All in Personal essay
by Jenny McBain
Perhaps my nine-year-old son has the makings of a therapist. A Scottish friend was hosting us in his deluxe apartment in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile the ancient street which wends its way from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace. In addition to owning a number of desirable properties, my friend is in possession of a title and sports a "Sir" in front of his name; but wealth did not buy him happiness feeling distinctly discontent when he sought my son’s council.
by Jules Older
Inspired by the new California Academy of Sciences exhibit, EARTHQUAKE, we decided to check our earthquake kit.
Yes, we have one. We’re prudent Bay Area citizens, and like most Bay Area citizens, prudent and otherwise, we live on a fault line.
The Big One is coming and coming soon—more on that, below—so get your earthquake kit in order. We did.
But it had been how long since we put that kit together? Five years? No, more like eight. Maybe we ought to check it.
Maybe you should check yours. Ours came as something of a surprise.
Eight years ago, we’d bought a large plastic bin that just fit the living room closet. In it, along with a few other items, we neatly packed canned beans and pesto, a can opener and plastic forks, crank-operated flashlight and radio, wipes and toilet paper, canned fruit and toothbrushes, candles and matches, disinfectant and Band-Aids, and, for reasons that now escape us, exactly forty-seven dollars.
Sealed it up and stuck it in a cool, dry place next to the ski jackets. Should last forever. We’re earthquake-ready—rock on.
Funny how fast eight years roll by. Until the Academy exhibit, we forgot all about our kit in a closet. Never opened it once.
Then, we did. Eight years later, it had shrunk… and grown.
by Barbara Benjamin
People travel for many reasons: to get away from the routines of daily life; to face a new challenge, to see new sights, or just to kick back and relax. I travel to experience new cultures, to come away knowing what it is like, day by day, to live in a place I’ve never lived in before. So, when I travel, I always travel on the side roads. Rather than booking accommodations at a travel agent’s favorite resort or hotel, I often land in another country I’m visiting without reservations, and, speaking to the airport cab driver or questioning some locals I meet on the road, I find out where I can rent a house. Occasionally, I am able to find a house far away from the tourist areas that is advertised in my hometown newspaper or on the Internet, and I can book in advance.
by Cinelle Ariola Barnes
My husband always tells me that I am strong. Apparently, it is partly why he married me. He thinks that there is an unwavering soundness to my soul, and he reminds me of that each day – on both calm and stormy ones. Sometimes I challenge him, dare him, to put his finger on that which makes me so. And every time, he says, “I can't quite pin-point it, but it is there. It's just something and it is there.”
I never understood. For the six years we've known each other, I've staunchly refused to see the opposite of my frailty.
On a warm July day this past summer, my back tanned in the Carolina sun and my legs lay comfortably on salt-and-pepper sand. My toes just touched the hem of the sea; it was warm, like bath water. In my hand was an Anne Lammott book. I had no real intentions of reading it. I sat, feeling blessed by the chance to read. My husband built a sandcastle for our daughter, but she didn't care because she was only eight months old. Instead, she raked the sand with her dainty fingers and ate it. Every twenty minutes or so, my husband checked back in with me, for a drink fresh from our monogrammed cooler, or a reapplication of sunscreen.
This was normal protocol for family day in Sullivan's Island. This is what we do there – on Saturdays, Sundays, Church days, lazy Tuesdays and on days when friends or family visit. It is our lather-rinse-repeat. Our very own ritual, the one that never gets old. It is our stay-cation itinerary, the one that allows us to vacate our life while still playing in our own backyard. We go there often, no matter the weather. This casual, unhurried beach captivates us. It is no tropical paradise but, to borrow my husband's words, there is something there. Strength, I think, is what he calls it.
by Elyn Aviva
The news rippled through our group like a breeze through a wheat field: a crop circle had just been spotted! According to a crop circle blog, it had appeared only two days earlier, on the side of Windmill Hill, close to Avebury, in southern England. We were told it was still fresh and relatively untrammeled. Even better news was that we were nearby, since our group was visiting sacred sites in the area—including Stonehenge, Glastonbury, and Avebury, site of the largest stone circle in the UK.
Crop formations usually occur in fields of ripe cereal grains. They appear all over the world but are most prevalent during July and August in the Wiltshire district of southern England. The complex patterns range in size from just a few feet across to over 900 feet, although the average is about 200-300 feet in diameter, and they vary in elements from a few to over 400. The designs may be circular (hence “crop circle”) or based on other geometrical forms (hence “crop formation”).
by B.J. Stolbov
Ferdinand Marcos died in 1989, except in Batac. Here, in this small town, in his home province of Ilocos Norte in the Philippines, the memory (and more) of former President Ferdinand Marcos is preserved. His house is preserved, just as he left it. Next door to it, now, is the Ferdinand Marcos Museum, where his portraits, photographs, press clippings, clothes, shoes, furniture, and other memorabilia are preserved. And down a hallway, behind a locked door, opened only by a uniformed guard, in a starkly painted black room, coldly refrigerated, with a single spotlight shining down on a glass coffin, most creepily, is preserved ― Ferdinand Marcos.
Ferdinand Marcos, the son of a local politician, was born on September 11, 1917. From early on, he was a brilliant student, public speaker, handsome, charismatic, controversial, and larger than life. He scored a near perfect grade in his Law Board Examinations while in prison on charges of assassinating one of his father’s political rivals. He argued his own case before the Supreme Court and had himself acquitted, on a technicality. He was, by his own accounts, the leader of a guerilla group that fought the Japanese in World War II, maybe. (More on that later.)
Always a man in a hurry, he met, courted, and married, in eleven days, Imelda Romualdez, a tall beauty, 13 years younger than he, from a powerful political family. A successful lawyer, rich from his law practice and other unknown sources, Marcos was the youngest elected Representative in 1949, the youngest elected Senator in 1959, and the youngest elected President in 1965, and, in 1969, became the first President to be re-elected.
by Maureen Elizabeth Magee
“No, Dad. I won’t do anything foolish. Yes, I will be sensible.”
My last conversation before leaving Canada.
I sank into the airplane seat with relief. The decision had been made, fears conquered, and all the loose ends of planning a solo traipse around the world were tied up. I was a sensible woman; middle-aged, newly divorced and quite practical. Although some argued that quitting a management job to travel for a year was not practical. And others added that selling my home in order to finance the trip did not fall into the category of judicious. And many, many people pointed out that attempting to give up my five-star princess habits to travel on a shoestring was just asking for trouble.
I buckled my seat belt. None of them could find me now. No more concerned pleas or pointed observations about my lack of travel experience. It was just me and this Air New Zealand jet - a magic carpet – about to rescue me. Rescue me from . . . from what? Just what did I need rescuing from? A normal life? A practical life? A sensible life. A ‘follow-the-rules’ life that had recently let me down.
A low rumble of power hummed through the plane and the flight attendant began to make her announcement, pulling me away from the past. The past didn’t matter anymore. The reasons for my break-away trip didn’t matter. Only the accelerating whine of the engines mattered. It was all out of my control right now. I was tethered to nothing and that was a surprisingly comforting thought.
by Connie Hand
The sun was bright under a clear azure sky. The birds were merrily singing on that beautiful Summer morning. As I stood by the country road and stared at the house in front of me, my heart was pounding. I was in Nariz, Portugal standing in front of a house that was typical of the area. But this house was special to me because it was the one in which my father was born. Immediately I thought of the stories he used to tell about his childhood in Portugal and his journey to America.
I always loved to hear about far away places and thought that one day I would travel to Portugal to visit those little towns and big cities that Dad talked about in such a vivid way.
The story of my father, Augusto Silva began on June 8, 1911 in Nariz in the district of Aveiro. He was the second of five children born to Maria and Luis Silva, and it was not an easy life. The family farmed their lands and tried to make ends meet. In 1927, Dad decided to emigrate to the United States, and it was a life-altering decision. He researched what was necessary for his journey. It must have been very hard on both of them when his widowed mother gave him her approval to leave. He told me he vowed to go back to visit this sweet woman, and he did keep that vow. He described that visit with tears in his eyes.
He traveled to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, and worked there for several months until he discovered that Portugal’s emigration quotas were filled for the next several years. He was advised to travel to France to take up residency in Paris. He told me that he worked in Paris doing odd jobs. I remember Dad telling me that Paris was a huge, beautiful city. He said he saw as many sights as he could, but he really couldn’t wait to get to America.
by Jules Older
I am not a vegetarian.
I say it with pride: I am not a vegetarian.
But I live with a vegetarian — well, a mostly vegetarian, and when the vegetarian’s daughters (and mine) come home, then we get into serious vegetarianism. Because I'm outnumbered, three to one.
Now, I have nothing — well, almost nothing — against vegetarianism. It’s true, I think the best diet is a richly diverse one. And it’s true that I think everything about us, from our taste buds to the shape of our teeth to our digestive systems, indicates that we are built for eating meat as well as tofu.
But at home, I'm more likely to get tofu.
That’s why it gave me such pleasure when the editor of Vermont Magazine called and said, “Jules, m’boy, we’d like you to get yourself down to Windsor. Write us a story on the New England BBQ Championships.”
And I was even happier when he added, “Oh, and bring the vegetarian photographer with you.”
Payback’s a brisket.
Paul, the young landscaper I had hired to redo my irrigation system asked, “Would you mind if we dug up a small area of the flagstones? It would make laying the new irrigation lines a lot easier.”
Martha Graham 1948 via Wikipedia Commons LicenseThe Martha Graham School of Dance was in an old mansion on East 63rd street between 2nd and 3rd avenues in New York City. Walking into the building was like entering the temple of a high priestess whose devotees all looked alike—the men, gorgeous, tall, well built, strutting around in tights so revealing I blushed each time I tried not to look. The women, tall, thin, yet muscular, their long dark hair pulled into buns or twists, not a hair daring to disturb the sleek coiffures.
by B.J. Stolbov
I don’t like jets. Yes, I know, they are the most convenient way to get somewhere far away quickly, but I still don’t like them. Jets are just tubes with seats. Soulless. They make me feel detached from the earth.
I don’t like taxis, either. I know that they get me quickly from place to place, mostly to or from airports. They are a necessary convenience. I often try to engage the taxi driver in conversation, but we both know that this is only a business transaction, and I know that the taxi driver’s job is to make the most money from an uninformed traveler. I find it unpleasant, and I’m glad to pay and get out of a taxi as quickly as possible.
I do like to travel slowly. I try to choose the slowest form of transportation available: be it car, bus, motor scooter, bicycle, boat, canoe, kayak, raft, horse, mule, elephant, or, my favorite, walking. I like to see the landscape; I like to see mountains and rivers, rocks and caves, trees and plants. It is the scenery moving by me slowly that soothes my soul.
Sure, I want to go somewhere, but the where is not really the point. A hotel room is just a bed with a roof (when you close your eyes, all hotel rooms look the same). A simple guesthouse with a friendly host is fine for me. A bed under the stars is better. When I want to see places, I want to see the roads, rivers, and paths that connect these places. The adventure is in the getting there.
For me, traveling is in the snap of a twig underfoot bringing me directly into the world around me, the creaking of a bicycle seat at the turn at the bottom of a hill, the rocking in the wind and waves of the small boat, the bumping and bouncing of a bus, the road and the trees and the fields rolling by, the houses with their doors open, and the people, especially the children, smiling and waving as I go by; they are all a part, the most important part, of my journey.
Seated at Boquete Garden Inn’s small bar in Panama, my wife Joyce, our friend Bill and I, struck up a conversation with Dennis, the owner of the inn. Dennis’s wavy blond hair, chiseled, stern and weathered face was tough and thoughtful, but young at the same time. I chalked him up to the middle-aged surfer type.
Having access to someone like Dennis, a veritable treasure trove of local information on tap, beats even the best tips that any Frommer’s or Lonely Planet guide has to offer. He rattled off a list of main attractions- the Café Ruiz coffee plantation, nature hikes, decent bars and the least touristy and most authentic restaurants in town.
Sensing my lackluster response, Dennis raised an eyebrow and leaned forward. “There is one other experience. If you go, watch it from a distance,” he warned.
In downtown Boquete, there is a bar that is frequented by the Ngobe Indians, native Panamanians that are non-Spanish speaking. The Ngobe are the primary labor force behind Boquete’s vibrant coffee plantation operations. After a hard day’s work picking coffee beans, they unwind at the bar with friends and family.
Ngobe Indian men have a unique form of conflict resolution. Whenever a serious dispute arises, the men engage in an one-on-one fist fight, usually on top of broken shards of glass bottles, in an alleyway leading to the bar. The last man standing is the winner with the conflict resolved in his favor.
Sometimes you should really just go with your gut instinct when you’re on the road. Such was the case when we motored up to a rural Indiana motel late last fall. Granted it was only 3:45 P.M. and check-in wasn’t until 4 :00, but since there were only six rooms I figured it really wouldn’t be a problem. Well, I figured wrong.
To be honest, just walking into the motel office gave me the creeps. It was small and dingy and covered in dust; but to be fair, everything in that part of the country was covered in dust. And then there was the manager, who at first wouldn’t take her eyes off the mini television in front of her, or even acknowledge that another person had entered the room. I cleared my throat a few times. No response. I made some noise and shuffled my feet a bit. Still no response. Finally, I awkwardly blurted out, Hello, I’m here to check-in. That at least elicited a stony cold look.
by Silvia Pe
We were all children once. Childhood is the time of dreams and fantasies, when our imagination craves great adventures. I wonder if there’s a child who has never dreamt of becoming the king of an enchanted, beautiful castle? It was my dream when I was six.
I grew up in Sardinia, listening to the legends of the proud guardians of the Sardinian coastline. My favourite locations were the coastal towers: They’re scattered along the edges of the whole island, from Cagliari to Alghero, from Oristano to Siniscola, placed to form a big protective circle. My Sardinian history teacher was my grandfather, an old fashioned sailor.
He was a charming middle-aged man. His broad shoulders and rather serious demeanor gave him an authoritarian look, but he had kind eyes. He loved to enchant me by gesturing with his knotty hands, telling me about the Sardinian silent watchers… Built to resist the pirate’s incursions, the towers were managed, equipped and defended by the Royal Tower Administration, a proto-agency based in Cagliari. A stone in Uras dating back to 1546 stands as a witness of one of the incursions by the infamous Red Beard, or Barbarossa as we call him (his real name being Khayr al-Din).
The towers were placed in a way that allowed the watchers to communicate using visuals and sounds, without leaving their stations… a little bit like when I was in front of my grandpa and my thoughts started running as if into a dream world.
It was a given that I would be the only male in the weekly belly dancing class that I took off and on for years. Being a gay man, you would think that I would be put off by the incredible lack of testosterone. It actually was a blessing because I didn’t have the distraction of watching gorgeous men moving their muscular bodies. Therefore, I paid closer attention to the instructor and learned how to do the many tribal movements with grace and ease. Who knew that eventually I would get the chance to wiggle my hips in a far away, exotic land.
“Promise you will stay one more year. We are so happy with how you relate to us. And you are happy, yes? You are getting fat.” Looking at Mama Ami, I know she is quite serious. How would she know that where I come from, being called fat isn’t exactly a compliment? My mind jumps full speed into a rapid analysis of how much I may have changed in the months since my arrival in Nigeria – a diet primarily of okra or bitter green soups with starchy porridges; the occasional dish with beans and crayfish but general deficiency of good protein; the dearth of fresh produce in our market, the lack of refrigeration and my waning interest in learning the labor intensive traditional methods of preparing their dishes – anything was possible. Snapping out of it, I let myself simply feel pleased that they are comfortable with my presence.
Truthfully, I wasn’t sure how comfortable I would be here – a country of over 200 different ethnic groups, a mixture of Muslims and Christians, an international image well ensconced in corruption and scams. But here I was, living in a small town, working for a local organization whose office was housed on the family compound. The business’ fish tanks and hatchery edged one side of a large dirt yard otherwise surrounded by the homes of the cousins, their families, and the elder mamas. Sitting on the porch with Mama Ami and her husband Joshua, I know she is right - I am happy. The contentment has been unfolding so slowly I barely noticed it; made up of hundreds of tiny milestones of recognition and inclusion.
Eyelids closed, I postpone viewing the new day. I linger in dreamtime until a familiar honking breaks the morning stillness in Benicia, California, a waterside community thirty miles north of San Francisco. The world outside my window rests under the great Pacific flyway, the north-south path of North American migratory birds.
Eyes wide open; I peer through the bedroom window in time to see Canada geese, a trio in flight, noisily bound elsewhere, calling to one another, beaks pointed, necks stretched; chests lifted upward, wings flapping hard. I track their flight over Southampton Bay, the cove on Benicia’s west end. The pale gray clouds of the marine layer blanket the opposite shore of the Carquinez Strait. This wide watery ribbon funnels fully half of California’s water drainage through a deep channel on its way to the Pacific Ocean.
Cuddling under a soft, embroidered, cotton quilt, while I marvel at the waterfowl, Franz Kafka’s translated words come to mind.
You do not need to leave your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked,
it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
The universe blesses Benicia with a significant year-round presence of waterfowl—mallards, coots, the great blue heron, and snowy egret. Spring brings an upswing in activity: nesting and the annual migration of some birds to points north.
Where can we find holiness?
Sometimes I feel like I am in a grand hide-and-seek game with the Creator. Just when I think I’ve found the deepest of the deep, He escapes me. Just when I’ve found the perfect light, the right sound, the special spot for a spiritual experience, a hiccup or sneeze ruins the instant.
Then again, moments in life occasionally arrange themselves to create spontaneous experiences that become life-long memories with deep teachings that touch the soul. They sneak up on you like the first warm smell of Spring that subtly tickles your nose. You have to stop to make sure they really happened. To miss these moments would be to miss the juiciest slices of life.
In 1994, I had just moved from Los Angeles to Scottsdale, Arizona. The Northridge earthquake shook up more than the foundations of my West L.A. town home. I was shaken to my very core. I wanted out. I had been blinded by too much show biz (I had been a writer on a hit show), too much disappointment (I was off the hit show and didn’t bag another staff position), and I was finally tiring of too much life in and out of the Hollywood fishbowl.
Thailand is renowned for having some of the world’s best prostitutes.
It also has some of the scariest.
My first order of business upon arriving in Bangkok was an early morning trek to the Damnernsaduak Floating Market, a 90 minute drive south of town in light traffic, and one of the most fascinating places I’ve ever been.
The Damnernsaduak Floating Market is a series of canals lined by rickety wooden stalls selling all manner of goods, from tacky tourist items to local art and sculptures. You can purchase exotic spices and oils, native clothing, a vast array of fresh fruits, and even play with snakes.
When you arrive at Damnernsaduak you hire one of the long-tailed wooden boats to guide you through the markets. A 2-hour tour is around 300 Bhat (about $9), and the boatman will just float along past shops til one peaks your interest and you ask him to pull up alongside. There are also numerous merchants in other boats selling fresh fruits, meats, or cool drinks. They’ll pull up beside your boat to pour you hot tea, show off their fruits, or describe (always in a language I don’t understand) what their meat on the stick is and why you must buy it.
In the middle of the market is a non-descript shack that at first glance appears to be selling nothing. There are a couple of guys lounging in chairs enjoying a smoke. Upon closer inspection you discover that the men are draped in huge snakes, and are all too eager to show them off to interested tourists.
I can’t resist bad decisions like this, so of course I stopped.
