Officially... WELCOME TO AMERICA!! from Feb25

President Bush told me he was proud of me today.

Well, not just me, it was me and the 500 other people sitting in the auditorium, mixing their international body odors together, representing what America is really about.
We all sat there, 3:00 pm on February 21, 2008 with our nickel American flags provided for us and watched the president on the screen welcome us to America and tell us he is proud that we have become naturalized citizens, true Americans.

It was a proud moment for us all, especially the sophisticated and pungently smelling Indian woman next to me who didn’t speak English but began tearing at the realization that she had finally made it.
She kept looking at me as if asking, "can you explain what is going on?"
I don't think she understood that my language skills had not yet reached India.

I did however wonder how long it took her to get to that seat next to me- it took us 15 years. That is quite a long time because 15 years ago, I was six years old and running around in a t-shirt and tights and calling it an outfit.

After our president’s speech, the swearing in ceremony took a cheesy turn as they played “I’m proud to be an American” while the camera spanned the countryside of the United States and ended on the Statue of Liberty, the true symbol for what America stands for. Being the true Americans that we are, my brother and I chuckled to the awkward lyrics that appeared on the screen along with the corresponding verses, but when we looked over, we saw our mom not only tearing, but singing along to that song so proudly and shamelessly with her heavy accent.

After making fun of her for about a full hour or two, I realized that that moment, that moment that we became Americans, was something indescribable to someone who has not experienced it, it was something that my mom could only have dreamed of. I guess it is best like being in love with someone for 15 years and only then, when all the paperwork is done, you are allowed to be called husband and wife or even friends. Before you were just a permanent acquaintance. It was a freeing moment and I understood why she teared up, I get that (though she tears to almost anything, just ask her about an Extreme Home Makeover commercial…). What I still don’t get is why she sang along to that song and kept singing it all the way home, all through dinner that night and well into the night before we went to sleep.

To me, what hit me hardest, what made me realize what was going on, what I had gotten myself into, what true beauty this moment held was the moment they made us stand. One by one, they called our countries and we were to stand and wait until every country was represented and until everyone was standing. We were the second country after Argentina.
“Armenia” the loud and enthused speaker proclaimed and my family stood in unison, proud to be the only ones to represent our country.

After Armenia, countries such as Canada, Japan, India, and even the overwhelming Mexico followed. Some stood with loud cheering (the Mexicans) while others with silent power (the Chinese), but we all, all stood with pride. It was as if the United Nations called all of its leftover countries and vagabonds for potluck and we all showed up, in our best outfits, with our cameras rolling and our national and adopted pride. It was beautiful and if I was an emotional person, that would have been my moment- that moment that your eyes begin shining from the salty tears and you smile and look up and time kind of freezes and you realize that life is good.
It was that kind of moment.

An hour after we walked in and waved our flags in unison and did all of the true “American” things- say the pledge of Allegiance, sing the Star Spangled Banner, sing “I’m proud to be an American”, listen to the president and say our oaths- we received a simple paper with a stamp and a few copied signatures, and we officially became American Citizens.

We became officially official because, after all, it doesn’t get any more official in America than swearing in at court…unless it comes to marriage oaths…but I will save that for later.

As we walked out, we turned in our voter registration cards, permitting us to vote in this presidential election. I don’t think I can describe what that means to us- to vote, to be a part of the change that will occur in this country, this powerfully egotistic country.

So as the current president was welcoming me to this smörgåsbord of a country, I would have the power to change who would be the next president to welcome the many thousand immigrants to be naturalized in the future years.

Will Obama be the one to welcome us, saying, “I am so proud of you, you brave people that will join our great nation.”? Or will McCain say, in his explicit language, “Welcome you $#@! Foreigners, I am so glad you came…”? Or will Clinton, heaven forbid, try to say something clever and polite? We shall see.

Though I no longer have my excuse that “I am not an American” for those pesky curbside lurkers constantly asking me to sign up to save this endangered animal or that exotic plant, I can vote and I can have an American passport. Those two privileges in themselves are worth every struggle that we have endured- whether it was being held up in an airport in Belgium where they didn’t recognize my traveling documents or even getting stuck at the border in Mexico and having to pay a $200 fine for not carrying my green card with me.

I am an American but I will always jealously guard my pride for my country so in all my American-ness, I still want my friends to call me little Armenian, perhaps little Armenian-American, or something of that nature- because after all, I am still little, still Armenian, and now, I am definitely and officially an American.

US Citizenship and Grace

To this day, I do not understand why my name means full of grace.

I would actually put gracefulness as one of my last characteristics. But I don't think that gracefulness has the same depth as the simple word grace. I think that grace means something so beautifully irrational and unscientific that only those who have experienced it can verify its existence. I don't claim myself as a guru of grace, not in the least bit, but I hope that my life is moving towards the point of grace, that point when eternity transcends and touches the soul and you realize that you are so much more than your damned body- that your identity on Earth is temporary.

Let me explain the "temporality" of our identities- of how we define ourselves.

Today, after 15 life-changing years in this country, I became a US citizen. Pause. True story.
I never got to scale a wall or run away from Border Patrol, but I can attest that this country does not welcome foreigners with open gates, Greencards, or even a nice Thanksgiving meal like they once did.
But after years and years of waiting and going through hell on a carousel chained to a bacteria-infested plastic horse and suffering trying to get a driver's license, a real job or attempting to travel- we made it to this day at the Immigration Center. Cheers.
All this after 15 years of waiting. 15!! That is the majority of my life at this point because to me, 15 years ago, I was wearing a long yellow T-shirt and tennis shoes and calling it an outfit. All to say that all these years led to today. January 11, 2008.

We waited in the oversized and eerily sterile room stuffed with the smell of anticipation (which I could easily be mistaking for percperation...I have not yet decided). So there we were, my family and I, laughing nervously as we watched one immigrant after another cringe at the butchering of their name and then stand and walk the walk. This "Walk" eminated in their faces a mix of anticipating a root canal and walking down the shadow of the valley of death. Well, they just looked scared and nervous. That's all.
It is quite a big deal and as I am pondering their ill-fated interview and the possibility of deportation that awaits them, a minion of the US Immigration Bureau opens the heavy door and beckons me to her layer.

Well, here we go.
I stand up. Brush off my foreignness. Salute the troops and walk towards her in what I can only hope looks like a cool and confident American stride.

To my surprise, and a little dismay, she smiles and greets me a good morning. "What is this minion up to?" I ponder. Is this one of her tricks to get me to crack at 7:30 in the morning so that the next thing I know is that it is 7:30 at night and I am on a boat halfway back to Armenia? Well Missy, two can play this game- Bring it on!!
"Good morning to you. Wow, I really like your earrings!" I smile and compliment.
But as life always throws you those unforeseen curve balls that the catcher has predestined with his chubby fingers, she actually turns out to be this goofy little Mexican lady that congratulates my singledom (which she reads from my 20-page application) and proceeds to tell me some of her dating stories from her past- how she went on a blind date and thinking that the guy expected her to pay for the movie ticket, pulled him aside and told him straightforward, "I don't think I am that ugly that I should be paying a guy to take me out."
I applauded.
I want to use that line someday but unlike her date who apologized and pursued her for the next two years, my guy would probably laugh and say, "You sure about that?"
Yes. Yes, I am sure....I think.
So we chatted for a long time, I read my oaths aloud with precision (something about being willing to take up arms for the US....rigggghhhtt), and I wrote "I drive a silver car" (to prove that I have the literacy rate of a 2nd grader...I guess that is all you need here). THen she smiled, stamped a paper, handed it to me and said, "congratulations."
That's it? Does this officially mean that.....oh geez. Does this mean that I am a flag-holding, couch-sitting, ya'll fast-fooding American? Does this mean that I can vote in the 2008 election? Holy Crap. I am scared....So, yes? That is all?
She smiles at me, assuring me that, yep, that's it, on your way now because I have about 20 more scared potentials to interview before lunch.

Oh the grace of such a euphoric moment!

She leads me out and bids me adieu and proceeds to butcher the next name on her list, "Sharooon Haleeeem....come on down!" Like the Price is Right, I felt that I had won the Sweepstakes. Bob would be proud. Him and his skinny little microphone.
I walk out and everyone stares at me. They know. Oh how they know! They know and they envy me. Your time will come I reassuringly nod to them.

So my family and I have passed this sacred rite of passage in this country....and in a matter of 15 minutes. In that time, the time it takes me to decide what I want to eat for lunch, my identity changed completely. I mean sure it took 15 years to get to this 15 minutes, but those few minutes of awkward chit chat gracefully welcomed me to my new home. It's like having a best friend for years and one day after signing a paper they turn to you and say, "ok, now you can call me friend!" "But what did I call you before", I would inquire."Ummm. A permanent acquaintance."
Ooo. I see.
So in about a month or two, I will swear in at court and THEN it will be officially official because it gets no more official than saying "I do" in a courtroom, unless it comes to American marriages.
So now I can have a real passport and not a temporary turquoise document that no one recognizes and now I can get the hell out and travel the rest of this world! All of it except for Cuba I guess. But I will get there too someday. I sure will.
My friends threw me a beautiful "Welcome to America" party and it was then that I realized that part of my identity really has changed. But I accept it and I love it and I see the hand of grace moving its way through my life.
So what I realized is that my name does not necessarily mean that I am the one full of grace, but that I am the one to whom grace is shown. Everyday when I wipe the dust and mascara away from my eyes, grace floods my vision, my life, my being. So maybe I am full of grace, but only because grace has gently bestowed itself upon me.
The irony of life yields to me once more on this subject of grace because as if I didn't already get the point-my little Mexican officer, the former minion of the underworld-well, her name was Officer Grace. Can you believe that bag of lavash? I mean wow, what are the odds?....

Ok, so maybe not that good because maybe that wasn't really her name, but it would definitely have helped out my story if it were. Oh well.

So I shifted my identity from Armenian to American. Sure they look quite similar-both start with a capital A and end with a lower-case n, but thousands of miles of land and water and drastically different histories and cultures say otherwise. My loyalties lie in between. Because we are temporary. We are just human and perhaps just acquaintances to this world and it is only grace and love that hold us down here for awhile until we figure things out. It will be a terribly grueling process and grace will take a few siestas as we struggle to figure things out, but so what.

Now my friends, allow me to leave and go sip my tall soy latte like only a true American can.
435 in the House of Representatives.
You pass.

Welcome....

Lullabies for a Wanderer

Sometimes before my roommate and I go to sleep, we talk and talk into the night and get carried away in our imaginations because it is so late and we are drowsy and tired. Some of these conversations tend to be the most out of place and yet articulate insights into each other and ourselves.
For instance, the other night I found out that her father is a hot shot for a health insurance company AND a pastor. What are the odds of those two careers crossing paths? I thought it was quite extraordinary and grand. After the background revelations, we got to the amazing fact that she has watched Beauty and the Beast so many times that she knows all of the words by heart.
"Prove it" I said.
And she did.
Starting two nights ago and finishing last night, she recited the whole movie, scene by scene, song by song, with sound affects and all.
My head began to wander, I got lost in the fairy tale of a beast and a beautiful French maiden so in love with books and characters and life that she wants more than this provincial life, and she gets it by falling in love with a beast.
It was the best lullaby that i have heard, a little better than the one time she told me the story of Beowulf.
When she was done she asked me if I could recite a movie, and I lullabied her to sleep with the sweet sweet words of Dumb and Dumber.
Goodnight fair maidens, beasts and dumb people all over the world.

One good pick-Up line

Liz, and I walk into, let us say, a local hang out spot and this giant of a man, over six feet tall, comes up to miniature little Liz.
This was their conversation:

"Wow, you are tall."
"Yep."
"Do you play basketball."
Pause, rising tension.

"No, do you play miniature golf?"

I think Liz should have married him.

The Phone and the German

As I was sitting at my desk at work, atop this wooden round stool that will eventually flatten out my butt, the guest phone rang. The guest phone is right across from me so I get to see everything that happens and then write about it.

So the phone is ringing and ringing and since it doesn't have an answering machine, the yellow handle keeps jingling and jingling for about a straight two minutes. Then out of nowhere my little German friend just appears from God knows where in front of it, looking at the phone, then at me, then back and forth. He is about five feet short, super skinny, long long hair that he has in a ponytail and a baseball cap, a long beard neatly shaved along his jawline, he is wearing a Spalding jacket, and these amazing circular glasses that seem more like goggles that not only helps improve his eyesight but have this amazing magnifying effect for me. So there is goggled little German between me and the ringing phone and this is the conversation that ensued when he asked:
"Can I pick it up"
"Of course, it is for guests"
"But who is it??"
"I don't know, maybe it is for you"

there is a long pause, he turns to me and maybe it was the goggles, but his eyes got huge and he yelled,
"Maybe it's a sherpriza!!" in such a heavy German accent and he started laughing and laughing and this in turn made me laugh and laugh and then he picks up the phone, continues laughing and then just hangs up.
Laughing still, he walks away.





Sometime I forget why I want to leave this place....

"Getting Ready for a Weenie Roast"

says my boss passing by into the kitchen as the French girls walk out the door, letting the cold air slam into my face.
The Brazilian is on the phone wearing his green Hurley shirt. I think it is some sort of unspoken rule that Brazilians always wear green, the dominant cultural color. Even better is the fact that he is talking on a yellow phone. It must be some important conversation because he is hiding himself in the corner, guarding the words from seeping out into the open.

It has been about a year since I first began working here, this hostel, this zoo for humans, wandering through life. I came here with such excitement, honestly, wanting to meet some cute international boys. The flair of it all has died down, significantly, so much so that I have become indifferent. I hate being indifferent but when you go to a zoo, you admire the animals always knowing that there is this bullet-proof plastic between the two of you so that you dont get too close, close enough to get hurt. It is no different here, except that I have built my own plastic wall and I am now questioning if it is bullet-proof, man-proof.
My life has become a transition from one zoo to the next and though i see myself with this plastic barrier, perhaps I too am part of this zoo that I observe so keenly.

I have so often wanted to write about the experiences here, the crazy people that I have met, the nerve of some arrogant fools, and the humility of some pretty beautiful souls that stray here once in a while, not often enough. I have wanted to compare this place to so many things- a submarine, an amusement park, cactus garden, youth camp, and so on, but for now I will stick to the zoo. For maybe I am that one monkey that keeps getting transferred from one zoo to the next because it simply does not fully adopt its new environment, never fully fits in. It might next get transferred somewhere exotic and spicy, unforeseen that it is not the environment, it is her that will always be this foreigner monkey among the locals. She is a lost cause to a zoo keeper looking for a profit, because none of the visitors pay to watch her watching them. Dump her? Send her back to the wild? Yes, let us see how she fares in the wild. You have high hopes you say? Shall we place a bet on it because she seems too naive for me. Let's see. She sits in waiting, thinking about her life, awaiting her departure, always awaiting her departure. We will take her up north and set her free. She is too selfish to see life outside of herself. Yes, yes I am. I have not yet learned to trust fully, to let go, to breathe. I have become too consumed watching others, always observing so much so that I have lost sight of something grand and beautiful and I just can't figure out what that is.


Life is temporary and its temporality is best enforced here, with people on "vacation mode" always and forever. But to put aside my cynical attitude that I so easily adopt each time I see the usual coarse of events: the same pick up lines, the same look, the same brush on the arm, same exact complimenting..., I must say that from behind my bubble of a desk, I have learned a lot. I have learned a lot about myself, about how I react to certain people, about the fact that everyone wants so badly to be loved and desired and the only problem is that they find such different ways of showing it. I learned that I tend to see myself as more experienced and wiser because I do see it everyday and because I read and write a good phrase or two....but I am not, not in the least bit. I am still young and have much to learn about this world and about people.
I am learning to respect people again, though it is interesting in this place, this place where weenie roast is posted from the ceiling and people genuinely think that sex is "it". But still, I am learning, growing, trying my best to love.

But I do have to go now because my bubble can only protect me for so long, I have to look a little busy, I have the autobiography of Malcom X sitting next to me, and plus, I have to go help prepare for that weenie roast.

A letter to Liz on October 17, 2007

and I quote myself:

Don't you know that I always have something to say? Always! I'm a blabber-mouth and I will only end when this page runs out, when I have finger cramps, or when a catastrophic meteorite extinguishes my existence. So there you have the pathetic blabbering of an unidentified and Lonely Soul. I like to capitalize Lonely Soul to make it more powerful, more of a vague identity, who perchance I am. Dorothy Parker said it best in her sarcastic and bitter attitude towards men when she wrote that, well, pretty much, they should burn in hell. I don't want to go quite that far, but I understand her frustrations because an unwanted human is the saddest thing you will ever find. Mind you, I don't feel like that so don't prepare to get excited...I am not going to cry. Boys don't merit a tear from mine eyes, my precious and selfish eyes- they don't spare tears for useless pity.




My wish for you is that you fill these pages with the gut of your pain and happiness with excessive exaggerations and bittersweet contradicting words. Because life is contradictory and why should we pretend that it is otherwise. Your beautiful heart needs to weep to your hands which will in turn pour out onto these pages- these organically printed pages that await your conscious awakening. Oh, that was beautiful. So now I think that I am some sort of a writer or something. Well, I am not. I am just a body like any other that has learned the art of phrasing and categorizing words so that they juxtapose and sound all smart and shit. Ha, it is fun to write that. Shit. I feel like it is stealing the 5 cent candy from Fast Break- you should not do it but it is only 5 cents and it tastes so good melting in your mouth! So worth it and so forbidden. Speaking of forbidden- I think that I in general, am bad for my health- so says the Surgeon General. I think I simply need a rising hill that echoes and I will climb that hill, take off my shoes, climb the tree that is strategically perched up there , and then with my hair down and my arms outstretched embracing the wind I will Yalp, yalp for all of the damned feelings, for all of the confusion, and the "lostness" we all feel, some more than others. For all of it. Then I will climb back down, sigh deeply and consciously, put on my shoes, and continue through this life, wide awake. Yep, that is precisely what I will do.
Ze END

I just called to say...

That my cousin is having a baby. Yikes. A baby. After the excitement subsided, I realized that it's a baby. A whole human life about to enter our family. This little baby I pray for because it has no idea what awaits it. I hate calling the baby an it, but alas, for a few more months it will be an it, an unknown synthesis of egg and sperm. Oh poor baby that will enter this crazy and hectic world of ours, a world full of hunger, poverty, mechanical humans trained to not think for themselves, a world of materialism, globalization, communication, and what other big- worded catastrophe there is to name. I pray that this baby who will one day grow up will fight for freedom, question injustice, and cry for beauty and love. I guess that is a lot to hope for for a baby entering a wealthy family in Los Angeles but nevertheless, this is what I ask for and let that be all.

So as this baby begins to grow in my cousin's wife's belly, I send out this plea to all babies thinking about stepping onto this same earth that I walk upon:
A plea to not just live, but to be alive
To not be desensitized to the kind of love that is shown on tv
To open your hearts to pain and mistakes for they are sure to follow our humanness
Open your arms to relationships, to vulnerability and to people for as often as they will hurt you, they will also love you the most besides God.
Don't judge yourself too harshly and don't judge others, reserve judgment for those who get paid to do that.
I say all this because I have not yet learned to do them well, because these are my goals and I wish to pass them on to you.

Love
Listen.
Love.
Be patient to those around you.
Love.
Respect everyone.
Above all, love.
For that is the first thing that we are shown when we are born and should remain with us daily and eternally. We are created to live for ever. Our lives begin on this earth but that does not mean that they end here.
Welcome...

In the Life of a Spanish Tree

My dear old friend Raleigh is living in Spain. She took a picture of a Spanish tree and now I want to be this tree that lives in Spain, changing with the Spanish seasons, watching and shading the Spanish people and guiding their lives with its silent beauty. In the life of a Spanish tree, I will learn to be silent and patient and most of all, gentle. I will call myself Yoana, as a tribute to my Spanish friend who is about to return to San Sebastian. I will weep when my other friends are torn down or are not strong enough to support themselves. I will laugh when others shed their leaves before me and look naked compared to my majestic coat of orange leaves. In the gloomy seasonal days, I will allow the gentle rainfall to hold onto their last moments on the tips of my branches, fearing that when they fall to the ground, they will lose their individual contribution to the world around. I will allow those pesky ants crawl around and feel comfortable and I will let eagles rest on my branches. Though there are no eagles in Spain that live on trees as such, those are the birds that I want to welcome- eagles, the only birds that fly to a storm, fly directly to it and then soar above it. I want to be a shelter to them so that when the storm comes I can watch them soaring above, guiding it with my eyes as a proud mother. Yes, that sounds lovely. I will be this tree and will live on.

Steppenwolf

I am reading Hesse's Steppenwolf and as an opener he said he doesn't particularly like younger people reading his book because they misunderstand what the Steppenwolf really is and what it is really about. He was going through a sort of mid-life crisis as was the person who made the cover of this paper-back book that I got at the used book store in a very gay-friendly neighborhood. The cover looks like a mixture of a Michael Jackson Thriller and a science fiction Anastasia. It is just THAT good. Well Hesse was saying that people in the beginning stages of their lives (which I suppose I am still in ) will not truly be able to understand what the Steppenwolf was, what this wolf of the Steppes was, the half wolf half man that is never fully part of society and wanders around never feeling fully human, never fully wolf. He will always outcast himself out of society on his own accord because he loves his freedom but it is this freedom that leaves him all alone. I am 22 year-old girl, and somehow, I think I am my own Steppenwolf in my own world. Though Hesse would not like this, I do because it makes sense to me, more sense than much of what I write or say about myself. For I think that I am of another time and another place and fell into this place that I must now accustom myself to. I am trying...

"These persons all have two soul, two beings within them. There is God and the Devil in them; the mother's blood and the father's; the capacity for happiness and the capacity for suffering; and in just such a state of enmity and entanglement towards and within each other as were the wolf and the man in Harry.
And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment's happiness is flung so high and dazzlingly over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment. Thus like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternals and as a happiness of their own."
Hesse