One day in Colombia, a Sunday, feeling as if I needed a break from exploring new activities and socializing with new people, I decided to make my way to the nearby shopping mall to see the latest Harry Potter movie. The mall turned out to be more or less what I expected: a little slice of America with a few Latin twists. The layout was familiar, with department stores on the first floor, a food court on the second, and a movie cineplex on the third. The department stores had different names, obviously, but they sold the same crap that are customarily sold in American malls--mostly clothes, but also books, electronics supplies, crafts, furniture.... And just like in America, the food court specialized in cheap fast food, and McDonald's stood out from the other chains.
I had some extra time before the movie started, so I decided to take in a snack. I passed up on the ice cream promotion at McDonalds and instead bought a brownie at Crepes and Waffles and a cup of coffee at the Colombian equivalent to Starbucks named the Juan Valdez Cafe. It was at about that time, as I finished explaining to the barrista how I liked my Cafe Americano, that I started to observe a change in my demeanor. I was speaking more fluently and my body language in particular exuded a newfound confidence. I walked with more poise, at a smooth even pace, head erect, shoulders straight, with little wasted motion. I gesticulated more overtly, smiled more openly and easily, and used my hands to add emphasis to my spoken words. In short, I was exhibiting a sense of style, of aplomb. I had found myself, or, to be more accurate, I had found a self, a personality--my American personality. And I'm not ashamed to say that it felt good.
One thing that has always struck me about my friend Jessica is the fact that she had no family. None. I can't even imagine what that feels like. I know people who hate their family members--and for good reason--and want nothing to do with them. And even those people, I believe, are better off than Jessica was. Those people have an idea, at the very least, of what they don't want to be--a certain basis for selfhood, even if it's a negative one. They have some sense of foundation. Jessica, though, must have sensed an emptiness around every clear line, a ubiquitous dark ocean surrounding and threatening her. And I think that played a large part in her eventual demise.
The first day I spent in Columbia I stayed with a friend's mom who, eager I think to demonstrate that her country wasn't a banana republic, took me to a shopping center in downtown Bogota. And I hated it. I hated the commercialism, the shallowness, the overly sterilized appearance, the bland and predictable layout ... everything. It stank of America. This was not, I told myself, what I came to Colombia for. And I couldn't get away fast enough.
But three weeks later, after struggling several times a day with language and cultural barriers, finding myself at a disadvantage in almost every social situation I encountered, feeling as if I had reverted to being a little boy at times, I was ready, if only for a few hours, to come back home. I was ready to go back to the family I hated.
Wasting time..
2 months ago
9 comments:
Hmm. So having a context from which you can merge with or oppose allows us to form an identity through use of a reference point. I can't imagine what that would feel like to have a vacant backdrop. Family, as irritating as some may be, provide at least a context, a history. I am sorry jessica didn't have this. I met her once (slept on the floor of her room). Its interesting to consider the role of family in identity formation (even if that identity is in opposition to it, asu with your shopping experience. It must be easy to feel lost without it.
I remember moving out East with a man I had just married but barely knew, to start a career I knee little about living in a place so unfamiliar. I felt so lost and alone. I remember the feeling of walking into a Walmart of all places and feeling like I was walking into home. It was comforting. Comforting like a pot roast dinner with mashed potatoes. At that moment I love the fluorescent lights and the cheaply made goods and their cut throat pricing. It was just an old and familiar friend. A friend I wish to leave behind me. I friend I've come to disrespect. Sometimes friendships no longer work. Sometimes a context albeit comforting must change. My dad told me that his mother weaned her kids by drawing a scary face on her breasts. Scaring both the bejesus and the taste for milk out of her kids. I think I am weaning myself from wanting the scary breast.
apparently, I need to stop blogging and responding to blogs through my phone, although it is always interesting to see what will actually come through and what words my phone decided to substitute for the intended words.
I can't remember where I read it, but not too long ago I read an article--I think it was about Lacan--which made the observation that a certain person, someone Jewish, was most human when he acted as a Jew but doubted his Jewishness. I think there's something to that. As you know, I find appealing the Buddhist objective to rid one's self of ego, of self, but I wonder also if it isn't an unrealistic and, taken to an extreme, harmful endeavor. I'm not sure a person can survive without some ego. Granted, our culture does way too much to shore up the boundaries, to make the ego permanent--but, if we accept our egos like a set of clothes, as something we know is fake and impermanent and that can be traded out for a new set whenever we choose, then we're less likely to be booted out of the building and arrested for public nudity. ;)
ps: you wrote: "comforting like a pot roast dinner with mashed potatoes".
PERFECT!
you can take the boy out of Mormon, but not the Mormon out of the boy, but only as it relates to pot roast and mashed potatoes. I agree you on the ego idea. I feel that the Buddhist philosophy resonates more with me than anything else I've come across, but I feel most at home with the Mormons and the pot roast. Even though I have now shed that clothing. I think I prefer to go nude actually. Its so liberating But of course it doesn't help much when during a chilly wind when having a little protection would be nice. Are you and I talking about the same things? Sometimes when we speak metaphoricaly I wonder if we aren't toddlers engaging in parallel play. I miss you Shane. When are you coming to Utah again?
LOL! I don't know if we're talking about the same thing--but it's fun trying to sort it out.
Seems we (people in general) can only handle so much time as the Other, so much time embracing paradox, living on the boundary.
I'm fascinated by your ability to do much more of this than most people I know; yet further fascinated that you would still find comfort (eventually) in the americana of a mall in Columbia.
What you say about your body reminds me of an essay we just read in my Sci-fi course: The fact of Blackness by Frantz. He defines how our bodies interact with the world as a "bodily schema--a definitive structuring of the self and the world-definitive because it creates a real dialectic between my body and the world." To illustrate the point, he recounts how a young white girl said, "Look a Negro!...I'm frightened"
This experience, he says, gave him his body back "sprawled out, distorted, recolored, clad in mourning on that white winter day." Seems to me we are constantly being "given" our bodies back to us--we then respond in multiple bodily motions. As you say we might become boy-like or, as happened later to you, straighten up, embodying one or more of our confident, assured personalities.
It's interesting that you mention identity and body--or bodily schema. There was a documentary on the tele last night about gender and identity that focused mainly on hermaphrodites and transgenders. It was fascinating, and demonstrated, I thought, the extreme agony of not having socially approved identities that match our bodily identities and vice versa.
You wrote:
"our bodies interact with the world as a "bodily schema--a definitive structuring of the self and the world-definitive because it creates a real dialectic between my body and the world.""
I love that.
I think I feel another post coming on--but it'll have to wait until less busy times--and after I've googled "Blackness" and "Frantz".
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