NOTE: This is another post found in my drafts - I continue to have high expectations and am not sure if they have been met by those around me. I have begun to be a bit of a cynic but at the same time I recognize if I could experience the hope I did where and when I did on my 2009 journey to Africa, then I know we here, with our marginal problems, can find true, endless, burdenfree joy.
Perfect Imperfection
Monday, November 19, 2012
True Love is Inexhaustible, the more you give, the more you are given...
Quarter Life Crisis?
NOTE:I foudn this blog in my drafts and chose to publish it as is. Some things have changed - I LOVE TEACHING. I am working on a phd and love my students and my school. I excel at school still and think it may be one of the many avenues I use to make change. I have a new found resolve in what I do.
Just sitting here
I sit here with chills running up and down my body. My good ear (see my blog Living With Herbert for details on why I have a good ear and a bad ear now) throbbing strangely, inciting the fear that what remains of my normalcy may disappear. So I sit here and think, what is normal. Who gets to decide? I certainly don't, at least not for myself any more.
Then I realize how perfectly fitting my blog name is for me now. I am perfectly imperfect. There is not a thing about me that is not tragically flawed, and that is me and I am okay with me. I'm just sitting here, surrounded by stuff, surrounded by things that cannot fill the void in my heart. A brain tumor. I have a brain tumor. WTF. How did this happen? None of the stuff makes it better. It makes life seem that much more urgent. I think of my friends - do they know I love them? Should I cut those I don't? Worse yet, do I cut out the friends who I loved fully and never returned my joy, my love, my friendship? Will he commit to me? Will I end up alone? Will I have the strength to walk tall and alone? Will I even ever need to have that strength? Will I stand alongside those people who share my beliefs and stand up to those who don't? Will I stop being such a door mat? I'm not a door mat. I'm just me. I'm okay with me.
It's weird, to let the clutter fade and just sit here, alone, with thoughts that arguable don't make any sense. I am regularly contradicting myself. I consistently, even here, in this place and moment of expression, shield my thoughts in anticipation of judgement or backlash. I'm the doormat on the inside of your door, the one you walk on so your feet don't get cold when you take your shoes off on the cold tile. I suppose that is better than a regular doormat. Who knows. What the hell am I even talking about????
Peace - Samira
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Working on good
Recently I have been stricken by some health issues and my tolerance for so many things have diminished. I am less patient, less forgiving but also so much more loyal, quick to smile, and ready to laugh, joke and love. I have been relying heavily on the people around me, often not even realizing that is what I am doing. I have found some semblance of normal in the face of transition but I know that my focus has diminished, my work suffered and my heart often hurts.
It is in these moments that I remember a lesson I learned from one of the most amazing women I have ever known, Kimra. She once asked me how I was doing and I said fine. She looked at me and asked again how I was doing. With tears in my eyes I uttered that I was fine. She told me it was okay to be honest. That is was okay to want to be fine or good but not be there yet. It was okay to be working on good. That's what I am now, I am working on good. I am not there all the time but I am so close on so many days. Often times I am GREAT and those days push me through the less favorable ones.
We live in a society where appearances mean so much. Who we are is so tied to who we portray ourselves as. Our persona is almost as important as the true honest personality inside. In this society it is often hard to remember that we are infallible. That we are always learning. That we are pushing through to new levels of growth, love, respect and accountability. We are walking along side one another on a path to understanding. So it is okay not to understand it all right away.
In past posts I have talked about love, life and death and I have talked about my work that focuses on change and progress for women around the world, but I never was okay with having a down day. I was always so intent on the optimistic point of view that I rarely recognized the healing process. Here and now, I recognize that the journey is beautiful even when it is hard. As Kimra always says, joy for the journey. As I continue on my journey I am working on good but in every day, every minute and every second I am finding more joy than any one journey should allow. This is how we work on good. This is how we make it to tomorrow, by loving what we have in front of us today.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Back in Business?
Maybe I should have just gone to film school...or Africa....or both...
Sunday, September 26, 2010
On Family, In Sadness
Thursday, April 8, 2010
A kid who caught the travel bug? Or a young humanitarian injecting passion into life
I love to travel. I love to learn. I love to travel and learn. Some think I am a young girl that simply caught the travel bug. I saw glimpses of the world through travel with my parents from a young age and it appears that I seek to see the world and be a tourist. It is, in reality much more than that. I am a student of the world. I see in our world the eixtence of extremes. Where there are the extremely rich, there are the extremely poor. Where there are the radical leftists there can be found the radical conservatives. In the West or "Global North" I see in these extremes the excesses of privileged lives. We often see our lives as mundane despite the existence of multiple outlets for creativity, resources for change and really just an abundant amount of "stuff" to do. We create boredom because there is nothing on tv, no good songs on the radio and no one is tweeting anything new. We forget the roots of who we are and struggle to fill our days with meaning. We forget that our geography or our skin tone have contributed and created our success.
So why do I seek to travel, to work with new cultures, to understand their lives, their stories, their pain, their humanity?
I see in them my family, my story, my hopes and my dreams. My parents were not given any gifts by their geography. They were born in Iran and created their destiny by changing their geographical location (at least that's my perception). What is it about where we are born or live that dictates our lives? Without rights, freedoms and resources there can be little hope to see entrepreneurial spirits grow so ambition is replaced with poverty and desire with violence. It is a choice to change this but a choice that is not available to most. For a world where most of the wealth is in the hands of the fewest we must look critically at ourselves and understand why we are the way we are. We must see our flaws, our vices, our racisms, our judgements and instead of denying them try to understand why they exist.
This is why I travel. I am not naive, I realize that I cannot save the whole of Africa or Latin America, nor do I wish to. What I want is to share the stories of those we do not understand and foster that understanding. Perhaps an example will better explain what I mean...
I miss Africa. I spent only 19 days in Uganda and Rwanda. I miss it everyday.
I miss the pulse of the streets and the red dirt. Some stories say that the red earth is a result of the blood spilled by the African people over lifetimes of conflict. Others maintain that the red earth is the blood of humanity, the clay that created human life. You can feel those stories in the ground and it beats through you and creates a oneness with the world. I miss the genuine nature of a people whose history is often denied. I miss the contradictions of religion and service found in the organizations that advocate change. I miss the stories of pain, triumph, heartache, loss, success, love, fear, retribution, endurance. I miss the stories of life. The stories we in the West have often become too jaded to share. I miss the stories of life that don't involve cell phones, hot fashions or celebrity gossip. I want to see real life the way it is lived throughout the world and I want to use that to make our life, in our home stronger, more understanding and richer in humanity.
I want to see all fo the world, the pretty, the ugly and the in between and learn from it. I want to see racism, I want it to knock me down and hit me in the face like a sharp and biting wind so that I can get up stronger and more prepared. I want to sit with those plagued by poverty and even if I cannot stand along side them and understand their lives I can help them see their value and they can help me see mine. I want to see loss and feel resilience and share loss and resilience in my own life. I want to share stories and bring them back with me and by giving a voice to things we don't understand, maybe we'll be more willing, as a society to learn.
I am overly idealistic and maybe it is that I am entitled. Maybe it is that I am a pretentious child of privilege enacting that status by acting as a "saviour" of sorts. Or, maybe thats your perception. Maybe it's bigger than that. Maybe I am afraid and in that fear I find life. In the discomfort that comes from being out of my comfort zone I feel alive. It is in those moments that I really feel and allow others to feel with me. It is in those moments my pain and my loss is one with that of my brothers and sisters of choice around the world. It is in those moments, stripped of convenience and judgement that I can learn, I can teach and I can create change alongside those who choose to be advocates of hope with me.
I don't travel to see, I travel to immerse. My parents taught me a long time ago that the world is bigger than me and my needs, my wants and my desires. They taught me to care about people. Little did they know I would consider all the world people worth caring for. It's more than the travel bug, it's a change we can believe in.