First and Ninth

She sighed at the sight of stuggle ahead

The words laborious and arduous sound marvelous in my head, she said.

But they insinuate something severe and difficult, a life no doubt, you’ll dread.

While the seasons changed, my eyes went black.  I just assumed all time would return, all things would turn back.

The fear set in somewhere between giving up my seat and walking down Delancey St.

The whites of my eyes have come through and I see something new.

My feet are walking the same streets but I don’t recognize one familiar beat.

The changing faces give me worry that I will never find replacements for their hearts’ true graces.

I’m uncomfortable with the change, I’m struggling in this range and I want out from under the strange.

With my body and mind restored, in a dream I would soar.  It would be so good to see you once more.

For 17 years Sharbat Gula was known as the unidentified “Afghan Girl” – In 1985 She appeared on the cover of National Geographic

Her name is Sharbat Gula.  In January 2002, a team from National Geographic Television & Film’s EXPLORER sent photographer Steve McCurry to Pakistan to search for the girl with green eyes.

Known as the “Afghan girl,” for 17 years no one knew her name.  In June 1985, her portrait ran on the cover of National Geographic.  She remembers the stranger and her anger.  She had never been photographed before.  She had not been photographed since.

After one failed attempt to locate her in Pakistan, a man who got wind of the search knew the girl in the picture. They had lived at the camp together as children and she had returned to Afghanistan years ago.  He would go get her.

When McCurry saw her walk into the room, he thought to himself: This is her.

No one, not even she knows her age.  Where no records exist, 1n 2002 she was estimated to be 30.  Time and hardship have erased her youth.  Using an interpreter, her brother explained she was a child when her country was caught in the Soviet invasion.  She was perhaps six when Soviet bombing killed her parents.

It is not her custom to allow questions of strangers, so she retreats into the black shawl wrapped around her face.  On the subject of married women, cultural tradition is strict.  Since she must not look or smile at a man who is not her husband, she did not smile at McCurry.  She does not know the effect of her emerald eyes and cannot understand how her picture has touched so many.  

She had never seen the photograph of herself as a girl.

She can write her name, but cannot read.  “I want my daughters to have skills,” she said.  Sharbat is married with three daughters.

The odds of this reunion and her perseverance of such tragedy were so thin.  How, she was asked, had she survived?

The answer came wrapped in unshakable certitude.  “It was, ” said Sharbat Gula, “the will of God.”

Read the Signs. They’re Everywhere.

Have you ever been on a first date and gotten to know everything about her? Half way through, her lack of mutual discourse forces you to check out the girl at the next table. Generally, when a girl/guy plays the “me, my, I” card and doesn’t ask any follow-up questions, “they’re just not that into you.”  Think about it.  If you were instantly into someone wouldn’t you want to know everything you could, in order to find out what was wrong with them? Because you just have to find something, right? Wouldn’t you want to know enough about them to decide whether they could hang with you, your friends and your parents for the long haul?  Meanwhile, you’re sitting there wondering whether he’s a glass full kinda guy and his water glass is already empty.  He needed to wet his whistle from talking so much about me, my, I. Next.