Oops...doubling up today..

I got a little busy at work yesterday and didn't have time to post a picture, so I'll post two for today...

These were taken at the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi...it literally doesn't look like a real building. You feel like you've landed in a scene from Aladdin when you walk in. That is, until you get escorted out by security for wearing shorts into a mosque (what was I thinking?).

Its such a beautiful building to me...I could almost convert to being a Muslim just to be in it everyday for prayer. Ok, maybe not, but...it is quite the sight to behold.

Life at the End of the Tunnel

I took this picture in Prague. I was walking through this very dim tunnel and at the end of it was an enormous in-pouring of light...but not only that, this vibrantly green tree that was framed perfectly by the arch of the tunnel...and so, I like to call it, "Life at the End of the Tunnel".

An Image a Day...

Recently, I attended a photography seminar, and as many of you know...Photography, like Writing, is one of my favorite hobbies. Photography, however, goes a little deeper for me, than a hobby...it feels more like an extension of me than anything else. Like if I ever were to lose my hand for some reason, and they tried to put a claw on me or something, I'd just as soon have them make it a tripod rather than anything else. Even if I could trade it for a perma-pen. Yes, I would definitely choose a tripod....I digress...

The gentleman leading one of the classes I was taking said that when he was trying to become a better photographer, he started a photography blog and committed to posting one image per day on it. After being introduced to my favorite new photographer, Joey L (www.joeyl.com) and becoming completely and utterly awe-inspired, I've decided to attempt the same thing. I might not post on the weekends....so it likely won't be an image per day exactly, but I want to try it out and see just how many new photos I can take, edit and share. Perhaps, where my words have been lacking lately, my photos can make up.

This picture was taken at the Dhow Wharfage area of Dubai...and in broad daylight. But for me, there was something particularly sad about this boat...it was off to the side away from the other boats..a "loner" boat, you might say....but in all of its "sadness" over there being alone....its face was covered with the light of the sun, and really...what on earth is better than the sun shining on your face? I like to think the boat agrees...

Moving Camels

The longer I stay here in Dubai, the more appalled I am at the ways of the society. I don't mean the way the women dress in all black from head to toe, or the way that men hold hands (as friends) here. I don't mean the fact that I don't live in a Democracy and women don't really have a say over who they are, what they do or who they marry...

I'm referring to the little crazy things that go on here. Like camels in the bed of a pick-up truck.

I grew up in a little tiny town in Texas where it's pretty common to see people coming home from the grocery store on their tractors. Not too abnormal for me...husband goes to work in the cotton field, wife calls husband on his cell while he's in the cotton field because she forgot butter, toilet paper or tampons; husband then has to "run" to the grocery store on his way home from the cotton field on his tractor. Seems pretty normal to me.

But camels in the back of a pick up truck?? A WHOLE CAMEL? What exact situation warrants this? Was there a camel emergency and the driver had no other way to transport the poor awkward thing but to shove it in the bed of his truck? It wasn't even a big truck like the ones we have in Texas with 19 extra wheels on it. It was just your average Toyata sized truck...very normal sized 4 x 4, but with a full size camel in the back.

The poor thing looked like its legs had been turned into giant noodles that were then wrapped and contorted around him so as to fit his abnormally sized and designed body into an equally abnormally small sized box.

Add to that the 140 or so km per hour that the driver was going and you really have the makings of something special.

Ahhh, Dubai.....oh, how I love thee.

One Year in Dubai...

My One-Year-in-Dubai Anniversary recently passed and somehow...somewhere...after a near year-full of wishin' and hopin' and dreamin' of the moment that I would be able to hand my final boarding pass from Dubai to San Diego to the Emirates cabin crew.........I'm still here.

Not only am I still here....but, I'm staying.

Not only am I staying.......

....but, I'm in love.

Two things I honestly thought would never happen. Not here...and not now. But here it is, here I am....and here HE is. Everything I thought I found in another person, that I now understand wasn't there at all. Not even a little bit. Everything I hoped for, but was so very surprised to find wrapped up in the person that it came in.

And my heart is happy....for the first time in approximately 4 years, give or take a few days....I'm really, really happy.

Thank God....

And while I'm at it, I'd like to also thank Him for star-kissed nights in the sand, whispered Hail Mary's in French, Jim Morrison's lyrical poeticism being sung in all the wrong keys, whiskey no-no's, dances in turquoise and quite possibly the cutest dimple-framed smile that there ever, ever was. Oh and "winters" that consist of flip flops, beach days and bathing suits.

It's really not so bad here after all.

HOME!

I'm on my way home tomorrow....and Dubai will be lucky if it sees me back here after being in San Diego for 2 weeks. If I can give any advice worthwhile here, it's to look around your life and say "thank you" for every little thing in it. As Americans, we have NO idea how good we have it....and I will never again question it.

With that said....my bags are packed, ticket printed and lips puckered to kiss the California ground that I will soon walk on. :)

sleeping in a sea of drowning prayers

This morning I had the oddest in-and-out of sleep experience yet while living in Dubai. I live in the area of Dubai known as "Downtown". It would be equivalent to living on the 15th floor of a mid-rise tower on the Strip in Las Vegas...or perhaps at the corner of Times Square and 42nd street in NYC. It's a far, far cry from the peace-filled surroundings of my San Diego condo, or the quiet Texas farm that I grew up on.

Every morning, around 4 am, at the nearby Mosque you can hear the sounds of the morning call to prayer...and then a bit later, the actual prayer being sung by a local Islamic man....pouring over the tops of villas and bus stops and construction sites like smoldering ash, seeping into the crevices of dreams and closed eyelids.

Most of the time, I can't hear it....but this morning I woke up to an unfamiliar voice billowing out from the speakers of the mosque and into my single paned windows, waking me.....calling me...a near begging of me.

Sheikh Zayed Road is the busiest thoroughfare in Dubai...and my room is perched above it like a nest that never quite got nestled, due to the ongoing construction of other nests surrounding mine. Frequently, I'm awakened by the sounds of banging, hammering, sawing, craning, nailing....but rarely to that of a prayer such as this one this morning....such a surreal prayer that I could only liken it to that of a drowning victim. Calling...almost as if with water already filling up their mouth...out for anyone in the near vicinity to hear. This man's prayer, was not being drowned in a sea of water...but in a sea of traffic. Cars flying to and fro...like the crashing of waves back and forth on the sea's edge, and a lone voice in the midst of it all, wanting...pleading for safety, serenity and peace.

Dubai is interestingly akin to this picture that was created in my mind. A culture of face-paced business people, speeding through life...and the traditions of the Islamic culture, trying desperately to slow it down. To have a voice above the traffic of the Dubai life. Similarly to the prayer this morning...it often goes unheard in the midst of the development and growth; the expats and tourists; the flash and opulence...the crashing of the waves of a society that wants somewhere to be new-worldly and old-world-like at the same time.

And somewhere amidst the droning sounds of the summoning voice that continued to drift in and out of the waves of traffic passing by....I fell back to sleep in a sea of drowning prayers.