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List of Random Fears

11 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by marie in Uncategorized

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dear apples, deep dark fears, fears, fran krause, journal, just because

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Dear Apples,

Are you afraid?  I am afraid multiple times per day.  If you are afraid and want to know that you are not alone, don’t worry, I’ve made a list of some of my fears for you.

I am afraid of:

  1. Getting my blood drawn
  2. The scary faces I make at myself in the mirror sometimes
  3. Cedric dying before me
  4. Contracting Alzheimer’s disease
  5. Mosquitoes
  6. My dreams
  7. Sinking into debilitating depression
  8. Not being proud of myself
  9. Missing out on life with my family
  10. Never mastering Arabic
  11. Skiing
  12. The books East of Eden and The Bell Jar (for different reasons)
  13. Accidentally killing someone
  14. People I love getting hurt
  15. My child’s teenage years
  16. Not being occupied with work I love
  17. The future looking like the movie Gattaca or the book Brave New World
  18. Bookstores going out of business
  19. Factory farming and corporate food production
  20. Family breakdowns
  21. Driving in Lebanon –especially with passengers (and getting my Lebanese license)
  22. Going bald
  23. Big fancy events where I don’t know many people
  24. Scary movies

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But it’s a good thing that fears seem to be evenly distributed and no one has all the fears. There are a lot of common fears that I’m not afraid of.  Some of these include:

  1. Heights
  2. The dark
  3. Spiders (not as much as I used to be at least)
  4. Snakes
  5. Turbulent plane rides
  6. Thunderstorms
  7. Moving to new places
  8. Trying unusual foods
  9. Being alone
  10. Dangerous locations
  11. Sky-diving
  12. Germs
  13. Contracting diseases
  14. Strangers
  15. Getting lost
  16. Skinny-dipping
  17. Terrorist attacks
  18. Losing my friendships
  19. Boredom
  20. Making the wrong decision
  21. Missing out
  22. Roller coasters
  23. Natural disasters
  24. Lions, tigers and bears

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Images Source: Deep Dark Fears by Fran Krause

On My Womb Inhabitant

21 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by marie in Uncategorized

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dear apples, home, Lebanon, pregnancy, travel

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From two weeks ago

Even in the midst of our whiskey-hazed honeymoon, even flying home to Lebanon and resuming our routines here, even on hikes and walks and during car rides and while visiting with Teta, I was already harboring the secret possibility that there was a little seedling making its slow presence known inside me. I have always wanted children in a very abstract, someday sort of way, but from the moment I began to detect suspicions of a microscopic presence somewhere deep within, my desire became immediate and tangible and fierce. It was all new.

I woke up early on a Saturday morning in May, and took the pregnancy test that C had picked up from the pharmacy the night before. And there it was. Confirmation of what I had already known but not allowed myself to believe. We drove in a cloud of surreal disbelief to a morning assignment I had in Byblos, and C made me laugh the whole time as we joked about the improbable timing of it all. Still I couldn’t allow myself to believe it. In the following days and weeks I ran back to the pharmacy and picked up two more tests to confirm the reality of it, but there was the still the constant fear that I’d lose the baby, and that somehow this unexpected promise was beyond the allowance for joy that the universe had allotted to me. I felt undeserving and small.

Now I am in my 17th week, and I can feel the tight knot of the baby in a small raise of my abdomen. I dream about foods that I’ve rarely wanted in the past: pop tarts and cheeseburgers and salty chips and fizzy drinks (the baby’s taste buds I guess) as well as some old favorites like hot sauce on my eggs and jalepenos and roasted vegetables and tart apples and bananas with nut butter in the mornings (foods that our over-lapping taste buds favor). Old constants like dark chocolate and coffee and beets are no longer quite as appealing.

I am in Lebanon; the baby will be born here and have duel citizenship. I am reluctantly learning about new dangers such as toxoplasmosis, which is mainly contracted through unwashed fruits and vegetables. I am told not to eat produce outside the house, and to wash what I prepare in water and vinegar before I eat. I am told that C-sections are more common than natural deliveries here, and that I should be adamant about what I want for my labor and delivery. People also seem to be a lot more cautious about what exercises I should be refraining from, but I know too many pregnant runners and worker-outers back at home to take too much of that advice to heart. I’ve mostly been doing home exercises coupled with long hilly walks, and more recently the occasional run. The hardest part is being so far from my family.

I have a good doctor, I am surrounded by my wonderful in-laws, and Lebanon is a culture where families pitch in with child-care duties when parents need to get back to work.  I lie down on my back and play the song that I play for this baby every day, and wait to detect butterfly-wing movements.  I bring my tea to the balcony in the morning with my book and read sections out loud to the almost fully developed ears.

Today I walked in the late evening.  I detoured around a new stone road being laid in an old town center whose tired buildings crumbled even as new young vines climbed up their walls.  This is what I can offer my child: the wonder of existence.  An old abandoned path was strewn with weeds sprouting out from the litter.  This idea is comforting; even the parts of me that I’d prefer to be rid of are most often the necessary soil for new life.

I don’t have so many answers to offer or lessons to teach.  All I sense is that I am given a chance to celebrate, every day.  All of it. The struggle of what to pursue next, the ache of loneliness when it comes, the immense love I feel for the people around me, the ironies that hit us, the three little kids who run to the gate to greet me every time I walk past, the anticipation of the future, the lonely neighbor I always need to force myself to talk to, the shock of a cold shower on a hot day, the tedium of sending out applications, the vividness of my pregnant dreams and the return of each morning.    I don’t know what to make of everything and I don’t know how to respond to all the questions that surge up inside me.  Lately it’s been easier to let them surface and sit awhile…but not to be greedy for answers.  Just live inside the unknowns and let life amaze me.  I look forward to the perspective that a child will bring, and to living life through those young eyes that grab hold of discovery.  When depression tempts its way in, doesn’t the world depend on children to remember the joy?

Infinity

16 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by marie in dear apples, journal

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dear apples

Dear Apples,

Who are you and where are you, and who is with you when you are most yourself? I asked myself that question some time ago, and the answer emerged in scenes and memories:

-I am sitting in Summit train station waiting for the New York train.  There is an old black man sitting across from me with his eyes closed, holding a portable radio and singing along to the static-y lyrics in perfect fluid cadence.  He knows this song through and through; his whole being is singing it.  I watch him and fall in love with him, and fall in love with whatever it is inside me that allows me–in certain moments–to embrace my own freedom and passion with equal abandon.

-I follow Lizzy to the porch roof and we sit there in the cold, both steeped in our own musings, occasionally bringing our thought-worlds together with small comments.  My mind is full of questions, but mostly I’m caught up in the cold still night air, and this colossus of love I have for my sister.

-In the last leg of a long run, I round a bend and fly over the final hill.  My arms spread out with a buoyancy beyond my control.  I am listening to a podcast describing a Norwegian snow hiker coming upon his last cache of hidden treasure.  I am mesmerized by the sound of his joy, and giggle with delight in his vitality and mine.

-Cedric and I have taken a meandering motorbike ride up precipitous mountain roads during a November visit to Lebanon.  We move over terrains that change in color and vegetation and I am overwhelmed by the beauty of it. The temperatures drop as we ascend, and clouds begin to group above us.  We arrive to our destination as the skies open with a rumble, and we can barely feel the icy drops across our numb faces.  I am shaking with cold and my whole body aches with it.  We have no choice but to ride back down, parting the damp chill with our descent.  I am moaning with cold, and we begin to sing to distract ourselves.  We go through entire musicals, we belt the words of songs we know and improvise where our memory falls short. We are screaming our songs and laughing and oblivious to anyone we pass.  I am miserably cold and think that there is no way I could feel happier.

-I sleep on the couch one Christmas Eve and somewhere between the night and early morning I wake up.  The living room is warm and softly lit with the glow of the tree.  Soon the younger siblings will wake up and we will cram into this room, pajama-clad and joking together.  For now it is still quiet, and lines from a song are echoing in my mind.  “How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given.”  I wonder how I can contain the fullness inside me.  I reach for my journal while laying there, and write from the spillover of rare peace.

I can list an infinity of these moments, Apples, and it is good to recall that.  This existence contains many things, but so long as I can tap into such an infinity, the rest is light enough to bear.

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