in the past month i have done 8 flights that lasted more than 6 hours. i have no issues on planes, i have learned how to work, sleep and relax on a plane. i honestly look forward to long flights because they are time where i am disconnected from the world and i can watch DVDs or read books that have piled up, or catch up on sleep that has been lost.
something different happened yesterday, i met a beautiful girl. i have had all kinds of seat mates, the very large african woman who LOUDLY snored her way across the atlantic, the chinese businessman who clearly worried over my “kite runner” sobs or the kid i found asleep at my feet (okay he is mine, but it did kind of freak me out). this was different; we were able to build up a friendship over a few hours.
my new friend was traveling to visit family, she was hesitant at first but warmed up to the point that we were smiling and talking freely at the end. the trick with this, even when you are from different cultures and seemingly have little in common is to listen to the other person and to help them feel comfortable when they do open up. making friends is about finding the common ground that gives you that connection.
i am rested and feel more relaxed over the past week or so. it has allowed me to take time and connect with people. yesterday came from that, i was leaving a new group of friends and i was able to find and make a yet another in a few hours. my newest friend may never enter my life again, i may never see her smile again, but i am glad we found the chance to meet.
this is one of the best parts of travel. there are 6 billon people in the world. taking a few hours and connecting with one of them, finding common ground and being able to make someone you did not know before smile and be happy for a moment is a gift. giving and taking gifts like this are what makes a life worthwhile.
i got a hug and a little kiss at the end of the flight. i wish i had taken a picture, but in the rush of departure i did not get the chance. she is beautiful, and i hope she remembers to smile, because that smile made this one of the best flights i have taken, it be one i will not forget.
prisha, enjoy your life, and remember you are god’s gift.
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love. Show all posts
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Saturday, September 06, 2008
coffee love
i tend to fall into patterns. the patterns of my life are both things that i decide upon and those that are thrust upon me with little or no control. i can refuse to accept some of these, but situation and responsibility come into the decision to break the pattern. other patterns are simple and easy to fall into because the first few times you do them it feels perfect and you find yourself doing it again. these are the patterns that make you who you are. they are the ones that you create for yourself and want to continue even when people question them.
i am in the middle of one of those patterns right now. i am sitting in a café with a bottle of water, a double espresso and blueberry pancake in front of me. when i came to malaysia i would eat local breakfast most days. “dua roti caini, kari ayam dan satu nescafe tarik”, but after about 9 months the desire to have something that felt more familiar came pushing back into my life. i found a bakery and switched to “un café express et un croissant, si vou plait” (only with the owner, otherwise it was back to english, bahasa or burmese i was reading from a book). after another year this also started to lose its ability to satisfy my need to feel at home, and i began to breakfast in my weekend café, the source of my pancakes, even during the week.
in all of this, there is only one constant… coffee. i have moved locations, cuisines and languages used to order (yes, most times english works, but what is the fun in that), but the coffee remains. it remains because at the root of all patterns, of all decisions that someone makes, there must be basic requirements. for me, starting a day requires caffeine. i woke up at 9:30 today, i left the house 4 hours later, it wasn’t until 2 in the afternoon that i got to my coffee, but for me this is the beginning of the day.
i was a coffee fan long before i drank it. i fondly remember my mother, aunts and grandmother sitting in nana’s kitchen, smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee from their saucers. they would pour their fresh perked, steaming hot, coffee onto the saucer and blow on it until they could sip. this was done with conversation and jokes flowing freely. my grandmother was the only quiet person in our family, a typical irish extended family, coming together around a table and laughing, crying or screaming at each other… sometimes all in the space of 20 minutes.
coffee is the drink that i found settled my mind when it is racing. growing up i always struggled with too many random thoughts coming and going as i was trying to focus. focus was hard to find, but came in the form of a bitter tasting black drink that can be had at any time day or night. luckily, it does not affect me by making me jittery… well it can, but it takes 15 shots of espresso a day over an extended period of time to get me there… ask me about the persumma year and i will tell you that it ended with me cutting back on coffee and realizing that everything has it’s limits. what coffee does for me is allow me to relax and settle down into a comfortable groove where my mind seems to flow rather than race. finding a way to feel this comfortable is what people search for their entire lives.
years ago, actually during the pursumma year, i was in line at starbucks, there was a queue 10 people deep, the barista was asking us if anyone wanted an espresso drink. i was in a snobby suburb outside of boston, and still most of them were drinking drip coffee not espresso… the lady in front of me and i both jumped up in line because our espresso drinks were done more quickly. i said to her “we have the perfect addiction”. she looked back at me with the “addiction?” look, but come on… “socially acceptable, cheap, available almost everywhere, easy to make for yourself” (the kids could make a solid latte on the home espresso machine at 8)… this is the kind of addiction you want in your life.
yes, my {beautiful indian} doctor reminds me that i should cut back, starting the day with 4 double espressos while i do email that tends push my day from dead stop to 100 miles an hour could be seen by others as a warning sign… but for me the coffee is the settling ingredient. it lets me focus for the next few hours… until the effects wear off and i start craving diet coke… yes, caffeine but not nearly as potent or enjoyable.
we start relationships with, “would you like to have coffee”. we extend dinners where the conversation is interesting and fun with, “why don’t we have coffee and look at the dessert menu”. we show friendship by remembering how someone takes their morning jolt. we show love by getting up early and making the coffee so we can bring the other person a cup while they shower…. it can be hot or cold, black, white or all the shades in between. everyone, all the way around the world, all levels of society, all races and religions drink coffee. any two people can sit and have a conversation over coffee… coffee is love in a cup.
i do fall into patterns. i do change my mind on things. i make plans and then alter them on the fly based on how i feel at the moment. but the one true constant in my life is that i know what i want right now, and every single morning… she is strong, black and makes me feel great… i love knowing that she is there for me.
i am in the middle of one of those patterns right now. i am sitting in a café with a bottle of water, a double espresso and blueberry pancake in front of me. when i came to malaysia i would eat local breakfast most days. “dua roti caini, kari ayam dan satu nescafe tarik”, but after about 9 months the desire to have something that felt more familiar came pushing back into my life. i found a bakery and switched to “un café express et un croissant, si vou plait” (only with the owner, otherwise it was back to english, bahasa or burmese i was reading from a book). after another year this also started to lose its ability to satisfy my need to feel at home, and i began to breakfast in my weekend café, the source of my pancakes, even during the week.
in all of this, there is only one constant… coffee. i have moved locations, cuisines and languages used to order (yes, most times english works, but what is the fun in that), but the coffee remains. it remains because at the root of all patterns, of all decisions that someone makes, there must be basic requirements. for me, starting a day requires caffeine. i woke up at 9:30 today, i left the house 4 hours later, it wasn’t until 2 in the afternoon that i got to my coffee, but for me this is the beginning of the day.
i was a coffee fan long before i drank it. i fondly remember my mother, aunts and grandmother sitting in nana’s kitchen, smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee from their saucers. they would pour their fresh perked, steaming hot, coffee onto the saucer and blow on it until they could sip. this was done with conversation and jokes flowing freely. my grandmother was the only quiet person in our family, a typical irish extended family, coming together around a table and laughing, crying or screaming at each other… sometimes all in the space of 20 minutes.
coffee is the drink that i found settled my mind when it is racing. growing up i always struggled with too many random thoughts coming and going as i was trying to focus. focus was hard to find, but came in the form of a bitter tasting black drink that can be had at any time day or night. luckily, it does not affect me by making me jittery… well it can, but it takes 15 shots of espresso a day over an extended period of time to get me there… ask me about the persumma year and i will tell you that it ended with me cutting back on coffee and realizing that everything has it’s limits. what coffee does for me is allow me to relax and settle down into a comfortable groove where my mind seems to flow rather than race. finding a way to feel this comfortable is what people search for their entire lives.
years ago, actually during the pursumma year, i was in line at starbucks, there was a queue 10 people deep, the barista was asking us if anyone wanted an espresso drink. i was in a snobby suburb outside of boston, and still most of them were drinking drip coffee not espresso… the lady in front of me and i both jumped up in line because our espresso drinks were done more quickly. i said to her “we have the perfect addiction”. she looked back at me with the “addiction?” look, but come on… “socially acceptable, cheap, available almost everywhere, easy to make for yourself” (the kids could make a solid latte on the home espresso machine at 8)… this is the kind of addiction you want in your life.
yes, my {beautiful indian} doctor reminds me that i should cut back, starting the day with 4 double espressos while i do email that tends push my day from dead stop to 100 miles an hour could be seen by others as a warning sign… but for me the coffee is the settling ingredient. it lets me focus for the next few hours… until the effects wear off and i start craving diet coke… yes, caffeine but not nearly as potent or enjoyable.
we start relationships with, “would you like to have coffee”. we extend dinners where the conversation is interesting and fun with, “why don’t we have coffee and look at the dessert menu”. we show friendship by remembering how someone takes their morning jolt. we show love by getting up early and making the coffee so we can bring the other person a cup while they shower…. it can be hot or cold, black, white or all the shades in between. everyone, all the way around the world, all levels of society, all races and religions drink coffee. any two people can sit and have a conversation over coffee… coffee is love in a cup.
i do fall into patterns. i do change my mind on things. i make plans and then alter them on the fly based on how i feel at the moment. but the one true constant in my life is that i know what i want right now, and every single morning… she is strong, black and makes me feel great… i love knowing that she is there for me.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
unexplained love
i have a friend who has a sister married to a guy known as “the pig”, he is vile, but she still loves him. i know another couple where the wife is beautiful and the husband is a sweet guy, but he is clearly much less of a catch than she is. we all know these relationships, one of the people we like, the other we despise, loath or simply feel sorry for. there is a lack of balance, but for some reason the person we like is in love with this other person. we don’t see it and have no idea why they love the person but they do.
as we go through life there are situations where we just can not understand people’s decisions. the talented kid who takes drugs and destroys their future by getting arrested or by allowing the drugs to take their life over or the adult that makes a stupid choice and allows their career, family or future slip away. we can not understand how this occurs, but we have seen it enough times to know that it does.
the hardest is to watch someone love a person who others see is clearly broken, but to understand that they either can not see it, or that they simply choose to ignore how broken and dangerous the person is for them. this may be one more form of self-destructive behavior, or it may be a sense of clarity that those around them can not appreciate. at times it feels like a car accident in slow motion. the viewer simply stands on the side watching the metal preparing to be twisted and flesh to be torn, but is completely powerless to stop it.
the real taboo subject in life is not politics, sex or religion; it is a friend’s dysfunctional relationship. you go to dinner with them, you talk to them, you listen to their spin on life and you want to shake them and tell them they are clueless with their life. you want to do an intervention and stop them from continuing to make the mistake that everyone around them knows they are making, but you don’t. you can’t, it’s not right for you to have an opinion, and if you do it’s relationship suicide to share it with them. no one likes to accept that they are wrong, and in this case maybe they are not.
we can not see or understand the love someone feels for another. we don’t know why they continue to love a person long after they have proven they do not deserve the love. we can not see the situation, or the other person, with their eyes and heart. we simply need to accept that the world is not ours to control. the relationship has to be allowed to move on its own, the players need to make their own decisions.
people can not look inside our hearts; we may not really be able to look inside our own. we love the people we love, we trust the people we trust. we do not completely understand or control these things. why that person makes us feel this way, and another person, one who may deserve the love more, who may be a better fit for us, who may be in the one who would make us happy for ever, does not get that love is a mystery. we do not completely control it, and we could not explain it.
if life were simple we would not have unexplained love, life would be clear and obvious, but it is not, it is weird and complex. life is not simple, love is less simple. we love the people we love. we need to accept and understand that. the people around us need to do the same, and we need to it for them as well.
as we go through life there are situations where we just can not understand people’s decisions. the talented kid who takes drugs and destroys their future by getting arrested or by allowing the drugs to take their life over or the adult that makes a stupid choice and allows their career, family or future slip away. we can not understand how this occurs, but we have seen it enough times to know that it does.
the hardest is to watch someone love a person who others see is clearly broken, but to understand that they either can not see it, or that they simply choose to ignore how broken and dangerous the person is for them. this may be one more form of self-destructive behavior, or it may be a sense of clarity that those around them can not appreciate. at times it feels like a car accident in slow motion. the viewer simply stands on the side watching the metal preparing to be twisted and flesh to be torn, but is completely powerless to stop it.
the real taboo subject in life is not politics, sex or religion; it is a friend’s dysfunctional relationship. you go to dinner with them, you talk to them, you listen to their spin on life and you want to shake them and tell them they are clueless with their life. you want to do an intervention and stop them from continuing to make the mistake that everyone around them knows they are making, but you don’t. you can’t, it’s not right for you to have an opinion, and if you do it’s relationship suicide to share it with them. no one likes to accept that they are wrong, and in this case maybe they are not.
we can not see or understand the love someone feels for another. we don’t know why they continue to love a person long after they have proven they do not deserve the love. we can not see the situation, or the other person, with their eyes and heart. we simply need to accept that the world is not ours to control. the relationship has to be allowed to move on its own, the players need to make their own decisions.
people can not look inside our hearts; we may not really be able to look inside our own. we love the people we love, we trust the people we trust. we do not completely understand or control these things. why that person makes us feel this way, and another person, one who may deserve the love more, who may be a better fit for us, who may be in the one who would make us happy for ever, does not get that love is a mystery. we do not completely control it, and we could not explain it.
if life were simple we would not have unexplained love, life would be clear and obvious, but it is not, it is weird and complex. life is not simple, love is less simple. we love the people we love. we need to accept and understand that. the people around us need to do the same, and we need to it for them as well.
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