Sometimes "In My Heart" Just Isn't Enough for Me, Maman ...

Goodbyes are inevitable.  

In the ME, in North America, in Europe.  

Goodbyes are a certainty.   

Everyone, at some point, will say their goodbye.  Whether it's casual or final is up to the stars to decide.

No one escapes a goodbye. 

But in the ME ....

"Well, ......"

Even the most casual of goodbyes becomes an event of tragic proportions, particularly as seen through the eyes of an 8-year-old.  

A spoken "goodbye" denotes a potential permanent detachment in even the most  trivial of situations.   

This is because we are living as expatriates in a land where we have no roots.  We do have friends, we have amazing friends ... and we will carry them in our hearts just as we have carried our family HERE in our hearts.

But we have no roots ...  

And our goodbyes are too often final ...

• Your nanny when you were 3?
• She moved back to the Philippines when you were 4.
• Your best friend in Grade 2?
• She never showed up for Grade 3 ... her family moved to America.
• Your favorite teacher?
• She had to move back to Canada mid-year to care for her ailing father.

You may or may not hear from them occasionally after they leave ... it all depends on how solid the relationship was.  

But the fact is your heart will ache.  

And as a child, that ache is all encompassing.  

You are left with your immediate family:  Mom, Dad, and siblings if you're lucky. 

No Uncles and Aunts to confide in, no cousins to depend on, no Grandmother or Grandfather to turn to. 

It's just you ... and Maman and Papa. 

So an old family friend comes to visit for a couple of weeks.  And you have a blast.  And you get spoiled.  And you are so excited to finally tell all your friends and all your teachers that you have someone from 'back home' here to visit you. 

And then after two weeks he says: 

"Goodbye ... "

And you cry.  And I tell you not to worry about it. 

"Just keep him in your heart, where you keep Pepere, and Grandmaman, and everyone else who you love but is far away."  

And you look at me, with your true blue eyes, and say "But Maman, sometimes 'in my heart' just isn't enough for me." 

And I sigh, nod in agreement, and cry just a little inside. 

Thanks for coming to visit, Uncle Shaun, and "aurevoir", "until we meet again".  We will carry you in our hearts, but we really don't want to say "goodbye". 

Safe travels.   

"Aurevoir, ce n'est pas tout-'a-fait Adieu ..." 

Uploaded by Eva Necka on 2011-08-20.

Tom Jones Rocked Doha ...

This is wayyyyyy past due.  But I thought it was worth posting.  Just in case there are any "true blue", "tie-dyed" Tom Jones fans out there. 

Here is a pic from the evening in Doha from Yours Truly ... 

Waiting in line ... proper polite British cue ... no shoving!

Unfortunately I couldn't upload my clips because they are incompatible and too big for SquareSpace and I'm too un-tech savvy to fix the problem.  

But here's the YouTube link to "Tower of Soul" ... which is just one song that makes this man the legend that he is.

All I can tell you is that it was more amazing live....

The man stood on a sweltering beach stage in a turtleneck and blazer belting it out like a teenager.  He was ... 

AMAZING! 

 (And yes, women DID throw their undies at him in the ME!!!!)

Wrestlers in the ME

I just lost an entire blog post ... about something entirely different than this post ... and I got over it.  

Quick.

No use bleeding all over the carpet about it, is there? 

I called Smilin' Vic, who's out with a Canadian friend visiting Doha, and he commiserated as I described the horror of losing a 2-hour diatribe to the viciousness of a Safari Shutdown.

And he was duly empathetic.  Smilin' Vic is the biggest GypsyInTheME supporter ever.  I have to love him for that and so much more.  

After losing all that, after the first time blogging in a while, I didn't feel much like putting any effort into writing. 

I started YouTubing ... and came across "The Wrestler" by Bruce Springsteen.  

And realized that sometimes I'm gonna "leave with less than I had before".  I remembered that doing what I love isn't always about winning.  Sometimes you write well; sometimes you write crap.  Sometimes you lose everything you write.  Sometimes you're just a 'one-handed' writer.

Once in a while, people will like what I have to write.  

And tell me, Friend, "can I ask for anything more?" 

It's so much like our life here. 

We're in the rink.  It's a fight.  We've left everything behind.  We're a 'one trick pony' and we're here to earn what we can off of it.   Every once in a while someone smiles when our "blood, it hits the floor".  But we can't ask for anything more.

We work day in and day out like a "one-armed man punching at the breeze" in the hopes that one day the bruises we display will bring us to that place we want to be.  

We are "the one legged man" he sings of.  Some days we are broken, but we refuse to be defeated.  At the end of the day, we are doing what we know.  Broken bones and bruises we display.  A one-legged duo trying to dance its way free ...  

Sad, but true.  

Not so sad, actually.  We're doing what we know, what we can, to make a life, to make a living, to wrestle our way to freedom ...

"Have you ever seen ... a one-legged dog makin' its way down the street?"   That's us, slightly broken, but making our way home ...

We've pushed away the comfort ... we proudly display the broken bones and bruises, and one day they'll bring us home.

One lost post won't break me .... nor will life in the ME ... 

Our blood will hit the floor, we'll be bruised, we might not be graceful ... but we'll make it.  It's the wrestler in us, wrestlers in the ME... 

OFFICIAL SONG - HQ WINNER OF BEST SONG @ THE GOLDEN GLOBES Snubbed from the 81st/2008 Academy Awards/Oscars... Bruce Springsteen wrote it as a gift for Mickey Rourke, in Darren Aronofsky's THE WRESTLER. **I cut out some of the opening because it goes on for a while.

Giving Thanks as a Canadian in the ME ...

I'd actually forgotten it was Canadian Thanksgiving.  Forgotten to say thank you.  Forgotten to appreciate.  That happens sometimes, when you're far away, thinking about yourself, about your reality.  When your view of the world, your perception, becomes your reality. And you forget about the rest.

But I've remembered now (thank goodness we had a Canadian friend visiting to remind us)!  And I'm thankful for that friend.  Thankful for him being here, thankful for him reminding us. 

We didn't have a turkey dinner.  We had pork ribs and potatoes in front of TV watching Home Alone with Kiddo.  I'm thankful for pork in Qatar .... I'm thankful for Kiddo.  I'm thankful for family.  I'm thankful for movie night. 

I called my two sisters.  I reached one on Skype.  I'm thankful for Skype.

I called my best friend in Canada.  She wasn't home.  But I discovered video messaging on Skype and left her a message.  I'm thankful for video messaging on Skype.

I just kissed Smilin' Vic good night.  He's been working about twenty days straight.  I am so thankful for Smilin' Vic. 

I called my Dad.  He has a bad cold, but he's ok, and he remembered me.  I'm thankful for that.

I found a kick-@$$ pair of heels on sale today.  Thankful for anything strappy that adds inches to my legs!

There's no traffic right now in Doha because it's Eid, so roads are empty.  Soooo thankful!!!!

I got time today to catch up on my favorite blogs ... You know who you are!  So thankful for my blogging buddies who keep me entertained.

Watched my kitty cat snuggle with anyone who was willing today.  Thankful we decided to be irresponsible and get a pet in the ME!

I'm thankful for health, happiness, good jobs, good school, good friends, good laughs, good times ...

Sat down and started to blog ....

Thankful.

Just thankful in the ME.

Crazy Makes Me Come Alive; Constants Keeps Me Sane

Wow, it's been a while ... 

Sitting at my computer, clicking on my blog ... it almost feels like I'm stepping back in time, like I'm visiting my childhood home.  It's been too long.  It feels good; feels like home, feels comfortable now that I've wriggled my butt back into the familiar imprint of my office chair.

Life is crazy right now, but that's ok.  It's sometimes the crazy that truly makes us come alive. 

A lot's been going on these days, but some things are constant ... The constants are what keep us sane. 

September 1, 2013

Take, for example, my very Canadian habit of commenting on the weather EVERY DAY.  That hasn't changed.  After seven years in a country where it takes months for the mercury to budge one single degree, that HASN'T changed.  

I still Google the weather every day, step outdoors to check the weather early every morning, and comment to Smilin' Vic on the weather EVERY SINGLE DAY.

It's in my blood to live my life according to the weather.  I hail from a land where the weather can shift 20C in the space of 24 hours.  I remember one specific Saturday in May on the North Shore of New Brunswick where we basked on the deck in shorts and sandals.  

The next day, Mother's Day, the second Sunday in May, we headed outdoors to find the BBQ buried under a foot of snow.  That's the year my mom had Mother's Day stew instead of BBQ.  

September 5, 2013

The next morning, after the snow had melted, a good twenty minutes were expended griping about the weather by the water cooler.  It's just the Canadian thing to do ... talk about the weather.  We lament the rain on a friend's wedding day, we celebrate the snow on Christmas Eve, we rejoice about tulips blooming early in spring, we take in every single moment of heat and sunshine we get.  It's how Canadians break the ice, it's how we bond, it's how we make up ... We simply talk about the weather.  The constance of talking about the crazy keeps us sane.

In Qatar, the weather barely changes.  Though I check the weather daily, it would be pushing it a bit to actually "talk" about it.  

The conversation in July would go something like this: 

Me:  "So, what's the weather looking like tomorrow? 

Nameless/Faceless Person:  "Uhmmmm, hot and humid?" 

In November: 

Me:  "Soooo, what's the weather forecast for tomorrow? "

Nameless/Faceless Person:  "Uhmmmm, hot and foggy?" 

In March: 

Me:  "Sooooooooo, what kind of weather are we expecting tomorrow?" 

Nameless/Faceless Person:  "Uhmmmmmm, hot and dusty?" 

In May: 

Me:  "Sooooooooooooo, what's the weather looking like tomorrow?" 

Nameless/Faceless Person:  "For goodness sakes woman, it's been a year!  Nothing changes.  Get over it.  It will be hot, hot, hot, HOT! .... ... ... and maybe windy..." 

September 10, 2013

Yet I can't get over my fixation with the weather.  It's an almost superstitious conviction that if I stop thinking about the weather I will forget who I am and where I come from.  It's as if my obsession with the weather keeps me grounded.

It's felt even more so over the last few weeks when dropping Kiddo off at school.

Every weekday as I make my way to the school gate, I make sure I take a moment to stop and look the crossing guards and security guards square in the eyes to wish them good morning.  Why?  Because I've checked the weather.  I know it's already 34C at 7:00 a.m.  I realize that my daughter is the reason they must stand there for over an hour in the scorching heat and glaring sun with beads of sweat glistening on their ebony brows.  And while many drivers are cursing them out for slowing traffic and some parents grow frustrated because they make everyone cross 'exactly' at the crosswalk, I remind myself how very very hot and miserable they must be under that safety jacket and smile.  

That's when Canadian fixation with the weather translates into

empathy.

September 11, 2013

Every week when I go fill the car up with gas, I leave a big fat tip for the gas attendant.  He stands there, day in and day out, breathing in nauseating petrol fumes and enduring not only the heat from the sun and the pavement, but also that which is reflected off the hood of my car, and that which is pulsating from the revving, overheating engines that file by endlessly throughout the day.  I look at that gas attendant and see an old man whose bones ache, whose heart aches for the family he's left behind on the Subcontinent, whose spirit is broken by the blaring horns of drivers impatient to get on with their day and oblivious to his suffering.  On really hot days, my tip might equal the cost of my gas (gas is very cheap here ... as is labour).

That's when the Canadian fixation with the weather translates into

compassion.

September 23, 2013

Every day as I battle the Doha traffic congestion brought about by a massive municipal road construction project, I urge myself to be patient.  Because as I sit there fuming in my air-conditioned SUV, police officers stand at the roundabouts that pepper the downtown for hours on end, directing traffic, inhaling the fumes of thousands of vehicles, enduring the toxic stench and defying the heat.  I've yet to see one collapse or go postal (guaranteed I'd be doing so after 15 minutes under that sun).

That's when Canadian fixation with the weather translates into

respect.

September 24, 2013

Every day that I see the weather edge down a single degree, I thank goodness.  Every day that I see the humidity going down, I say a silent prayer of thanks (and not just because the frizzy hair season is almost behind us).  Pool temperatures are dipping below 35C, a day at the beach is almost fathomable, morning runs are almost pleasant, evenings in the back yard sipping on wine are just around the corner.  A matter of 4C and 30% humidity variance.  Yet it makes all the difference in the world.

That's when Canadian fixation with the weather translates into

appreciation. 

That's when it doesn't seem so silly to be so concerned with the weather. 

September 26, 2013 (a.m.)

I'm not a great person.  I have many failings.  Too many to count.  But somehow being a weather tracker makes me want to be a better person.  

That doesn't mean I'll be chatting about the weather 'round the water cooler at work any time soon.  Nope, when I go into work on Sunday, my first twenty minutes will be spent around the water cooler talking about

traffic. 

Because we're in Qatar.  Where traffic is crazy;  where conversation about traffic is constant. 

Crazy makes us come alive.  

Constants keep us sane ... 

September 26, 2013 (p.m.)  Actually sat outside wearing a hoodie!  How far I've risen (from an all-time low of -41C + windchill to an all-time high of 50C + humidity).