May 3, 2010

I have been dropped into a false reality, or so my senses conclude. There is nothing but cleanliness and seclusion, technology and illusion. Pretty people adorned with pretty things living in a pretty place without any sort of contrasting dimensional space. How do I reason with this culture I am told to embrace for its familiarity when I find it difficult to even open my eyes? I can't get myself to open my closet and really see what fills the shelves. I am wearing only clothes out of my suitcase all of which fulfill the modesty standards of the Middle East-definitely not that of sunny California. I can't get myself to listen to conversations of petty pleasures followed by offensive language and enthusiastic comments for immoral behavior on television, all of which i never thought twice about 6 months ago. Where is the community? Where are the men sitting in ahwas talking day in and day out about life and its nature? Where are the women gathered together in the home behind walls of social norms who smile and dance to the beats of Arabia without a veil to stop them? Where is the call to prayer? And the presence of God before everything? I cant seem to hear it from my bedroom anymore. Perhaps the microphone is broken, the Imam is whispering or I am sleeping too soundly in the consciousness of a culture I am supposed to know but cant seem to remember anything about.