Monthly Archives: October 2013

Until the New Normal

We tell stories to make sense of the world and our lives. We make stories because we want them mean something to us. A good story has to do with describing a journey. All good stories have a character that has to change.

In that way, we are all intellectually simple in that we do like a beginning, a middle and end. A beginning which is normal. The middle, which is the change and challenge. And the end, which is the new normal. Underlying songs during the change and challenge help forming the new normal. So here are a few songs …

– Banshee, Kendra Morris
– A Shadow, n*grandjean
– Raggamuffin, Selah Sue
– J’me Tire, Maitre Gims

… until the new normal, when I won’t listen to these anymore.

The Sun-Dried Man

This is not a love story. This post isn’t trying to tell another tale of boy meets girl, either. This is a true story about a childhood friend who taught me a thing or two about life.

Mo was tall, dark, and handsome in a way that no one could dispute the qualities. He was a smooth and gentle man who got involved in conversations being armed with charm but no dialogue. During gatherings he used to plant his feet evenly to hold himself erect and his body still. His face appeared a bit wrinkled with dry skin as if he had been exposed to the sun for too long. Although he had inviting hazel eyes, he always tended to look away from people. His long battle against stuttering made him selective about getting engaged with strangers. Mo was the only guy who could get a PG-13 rating and still say “Fuck You”. He carried veiled sadness and dreamy vulnerability that had to do with the pain of being sincere at heart.

On a warm day when the sun had an overbearingly exposing presence, Mo met Bita around the place where he used to hang out with me. Bita had a measured and purposeful walking style that made her more attractive. She used to walk as if she was pausing and thinking about each step. I remember; every time I looked at her, I had an involuntarily thought that honked “fuck, she’s gorgeous”. Bita seemed honest. But her brand of honesty was prophylactic. The most pronounced attribute of hers was her pride, which showed itself in the form of relating every conversation to her experiences. Her most used phrase involved “I’ve always been around fantastic people.”

Mo and Bita went through the whole cycle of falling in love, breaking up, deciding to get married, and eventually separating for good –during the 18 months they were in a relationship. I recall; Mo was deeply hurt after their separation, but his feelings for Bita had been clouded long before they separated. Mo knew he couldn’t accept her view of “happy life”. He also believed the timing and circumstances were not right because he was a struggling processional athlete. In fact, one day Mo confided in me and expressed his reasoning to stay in the relationship for as long as he did. He said that he could never convince himself to be the one to end the relationship. Because he couldn’t bear the consequences or the potential damage to Bita’s pride. The phrase he used was “She needs to continue feeling flawless”. So Mo waited intentionally for Bita to bring up the idea of breaking up. This is one of those things that no one could understand or follow these days because we live in such rugged-man society where the acts of selflessness, greatness, and empathy sound cowardice.

Years passed. Bita got married to another man and moved to Toronto. I briefly met her during the summer of 2011 when she still felt the need to remind me of her view of the relationship by saying, “It was a life changing relationship but I had to end it”.

Mo died last week. He lived a hard life with all that he went through -from his unfinished career as an athlete –to his daily struggle of connecting with people. That’s why mortality never fazed him. He was always interested in the thing that happens where there is a breaking point for some people and not for others. For him, it was utterly important to let go of his ego when it came to giving, forgiving, and love. He passed away, and never mentioned a word about what went on in that ordeal of a relationship. In his view, it was all part of the deal.

In loving memory of Mo Shojaee…

Eyebrows

Eyebrows are counterfactual. Like shoes, you don’t notice eyebrows unless they are particularly right or tragically wrong. As someone who has spent many years in an intense relationship with his own intentional brows, I’ve come to realize that they are not trivial. Eyebrows matter. In a sense, eyebrows serve the face’s highest function — that of communication, intention, and more importantly seduction. Eyebrows show interest, engagement and understanding. Raising, furrowing or shifting them ever so slightly registers and interchanges attention.

Incidentally (or not), all of those attributes are important elements of expressive personalities. Expressive people are context-lover, storyteller, competitive, and exaggerator. Expressive personalities consider emotions as well as the facts. For them, respect stands higher than fairness, spirited is better than considerate, popular sits on higher ground than peaceful. Expressive people have an active role in conversations. They just don’t sit on the side and take notes. They can’t bear misunderstanding.

Expressions have some downsides. Expression inherently contests impassivity. Any measured behavior that requires absence of emotions contrasts expression. If you’re expressive, you can’t hide feelings and you’re in need of telling your story. That will eventually come back to haunt you. These days, such incongruities are all too common. Frequently, I blame my expressiveness on my eyebrows. But great eyebrows are not easy to come by, because you can’t have great eyebrows by just leaving them alone.

In Bruges

Lily is someone I’ve known since I learned to know people. She’s lives in Bruges around St. Gilles neighborhood. Until several years ago there were few reasons for anyone to include St. Gilles neighborhood in their plans for anything but that changed. Young restaurateurs, artists, and fashionistas have settled in and dubbed the area as “Saint-Gilles”. That’s about the time when Lily moved to the neighborhood.

Lily is generally an honest person. She always speaks her mind and does not care how she might be perceived by others. She is regarded by people around her as a stranger -due to her aptitude in maintaining indifference. That makes lily appear tough and resilient to some.

There is a captivating story about Lily that still provokes a lot of unchecked feelings in me. Several years ago and during one of my visits to Bruges, she had learned of her father’s death right before I arrived in Bruges, but she decided to withhold the news from me. And shortly after I left Bruges, I learned about the news myself. At first, Lily’s indifference throughout my visit struck me as her deep emotional detachment from the environment and circumstance. But after a while the thought changed to something else.

The problem with withholding information from people who would otherwise react in response, is a complicated one. On the one hand, the act may not be a lie but the one who does it, inherently suggests a moral superiority that sounds like “I decide whether you can deal with this information”. On the other hand, there are circumstances where cherished values might end up being at odds with each other. In this case, I’m guessing honesty and hospitality were the values that intersected. Ultimately, Lily’s unilateral decision did create some misunderstanding and confusion between two cousins.