While in Vienna, I visited fc, someone I befriended at the language academy where I took an intermediate German class in the summer of 2007. Until this past week, it had been three years since I had last seen him. Until meeting up with someone who has not seen me in a while, it's difficult to see how much I've changed over the past few years. Fc asked me, "Where is your eyebrow ring? It looked nice." I had completely forgotten that I still had it when we met, and even though I still have two slight hole scars on my brow where the ring used to be, it isn't until I see pictures of me pre-fall 2007 that I remember that that ring was a part of me for four solid years.
In reading a a handwritten letter that ns sent to me this past December, I was reminded that the aspirations and direction that I had in the summer of 2005 have taken a side route. He writes:
"Hello Monique. It is thrilling that you have joined my movement of reviving letter writing. I am sitting on the floor in my pillbox of an apartment enjoying the calm that follows the rain. Rain, there is something you must miss. What are you doing in Saudi Arabia? What ever happened to all the German you studied at NMU? ... So what is so great about Saudi Arabia? You mentioned the censorship but I imagine that there must be many points of friction between rebel Mo and her surrounding culture. Do not worry about me sending unacceptable material. I am fresh out of provocative pictures. Hopefully you are staying cool and pale. ~ ns"
In response to ns and fc, I ask the same question, "What happened to me?" What happened to my plan of becoming fluent in German to better understand existential philosophy and Wittgenstein? What happened to pursuing a higher degree in Anglo-Irish literature?
To answer, I went south, to the Middle East, and have become intrigued by the culture and language of the GCC; intrigued by the impact of religion on linguistic exchanges in Arabic. In recently subscribing to the Middle East Institute's Middle East Journal and having intellectual conversations with my driver about civil society in KSA, I have a desire to do a summer Arabic program and to pursue Middle Eastern studies in an effort to better understand this part of the world and share that knowledge with average Americans who have limited access to knowledge about a part of the world that has a great impact on American life and foreign policy. Maybe comparative literature between Arabic and English or Arabic and German would be something to pursue. Or should I give up all academic ambitions to return to a more comfortable place at home, in the Midwest, and further understand what it means to be Mennonite and to be a part of an open Christian community again.
Ms. Sylvia Plath -- have I let the German figs slip through my fingers when I reached up to pick the Saudi Arabian fig? Can I have a bowl of mixed figs and still still sustain my life? Or does taking one really mean giving up the other?
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