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
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?
As the classic privileged American, i didn’t appreciate how fragile the things we have are and elsewhere. Nor did i grasp, as lock down and pandemic realities set in on that same day, how precious and irreplaceable something could be once broken. The brand name for the delicate appliances that are common here is Candy. I should have been more gentle with her. We spent a lot of time trying to fix Candy.
I started to fantasize about breaking into one of the many empty flats surrounding us so that I could steal one of those unused drivers.
Would that be stealing or looting or is it just being smart?
The maintenance guy for our building, B, is from Ghana. He had heard Jimmy playing Felakuti and they had become friendly. Our building management had been moving B to different accommodations every night due to parts of the industrial are being shut down to contain Covid19. He was now housed in our compound, and so we were able to reach him. J played guitar while B was over and wants to take lessons with him.
In the end, Candy could not be saved.
A few hours later, B brought in a new Candy and popped her in the laundry closet. Candy 2 came from one of the neighboring empty flats. People here don’t need things to last because we can always just get a new one. Who knows if that’s in peril. Thank you, B!
Our car make is a Cherry. I call her Cherrybomb. From the Honeypot to Ch-ch-ch-Cherrybomb!
Welcome to the Great Adjustment. It’s a timid, new world.
When my husband and i took the decision to accept employment in Doha, working on the FIFA World Cup, it was still the pre-COVID 19 era. At least as far as any of us knew. J went ahead and i stayed back in the US until the onerous task of preparing our two dogs for import was accomplished. By the time i flew in, i knew the act of getting to J could life threatening in itself. In consult with family and friends, we had all decided i should make a go of it. More on the trip later.
I got off the plane in Doha on 15 March 2020. A long-awaited reunion with J and the puppies. Within 2 hours of clearing customs and claiming luggage, the announcement came that flights out would cease in a few days. The world was closing in around us. All of us.
My father in New Jersey had just begun chemoradiation therapy. I had planned to go help care for him in a few weeks, after setting up our new flat in Doha. Things had changed and were about to change more than we had dreamed. I had made it. ‘Hard to know what that would mean.
So i’m here. In Doha. In Qatar. In Quarantine.
Isn’t it weird to be starting a life (or trying to) when everything is ending?
“That’s what humans do,” says J. “We find a way. It’s cold? Let me find some clothes. It’s hot, let me build shed or a system to cool. I’m hungry? Let me kill something.”
Like ants, i thought. We find a way. Like ants in the sand.
