Saturday, August 25, 2007

Rocket Attack

Rocket attack. I slept through it.

I've figured out how to email my posts but that means no hyperlinking
and no tags.

I visited family and friends this Friday, my one day off. It was
probably the first day that I felt okay about being in Kabul. I don't
know why this transition is harder than the others.

Safrang wondered if being 'back in the belly of the beast' will
dampen my enthusiasm for blogging. I don't know. It's hard to
synthesize this country into edible blog posts that convey the
overwhelming sadness that the security situation is worse than before
or the fact that people are less hopeful than before. That said, if
the situation gets better and there is tangible progress - I think
the hope will be re-ignited. Here's for hope, right?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to conciously and almost explicitly give myself permission to "just" tell my story, my experience of Afghanistan and of the rest of my life. If I start imagining that someone might read my blog to understand this country I'd freak out completely. I also have to forget about trying to make sure every post stands alone - some will tell one bit of a story or a phenomenon or a feeling and in that sense will be incomplete and unbalanced. Somedays I am drowning in despair, other days I soar on the wings of a little window of hope. My posts reflect those extremes plus the angry days, the sad days, the petty, irritated days and the days when I'm filled with the joy of simple goodness that I find in most unexpected places.
Hope cannot be abandoned - I'm going to find that Emily Dickenson poem for you. See you very soon.

safrang said...

Reading this post and Frida's comment above I am beginning to see how my prolific and deligent blogging career (which was all too self-serious at the same time) came to a crashing halt just as I came here. I think it is partly that fear of "how the hell can I write coherently about this mess that I myself understand too little of?" And partly the requisite effort of working up the courage to hope.
Ever since coming here, that title of Obama's book has found an all new meaning for me: "The Audacity of Hope". Because here, in the belly of the beast, hoping demands a certain kind of defiance and audacity.
Maybe it is not incidental that these days I post more frequently on my other, more dismal looking blog with a black background and category labels like "depressive mania", "moan & bitch", and "madness"...

Kristin Ohlson said...

I haven't been reading blogs for weeks, so have been out of touch-- didn't know you went back! I'm still trying to process my last trip there. I think I was most afraid when I was in my house alone, thinking about all the things that could be happening out there and about how very ignorant I was about...everything. I do hope you blog often. I want to keep up.

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