. It just seems like an effective way to kill people off through privilege. The plane we are eventually ushered to looks smaller than the copters beside it. I always said this was a good way for rich people to die, and i am cool with not being that rich.
We are four adventurous flyers now, but i am incapable of mustering any camaraderie. Suncripsed and afable, the faint cheeriness of our companions was easily oppressed by my mood. With British-born manners and likely warranted fear of Disdain, Mr. and Mrs. Rich politely defer to me to climb in first.
When i don’t speak it’s difficult for people to profile me as American, which is mostly all we do in these parts. That is, until i open my mouth, which can be jarring for unsuspecting profilers. I visibly recoil from the offer to board first. “Put the kids in the back,” i command without eye contact, skills honed through my Covid-in-Arabia identity. Early-balder lent his hand to the freshly-minted Mrs. Charlotte Rich. I didn’t catch his first name from the manifest.
Loaded-on, strapped-in, headsets in-place, we synchronously tense as the engine strains to get up the force for take-off. The plane is more Hyundai than Porsche – not so much the elegant send-off i had designed. The pilot, probably Sri Lankan, smiled wordlessly. He looked nearly 15 years old. We were off.
When i found myself in Paris recently for some meetings, i could not resist being only 8 hours from my New Jersey family. I surprised my mom with French chocolates on my way back to Doha on Valentine’s Day. A great sentence to be fortunate enough to write.
She was happy. Then quickly her face became thoughtful. She pondered, “I didn’t know you were coming so i didn’t have time to compile the list of the things I want you to do for me.” I told her not to worry, that I would be around for a few days so she had time to consider and get back to me.
That night she messaged to me and my sister, once she had thought of how she could best spend her task credit with a daughter who was only available for a few days. Her message popped in “Can you pierce my left ear which closed up during Covid?”
There are a lot of reasons why this is a comical request; most of these i don’t have to explain. But there are a couple i should explain, Firstly, I always wanted pierced ears and probably spent the first 12 years of my life fantasizing about them and begging for them. It was a hard NO until i was 12. Reasons for this had to do with decorum, class, and not wanting me to look “tacky” or, dare i say too Italian. She never used the word “ethnic” but it was implied. Propper, waspy youngters of the time waited until their teens to have pierced ears. I think it also had to do with it being a lifetime commitment to change something about your body and thoughts about the age of consent. So after that, i probably spent the next few years self-peircing whatever i felt like at the time. I thought nothing of whipping out a needle in my dorm room and adding some adornment.
So, when this type of “Covid Closure” occurred, my mother knew exactly who she wanted to ask for help.
Another reason this is so funny is because when I was 14 and my ears were long pierced, I recruited my 10 year old sister, who had not reached the age deemed appropriate or the implied age of consent, along with our babysitter, B. – who was 18 and could sign the paper at the piercing pagoda – to get my sister’s ears pierced. I’m fairly certain it was all me that wanted it- not my poor younger sister -and that i orchestrated a minor coup on Mom’s power that day. Something about the irrevocable nature of ear piercing, which could seem innocent, was a strong statement against parental controls. We chose tasteful ruby studs, my sister’s birthstone, and she was very proud and happy. But we really got the wrath of mom for that maneuver and the poor babysitter had no idea what a minefield she was stepping into.
It was with this context and history that I went back to the Piercing Pagoda in the mall this week to “advance” it. The Piercing Pagoda in the mall is the last place you would find my mother, but it was our option. I learned where we could park with an accessible placard, how to get a wheelchair, how many steps to get to the pagoda kiosk, and spoke to the extremely unenthusiastic and bitter woman behind the counter about bringing my 80 year old mother in for a piercing on the following day. It was doable.
Still, after the past few years of living mostly like a shut-in, when the day came, Mom was reluctant to go. “I want you to do it.” She put a plastic back on her shoulder and told me “In case I bleed.” I agreed to at least see if it was an easy poke through to find the old hole. No such luck. She was already wincing although begging me to stab through her ear. “Use a push pin! ” she directed. The trip to the Pagoda was definitely required.
“I haven’t been here since taking you girls to see Santa Clause,” she pronounced from her walker seat when we reached the entrance to the mall. She’s not really a mall person, but more of a QVC VIP. But all in all, it was a great outing, and a beautiful and delightful Pagoda employee professionally performed the deed with a real piercing gun, sterile equipment, and painless successful results.
When it was over i asked if Mom if would like to do or see anything else now that we were in the mall. “NO. I want to get out of here as fast as we can before we get shot.”
On the way home, she wanted stamps from the post office. On a parking hunch, I positioned her Mercedes at the prime parking spot, and the occupying car decided to depart just in time for us to glide in. “You live right!” my mother exclaimed in her sometimes-southern drawl. I had never heard her use this phrase. I realized this was her way of telling me she was grateful, that she approved of me, that she appreciated me, that she thought i might finally be who or where she believed i ought to be. You – Live – Right. It held in three words some of the most sincere kindness i’d experienced in our long lives together.
In the post office, i was unsuccessful in finding the stamps she wanted. “I only want the roll. The plain flags on the roll,” was her directive as she insisted on doling out the cash for them. The postman didn’t have them. I bought sheets of love stamps with kittens and puppies. Subversive, but i knew she’d tolerate it. Back in the car, she thanked me, and we drove on.
When I was a kid, our family lived in Bristol and “a river runs through it.” The mighty Delaware‘s source is a stream in upstate New York. By the time it flows downstream in Hancock, New York, it is a sizable two-forked river that then passes many river towns as it winds down past Philadelphia, before emptying its mouth into the Atlantic at the Delaware Bay.
The English settled in Bristol, following William Penn, who made Bristol a stop as he journeyed in his rowing barge to and from Philadelphia and his farmstead, his upriver Pennsbury Manor. A landfill larger than one can imagine now borders Pennsbury Manor, approved by Tullytown Borough, whose landowners now pay no real estate taxes in their Faustian bargain to approve this affront to history and the environment.
In the 40’s Bristol was primarily an old factory town that was first populated by the aristocratic English, then the immigrant Irish and lastly the immigrant Italians. The English lived in the Harriman section of town, the Irish surrounded St. Mark’s Parish, and the Italians, St. Anne’s.
The class boundaries were not well respected by the time I came along, as after marriage, my Dad bought a home on Jackson Street in Harriman with money that was refunded to him by his mother. She had saved his earnings from his labors starting at the age of 14.
I know, what about the spaghetti and crabs. Here is where that comes in. My mother’s mother died when she was 5 years old, so she was raised in her paternal grandmother’s home and her father Pat’s (Pasqual) sister Anne’s home. It was Aunt Annie who first introduced me to the blue claw crab, callinectes sapidus, the” beautiful swimmer”.
Aunt Annie was quite a character. She kept a numbers book for her butcher, Sheik Masandi and a dream book was often on her kitchen table. Friends would drop off food for her, be it vegetables picked in Green Lane Farm’s fields, fish that the men caught in Barnegat Bay, or blue claws from crabbing in Seaside. When a bushel of crabs was dropped off, I was in demand.
Aunt Annie had a way of getting your help with a chore while making you enjoy it. A perfect example was the way nobody cleaned the tile in her bathroom like my sister Sandy. In my case I was a perfect choice to shuck crabs. At age 10 or so, I met the challenge.
Upon a crab delivery the wooden bushel was placed in Aunt Annie’s breezeway next to the kitchen door. I would take the crabs out of the basket and they would hang onto each other in the process. It was next to impossible to remove them one crab at a time. Consequently I would be running all over the driveway, rounding up the runaways. A sneaker-clad foot helped in this process.
One can grab the backside of a crab while it flails away with its claws that can’t reach far enough behind itself to grab the offending hand. This method was not foolproof, but the “grab from behind” technique is still employed by me today.
The procedure of cleaning a live crab begins with grabbing the crab from behind and breaking a claw; the claw just needs to be injured, not torn off. The crab, sensing that an enemy has partially disarmed him, ejects the claw so it is better able to flee its tormentor. Then proceed to the second claw with the same result. The disarmed crab may then be flipped over where the carapace is removed by prying up the flap, thrusting a thumb or knife between the upper shell and the body, and tearing off the shell. The crab is then cleaned of its lungs and dried a bit. It is now ready for sautéing in olive oil before tomato and spice are added to make the sauce.
The crab is cleaned alive because the cook (me) believes that this imparts the best crab flavor to the sauce. My mother wouldn’t mess with a live crab and if I wasn’t around. She would dump the crabs into a pot of boiling water for a minute, and then proceed to remove the shell and clean the crab. Some old timers believed that the water-logged crab lost a little flavor with this method. The compromise is to put the crabs in the freezer to slow them down. Take them out while they are letargico, but work quickly at your peril as they wake quickly as well.
I have been screwing around with the blue claw for close to 70 years. So here are my techniques on the subject dish. Please note that when making spaghetti and crabs, it says spaghetti. Linguini is for clams; spaghetti is for crabs, and I don’t know why.
The Basic Recipe:
Clean the crabs by any of the above methods, then sauté them and the claws in olive oil with garlic, a whole peeled onion and red pepper to taste. I don’t cut up the onion, but cook it whole in the sauce.
As you cook the crabs, the shells turn a bit golden. Be on the generous side with the oil as the crabs are imparting flavor that is carried by the oil. Cook at a moderate temperature, and then add the tomato, broken by hand, or passata, if you can find it. Add some basil or parsley if basil is not available.
I generally take most of the crabs out of the sauce early as the cooking makes the crabmeat mushy. Mushy crabmeat doesn’t appeal to me. Put the crabs back in after the sauce is finished to get the chill off.
I also like steamed crabs and boiled crabs, the later of which I have been doing lately.
Steamed Crabs:
Simply take out your steamer, put an inch or two of water into a large pot, add crabs a handful at a time and a good bit of seasoning as you layer the crabs. Old Bay or some crab boil works as the salt content firms up the meat as they steam. When the crabs turn bright red, go another minute or two and that’s it. I like a bottle of beer instead of all water. Some vinegar in the liquid works as well. This is Maryland style.
If you don’t have a steamer, improvise. Some balled up foil in the bottom of the pot will work, or perhaps you have a rack that can fit into the pot.
Boiled Crabs:
To me this is the best of both worlds as the result is perfectly cooked crabs, as well as great crab gravy for your pasta. You don’t have to choose between good sauce and mushy crabs vs., good crabs and no sauce. Here it is.
Fill a big pot about halfway up with water; add quite a bit of crab boil, a few bay leaves and red wine vinegar. Bring to a rolling boil and then pour in the live crabs. Don’t cook more than a dozen at a time.
Bring the pot back to the boil and cook seven minutes after the second boil. If you look closely some greenish/whitish spots will appear on the shells. If you start to overcook, these spots disappear. Remove the crabs and, when cool enough to handle, tear off the top shells. This makes eating easier and you are ready to spread the newspaper on the table. I like my crabs cold as the meat sets up better, but either way, they should be juicy and tasty. May we say succulent?
Don’t discard the shells. The shells form the base for your gravy. If you just want to eat the crabs, the shells can be frozen and used later for the gravy or a crab bisque soup.
Red Sauce:
Now for the gravy. Dry the top shells with paper towel and then sauté them in oil with the garlic, pepper and onion, as noted above. You are just using shells instead of the crab body. After the shells start to brown add the tomato and basil and simmer partially covered for a good hour of more. The shells impart the flavor so this works well.
Cool the sauce a bit and remove the shells. This will be a great crab sauce without the crabmeat. If you are feeling guilty or want to be opulent, throw a can of crabmeat into the sauce after the sauce is fully cooked. Remember, the canned crab has been pasteurized, and furthermore, it imparts little flavor. Just try making sauce with only a can of crabmeat if you don’t believe me,
So there it is. Eat your boiled crabs as your first course and follow with your pasta and salad. The boiled crabs will be moister than the steamed crabs. They can be stored in the fridge if you want to do everything ahead of time. Then when guests arrive, pour a glass of wine, turn the water up to boil the pasta and make a salad.
Uncle’ Nick’s stone masonry in Bristol, Pennsylvania
Enough on crabs. Did I tell you that Bristol’s churches were segregated? Believe it. The Anglican was for the blue bloods, St. Mark’s was for the Irish and St. Anne’s was for the Italians. What’s wrong with that? It’s understandable that those Micks didn’t want any Wops in St. Marks, and visa versa.
By the way, Aunt Annie’s husband, Uncle Nick, built St. Anne’s, so a Wop builder was acceptable to the congregation. Uncle Nick also built their family’s home with the crab cleaning breezeway. It was the nicest home owned by an Italian immigrant in the town.
And by the way, he also built a home for my parents along the Cooper River in Collingswood where my sister, Sandy lives to this day.
There are a couple of prevailing story lines that have kept me afloat through the pandemic paralysis from Qatar. Landing in the Arabian desert before we quite knew that a microorganism would soon change everything, hope was as it is before a war. Full of thoughts about what restaurants we’d try and countries to visit, we were trivial and lighthearted then. Docile, naive, brash, superficial, careless…. we were ripe for the picking.
Within a few hours of my arrival, Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Crisis Management announced the cessation of scheduled passenger aviation.
The foreseeable had been usurped by the unforeseeable. The anticipated, expat trajectory of relocation and acclimation to cultural context no longer held relevance. Our maps and charts were decimated, a yet discovered pandemic course in their place. Humanity had been transplanted without a plan, and societal norms lay in its wake.
Our new flat was empty and echoing, harsh and bare, a film of concrete dust settling from fresh construction. A reluctant home base with Eeyore at bat and unlimited innings to come. The country’s labour force was abruptly confined to the industrial area. Hard perimeters delineated a city within a city, as a nation state began to confront an enemy who feeds on a recipe of mosaic allure that is the gem called Doha.
Our foreboding and formidable new world crept in with a crash. My personal transition, made more blunt by an absence of anything familiar, seemed amplified by the news that shops had been closed for our protection. Outside our austere confinement cell, breathing air with other humans was suddenly life-threatening, and there was a sense that things were about to fiercely deteriorate.
The author ponders a life of nautical solitude during pandemic isolation
It was then that I decided to take up yachting – an all-encompassing theme, much larger than a fantasy, stronger than denial, and grander than an imaginary friend. By mid-March, we had selected our voyage: an intimate tour of the Persian Gulf. We took only our two dogs with us, ensuring a purely private and intimate high-seas retreat. Elaborate and enduring, my mythical reality grows more credible every day.
In the letter to our family and friends, we would say:
Dear Ones,
We have taken the decision to restore our meditative lives through an extended nautical retreat. Our focus will be on contemplation, music, art, yoga and literature. Where our inner life of late has become shallow and inconsistent on land, this secluded nautical excursion promises to revive and refresh us, as well as deepen our connection with you, our loved ones, and with all of humanity. We are grateful for this rare opportunity and look forward to seeing you upon our return, when the virus allows. “
Grand aspirations, i realize, but i think this is what’s actually been happening. The joy of yachting has proven to be the most effective and enduring identity available. More than a daydream – it’s become an optimal, conscripted lifestyle. A calling even.
At first it was hard to imagine that yachting could be saving lives – or that by going inside, we could be doing a bigger service to humanity and to the planet than going outside ourselves. Creating a smaller, more intentional life does feel surprisingly impactful. It’s part of what Carmelite nuns, Tibetan monks, and contemplatives of all types have been trying to tell us for centuries. It’s possible that service can be contemplation – or in this case – just staying out of everybody’s way can be of service.
By the age of 3 or 4, i had adopted the identity of a Lakota Sioux girl, and subsequently, a young Timbavati lion. Encapsulated on our boat, it wasn’t difficult to convince myself to immerse in uninterrupted gazing at turquoise waters and pristine beaches while safeguarding our lives. It’s like saying i spent a couple of years as a fish, as a Parisian, as a Campbell, as a member of the royal family. In 2020, i spent my year at sea.
As our excursion progressed, chandlers and cargo vessels sprung up and more and more provisions were delivered. Internet was installed, our fantasy enhanced over Zoom by our vivid, ‘actual’ backdrop – the one we all agreed was the real world – complete with saxe-blue seas and mathematically-spaced palm trees, outshining any that could be digitally created or edited. The backdrop is real, the rest of my story, apocryphal.
As you and I will only ever experience this writing digitally, and likely only meet each other virtually, I recommend some etheral ambient music to accompany your read, as we sail through one version of the Great Adjustment. With so much to mourn and to fear, I find atmospheric, dreamy music helps me to remain focused on the uplifting.
Our round dachshund, Pearl, who has put on a few pandemic pounds and has been dieting of late, climbed up on a chair and slurped up this baby in an instant when i had glanced away. I had to chat with a virtual vet to ensure she wasn’t poisoned by the alcohol i was using. (he was not alive when i found him). At least we have the photo.
Like the Great Depression, we are living through something that will indelibly mark ours and future generations of humans. I save the waxy rind of parmesan cheese for future soup broths because during the 1930’s, my grandmother learned to squeeze every ounce of purpose and flavor out of every available ingredient. Scarcity and isolation nurture different competencies than Easy Street. I resisted the identity of writer for a lifetime, chiefly because I feared the compulsory aloneness which defines it. The pandemic got me writing because we might die, and I never said “it” to anyone. During the Great Adjustment, I’ve learned how to pickle vegetables so that they last longer and to re-use everything I was previously thoughtless about. I may not be able to ever get another fill-in-the-blank. I have also stopped misplacing things. I know whatever I’m looking for is either within the salon or the main cabin, so no need to panic that I might have lost it. I never disembark and no one ever comes aboard. There is a sense of total accountability in that.
I’ve never been a good minimalist, but when you have only four forks, you’re going to wash them right away so that you can eat again. That’s what running a tight ship means! There is a soft minimalism on our yacht. Very soft. Yet even I have grown to appreciate the limitations our Great Adjustment lives demand. When “reality” is intolerable or antithetical to sanity, yachting becomes imperative. We swab the deck daily to keep the sand and the bougainvillea blossoms at bay.
Among the awkward benefits of yachting is its supreme exclusivity. We have no additional crew. We’ve grown more conscious and grateful for relationships to others, known and unknown to us. While the moral imperatives demanded by climate change action didn’t quite get through to us all, perhaps this will.
The planet has been in a state of expansive disrepair for quite a while now. Yachting is the sensation of a dreamer tumbling into the deepest, endless darkness, yet caught by gravity, and abruptly shuttled in a novel direction between light and dark and taking off like a rocket all at once.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
-Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
Time is negligible while yachting, and space moves on all sides, easing navigation of our lonely flotilla of somber, mandatory luxury. A meditative calm hangs in the air, and formerly elusive qualities like industry, ingenuity and creativity flow. Months into our journey, we’ve fashioned a lovely stateroom, a galley offering organic menus, an upper deck garden, an infirmary, barber shop, and spa. Daily yoga classes, piano and guitar intensives, and a broad range of wellness modalities are featured on the main deck. Celestial events, like the dazzling ring-of-fire solar eclipse and the many moons of Ramadan, can be relished from the upper deck.
For the first few months, it was forbidden to venture from the rig, but once permission was granted, we secured a tender and approval to touch the water. We now swim straight off the bow, paddle toward a nearby islet, and steep our thirsty bodies in a gentle, ultramarine water-cosmos. The sea cradles us in a big, warm briny womb; remineralizing, hydrating, arousing our cells and souls.
The world on the other side of the surface overwhelms with strange familiarity, coaxing out breath, movement, prayer, and a hunch that if I get right with these fish, I’ll get right with myself, and that somehow this integral alignment will help you. It’s the hunch that inner work matters, and that we finally have time and space to devote to that – and what else can you do at sea for months but swab the deck and get right?
Three jellyfish stung me on my first swim back to the mothership. I have the hunch that intention could save us from ourselves. Inshā’Allah.
I think we will call her Inshā’Allah.
Thank you to the Foxhole Girls for playing along and making yachting less lonesome and for always bringing the loving perspective that sustains.
What’s he been up to? I am asking J while washing dishes in the kitchen. I have no idea, he tells me. J. is confounded – but happy. What did he say about where he’s been? I wanted an explanation. He didn’t say, J. tells me. All we know is that Brad is back.
We are discussing our new neighbour, Brad. Given the lockdown since my arrival in Qatar, Brad is one of only two neighbors i have had the pleasure of meeting in our new country. He lives in the complex that includes our flat, and hundreds of others, on a manmade series of islands called The Pearl.
A Qatari family isolates on the corniche at the Pearl, Doha
Brad routinely sits on a wall near the exit of the carpark, gazing at a patch of Arabian seawater or scrutinizing the humanity, dog, bird, and cat life of our distanced community, as we all mill around the block while trying not to interact. We usually see him when we take our dogs for a walk. Sometimes he is strolling casually with his wife on the manicured lawn below the date palms that line our street. We all say hello, keeping an appropriate social and physical distance, like good neighbours in Covid times.
Brad is passerine, and strikingly bald. For a myna bird, his appearance seems unique. I mean he really stands out. It’s not simply as though he was trapped mid-molt; this bird is brilliantly bare from his shoulders up – resplendently plume-free; sporting rosy-pink, wrinkly, featherless skin, like an elderly baby.
Brad and his wife on The Pearl with blonde ornamental tall grass behind them
It seemed obvious and tragic when he disappeared. We had feared the other birds were uncool with Brad’s brazen differentness, his ostentatious attitude and his fluffy wife. On a block where palaces and peacocks and flamboyant trees are de rigor, a bald myna bird hadn’t much of a chance.
Still, we searched for him hopefully on every walk since he went missing, and spoke of him daily – for a while anyway. After some time, we stopped mentioning it. Brad was just another thing to be sad about. Put it on the pile with Will we ever see our parents again in our life time? and Will we hug our friends or children before we die? Annoyed at nature’s predictable cruelty, we stopped looking for Brad, and as i couldn’t pick out his feathery wife among the crowd, i assumed she had moved on. All the mynas seemed common after we lost Brad.
There is an ornamental fountain grass grown in many of the gardens in our neigbourhood. It grows in shades of blonde and blush, burgundy and purple It stands about half my height and lends soft movement to the hot stillness through its windy dance. To touch it is a gentle reconnection to filmy remote dreams and memories of the kindness of longed-for goodnight kisses. You’re apt to pet it more than touch it. The myna birds love its deep, gossamer foliage as much as we do, and we all seem tempted to play with the silly and elegant grass as we glide around the block, not talking or coming too close to each other.
J. hurried into the kitchen Thursday morning to tell me good news – he had seen Brad and his wife, looking well and hanging out under the date palms, as usual. We saw the first circle that evening.
It had been carefully fashioned from burgundy reeds and very deliberately placed on a bush with purple flowers, just beside the pedestrian walkway. I imagined it a signal of a clandestine meeting spot or perhaps a marker for a hidden spare key. How clever. Whatever the meaning, it was something secret – probably between two people – and probably good.
On the last day of Ramadan, we headed out before sundown, timing our walk for mosque-adjacency during the call to prayer. No one can go in to pray, so we thought we would just stand nearby. Afterward, we took a longer-than-usual walk about the ‘hood. That’s when we started seeing more.
By Friday morning, it became sport.
Maybe it was a scavenger hunt, or perhaps a game between old friends, friends who cannot gather under lockdown. Maybe a group of scientists are sending reports to each other with circles made of grass about environmental changes. Perhaps they are critical messages between spies or they could be a way to profess love to others when a virus prevents touching or even seeing another person’s smile.
J. and i tried making our own little grass circles, weaving and shaping to replicate the urban meadow rings. Ours didn’t hold up. It was surprisingly impossible to recreate them.
On that one walk, little wreaths showed up everywhere and we discovered each one with great delight. They rested on flowering bushes, decorated branches of trees, adorned the concrete walking paths. Some were even displayed from thick hedges surrounding palaces.
I have a lot of theories and fantasies about the grass circles. I don’t know if any are true – but the tiny garlands do seem to be a sign of life.
Maybe Brad left some crowns around town for his gorgeous wife.
Or maybe it’s just how Brad and his friends build their nests. Since that Friday walk about, we haven’t seen any more grass circles.
The crescent moon came up, so magnificent that friends on multiple continents remarked about its beauty. The advent of this blessed month was announced by the Moon Sighting Committee. It was an auspicious start for Ramadan 2020. The call to prayer echoing from the mosques, which has urged the faithful for 13 centuries to “Come Pray!” now implores followers to “Pray at home!”
In Ramadan’s month-long focus on introspection, charity, and self discipline, 2020 has the world’s population captive and humanity synchronously practicing these principles, while facing our individual and collective fears and vulnerabilities.
I’m always struck by the phrase ‘Shelter in Place’. Growing up during the cold war, i associated a shelter with a response to a chemical or radiological event. Shelter is a powerful word. It may be shelter from the storm, protection from an air raid, a safe place for a refugee, the homeless, destitute, stateless, the outcast, victims of violence, lost or discarded animals. You could also lead a sheltered life, receive shelter from family, friends or strangers, reduce liability in a tax shelter or wait for a bus there. It has an essence of spiritual meaning to “take shelter” or “give shelter” or “seek shelter” or “find shelter” in times of suffering. Shelter offers solace. So sheltering in place requires us to find solace within ourselves.
On May 13th, the anniversary of Our Lady of Fatima’s appearance in Portugal, my amazing Aunt S. sent me a photo of a crimson-red rose she cut from a plant my grandmother Stella planted so many years ago. Stella had planted the roses in honor of the Blessed Mother. Aunt S. says she hasn’t been giving the rose plant much attention, but this year she will give it some food and prune it in honor of her mother. She prays diligently, for all of us, looking out at these roses, each day.
I have a bracelet given to me by my darling D. and Z. They created much of the jewelry i have worn for the past decade. The bracelet reads GAMBLE EVERYTHING FOR LOVE IF YOU’RE A TRUE HUMAN BEING.
Transformation is fucking hard. And usually we have a lot more distractions available. Life is a gamble. A real Hail Mary.
Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty. You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses. Don’t wait any longer. Dive in the ocean, leave, and let the sea be you. Silent, absent, walking an empty road, all praise.
–Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī
The Eid Al-Fitr holiday will begin tomorrow in Qatar. It was announced today by the Amiri Diwan, the seat of rule and administrative offices of HH The Amir. Eid Mubarak. Happy Eid!
As a world, we are working our way through the evolution of salutations. I have heard some different new sign-offs of late: to our loved ones, from a TV anchor, from strangers on customer service phone calls. “Stay safe.” “Be safe.” “Hope everyone in your world is staying healthy!” Your world. My World.
Is there a World flag?
If there is, we should fly it.
In 1970, James W. Cadle, a farmer from Homer, Illinois, created his own version of a Flag of Earth.
During a psychedelic moment in Amsterdam, a friend once mirthfully said to me, “Death is near… but not near me.” We were seated, giggling, at an outdoor cafe. I didn’t see Death, but our squad took his word for it.
When death is near, things tend to get profound
When death is near, things tend to get profound – and at times – darkly amusing. Our brains, between waves of panic, find pools of calm where we make connections on kaleidoscopic levels.
My Uncle Frank ( an incredible teacher, coach, family patriarch and documentarian); Kate (my dear friend, fashion entrepreneur and activist, mother of two darling young girls); Little Richard (my first cognizant toddling memory of a tv image). These are just a few who passed away in the recent days of the shitdown, each warranting proper memorializing. We kind of barely spoke of it. It’s untenable when death is so near and we have lost the luxury of mourning losses per our pre-Covid conventions. Our brains and hearts can’t metabolize so much collective and personal loss and trauma all at once. Bodies are piling up in unusual places and services with tears-in-physical-proximity-to-loved-ones are verboten.
Kate Kruger (December 29, 1973 – April 11, 2020) with her girls. Uncle Frank Greco, family historian. (February 1, 1932 – March 18, 2020)The legendary Richard Wayne Penniman (December 5, 1932 – May 9, 2020)
Zooming with my Foxhole girls, B said it best. The data is fierce, said B, we are NOT every man for himself. At the same time, we are finding ways to be more self-reliant.
The thought of my absence from my father’s side as he went through chemoradiation would have been unimaginable before The Great Adjustment. He sent a photo of what he calls his Hannibal Lector disguise, the bespoke computer-designed thermoplastic mask that held his head to the table during treatment these past few weeks.
Masks give us quite a lot to unpack, both as a symbol and a tool.
I mean masks give us quite a lot to unpack – both as a symbol and now as a tool. Maybe that’s why masking is so provocative and charged. Images of face coverings stir us emotionally and culturally with ramifications that may be both practical and archetypal.
Where are we on a spectrum, where what was once disturbing and uncomfortable, becomes a lifeline to survival?
I’ve taken to ironing the sheets. I recall telling J., back in winter, that we could move to Doha if i could have freshly ironed sheets every day. That’s how spoiled i intended to be.
Well, now i have them. Ain’t if funny how life plays out sometimes.
For the most part, doing the laundry and other housework has become a meditative and comforting activity, helping to shape the amorphous hours and days of the shitdown.
Bilbo loves to help make the bed so he can tunnel in later.
I think about my grandmother and how she even had one of those machines for ironing sheets in her basement laundry room.
She would always put on a “housedress” for her duties of cooking and cleaning and then change into a proper dress later to go out shopping or have dinner – always looking great and put-together in public or when “company” officially came by. The housedress signaled a time for chores, but also signaled an off-duty status; a respite from public presentation. As a child, i equated her housedresses to my “playclothes.”
These designations remind of the loungewear/ activewear everyone is donning in their super-private lives right now, at least from the waist down. My foxhole girls sent me a package of cuddly clothes which are the equivalent of modern-day, luxury housedress for me.
Suiting up in the housedress was also about performing tasks properly, prioritizing household management as a craft, and executing every domestic duty with great pride. I’m usually really into aprons, which are like that as well. Speaking of housework, I discovered this book in 2006, and have referred to it and calmed myself with it so many times through the years. I think it’s available electronically now. H., i think i gave you a copy? M., you can find it in the casita. ❤️
Back to the housework garb, i grew up watching women doing housework in headscarves and i tend to tie-one-on when it’s time to get to housework. Headscarves have traditionally filled practical purposes – to keep hair out of food, protect from sun, etc. – and to supply that get-to-interior-chores-uniform signal. The older Italian women would tie a “moppine,” the Italian-American lenition of the word for dish towel, on their heads. Our housekeeper P. at my parents house was another role model. Not only did she wear a housedress, but always had a kerchief tied on her head.
The kerchief history for black Americans has been a complicated one. Enslaved black women in the antebellum South were required to wear kerchiefs of acceptable humble fabric not only for practicality, but to designate their inferior status. The reclamation of the headwrap to become a powerful expression of identity has occurred in during my lifetime.
And now, living on the Arabian Peninsula, the importance of headdressing – for both men and women – has become something i’m pondering quite a lot. The headdress has signified both oppression and power, progression and regression, imprisonment and liberation. Maybe more on that later.
My trainer has been trying to teach me how to use compressed energy to create true and compelling impulsion for years. Even anxious energy. After years of practice, sometimes even unconsciously for me, the magical re-alignment occurs.
The half-halt is a signal from an equestrian to horse that encourages rebalance.
A concatenation of driving aids and restraining aids are communicated from rider to horse, creating pause, without interrupting the flow. Half-halting requests the horse to prepare to halt, thus returning its body to balance, and then utilizes the energy created by this constraint to propel into a more true and compelling version of its forward gait.
Physically, the horse’s spine lifts, and the body gets aligned and organized. Another cool output is the mental rebalancing and reconnection between rider and animal in a split-second, almost psychically-transmitted acknowledgement of something that is happening both in the CURRENT moment of movement together, and simultaneously in the anticipation of something that is about to happen in the NEXT moment.
Today i learned how to get water delivered to our door in Doha. It’s wonderful, as it was one of the items i was stressing about being able to procure. The tap water is too salty for drinking for us or the dogs to drink regularly.
The relief of having potable water available highlights another one of my new life roles. Procurement. A critical function in the Covid world. I also learned about so many people back home in the US waiting in line for food and the lack of connection between farmers, who are losing crops for lack of restaurants to supply, and foodbanks and families who could use them.
Again, profundity seems increased in an unfamiliar supply chain and community and in a weird world that’s devolving and evolving simultaneously, everywhere, every day. Bottom line, procurement sparks gratitude daily. I have never been good at being a minimalist, but right now there are so many items that are genuinely thrilling to have around, day, by day, by day.
As the local delivery economy here creaks into a new Covid gear every few hours, i try to research and adapt. The restaurant take-away and delivery system here is pretty amazing. It’s the success of the Dabbawalas, in reverse – these guys are on fire. Services like “Talabat” buzz through the city on mini-motorcycles. Doha was already built on a robust delivery system for restaurants pre-Covid. They are figuring out how to add items and even new small suppliers seem to pop up every day. Other things are promised, but not ready yet; apps and online shops appear, and quickly fail in beta. Since i arrived for the shitdown, Ikea will be open for 2 days, then closed for 3, then open for delivery again. Vendors are changing messaging and operations as Ministry of Health standards and compliance update regularly and demand excels exponentially, like the Covid numbers and the rules of life play.
Delivery cycles zoom food through the city
Locals are preparing for Ramadan, which increases demand as well. I have employed a strategy of always having an open order, and if they call every week or so, I see what they actually have in stock that could be delivered. A couple of big Indian grocery stores will deliver things, if you plan about 10 days out. So horde ahead! It simply requires a little planning and a different approach to shopping. I stay up late and wait for things to become available online or delivery slots to open up for a a week or two in the future. Dishwasher soap, bleach, dog food and paper towels have presented a worthy challenge. The dogs are happy to subsist on sardines and rice. Then yesterday I found a new vendor that will send over Snickers, Clorox, kitchen rolls and American potato chips. It’s likely some one in a flat near mine, who is heading to Carrfour weekly and knows just what we wish for. The farmer’s market just put up an online portal and brings beautiful things within 3 days. We have a weekly box of organic vegetables, thanks to our wonderful neighbor sharing her delivery with us. Fabulous. Seeds and soil – we have some. We even got internet and TV installed yesterday! ‘Restarted quarantine but it seemed worth it. We are well pretty set-up now.
Local goodies from the farmers market – newly available online
In one of my classic, crazy packing moves, i brought along our hammock from NM. It probably cost me $50 bucks in baggage fees just to fly with it, but it turned out to be money well spent. It is one of the most critical items we have. On our rooftop, which is very large but very empty. – currently a giant, dusty, hot, cement slab – J and i are up in there in there at night like Robinson Crusoe. Without the captives, mutineers, and cannibals yet, of course. Thank goodness, we brought our kitchen knives from Dad along.
La vie en Rose
Below is a list of just some of the things i’m so grateful to have found a way to source. Every day a couple seem to be added.
A rug, sofa, scissors, slippers, flowers, chicken, eggs, soap, internet, tea kettle, dish towels, houseplant, coffee mugs. So many little things i never had to miss before. We have moved way past camping now and glamping is way more fun long-term. Still dreaming of a mini trampoline which is rumoured to be on the way, loungewear (why did i give up my cashmere sweatsuit? 😂), an abaya (seriously, i want one and can’t get one – and all i want right now is to wear is something black with my face covered – not to worry, can’t go out yet), a deck of cards, and most of all books – how i miss them. Someday, i’ll hug people and touch a horse again. But seriously, we are grateful, grateful, grateful, and most of all for all of you. ❤️
Chronic isolation was on board for us, way before it became official…
Well, it’s very private. I’ll say that. An intimate life with whomever you’re locked in with. Hopefully very peaceful, once you accept it.
And basically, i was personally already in a quarantine for 6 months last year and then very limited contact with people for the last several months. Just as my friend K, coming back from cancer – and so many other people in the world who are struggling with illness, or age, or means, or mental health or whatever. Chronic isolation was on board for us way before it became official.
I think it’s hard to be outside here in Doha this season anyway. If you are a bird, if you are a worker, if you’re a plant. The air is better inside. I was noticing that before i came over, the only way i had to access any information or understanding of this new country and city or our potential home was through research, on the computer screen. Now that i’m supposedly here physically, no part of that virtual-only experience has changed. Where am i? My survival – and comfort – is based solely on what i can learn and discover with my keyboard and phone – actual physical exploration is not available. So interesting. The experience remains virtual, although i have apparently arrived in a new physical locality.
Is this mean? I can’t help it!
And with time being revealed as a very odd construct, once you are removed from a natural world, one can float on whims in ways we could not do before. Get up and start laundry at 3am, no one knows – take to your bed for a couple of hours at 11am – have a cheeky cocktail at 3pm … who cares? Having a panic attack? No problem. No one sees you – so just do some art or yoga or dishes or whatever works for you on the spot. Brush your hair – or don’t. Our homes are consistently immaculate. What luxury!
And i’m finally writing for you all, rather than procrastinating. We are in a slow free-fall all together, so we have the opportunity to connect. It’s like getting the chance for that last phone call to your loved one as the plane is going down. Why wait?
“We have adjusted. It could be a lazy Sunday morning for us right now,” my friend B. reports.
But I do seem to have trauma rhythms. My M. describes the darker times “as the curtains being drawn” for a while. In the beginning of Covid life, i would have one decent day, followed by a very down day, where i just could not pull it together – over and over. Grief comes cycling through, on one of those old-fashioned, high-wheeled penny-farthing bicycles, wearing a clown nose and smiling broadly. Accepting a new reality is so challenging for all of us. Still, look how incredibly adaptable we are.
I’m becoming a hostess again- one of the key roles of my life which i haven’t been up to the past year of my personal internment, a loss which had measurably compromised my sense of self. Now i get to dress up, prepare, and be quizmaster for the work team, virtually invite family into our home, or gather friends together on a friggin’ Zoom. And you can leave the party whenever you want with a click. How perfect.
You know how i loath goodbyes. 😘
A neighbor paints on his balcony on a covidly April evening
Another year without a Sader. Another year without an Easter gathering. At least we are in Jesus’ time zone.
My dad, committed to creating some of the traditional family Easter fare, called me early his time, dropped a ricotta pie on the kitchen floor. Two pounds of ricotta and a dozen eggs worth.
“You must have been cursing,” my Aunt S. said.
“I didn’t even get upset,” he laughed. “I just found the biggest spatula I had. I told her – if you get me some ricotta and a dozen eggs, I’ll make you another one. It will be Easter all week!”
Darn, i have so many eggs here in Doha – they are delivered to our door!
Doha is a good backdrop for a virtual meeting, which is all one can hope for this week. We can’t go outside anyway. R. messaged me “It looks like you guys live in a virtual reality.” Exactly
Today, i have a meditation for you. I have pens and a few eggs. So here we go.
I feel badly when i kill an ant. It’s really just that they are a nuisance, not them or me. Maybe that’s how the planet is feeling right now. We have been quite a nuisance.
Lets go over to Frank’s place first. We go to Guintas, the butcher at 9th and Christian.
I just want to pick up a few things, Me, double-parked or riding around the block and Stell in her glory giving the butcher orders Don’t pd the scaloppini too much; I like mine thicker. Half hour later, She ambles out and Frank puts two bags in the trunk.
Thanks, can we go over to Passayunk, I want some ricotta from Phil. We go to Phil Mancoso’s for a quick stop, just 3 pds of ricotta, (he makes the best, in his cellar) Phil comes up through the stair, you know. Ricotta and plat cheese.
OK go down 13th to Ipolito, I want to look at the fish. Good, now a little further down to Dickinson to Faragellis-not many people know this baker, big crusty hard loaves. She is right, as usual.
How about some pie, go over to Ritner, west of Broad. Ok I love that bakery, Potittos. Get a custard cream pie for me. Over we go and she gets a few things.
We head out, but bingo. Canulli’s pork store is just down the block near the Church, (Jan knows the name), and Canulli’s is irresistible, he makes links. 20 minutes later, he sold her on a rolled pork roast, some chops and 3 pounds of sausage, hot and sweet with seeds.
OK that’s enough, no wait, there is a great deli on Jackson,it’s just around the block. I can get some good lunchmeat. Over to I can’t remember the name but it was an Italian married couple who used to import the best stuff, OK Chilionies. I get to go in. Nice load here, and home we go, but. Quick stop, Lance’s for a hard round loaf
At 220 we carry the bags onto the kitchen table. We are not through yet. I sit while Stella displays her bounty, opening all the packages for viewing. I’m the praiser and occasional taster. Look at this veal, nice and pink. Taste the ricotta; Phil makes the best. Cut a little end off the plat cheese while its fresh. She’s an Awful rewrapper.
Oh, I got this supresata from Claudio, that Claude had me laughing, what a great personality. I love that kid. (Sad aside, young Claude committed suicide in the ware-houseover a girl, so the story goes and Stella was heart-broken to hear the news as she knew him as a kid growing up in his father Claudio’s store.)
OK you can go. Take some stuff home, get some sausage and that Taleggio cheese is your favorite. You can’t get that anywhere, so creamy now on a piece of that Faragelli bread.
Ok mom thanks; I’ll call you later. (Nan’s Albee on steroids) April 9th 2020 @ 1:43 AM
When i’m masked up, my iphone can’t unlock with facial recognition. When a masked delivery person comes, we can’t tell what each other is thinking. It’s beyond the language barrier.
We are all missing opportunity to read facial clues –
J says we are built and engineered, like our dogs, to read expressions to communicate. Even to survive. We are wired that way. We are deprived of all that in this time.
In our virtual meetings, we can see each other’s whole faces – that’s why it’s so much more connected. In a virtual work team, participants are seeing other human faces all day, and i can see the positive results of that.
