Re-writing Romance
Walking up river with lush green banks, my boots filled with water, and slung across my shoulders a long hook I
had been using to drag sandbags downriver, I found myself in an intensely romantic moment. After three hours of lugging sand bags to make a dam, I crouched over the drier parts down river, plucking tiny fish from the mud. Women and a few excited youth were bagging the
minnows to fry later. The whole day was exhausting, dirty, sweaty, and yet
lovely. Essentially, that moment was romantic, in the way that we romanticize dirt. Shining it in hindsight and rewriting memories to be enticing and lovely. That day felt so delightfully "Peace Corps", and it happened a month ago. Since then I've been mostly sitting in an office or eating with neighbors. But it's not about me, and there's something sexy about that. That's the sort of losing oneself we want, to know that we are serving something larger than ourselves, and that's what makes this shittily exciting experience draw so many applicants per year.
Maybe it's that perfect fictitious volunteer that strikes a sexy image in your mind, someone who builds bridges with their bare hands and is able to lift communities out of an educational vacuum through their presence. This alluring PCV who spends all of their time at site, speaks the language, isn't bothered by hardships, and is able to get amazing projects going doesn't exist. Yet it's so easy to compare ourselves--myself at least--to this ideal volunteer image because they are the sexiest part of being in the Peace Corps. They represent all that it could be, all of the psychological and physical benefits of going through this weird-ass time in our lives. Yet of course we always exist somewhere between our best and worst perspectives of our reality.
I feel like I am constantly writing and re-writing totally un-sexy moments here to be motivating and enticing. Because the details of this job are not sexy, not at all. But if I can rewrite them to be appealing, just a powerful shift in perspective that is still truth, I recognize the motivating power of choice.
Imagine coming home from work in the evening, opening your back door not knowing what critter made home of your sacred kitchen throughout the day (I discovered a spider with wings last night). Either I can allow my heart rate to rise unnecessarily, or I can remember how connected my home is to the open air. My kitchen is half outside with slotted paneling to let the spicy eye-burning cooking waft outside. Even in my previous host family's house where even my grandpa sleeps in a wall-less room, lives integrated into every tangible part of his piece of earth. It's immense in its closeness. Difficult to separate from my surroundings, it holds me because it has to. Neighbors and families touch and own everything around them. And now I am a part of the collective resources. My neighbors are kind and welcoming, passing on ownership so I better learn how to give back. That's the reality I choose, recognizing and appreciating the closeness of my living space to its surroundings. Appealing and beautiful, isn't it?
So many of these sweet moments seem to be perspective choice. Either I can choose that a dinner that goes beyond my bedtime is an annoyance, or it is a romantic opportunity to get to know new friends and coworkers. This process of re-writing reality into romance is really what makes my time energizing and joyful instead of dragging and drowning. Even when it comes to the impact I expect to make, I won't be able to see the success of the students I impact for years afterwords, if they become engineers, future community leaders, or culture shaping artists. As long as I re-write my expectations, a shy kid with the ability to speak in front of their peers is a huge success. Just building relationships here, promoting deep interpersonal understanding carries its own weight through the future of Thai-American relations. Even as I re-write my purpose here, I make it appealing and inviting and make people want it, giving it a sexy purpose.
Imagine coming home from work in the evening, opening your back door not knowing what critter made home of your sacred kitchen throughout the day (I discovered a spider with wings last night). Either I can allow my heart rate to rise unnecessarily, or I can remember how connected my home is to the open air. My kitchen is half outside with slotted paneling to let the spicy eye-burning cooking waft outside. Even in my previous host family's house where even my grandpa sleeps in a wall-less room, lives integrated into every tangible part of his piece of earth. It's immense in its closeness. Difficult to separate from my surroundings, it holds me because it has to. Neighbors and families touch and own everything around them. And now I am a part of the collective resources. My neighbors are kind and welcoming, passing on ownership so I better learn how to give back. That's the reality I choose, recognizing and appreciating the closeness of my living space to its surroundings. Appealing and beautiful, isn't it?
So many of these sweet moments seem to be perspective choice. Either I can choose that a dinner that goes beyond my bedtime is an annoyance, or it is a romantic opportunity to get to know new friends and coworkers. This process of re-writing reality into romance is really what makes my time energizing and joyful instead of dragging and drowning. Even when it comes to the impact I expect to make, I won't be able to see the success of the students I impact for years afterwords, if they become engineers, future community leaders, or culture shaping artists. As long as I re-write my expectations, a shy kid with the ability to speak in front of their peers is a huge success. Just building relationships here, promoting deep interpersonal understanding carries its own weight through the future of Thai-American relations. Even as I re-write my purpose here, I make it appealing and inviting and make people want it, giving it a sexy purpose.
And so romance has become how I think of myself and of others, how I allow myself to sit and spend time with people I don't understand. There's the romance of body language, smiles, and even just an interested looking face. And in such an isolated situation, romance like this feels something like satisfaction.
SO insightful, thank you, you lovely person you.
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