Get to know them

I have always been curious about people and their inner worlds. What does my doctor enjoy doing in her free time? Is the actor playing a villain a kind soul in his daily life? What goes through the mind of a rock climber when the rock underneath his foot gives in? Why did my sister preferred reading books to playing with me as a child.

I met Beth Finke, an award-winning author of Writing Out Loud, teacher, and journalist when I took her memoir class for seniors in the Fall of 2018. Flattery may take you anywhere, but a lie about my age got me into her writing class. And so it began, an unexpected fascinating journey into the lives of retired Chicago folks. With every writing assignment, a different layer of a personality revealed. Vulnerability gave way to openness and intimacy. Strangers shared personal stories for no other reason but reflecting upon life and passing on their legacy.

In these classes Beth taught, guided and encouraged us writers, yet rarely shared much about herself. I challenged the status quo and asked Beth for an interview. On a crisp January morning Beth and I found ourselves in the cozy recording studio of Story Corps’ where I tried to get to know her better.

StoryCorps’ mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. I wrote about the experience a few months ago. Recently StoruCorps’ launched an on-line archive and now you can listen to my interview with Beth - 42 minutes of shared life experience I deeply cherish.

In the middle of this Holiday Season, I invite you to give the gift of your time and attention to the people in your life--family, friends, strangers. Get to know them! And you might open a door into a world of marvel.

Today is Beth’s birthday and I dedicate this post to her. Happy birthday, Beth!




Highlights

4:12 When Beth was 25-years-old she started seeing spots from diabetic retinopathy and eventually became blind. She got married at that time too.

6:40 Iliana asks what advice Beth has for people when going through early stages of trying to save their sight. Beth says she should have gone to Europe with her husband like they had planned but instead she kept having surgeries for naught and didn't go. She says not knowing what's going to happen during the surgeries was the worst part.

8:15 Beth talks about writing her memoir and learning only then about what it really felt like to learn there was no hope for her sight. She says she felt relief to give up.

14:30 Iliana asks if teaching senior citizens memoir writing is difficult knowing they could die. Beth says it happens. She keeps them alive through their stories. She says the essays they write in her class are often read at their memorial services.

20:00 Iliana asks what Beth would like Smartphones to do for blind people. Beth suggests a way to translate sheet music.

33:00 Beth says it's a gift she lived part of her life sighted because she can understand both pretty well. Beth says, "I feel watched a lot. I'm still me but I'm not me because I can't see anymore so it's hard to figure out sometimes how to act. I think getting older I quit worrying about it and I'm just me."

A 40-year-old virgin

First-time sex for most Americans happens at around age 17. Yet, recently I met not one, but two men who remained virgin late in their 30ies. One of them shared his story.

The first mention of sex was his father’s “drunken sailor” talk and uncomfortable off-color jokes. Pornographic movies, school, and media expanded his sex knowledge throughout adolescence. “Watching porn felt naughty, but I was curious”. Yet, sex was among many topics of curiosity.

It was a long road. High school would have been the easy time to make out, but he wasn’t the coolest of kids. He went to college and connected with people, but soon he left off to start a startup company. “It was a different environment. There were a lot of hot women, but they were much older and inaccessible.”

Ten years later he moves to Chicago. Most of his new colleagues are married, which isn’t boosting his social life. He admits he was not keen on pursuing social interactions just for the sake of it, not obsessing about sex, even thinking it wasn’t worth the effort. Pressure from different sides added up. 

A shred of regret in his voice tempts me to ask if he ever felt peer pressure, sadness or depressed about his virginity. No, he perks up, because nobody knew. I start to believe that it was all circumstantial - people assume he is like everyone else and he lets it be- a convenient protective shield. But he adds something that links to the beginning of our conversation. 

“During my time at the startup, things could have been different, but the co-founder was over the top always trying to impress - sexually and otherwise, he reminds me a little bit of Trump.” 

He chuckles. I am careful, “You mean that in a putting off way, he was giving sex a bad name?”

“Yeah.”

What he adds after a pause is more to reassure himself rather than talking to me. “Yeah. It definitely feels like a number of things were tilted in different directions, just happenstance”.

But he liked a coworker. When he learned that she was engaged, with a quite healthy sex life the light bulb went on – the lack of sexual experience might be a block in pursuing a relationship of his own. Seeing a sex therapist and a dating expert came to the rescue.

Having sex for the first time later in life was neither a choice nor a condemnation. He was comfortable with focusing on his business first and letting sex enter life in its own time. Sexually active for a few months now, he finds it hard to disentangle sex and being in a relationship - he is dating his first sexual partner, and that’s big for him. 

“It’s really not that difficult if you find somebody that is willing to go through that first experience with you. And it’s ok, it’s not like you are going to be a million years behind everybody.” – he smiles.

How I met my Brother

I couldn’t take Mette’s words out of my mind - ’Why do you insist on staying here? You lost your job, you don’t have a boyfriend anymore, you are running out of money and you don’t even speak well the language.’ I knew she was right and meant well. She was one of my best friends and she cared for me. Yet her words stung. I hopped on my bike and cycled aimlessly for hours until the answer popped into in my head.

Why did I want to stay?

Because life is not about your job, boyfriend and money, nor speaking the local language. I was surrounded by good friends, I lived in a beautiful city, I had settled down nicely, I was enjoying myself, I was happy. Yet I didn’t have the money to afford my studio’s rent and the bills. Living in the Netherlands was a dream come true. I had vivid memories of the exhilaration of arriving and moving in, the first wild weekends. I was not ready to let go off my dream. It was almost a year since my apartment was broken into for the second time, boyfriend replacing me with another girl and my employer asked me to leave. I now house-cleaned for two families and babysat occasionally. I was barely making ends meet. With my credit card maxed out and zero savings I needed a better plan - immediately!

It was late March, winter was over. I decided to sublet my studio temporaryly and camp in the garage or sleep in the car, whichever works out better. I didn’t think through all of the details yet I put the studio for rent. I was doing to set things up in the garage while waiting for prospective renters to call. The first caller was an Italian girl - she didn’t like the open plan of the studio and sharing the living area with me. A friend helped me put a make-shift wall a sliding door. In a nutshell, two rails were attached to the ceiling and the floor with nothing better but two-sided industrial strength tape, and a large sheet of plywood sliding through them as a wall/sliding door. Yes, it was not the best of architectural solutions, but budget was tight and time was short. Caller number two was a Neurology researcher from Sweden - he was looking not just for a room, but an office space too, and he liked cooking. My place did not fit the bill.

Frustrated with the futility of my plan, I headed out of town to visit friends for the weekend. No more than an hour into my getaway I got a phone call - a Spanish guy, Hector, wanted to see the place. ‘Sure, but I am in Groningen for the weekend (2h train ride away). Can you come on Monday?’. No, he couldn’t, he needed to leave his current place immediately and find a place as soon as possible. He sounded motivated and why wouldn’t he, I was renting my studio for 400 euros, while every other room in town was at least 500 and located in the city’s outskirts, while I offered prime location. I hopped on the next train to meet Hector.

He arrived right on time - well built, clean and nicely dressed, averaged guy, married. Hector inspected the space in less than a minute, heard my spiel about my sleeping in a room in the garage, but sharing the living area, kitchen and bathroom with him, and tells me ‘Great! I’ll take it. Here is the first month rent and deposit.’ I couldn’t believe it - what did just happen, can it be that quick and painless?! My stuff was still in the wardrobe, my sheets were on the bed, I haden’t even secured a tent for my garage living shenanigan, but Hector was placing cash in my hand and I couldn’t say no, so we had a deal. I gave him a set of keys, striped the bed and put on fresh sheets. He was ok with me emptying the wardrobe later, he wouldn’t need it right away anyway. He left to pick up and bring home his bags. My head was spinning, but there was no going back. I got a motivated renter with money. On the way back to Groningen - my weekend getaway, I wondered how stupid exactly that move was, but it was too late. I focused on seeing my friends and having a good time. After two breaking and enterings, things could hardly get much worse. Right?

I returned home early Monday morning. Hector greeted me with a smile, still in his dark blue pajama, smoking a cigarette in the tiny backyard between the house and the garage. A bit of a small talk and I would have been on my way to who knows where to get a tent and perhaps an air mattress...but Hectors asked me ‘Well, where exactly is your room in the garage, because, pardon my curiosity, I looked in the garage and there is no room there.” I exhaled caught red-handed. “You are right, Hector, there is no room in the garage, I’ll ‘make one up’” - I smiled nonchalantly. He raised his eyebrow: “How?“ Really? Did I owe him an answer? ‘I’ll figure it out’ - I said with a reassuring smile and tried to leave the scene, but he woudn’t let me go…’Does the garage have a key?’. Actually, no, the garage didn’t have a key…Good job, iliana! Safety was not considered a priority.

I made coffee, we sat down and I told him what the reality of my situation was. As I wrapped up sharing my story I realized I was talking to a complete stranger, someone I just met and let live in my studio. And it was too late to back up. He had paid his share of the rent and I couldn’t afford not having him. He listened quietly. I caught myself anticipating his reaction. There must be some reaction to the insane plan I just laid out to him. He let a cigarette puff out and said with confidence: ’I’m a civil engineer. I know how to build houses. Let me help you.’ ‘That would be nice.’ - is all I could muster. I headed to the hardware store to buy paint and a few other things. By the time I got back, he was half way through rearranging the stuff in the garage opening a large space next to where my car would be parked. We swept and vacuumed, taking out buckets of gravel, dust and crumbling ceiling material. We sprayed with insect repellent sprayed, connected an extension cord, put a bright light bulb - the things you need to make a place livable. By the time we got ready for painting, it was the middle of the afternoon and his pajama was not dark blue anymore. It looked grayish, all covered with dust. So was his hair. I smiled - this stranger I just let in my home was spending his day putting my mad plan in action. We stopped for a little bit of a break, a friend of his passed by to see him, and brought pizza. How thoughtful, he must have told her to do so. I was deeply humbled. We ate, had some beer, then painted two of the walls forming the corner of my new ‘room’. We hanged old thick curtains to make-up the other two walls and that was it. I threw an area run on the cement floor, and my bedroom was ready. We moved my sofa in, and there you go…life could resume!

Hector left me to handle the rest of it - moving my clothes into boxes, taking them to the garage and setting one as a nightstand. We made dinner together - I made salad and he cooked pasta - his specialty. As we ate we talked about life, our families, his wife, my sister, our parents. We laughed and it all felt so normal. As if we have met after many years apart. I still occasionally reminded myself that I do not know that man. But I also did know him - for about 48 hours already.

The next two weeks went smoothly. And then came the rain - it rained for 6 days straight. The garage roof started leaking here and there, luckily it didn’t drip on me. There wasn’t enough room to move the sofa in any other direction, so I just patched the ceiling with plastic. Not only it rained hard for days, but it got cold too. One early morning I hopped in the shower to warm up. When I got out Hector was sitting by the dining table looking serious. ‘iliana, that’s enough. We are moving the sofa back in, you are not going to sleep in the garage anymore. You can sleep in the living area and I’ll be on the other side of the wall.“ - he said with a voice that would not take ‘no’ for an answer. I suggested we wait out for another day or two, perhaps weather would get better, but he shook his head and didn’t want to hear it. I moved back into the studio.

Most mornings we would have coffee together planning our days, then each of us went about their days. As if an unspoken agreement existed to give each other plenty of space. And there was peace and balance in that dance of care for each other. I thought he would be helping me financially with the rent, but he was helping me in more ways than just with money. I had met an amazing person. Gradually Hector introduced me to his Mom, wife, aunt, brother, all via Skype. I felt like part of his family. We talked about everything - our job hunts, the past, the future, life, romance, shared dreams over wine.

When his wife Suzana came to visit, the first thing she said was ’Hector has told me so much about you. Thanks you so much for taking care of him’. I was moved - it was more like the other way around - he was taking care of me. Well, there was no need to explain. I thanked her for the kinds words, and for trusting me and him to share a room more or less, with a sliding wall-door in the middle.

During the first nights sleeping in the garage, I couldn’t help it, but think of the irony of life - some years ago I was traveling and staying at Hiltons and Maryots class hotels, getting turn-down service with chocolate on my pillow and room service coffee and OJ in the morning. Now if rain wasn’t dripping on my face or a spider crawling on the wall next to me, I considered it a good night. But soon my thinking shifted to Hector - how blessed I was to have met someone so wonderful, with heart, integrity, and dreaming big. His wife was on a job assignment in Turkey, he was job hunting in the Netherlands, all in the pursuit of making enough money to be able to go home one day and build a house on his family land on Canary Islands.

They say that desperate times call for desperate measures. We certainly were desperate. Hector would occasionally call me crazy for doing what I did. I always replied that only crazy people reply to crazy rental arrangement ads. And then we would laugh. But we bonded over that desperation to make it in life, we both took a leap of fait to trust a stranger and help one another in a time of hardship.

I didn’t succeed staying in the Netherlands. Two months later I got a job in Australia, and Hector got employment by a Belgian company with a working site in Irak. We parted in pursuit of our next adventures, but we promised to stay in touch. For a long time I missed his ‘Good night, hermana!’ from across the make-shift wall. That’s how I met my brother.


PS. These evens happened in the Spring of 2011. Hector now splits his time between work projects in Irak and living in Spain. Susana moved from Turkey to Belgium, and then to Canary Island, where she is raising their two sons. They did buy a four-unit apartment building near the beach.
23 Sept 2016

No Exit

It’s a beautiful summer morning and it’s Friday. Having just read ‘An Actually Useful Guide to Madison, Wisconsin’ I set on an ambitious journey of trying every single place it recommends for food, drinks and entertainment.

The article is written by Elissa Goldberg for BonApettit.com, but the low down of what to do in Madtown is given by Trevor Gruehn – the director of Bradbury’s Coffee.

Bradbury’s Coffee is claimed as one of the best three in town, so why not start my exploration there. It is located in a quaint corner space with floor-to-ceiling glass walls and it offers a pleasant view of The Children Museum and the busy crossing of Hamilton and Dayton streets. The cafe itself has an industrial feel with its bare concrete walls and high ceiling, with dark wooden tables and asymmetric tables layout. So far so good!

The barista I order my cappuccino from seems a tad melancholic (may be only in comparison to my super high energy level this morning), so I pretend not to hear what he says – he has to repeat his words to me and this tiny effort brings him in the moment, makes him conscious. This trick always works!

I sit on the one end of a long to-share table, a family with two toddlers in the other end. On my other side, two young professionals are conversing. As I sit down and exhale I realize this won’t be a lovely, quiet coffee time. ‘…there isn’t enough chocolate on it. I can’t taste the chocolate from too much banana’ – the blond 4 y.o. complains. “…this crepe is too thick” – he goes on whining. ‘…I’ve been working so hard on this article and I’m so glad it’s finally been published…My students are keeping me so busy all summer long…’ – the young man on my right switches between bragging and bitching with the same annoying high pitch voice, and loud, so unnecessarily loud.

And then I notice the guy in front of me, he is reading a book. Actually, it’s his book that catches my eye (ok, the guy is handsome too!) – ‘No exit’ by Jean-Paul Sartre. I’m in love with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre’s love story.

The irony of the situation however is that ‘No exit’ contains the famous Sartre’s quote ‘Hell is other people’. Is it really? And when we find ourselves in hell, do we want to have an exit, or no exit is just fine? Is human hell good for us, will it build character?

My cappuccino arrives, Trevor himself brings it to the table – he appears friendly and very professional. I take a sip – Bradbury’s Coffee is truly as good as they say, as the rest is now just white noise…and No Exit is needed for now.

404 Page not found... or how I gave up Facebook

May be it was a coincidence, or may be not,  but in the quiet evening of 1st of January 2013 I noticed that I had 404 Facebook friends. The geek in me giggled -  '404 Page not found'. And that's when I quit Facebook. Why? I had outgrown it.

I joined Facebook in 2007, just after another relocation - a friend suggested it as a mean to keep in touch. But I didn't have a use for it. I had only moved a couple of hours away, so I preferred to visit my friends on the weekend, call them or email them. And they did the some for me.  I also had a blog, so had anyone been interested in my adventures there were plenty of ways to find out what I've been up to. I soon made new friends in the new city, and Facebook was completely forgotten.

But then I moved overseas - the UK turned out not to be my cup of tea, work was challenging, for some reason I was failing to make new friends, I was miserable. My good friends were miles and miles away, and in different zone, so even calling and Skype were not working out.  So I wrapped myself with the Facebook blanket, craving attention and comfort. I evolved from venting bitterness and disappointment, through irony, to optimistic and fun posts. My friends and Facebook saved me.

Then I moved again, this time to a place I loved, made new friends immediately and life took off! But  I remained active on Facebook because I wanted to be there for my friends. In case anyone needed TLC, I wanted to know and to help, or if all was o'right it was always great to share a joke or two. Facebook was the place to share photos, plan the next party, find fellow expats, etc. etc. It was great!

Another twist came around - I saw the 'Social network'. Something in the way Facebook started, in the way the business part of it developed did not agree with my moral values. Let's Face it - Mark started it all because he was heartbroken, he wanted to do something big, and yes, he did it, but if it was all so altruistic why is Facebook now the way it is - changing layouts (supposedly for good), replacing your email address with a Facebook one (tricky, tricky!), now suggested advertisement links, free Apps, 'paid for' promoted post? To me it seems like Facebook is way pass its innocence, it's not the site to connect the people, but it's the site to learn about the people and ultimately try to sell you something. Well....Thanks, but NO, THANKS!

At the same time, people on Facebook changed...

A lot of my friends who have an active life withdrew from Facebook - why? because altho it's fun, it's also a waste of time.  Instead one can read, take on a project, hang out with friends in real life, do sports, enjoy a hobby, take a nap, have a beer.

I admit that in the first weeks after I relocated again recently, checking Facebook was the first thing I would do in the morning. I love my friends and I do want to know what everyone is up to,  have a laugh over a goofy post. 

But also, more businesses are promoted, more bragging take place, and once I heard someone say 'I only post on Facebook to make my friends jealous' I had to bite my lips.  'You are kidding, right?' - because I refuse to be in the same bin with such shallowness. Many of my posts are positive and sharing happy moments, but I have about equal number of humor-coated bitching. My life is NOT perfect and nor is any of yours. So, who are they getting jealous?

Another irritating fact - I know a couple of people who joined Facebook just because their partners are there. One is the jealous type and feels better keeping tabs on the 'other half'. The other, who I know as a shy and very private person, out of sudden became a social butterfly with a public profile showing tons of affection to their loved one. Seriously?! If I trust my judgement of people, then these last two need help. One more story, a sad one. A good friend of mine and their partner were madly in love with daily 'I love you' on their walls. And I mean it - daily! Then one day, the 'I love you' was substituted with change of status to 'Single'. Overnight?!

Finally, not a too serious comment, but perhaps it speaks ton of how humans behave... 

If you change your FB profile photo with that of another FB friend of mine, I would probably not notice the name, I would glance at the photo and 'trust' that I'm talking to the right Face...Hahaha!

I was just about to email the wrong person for that reason... two of my FB friends, a couple, have profile photos of both of them, so I tend to think it's the wife who post more often...Well, live and learn! Instead of  'read the fine print', I'd say - read who's name is next to the photo :)  But then again, we can change our profile name too...Sigh...is there an end to it? 

So I gave up...

Facebook to me is turning into a Fakebook!

If you want to know how I'm doing - send me an email, read my blog, comment on it. And if I want to know how you are doing - trust me, I will find a way to reach you :) 

It takes more time to keep in touch via email, but I believe it's worth it,  communications are more private and meaningful. 

As for Facebook - I will keep my profile open for a while (to transfer photos, gather everyone's email, etc.) but 404 Page not found is bound to happen!

ps. Photo from http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com