Summer Postcards 2013
Cutlery on Porcelain
This morning meal, known in Persian as “sahari,” marks the first meal of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month, where most able-bodied Muslims strive to fast from the first light of dawn until sunset. This year, Ramadan falls in the heart of the summer, and for most here, the combination of 17 hours without food or drink and heat that exceeds 100 degrees every day is extremely challenging. For those who can fast, though, this shared meal in the darkness of the morning represents the beginning of a long month of discipline, charity, and kindness.
Perceptions of Perfection
What would my life seem like to Apollo? Would I join him in his alabaster perfection or am I too common, too mainstream for his Olympian taste? I am far from a flawless Greek goddess, but then again, flawlessness like Apollo’s doesn’t exist. Later that day I learned that the statue of Apollo didn’t even have a living male model – it was based off of a series of measurements, an ancient mathematical formula of perfect hairline-to-jawline ratios, shoulder widths and muscle masses – the Greek version of Photoshop. And while Apollo is immortal, he is fixed in time and space forever – endlessly passing his godly judgment on the Lapiths, while I am free to pass out of his gaze. However, he will forever be youthful and strong butI am subject to age and entropy. But what is better – an eternity of immobile certainty and perfection, or the ability to live, grow, make mistakes and transform as a person? His temples have crumbled while my life becomes more unpredictable, flawed, and beautiful every second that rolls by. And while one of these deities with perfect Olympian proportions may never step off of his pedestal and into my life, I’ll find someone real, someone who will still love me even when I’m no longer young and beautiful.
Sic Transit Gloria
I like my metals trading internship, during which I’ve learned about things like anti-dumping regulations, Incoterms, and zirconium oxychloride. I’m not sure that I want to manage shipments of potassium fluoroborate for the rest of my life. And I’m not sure that God didn’t forget “thou shalt not heat up fish in the office microwave” when He handed down the Ten Commandments. Yet I enjoy the work.
