I wrote this to post on E. Ethelbert Miller's writers blog, and thought I'd put it here as well.  Check out his website www.eethelbertmiller.com .

It's Thanksgiving week in Pakistan for Americans here just like it is Thanksgiving week for Americans in the States.  There's no notice of the holiday in Islamabad, though, except for a slight increase in expats buying yams and potatoes in what passes for upscale grocery stores, and the sudden surfacing of turkey-availability as a topic of conversation.

I came to Islamabad because my girlfriend is here and because I needed a place to write.  I've been wanting to make a book about my neighborhood in DC and about my Amish-Mennonite family's life there.  I spent three years in Kenilworth reliving my family's experience and trying to create the manuscript but kept getting distracted.  Pakistan sounded like a good place to write.  I knew no one except my girlfriend; I figured I could live simply and spend lots of time with my computer.

In my most productive weeks here I've put on my one go-go CD each morning to get in the DC mood, have barely left the house, and at the end feel like I've spent more time in Kenilworth than in Pakistan.  Those weeks have been few, though - there's the business of living, and social events, and bike rides for exercise and health, and of course friends and family back home want to stay in touch.

I try to write, but I keep getting sidetracked.  I've concluded we writers must carry our distractions around with us.

In some ways this Thanksgiving week has simply been another distraction.  I've written almost nothing this week.  Tuesday I had to run around doing travel stuff - visas, airline tickets.  Wednesday was food shopping and French class.  Thursday I baked all day and had an evening celebration with friends.  But hey, even writers need holidays, yeah?

I've been trying to hold Pakistan at bay while I write about Kenilworth.  Though the immediate need to see and to explore this new place has worn off, Pakistan still stares me in the face daily.  With the current state of misinformation between our two cultures, I sometimes cannot shake the feeling that I, like the Biblical Esther, have been sent here for such a time as this to in some small way promote peace between our peoples.  But if I am going to write about Kenilworth, most of the time I must shrug off that feeling and play my go-go and get down to business in front of my computer.

Perhaps this day after Thanksgiving, as the mullah's Friday sermons echo from mosque towers all around the city, I can give thanks for both my writing and my Pakistani distractions and learn to balance them productively.  Well, now that I've finished my writing for the day, anyone up for a bike ride and leftover turkey after?