Notre Dame Teeth and Mahboula Shoes

When I brush my teeth each morning I think of Notre Dame.  And recently I take the time to mourn the beauty lost by the fire and remember that which Paris has been through in the last years. I can see the flowers set outside the French Embassy in Sofia where I lived in 2015.  They were in memory of those who were lost in the coordinated terrorist attacks in the stadium, restaurant and concert hall.  I recall my visit to the  city not long after and the heightened security and checkpoints. I revisit the changes in the city due to the large numbers of immigrants from Africa, many of which huddle together in family groups on the cold pavements. 

I am not proud of the connection between teeth brushing and Paris. In 2017 I was new to social media and was bravely experimenting with 'selfies'.  We visited Paris for Valentine's Day and I was horrified at the appearance of my teeth in our romantic shots in front of Notre Dame.  I could have been the lighting, or I really needed to see a dentist.  I also really needed to stay out of the photos.  Notre Dame is far more spectacular without my face in front, toothy smile or not.  Just as Paris is breathtaking despite the ugly rise of racism and terrorism.  How could I be so shallow as to worry about my teeth in the midst of such grandeur, history and art?  But my misdirected view has since brought me to the importance of memories that ground us.  We remember we are human, make mistakes, and therefore manage to empathize with others in their darker times.

That is why I love the memory of my Mahboula shoes.  These sandals were chunky, with plastic soles and very comfortable.  I wore them everywhere, often taking them as my only pair of shoes when traveling.  I scandalized my travel companions who wondered why I wasn't wearing sturdy sneakers or stout hiking boots.  My footwear got me up castle steps, down dusty tracks and through endless sight-seeing tours.  Secretly I liked the fact that I stood out less as a tourist, and seemed to fit in more with the locals. This was true in the interior of Brazil where everyone wears flip-flops whatever the weather or job. And in Mahboula, Kuwait, where the workers from all over the world are united in the one fact, they wear sandals. Mahboula is unclean, with unspeakable conditions and resembling a construction site.  Yet everyone strolls around with open toes in the filth, (well, the men do, the women stay inside).  Because I am a woman I wiould never completely fit in, but I was making the effort. I walked in the shoes of those who live there.  

When I left Kuwait to return to the US, I left my Mahboula shoes in Mahboula.  It only seemed fitting.  I wouldn't need them anymore.  But now I am always on the lookout for another pair.  One that reminds me that I am meant to walk with others here on earth.  

Screen Time and Weather Report

The alarm goes off in the early morning.  I reach for my phone to turn off the alarm and can't help but check the weather. The screen fills with swirling snow and several 100% ❄❄❄❄ messages.  I get up expecting the worst, but look out to this beautiful sunrise: no clouds, just gently lapping water on the lake. I check my phone again... yes, still snowing!
I'm British, I know their obsession with talking about the weather. But honestly, it isn't much to talk about.  The temperature varies little from January to June, and sunshine is rare. Instead of real news, the weather is simply a polite topic to fill up the awkward gaps  in a conversation,  especially when anything remotely personal is out of the question. And I truly believe that any wish to watch the weather forecast on TV is simply an excuse to indulge in the slightly guilty pleasure of watching television.

Minnesotans take talking about the weather to a whole new level.  Here we have extreme weather, that kills, strands and delays. This week is ironically Extreme Weather Awareness Week, which means there will be tornado drills, snow days and and preparation for flooding. So how do we prepare for this? We watch our phone screens and debate which outrageous prediction is likely to happen. We were told last week to expect a winter storm with 5 to 8 inches of snow in some places.  That was countered with another warning of up to 30 inches. We discussed this at work and someone added they had heard 32 inches on the news.  Odds were on school closing at least one day.  I had students telling me the snow would start at 10:00 am.  The tornado drill on Thursday was cancelled, and the pep rally moved forward, just in case... One weather man included a threat in his report that we should not listen to any other varying predictions to his. Another admitted that he couldn't possibly clarify the exact track of this epic storm.  And it is true that after all this hype, the sun might still shine, and the rivers stay within their banks.  We are asked to make a choice between believing our screens or the elements themselves.  More often than not, we choose the electronic version, because it is simply more extreme and therefore more exciting.

This has become the norm for most of how we view the world, through our screens.  And those who produce our social media and electronic news know of our appetite for the extreme.  They cater to our cravings of the bizarre by offering us hoax after hoax after exaggeration after 'fake news'.  We suspect that what we are viewing isn't real, but it is preferable to actual reality. We enjoy being appalled, shocked and disgusted.  It makes us feel alive when we react, and we encourage aggressive responses because that must be better than doing nothing.
The two easiest apps to locate on my phone early in the morning before I'm truly awake, are WEATHER and SCREEN TIME below it. Today I have logged an hour, which is above my daily average. Although my hour of screen time is separated into the categories titled PRODUCTIVITY, READING, & CREATIVITY, most of it has been a waste of time, probably just checking the weather instead of walking outside into it.  I won't be trashing my phone just yet, I still need it for the wake-up call alerting me to the fact that all of life is real and outside waiting for me to experience first hand.