Pisando nieve en el último día de 2020

Faltan 141 minutos para que cambiemos de año y tengo ganas de escribir...acabo de poner un post, pero escribí el post hace varios días y quiero, anhelo, escribir algo nuevo aquí en los pocos minutos restantes de este año jamás imaginado y (ojalá) no realizado de nuevo en el futuro...

Faltan 136 minutos para que cambiemos de año...empecé este año en una cabañita a 30 millas de aquí y lo termino encabiñado en mi casa, como lo hemos estado desde medios de marzo...y no es que me haya molestado eso de encabiñarme, si voy a decir la verdad, pero es algo irónico, ¿no?, cuánto me esforcé para aislarme del mundo hace un año y el mundo acabó aislándonos a todos...es que ya debemos saber, mi gente, pero no lo sabemos aún, que lo más que intentamos controlar lo que nos suceda, lo más el mundo va a venir a golpearnos por los dientes...

Faltan 129 minutos para que cambiemos de año...fui a dar una vuelta más temprano hoy...esto es cosa de casi todos los días, doy una vuelta por ahí, una caminata de 15, 20, 30 minutos, 45 si tengo mucha ambición, fijénse que he descubierto que no necesito nada más...las vueltas son regalos de Dios...pero bien, la nieve tiene sólo dos días y el mundo sigue siendo blanco, no hubo casi viento y cuando pasaba por el cementerio por bruto pasé a un lado no limpiado y pedazos de nieve invadían mis botas...sentí el frío de la nieve derritiéndose contra mis medias delgadas, cosa que debió haber sido feo, pero fue de cierta forma satisfactorio, ¿quién lo vaya a comprender?...

Faltan 121 minutos para que cambiemos de año...por supuesto que éste fue año bisiesto, el 2020 lo tuvo que ser, un día extra de la mierda que era el 2020...Sonia está ocupada preparando las 1001 cosas que se tienen que realizar en la cultura peruana en el año nuevo, los niños (ya no son niños, son adolescentes, pero bueno, me entienden) andan en lo suyo y escucho Cafe Tacvba, "El balcón", supongo que yo también estoy en lo mío como suelo estar..."Los patrones han muerto y tú, aún sigues trapeando el piso de ajedrez"...

Faltan 113 minutos para que cambiemos de año y ni siquiera me he bañado...en la cultura peruana, se da una ducha y se acaba poniéndose un agua especial hecha con flores para que el año te agarre con buena aroma...normalmente le jodo mucho a mi esposa mucho y resisto que tenga que hacerme esto, pero este año me siento diferente, resignado...resignado, no...abierto, más bien...hay que estar abierto a cualquier remedio después de semejante año...

Faltan 109 minutos para que cambiemos de año...ya está muy de moda quejarse del año 2020 y supongo que yo también lo he hecho, pero la realidad es que no estoy tan mal...a veces el mundo está bien y uno mal, y a veces a revés, el mundo mal y uno bien...a mí no me tocó lo peor que tuvo que ofrecer 2020 y me siento bien por ello, aunque me sienta un poco culpable por esto...la culpa tiene sus propósitos pero también impide cuando no hay necesidad de impedimentos...total, el mundo no se mejora si yo me pongo peor de lo que realmente estoy...

Faltan 102 minutos para que cambiemos de año y me alegra que haya hecho esta pequeña escritura aunque no tenga mucho sentido...es raro que a veces Dios nos dé ganas de hacer ciertas cosas a una cierta hora, pero si una cosa aprendimos a duras penas en el 2020, es que a veces las cosas tienen su razón al no tener ni puta de razón...como cuando uno va pisando nieve y la nieve queda en su pie pero no es tan mal, es casi placentero, es de este mundo y yo estoy requete puto feliz de estar vivo en ello...

 

The Hermitage, the Deer, and the Chakras: It all comes together

MY SECOND, AND LAST, FULL day at the hermitage began much, much later than the first one. I’m not sure what time I had fallen asleep the night before, but it was late, and I vowed not to get out of bed one damn second before my body’s adrenaline told me I should. Still, I was shocked to see it was past noon when I finally gave one last stretch and walked over to my phone. No matter. I turned the coffee on and began journaling.

The day was spent much the same as the first one, minus my time with Ann Jackson. I read, I wrote, I walked through the trees around Prairiewoods. I baked another frozen meal and then I decided to head over to the Labyrinth. Maybe I would see my deer friends again.

I took it even slower than I had the first day. No deer this time, but I was in for another treat. No more than a quarter of the way in, I felt something cold touch my nose. I looked up and there were a few big, fat, wet snowflakes falling gently down from the sky. I walked even slower, trying to match their rhythm. Within about ten minutes the snow was falling with some momentum. When I got to the center of the labyrinth I knelt and I prayed. I thanked God for this beautiful moment and I just let the snow keep falling on me.

By the time I got back to the hermitage there was a layer of snow sticking to the ground, and it was still coming down good. Before I forgot, I texted Ann Jackson—she had offered to meet with me again before I left the next morning if I wanted to. I had decided I did. We agreed to meet again in her office at 10:00. Then I sat down in the recliner, sipping on a glass of water and watching the snow fall as day slowly changed into night. It was the sort of thing you normally might really want to share with someone, but I was quite happy to be by myself.

The Chakra book sat peacefully to left. It ignored me and I ignored it.

 

*********

 

I ARRIVED ON TIME FOR my meeting with Ann Jackson. She was dressed much the same as before, which I suppose could be said for me as well. We talked about how my two days had went. I told her that I had walked a lot, journaled a lot, written a lot, put some of it on my blog.

“Would you mind if I read your blog?” she asked.

“Of course not. That’s what it’s there for,” I said. “Let me write down the address for you.”

While I was writing down the address, she asked, “What have you been reading?”

“Well,” I replied, “I’ve got this like thousand-page history of Christianity that I’ve been working through, and I made some progress there. Some devotional material.”

“And what about this?” she asked, holding up the book about the Chakras in her left hand.

I smiled slightly. “I…looked at it.”

She smiled too. “Not your cup of tea?”

“No,” I said. “I appreciate you loaning it to me, but…no.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s certainly not for everyone. Anything else? Did you get to walk the Labyrinth?”

“Yes!” I said. “Twice. Once each day. Both days were incredible, especially yesterday. I was out there, literally in the Labyrinth, when the snow started falling. I just felt…so blessed. No one was around. It was just me, the Labyrinth and the snow.”

“How beautiful,” she murmured. “Did you get anything out of it? That was your second time—you said you went the first day, as well?”

“Oh my God,” I said. “The first day was incredible as well. I’m in there walking the Labyrinth, and all of a sudden I was surrounded by, like, four or five deer. One of them actually walked right up to me. Like five feet away.”

“Really?” she said. “Mark, do you see what is happening? I told you the first day, you have an energy. I could feel it. And that deer could feel it too. You let go of your fear out there, and she felt one with you. She could sense your…” she paused, “…your energy is greater than you give yourself credit for.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

“In Christianity we call that the Holy Spirit. But it’s got a name in just about every tradition,” she continued, and her eyes darted down and to her left very quickly. “I feel, Mark, that you have a tremendous energy. You just need to be patient. And keep praying. And stay open to that feeling, that feeling the snow gave you, that feeling the deer gave you. That energy…that connection.”

 We continued like that, and the hour flew by. We hugged again. She asked me to stay in touch, and I said I would. I walked back to the hermitage and busied myself preparing my things for departure. Sonia was on her way to pick me up.

 

**********

 

OF COURSE I TOLD SONIA all about it. The trees, the prairie, the Labyrinth, the deer, the snow, the reading, the writing. And I was effusive with praise for Ann Jackson—her warmth, her sincerity, her caring, her simplicity, her perception.

“There was just one weird thing about her,” I told Sonia several nights later in the kitchen. She was cooking and I was eating black olives, for some goddamn reason. “She kept trying me to get into this thing about Chakras.”

“What in the hell is a Chakra?” Sonia asked.

“I don’t even know—something about seven energy centers in the body and…”

I stopped. Something clicked. Or, more precisely, something suddenly shot up into my consciousness from my subconscious. An energy force field the size of a football field. Time in a hermitage slowing down and going deeper. Energy emanating from the body. A deer so in connection with me that it walked right up to me without fear any fear whatsoever. Ann Jackson’s eyes cutting down and to her left.

Towards the Chakras book.

“In Christianity we call it the Holy Spirit,” she had said. She hadn’t said the rest because she didn’t want me to tune out. But now I understood.

“Hold on a second,” I told Sonia. “I need to write something down before I forget.”

I walked into the Red Room, where I do my journaling. I opened my journal and scribbled down:

Write about:

Hermitage

Deer

Chakras

I walked back into the kitchen. My heart was light, the way it is when you finally give in and laugh when you watch a silly movie.

“So what was this thing? Chamras?” Sonia asked.

“Eh, I don’t know,” I said. “Something Ann Jackson was into. Something Eastern. Way beyond anything I can comprehend.”

 

END

 

 

Beautiful Prayer from Daily Reflections - Pluralized

 We pray for the willingness to remember that we are children of God, divine souls in human form, and that are most basic and urgent life tasks are to accept, know, love and nurture ourselves. As we accept ourselves, we are accepting God's will. As we know and love ourselves, we are knowing and loving God. As we nurture ourselves, we are acting on God's guidance.

We pray for the willingness to let go of our arrogant self-criticism, and to praise God by humbly accepting and caring for ourselves.

An Electronic Button Tries to Save the Day

The machine has always been around, of course. It would be naïve to say it hasn't. . But it sort of went into snooze after the New Deal and the Second World War as people-friendly policies became the norm.  During the Reagan years, it slowly kicked back into gear. The farm crisis. The Bushes and Clinton accelerated it with NAFTA and China. Obama held serve, but in 2016, Trump and a Republican trifecta at the capital in Des Moines, what with their anti-union policies refusing to let municipalities to raise the minimum wage, put the machine into overdrive.

What is this machine, you may ask? Well, it's like this big giant garbage disposal, and it sucks people, every day, more and more people. Nowadays most of Iowans are in there. Pretty much if you make less than $100,000 as a household you're in there, or damn close to the lip.  I'm in there and so are most of my friends and family.

 It's not like a normal garbage disposal, where the blades are right at top; the blades are further down, so the people go down this tube for a while before they actually get chewed up. 

Today, November 3, 2020, the machine paused. A giant button appeared on the side of the tube and everyone in the tube could see it. Big and bright. We look. And the button starts talking.

"Listen, I'm a button. Should you choose to push me, the air movement in this tube will shift. The downward force will lessen to a large degree. For example, we could try to take such measures as cutting student loans or stabilizing the cost and availability of quality health care. Also, the air will start pushing up--we could raise the minimum wage, for example. Most of you, though not all of course, will be able to avoid falling into the blades. A large majority will actually be able to climb out of this tube and resume normal life, perhaps even plan for the future. If you don't push me, well, things continue as they have been.

"So, talk amongst yourselves. Let me know what you want to do. You have 14 hours to make a decision, from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM."

The Iowans begin to talk amongst themselves. The button thinks it's a no-brainer, so he's surprised that they just keep on talking. A good ways after 8:00 PM, a voice comes from the crowd of Iowans.

"Mr. Button, if we push this button, will some of the people who pull themselves back out of the tube...will some of them, like...not deserve it?"

The button blinks, which is really hard for a button, and says, "I'm not sure I understand your question."

"Well," the voice of Iowa explains, "let's say some of these people who get out--even if it's just a few--might not do it on their own. You know, they might grab on to the ankles of someone who's really working. and so even though they got out, they had help from someone else. Or maybe they get some benefit they don't really deserve, and they get out that way. So, I guess that's what we're worried about. That someone who really isn't deserving manages the climb their way out after we use this button."

The button blinks again. "Well, yes, I suppose that could happen. But I'm not sure you're getting the big picture here. I'll emphasize, again, that should you choose not to use this button, many of you--the vast majority--will continue to be sucked down, moving ever closer to the blades whether y'all "deserve it" or not. In other words, you'll be hurting a lot of "deserving" people just to make sure a few "non-deservers" don't make it out."

"Got it. Thanks for the clarification," the voice of Iowa explains. "We'll get back to you shortly." And we huddle back up.

A few minutes later, the voice speaks up again. "All right, we've made our decision. We appreciate your offer, but we're just gonna keep sliding and hope for the best. Well, 'hope' really isn't the right word. We gave up on that a long time ago. Now, we pretty much just want to own the libs."

The button stutters. "But...but...I could help so many of you. Just use me. I WANT TO HELP!"

"Help?" the Iowan snickers. "You're not really a button. You're a FUCKING SOCIALIST, and you're trying to push your socialist agenda unto us. You just don't want the strongest among us to win. Even if you could "help" us, we don't really give a shit. Face it, bitch--we own you!"

The crowd whoops and hollers. Thirteen seconds later, the disposal whirs back to life. Slowly at first, then more quickly, the people continue their descent into the bowels of the machine. The blades hum. The disposal rumbles. 

The button shakes its anthropomorphic head and says to itself, as it fades to existence until November of 2022, "Socialist. Goddamn. I'm just a freaking button", as the crowd before it, sliding downward, grows steadily thinner. 

November 3, 2020

 Just a few thoughts before the numbers start pouring in, as I try to take a break to de-obsess:

        --Joe Biden is up by at least 8% nationwide. Let's say he only wins by 5%. In an election of 150,000,000 votes, that means he wins 7,500,000 more votes than Donald Trump. But Donald Trump would still have a legitimate shot at winning the election. I know it's fashionable to criticize the Electoral College...but this is why. That's seriously fucked up.

        --If Biden can win Florida (he's up by a little over 2%) by a decent amount--say over 1%--this thing could be over by 9:00 Iowa time. Max 10:00. If, on the other hand, Trump wins that state, it probably gets decided in Pennsylvania, and that could take days. That's when the crazy, disturbing shit could start.

        --Biden should win. He should. God, may he win. But here's the really depressing thing, even if he does. After all the crazy shit Trump and his acolytes have done, over 60,000,000 are still going to vote for that version of America. We are far--very far--from being a healthy society.

        --Florida, please? Please? Florida? Just this once...

The Bleh

 Damp...cold, damp, miserable, a glot of water in the sky that seems interminable, a glot of water that continues falling on us for a third straight day with no end in sight. I'm confined to the garage and the living room, bundled in sweatshirts and swaddled in blankets, space heater running on 11, no walks under the autumn sun to refresh my spirit. 

And yet, still I remember, that just like those very sun rays, just like the deep blue skies of contentment, the gray skies of anxiety are also God's work, how God is communicating with us these days. Today. 

Cold and damp are also part of God's way for us. That's why we have the blankets and the space heater. They are God's tools for sustaining us through the bleh, so that we can take in this side of God, too, and come out on the other end understanding Her that much deeper, and therefore be that much more capable of executing His will.

    

43

On a warm Saturday afternoon in June of 1988, my dad mentioned he was going golfing with his friend Ron Robinson. He invited me to come along. My dad didn't golf much, back then he didn't, and I guess I really wanted to go, because my mom told him I couldn't, I had to say home and help her with my sisters--my brother wasn't home for some reason--and I started crying. I was ten, almost eleven, just young enough to still cry when I felt something was being withheld from me unfairly. "Next time you can go," she said. "But who knows when that will be?" I cried. She held firm though, and my dad, bless his heart, didn't contradict her. I stayed home, and Dad went to golf with Ron Robinson.

**********

As of this morning, close to 300,000 Iowa households were still out of power after Monday's storm. Storm is really an inadequate word--there isn't an English word that is. The weather people are saying derecho, but that's a Spanish word and I know Spanish too, and that word doesn't cover it, either. I'm a native Iowan, 43 years today, and I've never seen anything close. The damage is simply astounding, and it's every. single. street. from west of Des Moines to east of Davenport. Grocery stores are closed. Businesses, households and stoplights are running on gas generators, and the gas stations that are open can't keep up, and the gas lines resemble the pictures I've seen of the early 1970's. The best way I've heard it in words is "a Category 3 hurricane across the entire state". 

It got 40 seconds on the national news last night. 25 of those were dedicated to crop damage.

**********

Turns out my mom was throwing a surprise 40th birthday party for my dad, and she needed me around to help prepare the house for it. That's why he was going golfing with Ron Robinson--it was all a set-up. Once she explained it to me that way, I calmed down. It had killed her to see my crying like that, but she obviously couldn't explain it in front of my dad. Ron's wife Mel came over and her and me and my mom went about setting up the house. A guy from the liquor store stopped by and dropped off a "keg". People began to arrive, but they parked across the street, at the City Park, so as not to tip off my dad. Relatives showed up from hours away. The garage filled up. I can still remember the look on his face when he opened the door to the garage. My mom got him, all right :).

***********

Last year on my birthday I had my iTunes play on random all day. There's this app you can download that tells you how many times you've listened to a song on your iTunes, and if I really liked a song, I checked it. If I had listened to it at least 50 times, with under 5 skips, I put it on a new playlist I titled "Birthday" and subtitled "The Best Fucking Music on the Planet". I kept it up while I drove Lyft the rest of the summer. 

Today I'm listening to that list for the first time, on shuffle. I consider myself open to new things, but 90% of these songs were created sometime in the 1990's. I lived 13 years before then and twenty after, but there's just something about that music... 

***********

Yesterday Niko was talking about, if he got into Spanish 3 on his placement test, he would maybe be able to go to Spain or Costa Rica after his sophomore year, and stay with a family and see the sights. I think he was trying to see if I would approve. I told him there was no substitute on this beautiful green Earth for travel. He asked me how long I was in Venezuela for. I said four and a half months. He had trouble conceiving of that. He asked if eventually, you just felt normal there. Yeah, I said. The electricity would go out once a week, you had to have a pail of water in case the water was off, the shower wasn't always warm, but you just get used to it. During elections, I told him, the military would be on the streets with machine guns and I didn't even think twice.

"Like Portland?" he asked.

I thought about that. "Kind of," I said. "But in Venezuela, they had their names on their uniforms."

***********

On April 1, I started noting in a journal the Coronavirus numbers:

• World: 891,514 confirmed cases/44,295 dead
• U.S.A.: 205,172/4,540
• Iowa: 549/9

Today:

• World: Over 20,600,000/Over 750,000
• U.S.A.: 5,217,094/166,100
• Iowa: 50,167/954

People say you can make statistics say whatever you want. But I don't know any other way to read those numbers except with a profound sadness. 

***********

Back when my mom planned that party, I remembered her writing out what looked like Christmas cards, but it was May. She wouldn't tell us what she was doing. They were invitations for my dad's surprise party. There was no internet, no cell phones, no Facebook, Snapchat, Tik Tok. And yet my mom got over 50 people to hide in a garage in northwest Iowa at a given time on a given Saturday in June to celebrate my dad's birthday. I have all that crap, and all I want to do is get Mexican food and watch a movie. I'm not sure if that says more about me or the times.

********

A teacher friend called me today to talk shop, and she dropped a name of a new teacher in our district, expecting I would know it. When I didn't she said. "You know her. You taught her."

"In second grade?"

"Yes. We both did."

It's actually worse than that. There are three former second graders of mine in our District this year. Jesus Christ.

Take care everyone. See ya next year! 

The "B" team goes to Mérida, 1999: New Homes

The “B” team goes to Mérida - 1999

NOTE TO READER: These writing are coming from a shared Google Doc with other members from the legendary 1999 group. All memories and impressions here are mine and mine alone and do not necessarily represent those of the group.


MARK: I now considered myself an old hand at the art of flying for Flight #4 in two days, from Maiquetía to Mérida. I had only been to the mountains once in my life, a family vacation to Colorado. I didn’t remember them being so green, and in all my time in Mérida, I never stopped appreciating the lush vegetation hugging every roadway in the state capital where we lived.

We landed in Mérida mid-afternoon on a Monday and this time, a first for me, we disembarked not onto a jetway, but directly onto the runway. There were, as I would discover there always was, people watching from above the runway, awaiting or sending off their loved ones. I knew that my host family was among those waiting….Which ones would they be? How would we get along?

The sun shone brightly as we made our way to the luggage carousel. I have to imagine, although I don’t remember specifically, that this is when Gladymar breezed into our lives. I can just imagine her and Rachael whipping off directions and advice left and right, soothing nervous gringo hippocampi.

Our host family bore signs, like you see in the movies. I fought panic as I had trouble locating my name. Those 90 seconds seemed an eternity, and then I saw my host brother, Edecio (a name I would take weeks to pronounce correctly). I went up and introduced myself in broken Spanish; he just nodded and helped me with my two big suitcases, packed for over four months in a new country. (There were several people in our group--Ben, Jake, Karl, Alena, come to mind--that had arrived in-country with only a well-stocked hiking backpack. I remember being fucking AMAZED by this).

Edecio introduced me to my host sister, Lucía (this name I could pronounce). They had hosted international students for years and knew the drill. They knew they would need two cars to get all the luggage in. My nerves were at their rawest yet in the last 48 hours as I would now be leaving the security of the group and their wonderful, beautiful English. Rachael and Stephanie assured us we would all see each other the next day at the Facultad.

Lucía (may she rest in peace) led me to her car, a mid-1970’s white Mercedes. We took a right as we headed out of the airport and...up. (I was to discover quickly that pretty much every trip within Mérida, which sits in a finger-like valley in the Andes Mountains, could be summarized succinctly simply as bajando or subiendo, roughly translated as “going up” or “going down”. This led to occasional moments of levity when an earnest English-learning merideño would ask “Will you go down with me?”).

We were almost as far up as you could get without leaving the city. Maybe 30 minutes later, we pulled up in front of a white wall housing a green, wrought-iron gate. Edecio got up and slid the gate open, the cars pulled in, and I was in my home for the next four plus months. I met my host mother, Elba, another host sister, María Auxiladora (another name I would take months to master), and her brand new baby (I can’t remember his name right this moment). My host brother Juan came out of his room at one point; he was fighting a stomach bug. Juan would become my lifeline in those first weeks, as he spoke a good deal of English.

All I remember about the rest of that afternoon is learning two words from Edecio: bizcocho (a type of sponge cake) and pesebre (a manger scene typical of Venezuela during the Christmas season). The rest of the time I spent between my room, slowly unpacking, and wandering outside to take in the mountains and vegetation, time and time again.

When my host dad, Edecio, Sr., came home, we sat down for supper. Arepas, of course. I would grow to have a love/hate relationship with the omnipresent Venezuelan staple. It was dark when we sat down, and after saying grace, the family busily recounted their day. It was clear Lucia was the life of the party, as her comments led again and again to boisterous laughter.

I had no idea what she, or anyone, was saying. It was all so fucking FAST. I had taken five semesters of college Spanish but my language was tentative and my vocabulary utterly not up to the task. I had no earthly clue what was going on. The cautious confidence I had flown into the city with slowly grew into a gnawing terror as I began to realize that those five semesters didn’t count for shit on the ground.

I had made a commitment to myself to only journal in Spanish throughout my journey. Luckily, I didn’t have the vocabulary at that point to express my fright. When I laid down to sleep an hour or two later, my stomach was wound up tighter than a spring. I just kept reminding myself that the next day, I would see everyone at the Facultad. We’d known each other only a day, but already my twenty companions were my rock. Soon enough, the exhaustion of the last two days took over, and I fell into a deep sleep. 

The "B" team goes to Venezuela - 1999

The “B” team goes to Mérida - 1999

MARK: The Mérida trip was not only the first time I left the country, it was the first time I got on an airplane. My dad drove me from Sheldon down to Omaha and we spent the night at my uncle’s house. I couldn’t sleep. I drank a couple of beers but they didn’t help. I finally dropped off around five and slept for a couple of hours. Back then people could accompany you to your gate, and my dad and uncle did. My belly was full of butterflies.

Taking off was an experience, man. Up and away. I sat by an older couple and they wished me luck on my journey. At O’Hare I located the group. The only person I knew was Stephanie, so I’m pretty sure I stuck around her. Also I believe Janet was there from the Study Abroad department.

When we got on the plane to Miami I was sitting by Susan. We talked and got to know each other. When we were landing in Miami, it was night. I mentioned I had never seen a plane land from the inside and Susan, who was in a window seat, graciously switched with me. “I’ve flown dozens of times,” she said. I will never forget that act of kindness!

In Miami I believe I shared a room with Tim. We all met Rachel and Nahkiah at the hotel and Rachel and Stephanie called a meeting. As soon as the meeting was over we went to the bar. Not all of us were 21 but we were in a dive bar, one of those bars where peanut shells are all over the floor, so it didn’t matter. I remember playing pool with Karl and Jamie.

The Miami airport, man. That was a fucking scene. The whole world is at the Miami airport. I remember going to exchange for some bolivares and being amazed at all the currencies. I remember Rachel telling us not to exchange too much in Miami because they charged so much. “You will get a better rate in Venezuela,” she said. But it felt so cool to have those bolivares. It was like Monopoly money.

I remember Tim and Jake, I think, being super excited because they were going to be in the smoking section of the plane. U.S. airlines had been smoke-free for years. As I understand, they came to regret that excitement. :))))

A few hours later we were in Caracas. Maiquetia. Wow. The Departures and Arrivals signs were still analog in January of 1999. Three things stand out from the airport. One, I ate at a Burger King. I ate at that Burger King every damn time I flew through Caracas! Two, I remember the buseta that took us from International to Domestic. Salsa music was blaring and there were palm trees. I had never seen a palm tree before.

And three--and this I remember very clearly--I remember Jake asking Rachel, “So, how do I tell people in Spanish, ‘My name is Jake’?” “Oh my God,” I thought, “this guy’s got some cojones, traveling to a country and barely knowing the language.” Jake would prove me right over and over again.:)))

Then we got on the flight to Mérida. And I’ll let someone else take over for a while….

The "Greatest Generation" and....Whatever we are Now

If you were born, say, around the year 1920, the first 25 years of your life were probably pretty tough. You lived your first decade under historic (until now) income inequality, and then the Depression hit. Just as it seemed the Depression was going away, World War II was breaking out. Pearl Harbor was attacked at the end of 1941 and four long years would go by before that conflict ended. Only then could anything resembling "normal" life go forward.

Our government asked A LOT of these people. It asked them to stay patient during the Depression while the government tried lots of things to work our way out. The Hoover Dam was built, electricity was brought to the South, and many beautiful public buildings were erected (City High here in town is one of them).

Then, after twelve years of THAT, our government asked our nation to go to war. Millions of men and women crossed oceans, lived on boats, lived in the African desert, died on the beaches on D-Day, witnessed the horror of the Holocaust. Tens of millions back home lived with rationing and grew Victory Gardens.

Sure, not 100% of the population may have agreed. But in general, there was a sense of unity, of coming together for the common good.

100 years later, our government is asking something of us again. They are asking that we stay home for a couple months. Most of us have refrigeration, heat, a television and a phone. A lot of us have internet. So, you know, it sucks, but...compared to facing Nazi heavy artillery or Japanese fighters or the Dust Bowl...not really.

100 years later, we are being asked again to come together for the common good, by staying apart. Just for a little while. Just stay home (in relative comfort, compared to the 1930's and 1940's).

Unfortunately, I'm not sure we're doing as well as those born in 1920. For some of us--many of whom consider ourselves "patriots"--this is just a step too far. Images of police officers and doctors and nurses and meat packers getting sick--scared beyond belief--dying--notwithstanding.

Stay home, in relative comfort? Just how far does the government think they can push us?

Blog #100!! Let's do a sing-along!! (English and Spanish)

Well, it only took me seven years, but this entry will be blog number ONE HUNDRED for this GochoGringo. And this entry should be one of the most GochoGringo of them all. One of my New Year's "Goals" was to write a little bit more in 2020, and I've already passed my total for 2019 (7). With this whole Coronavirus thing and being at home, I have even less excuses not to write.

It also leaves open time for other things. A few nights ago, I put on my "Relaxation" playlist while taking a shower, and when I got done, I felt like I wanted to just keep listening to music. Nothing else. Just listen and sing along. When's the last time you did that, for more than one or two songs? For me it had been years--music's always an accompaniment, not the main focus. And so I did. Sonia sang along if she knew the song, and didn't when she didn't: she's cool like that.

Anyway, what follows is a list of the songs I listened and sung along to that night, and what that song means to me, personally. You'll probably know some of them; very few will know all of them--maybe my compadre Karl Yeats. It's also going to be a very Spanglish entry!

I will link to each song on Youtube. I hope you click on one or two and sing along; or think of your own song, and find it and sing along with that one. Feel free to leave in the comments, here or on Facebook or Twitter, your own relationships to these and/or any other song you find meaningful. We all need a little something to get us through these crazy days. Why not music?

P.S. I started writing this, oh, ten or twelve days ago. It's long, so read it in more than one sitting (if you care to).

It took me longer than I thought it would. How do you explain a song? I don't think I figured it out. But I think Mathew Klein from Youtube comments did: "When I was a teenager I listened 'cause that's how I felt. Now I listen to feel that way again."

Enjoy!

**********

The first song to pop up after I was sitting on the couch was Garth Brooks' "Much too Young (To Feel this Damned Old)". I hadn't heard the old bull riders' anthem in years and Garth is perfect sing-along music. He catches things in simple phrases that people like me need 10 pages to capture. "A worn out tape of Chris LeDieux/Lonely women and bad booze/Seem to be the only friends I've left at all". And I'm sure all of us have felt "much too young (to feel this damned old)". I know I have....

La voz sin par de Natalia Jiménez da embustible al segundo disco de La Quinta Estación, cuya mejor canción es "Cartas". "Tal vez sea tarde para comprender/Que soy cómo soy y el mundo es cómo es". Este disco me lo prestó una de mis mejores amigas, Julie West, y me ayudó a sobrevivir un par de duros años escolares....

When we were young, my siblings and I would sleep on the floor on hot nights with an open south window. My brother went through a phase where he listened to a dubbed copy of Kiss: Smashes, Thrashes and Hits, and each night he would insist that "Beth" was the prettiest song ever made. Good thing he found a woman named Carla Beth! "Beth I know you're lonely/And I hope you'll be alright/'Cause me and the boys will be playing/All night"....

I discovered the song "Question" by the Old 97's quite by accident when, on a lark, I checked out the Scrubs Soundtrack from the Iowa City Public Library. It is just the sweetest song ever: "Someday somebody's gonna ask you/A question that you should say yes to/Once in your life/Maybe tonight, I've got a question for you"....

"All I Want" by Toad the Wet Sprocket came out in the early 90's, before I was mature enough to get them, but their music got me through the second half of college. I even used this song when I was teaching adults English and they loved it! "Nothing so cold/As closing the heart when all we need is to free the soul/But we wouldn't be that brave I know"....

Una de las bandas que me encontré en búsqueda recién de música nueva resultó ser media vieja, pero ya no concibo la vida sin Café Tacvba. Se segundo disco Re de 1994 es considerado por muchas personas el mejor disco de rock jamás hecho, pero no es rock, en realidad: no es nada en específico, es pura música buena: véase "El baile y el salón",  una canción funk sobre un amor entre dos hombres, antes de que fuera "woke" cantar de esas cosas: "Y así bailando quiero/Que me hagas el amor/De hombre a hombre/Voleuz-vous coucher avec moi?", ....

My roommates at 520 S. Johnson Street sophomore year of college can testify that I listened WAY too much to Third Eye Blind's eponymous debut album, but there was, and is, something about the last track on that disc, "God of Wine", that always haunts me: "And there's memory of a window, looking through I see you/Searching for something I could never give you/There's someone who understands you more than I do/A sadness I can't erase, all alone on your face"....

The Counting Crows' August and Everything After was by far the most important album of my high school years; "Raining in Baltimore" is not the best song on that disc, but it certainly captures the melancholy of middle adolescence. "And I get no answers/And I don't get no change/It's raining in Baltimore, baby/But everything else is the same"....

El guatemalteco Ricardo Arjona ha hecho 15 álbumes de estudio; 14 fueron completamente mediocres, pero Si el norte fuera el sur de 1996 se ganó una rotación permanente en el bar Alfredos en la esquina de la Avenida 4 y la Calle 19 en el centro de Mérida hasta, al menos, el verano de 2002. Pista número 8 era "Duerme": "Y tú  que aún no entiendes que te amo/Porque no entiendes el lenguaje de mis manos/Mañana al despertar yo te diré/Lo que por este tiempo me callé"....

Al final de la película mexicana tremenda Y tu mamá también de 2001, Lucía va a una rockola y pone B-14. Resulta ser "Si no te hubieras ido" por Marco Antonio Solís, pero yo prefiero la versión de Maná. No te diré más; ¡ve a ver la película!: "Te extraño más que nunca y no sé que hacer/Despierto y te recuerdo al amanecer/Me espera otro día por vivir sin ti/El espejo no miento, me veo tan diferente/Me haces falta tú"....

Shakira Membarak, o simplemente Shakira, siempre tendrá un lugar especial en mi corazón; su disco ¿Dónde están los ladrones de 1998 fue el primer álbum que tuve en castellano, pero esta canción, "Lo que más", vino posteriormente en su carrera. Sencilla, dulce y triste: "Sabe Dios/cómo me cuesta dejarte/Y te miro mientras duermes, más no voy despertarte/Es que hoy, se me agotó la esperanza"....

Another 90's (actually 1989, but things came late to Sheldon) tune that happily made it into my English class for adults was Don Henley's "The Heart of the Matter". Long before I realized he was the voice of the Eagles, these lyrics charmed me: "The trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness/They're the very things we kill, I guess"....

Ni me acuerdo cómo me supe de la música de Soraya Lamilla, pero a través del tiempo, de poco en poco, fui desarrollando una fuerte conexión con la vulnerabilidad oída en su voz. Lamentablemente nos dejó Soraya en 2006 debido al cáncer de mama, pero antes nos dejó varias joyas, entre ellas "Lejos de aquí": "Y le pregunto cuándo y cómo la perdí/Le pregunto si algún día, yo seré lo que fui"....

Fleetwod Mac originally recorded the song "Landslide" in 1975. Twenty-seven years later, the Dixie Chicks did a cover, and no one sings quite like Natalie Maines: "But time makes bolder/Children get older/I'm getting older, too". I mean, c'mon. That's not fair....

Pearl Jam helped defined 1990's music, particularly in the first half of that decade. They came seemingly out of nowhere and suddenly were everywhere. Rock music wasn't happy anymore, and no song illustrates that like "Indifference" from 1993's sophomore effort, Versus. Eddie's voice starts very soft and slowly rises, until he cries at us: "I'll swallow poison until I grow immune/I will scream my lungs out 'till it fills this room/How much difference does it make?"....

Another gem, this one not so hidden, from that Scrubs soundtrack was The Fray's 2005 "How to Save a Life". This song was one of the very few that made it through the fog of my kids' early childhood years to make an impact on me; it was a 90's song after the 90's: "Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend/Somewhere along in the bitterness, and/I'd've stayed up with you all night/Had I known how to save a life"....

I try so hard not to like the movie Grease. It has everything I propose to dislike: unrealistic stereotypes of high school, smooth, cheesy lyrics, and men who dance for cameras. But when Sandy (Olivia Newton-John) kneels down outside her friend's house and sings "Hopelessly Devoted to You" for Danny (John Travolta), well than, what can a man do but give in? "But now, there's nowhere to hide/Since you pushed my love aside/I'm out of my head/Hopelessly devoted to you"....

Ya les hablé de Ricardo Arjona, pero pues, una vez no basta, pues debido a él yo, de cierta forma, puedo ecribir esto mero en castellano. La primera vez que hice karaoke en español, fue con la canción "¿Te acuerdas de mí (Carta #2)", la supe así de bien. Aun ahora, la canto como si yo mismo la hubiera escrito: "Soy el mismo de ayer/aunque ya no respondo como antes me tendrías que ver/cuando ya nos emcumbra el deseo/Y entre charlas de Borges y de García Márquez/Busco el mejor momento"....

Inside every good boy who grew up in Iowa in the 1980's, there is secluded a weakness for hair bands. It was all we had, okay? Warrant was the hairiest of hair bands, but they made a song in "Sad Theresa" that belies a talent behind the hair spray. It is just such a sweet song: "I've always wanted to sing/And I've always wanted to be/Somebody's idol or somebody's daydream/Maybe their fantasy"....

Another artist will be mentioned a second time here, and that honor goes to Toad the Wet Sprocket. Before them, I wasn't sure you could package my spiritual beliefs into music. I've already told Sonia that "Windmills" is to be played at my funeral: "Well there's something that you won't show/Waiting where the light goes/And maybe anywhere the wind blows/It's all worth waiting for"....

Good friend/Pizza Ranch coworker Lindsey Hirth (née Byers) was always raving about some lady singer named Natalie Merchant. Wouldn't stop. And I'm glad she didn't, because otherwise I would have never listened to "The Letter", and I wouldn't have ever heard this masterpiece of unrequited love: "And if I ever write this letter/The truth it would reveal/Knowing you had brought me pleasure/And how I often treasure/The moments that we knew/The precious, the few"....

In a darkened high school commons, winter of 1995-96, worst winter of my life, I danced very close to a girl I'd known less than 24 hours, and "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls surrounded us. "We grew up way too fast/Now there's nothing to believe/And reruns all become our history/A tired song keeps playing on a tired radio/And I won't tell no one your name". It was the moment I realized that a girl could be just as vulnerable as a boy. I was shocked.

The Coronavirus and the Pachakuti

March 23, 2020

It was just ten days ago. Ten days ago, I spent the day teaching, or "teaching", as many days before extended breaks seem to go. As I dismissed each class that day, I was at least cognizant enough to say, "Have a great Spring Break, and IF I see you in ten days, we'll do...(insert teacher speech here)."

That was another world: a world in which person-to-person contact was not only preferred, but often mandated; a world in which, at least here in the hinterlands of Iowa, we could imagine this virus being sort of an H1N1 type of thing, something we got our shorts in a bunch about but was kind of just a blip on the radar; a world in which a Dow Jones below 20,000 was highly improbable; a world in which, even if we got super bored (which generally didn't happen because there was so much going on), we could rely on live sports and arts to distract us.

10 days, and the world turned upside down.

***********

In the highlands of Peru and Bolivia, there is a word that exists both in Quechua and Aymara, the two most prominent languages of the Incan empire, that denotes a huge shake-up in the grand scheme of things, where those who were ruled become the rulers and vice versa, a world turned upside-down: Pachakuti.  They use the word mainly to describe two historical instances: when the Incas established their Andean empire and dominion over the smaller, weaker tribes; and when the Spaniards arrived and brought with them a new language, a new religion, and an unhealthy obsession with the silver mines up in Potosí. According to some, a Pachakuti arrives every few hundred years; for the indigenous of Peru and, in particular, Bolivia, some of the poorest people in the world, the Pachakuti can't come soon enough.

Of course, the word Pachakuti is not only used in these two literal instances; it is an idea, a philosophy, a descriptor for phenomena out of their control and beyond their comprehension, a way to make sense of being oppressed for centuries and a hope that one day it might not be like that. It's really not such a foreign idea. "The meek shall inherit the Earth," Jesus said, and some of his his most fervent followers believed that indeed, Jesus would bring about the end of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the imperial materialism of the Romans. For them, for some even today, Jesus would bring justice and peace to temporal affairs. Jesus would bring the Pachakuti.

**********

It is an interesting intellectual exercise to think about how the current Coronavirus crisis might reflect a Pachakuti. How often do we hear, or say: "This is unprecedented"; "We have never dealt with something like this"; "This will reorder the economy in ways we've never seen before". On a more banal level, as many sports fans have noted, Major League Baseball was played through two World Wars but has been ground to a halt by a microscopic ne'er-do-well.

Interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying and unsustainable. Just like Jesus' message of peace and equality was swallowed up and appropriated to serve the needs of the Roman Empire--just like many Christians today see their wealth as a sign of the Messiah's approval rather than the fruits of an unjust economic system-- certain members of the United States Senate are working hard, as I write this, to make sure those who already have so much--those whose lives will be least affected by this virus, who have more than enough to weather the storm--receive as much (or possibly more) help as the rest of us.

I shouldn't even start, because I won't stop. Okay, one example: the Big Four airlines spent 42.5 billion dollars the last five years on stock buybacks, dramatically increasing the wealth of the their shareholders. The didn't seem to sense the need for a rainy day fund in a cyclical industry. Now they want $50 billion dollars from the federal government, and Senate Republicans are ready to hand it to them, no strings attached, all the while squabbling over whether to grant ordinary workers 4 months of unemployment instead of 3, and criticizing them for not having savings from their $11 an hour job. In other words, our leaders are going to make sure the Big Four airlines, etc., will not end up on the bottom of any potential pachakuti.

Okay, I promised, just one. But you get the idea.

***********

Moreover, the entire concept of even entertaining the idea that the current times in Iowa reflect a Pachakuti speaks at once, and only to, a privileged class of people like myself who've scarcely faced adversity, particularly middle-class people in North America and Western Europe. Disaster--natural or manmade--does not equal Pachatuki, simply because it's generally the world's most vulnerable who bear the brunt of it.

Just in my kids' lifetime--the oldest will be 14 next month--let's take a global overview: in 2006, a tsunami caused by an earthquake ravaged the Indonesian island of Java; In 2010, a powerful earthquake rocked Haiti, the only place in the Western Hemisphere poorer than Bolivia; In 2011, another earthquake roiled Japan and precipitated nuclear radiation; that same year, rebel militias started to fight back against Bashar al-Assad in Syria, precipitating a refugee crisis that continues to roil the world; in 2014, Russian invaded Crimea and the Eastern Ukraine, while a plunge in oil prices coupled with economic mismanagement and American sanctions provoked a series of crises in Venezuela that led to a refugee crisis rivaling that of Syria; in 2019, the Amazon and Australia literally burned; and all the while, the countries in the so-called Northern Triangle--Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador--continue to experience homicide rates higher than Iraq or even Syria, while the drug cartels in Mexico do their best to match them.

But yeah, I have to stay in my house for a few weeks. Vaya Pachakuti....

**********

I first learned the world Pachakuti from a book I read with my eighth graders, La tierra de las papas (The Land of the Potatoes). The story is told by María, a middle-class girl from Madrid who has to move to La Paz, Bolivia, with her dad. María could easily be my son in female, and I could be her father: white, liberal, well-educated, well-meaning. One day, as he explains the concept of Pachakuti to María, the dad ponders what would happen after the Pachakuti. At first, he talks optimistically about a reversion back to old customs and enough food for everyone, but then he grows increasingly cynical (paraphrased and translated by me):

       Father paused, and said,"Oh, who am I kidding? If the indigenous suddenly ruled society, they wouldn't do any of that. They'd join country clubs and drink whiskey and buy Mercedes and dye their hair blond."
        Just then, a blob of jelly landed on his shirt. He said "Shit" and went to clean it up. I still don't know if he said "Shit" because of the jelly or because the indigenous wouldn't do the Pakachuti right.

Yeah, that guy could definitely be me.


Stay safe and stay in touch,

Mark

The Hermitage, the Deer and the Chakras: What the hell is a Chakra, anyway?

MY FIRST NIGHT AT THE HERMITAGE, I did not do too much. My only goals were to get an entry into my journal to mark the first day of 2020, and settle into my new surroundings. As soon as Sonia left, I accomplished the former, and then unpacked my food, accomplishing the latter. Then I turned on the oven to prepare one my frozen meals. After eating, I showered and then relaxed into the recliner with a John Sandford novel. Around 10:00, I felt tired and went to bed.

*********

I WOKE UP EARLY the next morning. It was still dark but my body was wide awake and so I got up and made coffee. I then sat on a bench seat at the window to watch the sun come up.  After the sky was fully bright, I did some reading and praying and journaling, and then I got dressed. I had an appointment at 9:00 with Ann Jackson at the guest house. 

At times it was hard to remember Ann Jackson was a nun. She didn't wear a habit; she was dressed in jeans and running shoes. She was incredibly worldly and didn't seem to mind when I threw the words "fuck" and "shit" into our conversation. Hell, I think she might have repeated them.

"What brings you here, Mark?" she asked.

How could I explain all the crazy shit that brought me here? I had two choices: underexplain, or overexplain. Something about Ann Jackson made me do the latter. I spewed words; as Lindsey Lohan's character says in Mean Girls, I had word vomit. I talked and talked, and I recall jumping from one thing to another, as if the death of my mother when I was 18 were somehow connected to my semi-spiritual relationship with the game of baseball. Ten or fifteen minutes I must have talked. Ann Jackson listened.

"It is clear," she said during a break, "that you put a lot of thought into things. Do you think sometimes you overthink things?"

"Absolutely," I said. "That is a huge flaw of mine."

"Try not to use the word 'flaw'. Try to think of it as a characteristic--neither good nor bad. Neutral. Now," she continued, "without thinking too much, what do you want when you leave here?"

"For shit to get back to normal. To stop worrying so goddamn much. To enjoy being alive again and not feel guilty about it."

"Have you felt that way before?"

"Absolutely," I said. "Sometimes, you know, life just feels like everything's clicking. And I know it can't be that way all the time, but right now, it just feels like I am constantly pushing uphill, and if take a break and fall asleep, which is all I want to do, I wake up at the bottom of the hill again."

"When you feel good--what's that like? Tell me about it."

"Well...I don't know. Like, I smile. And I'm funny. And I don't worry about every little thing I do. And I don't judge other people, or myself. I just roll with it."

"Try to define wellness," she said, "in positive terms. You keep saying what you don't have when you're well. Tell me about what you do have."

"Well...I don't know. I mean, I guess I laugh. I joke. I watch sports."

Ann Jackson listened. "Have you ever felt," she said, "when you're feeling this way--feeling good--that you have an energy, and that that energy could radiate around an entire football field?"

I thought about that. "Yes," I said. "That's exactly right. It's a connection between myself and the world and other people."

"Is that energy less right right now?"

Again, I thought. "Yes. To use your football field analogy, it's going only, like, three yards away from me right now."

Ann Jackson stood up. "I'm going to give you a book. If you want to take a look at it while you're here, or even take it with you, great. If it's not your thing, no worries." She handed me the book. "This book talks about your seven chakras. It's an ancient Eastern term used to describe the seven energy centers of the body. Many people have found that by exercising and becoming aware of their chakras, they are able to improve the energy levels within and around them."

It was becoming clearer and clearer that Ann Jackson was no dogmatic Catholic nun.

"Some would say," she smiled as if reading my thoughts, "that this kind of stuff is heretical, or blasphemous, or just plain loony tunes. But you know, to each their own. I, myself, have found great comfort in it."

We continued to talk. At the conclusion of our time, we arranged to meet on Saturday morning before I left, and then she asked me two questions:

"Can I give you a hug?"

"Of course," I said, and we embraced for five or ten seconds. As we separated, she asked:

"Can I pray for you?"

"Of course," I said. "I kinda need all the help I can get right now."

"Mark," she said. "I can feel your energy. You are hurting, yes; but you are stronger than you know. God has great things in store for you."

I smiled. "Thank you," I said.

**********

I HAD A BEATIFUL DAY, eating, resting, walking the grounds, walking the Labyrinth while some deer watched me, viewing the sun set. It was nice weather for January 2. After the sun set, I ate and showered, and then sat down in the recliner with Ann Jackson's book.

It was written by some British psychiatrist in the 1980's, who said she had "finally broken free from the artificial barriers between Western and spiritual medicine", and now felt free "helping patients with what I had known as a little girl--that I had a special energy, and if I had I had it, everyone had it." The chakras were "the seven energy centers of our body--the Root, Sacral, Solar Plexus, Heart, Throat, Third Eye, and Crown." Each chakra was influential in certain areas of your life--for example, the Sacral Chakra was decisive in your sexual well-being. "For each chakra," the author wrote, "I have included exercises and meditations to develop yourself."

A quick glance at the end of each chapter showed me that each meditation took a minimum of  one hour, and that furthermore, you would need a certain "colored stone" and a "bowl of purified water" for each one.

"Typical hippie ass mumbo jumbo," I thought. Who, in the real world, can set aside an hour several times a week to play around with some stones and chant about their chakra?

I really liked Ann Jackson, and I really respected her. I didn't think any less of her after looking at this book. But she was right: it wasn't everybody's cup of tea. It certainly wasn't mine.

I threw the chakra book back on the table and picked up the Sandford novel. Despite having woken early, I wasn't tired. The book was good and I read and read, purposely ignoring the clock. I didn't think about the chakras anymore, either.

Weeding the Garden

"Every now and then I pause to take a good look at my progress. More and more of my garden is weeded each time I look, but each time I also find new weeds sprouting where I thought I had made my final pass with the blade."

Daily Reflections


WHAT ARE THE WEEDS of my life? When I look back at my garden, what am I seeing?

     *Worries of financial insecurity
     *Judgement of and irritation with those around me
     *Concern over faraway political contests
     *Self-criticism and self-judgment
     *An attitude of "I know best"

Those last two would seem to be incompatible, but as a friend of mine once put it, "I'm an egomaniac with an inferiority complex."  I don't know how much of the population that describes (more than a few, I suspect), but I know it applies to me. The solution suggested is to weed the garden, with God as my scythe.

The Craziest 72 Hours of my Life - Interlude

Alarm at Hotel Suecia 2
Miracles
Aguas Calientes
Machu Picchu
Back to Cusco
Strangers on a Train
Cusqueñas y cusqueñas

Marco, not Mark

Once I passed midnight, I was ready to go home; however, my new friends weren't hearing of it, and kept plying me with Cusqueña and rum and cokes. It is amazing how long one can subsist on that diet. Finally, at 4:00, after the last bar closed, the entire group that was still out--Yésica, Ana, Javier, and a couple other friends--walked me back to Suecia, to make sure I made it in okay.

Somehow, I found the strength to kick my shoes off. I dropped a sleeping pill in my mouth and closed my eyes. In the short time before I fell asleep, I reviewed the past 22 hours: Roy, Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu, Jamie, Peliculas, Rosa, Yésica, Ana, Javier, "Losing My Religion". 

"Someday," I thought, "someday I've got to write this down. It'll make one hell of a story."

Then again, I thought as I dropped off, I'm not sure it's all believable. I'm not sure I believe it all myself. 

*********

My shitty little rental phone started beeping at 9:00 in the morning on July 29, 2007, and I forced my eyes open.  I squinted at Cody and Adam's beds. Empty. They were probably already in Lima.

 It wasn't possible. I wouldn't make it.

It wasn't a hangover I had--whatever I had drank, I had danced out. It was a sinister cabal of exhaustion, dehydration and latent culture shock, mixed with Cusqueña, mineral water and the echo of shitty dance music.

But I had to pack. I had to shower. I had to eat. I had a bus to catch. 

I forced myself out of bed and started looking for my shower stuff. Lima, here we fucking come.

**********

Taking a shower was an adventure at Hotel Suecia 2. You had to walk all the way to the top floor and around, and then undress inside the tiny shower room. The hot water consisted of an electric heater that boiled just a tiny bit of water and rest was cold, so if you wanted warm water you had to content yourself with just the lightest drip of water. Essentially, this consisted in scalding about a square inch of your body at a time while the rest of your skin froze. You also had to be careful not to touch above the tap, or you'd get a little shock.

My shower completed, I began to pick up our room. What a fucking mess. Two empty bottles of rum, one of whisky, and countless bottles of Cusqeña and mineral water. Three guys, eight nights--what the hell else could I expect? I got some trash bags from the front desk and dumped everything in. 

Most of my clothes were clean--we had visited the laundromat across the street two days before. I shoved them into my hiking backpack and left the dirty stuff on top. 

I walked just far enough away from the Plaza de Armas for the prices to go down, where I paid four dollars for rice, steak, onions, peppers, fries (lomo saltado) and a Coca-cola. It was heavy food for so early in the day, but I knew I had a long trip ahead of me. 

When I got back to Suecia it was going on noon. I was glad I'd finished everything because between my exhaustion and the heavy food my body and mind briefly went out. I was afraid I was going to faint. I had to lay down.

Again, I began to fear I wouldn't make it out of the hotel and down to the bus station. But after 45 minutes or so, probably with the help of adrenaline, I got out of bed and walked up to the front desk to pay our bill. Eight nights cost us 650 soles--about $70 each. 

"You have a great little place here," I told the grandmotherly lady who ran the place. "Hopefully I'll get back here someday."

"Oh, you will, young man," she said. It was not a question.

It was time. With my big hiking bag on my back, and my smaller one in my hand, I took one more look around what had been home for the last week. 

"Thank you, Hotel Suecia 2," I murmured. 

Out in the bright Cusqueño sunshine, I trudged down to the Plaza de Armas and got a cab to the Cusco headquarters of Líneas del Sur, the bus company that would take me to Lima. It was quite a ways away, in a part of the city I had not been in, a more modern, grimy part of the city. 

Despite my ill physical situation, I had managed to arrive early. I sat down on an uncomfortable bench, where not far away a couple was making out vigorously, as apparently they would be separating for a few days. People always seemed to be making out vigorously in public in Latin America. I suppose it's because they all live with their parents so they can't go anywhere private. 

I sighed and closed my eyes. I tried to remember the whole week, but I was too tired. Instead, I kept replaying in my head the doorway of our hotel room as I had left an hour ago. 

"Thank you, Hotel Suecia 2," I had said. But as I sat there on that bench, bone-tired, the couple loving each other to my right, I realized I had been thanking much more than Hotel Suecia 2. I had been thanking Cuzco and everything that happened there for seven days. And in a very real way, I was thanking my Higher Power that had made it all possible.

Southern Iowa - Part 2

Read Part 1 here.

I DID NOT GROW UP IN Southern Iowa. A year after I was born in the hospital in Sigourney, Iowa, my dad got a job in what was then called Northwest Iowa Technical College, just outside of Sheldon, Iowa. My parents bought a big old white house just across from the City Park. From what I understand, the move was not permanent in their minds, but life does what it does, and 42 years later my dad still lives in Sheldon, albeit in a smaller house.

Sheldon is not Southern Iowa; it is the full embodiment of Northwest Iowa, a different beast entirely. But I sort of consider myself an honorary Southern Iowan: At least 4-5 times a year, Mom and Dad would throw the four of us in the back of the family station wagon, a bright green 1977 Plymouth Volare, strap suitcases to the top Clark Griswold-style, and haul us all down to spend time with family in Southern Iowa.

We'd go visit my dad's mom, Helen, who lived in another small Southern Iowa town, Lovilia. Compared to Clarkdale, Lovilia was a metropolis, home to six or seven hundred people, with a Casey's and even a school. My Aunt Elaine was in the last senior graduating class of Lovilia High School, in 1962; my dad went through eighth grade and rode the bus to Albia, a bigger town nine miles south, and 30 miles north of Centerville, for high school. When I was a boy, the school served kids only through 4th grade; now, no one goes to school there, and a self-proclaimed musician who says he's related to me lives there.

Like Clarkdale, Lovilia's boom times were when the coal mines were in full swing in the early 20th century. My dad's ancestors came not to mine, however, but as part of the Homestead Act of the 1860's, whereby the United States Federal Government doled out 160-acre portions of land to families willing to work the land for five years. Eager to escape distrust and outright bigotry towards the Irish back East, my dad's descendants took the plunge. Although my dad grew up a "town kid", many of his aunts and uncles were still farming in the 1950's and 60's when he was growing up, and he learned the farming work ethic.

My dad, Ron, son of Helen and Orvil, who died in 1956 from a heart complication due to a childhood infection, had met my mom, Connie, daughter of Mike and Maxine, at a dance in downtown Centerville when my mom was a high school junior and my dad was studying at the local community college. Three years later, they married. My dad had been drafted and decided to join the Air Force for a four year tour, the first two of which they spent in what was then West Germany, and the latter two in South Carolina. Having served his time, my dad got a teaching job in New Sharon, Iowa; four years later came the move to Sheldon.

Our six-hour drive forays into Southern Iowa were frequent and varied; sometimes we'd stay just 36 hours or so, for some occasion; sometimes, in the summer, my brother and I would be there for ten days, staying with my grandma and aunts and uncles. Mainly we'd stay in Lovilia, but sometimes we'd stay in Ankeny with my Aunt Elaine. My mom's ten siblings were quite literally spread out over the whole country: Nebraska, Michigan, North Carolina, Indiana--and we rarely saw them. Two of them, however, had stayed in Centerville, Maxine's two oldest kids from her first marriage. We'd stop over and see Uncle Wesley and play our cousin Kirk's Atari and play ping pong; but when we went to Centerville, we always stayed at my Aunt Loretta's house a block off Highway 2.

And then, sometimes, we'd even go to Mystic.

This is why we study Rome

We got these new social studies textbooks this year, so I let the students pick out some things they would be interested in learning about.  One of them was the Roman Empire, which was cool with me, 'cause I don't know much about ancient Rome, either. I was dissatisfied with the details the book provided, however, so I decided to show a couple videos to supplement the material. When we were watching this video, on the downfall of Rome, a part of it really struck me. I will write it down verbatim here:


Political power was concentrated in too few hands...the wealthy were forgetting the old democratic ideals: balancing the power of rulers with needs of ordinary citizens....Rome had turned its back on the common man....The ancestors of Roman peasants like Gaius led humble but dignified lives as small farmers....But slave-owning aristocrats had commandeered their land and evicted them....Destitute families flooded into the city, swelling the ranks of sweatshop workers and the urban poor....Gaius grew up in Rome doing menial jobs and a lot of drinking....Like millions of poor Romans, he lived on welfare handouts of grain, and mindless distraction--lots of it....

"The proletariat are lazy, idle, and devote their whole life to drink, gambling, brothels, shows and chariot races. Their temple, their dwelling, their meeting place--in fact, the center of all their desires--is the circus maximus. They talk about nothing else."  --Ammianus

By the 3rd century A.D. the number of days devoted to games had risen from a handful to a staggering 170 each year....Intent on distracting themselves, most Romans didn't notice the social fabric of the empire shredding all around them....Rome's sense of community had disappeared....The elite were increasingly isolated from the poor....

"They are greedy. Their language is foul and senseless. The manners of the poor have decayed completely. They are quarrelsome, and make disgusting noises by snorting loudly through their noses." Ammianus

Upper-class Romans could ill afford their disdain....Gaius would die in squalor and oblivion; but his children and grandchildren would never forget how Rome had shut them out....

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

And I thought, "Huh."