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Stopped in Their Tracks

Stopped in Their Tracks

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On the High Line yesterday nature-starved New Yorkers clustered around a red bud tree as if it were a work of high art. It halted them mid-promenade — the beauty of the nubby blossoms, the radiant color against the neutral palette of lower Manhattan.

I compare this tree with all the wild red buds I saw driving through the hills of West Virginia ten days earlier. Brilliant volunteers alone and unnoticed, living out their bloom on lonely hillsides.

Not this tree. It’s well loved, earnestly photographed. And it’s no volunteer. Even its position — pushing up through the rails of an abandoned railway— is no accident.

New Yorkers stride nonchalantly past soaring skyscrapers — but a single tree stops them in their tracks. It’s a reversal worth noting.

Flight

Flight

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I’ve flown more in the last year than I have in the previous three combined. I’m not jetting off to exotic locales, but riding regional jets to places like Charlotte and Chicago en route to Lexington.

While the experience is still impressive — the roar of engines, the compression of space and time, the glide through clouds — there is, as any frequent flier knows, much to dislike about modern air travel. The last trip to Kentucky brought several of these to the fore: the crowding, the delays, the crazy and demeaning check-in process. Sometimes you have to remove your shoes and sometimes you don’t. Why is that?

All this is to say that the other day, as I watched a jet stream in the sky, I was ready to start rhapsodizing about the freedom of flight, being above the clouds, the amazement of it all. Then I remembered Monday evening in Chicago — a couple hundred people waiting on a single flight attendant. Or the delay a few weeks ago in Lexington when the airport ran out of de-icing fluid.

Suddenly, I was back in 11 B, knees knocking up against the seat in front of me, stomach churning, certain we would never, ever reach O’Hare Airport.

Next time I glimpse a plane in flight, I’ll imagine the people inside, legs cramped, palms sweating, heads aching. It may seem they’ve “slipped the surly bonds of earth” … but they haven’t.

Armchair Travel

Armchair Travel

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Time for a mental vacation, which for me means remembering a physical one. A drive through the European countryside. That’s canola, I think, a bit blurred on the bottom, shot from a moving vehicle.

A few miles down the road, the fields gave way to a village.

And then, a city.

Like any foreign travel, it was a revelation. I strolled on ancient streets, laid my eyes on sights I’d always longed to see. There was time to write and to blog and even to get lost.

When I came home I was not quite the same person I was when I left. Travel is like that. Even armchair travel. 

Ancient Rhythms

Ancient Rhythms

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A bounty of photos means that Africa is still on my mind.

I imagine the roads at dusk, red soil, the shadows lengthening. A river beside the road, or maybe still water, a small pond.

Ancient rhythms, still alive.


(Photo by Katie Esselburn)

Gifts from Africa

Gifts from Africa

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The human heart is a funny thing, what it withstands, what it does not. I’ve long since accustomed myself to Suzanne’s absence. She’s been in Africa well over a year now. She’s busy, happy, completely at home.

But last night, the worlds collided. Suzanne’s friend Katie came to visit “bearing gifts” from her recent trip to see Suzanne in Benin. Things Suzanne had bought and wanted us to have:

There was a leather wallet, a small wall hanging of a woman carrying a jug on her head and a set of hand-cast ladles made of an indeterminate metal (maybe aluminum?).

For some reason now, I can hardly look at these gifts without a tissue nearby. That Suzanne chose them with her own hands, arranged for their passage here — well, it just got to me.

It’s always that way, isn’t it? The small, thoughtful detail; a glimpse of the eternal within the everyday.


(Photo: Katie Esselburn)

The Places In Between

The Places In Between

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It’s a pit stop, a place to get gas on I-64, a hilltop station with rocking chairs on a little front porch that provides this view as respite for white-line fever.

Well, almost this view. To snap this shot I walked down the road a few feet while filling up the van. But still, this is more or less what you would see if you had a few minutes to while away.

I paused only long enough to take this picture. An impatient driver, I allow myself no more than 10 minutes at a stop — and I don’t spend them sitting!

This photo reminds me of the journey not the destination. It reminds me of all the places in between.

Liftoff and Letdown

Liftoff and Letdown

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of going through airport security twice for the same flight. I’d left something in the car. Later in the day, while waiting for a connection in another airport, I walked past an even busier security checkpoint, people rushing to lace up their shoes, stuff toiletries in bags, zip laptops into cases.

That flying is an exhausting, dehumanizing experience is news to no one. But you forget just how exhausting and dehumanizing when most of your trips are by car.

In exchange for the miracle of flight, we have the humiliation of full-body scans, the inconvenience of unpacking what we just packed and stuffing it into gray bins, the thrill of padding barefoot along the airport floor.

A reminder that even though we soar through clouds, our fears and troubles usually keep us earthbound.

Away Message

Away Message

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Every month at work I receive an inbox full of away messages courtesy of an e-newsletter my office sends out. While I typically think of these as an annoyance and delete them without a second glance, the last time I decided to read some.

I decided that there’s an art to the away message. Some are terse, no nonsense: I am away from the office until August 19.  I will answer emails when I return.

Others offer a ray of hope: I will be away until August 19 with limited access to email. “Limited” is not defined, of course. Does this mean a response later in the week? the day? the hour?  I’ve had all three experiences.

Many propose alternate forms of assistance: If you need immediate help, please contact … Often these substitutes are obvious ones, the colleagues anyone who’s in touch with you would already know. But listing them in the away message provides some coverage, some control.

The best away messages are the ones that already carry some of that devil-may-care vacation spirit. “I’m in Bora Bora till the cows come home. Deal with it, wage slave!”

These are the messages that can cause a contagion of sick days. They are not polite, not corporate. And they don’t end with “Thanks” or “Best” but with “Ciao” or “Later.”

The away message of my dreams.

Two for the Road, One at Home

Two for the Road, One at Home

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Yesterday I haunted the Air France website, checking first to see that Celia’s flight to Paris had arrived, then to see if her flight to Africa had taken off and, finally, to be sure that it had landed.

It did! She arrived in Cotonou, Benin, on Beninese Independence Day. Her big sister was waiting for her. What seemed preposterous two years ago — that I would have even one daughter in Africa — is now even more so. I have two!

Two girls on an adventure, two girls buzzing around on the backs of motorcycles (trying not to think about that part), two (girls) for the road.

Luckily, I also have a daughter who travels more conservatively, who even as a toddler would ask, “How we get home, Mama?” when we were on vacation.

We need both types: the micro and the macro. The ones on the road and the ones waiting for them back at home.

Vacations Past

Vacations Past

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It’s summer vacation season, and I’m remembering trips from the past. This photo is from the last big trip we all took together, four years ago now.

The scenery was magnificent. We drove down long valleys and past snow-topped mountains. We sampled once again from the riches of this continent, reminded ourselves how big the world is, how impossibly grand.

One of the times a family is most intensely a family is when all its members are crammed into a single vehicle. Sometimes too intensely a family. Which is why we haven’t taken another family vacation since then.

But the scenery, and the memories, remain.