Reflections on arranged marriage

I had the most fascinating conversation today on commitment, the meaning of love, and arranged marriages. It all started when I met Gauri at a dinner hosted by Maryam's supervising doctor (there is a more technical name for his position, but I can't remember). We instantly hit it off as she described her job as a criminal defense attorney for the poor. Turns out she works just down the street from me, so we had lunch today. Standing outside my warehouse/office in the blinding sun of an unusually warm February day, I finally got up the nerve to ask her about her arranged marriage to her husband. Here is an American raised and educated woman, an attorney, confident and outspoken and articulate, funny and sarcastic. Yet she chose- she asked- for an arranged marriage. She met her future husband for 2 minutes, and 3 days later was married in India in the traditional way. She epitomizes everything that fascinates me about India.
"Are you and he very different?" I asked. Of course we are, everyone is, she said. Think about your parents, she said. Do you love them? Are they the same people they were 20 years ago? Haven't they changed? And yet you still love them, nothing could make you stop loving them, no matter how different you are, right? Love is a choice, a commitment. I love my parents, and I love my husband. Neither of us is going anywhere.
In so many ways, I think her idea of marriage, of love, is so much more realistic and healthy than the Western ideal. I cannot fathom marrying someone who I do not know well, who I do not feel that spark of romantic love for. And that is my culture, what I have been socialized to demand and expect. But--- with all this focus on romantic love, finding someone who is a "soulmate", we often overlook the commitment part. Maybe Indian ideas of love are all commitment, while ours are too often all feelings. Given those extremes, the Indian version is so much healthier.
The Indian marriage is also much more communal. By that, I mean that you aren't just marrying that person. Gauri told me that the most important thing to her was how her future husband got along with her family, and how she got along with his family. Because she knew what a critical role their families would have in their lives. I think Western marriage is so self-centered- or couple centered, really. How many times do I hear people talk about not being able to stand their in-laws? Or that "my parents don't like him, but screw them, it's my marriage"? This individualism is unthinkable for Gauri's culture. It just doesn't work. The very nature of the match-making process, which is run by family networks, depends on children who trust their parents enough to make this crucial decision for them. As Gauri put it: My parents have done so much for me. They didn't take vacations without my sister and I until I was 21. They have sheltered and cared for me. So I knew there was no way they were going to choose a husband for me who would make me unhappy.
Part of me thinks- wow- this whole arranged marriage thing is brilliant. Your parents, who know you better and care more deeply about you than anyone else, who have a lifetime's worth of wisdom and connections, find someone who they think will make you (and them) happy. No making mistakes dating stupid people, no broken hearts, leave behind the stress and agony and frustration of trying to find that perfect person who really isn't perfect after all. Leave marriage to the experts, not the novices. Doesn't that make sense? It's so rational, so logical.
Of course it makes sense. But am I ready for an arranged marriage? Not quite. No matter how much I love and respect my parents, I cannot imagine the kind of blind trust it takes to completely commit a choice that huge to them. And I don't think they would want that responsiblity, honestly. Our culture is just not set up that way.
I love the commitment that the arranged marriage system engenders, the clear-eyed approach to marriage, stripped of the gloppy romanticism we wrap it in. But that kind of sheer commitment takes my breath away. Because while I intend to commit completely- because I understand that love without commitment is not love at all- it terrifies me to think of committing to someone who I do not really deeply know. And yet Gauri is right- no matter how well you know someone, we all change. The person she married two years ago is not the same person she will be married to in five years. And that is just as true for a Western "love" marriage as for an arranged one.
So these are my thoughts. I'm not quite ready for my parents (or anyone else) to arrange my marriage. But sometimes I wish I weren't too American to make an arranged marriage work. I wonder: is our Western idea of "love" worth all the drama we go through to find it?

On being a consumer

Phoenix is sorely testing my penny-pinching heart.
Since I don't know anyone, I accept any invitation to go out- lunch, movie, happy hour, rock gym- because that is how you get to know people. And because there is so much to experience here! But it also gets costly quick, especially for someone who has had just about no social life for the past 6 months. Which brings me to the question I wrestle with: When is it OK to splurge? To silence my inner piggy bank in the name of socializing or indulging in organic flax seed?
I like to say that it is better to find ways to spend time with people that don't involve money, that those activities are always better. But that doesn't always work in the very beginning stages. Especially in this busy, rather yuppie, city, with so many things to do and see and explore (most of which cost money). I think I'm coming to realize that there's going to have to be some initial investment- dinners out, rock climbing shoes, gas money- to get to that point where I know people well enough to say: "let's just grill out over at my house". Or throw frisbee in the park. Or watch my Netflix movie at home.
And aside from social spending, there are the costs that come with the expanded options for "the good life" in a big city. Mostly here I'm talking about food (of course, it's me). See below.

Spending money is exhausting. I don't know if everyone feels this way. If it is because I am such a penny-pincher, or because consumerism is exhausting in general. But today I spent:
-$30 (and an hour) on lamps and plants for my office at IKEA
-$2.75 on gas for my scooter
-$100 to get my scooter tuned up and the oil changed (yes, I feel ripped off, but with few alternatives...)
-$1.18 at Walgreens for clearance nail polish
-$40 at just one of the unbelievable number of organic/natural foods/expensive yuppie grocery stores within 2 miles of my house. (The sheer quantity and breadth of grocery stores within a 2 mile radius of my house is nothing short of stunning: 2 Fry's, Safeway, Trader Joe's, Food City, Sprouts, Walmart, and a handful of other small specialty grocery stores)
-$5 for roasted red peppers and sesame oil (for making hummus) at another grocery store
-$31 for gas in my housemate's car (who, in a very generous and characteristic act, loaned me her car while she was out of town this weekend)

This is not a normal day, thank God. (for one, I'm not going grocery shopping again anytime soon!). But a day like this gets me thinking- how many places in the world can you blow over $200 in a matter of hours just on basic necessities of life (plus some lamps and nail polish)? I get a little nauseated when I think about how I just spent the equivalent of a year's salary for someone in Africa or Haiti. I think about just the food I bought: quinoa, organic garbanzo beans, sesame oil, asparagus, brown rice. Fancy (yuppie? no, I prefer hipster, thanks...) food, things that I like, but definitely not the bare essentials. Is it greedy, extravagant, to venture into Trader Joes, rather than stick to my (still, beloved) Food City .60 cent/pound tomatoes and .33 cilantro and .40 canned black beans?

I'm not sure what the point is of this whole play-by-play of my President's Day shopping. Except that it brought to a head my anxiety about how much money I have been spending, and my guilt and conflicted feelings about "discretionary income" spending in general.

first week in Phoenix

I'll post pictures soon of my new life here. But for now, because I am lazy, I will write instead.
My move to Phoenix was so much more than a three hour drive- I have moved to a different reality, so much so that my Yuma life seems fuzzy and far away. There is so much to do and see, so many people to meet! I am realizing I need to make some serious decisions about how to budget my time (and discretionary income). So here's a few more snapshots of my life this week:
-driving 45 minutes (17 miles, but when you're on a scooter and can only use surface roads things take longer...) to play frisbee with a wonderful group in Tempe. I dove for a frisbee, got my shorts full of dry grass, scraped my legs, but it's a great way to get instant respect. This girl may be a little fuzzy on offensive strategy, but she's intense.... I'm going to join a league!!
-screaming in frustration at the ever-mutating road closures/construction. Once this light rail goes in, it will be a beautiful thing, but when roads close, or change direction, on an hourly basis, getting anywhere sometimes makes me absolutely and hysterically crazy. The daily commute is the worst part of my day.
- finding out how much in common I have with my uber-cool housemate, Maryam. We had lots of together time this weekend: going out dancing, to a cool Asian restaurant, watching movies, hiking Squaw peak while having great conversations. I am so blessed.
- complaining about my horrible horrible windowless office which leaves me bleary-eyed and sun-starved by 3pm. I have got to figure out how to make it workable somehow because otherwise I will not last at this job. And that would be a stupid reason to leave. So I'm looking into painting and getting some lamps with those sun-simulating light bulbs.
- marveling at how many young people are in this city... everywhere!
- being surrounded by white young professionals all the time is disconcerting. I need to find some more diversity. It's great to hang out with people like me, but I need do be challenged. I miss Yuma's scruffy taco stands and hearing Spanish everywhere.
- discovering that this city is built around mountains- so you are never far from a great hike. Amazing!
- doing yoga for the first time in my life. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Does that make me a yuppie?
- Spending two hours on ropes, clinging to the walls for dear life, in Tempe's rock climbing gym. It smells like pee, but it is a great workout when you can't do the real thing (rock climbing outside).
That's about it for now. I am still a little bewildered by this place I have landed in. In a good way. But still bewildered.

another new start

Those of you who talk to me on a regular basis know that I wasn't real happy in Yuma. That I didn't fit there and didn't want to. But you also probably thought that my next step was Tucson. As did I, until less than a month ago. That's when the opportunity to work in the farmworker division of CLS in Phoenix opened up, and I thought, why not. Turns out Phoenix is not too bad, and things have fallen into place in such an amazing way that I have no doubt that this is where I'm supposed to be right now.
So just a quick synopsis: I live in central Phoenix, in a beautiful, fully furnished, and centrally located house with a very cool housemate who is a third year medical resident. I drive the four miles to work on a newly acquired Vino scooter, which I am very fond of already. I work in the farmworker division of the same organization I worked with in Yuma. Instead of handing out brief advice on security deposits and slum lords and child custody battles, I will be spending my time on wage and employment litigation on behalf of agricultural workers, nearly all of which are (legal) immigrants.
This is my first experience living IN a big city. Not in a suburb, not in a quaint little town- this is the CITY. It's a breath of fresh air- so many people! so much to do! coffee shops and foreign films and skyscrapers! All under Arizona's gorgeous big sunny sky.
Some memorable moments so far:
-Finding that although I have left Yuma, Mexico remains. Food City, my favorite Mexican grocery store, with a whole tortilla aisle and the most beautiful startling cheap veggies around, parking lot hazy with delicious chicken-infused smoke from the barbeque stall out front, is just a few miles away. AND- Trader Joe's, my guilty yuppie pleasure where I can buy fair trade coffee and organic milk and whole wheat pasta, is just a few miles the other way. I have the best of both worlds right here!
-Watching the Super Bowl with Maryam (my housemate)'s friends, most of them also medical residents. I didn't know who was playing until the game started, but the Giants won my respect. I know I rag on football for being a game played by dumb fat guys with necks the size of tree trunks, but after watching Eli Manning magically escape 3 defenders to throw a pass to the receiver who then catches the ball by holding it against his helmet with one hand while falling to the ground- WOW. I was impressed. Go Giants.
-My first day at work, in a very unfortunate office with no windows in a very ugly building right by the train tracks (yes, still a non-profit), it rained all day. Which is fairly unheard of in Arizona so it's always exciting. Being splattered by cars sloshing through giant puddles on the way home wasn't so fun, but like I said, this is uncommon.
-Not-so-small luxuries- internet and washer/dryer (look, no quarters!) in my house, nice living room furniture that I didn't pay for, a TV, dishwasher (only for when company comes over of course), curbside recycling. I am living the high life- so incredibly blessed.
-Finding out that Maryam and I share a love of foreign and independent films, rock climbing, and hiking! An instant "in" to this new world.

So my new life starts. Look for more frequent blogging to come...