Hello all. This is Liz, the other half of newlywedindubai.com. While Josh and I were back in Maine we heard some complaints - er, feedback - that I hadn't contributed my perspective for your reading pleasure. And though I'm not sure how much pleasure my writing will bring, I thought I'd say hello, and thank you to those friends and family who start their mornings with a Dubai diversion.
Truth be told, the reason I haven't written before now is that I'm conflicted about the notion of a blog. First, it seems like there are people with much more interesting stories than I - journalists in Iraq, someone studying the plight of exploited workers in any given country, a spiritual seeker sitting under the Bodhi tree. And second, I believe in small groups of friends sipping tea and in the small, private pages of a journal, which seem to me the antithesis of a blog. Perhaps I need to modernize - I am, after all, Time's person of the year for my use of technology. But perhaps I don't need to figure all that out right now.
What I will do instead is share a snippet of our life with you: this moment. This moment is 1:30 a.m. and, like the last few nights, Josh and I have been in a fight with jetlag. Luckily for him, he is fast asleep under our purple cotton comforter, while I have read most of the book my parents-in-law bought me for Christmas, watched some bad TV, and finally resorted to sleeping pills, which seem not to be working. Kitty is playing hide and seek with me behind the computer screen, alternately scratching and tapping my typing fingers. Like Josh, our other cat, Lily, is sleeping, too, in fairly similar positions, now that I look closely. The city is quiet, no honking, no hammering, no neighbors making the sounds common to life: cooking, cleaning, yelling, laughing. The dishes are clean from the delicious chicken parmesan Josh made us for dinner. The cat boxes are clean, too. Papers are corrected, and tomorrow's lessons are planned. So peaceful here in our corner of the Middle East.
And since the title of this blog is newlywedindubai, it seems right that I mention peacefulness in terms of marriage, since this is the feeling that being married to Josh has brought me: an ease where there used to be stress, a calmness where there used to be anxiety. Speaking of being calm, I think I might be able to finally fall asleep. Sleeping pills or contentment? Either way, I'll take it.
Goodnight. |
