Becoming Azeri...

I have been in Azerbaijan eight months and the edge is definitely off the problems of daily life. In the early days, I wrote a nightly journal just to maintain some order in my life. The act of arranging the candle, the paper, the pen, focusing on the culture, and writing down the daily events was calming. More than once Elchin, my Azeri student in the conversation groups at KU, told me that the first five months of his stay in the U.S. were excruciatingly long but the last five months flew by. I am finding my perception of time here is similar. The first two months of my time here were the longest months of my life. I had decided that I must have had a stroke that altered my perception of time. Really. Now, the time flies and I am making a list to make sure I get everything done and I am worrying about the writing classes wondering if we can get everything written … and of course, nothing has changed except ME. I showed up half an hour late last week to meet Elchin and he agreed that maybe I was becoming a little Azeri.

I will also miss the sea. I went to the sea tonight. The hour was almost sunset. I sat on the retaining wall and ahead of me the sparse clouds were pink and orange and behind me, the young greening trees were silhouetted against the sunset colors reflected in the clouds above the western mountains. I was under a canopy of color and that color too, was reflected onto the sea which glowed a metallic coral. Tonight the sea’s horizon was indigo. The wind was slight so the waves were gentle and made a hissing splash as they met the boulders at the base of the wall. It is so strange that I have lived most of my life far from such a body of water, and now I don’t know if I can ever live far away from a sea again. It is like space or green grass or blue sky—we have deep needs for such things and sometimes we are not aware of them until we lose them or discover them. Now I know I need the sea.