The last post was a story. You wanted tips? Okay, then. Tips you get. I’m happy to oblige as we are living in an age of an ongoing courtesy crisis. These are basic and simple concepts, yet seem so beyond the grasp of many moderns. Because the situation is so bleak, it’s not that hard to impress a woman these days. Some basic guidelines:

♦ If you are interested in a woman, ask her out somewhere specific. As you are inviting her to be your guest, you pay. This is not sexist or backward. In fact, it is gender neutral. When asking someone to be your guest, man or woman, etiquette dictates that you pay. Ask her somewhere specific, and somewhere you enjoy. Dinner, theater, a concert, coffee, whatever—an activity that you enjoy and would like your chosen company to enjoy. Do not ask her if she wants to hang out. She is not your buddy and shouldn’t be treated as such.

♦ If she says no but seemed regretful and open to future plans, give it a week and ask her to do something else. A third time is pushing it. A forth time is out of the question. Respect no. She doesn’t have to give a you a reason. If she states that she’s taken, or declines for any other reason, no need for embarrassment or weirdness. Smile gently, say, “What a pity,” and make a graceful exit. She’ll wonder what she was missing.

♦ When asking a woman out, call her. Maybe email her. Do not text her. Do not text a woman, in fact, until you are married to her.

♦ When with a woman, do not, under any circumstance, engage in cell phone performance art. Do not touch your cell phone/iphone/gadget for any reason. Most especially, do not engage in conversation with someone else while she has to look away and pretend not to be embarrassed by your rudeness. Having a theatrical conversation with someone else to prove your popularity, worth, or importance (cell phone performance art) proves the opposite to any woman of substance. You will lose her.

♦ Be kind. Call when you say you will call. Do not be too eager, but do not be aloof. If you don’t want a woman who plays games, don’t play games yourself.

♦ Do not dump your psychological problems on a woman as a matter of introduction, and do not encourage her to dump on you. A bit of mystery goes a long way in romance. (Thank you, Judith Martin.)

♦ Mystery along the lines of unmentioned wives, children, allegedly monogamous relationships and the ilk (i.e. lies) squelch romance and are unacceptable.

♦ Do not flirt with or check out other women (or men) while you are with her.

♦ Do not speak unkindly to or about others. She will wonder not if, but when, she is next.

♦ Do not behave as if something is owed you on the third date, or at any other time. Where this third date idea came from is beyond my realm of comprehension. Behave as if you’ve never heard of it yourself. If things are meant to progress, let them progress naturally between adults, and not on some bizarre sex-in-the-city timeline.

Well, that’s it from the top of my head. Rereading the list, it applies to all genders and orientations. Tips for the courteous pursuer, if you like.

Comments/discussion/anything I’ve left out is more than welcome.

…

At this point I was walking behind a guy in his early forties with a boy of about four. Judgment brain clicked on as I took in the tattoo on his lovely deltoid and his Britney Spears Tour 2005 t-shirt. On the Upper West Side? He was either taking the piss or he was crew. Or both. Just as I was about to question his parenting skills, the kid took a fall and started balling. The guy leaned over, picked him up, and brushed him off. More crying.

“Hey buddy, let me see that. That looks like it hurts. Ouch. Are you okay? Here, let me see that. A quick kiss may help it feel better. Yeah, that’s the way. How does that feel? Better?”

Crying stops. “Yes. Better.” And they were on their way.

I’d passed them, still listening, then turned around to take it in. To gawk. Were they real? This guy put on the best demonstration of parenting skills I’ve ever seen in the city—maybe even my life. The guy wasn’t threatened or annoyed by the child’s crying. It wasn’t about him, it was about his kid. There was no discomfort with the tears, no “Hey, stop crying! That’s for sissies. Boys don’t cry!” No, “Why are you crying, that was barely a fall!” No, “If you stop crying I’ll get you some ice cream.” He just acknowledged the kid’s hurt, the kid felt cared for, and the hurt stopped. The kid wasn’t ignored, bribed, or shamed because it wasn’t about the parent, it was about the kid. Wow. To see more of that.

So much for my parenting stereotypes about hot tattooed men in Brittney t-shirts. I could use such fathering. ha Ha!

xoA

If
—Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Previous entries of the blog are archived.

My mother came to Vancouver on Monday, a place she always wanted to visit. She put me up as nicely as Alys did, in a room with airplane-like views over the city. We went to Victoria for a jaunt, and returned to an even more lush room. It was lovely. Lovely to see her and spend time together in such a wonderful city. I knew my first day there that I wanted to extend my stay a few days, though it wouldn’t give me much time to settle in before work and the semester began.

I couldn’t change my flight back, though I tried several avenues, so we scrambled to get everything I really wanted to see in. Mom was staying until Sunday regardless, and I was out yesterday (Friday), very early in the a.m. I packed Thursday night, a ritual that for me has some finality in it, and we got up at 5:45. And I was off.

At the airport, I tried one last time, and this time, for a $100 fee, they would put me on the same flight Sunday morning. “Okay!” I said, but as she clicked away at her computer I doubted myself. This is what I wanted. But I’d have to go schlep back to town. Another taxi? Or was the shuttle running now? Annoying. I’d have to unpack and repack in two days. I have to catch up on my sleep during the day, and do this all over again Sunday morning—even earlier, as Ma’s flight required we leave at 4:30am. And what about my apartment? Would have time to clean and get it all back together and rest and see people before work and classes on Tuesday? I was at the airport now. It was easy. And going back to the hotel seemed somehow like going back. Running back to Ma. Something I’ve never been able to do, and never felt comfortable with. So I asked if I could still take this flight. The very sweet agent (will I ever meet one again? Perhaps only in Canada) told me it was all up to me. So I left. I forgot how much I wanted to take in Vancouver, relax with my mother, and enjoy that gorgeous view, and did what seemed easiest and most sensible at that second.

I cried. I cried in the airport. And more on the plane. I filled an airsickness bag with used tissues and embarrassed the man two seats over with my silent sobs that lasted over half the flight to Chicago. I cried about the fear in my decision. I cried about my desire to be close to Momka, but afraid of her sometimes-suffocating love that I’ve built stone walls of defensiveness and criticism to protect myself from. I cried because my walls are designed to protect me from love, from suffocating love, and I’m not sure how to open them only enough to let a safe amount in—and out. “I NEED MY SPACE!” Oh, that old refrain! I cried because I am learning how to do this, how to see my mother for who she is and how to accept her love as she’s able to give it. I cried because this isn’t yet strong enough in me to know I could safely spend those two extra days with her that I so wanted to spend, gently being with this new awareness. I cried because I don’t know the next time I’ll have the chance. I cried because the “adult” part of me shuts out love and made the decision out of fear, not out of a true responsibility to myself and to love. I cried because the “adult” part of me that is tough and independent is partly a reaction to this relationship and is truly rigid, self-protective and afraid. I cried for the part of me that longs to be taken cared of. I cried because I was going home to New York and I wasn’t sure I wanted to be there. I cried because it was Jimmy’s birthday. I cried for my family.

I cried for every countless time I got on an airplane and left, and wouldn’t let myself feel the pain.

I wish I hadn’t gone, and it’s not often I do that. Linger. She’s in her hotel room now, going to bed early for her early morning flight. I hope she got out and enjoyed the city on her own. I hope I can be good to her and appreciate how sweet and intelligent and interested in life she is. I hope I’m faced with such a split-second decision again, and that I make my decision—to stay or to leave—in confidence and in love.

Georgie's Birthday dinner. G's probably my oldest friend. His locker was a few down from mine in third grade. He gave me my first book on Buddhism (that's a bit of a story, as he's neither Buddhist or Hindu).

It’s so strange and lovely to see old friends and spend some real time with them. Heesun, Lide, Sherry, George, and, next week, Alys, all from way back. I feel off kilter because when I’m at home, I have so little time to spend with friends, and so many don’t live in NY anyway. It’s hard to have such important people so far away.

Georgie and I went to Santa Cruz on Wednesday, which has changed since last visited in ’89. It was a great day, and I took some fun pics. I still do not know where I stand as far as the pictures go. Editing I’ve never liked, and it’s a larger part of digital photog than film. I do love to make stories, though I feel guilty about the time spent. The internet feels unclean to me, now that I’m on vacay. So easy to fritter time, and sometimes playing with pics feels that way as well, though writing seldom does. Writing, in fact, has a cleansing quality to it. But the entire production most definitely takes from the moment. I haven’t read that much because I’ve been out and about and online. I know that I need a break from school reading, but at the same time, the no internet, no junk, just resting and reading is really a beautiful thing and I haven’t done that yet. The trip is half over, as of today. Hmm.

The Santa Cruz pics are half edited. I left Heesun’s today for Sherry’s place for a few days, up in Sonoma County. She lives and works on a nature preserve, where she’s an ecologist. Pulling up to the fence, punching in the code, and driving into the preserve was great punctuation for the shift of location (in case the interminable traffic en route was not). She made me hummus with her hand-crank blender.

compost tupperware at front-left-center

And some taboule. When she came down to Berkeley last week she biked to the bus, then another, then the BART, then biked the rest—a 50-mile trip she chose to do without her truck. She’s got a commitment to public transport that requires a hell of a lot of patience. But this is the woman who biked across Australia on her own (it’s almost nothing but desert. Aussie’s thought she was mad).

She’s not mad. She’s brilliant. And interesting and fun. It’s so good to see her again.

She’s also made me question the way I do things, and the opening kvetch about bay area transit. If we are going to change the rate at which we destroy the planet, we are going to have to be inconvenienced in some ways, because it’s the mindset of ultra-convenience and the culture of consumption and ease that is the problem. Sherry walks her talk, and few do that. She reuses everything, bikes everywhere, uses a hand crank blender and windup radio. She buys her rice, beans, and nuts in bulk and brings her own reused bags to carry them. She buys her clothes, books, housewares, and tools second hand. She fixes her seldom-used truck and oft-used bikes herself. She grows veggies in her garden. She loves to know how things work, and she puts her knowledge to good use. She volunteers her Sunday afternoons to a community bike center in Santa Rosa. It’s not about wearing expensive organic clothes or driving a trendy car. It’s living in a way she believes in.

I’ll be honest. There’s no way the clean freak in me is going to reuse most ziplocks. But how hard is it to bring my own bags to the store with me (I do it only about 60%)? Or a mason-type jar to Samad’s for my hummus? Get a good bottle and mug for water/tea/coffee and fill that instead of using paper and plastic all the time? Or even take the BART to the city, though it’s longer and a bit of a hassle? It doesn’t make a difference you say? I think that it does. Intent, in itself, makes a difference.

One thing that pulls me through my moods is the knowledge, the experience that that the pain will pass, and that simply feeling is often less painful than the mental fortresses I create to numb and avoid it. My fear that the grief is bottomless is daunting, though. Last November, when a meditation friend held me through fits of tears, my brother’s face floated back into my mind, floated back into perfect focus. I held my breath, as not to disturb his image. My friend felt this and said, “Breathe, you have to breathe. Keep breathing.” I did breathe, as I’m trained to do, but Jimmy’s face faded out when I took in new breath. That seemed harsh punishment. As if to keep living, I’m not allowed to remember. What if I’m not ready to forget? It’s ridiculous. We will never forget.

As I cried, she asked, “There, doesn’t it feel good to let it out?” Of course it did, and I released my body into her warm, round embrace. It also felt limited and superficial, as I knew her embrace was finite. I couldn’t go on there all day, or all year. But I needed to. I wanted the tears to flow away. Who has that kind of time?

John Chapman

He wore a tin pot for a hat, in which
he cooked his supper
toward evening
in the Ohio forests. He wore
a sackcloth shirt and walked
barefoot on feet crooked as roots. And everywhere he went
the apple trees sprang up behind him lovely
as young girls.

No Indian or settler or wild beast
ever harmed him, and he for his part honored
everything, all God’s creatures! thought little,
on a rainy night,
of sharing the shelter of a hollow log touching
flesh with any creatures there: snakes,
racoon possibly, or some great slab of bear.

Mrs. Price, late of Richland County,
at whose parents’ house he sometimes lingered,
recalled: he spoke
only once of women and his gray eyes
brittled into ice. “Some
are deceivers,” he whispered, and she felt
the pain of it, remembered it
into her old age.

Well, the trees he planted or gave away
prospered, and he became
the good legend, you do
what you can if you can; whatever

the secret, and the pain,

there’s a decision: to die,
or to live, to go on
caring about something. In spring, in Ohio,
in the forests that are left you can still find
sign of him: patches
of cold white fire.

—Mary Oliver

T.S. Eliot

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again?

In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

…

…

My difficulty processing grief is well established, and Victor’s death poses a unique challenge in that I am far from his friends and family, from the places where we were. But I haven’t seen Vitya in years. We kept our friendship up online, as so many do these days, and that is where I have turned to grieve, to mourn this beautiful man and pay him the respects I owe so deeply.

Though he was a Samarqandi by birth, we worked together in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. I was a tour guide and he was a hotel manager. Vitya taught and supported me in ways I will never repay, and I hope that under my arrogant, obnoxious façade that he knew how much I loved him.

I’d have preferred to—I’d have been honored to—go out and wail with the women, beat my chest and meet the intense, tamasic pain which the “strong” demand the impure live out for them. But I had a Hinduism midterm to prepare for and I was not about to ask out of it. Instead I treaded a middle ground. I studied as much as able, concentrating on the meaning and rituals of death because we’d recently covered it and that is where my mind was rooted. Alas, Yama [Hindu god of death] barely graced the midterm (he can be such a tease!), but I worked in what I’d learned as best I could, and now sit down to write. To wail.

And to acknowledge that it does not feel right to march on in polluted strength when there are tears denied and pains shooting through my rib cage on to my heart because Vitya, and another part of me, is dead. But how to grieve when there are no family and friends around to sit with and remember his warmth and beauty? In that, this electronic connection has bridged a painful separation.

Vitya loved to argue as much as I do and we debated endlessly, in his office, in the Taj restaurant on Chekhovskaya Ulitsa, and after I left, by e-mail. We offended each other daily, but he never gave up or shut me out. Instead, he explained himself, his culture and his way of seeing time and again, and encouraged me, ordered me, to keep interpreting it for those not willing or able to venture to Uzbekistan. And, of course, for the tourists who did. So now it’s time for me to sit and remember, to write the Victor I knew from my way of seeing him, which might be, please understand (as Vitya would have), quite different from your own.

Victor was larger than life, almost mythological. He loved to take care of people and he lived for it, sometimes to his detriment, when he didn’t say no and others took advantage. He knew this and he had started to fight it around the time we met in 2000, perhaps before. But once identified, these habits are still tremendously hard to break. Hell, being a sexy hero has its merits. By the time of his death, Victor had two families to care for and an endless list of friends, lovers and business associates who counted on him in different ways.

In the last year, Victor and I stopped writing as much. Nothing he wrote was really meaty and interesting as our correspondence had been, and as that’s all I really respond to, I didn’t much respond (yeah, you aren’t alone). I’ve been enjoying my inward journey of late, minding my own nonsense, which is interesting to very few and annoying to the rest. I sensed it was annoying to Victor, not because he didn’t appreciate the inner-world, but because he was moving out (as I will too at some point), traveling and working madly, trying to establish the business in Afghanistan. So much for balance. I sigh in pain as it’s unlikely that I have to explain to you my take on workaholics, those who run in bright-fast circles to numb the pain of their existence, full force against a second’s rest to simply breathe the depth of life, its torments, and its fertile joys. What’s hell is that Victor knew it but fell anyway. For the year, with small exception, most of his emails looked like this:

My life here more and more become gypsy style. I stay in Kabul for not more than 3 nights a week and my knowledge of geography of Afghanistan is getting better and better. I’ve seen nice places on the north, east and south – on the way visits to Kandahar, Helman and Herat. Than Badahshan. As you see not enough time for something more than a couple of words to write. I’d like to write down some impressions, but I’m afraid I won’t. Anyway – good to know that you’ve been safely landed at home. And I’d like to see your central asian diaries published and signed for me.

and:

Sorry for being silent for too long. Just owervhelmed with business issues and absolotely have not time due to the very tough travelling schedule. I’ve made around 2 thousand miles in the last couple of weeks(also on SUV, but just 14 years old Toyota Surf). I’ve been in Jalalabad, Wardak, Kunduz, Takhar, Saripul, Wardak and few more less prominent places. Tomorrow I’m leaving again to Shibirgan, day after I have to be in Kunduz, than one night in KAbul, then Jalalabad (to pick up my team) and then to Ghazni. After Ghazni I’d probaly have to go to Herat and Kandahar and somewhere in the meantime to visit Badahshan and Fayzabad. Few pictures were made, of course no comparison with your professional ones, but anyway reflecting unimaginable wonderful scenery of this country. I would like to get a bit more time to learn Dari finally. I’d like to get a bit more time to write down some of my road impressions. May be later.

Belinda, a New Yorker to whom Vitya introduced me in Tashkent, who’s helped me immensely in this grief, had the same complaint. “He’d made a choice about where he wanted to put his time.” Belinda expressed her annoyance to him but I let go. He sent me boring emails (with some beautiful photos) and I didn’t reply. I just waited for this stage to pass.

Victor was forever pressing me about writing my stories down, which he knew all too well doesn’t happen much when you are trying to get the big life done. But the reason I stopped writing about him, and about much in Central Asia, was because I got too close and it got sticky. I cared about the people too much to write them simply, and didn’t feel I had it in me to explain my friends’ different decisions and different ways of life to folks back home.

In one of our last great debates, which always included a great misunderstanding, Victor showed me his vulnerability in a way he seldom did. He told me I’d hurt him, that I flattened him, made him two dimensional and poked easy fun at him in my comments about his life decisions. I don’t recall now what I’d said (I’m still unable to look back at those emails), but I can still feel the shock of pain in my heart when I read it. I immediately emailed him, “No no no, Victor, dorogoi! Please, no, that’s not what I meant, not how I feel!” I didn’t say that often, and certainly not enough. I’ve never felt that about anyone I’ve lost and it feels, it feels like my heart muscle has been stretched out like a rubber band and ZING snapped free, left to find it’s form somewhere new, somewhere again. We took for granted that “May be later.”

A little more than a year after I left Uzbekistan, Victor moved to Moscow because life in Tashkent is abysmal (much thanks to Karimov) and he eventually wanted to get his family out. He didn’t bring his family though, because it took awhile to find a job and set up. Ethnically Russian or not, being Uzbekistani did not make life in the big city easy for Victor and he didn’t like it there. Nevertheless, he fell for his landlady and married her. They had a daughter, Anastasia, in May of 2003. (Given the nature of time, I thought she was 18 months now, but she’s already two and a half.)

This involved leaving his Uzbek wife, which never totally happened as he was ever-dedicated to supporting his family. And now families. Victor thought that I judged this brand of heroic masculinity, and, yes, I did. Most Americans would, which is why I never told the story. I didn’t know how to do it without flattening him. Though it looked all the while like Vitya was building himself a heavy cage, one he simultaneously yearned and plotted to escape, he knew it and fought it. Beneath his heroic, manly mask there was poetry aching to break free. This made him human. And loveable.

I never told him that though, and he thought I looked down on him. I didn’t. How could I? When in Uzbekistan, I benefited from his generosity like any other. He watched my back, taught me without letting me know it, and never, ever once made me feel like he wanted something from me, physical or otherwise. We talked about relationships and sex, and he certainly had all sorts of lovers, but he never once let me feel that irksome pressure of fanciful expectation that most hetero friendships have now and again. Nor did he presume it of me. He was an excellent friend.

Yes, I was frustrated that he chose to work himself to the end—he must have had so much to say about his life there!—but we both thought it was just a stage. At least I did. I really did expect him in New York, my borderless city, one day. I’d take him about to my favorite Indian places, as I did in Tashkent. Yes, that’s what I thought.

I encouraged him to go to Afghanistan, because though he was working like mad and escaping his families, justified by trying to support them (a man’s man), he was also having the adventures he always wanted to have. Of course I understood his wanting to be somewhere else and we related heavily on that note. He loved my bulks and encouraged me to do more with them. I didn’t. But now, with Victor gone and so much left unsaid, this memorial is the very least I can do for him. The photos capture his beauty, at once his heroic, manly stance and his sad, searching eyes. Oh, beautiful Vitya, may you be happy and free. You are loved.

Photos in this post are by Victor and his friends and family.

I’ve finally figured that this doesn’t work. It’s not strength. It’s not living. It’s the behavior of a weak and frightened soul who clings to a semblance of control, keeping safe distance from others to avoid feeling that incredible pain of loss again. But did I even feel it properly the first time?* Or did I sense a tinge of the pain and reject it, bury it, let it grow into cold and fear? Perhaps finally feeling it, living it, grieving it will let it go, give it up, so that I can breathe fully again.

On some level, my mind and body always wanted to be rid of the grief, to finally feel the pain. The casual relationships with the guys whom I’d never meant to be mine magically transformed into bad relationships that kind of hurt and then inevitably ended dramatically, short-lived but always too long for I’d never intended to be there with them. In these patterned relationships I provided myself a chance to see, to feel, to release the abandonment and pain I’d stuffed deep down into my being, yet I preferred to be strong, closed and unemotional. I’m amazed—frightened even—of how well I’ve managed to fool myself. To hurt myself. Anger was the only emotion I allowed, and it grew hotter by the year.

So you see, no, I’m not aching to get married. Even as a small kid I don’t remember fantasizing about a fabulous wedding. When I was about ten I told my dad at dinner that I never wanted to get married. Even then I sensed the potential loss of personal freedom in the whole game, which lives in my genes related to but apart from my fear of grief and loss. Even now, when I wake up in the night with one of my boys beside me, it seems that my giant bed has lost mass and I feel panicked and suffocated. Trapped. Are women supposed to feel this way? Not according to the headlines, we aren’t. This, I find irritating. And in this, I know I am not alone.

*at sixteen, when my dad died and family dissolved

A magazine cover in a subway kiosk caught my eye today. It slammed: “Why he won’t marry her” over the foreheads of two happy people I recognized only as famous types—glossy, pearly, faintly wax. Well of course she wants to marry the chap and of course he won’t marry her because she isn’t 100% virginal or motherly, not perfectly poured into one of the two molds acceptable for women in 2004, though she’s tried her damnedest. She slipped up somewhere and is not woman enough for him to quit screwing about and settle down. We will read about her imperfections and her punishment: HE WON’T MARRY HER. Such a shame.

It’s just conjecture. I didn’t read the article. I’m just pointing out that we aren’t so much farther along, as some of you thoughtfully suggested.

Yesterday someone I’d just met commented (consoled?) that it’s good I’m single now and can explore myself, because I won’t always have that space, won’t always be single. Can you imagine the reaction if I said to someone, “It’s good you are married now and can explore intimacy, because you won’t always have that.” Good word, it does sound like something I might say. Gracious. Anyway, you get my point, I hope.

Yet Central Asian women need men in a way Americans do not. They need men for status, a poignant status required for survival. An unprotected woman is prey of sorts. An American woman’s status is raised by marriage, but it’s a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses status, something we can intelligently recognize as inauthentic and disposable, and in doing so, marry out of love, respect and friendship instead of insecurity and fear.

“I wouldn’t judge you for that. I judge you because you don’t have kids, but not for that.” he informed.

“You what?” I laughed, “What?”

“Yes, I think that you are selfish with your freedom and travels and that you are really just afraid that you can’t afford to pay someone to take care of your kids.”

I am long used to the ubiquitous questions “Are you married? Do you have children?” In Central Asia, women are wives and mothers. Even if they work outside the home, motherhood is how they achieve status and respect. This marriage question is no different from our ubiquitous: “And tell us what you do.” We hear the occupation, and we label accordingly.

Yet we understand the marriage question because this is the case in most of the world. It wasn’t so long ago that our world was like this. Our own parents and grandparents probably still harbor this sentiment in some form or another.

Yet we urbanites tend to look down on this. Some think it’s selfish to have children, generally when we judge the parents as unfit or unready. Like everyone else, we assume our way is better and assume that at the very least we will be understood when we properly explain. I always explained to the shopkeeper, the taxi driver, the housemother, the rug seller, that I wasn’t married, I was too young, and I wanted my freedom. I saw that some women understood, and understood deeply. What I didn’t thoroughly understand was that other women, and most of the men, judged me harshly and most likely labeled me as the wanton hussy they’d seen so frequently and unabashedly in American films and TV. The equivalent in their culture is a prostitute.

Too young? I was a decade past nubile in their eyes. Freedom? My call for freedom isn’t something Central Asians have a working grasp of, especially not the women. Tradition is almost the only thing they have that provides a sense of order in their lives, and that tradition is all about family. My American-bred need for independence is still contradictory to the human instinct for survival in this part of the world and I would slowly begin to understand that, and Ulug’s judgment of me, this trip around.

“Ah, okay, Ulug.” I answered, his youth the only thing keeping me from offense.

more to come.