Albuquerque

I had a lot of thoughts running through my head as I was driving yesterday, and had a few different ideas for blog entries I'd like to write, but by the time I got here last night, I just wanted to take a bath and get to bed. And now it's morning, and Janardan doesn't want to get on the road for another few minutes, so I thought I'd take time to share some of my thoughts.

I had a little breakdown yesterday as I was trying to do the last minute things I needed to do. I just kept turning around another corner and finding one last thing to do, and the list was getting long, and I was worried I would never get out of there. Plus I could not see out my back window, and I wanted to be able to see, so I wouldn't be as stressed driving. So I just started crying, and Janardan was inside, and he came out and gave me a hug, but then was too tired from standing so long, so went off somewhere else, so I got in my car, and tried to call Emily. I had missed a call from her, and I wondered if it hadn't been the Heavenly Father having her call me.

So I called her back, and I just cried, and told her I was overwhelmed. She said she would be over in five minutes. I knew she would do whatever I needed from her, so I started setting the things aside that I would ask her to do - take a last trip over to the storage unit, send two things I needed sent, and drop off my books at the library. And so knowing that she would take care of those things, I started to get the other things in order.

And so she came over and helped me, then I played with the girls for a little bit, and then tried to postpone saying my goodbyes. Earlier in the morning I had been at the storage unit, and thought I might miss saying goodbye to Autumn, and so I rushed over to Emily's house to say bye, but she didn't have pre-school yesterday. As I drove over, though, I just thought of Autumn, and started crying, because of how much I'll miss her.

I cried when I said goodbye to Emily, and she was talking to me about how strong I was. It was an odd thing, there expressing my inner weakness, my need for her, and how much I will miss her, and her calling me strong. And it just made me think how sharing our weaknesses with each other makes us both stronger, because we can do more and overcome more, knowing that we can rely on each other for help. I am strong, because she lifts me up and carries me when I fall, and she can do that, because I do the same for her.

The other thoughts I had were as we were driving through an Indian Reservation, I stopped at a grocery store. Two things were running through my mind - first, drawing parallels between the people I saw and the Indians in Twilight (I was really looking for someone who would give me a good visualization of what Jacob looks like - didn't really find any) and the second was references to a conversation I had with a friend a week or so ago.

I have a friend Jessica, who is Chinese American. She is pretty obsessed with race (our nicknames for each other are whitey and Asian). Anyway, and so we were talking the other day about how she thinks that white people don't really have much racial identity. As I walked into that store, though, I thought - oh yes I have a racial identity. It was the distinct feeling of not being on my own turf, something that I have not really ever experience before. And it was racial that I felt, not cultural, because I've been out of the country before. I guess it just made me realize that as a white person, my racial identity is not often confronted, it is a given.

It was such a distinct experience, something I hadn't experience before, but so surface. It makes me want to take part in participant observation in a culture and race different from my own. It really makes me want to get over it. I want to feel comfortable and accepted in a racial setting that is not my own, and I would like to understand my own racial identity better.