What’s On Our Minds
On the radio. On the television. On weather websites.
At home and at the office, too.
It’s what we talk about, think about, speculate about.
Maybe it will happen. Maybe it won’t.
I’m leaning toward the latter these days.
Step Lively
When bitter winds howl in from the west, when temperatures dip into the teens, when the sidewalk harbors little patches of black ice and there’s a quarter-mile of pavement between me and the next warm building, this is what I do. Step lively.
It’s what some Metro conductors suggest. “Step lively,” they say. “Doors closing.”
It’s what race-walkers do, with a bounce in their gait and a swivel of their hips.
Step lively, with its whiff of the nautical, its sprightliness and energy and pep.
Step lively. It’s more hop than saunter, more snap than sizzle. It’s quaint and practical and fun.
Step lively. It’s a good way to get through winter.
Chutes, No Ladders
Metro delays this morning, temperature in the teens. Time for a virtual vacation. Today’s trip is to Tanougou Falls, which the locals (and all French-speaking, I believe) call chutes.
We pulled up tired, dusty, minds still reeling from Parc Pendjari and the close-up view of baboons, elephants and what turns out to have been a young cheetah. Our van was almost snagged on the rutted, rocky road to the small restaurant and souvenir stand that guards the entrance to the falls.
We were immediately surrounded by a staff of willing guides. It was a short walk to the first falls, picturesque but small. Many eager hands to lead the way. But no, said the guides, this was just the beginning. There’s another chute ahead, up and over those boulders.
One of our party said no go, her knees were sore. I waited a bit, sized up the endeavor. There was a scramble over rocks that were under water, but the more I looked the more I thought I could do it. “Tres facile,” said one guide. “Be careful,” said another.
When I nodded yes, Mr. “Tres Facile” took one hand and Mr. “Be Careful” took another. It was perfect. The push toward adventure, cautiously approached. Each step was carefully chosen and pointed out: “Ici … ici … tres facile … be careful.”
And before long we were there, Tanougou Falls. A perfect bowl of a setting, water deep enough to swim in. Gorgeous chute, angling, spilling, gleaming. Idyllic, except for one problem — I had to get back.
But I did, of course, thanks to Mr. Tres Facile and Mr. Be Careful, who were rightly rewarded for their toil.
Suburban Still Life
It could have been an easier office re-entry day. Twenty-seven degrees, snow falling. Schools closed and the parking lot half empty. I realized too late that I left my Metro card at home, and after buying a paper card to get me through the day, I rushed down the escalator only to find a train just closing its doors.
No matter. The world is white and still, a study in snow and steel. I pretend to be a tourist, take photos of Tysons Corner out the window.
It looks almost picturesque. The cars aligned and tracked, the sky mottled and gray. Remove the blue Honda sign — or keep it, if you like, it adds a spot of color. A suburban still life.
It’s almost like I’m on vacation.
Almost. Not quite.
Big House
Suburban roads and American cars aren’t the only things looking big to me these days. There’s the house. With Celia back in college the place has grown overnight.
As the youngest and last child in residence — and in love with clothes and shoes — she had spilled out of her bedroom and turned her sister’s room into a big walk-in closet. So two rooms are emptied, not just one.
And then there was her habit of falling asleep in the office — enough so that I would automatically tiptoe when I came downstairs early in the morning.
In other words, she was here, even when she wasn’t (which was often). But now she is most assuredly not here. No music pulsing out of the bathroom as she gets ready for work. No Chanel perfume trailing in her wake.
She’s fine, she’s happy, she’s where she should be.
The house is too big. That’s all.
Altered Eyes
Yesterday, when the late light was slanting and the air was still, I went out for a quick stroll. We passed the steep driveway, the signpost Copper always has to sniff. We turned left, toward Fox Mill Road. I had barely reached the corner when the differences overwhelmed me.
The roads are wide, the cars have too few passengers. All around me is space, order. There is no trash, no fine red dust between my toes. No woodsmoke, no hazy sun low on the horizon.
Instead there is this world I know. At once the same and different — because I see with altered eyes.
Speechless
For the third day in a row I woke up with no voice. Not just hoarse and croaking. No voice.
I’ve been making do with whispers and gestures. I say very little. People answer me with whispers, too. It’s a silent world I’m inhabiting, full of cotton batting.
It’s a strange time to be voiceless. Here I am with all these stories to tell and no way to tell them. I could, of course, write them down. And the magical-thinking part of me, which was heightened in Africa, says but of course.
Returning home after a long trip abroad is a time to set goals, resolutions. Saying less and writing more is certainly a good one.
So maybe being speechless has a purpose. C’est bon! I feel better already.
The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love
Now that I’ve visited Suzanne in Africa I can attest to this slogan. Peace Corps volunteers do not live lives of luxury. Many of them settle in villages without running water or electricity; they get around on foot, bike, moto or bush taxi; they eat a lot of rice and beans.
But their lives are rich in time and, surprisingly, in books. I visited two Peace Corps work stations with libraries to die for. One even had a ladder to reach the topmost shelves. There was a sizable collection of fiction (I read Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and was plunged into the world of a young Nigerian girl), a rich travel section (I picked up a crazy little book called The Emperor of Ouidah by Bruce
Chatwin and devoured it a few days before we visited Ouidah ourselves), even non-fiction and memoir (I read Infidel and Nomad, both by Ayaan Hirsi Ali).
I already knew from Suzanne’s experience how much she’s read the last two and a half years, and other volunteers said the same. But the greatest proof is this: I read eight books in less than three weeks. It would take me three months to read that many books at home.
Of course, I was on vacation, I took long bus rides. All of this is true. But something else is true, too. I had scant Internet access. And books, shelves and shelves of books, flowed in to take its place.
Living on GMT
There’s a reason why I’m eating a turkey sandwich at 6 a.m. It’s lunchtime in Benin!
I taste the tart lemonade I found at one of the local supermarches along the drowsy lanes of Haie Vive. I hear the revved motors of the zemidjahns as they halt at Place des Martyrs. I see Suzanne dashing out to buy beans and rice.
She will have been up six hours already, have walked 45 minutes to her office near Etoile Rouge, have made phone calls and finalized arrangements for an upcoming business trip; she will have spoken with at least several friends who beeped her to say good morning, in the Beninese style.
Travel gives us many gifts, and one of the best is perspective, shaking us out of routines and habits, reminding us it’s a big old world. In this regard jet lag is a willing accomplice. It’s a souvenir of our wanderings, our body’s way of saying not so fast — you were really there, you know, living on Greenwich Mean Time, just six degrees above the equator.
(Street meat in Cotonou. No thanks!)
Bye-bye, Benin!
Most people in Benin speak a couple of languages, but whether they’re saying farewell in Bariba or Fon or French they usually add an Americanism at the end. “Bye-bye!” they say, with a funny little vocal uptick at the end.
I started this post a couple of days ago, but the Internet key wasn’t working and for a while I wasn’t working very well either (the country requires an iron stomach!) and then … it was time to go.
But not without a final adventure. The zem drivers that took Suzanne and me to the airport decided to take a dirt road. Yes, a dirt road, in the city, to the airport. They were bumping and skidding and sliding so much that I gave up saying “doucement” and started exclaiming “Oh, my God!”
“What if we’d had an accident my last few hours in the country?” I said to Suzanne as we dismounted the bikes and took off our helmets.
“People here say that Benin doesn’t want to let you go,” she explained, only partially in jest. And yes, I could see that. It is a place of magic and chaos and unruly good cheer.
But I did leave — boarded the big silver bird, flew back to this clean, orderly place, where there are cars and hot showers and flush toilets.
I won’t stop thinking about Benin, of course, and I”ll write about it plenty. But for today, for now, it’s bye-bye, Benin.