Untitled note

Alright, it's Monday, March 1st, 9.09am. I'm walking on the trail that's behind my subdivision. I'm technically on the part that's probably behind Lake Horn Park. And between the only thing I can call them are like flooded basins, but anyway, in the farms. So yeah, I'm approaching the JC now. It's been a long time since I have been dictating regularly. I started one maybe a week ago, not really sure, but these are more story ideas than kind of dictations about like how I'm feeling. But they go hand in hand. I started thinking again about basically the story of, wow, I'm already trying to blank on it. But I'll have to, it's really been that long and that bad. I think part of me intentionally draws a blank to deny it, to forget about it. It's important to me, but I don't know if it's important to anyone else. I always struggle between the fact that should I even care. Is it really important to me if it's not important to anyone else? I mean, who should this story serve? So yeah, you know, some people just write a memoir and that recounts an event or a series of events for an entire period of their life where others fictionalize their life. This is somewhere in between. It's almost like a fiction that I want, that I am somehow replacing my life with because I get very lost in the blanks. I get lost. I don't like being lost. It feels lost because I feel like I have no direction to talk to. And I make up the stories or I follow along with other people in their stories. I become part of their story. And I'm not so sure that's any better way to go. And I think this feeling right now is perhaps a direct result of the story idea that I have, which is what a young man chooses to do when handed an opportunity. Or perhaps not so much an opportunity or when one of the stories ends. And how do you handle the ending of the story essentially? I'm pausing because I'm coming up with other people.

Okay, now I'm at the little walking bridge. The cowfields are on my left. The sun is right in front of me. The JC's on my right. I just passed a couple because I'm always nervous about talking. I feel like people think I'm talking to myself and I am. But that's none of their business. And of course, here comes someone on the trail. So anyway, what happened yesterday? Well, you know, sometimes I'm doing this because again, I remind myself context is important. I had already thought of the story idea before yesterday. I want to say I thought of it. Oh, I thought of it Friday after Gerald and I had our walk. So I'll probably want to talk about that some more. But yeah, so Gerald and I on Friday, which was three days ago, Hike to Olimpali to the top, which we didn't expect to do, but we didn't know where we were going to hike. And that's technically Mount Burdell. It's about 1,600 feet. And there's a communication, some sort of communication office there. So yeah, that's interesting. I'm going to pause again because I'm coming upon this guy.

Okay, first off, I passed like three people, but that's fine. I'm now at Sonoma Mountain Elementary School and this is the busiest Monday on the trail I've ever seen. Cows are out. I think I'll even take a picture because I can. They're right at the Ferdinand Tree and saving that. But still recording, that's pretty cool. And I think I got to turn around anyway because I have to go with the bathroom. So Gerald and I, yeah, we hiked to Holland Polly. We got to the halfway point of our trail, which was, you know, maybe about 700 feet in elevation, I'm not really sure. But then we decided to hike further. He was feeling good. And so I think next time we take that trail, I'm going to recommend either we do the straight shooter up and then the switch backs down because the direct portion of the trail is really brutal on your body going down. I mean, I can still feel it in my quads. But anyway, at the end, you know, at the end of our, we went to lunch and grabs some cappuccinos. I started talking about relationships. You know, he's always talking about relationships. And I finally brought up a, you know, because I think his, he's constantly talking about Leila. And I actually think it's pretty interesting how he's constantly, you know, I mean, honestly, I think she's really, he really obviously regrets that one. And there's a lot of similarity between, I think his relationship with Leila and my relationship with Shelby. And Heidi, if you're ever listening to this one day, please stop here because you probably just won't want to hear the rest of it. And that I'm saying that because I love you now because of any other thing. So anyway, yeah, it just occurred to me that I need to share my story with him. Or I wanted to, you know, I mean, I was, I wanted him to know. I'm, did I want, I wanted him to know. That's actually the same thing that I'm feeling. Uh, this, I mean, I don't, I, I, in the sense that he doesn't want to go back to Leila. He knew that he couldn't go back. And he kind of broke it off in a way that was a point of no return. So, I mean, that's essentially what I think that's my take on it. I might talk to him about that next time. And so we share something. But what's interesting is that I had already been through my relationship. A good, at least when I met him in 99, I had been through my, my relationship with Ed ended in, but 92, at the latest. No, 91. It ended in 91 at the latest. And so, uh, it was a good eight years before I met Gerald, but, um, so, uh, yeah, what happened? Well, um, I was, I, the, the point of it is, is that there's, these were both relationships that for both of us crossed some cultural, lingual, ethnic, religious, ideological divide. And because of that, um, that was in some ways the biggest source of tension in the relationship is that it's simply, let's just say that the other person is a stranger to your culture, to your ideology, to your belief system. And the only thing that you share is this common affection. And maybe it's love, maybe it's just affection. Who knows, right? But how does it grow stronger? You have to have, you have to kind of, if, if in some cases there's that, you know, it was that need for identity. And so, I think, uh, both Gerald and Layla, I mean, maybe Gerald more than Layla. I'm not really sure, I can't speak for her. Definitely needed this, um, identity. Hold on, I'm gonna try and go to the bathroom here if it's possible.

Okay, got that out. Now I can keep talking. So yeah it was important for me to kind of share this with Gerald. What do I, what did I need to share? I needed to tell him, you know what? I have, you know, there was a period in my life where I full on lived as a white American, you know. Now, don't give me wrong, obviously. Well, I may have went by Maddie, but I downplayed my religion as much as I could get away with and still basically feel like I wasn't letting my mother down. And so, and obviously it was important not to let her down in some ways. I think she was kind of like a litmus test for myself. I felt like maybe I would let myself down. Maybe, you know, if I let her down, I had already let her down by virtue of her discovering the Alexandria. And so, yeah, that was not fun because that was just a reminder that I was the one who made the mistakes. I was the one who, I was the black sheep and she could do nothing about it. And she so desperately tried to live her life and raised two little white sheep. But yeah. So, you know, I'm in Texas. If, you know, I'm in Texas. I am going to try to assimilate culturally, but told I can't by a white mother, white American mother. I'm an American mother. European Christian American mother. That's all I see. I don't care if you decided you claim yourself a Muslim. It's not adding up to me. I mean, you got the freedom to choose. I want the freedom to choose. But yeah. Where am I going with this? Well, basically, I chose. And I said, you know what? I'm going to, I mean, it was, I chose in more ways than one. I chose to basically drink, you know, I chose to date girls, which apparently it was not allowed to do either one of those. And so I was reminded of that. And I was made to feel ashamed of for wanting to do that. Now, what does all that mean? Well, it means that I chose to be a Muslim. I tried to become someone who I wasn't. And I still feel that I'm trying to be someone who I'm not. I mean, at least I'm trying less and less every day. Hold on, there's a loud noise here, so I have to stop.

Okay, so take for example the book The Human Stain, where I mean that left a profound impression on me where this professor who clearly is of African-American heritage can can live as a white person and get away with it to the point where he is judged as a white person in the end of his life and had his tenure taken away and everything. I mean that that book was so ahead of its time. I'm sure there are plenty of German novels or novels about you know Jews living trying to hide the fact that they're Jewish and act as if they are Christian Nazis or maybe just even just Christian in Nazi Germany but yeah. So what did I feel? I felt I feel ashamed when I have to pick I think I feel ashamed that I have to pick just Egyptian I feel ashamed when I have to pick just like American and but I had lived that way and I wanted the Egyptian side to accept Shelby and she couldn't the Egyptian most inside because they're just they don't they couldn't mix you know if if she really I mean that was just so stupid you know I'm it was it was an absolute idiotic thing to try and think that naive is really what it was but oh well and so yeah I in some ways I felt ashamed to be with her and I shouldn't have had to feel that but again in another thing that is kind of driving this memory and these emotions was watching the movie The Sound of Metal and I mean it was that movie hit home with me in terms of the the reason those two were together I mean that was exactly me and Shelby I mean the you know the RV that they lived out of represented the isolation and the codependency of their relationship the being in the band represented the codependency I was the guitar she was the drummer we both had some sort of addiction that we were trying to come off of I was trying to come off without call she was trying to come off the drugs and we helped each other but we weren't that that was the limit of the relationship and that's how it should have ended it should have ended with the two of us saying goodbye in an amicable way instead we left in a very bitter way and I'm left with the shame of how we ended it and I I know because I have proof of her mother trying to intervene and convinced me to try again I mean how bad could it be if you're telling your daughter who won doesn't want you to help her but it you are like I mean for her to help Shelby I was I was floored I mean that's when I knew it was really bad and so I don't I didn't you know I couldn't do anything so I you know I thought of a way I think I I thought of a way one to tell her never to come back to I was in such a a weird place that it was okay for me to tell her and three that no one should ever really know about that and so yeah um I'm I made up a story that I had met someone and and that was it and uh and and I wrote it in such a way that she would have hated to ever want to become come come back with me uh so yeah and she never did and a part of me wants to be able to have a memory that's not so destructive but I can't I almost feel like it had to be very destructive for me to understand that it's over I think it's very destructive to live with the two identities too I they try to destroy each other internally and that's that's why I think you you suffer just on the face of being bicultural if if the two identities uh want to destroy each other I mean white European Baptist American Christian culture wants to destroy African Muslim Arab culture period and I have to live with that hate and I didn't choose it and I don't want to live with the hate so I don't know how you know I mean why does it got to be so awkward for me to go visit Uncle Sanford anyway I just can't tell if someone's about to cross paths now I'm just now leaving Kenna North and heading back to the trail this may be the end of my dictation so I don't know but we'll see so yeah let me pause it

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3.