Checklist as Conscience

Photo: an orange dreamsicle sunrise over Colgate campus, snow on the ground, 

trees bare except for the evergreens.

Today, I talked with a fellow organizational management geek. Or rather, I rambled, the words sometimes tumbling over themselves. I was high from completing a bunch of tasks that I'd had to sideline over a series of weeks. He asked me whether I make to-do lists. Do I make to-do lists?? Or do I make checklists? Of course: I make to-do lists and checklists!

I make lists over lists every day, each with the assiduous hierarchy usually reserved for outlining essays in English Composition. There are bullet points, checkboxes and subsets. I make lists at work, I make lists at home, and if my entire life's goals could be summed up, there would be a checklist followed by a to-do list.

A long time ago, I did a presentation on organizing, and in it I discussed the psychology behind checklists. I don't remember all the details, but there was some dopamine involved. And the more you list, the more you can harness the power of dopamine!

My management-friend posited that a checklist is a conscience. He felt that making a list was like making a promise to yourself, something stated or carved with pencil on paper - something tangible and achievable. These days, we know that SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely) goals are the kind of goals that are bound for glory. But what about the simple things that have to be done around the house?

For me, lists aren't just reserved for accomplishing work, I make it a point to include items of leisure and creativity! By putting my priorities on paper, I am able to visualize the path ahead and make adjustments along the way. I never berate myself for the things that aren't accomplished - that's akin to self-mutiny. I know perfectly well that the items that are left un-done will have a second (or third) chance tomorrow. And if any item persists being listed but not checked, then I would have to seriously question whether it needs to be done at all. Sometimes, the lists contains items that I categorically don't want to do, but that is rare. Usually, the list stretches long with items that will 1) make my life simpler or better or 2) make someone else's life simpler or better. When you plan your days, what more noble goals can there possibly be?

In my mind, the perfect weekend starts with a steaming cup of English Breakfast tea, a to-do list, and two wide open days to accomplish them. Bliss? Check!

There's Fungus Among Us (and I'm Lichen It)

Photo: a vibrant yellow brain fungus is perched atop a twig of black walnut that is also home to a furry green moss. Backlit by morning sunlight, the fungus is luminous and vivid. In the background, picturesque village homes are sliced between by rays that warm the green grass that grows along the road.

    In life, the smallest things matter the most.  The scant 30 minutes that I can eke out of my busy work life is the perfect way to start the day. This daily ritual had sloughed to the side during a tumultuous and uncertain year, and the frigid winter that brought us to this one. My early morning walks mean the world to me. It allows me uninterrupted time that can never be filled with a sneak of work. It enables me to get my proverbial ducks in a row, if only in my own head.

    My walks also bring me right into the path of nature. That particular morning, a hard rain the night before had left the world cleansed and misty. Up on Lebanon Hill, the fog lingered and tall trees were cloaked in grey. I often notice small natural things on my walks, but this morning, nature was vivid and clamoring to be seen. 

    If I had not noticed it, I might have stepped right over the yellow brain fungus that clung to that twig. In further affront, I might have stepped ON it. The fungus would not have cared, because it had it's job to do and the smashing foot of a human would not have altered its life cycle that much. If truth be told, yellow brain is a parasitic jelly fungus and feeds on the fungus that lives on dead wood. It would simply have continued to exist, or not exist, depending on the extent of the smashing.

    But, instead of me smashing it - it utterly smashed me. I was agape at the color, the translucency and the beautiful softness of it. That I was able to capture the luminosity and fragility in a photograph means that the photograph is proof, but also that it was so much more captivating in real life. 

    The rest of my walk was made brighter and more promising as a result of this encounter. When I got home, I stopped to pick up some twigs brought down by the night's weather. Again, nature astounded and enthralled me - this time in the form of a birch branch covered in lichen. Did you know there are more than 20,000 species of lichen? Lichen is not a moss, neither is it an algae or fungus - because it is both an algae and a fungus, living in symbiosis. Lichens can live anywhere from sea level to alpine forests. They appear in colors of red, yellow, orange and brown, bright green to black and gray. Freshened by the rain, the ones I saw that morning appeared olive, sea foam and indigo. 

    Again, I was gobsmacked by nature. Later that day, I read an article musing that the universe could quite possibly be a fractal - the kind of natural structure of snowflakes and crystals and Romanesco broccoli. This meant that the universe had a perfectly random order to it. It also meant that our part in it was just as significant (or insignificant) as that jelly fungus or the lichen. 

    I had set out to stretch limbs and breathe oxygen that morning, but my walk brought me inward and outward, knowing that whatever forces made fungus and algae and galaxies and stars could also make wonder and beauty. All of a sudden, the inconsequential became grand and full of purpose. And stopping to notice was like opening a door wide to the unknown but discoverable. All that in a morning's walk. I can't wait for tomorrow.

Photo: a stout section of birch branch is luxuriously covered with so much lichen that the bark surface is no longer evident. The lichen grows leafy and crusty and in many variations of blue, green, gray and brown.  In the background, the mother tree is formed like a "V" and the grass is luminescent green and the sky beyond the trees is bright blue.

Scent-sational Lavender

Photo: freshly harvested stalks of too-far-along lavender blooms lays in a thick bunch on grey-blue Vermont slate. The purple of the symmetrical flowers contrasts happily against the lime-rind green of the slender stems below them.

    Some believe that the sense of smell is our most enduring and reliable sense. With it, we can be transported across space and time. Memories will rush from a whiff of something good or bad, and some scents are so universal that it doesn't take much for a mere mention by others to conjure our own memories: the smell that precedes rain, wet dog, cinnamon and sugar baking.

    One of my earliest olfactory memories, aside from the scent of mothballs, aging textiles, and the faint rosewater of my grandmother's armoire, is the smell of lavender. 

    Though I was born in London, England during a sweet-pea spring, I did not identify with the country (or even know much about it) growing up. I lived my first half-decade in Sri Lanka, and then came to the US at kindergarten. My first trip back to London was in 1973 when I was nine years old. 

    Throughout our long overnight flight from Los Angeles, I had already been luxuriating in the rarified atmosphere of the British Caledonian Airlines jet - probably a DC-10. I was mesmerized by the trim and tailored navy uniforms of the stewardesses (they would not be referred to as flight attendants for some time to come) and relished the dainty-portioned meals that were delivered in interlocking plates. I felt like I was at a doll's tea party because I had never known anything to be so small and yet so complete. There was a pat of tiny foil-wrapped butter to accompany a soft egg-glazed roll, a wrapped wedge of sharp Cheddar cheese, an entrée with vegetables and a small salad. My brother and I drank ginger ale and saved the square of delicately frosted chocolate cake for last.

    When we arrived at Heathrow Airport the following afternoon, my family and I gathered our things to disembark. In those days, not every airplane knew the ease of sidling into a jetway that was directly connected to the terminal. Some passengers disembarked on the tarmac, descending a sturdy moveable stairway and walking a short distance to the gate. We did not lug luggage, because we stowed our bags so that someone else had to worry about them. I had a small white wicker purse with a leather handle that probably contained a handkerchief provided by my mother and little else. There was a promise from my father that when we arrived, we'd be granted a small allowance in British currency for souvenirs.

    By the time I reached the bottom of the rolling stairway, I sensed something different about the air. There was a cool and misty humidity to it that I had missed my entire childhood in arid California. My fine and straight hair immediately began to curl into waves.

    When we got to my aunt's house, where we would be staying, I wandered into her small cottage garden and marveled at the flowers. I would not know the names of them until I became an adult and cared about perennial gardening - hollyhock, foxglove, lily-of-the-valley, primrose, and lavender... oh, the lavender! Immediately, I knew that this scent would figure large in my life - it had to! The smell was bright and peppery but powdery sweet. I touched a frond and found that the aroma lingered on my hands.

    It seemed that everywhere we went in London, I spied some lavender - spilling out of cottage gardens in the suburbs where my family lived, filling proper window boxes along brick and sandstone rowhouses, and lining the walkways of the parks and gardens we visited. Lavender was ubiquitous and unique. 

    In the years to follow, that lavender scent would be replicated in the Yardley's English Lavender soap that was the only thing my aunt used and which became my personal favorite. Lavender became a favored plant when I set up my garden in Central New York, which in my mind has a similar atmosphere allowing for some of the same flowers that grace an English garden. Now, my favorite flower thrives in two places and I wait patiently for the blue-green stalks to burst with buds for harvesting. This year, I arrived home from a trip too late to catch them in their preblossom state - the best for drying and storing, but the grand aroma of a simple but elegant flower reminds me of my dear late aunt, and my first trip back to England. It reminds me of cool air and misting rains, travels and returning home, of luxury and simplicity.

    When I smell lavender, decades and decades after my first encounter, I am as enthralled today as I was then. If that isn't a powerful sense, I am not sure what is.

    

The Concept of Cozy

 

Photo: the blurred and lacy pink and green leaves of the Japanese maple hover above a forest floor rich in vegetation. 

    In America, our cozy has a 'z' but in England it's an 's'. Either way, the feeling is mutual: during difficult times, or winter, or spring days that feel wintery, one can cuddle up with a warm blanket, make a soothing cup of tea, or a pot of simmering soup and kick back with a movie, or a classic album and chill.

    Scandinavian 'hygge' is cozy's sophisticated cousin - embracing the simple way that a wood fire, comfy clothing and something warm and mulled to drink can transform a moment from dreary to dreamy. Cozy is more of a mindset than a well-designed lifestyle.

    It is strange to think of cozy at the beginning of summer, but the warm season also has it's cozy counterpart. For us, it is simple meals inspired by what's growing in the garden - sliced new radish on homemade bread with a perky curry mayo, or a salad with fresh greens, steamed baby beans tossed with a vinaigrette seasoned with snipped chives and dill.

    We trade our living room fireplace for a roaring campfire, built not for warmth but for ambiance and perhaps a batch of s'mores. I want to spend every waking moment of my weekend outdoors, playing in the gardens, dining on the patio, and pondering the wine-stained sunset from the fireside.

    Regardless of the weather, cozy is finding the pure and idyllic things that bring you comfort and sinking in. Ahhh... Perfectly simple.

Let's Get Rail: Logistics

Photo: Amtrak's engines are capable of speeds up to 125 MPH and have 4,400 horsepower. We stand to the right of the first of two engines, painted in the rail company's typical steel grey and cobalt blue. From the front, this juggernaut looks powerful and formidable. Yellow lines indicate where it is safe to stand when the train is in motion. We have clearly crossed that line because the beast is at rest.

Photo: a man peers out of the reflected window of our sleeper "roomette" while a railroad worker in a neon orange jacket strides along the tracks. In the reflection: tall trees, cloudy sky flecked with blue. Across the tracks behind me, the Daily Buzz coffee trailer serves caffeine-craving (and company-starved) riders in a long snake-tail line.

     One of the most intriguing aspects of our trip, pre-travel, were the space constraints. Just how big is the Amtrak roomette? How will we sleep in tight quarters? What size is the shower?

    The answers are: smaller than you expect; you will get accustomed; and, a little bigger than you imagine.

    But size is not the main consideration, once you're on board. The logistics will be the most important aspect.

    HOW will you move around your roomette? HOW will you train yourself to sleep in tight quarters? HOW will you orchestrate your shower for maximum utility and comfort?

    Let's begin with your private 'nest' for the journey. We Americans are completely spoiled by space. We live in vast houses, with cavernous bedrooms and sprawling kitchens and multiple living areas. Even our bathrooms are the size of actual rooms. So, when you step into the space occupied by two LazyBoy recliners facing each other, with a shoebox in between for a table, and you build three hard walls around that space, leaving room for a sliding door through which you can step out momentarily if both travelers need to move at once. 

    This is when carefully planned movements, plenty of forethought, and the agility of a mountain goat will serve you well. Any sharp movements, should you get smart about doing something without thinking it through will result in bashing your head, elbow, or big toe into something that is less than forgiving. So you think deliberately: I am going to stand up, fetch my backpack, and extract a granola bar. Then, you place your footing with the precision of a moon landing, stretch your left arm in the direction of the backpack, use your right leg to pivot back into your seat, and place the pack decisively in your lap. Success! You will feel a flush of accomplishment and pat the mist of perspiration from your forehead. 

    For our rail adventure, I volunteered for the top bunk, partly because it reminded me of sleeping in the top compartment of mid-century truck-top campers, and partly because I thought it prudent to spare my claustrophobic hubby the thought of a train mutiny. It really wasn't too bad - again, owing to logistics. You must plan everything. Or at least think things through. Arranging everything you'll need for the semi-monumental task of slumber will mean staging where your phone, glasses, water bottle and blanket/pillow will be, because once you ascend the Kilimanjaro of somnolence, you'll not want to make a return journey soon without a Sherpa. Once ensconced in your bivouac of dreams, you'll hook up the obligatory webbing that is designed to catch you around the middle should you lurch off the bunk in your sleep. Because you will be moving all the time!

   By the second night, I had the best sleep of my life. I felt gently rocked in all four directions, and the humming of the rails, the repetitive jig-jag will remind you of your mother, if, in fact, she were two massive diesel engines with locomotive breath.

    Bathing on a train is also an art. If you have ever imagined brushing your teeth or shampooing your hair on a New York City subway, you'll be well prepared for a shower on the train. First, I laid out all the accoutrements, assembling soap, hair products and towels (which are provided in abundance by train staff). Just like on the subway, you'll take a stance that will allow some hands-free steadying. You'll dab a bit of shampoo on your palm, and you'll raise (sway) both hands (lurch) to your head (massive lurch) all while ninja-ready to clutch the grab bar should a seismic movement occur while you're scrubbing bubbles. On the subway, you risk hurtling into a sweaty fellow passenger; in a train shower, you risk face-planting into the very grab bar that's meant to protect you.

   And somehow I survived. Not only survived, but enjoyed a nice hot shower with great water pressure! The vestibule in the shower room has a seat for placing your clothes on or for sitting to dress. All surfaces could easily be sanitized with a disinfecting cloth but the stall was clean and regularly maintained by train staff.

    By the time we disembarked our train, we'd had a truly unique and pleasant adventure. The coziness of our tiny cabin was both private and comforting. If you've ever taken a long-haul flight in coach, you'll remember that moment when you'd be willing to hock your wedding ring to get a seat where you can just lay horizontally for a few hours. On a train, that's the whole point. 

    Though our research gave us some clues, there was nothing like the first-hand discovery of the ways and means of traveling by rail. Learning along the way not only gave us something to do, but also allowed us to settle in in the slow and meandering pace that locomotion encourages. Would we do it again? Absolutely!

    Our return journey is in five days.

Current Location: Skykomish of the Cascades

Photo: The ebony peaks of the Cascade Mountains in the distance are crested with snow under an ashen sky. Nearer are conifers in a variety of shapes and shades, adding gentle shades of green.

    Skykomish, WA is at 47.710048 -121.355695. It is a town of fewer than 200 people, down from "several thousand" in the 1920s. Just 50 miles east of Everett, Washington, it appears Alp-ish, with distant black mountains frosted in white. At ground level, the modest village is mainly a railroad stopping point and a recreational access point to the surrounding mountains. 

    Our tracks followed the meandering Skykomish River, and later the Wallace River. Surounding us, the North Cascades towered far above the rustic log cabins, compact A-frames, and Swiss-style chalets. Much of the landscape is national forest. Rivers rush through pine groves, tumbling over massive boulders and tiny river rocks. Trees of all types loom over mossy banks and clutches of wild flowers in yellow and orange. If we were outside, we would likely hear the bubble and rush of flowing water and smell the soft earthiness. The soil here is a pale pink in places and black in others.

    The town of Skykomish, at one point in the 1980s, became barely habitable because the soil and ground water became so contaminated by oil and heavy metals. Finally, in 2006, the railroad company and the Washington State Department of Ecology began remediation, which involved massive excavations to remove contaminated soil and replaced it with clean soil. Three years later, twenty two of Skykomish's homes and business buildings were temporarily moved and replaced in their original locations, atop fresh soil and new foundations. The town's residents and business owners benefitted from the installation of a new waste water treatment system.

    The Native peoples called Skykomish, which means 'inland people', used that area during the hunting and berry-gathering seasons. As the railroads brought Euro-American settlers to the area, smallpox and other fatal diseases were introduced, and by the time the Skykomish were assigned to the Tulalip Reservation in 1855, their numbers had dwindled significantly.

    The rugged beauty of the area is readily evident now, with trees leafed out and flowers about to burst in berries, but in the height of winter, it must feel remote blanketed in so much snow. I can barely imagine how the place would have looked one hundred, two hundred, five hundred years ago, when the world was less connected and distance meant isolation. The area's wolves, black bears, mule deer and elk must have proliferated, fed by fresh water and abundant vegetation.

    Just a few more miles down the tracks, more signs of civilization began to appear, and less wilderness remained. The isolation and remoteness began to look preferable to the proliferation of people-problems. There's nothing like a big dose of nature to recalibrate your internal compass. And to make you realize just how delicate the balance is between humanity and the rest of the natural world.

Current location: Dry Lake, North Dakota

Photo: A field of gold and green stretches to the far horizon, topped by a bright blue sky scattered with clouds. In the middle distance, a river stretches across the frame while a low-lying tree casts a long, dark shadow.

Photo: Stretching to the distant horizon is a mottled field of amber and golden flax, where a thin line of dark green trees occupies the middle of the frame. White, grey and slate clouds are scattered across from left to right and in the foreground, low dry vegetation presents a variety of textures and heights.

    Dry Lake, ND is at 48.195925,-99.043306. It is flat as a French pancake. Great expanses of golden brown fields stretch all the way to the thin line of the horizon, seemingly hundreds of miles away. Occasionally, a Van Gogh scene appears, with a sharp cut of road, a few lollygagging round bales of hay, bordered by dark olive stands of trees, and a golden light under a white-blue sky. 

    It is morning. The sun looks like it's been up for hours, but it is still the time of early fishermen parked along banks of flowing creeks and still-sleepy farm houses.

    I badly want a hot cup of tea, but that would mean putting on a jacket over my night shirt, or summoning O.C., our tireless car attendant who didn't even get dinner until well past our bedtime, and was already up cleaning the bathrooms when I walked down the hall. My stomach growls plaintively for some caffeine, but I am glued to the window, the train's faint whistle punctuating the rolling track sounds.

   A person in constant motion, I am suddenly experiencing stillness.

Peace Train

Photo: Wispy pink clouds chase like cotton candy streaks across a warm and transparent blue sky. Old train cars at rest on a side track form a dark silhouette with glints of silver and pops of light. Tops of trees are in shadow in the background.

     "Know what the most important element is for successful and happy travel?" I asked my fellow traveler, my husband of nearly 39 years. "Attitude," I proclaimed. For attitude is 99 percent of great travel experiences.

    Those who fume at the delays, crab about the meals that aren't exactly like home, or whine about security pat-downs are missing time that they could be chilling out and relaxing, tasting new and interesting flavors or appreciating the safety and security of their travel.

    No one likes these unexpected discomforts, but as they say 'you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.' Stepping outside our comfort zone to check out fresh scenery, discovering like an old world explorer and taking chances with all our senses has yielded some of the most amazing, rejuvenating, and glorious experiences. 

     While I have control-freak tendencies in my own territory, the minute I step outside, I'm happy to feel all the twists and turns in the road and ride out the small lumps and bumps. That's just part of the adventure, I believe, to capture the memorable bits of life that often float past when you're inundated with the unexpected.

    I once surprised a young man in an airport security uniform. He was caught off guard by my smiling demeanor as I glided through the checkpoint, shoes removed, computer tucked under one arm and passport in my hand. "You look like you're having a good day," he quipped. I told him there was really no other way. Either you can smile about it or frown, but you were going to have to go through it regardless. 

    On this trip, as of Day Two, things are pretty copesetic, no complaints, nothing insurmountable to surmount, except holding on to that joy of discovery, of looking just beyond the bend to see what lies ahead, because around every corner is something. What that is just remains to be seen.

    As we sit in great relative comfort, sipping an adult beverage (the sure sign of a vacay is day-drinking, Duane says), watching all the best of America roll past our window, and listening to Yusuf Islam sing the soothing words of Peace Train, feels very nearly like what heaven, if it really does exist, must feel like. It is 99 percent simply amazing!

Train kept a rollin'

Photo: A glowing golden light rains down from unbelievably tall ceilings on this writer and her lifelong travel buddy. We are masked and vaxxed, and ready to roll!

    Our mode of travel today predates even the last global pandemic. The first trains in the US ran on wooden tracks as early as the 1720s, but iron horses as we know them now took about another hundred years to get going.

    Though I've loved trains for day trips on the east coast, it's been a dream of ours to take a long distance journey by rail. The grand train station at Utica, New York, with it's huge marble columns, Grecian styling and gilded decorations, feels majestic and slightly anachronistic. Train travel itself, can feel like it is out of step with the speeding world today. 

    We're headed West, young man/woman/person! Stay on track for our off-the-rails journey, in a sleeper car that will be our little nest for three whole sleeps. When we emerge from our metal cocoon, we'll be seeing josh and James, who we've missed for the whole pandemic year.

   I hope you'll check in, see where we are (wi-fi permitting), and hear my reflections on an ancient and timeless mode of transport that will be interesting, if nothing else... 

   Aaaaall aboooooard!

Slow: Gardening

 

Photo: A flat rock marbled with purple, blue and grey paint peeks out from under a tuft of blue fescue ornamental grass. The low scene also features twinkling forget-me-nots, stately purple ajuga and succulent sedum. 

    According to that dubious sage, the internet, slow gardening is the latest trend. "Don't mow and blow," they advise. Harried, high-achieving gardeners are warned not to let gardening become stressful. "Slow gardening is a mindset," one article clarifies, "replacing the lawncare chore with the pleasurable work of growing one's own food, starting plants from seed and gardening with local resources."

    My ideal pace of gardening is done on a calendar that spans not four seasons or twelve months, but 24 months or five years! When we bought our first house in Austin, we dared not put in a fruit tree because we didn't think we'd live there long enough to reap the rewards. Ten years later, we could have made peach pie or plum jam! Now that we've been in our Hamilton home for just over 17 years, we still don't have a fruit tree (mainly because local fruit is so plentiful in Central New York) but we've invested in asparagus and planted blackberry and raspberry bushes. Herbs that return year after year are a worthy investment. We will never run out of cilantro because it has self-seeded... everywhere!

    I plant so many perennials knowing that it may be a year - or longer - before I witness a blossom. Yet, there are others that surprise and reward with larger blooms, heartier foliage, and have spread enough that I must divide or be conquered. My most prized specimens are ones that I've received from friends.

    Last weekend, my houseplants made the Great Migration from their winter home in a bright and warm-ish sunroom to their summer digs on the back patio. Dozens and dozens of plants, some tropical (like passion flower, curry leaf, lemongrass, avocado, and fuschia) and others more common (like begonias, hoyas, succulents, and sooo maaany spider plants) were hauled out into the sunshine, repotted and prepared for warm langorous days of gentle rain and nights of warm breezes. Just like the person tending them, my chlorophyll'd friends seemed to stretch in the warm, yellow light and their leaves took on a brighter hue.

    The time I spend in my garden cannot ever be considered anything but play. I arrange and rearrange plants like they are furniture in a dollhouse, I experiment with new ways of propagating, and I try to create "scenes" out of plants and pottery and wood and stone. The exercising of creativity and imagination becomes my fascination as I slowly translate ordinary things into moments of joy or amusement. Beneath plants, you may find a chunk of old glass worn smooth, a painted stone, or a gnarl of wood covered in lichen and moss.

    I love the way the four-year-old wisteria weaves across an arbor made of naturally contoured sticks, and has whipped itself around the wire of the garden fence like embroidery. Velvety moss covers some stones in the garden path while others are flecked with color. 

    Gardening, but slowly, takes inspiration from nature's way of creating living spaces - requiring patience and nurturing, trial and error and trial again. In the end, the result will be to delight, bring peace, and a touch of chaos. Far from stressful, slow gardening for me is therapeutic and calming.

An "A" for Perseverance

Photo: Duane, Josh, and Rachel surround the newly graduated me. We are all dressed up and I am wearing a black robe over my navy-and-white polka dotted dress. There is a black mortarboard graduate's hat on my head with a burnt-orange tassel. The sun was very bright that day.

     Twenty-seven years ago next week, I sat, apart from my family, in an indoor arena that could hold nearly 18,000 people. In Austin, the Frank Erwin Center is called The Drum or The Superdrum. It was built in 1977 of satiny grey concrete, has hosted rock concerts (of which we attended several) and sports games, and sits stern and majestic on the outer fringe of the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. 

    That day, more than a thousand Business School students (I do not know the actual exact number) sat on folding chairs on the floor of the vast arena while their families and friends occupied the stadium stands. That's where my family was. I could not see them and I was pretty sure they could not see me. Some students had painted names and slogans on their mortarboard hats so that they might be picked out from the sea of black hats. I did not do that. I was thirty years old.

    It had been such a harrowing, exhausting, and sometimes exhilarating journey to get to that day. I was not the traditional student. In the stands were my parents (obv, right?) and my brother, but also my husband and our two children - aged 12 and 5 and my in-laws. My college experience was so utterly unlike those of the young 22-year-olds that surrounded me that it seemed preposterous. And it might have been unbelievable that a young woman who only started college when her oldest was two years old had been able to stick with it that long. I knew many older students like me who took the chicken-exit. But I somehow stayed.

    My first college classes were taken at the local Austin Community College, which were actually held at the even-more-local high school in the evenings. I started with one course at a time on Wednesday nights from 6 to 9. We'd park the kids at my parents, where they'd have dinner and play with the grands while we took night classes. The one-at-a-time class progressed to two-at-a-time, for which I was given dispensation from work to attend. I'd change my shoes and drive a few blocks to the downtown campus, trying to blend in with the other students. After a few years of that, while working a pretty sweet full-time job, I decided to cut my work hours by half and transfer to the University. In Austin, it is The University. Not that it is the only one, but the most prestigious, even among the private schools.

    By the time I got to UT proper, I was twenty-eight and had put in eight long years of night classes, lunch-hour classes, commuting, eating lunch in the car at stop lights, juggling motherhood and maternity and math tests and management lectures, counting plus-3-hours, plus-6-hours, until I finally got to 120 hours of coursework that entitled me to apply for graduation. At that time, there were no online classes (there was, still, no online), no special credit acknowledgment of "life experiences", no non-traditional student programs, no allowances for sheer perseverance. I had studied for many exams with a sick kid draped across my lap. I had done homework after the cupcakes for tomorrow's school party were awaiting cooling before icing. My husband could be credited with enabling my accomplishment. He kept working, playing leapfrog with our careers, giving me space for homework, studying, writing papers, heading to libraries for research. Without search-engines and Wikipedia, this meant viewing rolls of microfiche and using the computer lab on campus. To get in to the lab, one had to show one's school ID and bring two 5 1/4-inch floppy disks - one for the operating system and one for your personal data. When I had finally racked up the required coursework, I requested admission to the graduation ceremonies.

    Going to school while working and raising a family was hard. We were working so didn't qualify for any grants, and the idea of loans scared me. So, we scrimped and saved, paid tuition and bought textbooks with our slim household budget. Someone once told me that it didn't hurt kids to have their parents get educated. In our household, I drilled into both kids how putting school before everything else in life was the right way to do it. Both our children went straight to college, and completed their degrees the traditional way.

   That day, as I sat there on a plastic and metal folding chair in a sea of graduates attired in shiny black robes, faces scrubbed of last night's pre-grad beer party, benefitting from Mom and Dad's tuition payments, I felt tears rolling from my eyes. As I sniffled, the sweet-faced young girl to my left heard my sniffles and smiled at me. "Aww, this should be the happiest day of your life!" she reassured me, pulling me in for a one-arm hug. 

    "You have no idea," I told her as the announcer started calling our names.

One Brown Mouse

 

Photo: a miniature fairy house sits near a field of perennial succulents and a small grey heart-shaped stone nestles in a bare patch. Looking like a tall tree, a pale blue grape hyacinth juts above the foliage.

    I have encountered many things on my walk to work through the business end of a small town - friends and frenemies, emergency vehicles and urgent purchases, half-eaten pizzas and half-baked ideas. The other morning, I encountered a small, furry, scurrying brown mouse.

    I first met her at the corner where the grey granite bank building sits. Initially, I thought she was a bit of dried brown leaf that the wind was toying with, but when the path of movement continued along the blank wall of the building, I noticed that she seemed to be seeking some shelter, not knowing if I were friend or foe.  I say 'she', because she seemed diminutive yet determined, but gender did not matter.

    As my feet advanced along the sidewalk, the little mouse stopped to see if I were still in pursuit, and then ran a little further along the space where the wall met the pavement. I could see her seeking out some crack, some crevice that was large enough to disappear into, but when she didn't, she continued on a few feet more. There was not a single indentation large enough for the little body to get safely into, so she went on a bit further. When we'd both gotten to the small, brick-lined alleyway between two buildings, I saw her plainly as she skipped across the way to the opposite wall, on miniscule trotters that were more grey-pink than brown.

    There, the brick was aging and perhaps had some space for ingress, so I stood there, bags in hand, like a lollygagger waiting for the next thing to happen. She continued to run, stepping into one crack and finding it insufficient, seeking another a few feet away, and probably stopping to catch her breath within the tiny heaving chest. I went on, my work was still waiting and there were (figurative) donuts to make. But I thought about that lone mouse for a good part of the morning. Had she been getting breakfast in a nearby dumpster, or nibbling on the ever-present pizza crusts left along the sidewalk? Were the tiny cheeks full of such sustenance to take home to a brood of babies? 

    The chance and random encounter left me feeling light and as if I were in cahoots with nature to witness the early-morning run of one brown mouse.

    At home, this morning, the bird feeder by my kitchen door swung on the squirrel-proof baffle from a hook. Empty. A Dark-eyed Junco alighted there for a half a minute, knowing there was nothing in it, but perhaps hoping that his presence might signal the present situation to whatever life-force that caused the seed to reappear. I sipped my tea and went to get the bird seed bucket.    

    Within seconds, an oversized Bluejay hit the feeder with heavy birdfeet and caused a small spray of nibbles to fall to the ground below where he would likely peck at them in leisure. Immediately after, Mrs Cardinal stepped onto the small perch and bent sideways to snatch some seeds. She ate until she had enough then flew down to a spot where rainwater always collected on a concave bit of garden border. She sipped the cool water and sat there a minute before flying back to the feeder for a little bit more. Mr Cardinal was not far behind, but he did not seem interested in the seed, probably seeking a heavier protein-laden meal.

    Like the rare surprise of a sunshine-yellow dandelion bursting from a crack in the asphalt, finding nature in unexpected places is always a thrill for me. That brown mouse gave me pause to know that tiny creatures inhabit a place we consider the realm of humans: concrete and pavement, stone and brick. 

    Our early spring this year has me yearning for more outdoor time, but the copious tree pollen has aggravated my allergies and the intermittent dusting of snow has killed the joy of weekend forays into my wild garden. But nature is nothing if not patient. Though that mouse seemed to my eyes to be in a hurry, she had the whole rest of her day ahead of her. I wonder what plans she had in waiting, and I wondered whether she would be there the next day at the same time. Now, rather than walk aimlessly, I will look for her in the early mornings, to see if she is scurrying along.

While You Were Gone

 

Photo: a deep indigo sky is framed along the bottom by black silhouetted trees. In the far background is a ribbon of light sky and dark clouds floating by. At the top of the frame is a blurred but brilliant moon. 

    I do not believe in writer's block. Either you write or you don't write. To you, it might have seemed I was on a hiatus. For me, it was more like a low-atus. There was so much to tell but I didn't want to say anything.

    So many things have been rolling around inside my brain. We're living through a worldwide viral pandemic; so many have lost friends, loved ones, family; work is hard, school is hard, not having work is harder, not having school is harder still; there's unease and social unrest. Has anyone emerged unscathed during this trying time?

    Two weeks ago, we marked the one year anniversary of my mother's passing. Our relationship was complicated - there were times when we were close, but the last few years had me acting more like the worried parent and she like the rebellious teen. We had reversed roles. Now that both my parents are gone, there's no one to call to let them know I made it home safe from a trip, no one to give me unsolicited (but probably well-deserved) advice, no one to run a crazy idea or a major purchase by. I didn't feel like an adult as much as I felt like a child trying to act grown. 

    One week ago, the world waited with bated breath for the jury's verdict in the trial of the murderer of George Floyd. While the outcome was a relief and a vindication, there was no joy in the justice. Mr. Floyd became a present-day symbol of oppression that started with the birth of this nation and still persists. Though he had become a touchstone for accountability and activism, his family had lost a son, father, brother. No one would sacrifice their loved one for this kind of symbolism. 

    A few days ago, I returned to a women's writing accountability group, not because I required the bolstering and advice of others, but because I knew that holding myself accountable was easier if I made public my goals. Though I love to write, there are never enough hours in the day to make myself do it. When I am on a roll, it feels effortless like floating. When I stop, the heaviness makes it hard to get started again.

    Today, I received an official nomination to run for public office in my small town. It is heartening to know that I can try to make a difference in our little corner of the world, but it is also a great responsibility to work towards representation and public service in a time of uncertainty. 

   Tomorrow holds a lot of promise - it will be a brand new day, unfettered by yesterday but still rich with the experience. Anything can happen. And probably everything will. There will be much to tell and I will have to find a voice to speak it.

Taking Back Our Flag

Photo: a slowly unfurling American flag braves the snow on a winter morning. The flag, high atop a flagpole, is surrounded by bare trees and framed on the left by an evergreen powdered with snow. With red for courage, blue for justice and white for innocence, the Stars and Stripes means different things to different people. 

     There is something inherently powerful about the symbols of America - the vivid crimson, white and navy of our stars and stripes rippled by a steady wind across a summer-blue sky, the majesty of a bird of prey with a pure white head and tail, and a terrifyingly sharp golden beak. The strains of our "O, say can you see" over loudspeakers at games and festivals; the monuments of our national heroes - Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and King.

    When I came to the US, I was five years old and starting kindergarten. I memorized the Pledge of Allegiance in school, learning to hold my hand over my heart while I recited it along with the other kids in my class. Then, as a teenager, recognizing that, though I was outwardly different from the other kids, I could also sport a US flag sticker on my bookbag or as a decal on my first car. I felt a love for this country, though it is not the one of my ancestry, nor the one of my birth.

    For my parents, mainly my father - who was the one who expressed his patriotism wholeheartedly and avidly supported the country they had chosen to emigrate to, America signaled the freedom to do as you wished. They came here for the standard of education, for the spirit of capitalism which said you could have anything you wanted if you worked hard enough for it. They left behind everything they knew to forge a new identity for their young family, in a place where - though foreign and sometimes excluding them, they could realize their wants and dreams through steady determination and unflagging temperance. 

    Even as a young adult and a parent, I would still get misty-eyed at the sight of a waving flag over a night sky bursting with fireworks. America was a country, but also a concept. America was the melting pot where people from all over the world could pool their resources to the common good and that would take care of them when times got hard. I finally got my US citizenship at the age of 30, after living in the US for 25 years, long after my own parents had become citizens, after I had married an American, and had two American children. I wept on that warm day in San Antonio, Texas, dressed in a crisp blue dress with large white polka dots and holding a rolled up piece of parchment that was supposed to be my certificate of citizenship. I wept because it felt like the country I had pledged to had finally opened its arms to accept me.

    The more I learned about life, the world, and my country, I began to see the cracks in the veneer: the flag covered all manner of sins. It shrouded the evils of enslavement, it buffeted through gales of discrimination and oppression. I began to see the flag as the Native Peoples would have seen it. I felt the waves of unjust treatment of undocumented immigrants whose only crime was being born too many miles to the south, or too many years after the border between countries encroached on the ancestral lands that weren't theirs any longer.

    I learned that the Civil Rights movement was not a granting of fair access, but a hard-fought battle to wrench back entitlements that were somehow taken. I learned that the reason I did not know, as a full-grown adult, the whole story of Harriet Tubman, of Rosa Parks, of Ruby Bridges, was because I was never taught. These stories made me doubt the allegiance I had stated. If the flag I had pledged as a child denied liberty and justice to all, was it even worth my pledge?

    Suddenly, the flag had become a symbol, not of freedom for all, but of freedom for some and bondage and exclusion for others. 

    Over the history of humans, symbols had become corrupted by flags. The swastika, for thousands of years, symbolized "well-being" for Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains. Their fervor for this happy-good-luck symbol was imported to the US in the early 20th century and it was used in advertising, for decoration, and even the Girl Scouts called their magazine Swastika! When Hitler adopted the symbol - black hakenkreus (hooked cross) on a circle of white, surrounded by red, everything changed. Now that symbol, and indeed that flag, signifies hatred to the world, and terror to Jews, who were murdered under the sanctity of that flag.

    Even in this country, we've seen a symbol that was barely used during the American Civil War - the Confederate "battle flag" become a standard for white supremacy and racist opposition to civil rights. Some say that it means good-hearted "rebellion" to them, and that it stands for Southern Heritage, but at the time of the Civil War it was not considered the flag of the Confederacy. For Black Americans, the sight of the flag provokes the same fear, distrust and terror that the swastika flag does for Jews. 

    Fast forward to today, when flags, like the "Thin Blue Line" that flies over the Madison County Sheriff's office - to the opposition and distaste of anti-racism groups, symbolize to some the persecution and mistreatment of people of color and immigrant groups. Flags continue to be heavy symbols, bringing a lot of baggage for such placidly waving things. When a flag stops being a point of pride and starts being a representation of oppression, mistrust and fear, then it has ended its usefulness as a symbol. 

    But I believe that the American Flag - Old Glory - has a future as an enduring marker of freedom, equality, valor, and unity. For that to happen, however, those who have felt betrayed or suppressed by this flag must endeavor to take it back. Immigrants who made this country singularly great, descendants of formerly enslaved peoples who built this country, Native peoples who gave up everything to watch a new nation born on their shores, LGBTQ people who face discrimination still, and anyone who feels that the flag does not stand for them, should know that it does. And by taking back a symbol that bears so much hope, we can begin to unite a country that is separated by rural and urban, wealthy and modest, young and old.

    It is only through efforts on every American's part that our Star-Spangled Banner will continue to "wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." Though the flag is complete, our work is not yet finished.

It's the People

 

Photo: This shot was taken along the Appian Way/Via Appia Antica in Rome, Italy. In the foreground, a road paved with large black stones, in the near distance, a pair of legs traversing the way. The ancient road, built around the 4th century, has large interlocking stones of basalt - a glossy black rock, and provided navigation for people, carts, commerce, and trade. It still does. Sometimes the simplest things last forever.

    A friend recently quipped that her favorite part of travel is the people she meets during the journey. Indeed, the way you meet fellow travelers, helpful locals, and experience chance encounters is often legendary and lasting.

    When I was a baby, my parents took an epic trip, overland from London, home to Sri Lanka in a camper-van. They met the Balboul family in Bethlehem, Jordan. A Muslim family, the Balbouls, had come to frolic at the salty Dead Sea at the weekend. My parents visited because it was a holy site for Christians. Their children - two school-age girls and a baby about the same age as me, were the common ground and the tending to, and watching of, children transcended language, culture, and formed immediate bonds. The Balbouls insisted that my parents stay with them, in their home, meeting their loved ones and feasting on their family's favorite foods. They ended up staying for three days, and even then their hosts were sorry to see them go. They kept in touch with annual holiday cards until a few years before my father passed away as Mr Balboul had also died.

    When our children were young, we were fortunate to make a trip to England and Paris. It was our first international trip as a family and came about due to the proceeds of a small retirement account I cashed out early. Best return on investment, ever.

    We were connected through a friend of my parents to a family living in the center of Paris. We intended to meet them at the train station and have them direct us to a decent, and economical, hotel. When they arrived to greet us, they insisted that we stay with them rather than in a soulless, overpriced hotel. We did so, with a little trepidation - mainly from the idea of inconveniencing them so. But the meeting turned out to be amazing - they showed us a side of Paris that would never have been found in a travel guide: a several-course homemade traditional French dinner, replete with bottle after bottle of wine and complete from des œufs to des noisettes. They drove us around Paris at night to see the Champs Elysees and the Eiffel Tower flooded with lights. We took with us, as we explored the city and visited the Cathedral of Notre Dame the next day, delicious tuna sandwiches they made for us on fresh baguettes from the boulangerie on the corner. We still keep in touch with them for holiday greetings. 

    If there were some way to pay them back (that they would accept), we would have gladly done so. But such things are better left to pay forward. 

    On that same trip, we sat near a young man on the train heading back to London. He had lived in Austin, where we were from, and we got to talking, comparing notes about our home town and his travels there. We shared a bottled beer, some bread and cheese with him.

    A few years ago on a trip to Seattle to visit our son Josh and his hubby James, we stayed in the Airbnb home of a couple whom we immediately bonded with. They reminded us of friends back in Hamilton and we had long talks, in the late evening or early morning, drinking wine or coffee and recounting the day's adventures. After only a handful of days, we felt like we'd known them for years. Now any visit to Seattle means we get to see them too.

    The great philosopher Shirley MacLaine once said, "The more I traveled, the more I realized fear makes strangers of people who should be friends." Yes, it is true that being too trusting can lead to trouble, but if you rely on your instincts and be aware of sketchy offers, you may end up with more than snapshots and postcards, for the best souvenirs are glorious memories of people who have gone out of their way to show you their hometown, or share their culture. There's nothing quite like a local to show you what life is like in their part of the world. There's no tourist attraction or landmark that can even compare to the joy of connecting to people who will show you the way that ordinary lives entwine with the most extraordinary places. Then, when you meet a traveler in your hometown, it becomes that easy to give them a taste of your culture - and you'll get to pay it forward.