Driving out of the box

I am really happy to have come back from a great European holiday and to be able to look forward to a short break in Oman almost immediately. We have booked for Masera and Ras al Hadd for the Eid break. I am a huge fan of the beautiful island of Masera, its wild emptiness and vast beaches and the two completely different personalities of its east and west coasts. I love camels on the beach!

I haven't visited the turtles in a long time, as I became annoyed with the behaviour of the tourists, but apparantly it is better organised now, and the man hasn't been, so it has to be checked out again. I hope we get to see the babies. The sheer strength it take for those little mites to wiggle and wriggle their way out the sand and make their way to the water is incredible. You hold one of them in your hand and are immediately in awe of the life force they radiate. And the turtle beach at sunrise is a truly magnificent experience. Yes, it will be good.

I count under the many that took my mother for granted when she was around. I always expected her to be around forever, and I remember when she died, I did not only grieve her loss, but had to actively and consciously grieve for the loss of the dreams we had together. I am so grateful that we had those dreams, that she taught me to dream, dream crazy and out of the box. That I am now able to harbour dreams for myself again.

Another lesson I am thankful for, is her teaching me how to separate my emotions and feelings from other peoples'. I used to come home from school with a grumpy look on my face, and she used to ask, "So,Stefs, ma se kind, aan wie behoort die kak? Is dit joune of het jy dit by een van daai kinners opgetel?" So, my child, who does this anger...frustration...crappiness belong to? Is it yours or did you pick it up from another child?

We deal with so many people every day, and they love to dump their stuff on us. As open and receptive and caring human beings, we take it on and make it our own without even realising. Whenever I am in a shitty mood, this is the first question I ask myself, do I own this or is just someone else's thing clinging to me. If it isn't mine, I can of course drop it immediately. if it is mine, I can look at it and deal with it appropriately.

One avenue of my life where I have great difficulty applying this principle is with bad driving. Oman is notorious for the really atrocious drivers, and has one of the highest death toles per capita on the road in the world. We have a saying here in Muscat that if you see someone using indicators, they are clearly new in town. On the airplane form Germany recently, we commented that we had not heard a hooter even once in 3 weeks.  I think one could drive for a year in Germany not even knowing if your hooter is in working order. Here people will hoot behind you 1 millisecond after the traffic light has turned green. A friend says they do it as a favour to one another as everyone is looking down while busy texting; we should not take it personally. I could go on and on.

When it comes to Ramadan, everything gets completely off the scale. I am driving 10 km over the speedlimit, people come zooming past me on the inside...people pass me on the speedbumps. .. incredible crazy weaving all over the road... And my blood pressure rises every time. I have tried my Mozart, Leonard Cohen and even super chilled chakra clearing CDs, but terrible profanities still cross my lips.

So, I just make peace with the fact that I am also not using my indicators, I am also passing on the inside, passing on speedbumps and using my hooter at a whim. At least by foot is not on the dashboard as I am driving, or dangling out the window.

When in the sandland, do as the camelriders do.