Dark 'n' Stormy

Two of my favourite things are made in Sweden: Edluar and staplers. One rather accurately melts me into sleep, as per their slogan. The other I discharge at an alarming frequency when I'm freaked out by the fucking state of events. I try not to aim at my eyes, although that may solve several problems.

I want to rant. Instead, I'm going back to my previous post to calm the fuck down. Yes, I'm swearing more and that's OK. It helps me with channeling "happy". As it were, I've been wanting to write a sequel to Happy. I'm calling it Dark 'n' Stormy, like the drink. I treat my drinking repertoire with the utmost respect and this involves a lot of research and patience. High-end rum, as it turns out, is much less expensive than other fermented, distilled and barrel-aged beverages, and finding the right ginger beer adds to the volume of controlled experiments. I'm up to the happy challenge.

Happy, happy. Lucky, lucky. It is with a heavy heart that I wake up every morning, yet I am determined to seek and find daily joy and, "happiness". In my experience, to proceed otherwise is unwise. Some days turn out to be hapless despite my best efforts, that's just how it is. As the trendy saying goes, I have "first-world" problems. Yes I do, but that doesn't make them any less valid or pertinent. To illustrate, let me lay out a less than stellar snapshot from a few months ago.

I was taking the day with a friend to walk around an affluent neighborhood and to enjoy a leisurely lunch. Upon exiting from one of many posh stores, we noticed a man, arms up, head down sideways with eyes closed, leaning upright against the store's highly-polished window. We both came to a startled stop, and my friend asked if I thought whether or not he was okay. I walked up to within inches of the man to look him over. He was deathly still in his unnatural pose, without perceptible breath or odour, and his skin had a waxy glow, like a sanitized "homeless" creation by Madame Tussaud. Suddenly I felt lightheaded, my perception shifted, and I let myself believe that I was witnessing a bizarre form of performance art, and more elaborately, that passersby were being filmed for their reactions. I confidently exclaimed that this was not a real person. Absolutely wretched. I dehumanized a fellow human being. My good friend had better sense and started talking to him, persistently, and after a few minutes, there was slight movement. Patiently, she waited until he responded, within only her earshot. In the distance, we could hear an ambulance approaching.

If I were still a practicing Catholic, this would make for an outstanding confession. As it goes, I delve deep into my psyche and search for understanding. The specter of this event continues to haunt me. An active imagination is one thing, but what can cause such an abrupt rupture with empathy? My anxiety had reached a tipping point, and my thought processes could no longer differentiate between nonsense and reality. Can I blame my new coping mechanism on living in a society struggling with its collective moral compass? Menopause? Too many questions and not enough answers. Forgiveness is for myself to give. My inner light is always on but I must take care and remember to always keep the curtains parted. Sometimes the storm is raging outside, other times it is within.

Please don't ask me if I'm happy or if I've found happiness. Of course I am and I have, every day. Happiness and feeling happy doesn't exist in a vacuum, nor is it a constant, and it is different every day. Dealing in so-called "positive" absolutes is both irrational and dangerous. Is there rhyme or reason for crappy to rhyme with happy? The malady of Great Expectations is only amplified by the booming Happiness Industry, which I dare say, is a detraction from, and formidably antithetical to its purported goal.

Happiness is the great expanse, the universe. It is a life-long exploration. How far you make it is all in your mind.

PS: Jean bought me a box of cereal for the days my mind needs a little help.

Happy

Here is the mesmerizing image of a painting by Aboriginal artist Marie Hayes. I fell in love with Aboriginal art during a month-long visit to Australia back in 2004. There is a unique cadence and energy about traditional and neo-traditional Aboriginal art that resonates with my sensibilities, and hopefully I have tickled your curiosity to explore Aboriginal cultural expression.

I have been contemplating this painting since the beginning of time...or perhaps it has only been a couple of months. Visual meditation gives me focus and helps calm my mind. This particular painting palpably pulsates and purrs, plunges and plays, precipitating my connection to the Universe. There are 8 Ps in happppppppiness. This is my happiness. 8 or ∞, a flowing continuum without a beginning nor an end, with surges and contractions, infinite and all-embracing in chaotic harmony.

"I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars." - Neil deGrasse Tyson
Here is the short YouTube video.

I am an immigrant, a daughter of refugees

Who...me? Yes, the heterosexual (although some would argue bisexual) Caucasian female with a privileged and comfortable upbringing and life. I haven't given my immigration story much thought until some recent turn of events in the USA. It's not much of a story, but perhaps unusual in that I emigrated and immigrated twice...so far in my life.

Indentured shoe cleaner with sister, Germany, 1973

The first move took me from Germany to Canada when I was just shy of 10 years old. As far as I know, my parents didn't break any laws, but you never know. My family likes to tell stories. In any case, I became a proud naturalized Canadian when I turned 18. At the age of 40, my Canadian husband and I moved to the USA. To this day, he feels rejected by his native country because he could not continue his career as a researcher. Always a hard worker, he obtained permanent residency in the USA for the both of us, based on his own merits.

My two emigrations were planned, legally recognized, and did not involve life-threatening situations. By the time, and in the place I was born, European wars were a near-distant past. My parents and their immediate families were well-settled refugees from Hungary, having fled their country on foot through the borders into Austria during the revolution of 1956, then accepted by Germany as citizens. Some of my other family members were welcomed by the USA, Canada and other European countries.

Suspicious travelers at Munich Airport, 1975

I've heard my parents' and grandparents' stories. I wouldn't be alive today if Germany and other countries hadn't accepted displaced, hungry and traumatized people form active war zones. Assimilation is never easy, even when you outwardly blend in, like me. It gives me great distress to think how much, much worse my experiences would have been if I had been non-Christian and brown.  In Germany, I was teased and bullied about my name and called a foreigner, even though I am a German national. Granted, I dressed funny (see photos above). In Canada, the taunting and insults continued, at least until I learned the languages fluently. But the feeling of being an outsider never really goes away. Now that I live in the USA, I feel I belong to no country. Yes, I am a Canadian citizen, but this too is only on paper. I have no legal political voice.

Immigration can be by choice or by constraint. I own my story, no matter how lighthearted it sounds compared to those of other immigrants, because I am painfully aware that most often it is the only choice. As a refugee, as an immigrant, you are filled with hope of the life that lies ahead. Every human being on this planet "has the right to life, liberty and the security of person" (UN Declaration of Human Rights). As citizens of the world, we are all connected, and have we not a moral obligation to help each other in need? Is that too much to ask for?