Normal doesn't exist

Growing up my family was far from "normal". We had a pet peacock that lived in the house until it was so big its' attempts to share my dinner by flying through the air were so disruptive we asked that it move outside. I accepted as a child that my parents were not like everyone else. They had oddities that were only normal in the mainstream of the 1970's granola movement. I put brewer's yeast on my popcorn and was forced to rinse out plastic bags to avoid over consumption. As an adult I came to enjoy the eccentricity of my family and embrace my own. The very fact that any behavior is considered abnormal in our society by definition highlights that most people think there is a normal. Anyone who has ever taken introduction to anthropology in college would be introduced to the concept of cultural relativism in the first few days of class. This concept is basic terms means, there is no normal. This may seem simple but most of the world fights hard to hang on to their own definition of normal. Whether it is arguing against gay marriage or enforcing dress codes at work or in school, everywhere you look normal is trying to be upheld by the masses. The great thing about travel is that it breaks down your own sense of normal when you arrive somewhere where normal for everyone else is alien to you. As an adult I feel much more at home in places where my strangeness s is openly acknowledged and attributed to my status as a foreigner.
The challenge and the slippery slope in this concept is holding on to anything that is right or wrong. Once you spend long enough in another culture your definitions shift and soon things that felt totally ridiculous seem acceptable. In America if I go to the post office I stand in line. If I pushed my way to the front of the line I would be thrown out or at least verbally acausted. Here I must push my way to the front if I have any hope of getting served and I shall not feel upset nor put upon if someone else beats me at this game. This is just one example of how travel changes you. The neat reality that was fed to you from birth becomes broken and suddenly your definition of how things should be (a family, a job, a life) start to change. I can't stop this crumbling of my reality, as I inside am changing. I am now totally ok eating dinner with my fingers (despite this being frowned upon in my native land) and I wouldn't dream wearing shoes in the dentists office. Culture affects us, normal changes, normal never existed to begin with.

Antidote to modern day slavery.... meet your maker

I recently watched the movie "the help" that nicely chronicled post slavery in the south as it morphed into paid underclass labor. This movie was an excellent depiction of this era but also offered a form of nostalgia that seemed to indicate we are past that. There is a sense that now in this new era of a black American president, we as a nation and a world no longer have to deal with such realities. This strikes me as a fallacy that deserves shining sunlight on. I live in a "developing nation" although it is frequently disguised to visitors as a tropical paradise. What this means in real terms is a country that was previously going about its business of life and its simple forms of happiness. Time with family, growing enough food to feed them and practicing worship of whatever god they imagined for themselves were all that was needed here. On the other side of the world people who spent their time collecting things (cars, houses, wall to wall carpeting) discovered that these people could be told they needed more than this simple happiness and in doing so could be nicely convinced to labor for what was known by early socialist as the eating class (those of us in the western world). Now if all this seems like a strange story to you, than you may not realize that you in fact are on a global scale part of the class of people who has the luxury of slaves. Slaves you say? yes, I am not mincing words. Modern day slavery mostly is not the sort that chains people with metal and forces them to work with out pay. Modern day slavery usually means invisible handcuffs that will starving people to a life that does not belong to them. If you think the people making your i-phone in that factory in china want that life than you should consider trading with them.
As I sit and type this I have the pleasure of looking out of fields of green that flow all the way down to the sea. A rice farmer is working the land in front of me. It is his land. he works hard for that rice. He does so on his time and still sees his family grow. This is hard work but it is dignified work and it is his work. He is fit, spends his days outside and always greets you with a smile. Put that man in a factory and he may see more actual dollars every month but he will surely loose much of the freedom he has now. Much of the worlds farmland is no longer run by farmers like him who own their land and work it with pride but are forced to work someone else land for a very small amount of money. I do not wish to make you or me feel guilty for our i-phones or to feel the need to become a farmer, but as we sip our tea, eat our rice or check our email on it is worth acknowledging the system of slavery we are participating in. Is there a way out? I think so. Meet the maker. This may not help your technology fix but it does work for most things. Shake hands with the person who makes your goods. If you can do this you are supporting a life worth living. This person is their own boss, they work hard at what they do and you can reward this quality and their ability to live a life they choose. this is freedom. This is what should be fought for. War is not needed, only you can do this every day in everything you do. Every dollar is a vote. don't vote for slavery. Here is one example of some people who are making it happen. http://modernartisanal.com/about/  Do you know some others? Tell me about them in the comments.

I Can't and other lies...

Today, I went to pick up a batik print I was having commissioned and had patiently awaited for weeks. The artist, a lovely Indonesian woman in her mid 30's smiled a tentative apologetic smile when I walked in the door and told me she couldn't do the work. It was too difficult. I saw her efforts and recognized their near perfection. I encouraged her that she had really done a fantastic job, but she felt it could not be done. I was asking for a small geometric shape to be drawn (actually traced on fabric). This shape paled in comparison to the enormous perfectly formed Lilly that she hand drew every day. She could only every draw a Lilly she informed me. I was disappointed but relieved she was willing to say "I can't" instead of just ignoring the situation. In most Asian cultures attempting things outside ones comfort zone is frowned upon. People don't want to do what they can't already do and most won't tell you, they just avoid contact or tell a tale of death in the family. Most  people have skills carefully mastered in childhood. This may be a cultural element of Asian life but is also very human. The feeling of "can't" when attempting new things or things that are outside your comfort zone are part of life. What we do with those feelings are what make us each unique.
When I picked up my nine year old son from school he melted into tears telling me he couldn't do long division. He explained that there was no fixing it, he was just terrible at it. He described this deficiency as if it was a birth defect. I know as his mother and someone who once felt the same way about math that it will pass. He will practice until it feels doable and then it will no longer be important. What I am equally sure of is that there will be some other impossible task to replace it. I am telling this story and repeating the images in my head as a reminder for myself. At the age of nearly forty I am working out of my comfort zone, I have what feel like no mastered skills and I am fighting to feel good at anything I do. I still daily find tasks or whole realities that I want to conquer (or don't) and feel they are impossible for me. Things that I see others do with ease are un-crack-able walls of difficulty that torment me to climb them or insist I walk away crying. I am choosing to climb. As I do, I hold my child in my mind and remember his struggles crawling. His frustrated fists pushing forward as he drug is body in combat crawl mode across the floor. After that there were weeks where he wanted me to hold his hands as he tried walking across the park and wouldn't let go because he might fall. He now walks, jumps and is working hard on long division. Having someone to hold your hand while you learn to walk is a blessing, but having the courage to let go, to fall down, and to keep getting up is vital if you want to draw more than a Lilly. I want more than a Lilly. I will forgive myself when I fall. I will keep getting up.

Wherever you go, there you are.

When you strip everything else away, what is left? I ran away to a tropical island. I left naked of my possessions, I ditched it all and said farewell to the world in which all good adults should live. I came to never never land. I left the security of the reality that keeps us going day after day and blindly embraced the unknown. Now is the after part, the part where paradise and happily ever after merge in what is usually known as the end of the book.
A tropical island has a way of stripping away the trappings of a life. I wake up every morning to balmy warmth, the sound of roosters and time and empty space that begs filling, adorning or at the very least contemplating. The minute ritualistic distractions of city life that keep even the most miserable among us busy with the daily habits of sipping white chocolate mocha's, paying the cable bill, and ushering kids to karate are gone in one fell swoop.
After 15 years in a marriage and having narrowly escaped the drudgery of modern life I am left with the this empty space. I am left to ponder the pattern of yes and no answers I am responsible for having shaped my life. I am left to uncover layer by layer the elephants left languidly sleeping in the room who despite their size where easily obscured by nearly a decade of modern adult life. Now we are just us here, the palm trees sway, the geckos chirp and in this peace the reality and truth settle like a cold cloud around my shoulders. I can now honor and weep with my afraid to be alone twenty year old self who spent most of her adult life obscuring sad realities with the business of life. Once you have run away from home, you cannot do so again you have to face yourself in the mirror and understand what is good and what needs fixing. This is where I stand now. Alone in front of the mirror contemplating what to fix, what to break and what to make gentle peace with.