The Human Genome

An essentially complete human genome was mapped in April of 2003, two years earlier than planned.

Another Fork

Well, here I am sitting alone once again, and why is that, because I am unsociable, hard-nosed, inflexible, or because I am in the wrong setting? Mostly, I think the latter. I don’t belong here with these people. I have decided to go home, and will do so as soon as I can tie up loose ends.
This was an adventure that turned out badly. I got away from drugs, and temptation, and sadness, only to land in alcohol, tobacco, and frustration. I was alone, but now am more alone than ever—disconnected by the language and the lack of interesting things to do. I feel so uncomfortable.
For an ill-paying job that has only moments of brightness, I exhaust myself trying to do my best, but because it is not my calling, I am spending hours in producing nothing. Sometimes I want to bang my head on a wall and lie down to die. The alternative is to travel, but I really cannot afford that and would soon be broke. I have painted myself into a corner.
The guilt is mine. I haven’t tried hard enough to overlook those things that bother me. But it must also be shared with one who met me with a sweet and enthusiastic disposition, who has now fallen back on old familiar ways through, I think, resentment and laziness—resentment due to my actions (or inactivity)—laziness because it is in one’s nature to resort to the familiar when frustrated. That is why I must go home. I am not close to the familiar here, and thus cannot resort to anything. The groundings of my life are far away.
I met a sad man in my travels who said I must learn acceptance, but in his eyes I saw disappointment. How can the teacher impart a wisdom in which he does not believe? How can one wear a smile over anger that shows through?
Today, at this moment, I hate it here, and I despise myself for weakly, resignedly, putting myself in this position. Once, I cried in sadness and thought my decision was inevitable. Now, I see it was only a fork in the road. Had I been prescient, I would have realized I had been given a sign which required more weighing, but I was tired and chose too quickly. In a strange church, I prayed for guidance and thought my prayers went unanswered. I didn’t realize the list of supplicants was long. Now the sign has been delivered. The road was a circle and I am back at the fork.
This time I must make the right choice. I hope those I left behind will have me back.

All Saints' Day

Yesterday was Omar’s birthday. Tomorrow, The Day of the Dead, is Álvaro’s. So today, later, the brothers will celebrate both at a big party in a rented salon with a palapa and alberca.
Yesterday, in the morning, a woman came to the house from Hacienda to advise me I owe a multa of $1243 pesos for paying my taxes late, and last night my laptop’s hard drive was making a lot of noise and acting erratically. I tried to save important files to another disk because it looks as if the computer is to be repaired or replaced imminently.
This afternoon, before the fiesta, Sra. Z. arrives home from Sinaloa, where her mother, a pleasantly sharp lady passed away during the week. Álvaro was very upset when he learned his grandmother had died, and it was very fortunate that he had gotten to spend some time with her when she visited recently. Her home is pretty far away. She impressed me because though she was in ill health, she was a great talker, and frequently laughed.
So overall, these recent days bring good things at the cost of bad.
I was advised yesterday by Marta at the school that I am on the schedule for next semester for a similar work load, which I guess I should look at positively. But lately I have felt very tired while trying to complete all the chores I must do at home.
The house is in need of a good cleaning because Á’s work schedule keeps him away most of the day and when I am here alone I spend hours in front of the computer. Perhaps this breakdown is a sign—a respite from one kind of work to take care of another, equally important, but recently neglected.
Things at Tec, on the surface, have been without incident, but I never trust still waters, especially with a personality such as Kate’s. I can’t help but feel, based on past experience, that I will soon misstep and be called on it. Still, as I told her, if she does leave after next semester, and if Paco is her replacement, I don’t think I will want to stay on.
Recently, there has been a connection being made among the English teachers from the various campuses in the Tec system, and that looks promising, but I don’t know yet what it will lead to, and this surely is not convenient to be without my computer at the moment.
As for my writing—this is one of those fallow periods (no ideas and no time) and it follows having submitted a story that was generously reviewed by the Zoetrope gang. I know it’s just temporary, but I feel an empty space when I am not working on something.
The other day I read and copied an article that said culture shock goes through four stages, and the last, when a person finally learns to feel comfortable in their new location, takes several years to achieve and some people never do. As I felt familiar with the first three stages, I’m thinking the article must be realistic, and it scares me to think I may never reach that ultimate level of assimilation. Not a total disaster for a young person who can start the process again or return home a little saddened but wiser, but I am aging rapidly. What will I do if this doesn’t work out for me?
I have been posting this while doing laundry and as I watch it starting to rain on my semi-dried clothes, I guess I have received some sort of answer to that last question. And here’s another: Why does my guiding spirit always have to be so obtuse?

Temporary Situation

Where am I now, at mid-century? In a place that on the surface feels comfortable though untidy. Peripheral vision, however, shows me this is a temporary situation. It must be. I have duties and obligations in other places which sooner or later must be addressed.
My days are apportioned with a modicum of energy. When that flags during the early evening hours, a depression comes upon me which I find difficult to override. Now, my current situation is not one I could have foreseen three and a half years ago. At the end of the last century, I would have believed life as it was would continue thus for a good many years, but everything changed the following spring. Fate had disappointments and surprises in store for me, few in which I thought to take a proactive role. Some in which I could not have done. And in those I believed I did, turns have led me here.
A dark April, my birth month, was succeeded by seasons of mental torment. Then I sought no direction, only release. The year turned and I discovered a new path, one I had never expected. I put on my walking shoes and tread, not lightly, but wholeheartedly in the belief that I was no longer a solitary wanderer, but had someone with whom to learn how to overcome wounding memory. This, in all honesty, was the truth. Now, I can say that. However, as time passed all I allowed to change was my base of operations. I brought my old personality with me into this new life. That was both probably unavoidable and certainly detrimental to effecting the change. If I had a hard time adjusting, it was because I made it so. I embarked on a new lifestyle and a new career; I met new friends—but still I am trying to recognize these in the light of my previous life. The results are disappointing, but like bad psychiatry, perceiving my dilemma is not helping me to change my outlook.
Still, the evening downturns arrive and take hold.
When judged on its own merits, life here in Chiapas is not so bad, and as John used to say, I am crying with egg in my beer, but when I recall my life in New York, the current scene comes up wanting, and I cannot forget he was also fond of relating the tale of the worm in the horseradish. Of course, I must also remind myself that that New York life I recall has moved into the realm of history and may no longer be attainable. It could be that that was my destiny all along—to replace my dreamed of, fictional, past with my lived past.
The scenario, then, is you cannot remember a life you did not live, but only read about, with veracity, but you can with that which was real for you as an individual, and be thankful that you were able to live it so. Many people, through circumstances, do not get to experience what you did, or they die too young to build such a packed storehouse of memories. Then again, many people, probably the smartest, do not rely on memory at all to verify their existence. I envy those who can truly enjoy their present moments to the extent that previous unhappiness holds no sway. Álvaro always tells me to calm down.
“Why do you always upset yourself?” he asks. “Live the moment.” You cannot change the future, nor the past, for that matter, but it is so hard to relax into that advice. I have never been able to do it. John used to tell me that also, so I guess it’s a chronic inability. With all I have done, however, and all that I may yet do—that anyone would be glad to experience—I feel unable to lift this veil of ennui.
My greatest fear is that someday I will die a sad person without justification.

Soulmate

I’ve asked myself a couple of times over these past few days, “Do I need someone in my life right now? And if so, do I need a specific someone?” and I believe that is a double affirmative. Without analyzing the differences that are inherent in philial love as opposed to conjugal love and what constitutes a simple platonic relationship, I have come to realize I very definitely need someone to share moments with as they happen, and for a long time I was blindsided by ephemeral events into thinking that none of the people around me was fulfilling that role. The word “soulmate” is not one to be tossed off idly, but it had been said in an unguarded tone and it was right—then. I’ve only just concluded that once it is right, it is forever right.
I have said and done some foolish things in fits of cynicism and rancor. I long for a return to innocence. Innocence with insight, however, not naiveté. Awareness can be a fine thing before it blooms into the black rose of cynicism. Sophistication is only a short step from sophistry. Those of us who become alert to signs and mannerisms are sometimes all too ready to pat ourselves on the back and congratulate ourselves on the hardening of our hearts against the pain of involvement, but cynicism hurts, too. And the after-pain can be much greater than the other because there is always the knowledge in the aftermath of involvement that whatever went wrong is our own fault. Indeed, if one is so intelligent as to “see through” the motives of friendship, one should likewise be smart enough to find solutions to problems and take action. Not everything can happen by attrition. To be forewarned (and proverbially forearmed) and yet allow the bad to happen is socially criminal and at the very least, laziness. Who has a right to cry over their own laziness?
So, yes, I need a specific someone, and I know it is time to get off my duff and do the right thing. One should never run away from love in any of its forms nor be, nor pretend to be, blind to its presence.

Another Door

As it turns out, I do not run from this place, although I have had numerous opportunities and several provocations. Is it procrastination, a lack of conviction, or do I cry with egg in my beer? Certainly, there are some small satisfactions in my life that I had never previously experienced, and because of other commitments, could not have experienced in my prior life in New York.
Ever since reading Frank McCourt’s ‘Tis, I have had a hankering to be part of the educational system. Earlier than that, actually, before he wrote Angela’s Ashes, before he came to one of our parites with his brother Malachy, and they regaled us with tales of the opportunity that came their way on their return to America. Yes, before Frank spoke of the joy of connecting with kids and how he made a career of something he was virtually qualified for albeit without license, I had longed to teach, but somehow I always settled for clerical jobs. I recall reading a novel called The Fly wherein there was a scene that took place in a teachers’ lounge as observed through the eyes of the title character, and I was much charmed by viewing various films when younger such as To Sir With Love and Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I guess I have always longed for that sort of adulation—to be the one teacher who has a strong effect on his students. Realizing that my writing will probably never bring me lasting notoriety, teaching and being remembered was one kind of fame I could aspire to. It couldn’t have happened in my other life, but there was always the future, the unknown and unforetellable future.
In April of 2000, with the passing away of all I had grown accustomed to, every conceivable future opened its door to me. At that time, I had no desire to enter any. I wanted my own existence to end. I returned to the church and prayed for guidance. I worked (in an office, of course) during the day and at night I led a solitary and contemplative life, waiting, just waiting, I suppose, for everything to disappear—to awaken from a nightmare of loneliness.
The days drifted into months and I realized in December of that year that nothing had changed—except everything. And then, through a chance encounter and the discovery that throughout those long lonely months some doors had remained ajar, I chose one and slipped through, unnoticed, and soon found myself on the other side of one of those unforeseeable futures.
From what I had relearned during my Sundays in church, I could perhaps come to believe that this turn of events was predestined and, my underlying character being rather lethargic, this would be the easiest perception to come by, but it frightens me to think that stranger metamorphoses might await me. The fright is there in the notion of changes whose timing is off, much like the fear of Alzheimer’s Disease erasing a lifetime of knowledge.
I digress.
Now, I am an English teacher working at Tec de Monterrey, but with barely enough hours this semester to sustain a “way of life.” There is only that modicum of satisfaction in my performance that helps me to persevere whenever the doubts creep in. My first semester was average. At the end of the second, I was awarded a citation. Last semester, though personally satisfying, did not bring any notice of achievement. This, my fourth, which began Monday, the 11th, feels so far like another open door, only this one appears to require a key. I hope with my reverberations I do not miss finding it on the side of the road as I race forward, for that must be my direction. I must not be diverted by confusion nor dissolution.

Writing and Running

Something is wrong. Something is definitely wrong. At this time and place, I can’t get a handle on it. I’d like to be happy, successful, wealthy, independent, but at the moment, I don’t feel any of those things. How did I arrive at this state?
In April of 2001, I left my home in New York, left my previous life behind and moved to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico, not least of all to begin something different, something fresh, something that had no resemblance to the life that had turned sad for me. I had mixed expectations and only a vague awareness of what awaited me here.
I guess I’m hoping now if I write about my experiences that I’ll be able to make some sense out of where I’ve placed myself. At the time I made this move, I felt very brave and some of the people around me said they envied me making such a decision. They seemed to think I was leaving the rat race behind and moving to fun in the sun—a permanent vacation of lying on a beach with a cold beer beside me and music playing. I guess I saw that too. I had been to Mexico before—the resort areas—and I think that’s what I really wanted. No obligations, no responsibilities, no attachment to things that turn sad.
I couldn’t see then that vacations are the way they are because they are not permanent. That it is their very fleetingness that charges them full of memories of lassitude and drains them of a sense of responsibility. You try to turn them into lasting situations and they morph into some halfway limbo condition.
In any case, there’s no beach here. It’s a three-hour drive away, and I’ve been there twice in a period of more than two years.
In looking back over one’s life, the good times sparkle like diamonds or bits of gold among the dross of the quotidian and one longs to relive them, to gather them together and make an other life out of them. One doesn’t see that they glitter precisely because of their juxtaposition against the ungleaming days and months. It takes the mistake of trying to do such a thing to recognize the folly of feeling that way.
Firstly, in the long view of hindsight, one doesn’t see that those bits were not faultless, but in gathering them together, in trying to relive them, their faults become magnified.
There are thousands of bugs, tiny ants, crawling over them, whose presence, when perceived, is an irritation. Then too, there is the fact that nothing can really happen the same way twice. So, yes, it is folly to believe one can recapture something that perhaps had been perceived incorrectly in the first place.
That being said, I find myself now in this place in the middle of a race toward a goal I already know will not satisfy, unable to return to a starting line that has been eradicated. Nor can I take off these uncomfortable running shoes to sit on the sidelines for a few moments to get my bearings. There are spectators who have come to watch, expecting a winner, and if I don’t keep moving, then I am just an impediment to the other racers.
The thing is, I want to keep running. I want to win. I want to hear the cheers of victory. I’m afraid, though, that I won’t stop to collect a trophy. I’ll just keep running long after the race is finished, and the spectators have gone home. I’ll keep running and running as I don’t have any home to go to.