Chapter three: Life in the Malestrom

The days were passing slowly and events seemed to have to some sort of a snail-like crawl. Normally, this drives a person insane, but Aysu knew that it meant she was to observe something. And there was much to observe.

Since the family was moving far away, she had to go with them because her father would not allow her to live on her own.

"I'm old enough!" Aysu used to say in her arguments with her parents. "I have a job, and I'm 20 years old!"

It was no use. Her father would say that he could not leave her in a place unprotected. Aysu stilled argued. Finally, it came down to logic.

"How much money to you make a month?" Father had asked.

"About $400," she said, knowing at once what was coming next.

"It will take you nearly $1500 to live alone," Father coaxed. "Per month. That's car, phone, apartment and food and other essentials."

Of course he was right. But that didn't make it any better or easier. So after many weeks of anger, frustration and home searching, Aysu spent a night in prayer to O'Dell.

She lit her candles and placed them around the oriental rugs on her bedroom floor. Then she put her bible and incense burner in the center turned down the lights then sat in the middle of it all. she closed her eyes and asked for peace of mind and calmness of spirit before she opened the Holy Book to a chapter. The first thing she read was an order from O'Dell to one of his followers to "go south".

That was all it took. It was real. She had asked and in that moment O'Dell answered. There was mo arguing about it. But then, something more extraordinary happened. In the depths of her stomach, something erupted and she felt excited. Something told her that something...or someone...was waiting for her in the southern land. She knew she had to go. She must go, take the journey, and find that something....someone.

And if only it was that easy. She had a plan to fulfil at the academy she attended. She had auditioned for the theatre there and had won enough money to take a few classes. She had been at the academy for years and was ready to graduate. This was the last semester she was to be there. And she would have to leave before that happened. Naturally, this made her angry, but she remembered that O'Dell had a plan. So she just took 3 classes and began to bide her time, still working in the Writing Center of the academy.

But it got worse. She auditioned for one of the plays and got a role in the Japanese play (perfect for a girl wanting to expand beyond the shallow thoughts of American Society). She thought it all would work out, but then the director told her that the play would tour in May...

She was supposed to move to the South before April. And now she didn't know what to do. She had thought of many options:

1) Stay. find a place to live till after May. But then she would be there for the rest of the semester, which she had not planned on. So she did not take the last class she needed to graduate. So now if she stayed, it would be frustrating to know she could have graduated, but didn't.

2) Move to working on costumes or makeup for the first play. Then she could still leave earlier in the year.

3) Just wait it out...

This last option was at first, appealing but the more she thought about it, the more it sounded less like good old Romani honesty. So she went with #2. And now all she could do was hope for the best and pray to O'Dell to be merciful. To let her life be a little easier now. Let the director know that the plays really did mean something and that she truly was sorry for being a burden.

All she could do was hope...

Chapter Two: Aysu Decides to Watch

Asysu had, at one point been looking forward to her “Social Problems” class but now she was not so sure. She was excited because she had wanted to be foster parent later in life and thought that the class would help her prepare for whatever troubles the kids might bring with them. But all this teacher wanted to do was talk about himself. He talked for 25 minutes about his websites and always ended his name with Ph.D. as if the students already didn’t know.
She tried to remember to remove some of her biases long enough to learn something, but that learning never came. They spoke for the last few minutes of the class on what it meant to be non-objective. Aysu was listening with an open mind until the teacher said something about followers of O’Dell never being able to be un-biased.
This remark was something that Aysu could not ignore. The rebel in her said, “If you say not to pray to O’Dell then I will pray all the harder. If you say that worshipers of O’Dell are less than those that worship others or none at all, then I will worship all the louder!”
Aysu knew that countering with such anger was not the way to attack the situation, so she wrote her thoughts down and closed her notebook leaving the class in a state of forced calm.
She spent a fairly uneventful day at school. Her car was in the shop so her mother drove to her to class. Bu the plumber had decided to come to the house so Mother was going to be late. While waiting, Aysu did what most college people did—she surfed the internet.
First, she spent time looking up her favorite thing and the source of her intended transformation: Arabic things and raqs sharqi. That led to other searches such as Egypt. That is when it happened. She found a video claiming that ancient Egyptians were actually black people. It claimed that the most awesome ancient civilization was a black community. She had no problem with this at first, accept that she thought she knew differently.
The teachings of O’Dell said to accept all people and she normally did; she just didn’t talk to people very often (but this shall be written about later). So, rather than judge the one who posted the information, she began to look it up. She found all of the old arguments about “kemet” and the fact that Egypt is in Africa and the look of the sphinx…she spent hours searching and reading.
In the end, she decided that Egyptians were darker skinned people much like the Arabs and Persians. She let it be too. She did not want to be in the middle of a debate like that. It was not that she was giving up it was simply that she chose to believe something about it and came to that decision.
Later that night, she retrieved her car from the shop and was very happy to have it back. She then checked on her ferret, Cain, to makes sure the healing was going well. A few days earlier, she had discovered that Cain’s collar was too tight and had fused to his skin causing a bad wound when she removed it. After all of this an uneventful dinner, she went to her room and watched “Repo!”.
The thoughts she got form the movie were rather profound, she thought.
The future portrayed in this movie may be a little farfetched, but somehow, she didn’t see it all as wrong. The fact that humans could be so brutally interested in their own appearance so much as to take body parts from others is not far from what they do already, surely. Man is desperate to not look old and then to not die. Everything in this world (set in New York or San Francisco?) revolves around the company that can “save your life”. If you can’t keep up your payments for the new body parts then a Repo Man comes and repossess them. Yes…he rips you open and takes what was not paid for.
This may shock you, but along with wanting to live the Old Ways, Aysu also was something of a goth who had been there and back. She had been all of the way to the darkest end and the poser side. Then back to understanding what goth was really about. This is lessons to be written about later as well if you wish.
So the movie was not shocking in the gore of it, but the people in it. Truly shocking, but not too unrealistic.
With this and the people claiming Egyptians as black, it is all the more clear the vanity and pride of man. Truly the fall of man is his want to be all that he can be…maybe not such a great thing after all? Aysu wondered this and said as she laid in bed that night, “Maybe I’ll look into it. Man cannot be so mysterious.”
And so, she began her look at man and herself.

Chapter One: A Lifestyle

The way you live and the culture in which you live is called a lifestyle. You can adopt that which you live in or create a new one that best suites you. When you live a certain place, say somewhere strange or tribal compared to what you may consider "normal", you can then become adapted to the ways of that place. This is a term known as "going native".
You most likely live in America. Notice the lack of you and your people "going native". Why is this? It was because of the lifestyle that was brought over from Europe that was considered more advanced. Europe had to cauterize and teach the natives. Because of that, a culture and a lifestyle and a people were nearly destroyed.
Of course, America wouldn't be where it is to day with it's beautifully enhanced learning and technology without the removal savage killing it had several hundred years ago. Of course then America had to fight it's mother country, gain freedom, then fight itself before it finally settled down.
This was the beginning of a lifestyle and a culture that many people now live in. Most sociologist believe that most of the world is adopting an "American" lifestyle. However, some prefer to live apart from that lifestyle. Consider it being "in America but not of it". Yes, that is a scripture reference.
So what about other lifestyles and philosophies? That is what this story is about. This is the story of "Mirella Aysu Asenoth"--a gypsy trying to find who she is in the world and trying to find her place and purpose in it. Sound familiar? It's probably your life you will be reading...