Tuesday, December 31, 2013

A New Year's Toast

Someone told me recently that I was "very organized".  I repeated the compliment later to my son Patrick, and he burst out laughing.

I wasn't offended.  I'd wanted to laugh as well.  My complimenter was sweet, but she didn't really know me.  

My sons know me very well.  Since childhood they've learned to deal with last-minute fixes and spur-of-the-moment plans. Once, when they were 4 and 6 years old, I got turned around on the drive to a friend's house.  As I searched for some familiar landmark, I decided that my duty as a mother was to explain the different farm buildings we saw (especially since we were supposed to be in the city).  A weary little voice from the back seat interrupted me. "We know you're lost, Mom. You don't have to make it educational."

There's something a little amazing and a whole lot freeing about being truly known. 

Many years ago, someone who wished me harm stole my personal journals.  A few pages were mailed out to friends and family in an attempt to embarrass me.

It worked, at first: I was beyond embarrassed. I was mortified. Dirty laundry I had written under wraps was now hanging from the clothesline, flapping in the wind. Then, slowly, I began to realize something. 

I was free. 

People would either love me with my warts, as a whole person, or they wouldn't. Period.  

The unexpected rush of freedom was amazing, but not as amazing as the notes and calls of support from those around me. Most had refused to even read my journal pages, once they realized what they were. I had braced myself to lose those I loved, but in my emotional nakedness, my loved ones chose instead to clothe me.  

I came to understand three things more deeply:
- in truth is freedom;
- mercy trumps judgment; and
- letting go is the only way to have what really matters.  Jesus really did have it figured out.

Last week, I lit a candle to make the air more "Christmassy" while I worked. The wick burned down, hollowing out the core and the candle broke apart. Wax spilled out, covering the top of the stove (which was off, fortunately, unlike the three times earlier this month when I'd left it on by accident). I walked into the kitchen in time to see flames shooting up. 

Grabbing the nearby canister, I tossed flour over the flames and they sputtered out. The air filled with the smell of burned wheat.

Seconds later, my son Adrian walked into the house. With only the mildest tone of curiosity, he asked, "So what did you burn this time?"

He knows me. And on this last day of 2013, I find myself grateful to have people who know me.

So here's to you, my family and friends, who've seen the good, the bad and the odd of me. I cannot thank you enough for your presence in my life.  

Here's to you, those I will come to know. I am honored that you are in my future.

Here's to each of you: may 2014 bring you a little adventure, a lot of laughter, and the freedom that comes from being truly known.

And if, at some point, you have cause to light a candle, please light one for me.

My children have decided I'm not allowed to anymore. 





Friday, November 22, 2013

Murphy and the ghost


The historic Menger hotel in San Antonio is haunted. That's what all the stories say. Of course, they also make the same claim about the Emily Morgan hotel, the Espada mission, and at least a dozen other places. But I was checking into the Menger, so it was their ghosts that were of interest. The part that of me that always wonders about the "what elses" of life was on mild alert as I went up to my room. The room was lovely, with tall ceilings and a window that looked out over the Alamo. More ghosts there, the stories say.
After unpacking, I went downstairs to find my brother Steve and our friends Minh and Maria. Together, we walked over to our conference hotel.

In the doorway of the other hotel, Minh got into a "you go first" dance with a stranger. He glanced down at her, then asked where she was from. "Vietnam", she answered, and the man's eyes took on a faraway hollowness. "I've been there," he said, and she looked at him closely. "In the 70's." He nodded. My petite friend turned the full force of her ear-to-ear smile on the stranger and said simply, "Thank you for coming to help us." A ghost flickered in the man's eyes and slipped away.

It got me to thinking. Aren't we all haunted in some way?
Down inside, where the what if's lurk, are the unfinished things of our lives. Words we meant to say. Embarrassments not forgiven. Disappointments that still hurt. And the moment we hang on to that little wisp of yesterday, a ghost is born.

Of late, though, it seems that Murphy has decided to afflict me with another's ghost. The ghost of Dr. Freud, to be exact. Not the Freud of ids, egos and analyses, but the Freud of the infamous slip.
In a recent deposition, the witness explained in detail the various crises in his life. The deposing attorney asked, "When was this?"

"Fue todo el mes," answered the witness,
"It was the whole mess," I interpreted.

The lawyers' confused faces let me know that my less-conscious mind had spoken. "Interpreter correction," I quickly added, stifling a grin, "It lasted the whole month."
At home, I have been trying to catch up on the myriad little jobs required to keep my house in habitable condition. The sink in the hall bathroom was stopped up but I didn't want to call a plumber because - it seemed - I should be able to unstop a sink. While on the floor patiently snaking the pipes, I realized how dirty it was down where I didn't normally look. I've never been a domestic goddess. Still, it was humbling to realize that plumbing problems were less onerous to me than mopping.

And speaking of plumbing - success! At least, of sorts. The sink drained, but very slowly. I left a trickle of water running to help flush out whatever was in there, and went to do the laundry.
It might have been two hours later, I'm not sure, but at some point I remembered the trickle of water. I stepped into the hall bathroom and into a half-inch of water.

The ghost of Freud, whispering my secret failings to Murphy? Perhaps. At any rate, I mopped.
See, that's the thing about ghosts. Sooner or later, they force us to face the things that haunt us. 

That first night in the Menger hotel, I found it hard to get to sleep. It wasn't worry about ghosts. It was the hooves from the horses drawing carriages past the Alamo. It was the loudly happy people exiting the bar one floor below. It was the car alarm that sounded again and again and yet again. Just as I would start to fall asleep, some new noise would punctuate the night. I was getting grumpier by the minute. Around 2 a.m. it finally got quiet.
I don't know how much later it was, but one moment I was asleep and the next I was fully awake for no discernible reason. It was utterly silent. No sounds in the night, just me sitting there, every sense on high alert.

Had ghosts decided to show up after all? The thought no sooner crossed my mind than the frustrated need for rest reared its head: Well, you can all just go away - I have GOT to get to sleep! And I fell back onto my pillows.

In the comparative hush that filled the room, I realized I had once again voiced my thoughts out loud. Not just out loud, but loudly. And grumpily.
An uncontrollable fit of giggles took over. Goodbye, sleep.

Somewhere, Murphy and a ghost exchanged high fives.

 

                                     (picture of historical 1865 photo of the Menger Hotel taken by Ted Ernst, 14 Nov 05)

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Mayhem, Mike and Me


If I have been quiet of late, chalk it up to Murphy: my electronics are once again revolting.  It started with a file from a client which, unbeknownst to me, had a teeny, tiny bit of corrupted text.
I fed the file into my database software, which promptly crashed.  
Windows, in solidarity, immediately followed suit.

I emailed the software company in Spain.  They sent me a patch.  It didn't work. After considerable discussion, we concluded I would first need to reinstall Windows.   

Because my life is apparently not exciting enough, I decided to take this opportunity to upgrade to Windows 8. 

The upgrade and installation of Windows took about 30 minutes. Reinstalling the gazillion other programs that I use and all got wiped out by the Windows upgrade took another 4 hours.

When it was all done, I ran my database program - it worked!  I congratulated myself. 

And Murphy promptly laughed: my old printer wouldn't talk to Windows 8. 

Since it really was old (broken springs, smudgy glass), I decided it was time for a hardware upgrade.  Off I went to the store.  As the salesman put my new printer in the cart, a thought skittered across my mind.  "Are you sure it works with Windows 8?" I asked. He assured me that it did, and I drove home with my new printer.

(This happened around 8 p.m. the Friday before I was scheduled to teach a seminar, and I hadn't printed out the workbooks yet because of all of the above.)

Back at home, I hooked up my new printer and began to install the drivers.  Seconds before the install was complete the whole process ground to a halt.  An error message popped up on my screen: my brand-new printer was indeed fine with Windows 8 - but incompatible with my "old" computer.  I tried adjusting configurations, searching for solutions online, begging, threatening and cajoling my electronic servants to cooperate and do their job.

It was no use.   Somewhere around 3 a.m., faced with the fact that I had:

  • New software that would talk to my 2-year-old computer but not my 4-year-old printer;
  • A brand-new printer that would talk to my super-brand-new software but not my semi-old computer;
  • A room full of students expecting handbooks and lucidity from me in less than 6 hours;
it finally occured to me to install the drivers on my laptop computer.  By the time I stumbed into bed, materials ready, I was down to 4 hours before the alarm would sound to wake me up for class.

Bright and early the next Monday, my telephone rang.  Somewhere in the sleep-induced fog of that night, I had emailed the tech support department at my printer's manufacturer.  They had read my email.  They had not only read it, but they were calling me back. The shock of it woke me up instantly. 

Mike, the technician, listened to my woes.  He asked for permission to access my computer.  For the next 20 minutes, I watched the cursor move around on my screen like a drunken amoeba. On the phone, I could hear Mike muttering to himself.  Finally, he stopped, sighed and said, "I'm terribly sorry, but I can't fix the problem.  We'll work on it further and let you know if we find a solution." His courtesy, his straightforwardness, his honest admission that they hadn't found a solution - yet - charmed me.  With knowledge comes power, in this case the power to let go.  I would simply have to find a workaround.  

And with that, it seemed the digital revolution might be over.

Until this morning.

I had missed a program in the Grand Reinstall.  Since it was needed for today's project, I ran the software and searched my records for the license number.  It was nowhere to be found.  Out of hope, I emailed tech support in Australia; out of realism, I began to search for other options.  Not 10 minutes later, a return email from tech support dropped into my inbox and I had my missing license number.

Yes, Murphy may still lurk and laugh at me. I'm going to have to call the mechanic (again) about that little light on my dashboard that came on (again).  The microwave is acting weird.  And my computer speakers suddenly sound like 50-year smokers.

But I'm not worried. Turns out, there's a whole wide world of Mikes out there to balance things out.  

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Of Camels, Conclusions and Cabral


The Toll Free Camel called again today.  I ignored it, as usual. 

Of course, it's not really a camel (I don't think.)  It's the result of the stilted robot voice with which my telephone announces callers. While I can usually figure out the name with little effort, it took a glance at the display to realize that my automated phone attendant was announcing an unidentified 1-800 number. A "toll-free caller".

As such callers tend to be telemarketers, political survey-takers, and such, I tend to conclude that we have nothing intelligent to discuss and ignore the call.

I think I'm safe in that conclusion, but there have been times in life when my conclusions have landed me in hot water.  At the very least, they have made me the butt of a self-inflicted joke.  Let me invite you to join in and laugh with me at the latest.  

It all started because my nephew is getting married on Saturday and wants to read a special poem to his lovely bride.  He asked me to check his translation of the poem; flattered (and pleased that I have some skills to offer the younger generation), I quickly agreed.

Late last night I sat down to review his translation.  The English and the Spanish were interspersed; all I had to do was make sure each translated line matched the original meaning.  The poem had a comfortable, familiar feel but I didn't let that distract me. Armed with my most critical eye, it seemed that some conjugations were a little off.  To be fair, Spanish verbs are more complex than English ones. 

I adjusted the Spanish text to better match the English.  I reworked a few lines of the Spanish to improve the flow.  I adjusted the meter in a place or two.  And finally, I was content.  The poem was good (I even made a suggestion for changing one of the English lines.)  After an hour or two of editing work, it seemed nothing more should be done. 

Feeling rather pleased with myself, I went to bed.

It wasn't until tonight that my nephew gently let me know that I had once more jumped to a conclusion. The Spanish was not the translation: it was the original. 

In fact, I had just spent two hours editing a poem by the incomparable Argentine poet and songwriter, Facundo Cabral.  

No wonder it seemed so comfortable, so known. For those of you unfamiliar with the great Cabral, it was as if I had dared to tweak the immortal words of Robert Frost.

After laughing long and hard at myself, I emailed the groom and promised to redo my review.  It almost seemed I could hear my father laughing with me.  When I was a little girl and jumped to conclusions (which was often), Dad would tell me a little story:

"Do you remember the story about August?" Dad would ask. 

"No", I always answered, because I wanted him to tell it again.

"Well, once there was little boy named August, and he was always jumping to conclusions.  One day, August jumped to a mule's conclusion... and the next day was the first of September."

Life lessons from my pun-loving dad who wanted me to know that conclusions often have a price.

In the process, he helped me learn to laugh at my own propensities. So tonight I will spend more time reviewing the English translation of the poem and leave Facundo's work unsullied by my meddling. Tomorrow or the next day, I'm sure I'll laugh again at my absurdities.  And some day, I may even learn that jumping to conclusions takes a toll.

Until then, I have it on good authority that camels are toll-free.

  






 

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Location Unknown

My friend Lynn is an always-friend. We met when my family was in the U.S. during my 4th grade year. Every time I came back to northern Indiana after that, I would find Lynn and the thread of our friendship would pick up, unbroken. We are friends simply because we are.

Lynn is now a minister and on a recent trip to Indiana to help my mother, it occurred to me that I finally had a Sunday free to go and listen to Lynn preach. She gave me the address of her church and even an approximate driving time. I left 15 minutes earlier than that, just in case.

As it turns out, I needn't have bothered.

With the address entered into my phone's GPS, I drove down highway 30, then turned north on 35. A few miles up highway 35, I came to a T-intersection. "Road Closed", said the sign in front of me. There were no detour arrows.

The smart thing would have been to turn around and go back down to 30. 

I didn't do that.

Instead, and with apologies to Robert Frost, I opted for the road that looked more traveled and played my luck. After driving approximately west for several miles, I began to see a few houses. I looked around for a city limit sign. There was none. The road eventually took me to what could optimistically be called the town square. There was no one around. The only store said "Groceries" and "Open", but the light was dim and it seemed like this would be the part in the movie where the violins started to softly keen. I pulled into the empty parking lot and took out my phone.

"La Porte, Indiana", I asked my GPS. It obediently showed me the city somewhere to my north. I clicked on "Directions to there."

"Use current location?" my GPS wondered.

I said yes and waited. The cursor twirled and twirled and finally gave me an answer: "Location Unknown."

Just in case, I went through the steps again. And again. Each time, I was firmly advised that my current location was Unknown.

Maybe I should backtrack after all, I thought, and pulled out of the parking lot. As I turned up the other side of the street, I saw a couple standing in their yard. Several pots of new flowers sat ready to be planted in fresh beds under the windows but they just stood there watching me. They looked vastly amused. 

They were also the first people I'd seen in that little hamlet. Pulling over, I rolled down my window and asked, "How do I get to La Porte?" My voice sounded a little plaintive, even to me.

"We'll get you out of here OK," the man assured me, grinning. "Just turn around and go to the stop sign. Turn right, then right again at the next stop sign. You'll go over the railroad tracks. After that it says "road closed", but turn left. Then around the next..." The directions went on for a while and I began to picture myself doomed to wander among cornfields for eternity. They would tell stories about me around campfires at night to scare little kids: the Woman Whose Location was Unknown.

As it turned out, the directions were easier followed than understood. The countryside was beautiful. Wildflowers edged the gravel road. I passed an enormous weeping willow by a small pond and for a moment was tempted to pull over and lose myself under its branches. Almost too soon, I was back out on Highway 35, now north of the roadwork.

By the time I made it to Lynn's church, they were singing the last song. Lynn whispered, "You're so stinkin' late!" and we giggled and hugged. I was glad she didn't ask where I'd been. I couldn't possibly have told her.

As it turned out, there was another service in just half an hour. Lynn delivered a straight-forward message on unvarnished faith and following - not even when, but especially when - life lands you where you never asked to go.

Like when your dad gets sick and you spend weeks helping him die as comfortably as possible. 

Or when you try to help your mom go solo after 62 years of flying in formation. 

Or when you have to rely on strangers because every source you normally turn to has no idea where you are.

Then faith whispers that on the other side of death is Life Unimaginable. Experience reminds you that solo is a formation. And when you finally reach your destination, you find friends who forgive you your most human moments.

It  was worth wandering the cornfields for.

Still, someday, if I can ever find a pause button for my life, I just might go wandering on purpose.

I've got a reservation underneath a weeping willow by a pond: Location Unknown.






Thursday, June 6, 2013

Tribute to my dad (read at his funeral, June 6)

I've been thinking a lot on what I wanted to say about Dad here, at his funeral.  He was known for his integrity, of course: never combative, just quietly resolute.  

There was his ingenuity: like when he designed and built a little camper on the back of a pick-up truck, so he and Mom could spend days at a time visiting in the tribe.  Ompi Ya, the Tsachis called it - the Turtle House.

Who can forget his love of puns - did you know that puns are the number 1 form of humor?  Of course, there is nothing lower than the number 1... 

There are his silly songs and linguistic skills and word play and love of wife and family and that rock-solid faith that figured that God knew what He was about and didn't waste time trying to convince the Almighty otherwise.

I could talk about all of these but, instead, I want to talk about my father's voice.

In these last weeks of his life, as the cancer progressed, the Alzheimer's sometimes got the upper hand.  It became easy to tell the difference between what was said through the fog of Alzheimer's and what was my Dad, being himself.  His voice would change.

Because I knew my father: his humor, his convictions, his innate courtesy (who else tells the nurse who just put him through an uncomfortable procedure, "Don't worry, I know you were just doing what was best for me"?) - because I knew my father's character, I knew his voice.

It was in his own voice that he repeated Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" with his sister when she sat beside his sick bed.  It was in his own voice that he joined in when we sang to him.  And it was in his own voice that he told us that he loved us.

One day last month, as Dad's health took a nosedive, he offered a simple prayer: "Thank you, Lord, for these problems that we receive from Your good hand." 


And that - absolutely - was my father's voice. 

Monday, May 27, 2013

Normandy

My father did not serve in Normandy.  He enlisted in the Army Air Corps (later the Air Force) at the age of 17 as part of the post-WWII peace-keeping troops.  He served in Japan and Germany and came home with a love for languages that pointed him to his life's work.  

As I write, I am sitting a few feet from where my Papa lies.  We'll say goodbye soon.  The other night, when it was my turn to sit with him, he began to call out in his sleep.

"Who's going to Normandy?" he yelled.  "We need medics!  We need to take care of the patients first!" 

I walked nearer and he heard me.

"Hey, you!" he demanded, "Are you a nurse?"

A little stumped, I answered, "I'm afraid not.  I'm just watching over you."

"We need medics for the injured," he said, and continued his nocturnal march across Normandy, searching for those who needed his aid. Just a man going places, with a mission to serve.

Like he served the Tsáchila tribe in Ecuador, devising an alphabet for their language (never before written), translating the Bible for them, creating grammar studies, preserving the old legends before they could be stolen away by encroaching change.

He served his organization, traveling the world in order to train and assist other translators.  He served whatever community he lived in and any church in which he found an empty pew.  

Most of all, he served his family.  The memories are endless today. The ever-present knowledge that "Daddy could fix it."  The gentle wisdom and perspective that never had a box from which to be out of. The laughter he provides us still (like when I told him I would raise him --referring to the hospital bed-- and he quipped, "Seems fair. After all, I raised you.") The silly songs he sang to us as children and we sing to him now. The sweet way he tells my mother that he loves her as she leans over to kiss him goodnight. 

Dad had several other vocal dreams that night after Normandy: in each, he was helping someone in need.  Service is honor, and even in these last dreams my father is an honorable man.

So on this most personal Memorial Day, I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude that there is a service I can give to him, an honor I can render:

I can walk a little nearer and for a short time yet, I can still watch over him. 


Saturday, May 4, 2013

Big Picture


The two-day drive from Texas to northern Indiana gives me lots of time to think. I'm not really a fan of driving, but I like the enforced solitude and the feeling of being untethered.

This time, I'm making the drive to help my parents for a few weeks. Dad is dealing with a serious health issue; Mom is frail; and my brother and his wife are juggling as much as they can.

Clearly, another pair of hands is in order.

Speeding along I-55 north, I go over Mom and Dad's health issues in my head, trying to see things from all angles. It's what I do, instead of worry.

When I was a kid, I worried about Dad because he traveled a lot. One day, in an attempt to ease my fears, he told me that the reason we worry is that we can't see the Big Picture. (In my mind, it is always capitalized.) He said that faith was about knowing the Big Picture was there, even if we didn't see it until we were further down the road.

At the time, I was young enough to think that I already saw all the picture there was to see, but his words sunk in anyway. It has become almost a mantra: I don't yet have the full perspective. I can't yet see the Big Picture but it's there, somewhere down the road. 

It starts to rain and I flip on the windshield wipers. The rain lets up almost instantly; off they go. I think about my parents and the long journey of their lives and wish we had a better picture-- 

Ahead of me, I see a flash of brilliant color. A piece of rainbow, just the bottom tip, bathes a stand of trees in shimmering light. 

The colors are intense. I slow down involuntarily (thankful for an empty freeway around me.)  As I drive forward, the rainbow grows. It stretches up, over the copse of trees - and is gone.  The road has turned, and I (again, thankfully), have turned with it and the amazing rainbow is gone.

For a moment, I feel bereaved. 

I'm tempted to pull off to the shoulder and back up to where I last saw it, but caution and reason win out. I focus instead on navigating the big curve ahead. 

Moments later, I glance to my right. There it is. 180-degrees of clear, uninterrupted, perfect rainbow stretched across the sky.   

It was just waiting for me further down the road.




[Not bad for a picture snapped with one hand, through a dirty, tinted windshield, using my phone...]


Friday, March 29, 2013

Tenebrae

Easter Sunday is a time of riotous joy, celebrating the most outrageous act of love and restoration. But in some ways I'm more partial to the stillness of the Good Friday and Holy Saturday services. In that spirit - and departing from my usual style of post - I'd like to share one of my tenebrae poems.


                        Of Blood and Wine

I asked You, foolishly,
to let me taste Your grief;
to share a moment of Your anguish
before dawn’s relief.

You gave me none.

Nor did I drink of peace or gentle rest:
just hollow spaces, born of absent hope
and love suppressed.

Abandoned, 
watching from the door
As papa packs and walks away.
Discarded, 
leopard pants and spandex
fading with the light of day.
Fearful, 
numbers falling from the ticker,
dropping scruples in their wake.

But of Your thoughts,
I can hear nothing more
than echoed Tenebrae.

I can see the mother turning
from the child at her breast,
I can hear the feet of thousands
racing on a hollow quest,
hear the gunshots and the lying,
see the petty and the vain,
taste the tears of cheap tomorrows
in the cup of flat champagne.

In the empty grey, we gather:
bankrupt;
helpless;
angry;
torn;
Held in silent, cold abeyance
by the unresponding stone.

In the stillness of our shadows,
drenched in blood and bitter wine,
I see I cannot taste Your sorrow
for tonight,
You drank of mine.



-cs Good Friday/Holy Saturday © 032208     







Thursday, March 14, 2013

Ghosts of Procrastination


I have a bit of a confession to make.  It should have been made long ago, of course, but now seems better than never.

I am a compulsive procrastinator.

This is a problem, and one that often dooms my best intentions.  A New Year's resolution may be recycled as a sacrifice at Lent.  My Halloween pumpkin doubles as Thanksgiving decor.  There is no 12-step program for people like me: we have Step 1. That is followed by a hodge-podge, slow-motion middle finished by a desperate eleventh-hour dash by which we hope to land at The End just before the last bell rings.

I have been given many explanations for this flaw, from fear of  failure to fear of success and beyond. Any one of these may be valid to some degree. But it can also be argued that my head is often in the sand to avoid dealing with my environment: most notably, of late, my house and the myriad bits of Stuff that still inhabit it.

Let me back up a moment. If I had to pick between a house full of knick-knacks and the simplicity of a monastic cell, I'd be in the monk-eviction business.  My late husband, on the other hand, liked Stuff.

In fact, not one week after we married, he walked around the house shaking his head and finally asked, "Why don't you have Stuff?" 

He then set about remedying the situation as he saw it.  John loved estate sales, antique shops and flea markets. He was also a generosity hoarder.  By this I mean that the driving force behind the piles of Stuff he liked to keep was the deep-seated certainty that Someday we - or someone we knew or might yet meet -  would  be in dire need of that thingamajig. Our garage/attic/pantry/closets became a testament to John's desire to be ready with just the right doohickey when Someday came a-knockin'.

At the time he passed away, our garage was so full of things picked up at one sale or another (often with the express purpose of giving it to someone), that there was a single-file path from the house door to the garage door and not an inch to spare on either side.

At first, I did very little.  It was his pile of Stuff.  Eventually, when I figured out how to live with missing him,  I began sporadic attacks.  I would pull out a basket, crate or bag and ponder the contents. If  I could figure out the intended recipient, I made a delivery.  If it seemed like a contingency doohickey, I made a trip to Goodwill or listed it on Freecycle.  Over the years, I have whittled it down to where I can park the car in the garage and still have a little wiggle-room. 

This is not to my credit.  It should have taken a matter of weeks and it is a two-car garage.

Recently, as I renewed the sorting and pondering, I came across one item that I did remember.  It is a small wall plaque made of wood and dedicated to the Winnsboro High School Class of 1917.  On the front are two small pieces cut from teachers' chalkboards.  John had picked it up at an estate sale, intending to send it to the Winnsboro school district as a memento of their past.


Curious, I did a little research.  In a history of Winnsboro (published the same year John was born) I read about their turn-of-last-century efforts to bring in telephone service and build a library through a Carnegie grant.  East Texas at that time was highly segregated. Women were barely beginning to find new horizons.  Then came 1917. My late father-in-law was born. Two counties over, someone cut out pieces of blackboard to celebrate a graduating class. And America joined a war that spanned the globe.

I wondered who of that class went to war.  And who came back?

That little plaque is sitting in an envelope on my desk.  I'll take it to the post office tomorrow and ship it off to the Winnsboro school district. It will be one less piece of Stuff with which to deal.

But in some sort of cosmic swap, the ghosts of stories not yet told remain and they have led me to a conclusion. These little bits of history that come with the Stuff, the stories that lurk in the corners of every day, they're the real reason I find myself constantly in that last-minute sprint for the finish line.

It seems like a possibility I should at least explore.  Someday.

----------------------------------


Sunday, January 6, 2013

Grand Adventure, the Finale


Or, Shop till you Drop... Pack till you Tip the Scales

On Black Friday, while hordes of shoppers in the U.S. were doing the Bargain Brawl, our little gang of ten was doing the less traumatic Hemisphere Straddle at the Center of the Earth, a.k.a., the Equator.  

We got there early and for most of the morning it was just a handful of other tourists, a gazillion elementary school kids on field trip, and us.  

My favorite display at the Equator complex is a scale model of colonial Quito as it looked early last century.  But it may have been the interactive insect house that provided the most adrenalin - thanks to Tiffany and Patrick, who posed for pictures while holding live rhinoceros beetles and a tarantula. After the requisite photos of people with one foot in the Southern and the other in the Northern Hemisphere, we got back on our bus and Byron pointed us toward Otavalo.

Pictures never do justice to the scenery of the northern road. We stopped along the way for bizcochos and manjar (hard, flaky biscuits with milk caramel). And then we stopped to just soak in the beauty.

The ethereal moment was punctuated by the artist/animal herder who had set up his wares outside the competing tourist shop. He wanted to know if we'd like to pet an alpaca and a llama. I said sure - and before I could say thanks, our entrepreneurial friend had dashed down the hill to fetch his animals.

Juanita Llama and Paco Alpaca were obviously used to being petted and ahhhed over by strangers. They posed with us for pictures. It wasn't long, though, before his handler noticed the barbed wire that had somehow gotten wrapped around Paco's body and embedded in his fur.

Have you ever turned an alpaca on its back? They don't like it. Still, Paco's herder tackled the job and Patrick gave a hand, earning himself the instantly-invented title of Alpaca Wrangler. Now to convince him that wrangling alpacas is not likely to be listed on the U.S. rodeo circuit...

Once in Otavalo, we checked into the Hotel Indio Inn and I went to ask the front desk for dinner recommendations. I explained my goal of making sure that my family got to try as many regional foods as possible. The hotel staff offered to prepare a special meal just for us: locro de papa (potato soup), seco de chivo (goat meat in sauce) with rice, potatoes and veggies, and a dessert of stewed babaco (a fruit related to the papaya.) Add the charm of their private dining room and it was more than a meal: it was an Event.

Saturday morning dawned bright and early. In Otavalo, that means market time! 

Tiffany, Blake, Mandy, the granddaughters, and I all took off for the market together. Patrick, Carol Ann and Adrian made up a second group. Travis joined us later.

Before hitting the market, I gave the group a quick lesson on the art of bargaining. The doubtful look, the slight turning away of the body, the reluctance to reach for one's wallet... it's a finely tuned game played mostly with body language. Once bargaining got serious, I would step in to interpret.

At least, that was the plan. As it turned out, the 14-year-old was a master at the game, a veritable negotiating force of nature. The adults all did pretty well without much help from me and the 10-year-old was too enamored of the dolls and toy alpacas to care about bargains and body language.

By the end of the morning, bundles of souvenirs were carted back to the hotel and we left Otavalo having contributed nicely to the local economy. Once back in Quito, we unloaded our bags and Byron left to pick up his wife. 

It was our last night together: on Sunday morning, half of our group would return to the U.S. Those of us who were left would no longer need the bus, so we invited our always cheerful driver to bring his wife and share one last dinner with the gang.

It was also time to figure out just how to pack all of the purchases made. Since I wasn't leaving until Tuesday, I spent some time consolidating my belongings. Any spare room (after calculating space for groceries yet to be bought), could be used by others in my party for their overflow 

That night, Byron took us to see Quito at night. The churches and colonial-era buildings were lit up and beautiful. I had been looking forward to taking everyone to La Ronda, one of the earliest streets in Quito; it's the place to be on Saturday nights, enjoying street performers and live bands and canelazos, that delicious hot cinnamon drink with a kick. La Ronda was to be the exclamation point, the grand finale to our Grand Adventure.


But La Ronda was too crowded. Quito Day festivities were kicking off that night and parking was nowhere to be found. So Byron drove us to a buffet, instead. We ate our fill and the conversation inevitably turned to "do you remember" and our time came quietly to a close.

Sunday morning early, the first group left; Monday, the rest followed suit. Once they were out of sight, I walked out of the airport to the taxi stand and hailed a cab. 

"Where to?" the unsuspecting driver asked. "Well," I said, "It's my sister's house and I don't remember the number, but it's on the Vía Occidental, uphill from the mall, but downhill from the apartments, and there's a black gate and a chain link fence and after that..."

The Grand Adventure was over. Now, it was just me, in my hometown, visiting my sister and giving directions the best way I know how.  

The next afternoon, I settled into my seat on the airplane for my own return flight. The airline staff had kindly ignored the weight of my overstuffed luggage and I was enjoying the banter of the group of men seated near me. 

Once airborne, the flight attendant came by with drinks. He seemed to know the men and made a game out of matching faces to drinks. "You have a coke-fiend face," he joked with the man on the aisle, handing him a Coca-Cola. I thought of how satisfying that family trip had been and how comfortable it is to travel with those who understand you well.

"What would you like, ma'am?" the flight attendant asked me.

The words popped out, bypassing my brain: "I don't know... what kind of face do I have?"

With a smile, the attendant reached into his cart - then handed me not one, but two, tiny bottles of vodka. And just like that, the Grand Adventure got its Exclamation Point.