Starting over

Bismillah Al Rahman Al Rahim,
In the name of God, Most Merciful, Most Kind.

Perhaps it was too passionate, too sudden, too reactionary, but with a click of a button, I erased the record of feelings I wish I hadn't had.

I don't think that everything I'd written here was wrong; many of my observations about life in Saudi were simply that: observations of a person who had been transplanted into a new world that looked very different from her own.


But as I got to know this place, a little bit more with every anticipated outing, I realized that I had missed a chance to greet this society with open arms - to really learn about its nuances, to hear the guttural voices with an open mind, to appreciate a world that isn't all that different, but with so much to offer, though it doesn't realize it.

At the same time, a different sort of awakening took over - one which can no doubt be argued & debated, but one which nevertheless is washing over me, gradually, as simply and gently as the water laps at Jeddah's shores - the focus of my life must be my children. Perhaps it seems natural to assume so, but when I started to prepare for this trip, I lost sight of why were were coming here in the first place --- to raise our children in a Muslim country, with greater chances of learning their religion and its language.


Instead, my husband & I got caught up with thoughts of career - his, concrete and disillusioned once he arrived, mine, little more than daydreams of a job I had long ago abandoned but which I thought to start up from a place so few people knew about, and which I believed many would want to know about.

And so began our downward/upward spiral.

My apologies for the few dedicated friends who read this blog. I feel disappointment, too, at the loss of thought that had been saved on these pages in cyberspace. But for me, it was a lesson, a chance to correct my intention - for the blog, for this trip, for my life.

I hope to make up for lost ground. However, the person who now shares her observations with you, is a little bit wiser, a little bit humbled, and a little bit weary of labeling the people and places around her quickly, arrogantly and without delving deeper.

"Travel enriches the every day experiences, and I am enriched every day."

So here's to beginning a new page in a new book. Again, I invite you to join me and promise that I shan't disappear again, God willing.