Caught in the Middle

Crossing the Bay

2010-07-27T02:05:00.000-07:00

Acapulco, Mexico

A couple of weeks ago, I packed my toothbrush and an extra t-shirt in a plastic grocery bag and bought a bus ticket for one from Mexico City to Acapulco. Five hours later, I arrived at Guerrero’s coastal resort – famous for its Hollywood heyday in the 1950’s and subsequent downfall in the 70’s and 80’s characterized by the “black waters” that flowed straight from the international hotel sewage piping into the bay.

My hostel turned out to be clean enough, with a private bathroom, breakfast in bed, and a communal dipping pool for just US$12 a night. I stayed in Old Acapulco – a mostly rundown part of town near the cathedral and Quebrada sea cliffs, full of cracked concrete dwellings and shops in disrepair.

My well-off friends in Mexico, the people who form the largest part of my social network across the country, tell me that I’m crazy for feeling comfortable in places like the hills behind Old Acapulco. “Como te vas a meter con esa gente?” they say. Seriously, Christine? You’re gonna hang around those people?

For sure, an added degree of caution is necessary in any barrio – any place that’s not nice enough to be called an actual neighborhood or suburb by Mexican Spanish standards. But recently, I’ve been increasingly drawn to spend time with Mexico’s raza, the large majority of the country’s population that doesn’t quite earn enough to be called middle class.

Saturday morning in Acapulco I woke up with the sunrise and started walking toward the ocean with my plastic grocery bag holding a beach book, a small wad of cash, and a bottle of water. I bought a US$5 bathing suit from a street vendor, and said a two second prayer that the thing wouldn’t fall apart upon contact with water.

As soon as I made it to the Costera, the ocean front drive that stretches across the entire city, I started looking for the public bus that would take me to the Caleta beaches. After living in Mexico for more than four years, it’s time to confess that I’ve never taken a public bus anywhere. It’s just not something that the nice people in Mexico, la gente bien, care to do, and I’ve even come to develop some sort of fear of the whole experience. I’m intimidated by the fact that the buses have no schedule, no planned stops, and no need to even slow down that much for you to hop on or off.

A couple of buses came my way but quickly passed. I wasn’t sure what to do. A teenage waiter from the restaurant with sidewalk tables behind me said, “Would you like to come in and have something to eat?”

“Actually, I’m just trying to catch a bus to Caleta,” I said. “How does it work?”

He smiled. “It’s easy,” he said. “Here, I’ll help you.”

Two seconds later a bus came around the bend. The boy whistled, waved his arm, and pointed at me. The bus slowed immediately.

“See? That’s all you have to do,” he said. He told me to have fun and to take care. For being one of those people, it tingled that the waiter treated me with more civility and respect than some of the CEO’s sons in Mexico City’s nightclubs.

I got on the bus and handed five pesos to the driver. I quickly realized, however, that I was riding no ordinary form of public transportation. To say that it was “bompin’ ” (a word my sister uses to describe anything that resembles a party) would be an understatement. The inside of the bus was covered with velvet curtains, tassels, and airbrushed babes with balloon-like boobies. And the music – a loud, trumpet blasting, base-drum pounding Mexican version of the polka known as Banda music – vibrated my hard plastic seat even more than the bumpy road. With every turn, the tassels swung wildly from side to side. I couldn’t hide a giggle, but when I looked around, everyone else was completely stoic, as if the bompin’ party bus were the most normal part of their day.

Once at Caleta beach, I found the departure point for boats headed to Isla Roqueta – a small island with private beaches just outside the bay of Acapulco. The boat captain – a half naked, sunned mahogany 16-year-old – waved his arms to get my attention.

“We’ve been waiting just for you,” he said, but with a smile that said ok so maybe not, but we’re glad you’re here anyway. “You’re just in time for the grand tour of Acapulco Bay,” he said.

Six dollars later, I was on a glass-bottom, floating shack that spewed grayish smoke from its outboard motor. The quick tour highlighted oceanfront mansions owned by famous Mexican artists, as well as a few beautifully colored fish and other marine creatures. But the best, and oddest vision from the depths of the sea was a 4-meter, 2-ton concrete statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint. As the boat floated over the submerged Virgin’s head, the family next to me crossed themselves. Some say that local fisherman placed Nuestra Señora de Los Mares, Our Lady of the Sea, in Acapulco Bay and that they still call upon her to protect them and provide for a safe return.

As the glass-bottom shack neared Roqueta Island, we pulled up to another larger fishing boat and anchored to its side. Pirate vendors quickly boarded our shack to peddle their fruit wares, bottled water, and beers. Ten minutes later we docked on the island, the first of many boats that would continue arriving in waves from mainland Acapulco.

Once on the beach, I noticed that many of the women were wearing cheap bathing suits similar to mine, and some of the men swam in their underwear. People carried plastic bags, discmans, and beers. The island quickly filled with people of every shape, size, and color. A woman yelled 20 meters across the beach to her waiter for another $2 shrimp cocktail in sweet tomato sauce with lime juice sprinkled on top. Children ran in every direction. Noise and laughter and sand flying and squeals and baby tears fearful of the soft waves pattering against the shore. Pura raza! Two girls from Oaxaca, of indigenous descent, sat next to me and we offered to watch each other’s bags if anyone wanted to take a dip. By 11am, I couldn’t get in the water without rubbing against other people, and the chaos was happy.

A short while later, my cell phone rang. Friends from Mexico City – a gay couple that has requested anonymity under the names Ale-ale-jandro and Roberto (Lady Gaga much?) – vacationing in Acapulco wanted me to have drinks with them during the afternoon.

“Sure thing,” I said. “I’ll be right over.”

I took a quick boat ride back to the mainland, and hopped a bus toward la carretera escenica, the scenic highway that climbs the mountain on the other side of the bay. When the bus reached the end of its route, I was still 15 kilometers away from my friends' hotel.

I found a taxi driver who could take me the rest of the distance. “Acapulco’s buses don’t go that far,” he said. “The hotel you’re looking for, the Quinta Real, is in a private, gated community. The buses don’t go there.”

By the time I reached the entrance to the resort, I understood. Porsches and Mercedes and BMWs lined the front walk. The development where my friends were staying is called Acapulco Diamante, the Diamond, and is marked by an upper class touch. No, more than upper class, absolute luxury.

I walked through the five-star Quinta Real’s lobby and was met with a breathtaking view of the Pacific Ocean through the hut palms that covered the extra high ceilings. Then I started down a set of winding paths and stairs, surrounded by lush tropical greens and birds of paradise, descending the shore front cliff, toward the pool where I was to meet Ale-ale-jandro and Roberto (still trying to write that with a straight face).

Everything was immaculate. Even the ashtrays on top of the trash bins had the Quinta Real logo stamped into the sand. Every detail was designed for comfort.

Once I reached the pool, I immediately noticed it was one of those swimming areas with a disappearing edge – the kind that make you feel as though you’re wading in the pool and ocean at the same time. Everyone was using the same color towel, no children were present, and waiters with pressed white shirts, black tuxedo-like vests, and aprons wanted to know how they could serve me before I was even able to put my plastic bag down in front of my individual lounger and sunshade.

Ale-ale-jandro and Roberto were taking a week off from work as a banker and life as a med-student to enjoy the kind of quality couple time that is often complicated by the rules of engagement in high society Mexico City.

When they asked me what I was doing in Acapulco, I told them I had come alone for a little adventure and maybe some relaxation before leaving the country.

“You what?” Roberto said. “Are you serious? You just came alone, just like that, and then you decided to stay in Old Acapulco? You’re absolutely nuts, Christine,” he told me. “Estas pero reloca. Come es que no tienes miedo de estar sola, de andar ahi sola?” Why aren’t you afraid to do that? he said. Afraid to be on that side of the bay alone?

We ordered $12 margaritas and sipped them slowly while looking over the edge of the pool to the beach below. The shore was empty, quiet, and peaceful. From the Diamante side of Acapulco, it was impossible to even see the other side of the city where the Caleta beaches sprawled, to even know what esa gente, those people, were doing. All around the private beachfront resort, hidden Bose speakers whispered zen music for the descendents of Spanish criollos – thin, white people with oversized hats and sunglasses.

Before dinner, Ale-ale-jandro and Roberto took me on a drive around the new Acapulco, the side of the city that has left the Old Town cliffs behind. They pointed out the new apartment high rises, more modern than anything, and an easy target for Mexico’s narco elite to launder drug money. Exclusive gated communities, shopping complexes with Louis Vuitton, Prada and Fendi stores that surrounded a Las Vegas style canal with gondolas and Italian opera singers.

For dinner, Ale-ale-jandro and Roberto invited me to a swanky restaurant on top of the mountain that overlooked all of Acapulco with US$500 of free coupons they had to burn. We spent it all… and more. We ordered US$19 lychee martinis, and tequila, and a bottle of wine. And then seared tuna steaks with a sweet beet relish on top. Chipotle butter on fresh-made rolls. And sundaes for dessert. Then we climbed to the restaurant’s rooftop terrace to order a few rounds of digestifs, and listened to a David Guetta look-alike spin house music while chatting with a view of the entire Acapulco Bay.

Our table had four waiters to serve the three of us. By Cosmo magazine’s standards, everyone around us was good looking, well-dressed, cool. We started dancing, and the boys hugged each other, then hugged me.

“We’re glad you’re here,” Roberto said. “With you around, we can be ourselves even more. We don’t have to worry about things, and just have fun.”

“I like your dress,” Ale-ale-jandro said. Running his fingers across the fabric. “And your shoes,” he said. “I want to wear them.”

“I feel like the princess of Acapulco up here,” I said.

Still caressing the fabric of my dress, Ale-ale-jandro corrected me. “You might be a princess,” he said. “But I’m the Queen.”

“Fair enough,” I said, enjoying the boys' sudden and sincere surge of freedom. I sipped my expensive cocktail and looked toward Old Acapulco, toward the bay-size divide between this place and that life. And I suddenly realized how few people are free to move between the two worlds – the two worlds that I experience together nearly everyday in Mexico.

Mexico has given me many gifts, but one of my favorites is the opportunity to cross the distance between the dark-skinned, plump girls from Oaxaca who helped to keep my belongings safe on Roqueta Island and the five-star plastic surgery models in Acapulco Diamante. Between the men who swam in their underwear with children hanging from both arms on the Caleta Beaches, and the adults only pool with matching towels for everyone in the Quinta Real Hotel.

It’s often difficult, if not impossible, for the Mexicans themselves to jump from one caste to the other, but Mexico forgives a foreigner many things. Forgives my naiveté, and grants me unique, VIP access to the truth of the spaces that separate rich and poor, dark and light, they and them across the country. Both worlds have taught me to appreciate and enjoy, and both worlds have introduced me to families where I very much belong. I’m a little bit from Old Acapulco and a little bit from Acapulco Diamante, but mostly from the deepest part of the bay that separates the two.

At the end of the night, sometime around 3:30am, the boys ordered me a private taxi to Old Acapulco where I would spend my last night in the Asturias hostel. Forty minutes later, as I walked through the gate of my hostel, Gustavo the night guard greeted me kindly.

“Glad to see you back safely,” he said. “Welcome home, Cristina. See you in the morning.”

Thunderstorms

2010-06-15T07:58:00.000-07:00

Mexico City

My favorite place to be when it thunderstorms in Mexico City is at an outdoor café on Rio Lerma. The first loud crack triggers a surround sound of car alarms. And then the rain chimes in. It’s almost louder than the thunder as it pricks and pounces on the awning overhead. A thin sheet of water quickly covers the street, and goose bumps prickle across my arms and legs.

A waiter comes running.

“Todo bien, señorita?” Everything okay? I tell him that I’m fine and that I prefer to stay outside. He’s carrying a five-foot-long crank, and he uses it to lower a sidewall awning to keep the rain from blowing sideways onto my books and my computer.

Across the street, ten people are huddled in a tiny doorway. Dozens more have slipped into the covered sidewalk entrance of a convenience store. Everything slows – even traffic is at a near standstill – people just watching.

As the rainwater slides under my shoes, a bolt of lighting says tag! you’re it! with a concrete apartment building nearby. The thunder continues to grumble, and I feel a deep peace. Like someone is hugging me with soft cushions and pillows. The storm washes the day away, brings the temperature down, and traps the smog in its droplets. I am protected under this tent, and enjoy sitting still. Shh… listen.

_____________

“I’m bored,” I remember telling my mother. It was always just nasal enough to be a whine, and she used to try and help me find ways to channel my energy into productive activities.

“Have you tried drawing a picture?” she’d say. “How about playing 4-square?” “You can help me in the kitchen?” “Why don’t you find your sister and build a fort?”

My mother used to tell me to enjoy being a kid, because soon enough the days would be too full. I didn’t like being told to enjoy boredom, and I never really understood what she meant.

The days I’m talking about sometimes came toward the end of summer vacation, or on a Sunday evening. Days when, even as a child, you just somehow realized, through boredom or a momentary lack of imagination for play, that you were alone. Please don’t misunderstand. I grew up in the most perfectly loving, supportive family. They taught me to serve, to grow, to win and lose gracefully, and to enjoy the best cold weather picnic on earth (a styrofoam cup of hot soup in below freezing temps beats cold cuts on a warm summer afternoon any day).

What I mean is that no one person could constantly entertain me or occupy my time and thoughts when I was little. Not even my parents. I didn’t know to call this fact loneliness at the time, but I think that’s what it was. A slow simmer inside, like neighbor Lindsay has dance class today, sister is sleeping, Mom’s cooking dinner, and Dad’s mowing the lawn.

I remember sitting under a pine tree that grew just a few feet away from the outside brick wall of 110 Mitchell Drive in Pittsburgh. The trunk was surrounded by rhododendrons, but the bushes left just enough space around the base of the tree to create a perfect little spot for me between the bark and brick. I must have been playing hide-and-go-seek and was sure that no one was ever going to find me. Maybe because the seekers weren’t even playing anymore? I stuck one foot out from the bed of pine needles, and crack!

Instant downpour. I don’t remember the bluish grey skies that predicted the storm, but I do remember the hard, eardrum trembling thunder. I probably should have been scared, but when the rain continued to fall, and I didn’t get wet surrounded by those waxy rhododendron leaves and long feathery pine needles, I felt that strange cushioned embrace for the first time. Shh… listen.

_____________

The problem is that, according to my calculations, the “I’m bored” stage never really goes away. We flit from job to job, country to country, friendship to relationship. But suddenly there’s a small hole, or a short lapse between the “finished that” and the “let’s move on to what’s next.”

My days in Mexico City are filled with these lapses. It’s the freelancer’s curse, the entrepreneur’s destiny, and the retiree’s function to feel these brief moments of “now what?” To recognize that even in one of the largest cities in the world, surrounded by friends and people, and full of happy blessings, I’m mostly just alone. Me and my pick-up-sticks against a lifetime of Sunday evenings and waning summer vacations.

Good Lord, this is getting depressing. I need to take a walk. I need to do something. I wish I could go hang out with my mom or my sister, or snuggle up next to my boyfriend. I wish I could talk all day with Bonnie. Something or anything to make playtime more productive, like kicking myself into gear with the radio report I’m here to produce.

I look out the window of my apartment bedroom before heading nine flights down to the lobby. It’s definitely going to rain. I can actually see it coming from the other side of the city. A barely audible, slow thunder drumbeat announces the approaching storm.

As I walk out of the lobby, Mr. Concierge says, “Señorita! It’s going to rain, a storm is coming!”

“I know,” I say. A big smile builds inside of me.

“And you’re going to walk to the café anyway? Like this? Without an umbrella?”

I hardly even turn around. “Absolutely,” I say. Before moving forward, sometimes it helps to just be still and reflect a little. Slow down now. Shh… and listen.

The Non-disorder

2010-05-31T12:52:00.001-07:00

Mexico City

Every time I come to Mexico, I lose my identity. This time, I was at Sense nightclub in Santa Fe – the height of posh in Mexico City. Before getting into the club, I showed the bouncer my U.S. license. I was with a group of girls, friends of friends. Half of us got the thumbs up and were allowed to get on the glass and mirror elevator into Sense, while the guards wanted to keep the other half waiting outside. Exclusive clubs in Mexico are strange like this. Wear the right outfit, get in. Know someone, get in. Pay someone off, get in. Be racially profiled in the right category, get in. Otherwise, the bouncers love to exert the ounce of power they have to keep you in line all night long.

In my case, the U.S. license almost always does the trick. Thank you Malinche. (She was the Nahua woman from the region that forms the state of Tabasco today, on the Gulf Coast, who betrayed her own tribe in favor of a relationship with the Spaniard, Hernan Cortes, Conquistador de Mexico! Ever since, Mexicans have called themselves, Malinchistas, because they often favor the foreign over the homemade.)

Once inside Sense, I found my best friend, Bonnie. She took me to her table right away.

“Put your bag here,” Bonnie said. “It’s no problem.” And she was right. The only people in there were hijos del papa. The rich kids. I wasn’t even allowed to bring my camera into the club – I had to check it in the coatroom. Upper class Mexico has responded quite seriously to the current security concerns across the country. God forbid I get a picture of some CEO’s kid, post it on Facebook, and let a DTO kingpin find out where his target was, when, and with whom.

In fact, many of these people’s bodyguards were already standing outside the club by the time I arrived. I could identify the bodyguards because they were wearing vests with lots of pockets, and many of them carried walkie talkie radios.

Back in the club, a glass roof over the dancing mass of people opened to reveal the Mexico City skyscrapers around us. Then, they started playing Taio Cruz’s song “Break Your Heart,” and I couldn’t resist any longer. I just had to start jumping on the velvet couches around our table. Some songs just have that effect. My foot quickly found my purse and kicked it to the floor. Contents dispersed. Almost everything recovered. License gone.

________________

The standing joke when I’m in Mexico is that “La cigüeña se equivocó del país.” Meaning, the stork dropped me on the wrong side of the Rio Grande. My friends love to call me one of the few American-Mexicans they’ve ever met. And after many years of legal residency in Mexico – first as a university student, then as a working professional, and now as an international journalist – it’s an identity crisis that I’m very proud to claim.

Throughout the past eight years, my life has seeped south of the border into Monterrey and now Mexico City. The friends I have here have become part of my extended family. And although I can’t claim any drop of indigenous blood as my own, I have become a mestizaje of culture, language, and customs – like the generations of Europeans and Native Americans mixed together before me. I blend my values and worldviews into something like the Coke and taco stands on every street corner – American and Mexican in one.

In 2008, CEMEX offered to help me attain Mexican citizenship on top of my U.S. passport while I was living in Monterrey. Although I chose not to pursue this option, the idea of claiming a second identity has always intrigued me. We do it all the time with our work attire, our inside voices, our best foot forward, and our hair let down.

Mexico is like this for me. For as much as I live the experience of being “the other” while I’m here (eh-hem, did you see that reddish haired white girl across the street yesterday?), I also feel that I’m part of this country in many of the details that define it. I’m in the $0.25 cents that it costs to travel from one side of Mexico City to the other via metro. I’m all over the fact that suadero tacos come from the meatiest part of the cow’s chest and that chicharron tacos are filled with fried pork fat. I’m in the million ways to use the word “chingar” and the knowledge that “el ultimo y nos vamos,” never refers to the last drink of the night.

I’m fascinated, for example, by Nellie Campobello’s childhood account of the Mexican Revolution in her novel Cartucho, and the fact that other writers of the Revolution like Mariano Azuela, Heriberto Frias, and Jose Vasconcelos ushered in a new cultural era and even helped to define the genre that has become Mexican literature today.

Of course, I’ll always be a Gringa at heart. Come July 4 in Mexico, I celebrate my American independence with a good glass of Tequila Herradura Reposado. But then again, in the U.S. September 15 is also marked on my calendar for Mexico’s Independence Scream (the famous Grito – Viva Mexico Cabrones!) with a Sam Adams brew from Boston. I guess in the end, I’m both. Not really from here or there, but caught somewhere in between.

So it’s a good thing that when I lose one identity, it’s easy to find another. Forget the license. I’ll use my passport, or my expired Mexican work visa, or my university ID – one of the many me’s I’ve learned to appreciate during my time across the border.

Learning the Steps by Heart

2010-05-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

Mexico City

Across the street from Bellas Artes Museum in the heart of downtown Mexico City, there’s a nylon banner hanging from iron bars on the outside of a third-story window front. The sign says “Clases de Baile.” Dance Classes. Through the windows, I see men twirling other men. Women twirling women. And full smiles flashing between every turn.

At the bottom of the sign there’s a giant arrow pointing to a dark alleyway. Baile aqui. Dance here. No one in their right mind should enter dark alleyways in any city, but it’s early, lots of people are around, police officers surround Bellas Artes – one of Mexico City’s most iconic symbols of culture and fine arts – and frankly, I’ve had a bad day. I need to make some friends, feel one of those smiles that only la salsa can spin, and find a bit of balance amidst all of the work.

______________

Completing a self-designed anything is tough. Start a business. Create a vision. Paint a picture. Succeed in a relationship. It all requires some effort to build something from nothing. And it’s what I was born to do. My passion, my OCD, is finding invisible patterns. And so, this summer I’m trying to build relationships between media organizations in three different countries. I’m trying to write reports and record stories from la calle. From the street. And I have no idea where to start.

My first week in Mexico City was spent largely walking in circles around el Angel. I tried calling the professional contacts I came here to meet, and quickly learned that they are no longer employed by the radio station I'm supposed to report for. I looked at the streets and the people around the apartment where I’m staying and got all gargoyled up. Frozen atop a skyscraper apartment buttress.

I caught up with a number of friends here in D.F. but couldn’t quite get comfortable. Almost immediately, I started to breath heavy with anxiety (the pollution hasn’t helped) as I looked for some semblance of stability. When I couldn’t find it, I got frustrated and fiery. I wasn’t sure who to contact to get my project rolling, or where to find an open door within Mexico City’s immense media network. I even burned the person I care about most in this world by trying to force him to find the patterns for me, just as he was pushing to succeed in his own incredible journey to South Africa.

I was in the middle of some weird vortex, and it was taking me down fast. C’mon Christine! Levantate. Get up.

______________

I drag my hand along the cold concrete wall in the dark alley to make sure I don’t fall if there’s a step or a puddle that I can’t see. To my left, I find a winding staircase. Baile aqui. I start climbing. At the top, I peek my head around the corner into a room full of ballet mirrors and bright sunlight.

“Ay, mi vida, you want to dance?” a tall, lanky teenage boy says. His name is Angel, and his teeth fold over one another in front. He pulls out a notebook and shows me how these Clases de Baile work. I can come whenever I want, from 10am to 8pm, and demand that an instructor spend one hour with me for $7.

“What do you want to learn?” Angel says. His hands flit like fairies as he speaks.

“Well,” I say, “I dance a lot of salsa with my boyfriend.” I’ve got the basics. “But I could use a little help with my styling. I’d like to be a princess instead of a block of mud when I dance,” I say.

And then Angel laughs like a little girl. It’s incredible. He’s straight out of the Zona Rosa, Mexico City’s thriving LGBT neighborhood, and I love him for it. He prances across the room and brings Octavio. The two are holding hands, and then they take my hands and say together, “Come over here, let’s get started right away.”

We begin with some intermediate steps. The hook. The cross-over. The susy-q. Right-turn, left-turn. After 20 minutes, I take a break and sit on the large concrete windowsill and drink from a 2-liter bottle of water. Across the street I see the orange-yellow roof of the Bellas Artes Museum on fire with color.

While I rest, Angel is playing the female part with a large-bellied man across the room. They’re dancing line salsa together and it’s sexy and smooth, even graceful. More people have come up from the street to watch them.

The room is full of obreros and muchachas. Mexico’s working poor. A new song comes on – like a kind of fox trot from the 1940’s, and a 60-something-year-old man appears. He’s small, dressed in brown, and missing at least two incisors, which only makes his smile look bigger. He’s jolting around all by himself, almost convulsing, with feet that move faster than Michael Johnson’s. This song is his, and he lives it as he practices. He spins and winks and yells across the room, “I’m practicing for my wife!” I notice at least three more teeth missing.

By the time my hour is up, the same vortex that was pulling me down in the morning is now pushing me through the roof. If you’re ever in a funk, I recommend spinning circles. If you just dance yourself senseless, or wait it out a bit, most consuming spirals will eventually change directions. My abs hurt from the suzy-q’s, I’m drenched with sweat, and when Angel asks if I’ll be back, the answer is simple.

“See you tomorrow!” I say, salsa steps closer to independence in Mexico City.

Princes and Paupers

2010-05-14T15:04:00.001-07:00

Mexico City

Yesterday I saw a butler walking seven poodles at the same time. It was only eight o’clock in the morning, but this guy was perfectly primped. He wore a short tuxedo jacket with tails, a grey vest underneath, and (get this!) a top hat. Watching him was like playing Clue, trying to figure out where this man fit on Mexico City’s oversized game board. And then I saw the building he’d just walked out of on Paseo de la Reforma. Ah-ha, I thought. The Butler did it! And he used a Bentley to escape from St. Regis.

St. Regis is part of an elite international hotel and resort chain – a picture of opulence and high society. The first one was opened in 1904 by the Astor family (think Carnegie, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt) in New York City to entertain the East Coast’s booming class of industrial entrepreneurs. Colonel John Jacob Astor IV developed St. Regis’ unique and luxurious style, ushering in a “new era of lavish parties, balls, and suppers previously confined to the private homes of the elite,” just before sailing to his death on the Titanic in 1912.

St. Regis sweats wealth in every direction. The properties have a century-old butler service – as in, wave your wand and a butler comes calling. These sophisticated servants will walk your seven poodles, unpack your suitcase, mix your evening cocktail, and arrange a private tour of the Pope’s personal chapel (welcome to The Sistine) if you’re at the St. Regis in Rome. Oh, and did I mention that if you own an “apartment” at the St. Regis in Paris, for example, you can go to any other St. Regis around the world and stay for free? Sign me up! I want to meet my butler.

“Past and future, rare and refined, there is no address like St. Regis.”

I followed the dog-walking butler for three long blocks. The seven poodles were harnessed to Mr. Butler’s waist and arms with a less-than-graceful-looking apparatus. But the eight living beings managed to make forward progress anyway – one step and poodle march at a time.

Outside one of the seven Starbucks near Paseo de la Reforma, the dogs came to a halt. It was the strangest simultaneous bathroom break I’d ever seen. I almost expected the butler to squat down too.

I looked around and noticed a woman selling bubble gum and Tupperware lids on a bench just a few feet away. She was staring at the poodles too, and called for her children to do the same. Mother and kids started laughing, like a game of charades – can anyone guess what this butler is trying to say? Person, place, or thing? How many syllables? “Ace Ventura!” No. “When Nature Calls!”

The woman’s children were filthy. They had dirty faces and blackened little fingers, and wore tattered pants and shirts. The boy must have been around six years old. He was a head taller than his younger sister, and both seemed comfortable sitting and playing on the dusty concrete around their mother's bench.

I imagined this family in their home. Maybe somewhere near Chalco – one of Mexico City’s roughest slums on the highway toward Puebla. Like many pueblos on the outskirts of D.F., Chalco used to be its own town. But now, it’s been absorbed by the uncontrollable growth of the megalopolis. As Mexico’s rural poor continue to move to the cities, places like Chalco have become harder and harder to govern.

Crime is rampant, and sewage and electricity infrastructure is shaky at best. In fact, the expanding Chalco now even crawls atop one of the numerous landfills that surround Mexico City, making it difficult to breath fresh air.

It feels weird to be in both places at the same time – next to St. Regis and Chalco. And it feels even weirder knowing that I pretend to be more from one than the other, when the truth is that both are past and future, rare and refined. Playing dress up loses some of its charm when you realize you’re just a butler in the heart of Chalco.

And so I took off my top hat, and bought a piece of bubble gum.

One in a Million – er, Make that Twenty

2010-05-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

The Middle of Mexico

If you’re not afraid of Mexico City, you probably should be. Even the Mexicans tell me, “You can’t mess around in D.F. [Distrito Federal],” and I believe them.

Mexico City is one of the largest urban centers in the world with more than 20 million inhabitants spread across what used to be a giant swamp. No walking alone after dark; no flashy clothes or jewelry; God forbid you wear shorts; don’t carry your debit card anywhere (express kidnappings land you at an ATM with some guy demanding that you empty your account on the spot); and never, ever hail a cab from the street.

I haven’t been able to find Mexico City on any published list of the world’s most dangerous places, but by the time my flight lands at the Benito Juarez International Airport, I’m feeling something like those poor exchange students who came to Mexico City from Europe in 2004 and were treated to the oh-so-appropriate in-flight entertainment, “Man on Fire,” with Denzel Washington.

From the air, Mexico City looks like an enormous beached whale; only you can’t see where its mouth begins or where its tale ends. In fact, it’s so huge that you can get to Mexico City by flying to any one of four international airports. Benito Juarez International, however, is the only airport in the world located directly in the center of a major metropolis. Building, office building, restaurant, and oh! There’s a runway, apartment complex, oops! Another runway. This airport is Mexico’s largest and Latin America’s busiest, and has been the center of numerous drug trafficking investigations (see this 2008 Los Angeles Times article). The advantage of flying into Benito Juarez is that it helps travelers who are headed toward the city’s center avoid the brick wall of traffic on inbound thoroughfares.

And oh, the traffic. In many ways, life in D.F. boils down to sentences and decisions that begin and end with the qualifier, “with or without traffic.” I know parents who live in the northern part of Mexico City with kids who live in the south, and they rarely see each other. The trip between north and south can take the better part of a day – up to five hours if you include the entire metropolitan area with traffic, a taxi driver tells me.

A few years ago I came to Mexico City for 48 hours on a cheap ticket whim from Monterrey and hired someone to take me along Mexico City’s north-south corridor, Insurgentes. I gave up on the challenge after just a short hour and a half of eyebrow tweezing progress.

One friend who works ten minutes away from where I’ll be staying without traffic says, “We can’t do lunch. It’ll take me over an hour to get to you. We’ll have to wait until after 8:30 or 9pm.” That’s why people here eat dinner sometime around 9:30 at night. And it’s why many employees don’t leave the office before 8pm – just waiting for the rush hour bustle to settle. As far as I can tell, though, it’s always rush hour here.

A white Suburban takes me from the airport into the heart of the largest web I’ve ever visited. We push 50 – 60 mph on roads that wouldn’t allow for more than 35 mph in the U.S. The Sunday night before Mother’s Day in Mexico is one of the few moments of relatively free movement in the city, and my taxi driver is having at it.

Faster than I can say “Bienvenidos a Mexico!” I’m surrounded. It’s an exhilarating feeling to be in the very middle of the Western Hemisphere – historically and culturally. Mexico City is the birthplace of an entire civilization that is as ancient as the Aztecs and as modern as the Torre Mayor, the city’s tallest skyscraper where Apple Computers, AIG, McKinsey, Deloitte, Hewlett Packard, Japan Airlines International, and IXE Financial Group all have offices. I’m in a time warp that is rich with tortilla recipes inherited from generations of maiz-loving grandmothers, and forward-thinking philosophers from some of Latin America’s most prestigious universities.

This taxi is a slingshot, and I’m about to be catapulted into space.

“Christine! You made it! Come in, come in,” my new roommate, Claudia says. She pulls my suitcase inside the door and shows me where I’ll be sleeping for the next month. It’s an awesome apartment with 9^th story views toward Santa Fe and Polanco, a few steps from el Angel de la Independencia, and minutes from the U.S. Embassy.

“Tomorrow I’ll take you on a long walk to help you get situated,” she says. “And we’ll grab lunch with some friends from the office. Don’t worry about a thing,” she says. “You’re going to be just fine here, and we’re going to have a great time.”

If you’re not in love with Mexico City, you really should be. Even the Mexicans tell me, “There’s no place in the world like D.F.,” and I believe them.

The Miles Between

2010-05-10T21:00:00.000-07:00

Many miles have run between you and me since we shared our last adventure. I survived my 2009 trek across Europe and managed to travel from above the Arctic Circle to an island in the middle of the Mediterranean. The journey took me farther than I ever expected. In five months, I visited sixteen countries and forty cities across an entire continent. I got lost. Really, really lost. And then I found my way again. I met friends and thieves and saviors. I fell in love with an incredible man who continues to be an endless source of love and support in my life today. And now, I’ve just finished the first year of my Masters in Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. You might say that, “things have settled somewhat.”

But then again, you and I both know that things never stay put for long.

This summer I will spend one month in Mexico City, Mexico and two months in Johannesburg, South Africa as an international media intern and a de Zafra Leadership Fellow. The range is wide open, and I’m on the road to somewhere again. Welcome back to this collection of stories for people who are on their way to somewhere too. For people whose cars have broken down, and for others who are racing ahead. I hope you’ll find pieces of yourself here, between things old and new, near and far. It’s called being Caught in the Middle – and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a really fine place to be.

Clickety Clack

2009-06-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

Somewhere between here and there

Facts:

1. 1. The creamy middle of any Oreo cookie will always taste better than the chocolate wafer around it (though I won’t deny the absolute goodness of combining cookie and cream with milk, have you ever met anyone who eats just the chocolate cookie and leaves the filling to waste?).

2. 2. Last year, 220 million Americans spent an average of 1.5 hours commuting to work, everyday. Some of these people crashed. Others experienced road rage. And still others will confess that the time they spend in a car or on a bus is the best part of their day.

3. 3. Halftime shows, though mostly inane as spectacle, serve an important purpose. They provide a chance for players to regroup, fans to make a fast break for the restroom, and beer-drinkers to refill.

Truths gleaned from the facts:

1. 1. The best stuff always happens in the middle. No matter how great your start might be, or how significant your destination, everything that happens in between is where you’ll find life’s sweet spots.

2. 2. And if you think about it, this is where we spend a huge chunk of our time. Our lives are, generally speaking, one big commute. One big “are we there yet?” It’s the most ordinary thing, really. But ironically, by investing so much time to get from A to B, we open ourselves up for moments of grandeur – unexpected encounters with heroes and villains, accidents and blessings. And knowing this – that each of our lives may gravitate toward greatness even amidst the commonplace – elicits a response.

3. So let’s celebrate. Because halftime shows are just a mid-commute celebration of something so silly as reaching the exact center point between start and finish anyway, right? It’s so stupid that it’s genius! Forget a trophy for the winner. Let’s throw a party for people who somehow savor the fact that life’s all about never quite getting there. And the ones that realize – it’s a great place to be.

Train rides and long lines full of truth:

1. 1. It’s bedtime on the SJ, about 10:30pm, somewhere in Sweden. Tonight the train rides like a high-speed bobsled, pushing it’s way against the snowy, desolate north. But I feel cozy, thanks to the fact that only four of us – myself, Camilla, her infant daughter and four-year-old son, Viktor, occupy this six-man sleeper cabin.

As As with most journeys toward the middle of anything, my night with the Hed family begins with a question. “Would you mind taking her for a second?” Camilla says as she places her crying daughter into my arms. “I need to feed her, but I’ve got to get out of these clothes.”

Spending over 12 hours in a second-class sleeper cabin (on average no larger than 2 meters deep and 1.5 meters across with three couchettes stacked on each side) with total strangers is a disturbingly intimate experience. It’s the best way to travel long distances because if you include a couple swigs of anything in the equation, you can sleep for around half of a 24-hour journey. But it’s definitely a game of roulette. No requests allowed. And it’s just as likely you’ll end up with the climbing crew next door (this year’s northern festival champions haven’t showered in 14 days and I swear I just saw something crawl out of that man’s beard), as it is that you’ll sleep (or not) next to a crying baby or a group of drunk college kids.

“You have this face,” Camilla says to me as she takes her daughter back into her arms after changing into sweats. “It’s all in the face,” she says. “I sleep on a train with my kids at least once a week. My husband and I breed horses here in Sweden and so we both travel a lot. And I can always tell when someone needs to talk, or when someone wants company.”

“And what does mine say tonight?”

“That you won’t mind helping me get the kids to sleep as long as I get us some coffee for the morning.” Camilla smiles as she lays back and continues to nourish her daughter.

Meanwhile, I’m sitting with Viktor – the most perfect little towhead – on another couchette. He loves dinosaurs and tells me to “Watch out! There’s a tyrannosaurus under the bed. Don’t touch the floor! It’s made of lava.” And I have to play along because he’s irresistible and his imagination so real that he transforms the whole train into a prehistoric jungle. My interaction with Viktor is broken at best. He yells in Swedish or in the Icelandic language that his parents are assuring he learns while his mother repeats the sentence in English and asks him to try. Viktor points to the floor and slowly mouths it out, “Laavvaa.”

“Shhh…” I say. “Here comes a Stegosaurus.”

And then Viktor wants to watch ‘Land of the Dinosaurs’ on his portable DVD player, so he cuddles up, close to my chest and stomach in his nighties (just a short little pair of boxer briefs) to watch his movie while Camilla and I share stories.

She tells me about the farms that she and her husband manage (husband is a relative term in Sweden. It means the man you live with and the father of your children, though it only sometimes refers to wedding rings and court documents) and about the horses they’ve imported from Iceland in order to breed more profitably in Sweden. It’s their shared passion for the animals that brought them together, and they plan to make their relationship more official soon. Camilla seems excited and so I congratulate her.

Between our conversations – my parents and her children, my sister and her horses, my Mexico and her Iceland – we fall asleep. And by the time I wake up, the cabin is empty. Their stop came earlier than mine and I find a note from Camilla.

Christine: Great to meet you. Thanks for your help with the kids. Viktor enjoyed his playtime with you. If you’d like to visit Iceland, please call or e-mail. I have family there and they would be happy to receive you as a guest on their farm. Good luck with your travels and keep your face open.

Keep my face open? Doesn’t she mean something more year-bookish like, “stay cool” or “keep it real?” Keep your face open – like a story with no beginning and no end, ready for new pages, notes, and earmarks. And then I see the 50 krona note.

P.S. Buy yourself something sweet for breakfast…

If only they sold Oreos to accompany this coffee. And the train. Keeps chugging along.

2. 2. Somewhere farther south, and on another night, I’m more and less lucky. Sleeper cabin number two (which also turns out to be the last time I choose to play roulette) is small, old, dirty, and full. Me and five men. A young Danish guy, two Serbians, and two self-proclaimed gypsies.

The two Serbians don’t speak English – only German and Serbo-Croatian. One of them – an older, big-bellied man – has a daughter. I see her at the train station when she hands her father a bag of food from the platform through an open window in our compartment. Next, she looks at me, points to her father and says “No English, good man.” And for some reason, I believe her.

Thirty minutes into the trip, the big-bellied Serbian opens a tin foil ball from his dinner sack and releases an overwhelming, almost rotten, waft of garlic and spice into the entire cabin. He uses his hands to eat the chicken wings and a piece of bread to clean his fingers and sop up the juice.

The smell and the male to female ratio make me feel small and foreign. My confidence drops even further when one of the gypsies starts asking questions (the other gypsy is mute – he only responds to the first one’s orders to go and buy more beer). “So, girl, you from America, right? Your aura says it all.” He’s the only one that speaks English in my cabin. “How long are you here? Where are you staying? How can you be on this train to Holland and not be taking the drugs or drinking the beer? You’re boring,” he tells me.

“And you’re creepy,” I want to tell him. And then he puts his hand on top of mine, like a foul ball hit to left field, and I just about lose it. I really don’t want this and have no idea where it came from. It feels like taking a shower with soap made out of dirt.

“What are you reading?” he says, his hand shrink-wrapping mine. It’s a soduku moment. Act quickly, but remember that the number of possible responses are limited and that I’ve got to find the perfect combination (i.e. how to get the hell away from him without putting my own safety at risk – the train is full and security is very limited).

And so I pull away with the harshest wrist snap I can manage without actually slapping him – trying to say, “I don’t want trouble, but could you please leave me alone?” For those of you wanting to know why I couldn’t just say so, the answer is a gesture – a shoulder shrug frozen in time. The only thing I do know is that sometimes being alone and frightened causes more confusion than experiencing that same fear with company.

In any case, I’ve got a bad vibe about these guys. And about the night, and the train, and my money. And so I resort to instincts and apply the old “When in doubt, stuff everything of value into your pants” rule. Same concept as a money belt, only tonight I manage to slip my laptop, iPod, cash, credit cards, and camera into my loose cargo pants. I snug my earplugs into place and manage a grand total of 30 seconds sleep, until about 5:30am when I’m woken from a state of half consciousness by pounding fists against the Plexiglas near my head.

Train security is yelling at me in German, asking me questions, and I can’t understand anything. And the big-bellied Serbian is nearly spitting over himself, trying to answer.

“Where are they?” the guards shout, so harsh, and so aggressive.

“They left, we don’t know,” says the Serbian.

“You don’t know anything? Does she know something?” and they point to me. And my face is completely blank (imagine that I have no idea what’s going on. It wasn’t until hours later that I found someone to translate through the ensuing questions and minor panic among passengers on the train).

“No, she doesn’t know anything. The gypsies wanted to go through her bag too – I saw them – but they knew I was awake, watching them, so they didn’t touch it.”

And the questions continue from cabin to cabin, just like this. Until the full extent of the damage surfaces. The two gypsies from my cabin jumped the train somewhere near Dusseldorf, Germany, in the middle of the night. And they made off with six passports (Danish guy’s passport from my cabin included), cash, two purses, and one suitcase.

No one said the commute was danger free. Someone’s bound to flip us the bird somewhere along the way, but sometimes when the trip seems even more impossible than the destination, just pay attention. That’s all you have to do. You might find your guardian eating chicken wings (or grooming angel wings), helping you to keep your eyes on the road and both hands on the wheel, even when it’s dark and difficult to drive.

3. 3. One of the longest lines in all of Europe stretches well beyond the gates of Versailles. Never mind exactly where this is, or its relative significance (working off the premise that life is occasionally more about getting there than being there), just think heavy-duty, ant mound crowds.

Normally, situations like this heighten my sense of solitude. The sprawling pairs and packs of people only serve to remind me that I’m all alone. But today I’m on top of the world. And I’m glad to join the throngs with a clan of my own. Mom and Dad, my grandparents, Cousin Max and his wife Veryl have come to Europe to live their own travel story and help me add a beautiful chapter to mine (stay tuned for a later post on the who, what, where, when, and why of my week in Paris with family).

But for now, let’s just assume standing in this line is the only thing that matters. Because it’s an entirely eternal experience. We’re here forever. Twenty minutes to find the right line. Two hours to stand in it. Fifteen minutes to find the next line and two more hours to stand in it. This is nuts. And I’m starting to feel like all the time we’re investing to just stand around outside might actually cause us to miss out on standing around some more on the inside.

The security entrance is at least two football fields away. We decide that the best (and most obvious, duh) course of action is to send Dad and Grandpa to the front of the line so they can investigate and make sure the queue we’re in will take us somewhere. The rest of us are content to stay behind and hold our place anyway.

Moments later, halfway between one chit and another chat, Mother and I hear quick, shuffling loafers behind us – almost a full jog – against the cobblestone court. I turn around and see my father. He’s alone, and his breakneck gate worries me (maybe someone’s hurt?). But when I see Grandpa standing a-okay in the distance, I realize that Dad’s urgency must be related to something else.

The closer he gets, the more alarming his behavior appears. He’s waving his arms to get our attention (only now he has everyone’s attention), and his modern, black fedora is pulled tightly over his forehead to shadow his eyes (think Sherlock Holmes with a fanny pack).

“Listen here,” he says from ten feet away, trying to whisper, only it’s pushed so hard that it escapes a bit more explosively (think ship captain addressing his crew). “I want you to follow me. Don’t say a single word. Just get out of the line and come this way. And try to act normal.” Uh-huh.

He’s got my Mom’s arm, gently leading her forward, skipping past all the other people in line. His own body is sort of bent into hers, like everyone is out to get him (except they weren’t, but now he’s making them think they should be).

“I found this guy who says he’ll get us through security extra quick,” Dad says.

And I say, “Oh no, Dad. Are you serious? But we were making progress in the line and now we’ve lost our spot.” I’m at least 107% sure that someone’s either stolen his wallet while telling him how to get through security “extra quick,” or that we’re going to start a line-cutters riot.

But they didn’t, and we don’t. And for the millionth time in my life, Dad saves the day. He, more than anyone I’m proud to know, is the best at turning mundanity into a half-time show. He can build a circus out of toothpicks, and might be the last man alive to still get a laugh by saying, “Pull my finger.” Truthfully, his jokes rarely merit much praise themselves (and if they do, they’re normally grossly inappropriate – meet Dirty Ernie), but one of Dad’s most effective and endearing half-time stunts is the howling laughter he releases upon saying or doing anything that you’re supposed to think is funny. Sit in a room with him, ride in a car, or stand in line for any amount of slow-passing time and I promise my Dad will turn middleness into a celebration you’ll never forget.

When we get to the entrance; Dad shows his ticket to the security guard and says, “Remember me? You were just going to let me in, but I told you I needed to get my family.”

“Yes, yes. How many? Okay. Yes, hurry. Come through. Come through,” the guard says. And we have no idea why. We spend hours talking about this afterward and never understand the reason behind security’s eagerness to get us through the gate while hundreds of people stood waiting behind us.

But we’re in. And I’m thankful. And now I need to use the restroom. And it looks like that line begins just over there.

Flat Mates

2009-05-26T09:03:00.000-07:00

Geneva, Switzerland

I hate dogs. Okay, sorry, that was mean. I don’t hate dogs. I just don’t like them. And you know what’s worse? That I actually feel bad about not liking them – not so much because I’m worried about hurting the dog’s feelings, but more because I’m worried about hurting yours. See, every time I confess my sentiments, old ladies drop their grocery bags mid-stride, babies cry, like “Mommy, don’t let her hold me,” and animal lovers everywhere shift their shoulders to think that maybe I’m the evil witch who abandoned the puppy they had the heart to adopt last month.

But it’s not like this. I swear. More than anything, my feelings toward the canine species are just indifferent. I mean, it’s not like I’m afraid of them. I also know that some cute little puppies are more endearing than others, and that none of them should ever be mistreated. But in general, dogs just don’t make me feel much of anything. Give me a good book, and I’ll swoon. Pass me a baby, and I’ll usually say aw. But ask me to play with your puppy, and I’ll pick my nose. I’d like to think that it’s a simple question of taste – one that couldn’t make me any worse of a person than your preference for stir-fry and my partiality for couscous.

Having said this, it should make no sense to you at all when I tell you that I am now dog sitting in Switzerland. Don’t laugh. This is serious business. For the next eight days, I have one friend in all of Geneva. And his name is McLovin. McLovin the Cairn Terrier. McLovin the recent addition to Arturo and Katia’s family (friends from Mexico who moved to Switzerland to work for the World Economic Forum). McLovin the toasted marshmallow fur ball. McLovin the ultimate lap beast.

Oh heavens, if only my employers could hear me now. I insist – Katia and Arturo – it’s not what you think. I know I told you that I like dogs during our interview, but what I really meant was that I was going to try and turn over a new leaf. Before McLovin’s caring parents leave me with the keys to their apartment, Katia says:

“We’ll be gone for a few weeks, and you’re welcome to stay in our place for as long as you like – just promise you’ll remember to pay a little attention to McLovin.”

“Yeah,” Arturo adds. “Promise to love him, and cherish him, and be faithful forever. Amen.” He smiles, and if it weren’t for the absence of the Catholic wedding lasso and the holy water, I’d feel as though he'd just spoken my marriage vows.

“Of course,” I say. “Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll make sure that McLovin is cared for in the most professional manner,” ‘cause Lord forbid that anybody ask me to get personal here.

After all, a job is a job. You have to draw the line somewhere. It’s just not healthy to bring work into the home (except when your work lives in the home with you – then it’s a whole other situation). But when Arturo and Katia offer to become a part of my journey by lending me their posh two-bedroom apartment right next to the lake Geneva shares with France in exchange for my services as caregiver with McLovin, what sweeter opportunity could have come my way? This is financial crisis travel at it’s finest! See the world, one dog-sitting gig at a time. How hard can it be anyway, right? One cup of food in the morning, and another at night. Four poops a day. Fresh water every couple of hours and a long mid-morning walk. Simple.

**********

Katia leaves me a note with detailed instructions.

Take McLovin out for his morning pee-pee 9-9:30am

It’s 9:15am and I feel something wet on my scalp. And something hot in my ears. McLovin has discovered the most perfect place to rub and scratch his rag ears – my morning mop hair (a step beyond bed head). His short quick snuffs tickle my neck and for day number one I’m thinking – this isn’t so bad. It actually feels kind of nice to have some early company (McLovin, let’s forget about the “sit” and “play dead” basics I know you’ve already mastered – “Go make me some coffee!”).

And that’s when I start to feel something kind of wet and slimy wiggling back and forth on my bare bicep too. Hold on a minute. I’m confused. It’s early, I know. But Mr. McLovin, if your snout is up by my hair and ears, then what’s… Oh no. Oh no no no. You aren’t rubbing that on me. Please. And then it clicks. Just like the one-two hump of McLovin’s hindquarters. Right there on my bicep, next my shoulder, and then I say, “Bad! McLovin! Down! Sit!”

I grab his leash, while slipping on a pair of sandals. “I guess it’s time to take you for your pee-pee.”

**********

Call McLovin’s friend Diegito the Fox Terrier (022 71319 63). Schedule a play date 10:30-11:30am.

Is this for real? McLovin has friends? How is this possible? I’m in a city, completely alone, and this dog is busy fulfilling social engagements. I feel absurd. But ok. I promised to execute my responsibilities professionally, so here goes.

A Mexican woman picks up on the other end of my phone call: “Bueno?”

“Diego’s mom?” I say, my lips pressed into a smile against the phone receiver. Diego’s mom’s name is also Kathia (only spelled with an “h” because her last name is O’Farrill Duque – descendants of Irish immigrants to Cuba, though Kathia’s family later moved farther west to Mexico City).

“Hey, Cristina! Glad you’re calling. Diego’s ready to get over to the dog park. Do you feel like coming with Macarroni?” McLovin’s name is versatile. It turns into Max, Mr. Mac, Mac-Truck, and Macarroni – depending on your mood. The greatest part is that McLovin loves all his names. Just say them happily and he responds.

I recognize Kathia at the park because she’s the only one talking to her dog in Spanish. We start chatting like many mothers do. You know, saying things like, “Well, McLovin’s poop was a little runny today. Do you think that’s ok?”

But when I start to notice that Kathia’s Chilanga sense of humor is a breath of fresh air, I feel a very fast connection. We begin enjoying the afternoon without having to rely on the dogs. We jibber-jabber for hours in that quick and slow southern Mexico Spanish that slides over me like icing on a cake. And we all know that one jibber-jabber leads to another, which leads to a six pack of beers, and then dinner over at her place with her French-Mexican husband after he gets home from work.

Kathia came to Europe for love, and got married just a few months ago. She tells me about what it was like to leave home and accept the “you’re a crazy woman” blessings from her mother and from her grandmother prior to the wedding. She listens to stories about my journey and invites me over for chocolate cake and coffee in the afternoons (if you've ever wondered what two unemployed people are doing on any given afternoon in Geneva, we are most likely eating chocolate cake).

She takes me to a rugby match with her husband and a group of his friends in France over the weekend, and introduces me as her Mexican friend (and to my surprise, no one questions this claim). She patiently accepts a phone call from me at 1am one morning when I swear that I’m hearing noises in the night and tells me to go back to bed and that everything’s ok and that she’ll be over first thing tomorrow. Kathia helps me with my French for hours at a time and her jokes – her Chilanga style – wash me with a new wave of energy and motivate me to keep pushing until the end of my trip.

Dear little McLovin; thank you very much for introducing me to my new friend, Kathia.

**********

Feed McLovin dinner between 6:30 and 7:00pm

One of the best parts about dog sitting is having access to a kitchen. With real pots and pans. And spices. And oils. I make a quick trip to the market everyday in Geneva to buy fresh produce for my evening meals. And McLovin watches me cook.

Sautéed spinach with olive oil and lemon juice, sprinkled with raisons and pine nuts. Whole-wheat pasta with garlic vegetable sauce. Uff. And local wine. Don’t forget the wine. And McLovin continues watching.

I turn on the evening news, and keep my dictionary handy to read the subtitles in French. I pour McLovin his evening cup of food and slowly savor mine while he inhales his in one quick breath. Then he sits next to me and watches TV. He puts his head in my lap and keeps me company while I eat my meal. It’s the first time in months that I’m able to enjoy my own cooking with the quiet yet comforting presence of a friend (no, I did not just call this dog my friend – sorry, I meant canine).

And so the days pass. I become less and less embarrassed about picking up McLovin’s poop on the sidewalk (watch out for the monstrous fines they’ll give you if you don’t take care of this thankless civic duty in Switzerland – they even have posts with “doggy bags” tied to them at every street corner). Everyone has a dog in Geneva because the Swiss, like the French, love their little companions. And I’m not going to say that the whole experience doesn’t touch me in some way, because it does.

Actually, I can’t believe that when it’s time to leave, I’m even a little sad to say goodbye to this dusty, dirty little pure bred (was I supposed to bathe him?). I’m sad enough to give him a big hug and wish him all the best. But don’t worry – not quite sad enough to make McLovin a play date with a mutt of my own.

Footnote K: When instinct overcomes indifference…

I feel guilty now. You must think I’m an awful dog-hating monster. And to prove to you that I’m not as heartless as you think, I want to introduce you to Chipinque the cabbit (cat + rabbit) – the rabbigato that followed me from the U.S. all the way to Mexico.

One day, as I'm leaving work in Monterrey for my mid-afternoon siesta, I find him in the CEMEX parking lot. He’s small. So tiny and looking for warmth, snuggled up against the back left tire of Mustang Sally. I pick him up (never mind the bugs) and he pushes into my chest, claws dig deep, and he won’t let go. I pull my hands away but he stays on my shirt like Velcro.

I take him to a friend’s house and she says “ewwww!” In fact, her live-in maids find the cat running through the living room and are so disgusted by his bald spots that they throw him back out onto the street when I'm not looking. And it devastates me because all I can think about is the poor little baby, lost and alone again.

Eight hours later my friend calls. She says, “Your creature is back. And he’s hiding in a box in the backyard. We can’t get him to come out. You better get over here and pick him up.”

And so I rescue Chipinque again. This time, I take him to the vet and the doctor stares at the kitty with big, wide eyes. “You do know what this is right?”

“Yeah, a cat,” I say. “I found him at work.”

“No, no,” he says. “It’s a rabbigato. A cat-rabbit mix found only in the U.S. This cat is from your country. I don’t know how he found you, but he sure has come a long way.”

Don’t ask me why I’m so wrapped up in the doctor’s story, but I’m totally into it. It’s ok that the term “cabbit” is actually an impossible, mythological mix of species and that it really just refers to the Manx line of felines (tailless cats with longer hind legs than fore legs – hence their tendency to walk with a sort of hop – and a special affinity for swimming).

This cat is so ridiculous that I can’t not love it. He forces me to employ my instinct to nurture, and we become best buddies (what other cat do you know that showers with his master?).

Until one day when he gets attacked by a black bear, or a mountain lion – we never fully discover which. My elderly neighbor who’s always opening the knife drawer and threatening to kill her cheating husband is convinced that the gay man from the fifth floor of the apartment is actually the one who attacked Chipinque – with an axe. In any case, the cat is alive but nearly torn in two. Four weeks of surgery and US$300 later, Chipinque is walking again (though with a huge bald spot across his entire right side).

When I move away from Mexico, I leave the cat with my apartment neighbors in Monterrey’s state park, Chipinque – the mountain my manx is named after. To this day, I imagine him making his rounds with all of the neighbors – a communal pet coming and going as he pleases through open doors on every floor. Teaching everyone a little something about the possibilities and the unexpected joys of letting instinct – just this once – dominate indifference.

Lights in the Night: Part Four

2009-04-27T02:11:00.000-07:00

Above the Arctic Circle

Page number 82 in my journal used to say zilch. Except for one small sentence at the bottom of the page, scribbled and smeared: “Show me Your lights.” I remember writing this sentence – a quiet prayer aboard an all night train to Kiruna, Sweden. A silent, one-way conversation with Him, or Her, or You, or the Spanish girl below me who kept passing me glasses of rum and coke all night long. Consumed with so much possibility – so much excitement to see the Northern Lights – that I nearly had to tie my legs to the sleeper couchette in order to keep from jumping straight onto the tracks and shouting it to the sky myself, words pushed and pleaded through hands cupped around an oval mouth.

“Can I get a pair of snake eyes!” More than a request, it’s like a crescendo exclamation, slow then fast, and you throw it out there only after shaking the dice in your little hand cave just long enough to help you think that your touch and your words will make some sort of difference. This is what our prayers are anyway, right? A gamble on a felt table, a howl into the night, a hope that what falls on the flop bodes well for the turn and better for the river. “C’mon Ace of Hearts!”

I am writing to report, and very happy to say, that page 82 is now complete. And so are pages 83, 84-87, and 88. Full of unexpected answers to an open-handed gamble and a blank page prayer.

**********

“Do you like chocolate, Christine?” Sara asks as she peeps her head into my bedroom. The sun pierces through the curtains that barely shade the room’s large picture window. It’s 9am and my eyes are crossed, but this is an easy question.

“Do I like chocolate?” I almost scoff. It’d be like asking me, “Christine, would you like to build a home out of, bathe in, or otherwise consume industrial quantities of chocolat noir, coffee (espresso, please), and/or red wine?” Umm… hello?! “Yes!”

“Good! Then today we have chocolate for breakfast,” she says. Like, today let’s play hooky and forget about homework, and Power Point, and office chit chat. Sara is an angel in mom clothes. She places a small tray in front of me with six different truffles arranged perfectly around a cup of coffee.

“I walked to the store this morning, while you were asleep,” she says, “and I hand picked some different pieces for you. The chocolates are made here in Kiruna, by an Austrian immigrant, with berries and other flavors from the north.” She points to one on the left. “This one is very special. I hope you’ll like it. It is filled with one of Sweden’s most famous and delicious fruits – the wild cloud berry.”

Popping the truffle in my mouth is the solidified version of Juan Ponce de Leon’s fountain of youth – an everlasting, orange-yellow sweetness. It’s so special that you can’t hold it in; you have to open your mouth like “ahhh…” even before you’re done chewing. Take a sip of coffee. Add this to my life habit list: eat more chocolate for breakfast.

I could just as easily be standing outside this bedroom’s picture window, shivering from cold, watching myself – watching someone else – enjoy this moment. But the kindness the Westerberg family has lavished on a stranger keeps me warm and holds me inside.

Sara knows that I know. And she returns my silent expression of gratitude with a smile. Oh heavens, that smile. It’s not even nighttime, no stars in sight, but in this moment I catch my first glimpse. There it is. Right there across the curve of her lips, bright from inside, deep and heartfelt – a most perfect aurora borealis.

**********

There’s a special place by the Torne River – made of the river – in the Sami Village, Jukkasjärvi. The Ice Hotel is one of Kiruna’s most amazing gifts to the world. A 5-star igloo. The original Absolut Ice Bar. Twenty minutes outside of town. €340 to €600 nightly rate. Built from ice, and snow, and nothing else. Opens in January, closes in April (because it melts of course). And I arrive just in time. Just as some of the hotel’s custom-designed rooms begin to show signs of springtime. Dripping faucets from the ceiling freeze to hanging icicles at night.

Twenty years ago, the Jukkas Company (now Ice Hotel, Inc.) began pulling together artists from different countries to design and build a series of masterpiece suites. The only catch? Water – and all of its corresponding states – is the only building material permitted on the premises. Every summer, Ice Hotel receives applications from hundreds of architects and accepts only the best. They come together and start construction in early December, once the Torne has frozen thick. They pull ice from the river in huge, shack-size blocks. And they construct one of the coolest (literally) properties on the planet. They build a church. They build a bar. They build a palace fit for the Ice Queen herself.

And then it melts. Every May, the Ice Hotel flows back into the Torne. Recycles itself and leaves no trace behind. Something like an arctic sandcastle washed away by waves of sun. This is the 19^th time they’ve built the place and it changes every year. Lucky number 19! Hit me again. Today I’m going for Black Jack.

Angelica Patomella is a Kiruna native and bartends full-time at the Ice Hotel. She’s a friend of a friend of a friend (see the pattern?) who has offered to get me into the Ice Suites for a free tour. Show me her favorite rooms (a special just-for-me sneak peek), and spend the day teaching me about Kiruna, and Jukkasjärvi, and her life above the Arctic Circle.

It’s her first day off in lord knows how long and here she is, picking me up, taking me to lunch (you guessed it! The most delicious salmon and reindeer meat buffet – free of charge for Ice Hotel employees and their guests), and introducing me to her little chihuahua, Gucci.

“I’m just happy to be able to help you with this project you’re working on,” she says as I crunch down into the passenger seat of her 1970’s Saab. Project is an interesting way to put it, but I guess that’s sort of what it is. Some might call throwing yourself across an ocean on a blue pill whim something closer to an overdose, but naming it a project sounds much more civilized. I’ll make that my story. And stick to it.

Inside the Ice Hotel, I don’t know where to begin. The lobby is a great and long hall. And a beautiful receptionist, clothed in reindeer fur and capes and white says hello and come on in. But it’s more like fly on up because it’s a whole other world. Full of ice columns that look like glass and five huge ice chandeliers that twinkle like crystals (of course they have to run waterproof wiring throughout the structure. What’s an igloo without electricity?).

And then passageways that lead you here and there. I’m afraid to step too hard for fear I’ll break it or make the snow ceiling cave (impossible actually, this thing is frozen solid). But it’s all so alien. Maybe I can find Kryptonite here, locked up in a secret room.

The ice glows blue, then green. Colors of the ocean made transparent then opaque with snow pushed into the otherwise clear and shiny surfaces. And the effect it has on me is silent. The walls pull my speech into their cold embrace. And the hotel quiets me. And then I’m in a Japanese architect’s room (made to look like a mine explosion) and then I’m in a Bulgarian architect’s room (made to look like all of the walls are covered with the underside of giant fungi – get it? Mush-Room?).

The Ice Hotel is a giant treasure chest (to catch a whiff of gold, please see footnote J). “Before the season’s out,” Angelica begins to confess, “I will stay in the Mush-Room. It’s my favorite. It just makes me feel so soft and cushioned when I’m in there,” she says. As if she were telling me about her first crush or her latest kiss.

Though the Ice Hotel offers “normal” accommodation as well (what’s normal when you’re on top of the world anyway? Up is down and down is up), guests who want to sleep in an Ice Room will have to snug into a sleeping bag made for -40°C on top of reindeer pelts thrown across a bed of ice. Inevitably some guests will become overwhelmed by the experience and wake up in the heated section of the building, on top of one of the available sleeping cots. Others will get too drunk at the Ice Bar and end up puking in their Ice Suite (you don’t want to know how much the cleaning charge for that is… imagine scraping vomit from a snow floor!).

And then we turn a corner and I’m in the most amazing suite. It’s a split-level room. The first level is an ice maze. You weave in and out and around the corners and just when you think it’s going to end, it keeps going. And then you reach a door that takes you up a ramp of snow. And the ramp of snow leads you to the bed that spreads on top of the maze. Like catching a moment’s rest only after a hard day’s work.

I’m lost in the maze. And I actually start to panic rather quickly inside the thin passages, surrounded by thick walls of ice. Angelica calls for me to keep coming. “Just keep walking!” she says. And I’m following her but she’s turning corners and then I lose her again.

“I can’t see you,” I shout ahead, toward the last break where I swear I saw the back of her red jacket.

“Don’t worry!” she shouts in reply. “Just follow the Lights!”

Follow them and keep going…

And in a flash, I catch another glimpse – right in the middle of this tight ice maze. When I least expect to experience the force of their beauty, the Lights glow bright around Angelica’s frame. “Thank you,” I say, “for helping me to see You now.”

**********

I see them again when Anders comes home from his fishing trip with a bucket full of arctic salmon on ice. He teaches me to dress those little guys, chop their heads off, pull the bones out, salt them just right, and tsss! Fry them until they’re warm inside. “Dinner!” Anders says as he points to the long, pink filets in the pan. Oil pop, hop, poppin’.

And the Lights’ wavy brightness appears again as Sara and I enjoy watching Bad Company while sipping on a Famous Grouse. We clamp fruit chew candies between our teeth and pull the whisky through for an added touch of sweetness.

And a final time when the Westerbergs take me back to the train station. “We sure have enjoyed having you stay with us,” they say. They send me on my way with the pair of Sami mittens I’d been using to snow mobile and dog sled, packed snug into my bag. “It’s just a shame that you never got to see the Lights you were looking for,” Sara says with her hand between my shoulder blades.

“Oh, it’s okay,” I say. Because the truth is that I totally did.

Footnote J: Inside the Ice Chapel, Dutch architects have carved a message into the wall, just before the first pew. Their hope for your experience:

Step into a mysterious entryway of organic formations and luxurious overgrowth, which leads to a welcoming, peaceful space that offers security and clarity.

On the days that seem like they’ll never end, I revisit the private prayer nook in the church. Carved into the wall. It’s just big enough to let your shoulders pass through. Little block bench, take a seat. The ice envelops you and cuts you off from the rest of the world. Silence breeds deep breaths and a moment of Arctic solitude.

**********

One of my favorite Ice Suites is called “Whirling Stairs.” It’s a room full of topsy-turvy staircases. Some point to the bed, others connect the floor to the ceiling. One staircase has fallen onto its side. The room is disorienting (where’s the elevator, please?) and then I read the architect’s message to visitors:

The steps that you take in "Whirling Stairs" may not always lead up, but, just like a walk on the stairs of life, you will eventually get to where you need to be.

In that case, I think I’ll just keep climbing…

**********

I can see You now. I knew You were here. The Ice Suite titled “Sur Real Stage,” shows me the greatest treasure of all. A giant, man-sized monarch butterfly made of ice. It’s wings spread across the bed of reindeer pelts, and almost move for me, almost blow me away.

“How’d you get here?” I ask the sculpture. “How’d you find me?” All the way from Monterrey. You’ve made quite the journey, little one.

The English architect describes his work:

In “Sur Real Stage” dreams intertwine with reality, and you won't know where you got on or how to get off…

Hold on tight, precious butterfly, and fly with me through the night.

Lights in the Night: Part Three

2009-04-15T04:20:00.000-07:00

Above the Arctic Circle

Ivan the Terrible is flaring his upper lip and I can see his fangs from ten meters away. We’re on a path in the woods and the sun has just made its last shining puff for the night. Ivan is bigger than all the others and capitalizes his size advantage to begin viciously attacking his teammates. Now he has his neighbor by the neck and won’t let go. He gnaws mercilessly and writhes his shoulders deeper into the bite in order to assert his dominance – and I’m sitting here watching every minute of it.

These huskies are born and bred to pull sleds. Within the first six or seven days after birth, a good musher (or driver) is already holding and speaking to the pup in front of its mother in order to gradually and wholly assume the role of master in the dog’s 15 year (average) life. While they are young, the dogs train only in the warmest months. Working during the spring and summer allows them to build their strength until they reach the 12-month mark when they are fully able to handle pulling a sled in the arctic cold.

The 11 dogs harnessed in front of me tonight are perfect. They are beautifully proportioned, made of pure, conditioned muscle and bone, and protected by thick, full coats of fur. They are connected by a fairly complicated rope-to-carabiner system that forms them into an elongated amoeba. One in the front, then five cascaded pairs.

The lead and the dog closest to the sled must be the strongest, but not necessarily the largest. They are the ones that use their muscles most efficiently and behave most obediently according to the driver’s commands. And they need to be smarter than the rest of the team with inherent leadership skills, because sometimes the other dogs actually follow them more than the driver. Ivan the Terrible is the largest dog on the team tonight, and also one of the strongest, but he is most certainly not the lead. He’s too brutish and too horny.

“Horny?” I ask the sled driver, not sure whether I’ve misheard or maybe it’s his accent, or…

“Yes, horny,” he laughs. Torban is a full-time dog breeder and sled driver from Germany. He’s tall and thin, roughly 35 to 40 years old, and forms his speech through gaunt and weathered cheekbones. The relationship he has with his dogs is full of heart and calculations – a most perfect love affair built on passion, trust, obedience, and responsible decisions.

“All of my best leads have a bad case of kennel cough right now,” Torban explains. “Twelve dogs of the 35 that I own have serious infections. Normally females make the best leads, so I put this one on the job tonight. But she’s in heat, and it’s making the male dogs on the team get crazy and misbehave.”

Now I get it. I’ve met plenty of Ivan the Terribles in my life. They usually imagine women are in heat after only a few beers, and generally manage to cause the same biting confusion this dog creates amongst the team tonight.

“He just needs to run,” Torban assures me (is this what I’m supposed to say from now on? Go take a lap and then we can talk?).

“That’s what these dogs love to do. Work is play for them,” he says. And with the quick release of a short, one-syllable command in a special language used just for sled dogs, Torban gets them into gear. The dogs start pulling, and burn a burst of calories from the 1.5 pounds of raw meat they consume everyday. The first heave to get the sled into motion is the most difficult. The huskies really have to dig in, but then, once the sled gets gliding, they sprint together as a single-celled unit. The barks that pierced the woods just a half second ago subside immediately and the huskies focus on the task at hand. The dogs won’t settle – they are in fact anxious – until you get them running, and then everything disappears.

All sound is muted. The dogs’ paws pound and patter silently across the snow. The trees and short quick breezes absorb any note of our presence and it’s just me, and the night sky, and the tundra, and the occasional sound of the wooden sled coming down hard after hitting a mogul. Sometimes the rough drops rack my bones and teeth against each other but I don’t feel it because I am drawn completely toward everything else.

And when the dogs need to turn right or left, Torban yells “Gee!” then “Haw!” In less than a second all 11 dogs follow the command at the exact same time and pull us in the right direction. It’s as automated as a turn signal on a car and makes me wonder if the huskies aren’t actually people dressed in dog costumes – it’s that quick, and that obedient.

“I’m out almost every night,” Torban says as we pull further into the wilderness, “but I haven’t seen the lights in weeks.” He tells me that it’s definitely worth traveling to the top of the world to catch a glimpse of their belly dance in the sky, but that hardly anyone has seen them recently. “It’s been a bad year to catch them,” he says and I say that I seem to have heard that before.

The way he says it, though, sticks to my chest as I recline against the back of the sled. I am sitting on top of a reindeer pelt. When I stick my fingers into it, down toward the skin, the fur comes up to my middle knuckle. Everything rises and falls all around me, into my lungs then out again. It’s been a bad year to catch them. Catch what? What is it that I’m so eager to find? So eager to receive. Catch this like a baseball. Catch that like a joke. Catch this like your sweater on a hook, and it sends you reeling around to face the other way.

The breaths I take while riding behind the dogs tonight are full of the purest oxygen on the planet. And the night’s dome redefines my retina’s understanding of the color midnight blue. The intensity of this place is overwhelming because it feels like the sky is sitting right on top of me. It’s not as heavy as you’d think, though. I carry it easily on this sled with me, in my pocket, and under my gloves. I take the air in slowly and deeply, checking to make sure that the stars don’t get caught in my teeth. And I recognize the sanctity of my stillness, despite gliding across the snow in full motion.

By the time we reach a Sami teepee to take a rest in the middle of nowhere (address please? Third tree from the left), I need to use the restroom. Torban asks me if I really have to go and wants to know if it can wait until we get back to the kennel a couple of hours and a few miles back.

“Why?” I ask. Aware that de-gearing in the cold will present it’s own set of uncomfortable challenges.

“Wolverines,” Torban responds. “They’re one of the few species that kill for pleasure. And they don’t care if you’re a human or a sled dog.” I laugh because I think he’s joking, but when he doesn’t even smile in return I realize he’s not. “We’ve had a few problems with them recently – though not this close to the trail. If you really have to go, stay close to the dogs. I’ll prepare us some coffee over the fire.”

Is this for real? They’ve had some “problems” with flesh eating monsters lately? And if I just pee my pants? Because going inside the tent unfortunately isn’t an option. I could ask Torban to watch for wolverines while I relieve myself in front of him and the dogs, but that’d just be weird. The only other option I have is to end this paragraph here, leave it to your judgment, and hope you’ll still decide to be my friend in the end.

Anyway, the Sami tent. We start a fire inside and heat up some sandwiches until they’re filled with smoke. And the coffee is a muddy mix of campfire and thick, grainy liquid. The dogs are harnessed to trees outside, and for the first time tonight they are silent and restful. I step outside to greet them.

After seeing the way they chomp at the bit to run and go and move like wild animals because they are wild animals, I’m a little afraid to pet them, but Torban says it’s ok. And so I lay down with them. On top of the snow, and they’re on top of me. They lick my face and I’m a toddler with pretend friends everywhere. It’s playtime! And then I look up, scanning the entire horizon for any sign of an aurora borealis.

I’d love to tell you that I find the lights right now – it’d be so perfect – but I don’t. Chasing after uncertainty teaches me that perfection most accurately rests in the eyes of the expectant. And I’ll be best off when I can learn to expect nothing and find perfection everywhere. Torban ducks through the tent flap as he comes outside. He sits down and I wonder how he got here, all the way from Germany, and what this is about, and…

“I had to get out of my cubicle and I felt the call,” he answers before I can even fully ask. It’s something, I think, that he knew about me before we even got to the details. “I’ve been breeding and racing sled dogs for 15 years,” he says. “I don’t make good money, but…”

“But you’re happy?” I interject.

“Sometimes,” he says. “But more than that, I’ve found my family. I live with these dogs. They mean everything to me. They know when I’m in a good mood and when I’ve had a fight. They love me and protect me and I do the same for them.”

Torban tells me about one time a couple of months ago when he was out on a team building mission with a group from the British Army. Snow came in from nowhere, and from everywhere, blowing up and down and sideways, and it blinded all seven teams. Each person was driving their own sled with five or six dogs depending on their weight. (Even when you have your own team, though, the dogs will only follow commands from the head musher. The rest of the time, they’re actually just following the sled ahead of them.) And the team building wilderness adventure was cut short, and they had to set up camp for days, and the dogs were the only reason the group was able to stay warm enough to not die.

“Woah,” I say, looking straight into Torban’s big eyes. He smells sour, like a mountain man. And his face is attractive, save the leathery years added by his work. I look down and notice he’s missing two fingers from the middle knuckle.

“I fell through the ice last winter with a team of twelve dogs,” he explains before I can fully ask again. “Frostbite,” and it’s like he knows what I’m thinking and maybe he knows why I’m here (could you share the secret please?) and then we have a meeting of purpose without needing to share another word. Just a few last sips of coffee.

Rugged mountain man meets arctic cowgirl. He’s into his life pretty deep now. Up to his neck in ice and snow. He says he’ll never go back, because he’s found it, whatever that is. And I like the sound of that challenge. Never go back, or maybe never look back. Catch this like a curveball you never saw coming.

Lights in the Night: Part Two

2009-04-09T08:06:00.000-07:00

Above the Arctic Circle

“G’morning! This is Stockholm calling!” It’s Andreas. He’s phoning to check that I’ve arrived safely and to let me know that he’s been in touch with half of Kiruna. And that half of Kiruna is ready to find me and take me skiing, and to their homes, and later for lunch.

“But first,” he says, “my dad wants to take you snowmobiling. And it needs to be before he goes ice fishing with a friend over the weekend,” Andreas explains. “Dad called me this morning to have me translate since Mom is at work. He’s ready as soon as you have some breakfast – deli meat, cheese, and toast (with fish paste). And coffee. ‘Cause you’re going to need to be very awake.”

I hang up with Andreas, and as Anders takes the phone from my hand, his face says everything I need to know. It’s a comic book, and a thousand-page novel, and the exact same grin I saw from his son just days before. It’s a semicircle keyhole to a world of happy thoughts, harmless pranks, and good ol’ fashioned fun.

I’m already dressed, but Anders begins to toss me new clothes, Sara’s I presume, and points to the bedroom. Special windproof ski pants, three pairs of very heavy wool socks, a fleece pullover and a windproof Helly Hansen shell to wear on top. Plus thick leather, Sami mittens that reach the middle of my forearms (fingers need to work off each other’s heat – in this way, gloves are counterproductive). And a big motorcycle helmet. And a pair of boots that feel more like moon shoes. Like extraterrestrial footwear that is about to help me defy this earth’s hold on everything. Up, up, up and away!

Anders rents a 3x2 meter space in a large warehouse to park his snowmobile. It costs about $260 for a one-year lease. Before mounting the vehicle, he revs its engine in order to pull the traction band and front-runners onto the snow. He motions for me to put the helmet on, pull the face shield down, and climb on behind him. Grab the heated passenger bar. And try not to let go.

In Kiruna, you are never farther than five meters from a snowmobile path. They run parallel to every major road, and operate their own tundra traffic system, with underpasses, stop signs, intersections, and everything. From the warehouse, we ride just a couple of meters and we’re in the woods. The snow is perfect for making our own trail today. And then Anders kicks the engine a little harder, and I’m pulled back into my seat, trying to see, but I’m laughing so hard that it fogs my face shield and I’m dewing my chin and cheeks with drops of spittle. Happy, rabid spittle.

A moment later, Anders pulls off the gas for just a second. He turns halfway around, takes one hand off the handle, and draws a fast circle with his forearm in the air. We are co-stars in a Los Angeles western and Anders’ only line comes easy as pie.

“Just like Texas!” he yells. Let it all out now, “Yeeeehawwww!”

Oh, I am totally not in Texas. But I am galloping across the wild frontier. And so I think silently to myself, cowgirl let’s go hogwild, and then I think less silently to the world, one arm over my head, “Yeah!” Again. “Yeeeehawwww!”

Woah baby. We’re zipping left and right. I bend my body like a cardboard poster, leaning into the curves so that I don’t fall against this tree or that shrub. So much snow. And in just five minutes I can’t see anything. No sign of civilization. Nothing, except exposed bushes that look like treetops, buried trunks, and yellow stains from the sled dogs. We whiz past an occasional red tag tied around a tree branch to mark the different paths. Then I see a sign. This way to Finland. This way to Norway. And this way to Russia?! It’s true. I’m so far north, that I can look over the edge of the world and almost see you in your kitchen. This way to Kiruna. This way to whatever it is you're looking for.

When even the trees disappear, Anders speeds up. 90 kph. 100. 110. We reach 115, and I’m heaving with laughter between the “Oh my gosh’s” and the “We’re gonna die’s!” And once we’re in the middle, right in the middle of this white wide-open space, Anders drifts to a stop.

“Ok,” I say. Then I tap Anders on his shoulder and ask, “Now what?” still laughing.

“Now you go,” Anders says with an expression that is amusingly stiff from the cold, like someone has locally anesthetitized his jaw and lips. He pushes himself off his seat and helps me to slide forward. “I wait,” he says. His face, though red and weathered from 55 years in the arctic tundra, sparkles brighter than the snow beneath us, like, go get ‘em girl. Here’s the gas. Here’s the brake.

Nothing to lose, I realize, because Anders has brought me to a place where it’s impossible for me to crash. He has put me on top of a giant, snow-covered lake. You’d never know though, because frozen water and solid ground blend seamlessly together in the arctic. One minute you’re on earth, the next you’re not, and the only way to know is by listening to the trees’ whisper, or absence thereof, around you.

Driving a snowmobile is like managing a wave runner, only much more stable. It’s like handling a car, only much more wobbly. It’s like testing the temperature of anything before you eat it, accelerate just a little, now a little more, and voom! I’m flying (but without the jet fuel), and it feels like an earthquake, and giant waves, and good vibrations. I drive in big circles. On lap three, Anders is far away, out of sight, and I am totally alone at the North Pole. I see sun-stained mountains in the distance and pull the throttle just a little tighter, push myself and this bike, I mean scooter, I mean snow horse just a little harder. And then, in the middle of no man’s land I’m surrounded.

I’m racing the final stretch and they’re all here to cheer me on. My parents are waving their arms like maniacs, screaming and shouting and telling me to go! Go! Go! And my sister is laughing from her belly and her lower back and running and pushing me from behind. And Gabriel is on the megaphone to assure me that I’m almost there. Everyone – the Westerbergs, my friends in Stockholm, my friends from Mexico, they’re all jumping and hoot-hoot hollering with water in case I get thirsty, and blankets in case I get cold. Yes! Two milliseconds pass… and swoosh! I’m crossing the finish line.

Of course – this isn’t the end. Nor is it the beginning. It’s just one more stitch in the pattern, one more patch for today's sewing project. I know I won’t earn any blue ribbons here (thank God elimination charges are irrelevant as well). Because like always, I’m somewhere in the middle. Of an arctic lake. Of something bigger than me that I’ll never really understand. However, it feels like a victory. A small one, but important nonetheless. And Lord, it’s sweet. So, so sweet.

Footnote I: Don’t worry! I didn’t leave Anders behind…

For three hours we weave our way through the arctic forest. And then we’re on another lake. And then I’m the driver, he’s the passenger. And now we’ve reached a place where men are cutting huge blocks of thick blue ice from the river. And then we’re behind a dog sled and Anders tells me, “Go slow now,” (take it down a notch to show your respect for the dogs and keep a safe distance – these huskies are very special).

By the time we finish, my face is swollen and my eyes are puffy. I haven’t even realized, but my temples are stained with tear tracks from the cold wind (I may have forgotten to wear my face shield while driving). I’m exhausted. When I finally step off the snowmobile, my legs start to shake. Like I’ve spent all day galloping on a horse, or skating with rollerblades.

Anders struggles a bit to get snow mobile back into the warehouse. I watch him and understand how the simple freedom of racing through the forest on this machine (catch me if you can!) could keep a person happy despite such wild winters.

I am so grateful for this day. I want to tell Anders. I want to thank him for his time and for helping me to cross the finish line. Also for his big Texas “Yeeeehawwww!” and for helping me create a day, a memory that I will have for the rest of my life. I offer to pay for the gas we used and he lifts both his hands in the air. As he throws his palms down (like, ah! It’s nothing!) he pulls a smile up. And you know what he says? Seriously, I’m dying to tell you… he says:

“You happy?”

“So happy!” I say. Arms spread wide to show just how much.

“Good,” Anders says, shiny as the sun storm I’ll look for tonight. “Then I’m happy too.”

Lights in the Night: Part One

2009-04-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

Above the Arctic Circle

I arrive to Kiruna, Sweden – the North Pole – wearing leggings and a pair of pants, wool socks, and waterproof fur boots. On top, I’ve layered an undershirt, a thermal shirt, a sweater (underneath another hooded sweatshirt) and a down winter jacket. And I accessorize with a fleece scarf, a polar-tech hat, and insulated gloves. I feel ridiculous.

Stepping off the train at 11am, I start looking for a blue Volvo. Blue Volvo. “Blue Vooolvooo,” I let it echo in my mouth, smacking my lips against the sunny cold, winding my head left then releasing my gaze to the right. My host family is here. Somewhere. Except I can’t find them, because I’ve never seen them before. I have no idea who they are other than that their names are Sara and Anders Westerberg – friends of a friend of a friend I met in Stockholm. A complicated web of favors best simplified in Swedish by the expression compis compis compis.

I see Sara first. She smiles at me and says, “You look lost.”

“I am,” I confirm, releasing tightness in my shoulders as I pull the corners of my mouth into the best first impression smile I can muster after 22 hours on a train.

“Then you must be Christine,” she says as she pulls off her glove and extends a hand to welcome me to the top of the world at 67°50' N. Her grasp is a mother’s hold. It tells me, “don’t worry Sweetie, we’re here to catch you.” It’s a soft blanket wrapped tightly around my shoulders, the kind that breaks your fall after jumping from a cliff just a few days prior.

**********

Seventy-two hours ago I’m still approaching the edge, getting closer, but as always, I need a little help. I am with friends in Stockholm, and we’re talking about our lists, and checkmarks, and another Sambuca (lists are best managed in this fashion), and important items of business, and “so, Christine, what’s next for you?”

I chew on the question and quickly return it, “Have any of you ever seen the Northern Lights?” It's something I hear a lot about in Scandinavia. They are quiet for a moment and then I notice Andreas’ face. His mouth is curled into the most unique grin, but not quite a smile, more like a dream, like his leg is about to twitch. And his Swedish blue eyes are about to make a joke, but they don’t. They just stay happy, like all the contentment and confidence he’ll ever need is right there under his face.

“Yeah, I’ve seen ‘em lots of times,” he finally speaks. “My family is from Kiruna. We see them all the time up there, but I’m telling you, it’s a special thing to see. The colors, and the cold, and the whipping snake of lights in the air… it’s sort of like a religious experience you could say.” He explains his version (because I later learn that everyone’s is different) of the perfect climatic conditions for seeing the lights.

“There’s never a guarantee,” he says. “You need clear skies. And not just that. You need cold, a deep and frigid cold to see them [meteorologists explain that it’s not so much the cold itself as it is the fact that cold lessens the humidity in the air, hence clearing possible cloud cover]. And the sun. It has to be angry. The sun must have a storm, and that storm must interact with the earth’s magnetic field. And then you’ll see them.”

I’m not sure if it’s the Sambuca or the grandness of his description that tingles me, but it’s a tingle that tells me I’m ready. It starts repeating itself like a metronome inside of me. I can’t stop it. It’s a constant beat, like I have to see this, or at least I have to try and see this.

“So, how do I get there?” I ask Andreas. And then it begins. We start working together, the whole group of us, on how to get me to Kiruna. Jejja gets on the Internet, and starts researching train trips. Aurora gets us another round of Sambuca (I can’t quite emphasize enough the affection Swedes have for anise flavored treats). And Andreas starts to make a list of friends from his hometown who can take me around once I’m there (turns out, cars don’t always do the trick… you have to combine snow mobiles with sleds and kickers).

The list, or any goal, only ripens when it becomes a team effort – when people find you in the middle of your journey and want to help get you there, wherever that is. It’s one of the sweetest fruits I have learned to harvest from this whole experience. And I hope that when I return, I can plant a whole tree.

**********

And now the Westerberg’s are laughing at my outfit. I assume it’s because they think I’m a marshmallow. Wrong. Instead they tell me that it was a nice attempt, but that it’s simply not enough… and that I’ll never survive.

“Survive?!” I’m not driving but I slam on the breaks. Negative 13° C, down to -14°, -15°, down, down, down.

“Don’t worry, be happy!” Anders says, and wins my affection in an instant. I learn to understand Anders’ actions more than his words throughout my time in Kiruna. Understandably, I mean, who uses English on top of the world? You either speak Finnish, because you can almost hike to Finland from here, or Sami, the language of Sweden’s Inuit. Anders speaks fluent Hollywood, using movie lines or song titles to lead me through our conversational scavenger hunt.

Two minutes from the train station, I step inside the Westerberg’s cozy flat. A two-bedroom, one-bathroom family apartment. The walls in the living room are painted a soft, winter blue. The kitchen is covered in small floral wallpaper. And the front entryway is a morning yellow with linoleum wood floors. Sara shows me my room, Andreas’ childhood bed, and hands me an extra key to the house. She tells me that I’m welcome to come and go as I please and that they are happy to have me with them for a few days.

“Help yourself to all of the food in the refrigerator,” she leads me to the kitchen and opens the cupboards to show me where everything is. “Anders and I like to order pizza every Thursday evening. We’d love for you to have some with us. Are you hungry? How about something to drink?" Sara offers me a Swedish Falcon beer and serves herself a Toborg from Denmark.

We fold our individual pizzas in half and stuff them with soured cabbage (not quite as vinegary as sauerkraut, but not as sweet as coleslaw), and top it with a sort of dill cream dressing. And just like this, they fold me into their home and graciously pull me into their weekend family ritual – a total stranger from nowhere, just a compis compis compis.

After dinner, Sara tells me we’re going for a ride. “Sit in the front seat of the Volvo so you can see more,” she directs. “Anders will drive. We want to show you Kiruna, and help you to start looking for the lights.” They take me to the Stadshuset, City Hall, and then point out the town’s first building, erected by Scandinavian settlers teamed up with local Sami tribesman. Then they sneak me into the largest wooden building in all of Europe, Kiruna’s city church where Sara works on the cleaning staff’s early morning shift during the week. They mention important street names – often using words from the Sami language or titles of key Sami figures.

The name Kiruna (pop. 18,190) actually comes from the Sami language and means ptarmigan or snow chicken – a white bird native to northern, arctic areas. This bird is also depicted on Kiruna’s city arms, together with the sign for iron, symbolizing the region’s main source of industry and economic growth. Kiruna’s iron ore mine is visible from almost anywhere in the city and the rumble of dynamite excavations shake a wide and frightening kilometer radius from 1:30 to 2:00am every morning. Due to these heavy excavation techniques, Kiruna will be located somewhere else, a few kilometers away, within 20 years due to unexpected and quickening mine subsidence risks.

Kiruna's sub-arctic climate brings short, cool summers and long, cold winters. Sara tells me that it often snows in June and that the region’s midnight sun (days when the sun actually never sets) lasts from the end of May through mid-July. “We suffer for it though,” she explains, “during the polar night, when the sun doesn’t rise except for a few hours of twilight during December and January.”

Anders stops the car and turns off the lights. We are on top of a hill overlooking the entire town. “Bad light,” Anders evaluates slowly, after a moment of searching for signs of an aurora borealis. “We keep trying,” and they take me to another hill, but this one is darker. The Westerbergs say this has been a bad year for seeing the lights. “It hasn’t been cold enough,” they explain, and I wonder if global warming’s hotheaded power extends even to heaven, to the sun storm on top of the world.

Once in bed, I wake up every 20 minutes all night long, and roll over to look out the window. Clouds have tiptoed across the deep navy arctic skies that were clear just a couple of hours ago. No aurora borealis tonight I muse, silent and alone. But maybe tomorrow, I think, if I’m lucky, they’ll come and dance their swivel whip across my evening eye.

To Whom Much is Given: Part Two

2009-04-03T08:24:00.000-07:00

Riga, Latvia

The guy from the bus. The one with the dark, messy hair and the thick Baltic accent. He’s unshaven and his teeth are the color of candy bars. He talks with a one-quarter smile, like he’s trying to sell you tickets for something and has no idea that you’ve already made other plans. My interaction with him is gum on a shoe. I keep thinking about it, over and over on the tip of my tongue. I can’t figure out why. Still sticking. And then, it’s clear. I’ve seen him before.

In Mexico, I live in a 10-unit apartment building. It’s a mountain tree house hanging half-way over a cliff. And the only people who live there have somehow dropped something along the way. The retired couple below me fights everyday. The woman screams and tells her 75-year-old husband that he’s a no good slut-lover, sluts sluts sluts, and “I’ll kill you,” she yells, and then I hear metal clashing and know that she’s opened the knife drawer again. The gay couple on the fourth floor happily collects the extra onion peels from my refrigerator once each week. I think they make crafts with them. And the building administrator burns incense at an altar he’s built just outside his door – smoke clouding around the shrine’s Buddha statues, crucifixes, flowers and potato dolls. But this man from the bus to Frihamnen’s Harbor…

He’s exactly like the 55-year-old manic-depressive on the third floor of my apartment in Mexico. Both men have the same yellow smell and the same melted wax under their eyes. One late night, I have some friends at my place in Monterrey. The front door is unlocked because more people are on their way. I am preparing a drink, then changing the song on the stereo, then turning around and the 55-year-old neighbor is standing right there – right there in my kitchen. He’s hopped up on something and asking me for a fix. The men around me are immediately concerned. They stand quickly and put themselves between the intruder and me.

They ask him what he wants, how he got through the door, what on earth made him think it was appropriate to walk into a woman’s apartment without an invitation. He starts to stutter. He’s unable to explain himself – pupils dilated – nearly crying over the frustration he experiences when unable to communicate. He starts to push the boys, losing his cool now, frightening everyone – an alarm clock with no buzzer. My friends take him outside, throw him against a wall and make it very clear with fingers closed tight into rocks that he is to never bother me or make me feel uncomfortable again. Don’t even say hello.

“Hello you, gurl…”

And now I am on a ferry full of my neighbors, sailing to Latvia. Upon boarding, I read a sign translated from Latvian, to Swedish, and then English. It reads: ICE WARNING in capital block letters and gives a brief weather forecast for the night’s journey. I decide to order a glass of Merlot at one of the ship’s four bars, sit down and hum to a one-British-man band’s rendition of “We are the Champions.” And then I visit the cruise casino and feel lured to the black jack table where I win enough lats to pay for tomorrow’s lunch.

Next, I walk to the candy section of the duty free store onboard. Here I notice a surprising number of families with small children also traveling this evening. My lungs expand with relief. I quickly learn to find these kinds of parents when feeling concerned or unsafe. Simply sitting near them or walking close by helps me to pretend that they are tying ribbons in my hair and reading me stories too (for information on important bedtime stories, please see footnote H).

And then slowly, as the sea’s giant waves roll over and under, moving me to sleep in my single, windowless closet-cabin, the kids from the duty free shop push my uneasy neighbor out of mind. Memories from Mexico fade backward toward childhood, and I rest for nine hours at sea – back and forth, lullaby baby.

By the time we reach Riga’s port, I am ready to walk from the harbor to the city center where I will find St. Peter’s church (one of Riga’s skyline centerpieces, and a fully restored masterpiece after suffering fire damage during World War II), the Riga Cathedral in Dome Square, and the Swedish Gate built in 1698 during Swedish rule (the only remaining fortress entrance to Riga’s UNESCO World Heritage Old Town). I move from tight alleys to open squares, turning my map a full 360 degrees at every street corner. And it’s cold; more than in Stockholm the wind here whips around me, biting and kicking, and gives me bloody blisters on my chin.

All afternoon, I walk. People are everywhere, but somehow the city feels empty. The streets are frozen and the walkers whisper. Hardened, solid faces reflect in storefront windows. The women wear the highest heels I can think of on these cobblestone streets. And the men pull fur flaps from their hats over their ears. The city gives me a feeling I’ve never experienced before. It’s as if everyone were busy hiding, only they manage to do this while actually positioning themselves as plainly visible targets in the most public of midday places. I notice that the Latvians walk with an even pace, not too quick and not too slow, heads down against the snowy bursts. They all move just like this. All of them of course, except for the children. The young ones move erratically, running ahead and lagging behind, and I happily allow them to again push the foreignness of this place just out of my reach.

By the time I arrive at Riga’s Occupation Museum, documenting over 50 years of Soviet and Nazi presence in the region, I am ready for a break from the cold. I am unaware, however, that what I’ll find inside this building will numb me and turn me even more hollow than the below zero winter coming in off the Baltic outside. The journey from 1940 through 1991 will hurt and make me want to grab the children’s hands from just a few blocks ago and skip with them until our legs fall off. And it will help me to understand why the behavioral differences I notice on the street have less to do with age – adults acting one way and children acting another – and more to do with stark generational contrasts that presently define the country’s mood swing up or mood swing down.

**********

Sometime around 9000 BC, after the Ice Age glaciers retreated, nomads settled the Baltic lands in order to collect and trade the region’s rich amber deposits. Latvia’s history was subsequently defined by a series of violent German crusades, and then occupation periods by Poland, Sweden, and eventually the Russian Empire. After World War I, Latvia seized a window of opportunity to declare independence from Russia on November 18, 1918. The country signed a peace treaty in which the USSR promised to never attack Latvia again, ever…

…until 20 years later when World War II started to frown it’s ugliness across all of Europe. The Soviets found creative and devilish ways to break their treaty with Latvia without violating the terms that had been set. The Russians bombed themselves just inside their western border and blamed Latvia. Then they accused Latvian political leaders of hosting secret meetings with Estonian and Lithuanian councils to conspire against the USSR. Grounds enough to invade the Baltic states in 1940.

And when they invaded they did it with jaws like a bear trap. In the first year alone, 30,000 men, women, and children disappeared forever – sent to work camps in Siberia and never heard from again. Nearly a thousand were shot, execution style, before they could even be dragged from their neighborhood. Children were imprisoned for singing Latvia’s national anthem or wearing patriotic colors. And the women were sent to special camps where male soldiers raped as they pleased.

The Soviets were so ruthless, in fact, that when the Nazis briefly fought them off and hosted their own occupation of Latvia from 1941 until sometime around 1944, the Latvians celebrated the German takeover because at least their inhumanity was somehow targeted, less random, and sickly ordered. The Nazis blamed Soviet cruelty on the Jews and by the time World War II was over, only 1,000 Latvian Jews remained.

When the Soviets retook Latvia in the WWII tug of war for control, they started burning things. Everything. Churches. Books. People. They killed senselessly and disappeared entire communities; one morning you wake up and your neighbors are gone and you have no idea why. The randomness of it all caused such terror, causes me such terror that I start to feel cold and ill.

It’s one thing to watch a documentary. And it’s altogether different to read a book. But when you touch the wood from a work camp bed, knowing that innocent prisoners were forced to hide the bodies of other dead inmates there – pretending that the deceased were only asleep – so that extra food could be harvested from the body... when you touch that wood you want to throw up on yourself.

Or when you see the miniature cloth dolls sewn by 25-year-old girls in Siberian camps, using hair from other dead prisoners, bark fiber, or scrap cloth. It’s like somebody takes both hands and squeezes your stomach until you’d prefer for it to pop. I see drawings of Latvian flags from families left to live in agony over the loss of their loved ones, and read patriotic love poems written from the deepest part of a man’s heart. Such love and such passion for home; and such unforgiveable violations of that sacred affection.

In Riga, history becomes my troubling present. I am affected by the violence of Latvia’s occupation years, but what actually troubles me more is the senselessness behind it all. I am lost between the neighbor that was shoved onto a train to Siberia and the other who was tied to the execution wall. I am wandering aimless between one girl’s guilt and another’s innocence. And more than anything, more than any other question this experience drives into my mind, I want to understand the senselessness that put me in America, born in 1984, so far from it all. A generation and an ocean apart.

I’m looking for an appropriate response. An inch of guilt wants to come up from my toes but I push it down. I think it’s something else. In Latvia, my guilt means nothing. It’s superficial and selfish, and it doesn’t come from the heart. For the most part, guilt dwells in our intestines, close to the dirtiest muck in our bodies.

I am hoping that the response I start to feel once safely aboard the ship again is something more permanent. I want it to last longer than three hours in a museum. I want it to drive me forward and change me. I want it to expect something from me. And there it is. This is what I take:

To whom much is given, much shall be expected.

It would be a crime against generations past with problems more complicated than mine, for me to sit down and let my life just happen. I can’t and I won’t. I will question things and take notes. I will open doors and walk through them. I will keep going, treading, and finding. I will feel the richness of every moment as deeply as I possibly can. And I will keep learning and pushing upward against gravity. All of this, so that other people’s struggle for a life that was given to me so freely will not be wasted. Ever. This much, I promise.

Footnote H: I’m eight years old in the first house my family has ever owned at 110 Mitchell Drive in Pittsburgh. It’s summer time and Grammy and Grandad have come to visit. Grammy tickles my back just before bed. The sun is still out, but an 8 o’clock bedtime is an 8 o’clock bedtime. My sister and I share a room. Every night we listen to stories. Tonight, after our back tickles, Grammy reads “The Funny Little Woman.” “Long ago, in Old Japan, there lived a funny little woman who liked to laugh, ‘Tee-he-he-he’ and who liked to make dumplings out of rice...” And when Grammy reads the laugh, she performs it. Her reenactment of the Japanese woman’s laugh is so high-pitched and so funny that my sister and I squeal with delight. Every night we ask her to read it over and over again. And she does, and it never gets old.

**********

Once each week, Kimberly and I bring home a new book from the school library. If it’s a silly book, Dad gets to read from the edge of our beds. Our bedroom at 110 Mitchell is a cape-cod doll house, with window nooks and crawl-in crannies. This week, we’re working through a chapter book, “Sideways Stories from Wayside School.” Funny vignettes about Mrs. Gorf the third grade teacher who has a long tongue and pointed ears make my sister and I giggle and imagine our own world with such fantastic detail. Some nights my sister and I create equally whimsical stories and whisper them to each other long after Mom and Dad have turned out the lights.

**********

And then there’s Shel Silverstein. His poems are so absurd that they can only make perfect sense to a kid. His story, “The Giving Tree,” teaches me to see the world from all different angles. Because see, when a tree makes friends with a boy (stay with me here), the relationship can be seen from many different places. First the tree offers the boy a branch to swing on, and then some fruit to help him grow strong, and then shade from the rain, and then lumber for a boat, and finally a stump to rest on. It’s a story about one relationship with many phases.

My family reads me stories over and over as a child, and they use the words from these tales to nourish and encourage me. And perhaps in these close head-in-their-lap moments, I am able to first feel the power of a good story and of those who tell them in my life.

To Whom Much is Given: Part One

2009-03-24T10:17:00.001-07:00

Day nine in Europe

Sometimes I drink my morning coffee at 2pm. On other rare occasions I imbibe before 8am. When it’s a holiday, I mix it with whisky. But on everyday, the cup is special. No matter how fast I have to drink it, the moment is always slow. It’s a small space for me to think about whatever I want. Flying to the moon perhaps. Or building a bridge. Or finding true love. It’s a time to invent, reinvent, think crazy thoughts, and reclaim my sanity.

Today’s cup is particularly delicious, not because the instant crystals I’ve resorted to this morning have been freeze-dried to perfection (actually yuck), but because I’m comfortable in a friend’s apartment on an island in the Stockholm archipelago. I’m warm in my pajamas, thick wool socks, and hooded sweatshirt. It’s 11am and I’m holding a map.

As I unfold the poster’s complicated origami creases, I begin to travel. For the one-millionth time, I ask where my journey will take me. I’ve started in Stockholm – and it’s been a solid first step (click here to read more) – but now I really should figure out what’s next. Generally speaking, I mean. Maybe, I think, I should have some sort of plan.

Before coming to Europe, I tried to make an itinerary – really I did. But it just never came together. I’m no good at playing connect the dots. It’s difficult for me to see the line that links black dot city number one to black dot city number two. I prefer to color in the white spaces until something appears. In the end, the picture always turns out to be a stained glass image anyway.

Take a sip. Ahhh… warm morning coffee says I’m ready to go. Spread out the map. Get crazy and reclaim your sanity. Close your eyes. Read the brail creases with your fingers. Stick to the Baltic region. Draw circles with the tip of your index finger. Start to slow down now. Eventually pull your finger to a stop. Open your eyes and find what’s next. The closest destination appears to be Helsinki, Finland (although my finger actually points to a space just southwest of Helsinki in the icy Baltic, indicating that I’ll have to travel by boat).

Good. It’s decided then. Now, that was a productive morning cup of coffee! After determining the end, you must discover the means. So now, I need to find a way to get to Helsinki, via the Baltic Sea, without overstepping my daily budget. This kind of party game, pin the tail on the Baltic, is simply no fun with money to spare. Sometimes, we have to get poor in order to gain the richness of freedom and the wealth of adventure. Still other times, I happily confess that a glass of Moet champagne, first-class air travel, or 5-star room service is all a girl can ask for to feel that extra kick of life.

Thirty minutes later, I’m on bus 442 into town. Then I take the tunnelbana’s red line to Gärdet. Then bus number one to Frihamnen Harbor. I’m looking for Tallink’s ticketing office. Tallink, based out of Estonia, is one of many operating companies to navigate regular 15-20 hour ferry routes across the Baltic between Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. I approach the ticketing window and say that I’d like a roundtrip ticket, and that I’d like to sail as soon as possible.

“Do you have any student discounts?” I want to know, fully aware that I’m not technically a student, but that being unemployed comes close enough.

“No, but the ticket you want is on special if you leave in three hours. It will cost you €25 for the 17-hour trip there, 7 hours in port, and again the 17-hour return trip to Stockholm.”

“Perfect,” I say as I hand her my passport and Visa. It’s a great price, cheaper than I’d researched online. All I have to do is get back to my friend’s place, grab my stuff, and go. Just like that. Stockholm to Helsinki. Bam!

I return a few hours later, and hand my ticket to the boarding agent. “This way,” he tells me in English after checking my American passport. I follow his arm motion. He leads me to the left. I read the signs and stutter my next step. “This way TO RIGA, LATVIA.” Oh God. What? I return with the boarding agent and tell him that there must be some mistake. I’m scheduled to leave for Helsinki, not Riga.

“No, no,” he clarifies. “Your ticket is for Riga. You go to Riga now. Look here,” he points to the small print on my ticket. Small, just like the city names on my map. Close your eyes, and pull your finger to a stop. Pin the tail on the Baltic, pin the tail on my ticket.

“To Riga?” I ask. “Are you sure?” Quite sure. Oh my, I realize. Each ferry company operates specific routes typically between a set list of cities. And so when I arrived at Tallink’s ticketing office, I assumed (please, no questions. The answer is “I don’t know”) that the only tickets they sold were for Helsinki. I was unaware, however, that Tallink operates both the Silja Line and the Tallink Line; the first to Finland and the second to Latvia and Estonia. While purchasing my ticket, I stupidly (or fantastically – these things are all a matter of perspective) never once mentioned my destination. I have no idea what led me to this silence, really. It tickles and worries me. I imagine calling Continental Airlines and booking a silent reservation. Like, “I need a round-trip ticket,” and saying nothing more. Please, let’s forget the details, just a confirmation number will suffice. Open the map. Draw come circles. Round and round she goes; where she’ll stop, nobody knows!

A small humph giggle starts to bubble inside me. I stare at the bridge leading to the ship’s entrance and everything starts to make a bit more sense. Riga, Latvia, explains why bus number one to Frihamnen harbor was full of so many Russians and so many migrant workers. Some of them were drunk. I know this because I saw them verbally assault and throw empty beer cans at an elderly homeless lady on the street before they climbed onto the bus a few stops before the harbor. Others were clearly not drunk; some of them carried a single canvas nap-sack, while another tore into a large loaf of tough sourdough bread. My impression is that relatively few Swedes travel to Latvia. Nearly all of them quietly step off the bus before reaching Tallink’s port. Perhaps they prefer other destinations in Scandinavia, or the quick trip to Germany to buy cheaper cars or tax-free booze.

The passengers that move between Sweden and the Baltic states seem somehow rougher. They come to Scandinavia to work odd jobs, construction gigs, etc. – sometimes for a week, a few months, or longer. They make a living by finding what they can, thanks to the recently passed freedom of movement for workers policy (part of the EU’s Free Movement of Persons Act and one of the EU’s four economic freedoms including the free movement of goods, services, labor, and capital). The policy considers migrant workers as a “mobile unit of production, contributing to the creation of a single market and to the economic prosperity of Europe,” while also giving citizens of the EU the “personal right to live in another state and to take up employment there without discrimination, to improve the standard of living of his or her family.” Migrant workers boost their host country’s economy by reporting earnings and paying the appropriate taxes.

On the bus, I distinguish immediately that I am no longer listening to Swedish. Instead, I hear the deeper, harsher sound of Russian and Latvian. These languages are rounder than German, for example, but just as hard. I look around and realize that I’m the only woman going all the way to the harbor. And I sense that the men know this too. One of them starts asking me questions with a thick and cloudy accented English.

“Hello you gurl,” he starts hitting the seat next to him, trying to get my attention. Moments like these are a challenge because closing the door to a pleasant conversation before it can even be opened is never nice. But I remind myself at least once a day that traveling alone as a woman has its own particular set of rules and precautions. Follow your instincts and read the vibe. Become an expert at reading the vibe. Don’t give out too much information. Pick your strangers carefully. And always remember (this is going to sound extreme, forgive my drama ahead of time) that at any given time, somewhere around 50% of the world’s population is biologically equipped to do a woman harm should they want to.

“Wher ar giu fron, gurl? Wher ar giu going?” I throw him some bone answers, and hop quickly off the bus at my stop. Leaving him almost mid-sentence with his next round of broken questions.

This exchange sets the tone. It hardens me to my surroundings and prepares me to pop my collar, put my fleece ski hat on, and take my make-up off. Ok then, I say to the boarding agent, looking across the ramp to the eight-deck cruise liner. Let’s go to Riga, Latvia.

Footnote G: When your cup of coffee is full to the brim…

I’m in Pittsburgh for Christmas vacation with my family. We enjoy these days together, visiting museums, going on winter picnics, attending afternoon matinees and waging games of poker. Every morning, my parents always wake up first. Mother puts the coffee on and whips up yummy breakfast treats – biscuits and gravy, homemade coffee cake, egg casserole, and fresh fruit. She calls for my sister and I when everything is ready. We plod downstairs, sleepy eyed, and ratty haired. We read the morning paper, watch the news, talk about yesterday, and sip on our coffee. Today is a special occasion because we’re all together. So Mom splashes a sip of Kahlua to her coffee. Kimberly likes Bailey’s. Dad and I give ours a hit of Jameson’s. After an hour of breakfast, it’s 10am, and just for today, just this once, it’s the perfect time to go right back to bed for a mid-morning snooze. There’s so much to do, busy busy, always going, but this morning’s coffee whispers a sleepy-head slow down tune in our ears and puts us under feather comforters until noon. Today we rest, move like turtles, and bask in our own delicious irresponsibility.

**********

Winter in Mexico is not what you’d think. It’s brittle and breakable. It’s colder than most because the homes there are built to keep the heat out, not in. So we use space heaters, blankets, gas stoves, anything, to stay warm.

I am living with Bonnie in Chipinque, the mountaintop state park in Monterrey. Since many years ago, Bonnie has been a part of my extended family. Together we have stumbled through first jobs, angry breakups, big life choices, new pairs of blue jeans, and many, many martinis.

Some winter mornings on the mountain, I surprise Bonnie in her bed, spastic and shivering with cold. Two bodies are better than one for staying warm. She throws pillows at me and tells me to leave her alone. She says it in that tone, though. The one that actually assures me it’s ok.

One morning, I bring her a cup of coffee (we take turns making it; first I throw the ground crystals in the filter and the next day she does). Sometimes we talk while we sip, and sometimes we don’t. But one of the best and most special compliments that Bonnie ever gives me comes when she tells me that her coffee is the best she’s had in a long time. Two girls sharing all the riches in the world; a very simple pleasure; an ordinary something to push our day toward something extraordinary.

Traveling Trinkets

2009-03-10T04:56:00.000-07:00

The journey continues, crossing the Atlantic

I have a dead butterfly in my pocket. It’s perfect, just like a Monarch should be, and wrapped safely inside a miniature ivory locket. I’m also wearing a silver, four-looped ring forged by a jewelry smith from southern Mexico. I carry a clothbound journal with mountains of messages from home, each one waiting for me to reach its page during my journey. And then there are the farewell kisses that draw pretty constellations across my cheeks…

I am a walking alter.

I am a connecting passenger from Pittsburgh to Chicago to Copenhagen to Stockholm.

Fellow travelers check their tickets: United Airlines flight 8802, group 3, boarding time 16:45. The men with suits and briefcases must be trying to make an early Monday meeting. A few families look like they are returning home. Still others will be visiting their parents, or maybe a girlfriend. Most trips are like this – point “a” to point “b” journeys. Start here, end there.

I check my ticket and see the same information: United Airlines flight 8802, group 3, boarding time 16:45. I crane my head back to see the departure information screen and confirm the schedule. Pass through security, one more time. Then the gate monitor reminds me again. They all make it perfectly clear that I have no idea where I am going. Add axis “z” to this trip where point “a” and point “b” won’t take you anywhere without a third coordinate. Start here, end up in outer space.

I want to tell you that this is an overwhelming feeling, but it’s not. It’s like asking your father how he learned to parallel park. It’s a process, and you are mostly unaware. I anesthetize any possible shock with daydreams. I imagine the series of events that brought me here: the countless, however significant choices I made to take the blue pill and not the red one.

See, swallowing the blue pill isn’t as smooth as a sip of cough syrup. It’s not fast and no single dose will do the trick. First you need to research the side effects and consider what has happened to others who have chosen to ingest. Then you have to find a glass of water that will push your decision down. And of course, you will need to find good company. People to hold you up on the days the blue pill gives you a stomachache and turns the floorboards beneath you into prickling heads of cactus.

**********

It’s September 2008 and one of my best friends in Monterrey is getting married. She’s from Europe, he’s from Mexico. The celebration will be a Swedish, Hungarian, Italian, Latino affair. The bride’s family comes over from Europe, friends arrive from the U.S., and I am excited to meet them. I open a hostel in my apartment, and we are fully booked. Two Swedes from Stockholm sleep on couches; another two from Halmstad in my bed; and I sneak under the covers with my roommate. We are together for an entire week. This is the first time I hear Swedish. It’s also the first time I try Sweden’s Turkish Pebbar (Turkish Delight I later rename it after C.S. Lewis’ White Witch treat) – an intensely anise flavored candy with spicy pepper filling. I teach them salsa, they teach me swear words, and I decide it’s time to invent an international document I’ve come to call the Travelers’ Code (this surely already exists but, just for fun, let’s pretend it’s mine).

The Travelers’ Code is a list of should’s and should not’s. For example, four Swedes come to my place. We get to know each other, share a few tequilas, learn new words and habits, and eventually form a bond. I should go and visit them in return. I should see where they are from. I should begin a bed-for-bed barter system. And I should not delay. Open wide. Pick your color.

Now, I am looking for a glass of water. The blue pill is in my mouth. I’m chewing on it, trying hard to swallow, but I can’t seem to get it past my tongue. I’m not sure where to go or how to get there. And then I find it.

It’s 9am on a Friday morning. I come to work, sleepy Chinese eyes, papers stacked to the top of my cubicle. I sit down and open my computer. Here, stuck to the keyboard, I stumble across a most unexpected and quenching surprise. It’s a post-it note from a good friend who understands my thirst. She sits just a few cubicles away and has left me a Friday morning wake-up call. The post-it stares at me and washes my questions away. It says, “You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

And I should not delay…

Windows start menu; open internet explorer; enter the address Cheaptickets.com; I am available for travel on February 7, 2009; Visa card; are you sure you would like to purchase?; yes; itinerary confirmed; one-way; Pittsburgh to Stockholm; take a deep breath; now go tell your boss.

The rush of adrenaline this purchase sends through my body is the electric shock a Super Bowl champion must feel as he first tests the weight of Vince Lombardi’s trophy. Instead of Cadillac’s latest Escalade, however, my victory is accompanied by tight indigestion. A tummy turning realization that the blue pill is on its way down, and it’s not coming back up.

I start to explore the consequences. I will move from point “a” to point “b.” And then to points “c,” “d,” and “x.” I will write. I will waste time. I will slow down. I will test myself. I will get scared, happy, lost, and (insert adjective here). But first, before I leave, I will attend a local performance of the Broadway musical A Light in the Piazza with my mother. I was unaware beforehand, but the show is about a girl’s first trip to Europe. She explores Italy; gets scared, happy, lost and (insert adjective here). And she sings:

“I’m just a someone in an old museum, far away from home as someone can go, and the beauty is I still meet people I know… this is wanting something, this is reaching for it, this is wishing that a moment would arrive. This is taking chances, this is almost touching what the beauty it is.”

The lyrics reach my shoulders and pitter-patter through my eardrums: a river of water diluting the blue pill’s initial sour aftertaste, turning it into something sweeter and more permanent.

**********

And now, after many glasses of water, I am floating through airport corridors, following signs, turning circles. I am flying over the Atlantic. It’s a timeless “Caught in the Middle” kind of place, somewhere between GMT -6 and GMT +1. Then, I am landing in Copenhagen, listening to the soft Danish announcements come over the airplane intercom. Now I am in the Schengen Region, and then a quick flight to Stockholm. I am hitting the accelerator. Ride ‘em cowgirl!

Mina damer och herrar, välkomna till Sverige!

Footnote E: A quick word about the trinkets I carry…

The Monarch butterflies migrate through Monterrey twice each year. Once in the spring as they head north toward Canada, and once in the fall as they head south toward Morelia, Mexico to breed. According to the Indians in Mexico, the butterfly is a sacred symbol for life beyond the grave. The butterfly must first experience the cocoon’s sleepy death before fluttering its beautiful orange-yellow wings in life.

The butterfly is also an important image displayed during Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebration in November. During this month, the Monarchs arrive to Morelia. And Morelia is one of southern Mexico’s most traditional locations to celebrate El Dia de los Muertos – this holiday honoring life after death. Honoring souls that could not be conquered. Butterflies have always been an important part of my life. They appear when I am troubled and often bring a deep breath of clarity to my confusion.

It’s November 2008 and the butterflies have just come through Monterrey. Look up. Go on, throw your head back! It’s an amazing show of transparent and twinkling wings. Hundreds, thousands, more and more keep coming. They are beautiful and they are taking me with them. It’s time to leave Monterrey. Time to follow their lead.

I tell Gabriel that I saw the Monarchs and that they made me feel light and secure. He says nothing. His response is more sincere than words. He walks around the forest that surrounds my apartment and finds a treasure, just for me. A number of butterflies fall from the sky, tired from the journey, unable to continue. Gabriel finds one that has fallen softly, no wing damage, only colorful perfection. He wraps it for me. Close your eyes; hold out your hands. Now smile.

**********

Idunn is a friend from Norway. She lives in Monterrey and hosts a farewell dinner in my honor. She invites Laura the bride and Lisette from the Netherlands. We share salad, homemade lasagna, traditional Scandinavian vanilla sauce, warm coffee, and Regio gossip. These girls understand what it’s like to need a little help getting big decisions settled into your stomach. Idunn sees a bit of heaviness in my face. She pulls me aside, takes me into the bathroom, and closes the door.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” she tells me. “Because I have this for you.” She pulls a silver ring off her left index finger. It’s a deformed four-leaf clover. She says she bartered for it with an old lady in a dusty Monterrey antique shop. The way Idunn puts it, the ring has something special about it. Some enchantment cast by the Señora who sold it to her. “It’s supposed to bring you good luck. It helped me find mine. But then I discovered that I’ve had the good luck inside me this entire time. I hope you’ll find this too and then give it to someone else.” I smile as we embrace, and with my hands around her neck, I slide the ring onto my left index finger.

**********

This year, my favorite Christmas gift came from my sister. She bought me a clothbound journal smothered by an image of a whirling butterfly. She dedicated time and energy to hunting down important childhood friends, high school friends, new friends, total strangers, everyone. She asked them to encourage me by writing notes on random pages. She tells them, “Your words will be a part of my sister’s journey, so make ‘em good!” Kimberly is a blue pill woman. More than anyone, perhaps, she understands the consequences of my decisions, how they make me feel, how they simultaneously thrill and terrify me. She absorbs the vibrations of these decisions with me and together we share cups of tea, cans of beer, card games, and Albert Einstein talks, long into many nights to help get that blue pill down and keep it there.

**********

I’d love it if you bought me a new Coach bag. Airline miles, bottles of Herradura tequila, or a $130,000 scholarship for my Master’s degree (figure based on the latest “Estimated Cost of Attendance for Two Years” information sheet sent by Columbia University where I have just been offered admission to their School of International and Public Affairs for August 2009), would also be great. But nothing, and I’m being so serious, nothing could ever replace the value of two parents who send you off on a crazy man’s journey with hugs and kisses. My father says he’s proud of me and my mother says I am precious to her. Worthy of my father’s praise and sacred to my mother despite being unemployed, unsure about what’s next, up in the air on a Master’s working out, shaky on my savings, and generally all sorts of turned around. Their kisses cushion and protect me; block my falls and tell me exactly who I am.

“This is being thankful, this is counting blessings…”

Rockabye Sally: Part Three

2009-03-02T09:54:00.002-08:00

Final days prior departure to Europe

I am jammed into an interstate ditch; trapped safely in the passenger seat of my nearly overturned Mustang. I am frightened and turned around. The car faces oncoming traffic, and my hands are shaking, face white, feet cold. I am very thankful to be alive. To my left, an icy forest. To my right, northbound lanes on I-69 skate their way toward Big Cabin, Oklahoma. Ask me how I got here and I’ll tell you it’s a whirlwind – a twister of icy skies, Bin Laden family secrets, Chinese New Year blessings, and ancient Cherokee curses. And then I’ll tell you that it’s just one more piece to this giant 25-year-old puzzle that I am trying to solve.

“Looks like we’ll ride barely ahead of the winter storm belt’s northern edge,” my mother assures me. We stare at the TV screen together inside my grandfather’s Texas ranch, sipping on our morning coffee, slowly chewing a moist piece of pumpkin bread. I tell her that I agree, and that I’m anxious to get as far as we can today – maybe even reach Springfield, Missouri. A tough 14-hour drive sprawls before us.

Before we go anywhere, however, I have an appointment with Al Garcia. He’s the body shop manager at Varsity Ford on Highway 6, and he’s promised to jerry-rig the driver side door of my car – the one that’d been broken into just a few days before in Austin. If done properly, the job should take four to five business days, but I’ve got a plane to catch in Pittsburgh, so there’s no time for a proper repair.

Al tells us that it will be a few minutes while he and his crew perform this makeshift surgery. As we wait in the lobby entrance, I hear the body shop employees singing along with an all too familiar voice. It’s Chente, my 69-year-old Mexican Sinatra. Two workers simultaneously let out a melodious cry into the morning warmth. It’s a sad cry, like a Johnny Cash caw only more guttural. Mexicans remedy this call with a cold gulp of tequila chased by one long swallow of an icy beer. I know this music very well. It penetrates me, and once more I reach toward something familiar, toward the past four years, until Al Garcia pulls me back.

“Ms. Waller?” he leans his head and shoulders around the corner from inside the workroom. “Your car is ready.”

I look her over. Of course she’s still slightly bruised, but the repair is good enough to get us home. I ask him about the paper work I’ll need to fill out. I know how car dealerships work. One hour of time in the body shop equates to approximately $102.54 in billable services.

“Don’t worry about it m’am. It’s our pleasure to help.” I hear another boy join the chorus in the back of the shop, and I quickly recall that this is not the first time (nor will it be the last) that Mexico finds its own way to surprise me and watch over my journey. Though I am unaware of it at this moment, Al Garcia is the first of many angels that will fly by my side today.

First gear. Second gear. Third. And we’re off.

By the time we get to McAllister, Texas, up toward the Oklahoma line, the winter weather front begins to kick in. Grey skies, along with cold, rainy flurries. We listen to books on tape to pass the time; a fascinating memoir by Carmen Bin Laden about her struggle to divorce one of Osama’s 29 brothers, Islam, and escape Saudi Arabia’s strangling grasp.

I listen to Carmen’s story about her gradual, almost unperceivable slip into cultural and religious imprisonment. She bravely recounts her experiences, what it was like to live inside the most elite Bin Laden compounds in Saudi Arabia – a place where men count women as another expensive possession to be traded and sold, but never loved. I learn about Saudi women’s thirst for affection and their tendency to turn toward their husband’s other wives to attain this physical comfort. Unnatural lesbians acting under unnatural circumstances.

I listen to this story just as I am stretching into the consequences of my own decisions. Quit job: check. Leave Mexico: check. Abandon stability: check. Say goodbye to friends and boyfriend: check. I travel north with Carmen Bin Laden: two women exploring the enormous depths of their own freedom.

It’s dark now. After eight hours driving I start to imagine strange lines on the road. I see buildings where there are none, and realize it’s time for me to rest my eyes against the incessant winter rain. I ask my mother for help. We pull over and as we change seats, I notice that the car’s antennae is bent backward, frozen solid with a thick layer of ice. I remember what the man at the last gas station said.

“Where ya headed?” he noses into my travel plans. I shake with cold while pumping the gas, my fingers red and momentarily arthritic.

“Up north toward the I-69/I-44 exchange to Springfield.” I say.

“Oh, you’re not gonna make it that far…”

“Oh really? What’ve you heard?” I’m interested now.

“That it’s an excellent day to go fishing.”

“What?” I’m confused.

“Yeah, that it’s fine weather for ice fishing,” he clarifies. I quietly observe that the last body of water I’d seen was back where the Rio Grande is supposed to flow, far to our south, at the Texas – Mexico border.

Mother takes over driving. She revs the engine to feel out the clutch and I imagine the sound of her first car; a metallic, pine green ’78 Camaro – an “eat my dust, mine are bigger than your’s” kind of car. I would have loved to see her pull through campus, shades on, hair down, hot rod woman conquering year 25.

***********

The ancient Indian curse I’m going to tell you about now is a thirty-second deal, and this is how a good tall tale begins. In the half minute it takes my mother and I to change seats, the rain thickens. It goes from chicken noodle soup to a cold cream of tomato. The ancient spirits urge this to happen at least once a year, somewhere in Oklahoma, near Cherokee reservation land. For as much snow as I’ve seen, tasted, and sledded on in my life, I have never lived through its power in the American mid-west, and the Cherokee curse was not about to let that continue.

************

About ten minutes down the road, Mom hits a fish tail and starts to breathe fast and heavy. She pulls out of it quickly, expert toboggan driver meets concrete racecourse, but we both agree: it’s time to find a place to pull off and stay the night. The Missouri line will have to wait until tomorrow.

Sooner than we can find shelter, however, Mom hits a second ice patch. This one pushes us forward, faster than before. We skid onto a bridge, and in an instant – before we can scream, or say “shit,” or get scared – we are Kristi Yamaguchi in the middle of a triple axel, about to break both our ankles on the way down. We ricochet in toward the middle concrete divider, sliding out of control. We want to hit the barrier though – it’d keep us from tumbling over the edge of the bridge, into icy waters. Great weather for fishing. Mother is desperately turning the wheel, no brakes – they only make matters worse on ice – and now we’re spinning 360 degrees, facing oncoming traffic, headed for the ditch past the bridge, skating backwards at 40 mph. Still no screams. Only heavy whew’s and hmm’s as we make a silent landing in an icy drainage canal.

Though the ditch cradles our fall, Sally baby lulled to an icy still, I am far from the soft comfort of an evening bedtime. I look over and see Mom’s white face traced by a shadow that lines her frozen expression. Today is one of the first times I am pushed outside her womb, January 26, 2009. This moment forces me to understand that the protective tissue that gave me life before birth actually spans much more than nine quick months of pregnancy. In fact, it stretches for more than 25 years, and is full of encouragement and doctors’ visits, prying questions, report cards, and favorite birthday cakes. Perhaps we can only fully measure the depth of our mothers’ wombs once we personally witness their humanity, a very real fear, a battle against cancer, or maybe even once we have a baby of our own. In any case, the entirety of the situation is summed up into our simple and quiet set of mantras, “oh my,” we keep repeating, “hmm…,” “yes, we’re okay,” one more time, “myyy.”

Larry Hayes’ headlights shining right into our eyes come as a bit of a surprise, and a lot of relief. He slides his F-250 to the side of the road, very nearly joining us in the ditch, and steps outside his truck rather slowly – so slowly that we’re not sure if he’s taking the time to grab a weapon or a flashlight. I ask my mother if I should roll down my window. She is still apologizing for the accident; says she really tried to get us out of the spin. I put my hand on her thigh and tell her she saved my life. She is much more of a cowgirl than I am, and I know she was the one to face this riding challenge for a reason. I would have steered away from the spin, not into it, putting us at approximately the bottom of a river.

“Everyone alright in here?” Larry shines his light through the cracked window against our ghost skin.

“Yeah, just a little shook up,” my mother says. Larry tells us he’s a deputy sheriff from the county over, he’s out delivering propane to shut-ins, and asks us if we think we can get Sally back on the highway. Mother gives it a try. Her hands are shaking. So are mine. The tires spin out against the ice. We trade seats, wading through grainy slush so I can try. No luck. Sally’s not going anywhere tonight.

“Well, I’can get you up to the Super 8, three miles down the road, but what I don’t want to do is leave you ladies out here much longer. The semi’s are gonna run me off the road, and it’s a mighty long walk fer the both of you in this kind of cold.” I look at Mom with question mark eyes. She silently affirms by grabbing her purse.

“Better take what you need,” Larry warns. “This storm isn’t gonna quit anytime soon. Grab what you can and we’ll throw it in the truck.” In all my haste, I only take my purse. Mother grabs a canvas tote. And we’re off. Goodnight, Sally. See you when the ice lets up.

We’re lucky to get one of the last available rooms at the Super 8. We tell them we hitchhiked in and they ask us if we own the abandoned black Mustang – police have already radioed it in. After crawling across an icy parking lot to reach our room, Mother and I take an inventory of what we’ve managed to bring from the car. I pull out my wallet – $3.47. Mom pulls out a cell phone charger but can’t find her handset. I have no toothbrush. Mom struggles to find her blood pressure medication. And then I notice her canvas bag.

“Whatcha got there?” I ask, hoping for an extra t-shirt, maybe some socks. She opens the cloth handles and pulls out something so unexpected, so completely absurd, that I’m almost sure you won’t believe what I’m about to tell you. Even if I offered to pay you a million dollars, I bet you’d never guess that my mother lifts out a giant, head-size, Chinese grapefruit. It’s true. We’re stranded in an ice storm. No clothes, no toothbrush, no money (my mother left her credit card at a restaurant in Houston, and all my money is rolled up in an international wire transfer somewhere between Monterrey and Pittsburgh). But at least we have a soccer ball sized source of vitamin C (to learn more about this grapefruit, please see footnote D).

I wish we had time to sit around a campfire. We could share a warm whisky, and I’d tell you many stories about the subsequent 55 hours of solid ice and immobility in Oklahoma. I’d tell you about the tow truck’s struggle to find the car next morning. About how we thought somebody had stolen it and then found out it had just been buried in snow and ice. I’d tell you about a Dallas head fur woman who prays a “hedge of protection” over all of northeastern Oklahoma at the Super 8’s bagel breakfast. We could laugh about the best (under any other circumstance, worst) Reuben sandwich I was finally able to order at the neighboring truck stop, after surviving 36 hours on snickers bars and potato chips. Or I could tell you in all seriousness about Middle American hospitality, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. But these stories will have to come another day. I’ve got a plane to catch, and that one-way ticket is a nonrefundable trip – my reservation for a growing pains journey.

Footnote D: We are in the Hong Kong Super Market, back in Houston’s Chinatown, with my mother’s brother, David, and his Chinese wife, Mai (pronounced My-Oh-Mai!). They have graciously invited us to spend the day with them to celebrate Chinese New Year, together with Aunt Mai’s family.

We mosey around the produce section. Discount seedless grapes, oversize roots, spoiled heads of lettuce, pickled everything. Sweet smells, sour smells, rotten smells. Next aisle contains bags of shredded dry eel, salted fish skin, chile powder, garlic, and garbage bags full of salt.

The store is wild and full. People running last minute New Year’s errands. Kids dressed in bright red, the color for prosperity and good luck. It’s tradition to give specific gifts to loved ones as a way to bless them with prosperity for the coming year. Aunt Mai and Uncle David give me a beautiful red envelope, decorated with a glittery Buddha on the front. Inside I find $8. A perfect number destined only for unmarried women in the family. My mother receives a gift basket wrapped in shiny red cellophane. Glittery ribbons, nuts, another Buddha envelope, and at the center of the basket – a giant, Chinese grapefruit bought specially from the Hong Kong Market, a sacred symbol of positivity and good fortune. Blessings and prosperity for the start of a new year.

Rockabye Sally: Part Two

2009-02-24T04:40:00.000-08:00

Same day and then some, now in the U.S.

When I first hear the police siren in Cotulla, Texas, I do what everyone does. I slow down a bit. I think about maybe pulling into the right lane to let him pass more quickly. I check my seatbelt. I also check Gabriel’s since he’s fallen asleep again. I look into my rearview mirror. And there it is. A flashing, patriotic display of “Welcome back to the U.S. Miss Waller. We’ve been watching you.”

Not a problem. I can handle these guys. I’ve never been pulled over in the United States, but I know perfectly well how to smile at just the right angle to avoid paying a fine or slipping a bribe to a cop in Mexico. While living in Monterrey, I learned that dealing with authority south of the border is like dancing a delicate waltz. It’s convincing a police officer that driving with your headlights on during the day is not actually a crime and that by law, you’re not obligated to pay him. Meanwhile, he’s not sure that’s entirely true. And neither are you. It’s juggling a roundabout explanation with your boss about why you couldn’t get to work before noon last Friday. You even waltz with self-proclaimed parking lot attendants; the ones that want to charge you 30 extra pesos to watch over your car just as you’re pulling into a publicly metered spot. I may know few things about myself, and I may be traveling the world to discover more, but one thing I do know is that I am an expert dancer.

“M’am, I’m pulling you over because my radar reading says you were goin’ 81 in a 65. That’s 16 miles over the speed limit.”

“Oh, officer… oh my. I didn’t realize. I saw 70 posted and thought I was just a few miles over. “

“Seventy is our daytime limit. It’s 65 at night. You have your license and your insurance card?”

“Yeah, here’s my license. I have my insurance card too. It’s somewhere,” I point to the pile of bags and boxes, “back there.”

“It’s ok,” he tells me, as he takes my license. “I’ll be right back.” That’s what I like to hear. Cutting corners from the get go. Surely we can settle a deal.

Officer Ruiz returns to my driver side window and asks me to step out of the car. In Mexico, you never step outside the car. In order to keep the dance floor safe, and at an even keel – officer stands outside, you sit inside.

“This is the number you’ll need to dial in order to report to Judge Victoria Rodriguez before February 13,” the officer explains. “Here you can see that your infraction corresponds to this fine amount.” His index finger lands on $270. You have got to be kidding me. This is my gas budget to get the car back to Pittsburgh before flying to Stockholm. I’m shocked.

“But officer, isn’t there some way to work this out?” ¿Como nos arreglamos? The male lead’s next step in the waltz should read something like, “Well, m’am, you tell me. What do you propose?” Bueno pues, digame usted… ¿que es lo que usted quiere hacer? And the dance continues in this fashion, flawlessly.

“M’am, like I said, you’ll have to call Judge Rodriguez sometime next week in order to pay the fine. I’m sorry, but I can’t really give you any other recommendations.” It’s ok. His suggestion rings through perfectly clear anyway.

This side of the Rio Grande, honey, we dance the fox trot…

Day one of the 32-hour drive from Monterrey to Pittsburgh lands us in Austin. Gabriel and I are both applying to graduate programs at the University of Texas (MBA and Global Policy degrees respectively), and so we take advantage of the trip to visit admissions advisors, tour campus, and feel out the city’s weird vibe.

Pulling into the Motel 6 just north of campus, we’re anxious to unpack our overnight bags and head down to 6^th street – Austin’s premier party street. Tomorrow we sample academic life; tonight we sample student life. The Cuban receptionist hands me our key. We have to pull around, out of sight, in order to access our room.

The motel is full this evening; vans and station wagons line the backside of the building. Stepping outside my car, I pat Sally’s hood and thank her for a safe day. Double click the car key; swipe the hotel key, in then out. I walk inside the room, fall backward onto my double bed, and clack my boot heels together in the air. Such a long day, and we’re finally here. I thank Gabriel for making the trip with me. We embrace for a slow moment. Our eyes meet. And simultaneously we consider one more thing we’d like to do today…

Salsa dancing! (If you thought anything else – go, repent, and sin no more!)

We change our clothes quickly. Within 15 minutes we’re out the door again, cruising south on I-35, listening to Colombian Vallenato, tapping our shoes against the floorboard, wiggling our hips in the seats. I’m ready to show Austin that the waltz isn’t the only step I know. It’s merengue and salsa!

“Mieeeeentes tan bien…” I’m singing now, and as I’m singing I notice a fast breeze slipping through the top of my driver side door. Strange. The window isn’t down. I turn around. “Oh my God,” I mutter. The window should slide seamlessly into the roof of the car. Mustang doors (the same for both coupes and convertibles) do not fit into an upper metal frame. Mine at this moment, however, is leveraged outward, bent away from the roof of the car. I’m slow to understand.

Before I can even imagine, Gabriel gets it. He knows why the window is pried open just enough for an arm to get through. “They stole my laptop,” he says. So matter-of-factly, so sure, and so completely disappointed.

“But when?!” I demand to know. We’d never been more than five meters away from the car in our hotel room, and for no longer than 15 minutes. “I mean, this guy would have had to break into my car with us practically watching!” I’m indignant and breathless, because this is exactly what he did.

“I had it right there,” Gabriel says, his face blank, his arm reaching around behind my driver side seat, feeling nothing but the rubber floor mat where his leather computer case once lay. “I knew I should have taken it out first,” he says under his breath, recounting the crime to himself, step by step. “I just didn’t think. Seven years in the Mexican barrio and nothing. Ten minutes outside the car in the first world and…” He trails off.

I am already turning the car around. Salsa music on mute. As soon as I pull into the motel, I tell the receptionist that we’ve been robbed. She says “that’s awful,” then shrugs her shoulders and tells me that local calls are free from the room phone. I tell her thanks, but state it more as a question.

The Austin police arrive while Gabriel answers questions from hotel security. The hotel guard writes down the most relevant information on what appears to be a hello kitty notepad. He scratches out every third word, and repeats every second question. The Austin police officer is my age – a dusty blonde boy. He takes fingerprints from where my door was pried open and tells Gabriel to call with the computer’s serial number as soon as he has it.

It feels right to report the crime in the same way that it feels right to fold fresh laundry – dot the “I’s” and cross the “T’s.” The reality is, however, that your laundry will always unfold and always get dirty again. The Austin police must receive hundreds of these cases from around campus each year. The chances of recovering the laptop case and all of its contents (computer, ipod, two years of corporate material) are remote. We simply have to accept it. No further business here.

The next day, we drive two more hours and arrive at College Station – a small university town just outside Houston. My mother is waiting for me there at my grandfather’s house – a beautiful Home and Garden retirement ranch. We enjoy our weekend together, discuss the crisis, visit the George H. W. Bush Library, and I begin to ponder the next leg of my journey – a transition from Gabriel’s arm around my shoulders to unabridged books on tape about the Bin Laden family with my mother. A change from Spanish to English; from the past four years to the next four.

When it’s time to say goodbye to Gabriel at the Houston airport, it feels like moving to a new high school during senior year. It’s pulling away from four years of ups and downs, ex-boyfriends, first Thanksgiving dinners away from home, achievements, and disappointments. It is a heavy moment for me because Gabriel’s faithfulness during years of friendship and now something more has grown into one of the few assets in my life to continue appreciating in value, unscathed by the crisis at hand (to understand more about this faithfulness, please see footnote C). My mother waits for me in the car as I watch Gabriel walk through airport security. Letting everything go. Shoes in the bin, please. Knowing emptiness in order to later become full. Your belt too, please. Following something, hoping it takes me there. Passport and boarding pass, please. Saying thank you and wishing with everything that I’ll see you again soon.

Footnote C: It’s the middle of the night and I am dead asleep in Monterrey. I live in a state park called Chipinque. It’s a mountainous nature reserve full of creatures – even black bears – and strange, not so edible plant species. I feel something crawling quickly up my leg and it stops. I’m sure that I am dreaming and fall asleep until it starts again. It’s moving more quickly, and this time it lands on my face. I’m slapping myself now; sure that this is no longer a dream. I’m throwing sheets and pillows, standing above my bed, fumbling to find the light, looking down. It’s a scorpion. On my face. In my bed. I’m screaming, frightened and totally creeped by it’s long, curvy tail tapping up and down against my mattress. I am frozen. I reach for my cell phone, not sure how to best go about killing this creature. My fingers go on auto-dial. Gabriel picks up.

It’s Friday night and I’m going through a rough break up. My roommate is out of town. All my friends are busy. I call Gabriel and ask him what he’s up to. He says he has plans that evening, he’s taking a girl out to dinner, but says he’ll be right over. He changes plans with the girl, turns it into a group thing, calls up his friends, and brings me along. Together, we redefine the term “double date.”

I’ve never cooked a turkey by myself. Eleven people are coming to my house for Thanksgiving dinner. I’m working on the sweet potato casserole, the stuffing, and the cranberry sauce. I realize I’ve forgotten some of the ingredients, and that I won’t have time to finish the menu before guests arrive. I’m overwhelmed. Gabriel puts on an apron, starts washing the turkey, peels sweet potatoes for two hours, and asks me to write down a list of the missing ingredients, a table cloth, and some champagne. He takes the list, runs all over town, and returns just in time – not a single thing missing.

I tell Gabriel that I’m afraid of leaving Mexico. That I’m not sure I’m making the right decision about quitting my job and going to Europe. He puts his hand on top of mine and tells me that this is what I was born to do. That if I don’t do it now, the dreams I have will stay inside and start to hurt, that I have to go, and that he’ll never be farther than an ocean away. We talk about the possibilities. About when we’ll see each other again. Perhaps later in the journey. Maybe in the summer. Perhaps in Paris. “Yeah,” I say. “I like the sound of that,” again. “See you in Paris.”

Rockabye Sally: Part One

2009-02-16T05:40:00.000-08:00

Last day in Mexico

Some stories begin at the end. Four years in Monterrey changed my life forever; and to wake up one morning knowing that day would begin another round of equally challenging changes deserves nothing less than a solid swig of my favorite tequila (I don’t mean that figuratively by the way, I mean it quite literally. It was 9:30am). Over time, Mexico adopted me and managed to make me one of its own. My experiences there taught me to do more than speak its language; I learned to tell its jokes. I came to understand its complicated traffic laws and even invented a few of my own. More than friends, I grew a family there, and I soon discovered that my journey across the border would come to represent Mexico’s hesitation to release me from its hard earned embrace.

It’s mid-morning. Time to hit the trail. I slip on my favorite cowgirl boots, and saddle up my two-door mare, Mustang Sally. Everything I own now fits into her trunk. It’s actually an incredibly liberating feeling to own nothing – warm wind blowing right through my trousers. I should own less more often. I water the horse, and pass by the bank to pick up my fair share of the past few years’ poker earnings (for information on my obsession with westerns, please see footnote B).

Every cowgirl needs a good scout. So Gabriel, my cubicle-mate recently turned more-than-cubicle-mate, decides to ride Sally into Texas with me. His presence is a comfort as the highway from Monterrey to Nuevo Laredo is littered with possible dangers. A recent U.S. State Department Travel Alert warns U.S. citizens: “Mexican drug cartels are engaged in an increasingly violent fight for control of narcotics trafficking routes along the U.S. - Mexico border. In order to combat violence, the government of Mexico has deployed military troops in various parts of the country. U.S. citizens should cooperate fully with official checkpoints… Firefights have taken place across [the country] but particularly in northern Mexico. Criminals have followed and harassed U.S. citizens traveling in their vehicles in border areas including Nuevo Laredo. The situation in northern Mexico remains fluid; the location and timing of future armed engagements cannot be predicted.”

And, here we go. Pennsylvania plates, car reined by a young little white girl. No sweat. The violence in Mexico is mostly invisible anyway. Until you receive an e-mail forward like I did once with a video attachment showing decapitated narcotics traffickers hanging from the ceiling of a dark warehouse in Tijuana, and a second video showing decapitated bodies shoved into a ceramic tiled shower stall in Juarez. Or until the U.S. Consulate in the city where you live is attacked by grenade and gunfire. Or until the local television station where you deliver a weekly report is threatened by narcos, bombed with a grenade and shot at. Or until you show up at a friend’s house and see her brand new Mercedes riddled with bullet holes and find out she’d been caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and had very nearly missed becoming another innocent casualty in Mexico’s bloody drug war. Then it’s not so invisible. But for your own sanity, you pretend like it is.

Organized crime is coffee talk in Mexico. It’s on the news. It’s the rumor that the son of the cousin of your friend from the job you had 10 years ago was assaulted in a taxi cab at 4am near the Starbucks on Vasconcelos. You sleep peacefully at night though, because you keep organized crime in the same place you keep all the poverty and all the corruption; in tightly closed Ziploc bags, measured, and categorized by date. It’s the same way any of us deal with difficult realities – the war in Iraq, pollution, debt, and personal grudges. It just happens that some of us have bigger Ziploc bags than others.

Beautiful desert mountains, cactus, and altars honoring La Virgen line the highway. Gabriel is asleep. I am driving, fifth gear, listening to Vicente Fernandez wallow in his melodic sorrow about all the women in Mexico he has lost. Make that one more. In the distance, maybe 500 meters down the road, I notice a couple military vehicles and a toll bridge. A man dressed in fatigues is waving a red flag. Slow down. This is nothing outside the norm for a Mexican highway. Just a routine checkpoint to guarantee my own safety.

“U.S. citizens should cooperate fully…"

I’m closer now, but still a good 250 meters away. Somewhere between the bullfighter effect of the red flag and the fact that there are no cars in front of me, I fail to see the series of three or four rather treacherous speed bumps between the soldier and me. They aren't painted or marked by any signs and I hit them dead on. The car bottoms out on one of them and from nowhere another soldier appears – a clone of the one in front of me with the red flag. But this one is cocking an AK-47, yanking the stiff metal handle on the side of the gun. Within seconds he’s pointing it at my tires. Gabriel wakes up and starts to yell.

“Que chingados hiciste?!” I’m yelling back that I have no idea, that I didn’t see the speed bumps, and a news story from a few months back flashes into real time. Middle class father accidentally shot on the highway from Monterrey to Texas. He had pulled away too quickly from a military checkpoint. They thought he was trying to escape so they shot at his tires and missed. Instead they hit him in the shoulder. His wife was right next to him and his kids were in the back seat.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” I yell. I don’t know who I’m yelling to, but I’m yelling. And then I’m laughing. Stress causes some people to overeat, other people to cry, and still others to hold babies over balconies. My laughter is like that – a strange response to a strange situation. Gabriel flicks my shoulder, like shhh…!

Red flag soldier starts waving his bandera emphatically, motioning for me to pull over. My speed, the Pennsylvania plates, a car full of misshapen bags and boxes – it all leads to a stone faced boy poking through the trunk of my car. Despite my rodeo show entrance, however, the revision of my belongings is quick and easy. As soon as they see Gabriel’s respectful fear, and my cluelessness, they're eager to just pass us through the barricade – get rid of us so they can find what they're really looking for. No further business here.

By the time we get to the international bridge, the border checkpoint that connects Nuevo Laredo in Mexico to Laredo in Texas, it’s mid-afternoon. The lines to get into the U.S. aren’t too bad today, however crossing the bridge is always tedious. Driving over that dusty, dry riverbed, I am reminded of the power this moment has for my life. One girl’s mission to walk on water – over the Rio Grande, across the Atlantic, and to the frozen waters of the wintery Baltic Sea.

“U.S. citizen m’am?” the border guard flashes a light in my eyes at three in the afternoon. She wears her hair tightly pulled back, dark, slick and shiny. I tell her yes and hand her my passport. “What are your plans?” she asks. I explain that I’m moving home from Mexico. That I’d been living there and working full time. “Living and working in Mexico?” she clarifies – as if she’d just heard a priest tell a lie. “And who’s he?” pointing to Gabriel. “Mexicano?” she switches seamlessly to Spanish.

“Si, vengo para acompañarla hasta Houston,” Gabriel tells her that he’ll come with me to Houston and fly back to Mexico from there. She asks for his permit, the one you need to go beyond 20 miles inside the U.S. border. Gabriel shoots me a look, coupled with one of those baby hanging over the balcony smiles. He has his visa, but the permit is something new. A slip of paper that you must acquire for land crossings into the U.S. Air crossings are different. Gabriel doesn’t have it, and the appearance of my plates, the back seat stuffed with black trash bags, and the story I’ve been sticking to all along about living and working in Mexico, is raising suspicion.

They tag a yellow notice on the windshield of my car. The woman tells me to “Go over there. The officer will tell you what to do.” I pull up slowly. This time careful not to bottom out over the large unmarked speed bumps. An officer motions for me to pull into a parking place next to a long steel table.

They pull Gabriel aside and ask him to step into the immigrations office. He’ll need paperwork; electric bills to prove his permanent address, bank statements to prove he’s not here to look for work, and a pair of scissors to cut through all the red tape. He disappears, and I know that this is the part where they will ask us questions separately to corroborate our responses. It’s like that couples game show where you can only win if the other person knows absolutely everything about you – “How did you two meet?” “Her maternal grandmother’s maiden name?” “Scrambled or sunny-side up?”

Outside, I am forced to empty everything from my car. Every bag, box, sheet of paper, and gum wrapper. And since the four or five officers standing around are unable to help – they can’t tamper with the evidence – I am resolved to bend over for 30 consecutive minutes while big bellied men and their German Shepherds get a load of the gringa trying to drive herself across the continent.

I stare at all of my belongings laid out across the steel table, as if a complicated operation were about to be performed. Dogs start sniffing. Officer starts poking around. He makes the same observation that I do – there is absolutely nothing worth over Goodwill prices here. Dogs still sniffing. I put my hands on my hips, trying to catch my breath from the heavy lifting. Officer finds my collection of Catrinas, Mexican clay sculptures made into skeletons, dressed as fine ladies from the early 20^th century. The officer unpacks them all, each one from 12 to 16 inches tall. He taps on the bones to see if they are hollow. To see what type of powder filled bags might fit inside. The dogs continue to sniff and this time they hit the jackpot. My sack of dirty clothes.

We continue like this for two hours before I am allowed to repack my car. Gabriel emerges victorious from the immigrations office, permit in hand. We are free to go. I kick Sally into gear, urging her on toward I-35 north to Austin. Deep breath, big sigh… Mexico is behind me now, but this trip has barely just begun.

Footnote B: I am 19 years old, hiking south toward the U.S. – Mexico border with my mother through Big Bend National Park in Texas. It’s spring break during my freshman year of college. Some friends are in Florida, others on the Jersey shore, but I am a cowgirl out on the open range.

My favorite English course this semester is called Literature from the American Frontier. We read dime store novels, Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. These stories thrill me. Cowboys and Indians, Mexican cattle raids, and town prostitutes just looking for love.

When my mother offers to take me hiking in the very heart of where I imagined these stories to take place, I spring at the opportunity. Each day, we pack our sacks – peanut butter sandwiches, nuts and bolts, fruit, and water – and walk for hours and hours. I tell my mother that she can call me Lucy Bell and that we are looking to settle west; looking to find new opportunities.

One of my favorite hikes lands us at a natural hot spring on the shore of the Rio Grande. We change into our swimming suits. Right there, right in front, for all of Mexico to see. We dip our whole bodies into the warm water coming straight from the ground. Some of the water flows over into the rushing Rio Grande. No one is here. Not for miles and miles. There is absolutely nothing. The complete and utter desolation allows me to feel just the opposite. Full to the brim with everything. Open range welcomes young, new cowgirl to Mexico.

Smack dab

2009-02-11T04:58:00.000-08:00

Introduction

I just turned 25. Enter stage left: Ms. Mid-20 something! By all accounts, this year is supposed to be one of the more fabulous ones in a woman’s life, so I decided to start it in style.

After living in Monterrey, Mexico for nearly four years, I quit my fantastic full-time, stability granting, career-woman job to go and chase after some of the world’s most impractical goals before later moving on to start a Master's degree. Get a Mohawk. Learn two more languages. Travel Europe for five months on a three-month tourist visa. And of course, (sorry Mom and Dad – I recognize I may not have been completely upfront about this next one) visit the nudest of nude beaches.

The list continues, but these are some of the more pertinent items on order. For information on the origin of this list, please see footnote A.

I should also point out that the vision for this plan came into being prior to the world’s decision to turn into a giant pit of quicksand and economic turmoil. It’s important to note because when the U.S. government decided to inject its first $700 billion into America’s financial system last October 2008, the dollar flexed it muscles around the globe, strengthening against other world currencies.

Within four months, my hard-earned savings from the past three years were devalued by nearly 30% against the dollar. I’d been gathering my travel fund in Mexican pesos. But now, just like the monopoly money poker bets placed on Wall Street, the exchange-rate value of my pesos took an unexpected hit.

Things just got…

…a little more interesting.

While preparing to leave Mexico, I sold nearly all of my belongings for enough money to purchase a one-way ticket to Stockholm, Sweden. I cut my hair (not a Mohawk yet, but still shockingly short – enough to stir up that “I ain’t nobody’s woman” feeling I would highly recommend to any girl in her mid-20’s. Piercings, tattoos, and drastic wardrobe changes can also do the trick, however I tend to suggest the less permanent options for us beginners).

The week of my 25^th birthday was my last one at work. I packed my boxes, handed over the keys to my cubicle, said a few teary eyed goodbyes to the people who’d become my family in Mexico, and set off driving toward the Texas border. Cowgirl meets wild new frontiers.

I am in every way, "Caught in the Middle." Mid-twenty something girl quits job, enters radical transition phase between steady work and steady schooling. I am caught in the nasty wire transfer from pesos to dollars. In the middle of a rabbit-hole plan. Between countries, cultures, and languages, and I’ll bet that in some way you are too.

Welcome to my collection of stories for people who are mid-way there. For those who are in the middle of a big decision, people caught mid-discussion, for half birthday enthusiasts, middle children, and middle managers. I hope you’ll find pieces of yourself here, between things old and new, near and far – somewhere between birth and death, because ultimately we’re all somehow… Caught in the Middle. And what matters most is how we choose to work it when we're walking that middle line.

Footnote A: It’s 2am in July 2006. One of those perfectly warm Kennywood cotton candy midnights in Pittsburgh. No better time to take a dip in our backyard pool with my sister and our childhood friend, and frankly there’s no better time to do it in our skivvies. No one’s watching – I can almost hear our neighbor snoring through his second story screen window. I follow my sister’s lead, the path of strewn socks, t-shirt, and shorts leading up the back patio stairs toward the pool deck.

The three of us run around the edge of the pool, giggling, still a little performance shy. Splash! Sister takes the plunge. I follow. Friend follows. We all get out, skipping around the pool deck. Fairy-like. Laughing, cackling really. Splash! Here we go again… in and out, up and down. Little Gollums running in the night. Whoosh! Down the slide – cold, wet fiberglass against the back of my legs and on my hips.

We play like fireflies, and we send our laughter up to the universe. And it is the truest laughter I have ever released, the kind that splits through all sadness and forces you to discover things. In this moment, my sister’s freest of free spirits inspires me. My friend’s courage fills me. It is one of the happiest memories I hold onto in my life. And if something so simple could bring me that much closer to myself, why not make a list of a few other simple goals to bring me closer still – a few more adventures to help grow these girl bones into woman ones with just a little more grace… and a little more style.