October 31, 2008
My brother works entirely too hard. He’s successful and good with finances and long term planning. He can fit in at a dinner with more forks than he needs and he’s right at home with a bunch of small town rednecks talking about hunting season or cleaning fish.
He’s versatile like that.
Brother reads this here blog every once in a while. When he’s got a layover or some free time (which is rare), he’ll sit down and catch up on posts.
He called me today and asked about Lauren’s “SO inappropriate!!” comment that was in reference to the he-thinks-he’s-subtle Casanova. Let it be stated that the girls and I don’t doubt for a second who left that shadiness in the comments section.
Moving on.
He and I laughed for a bit about the humor of the not so mysterious Casanova and then he asked how I’d been. “Tired,” I said, “really tired.”
“Really? How can you be tired? You’re a school teacher.”
Ahem.
Bet you his IRA that he’s never been in an elementary building on Halloween.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Posted in family, friendcitos, teaching 
4 Comments »
October 29, 2008
I was just a kid when I started college. I’d never been away from home and I had no idea how the world worked outside of a 50 mile radius of that house on a hill in Nowhere, MS. But, even so, I was a dreamer. I guess I always have been I just hadn’t put it down on paper yet.
Then I went off to school and met the girls that changed my idea of friendship forever. Girls that taught me about loving unconditionally and how loyalty fights better and stronger than any heavy weight champ on the planet. Girls that took me dancing, kept me up late, and blessed me with the knowledge of good naps and box fans. Girls that challenged my ideals and graciously helped me to put on the freshmen fifteen (or forty).
Lauren taught me about work ethic and how sometimes you have to be by yourself to get things done. She swam with me before the sun came up and she left notes on my door and books on my bed and every once in a while she’d play the piano for me and I think I knew then that there really was a Somewhere over the rainbow.
Ann was always the one with the spunk begging me to go out, to see people, to do things that were out of my realm of comfort and to wear mascara while I did them. She made me stand up for myself and believe in myself and when I was lying at rock bottom, she was standing over me in a pink and leopard print halter top telling the psycho that left me there to back up or die.
And then there was Kathryn. Sweet Kathryn who kept me grounded and sane and laughing at imaginary kittens and the new girlfriends of old boyfriends. She wrote notes to me during chapter meetings and was marching right behind me when I figured out that I wasn’t made for the sorority life. And when I came home from Australia and said I was moving to Oxford because I wasn’t strong enough to go back to Starkville, she said, “Then I’m coming, too.”
I don’t remember exactly when I started writing down the list, but I know I did it because of them.
Maybe it was in a dorm room on the sixth floor of Rice or maybe it was when we were making folders for all of our travel plans. Or it could have been when we went on that scandalous trip to the beach. Or one night in that purple Accord with its windows down. Or in Granny and Pop Pop’s house on a long weekend. On top bunks and futons or in the midst of The Intervention. At the reservoir eating sticky buns. In Derek and Craig’s living room floor. Over bread pudding at Oby’s.
So, here’s what I wrote down on some random day when I was 18 or so. A list of all the things I wanted to do before I turned 30. My little List o’ Dreams.
Back then, 30 sure seemed far away.
Posted in crazy dreams, friendcitos, rambling 10 Comments »
October 26, 2008
Once upon a time long, long ago and far, far away there was a little log cabin on a street in a small, small town. And inside the cabin was a girl whose heart beat heavily within her. It beat for peoples unknown and places unseen and stories untold and the sound of the beating grew ever louder.
So at last the young girl shed tears and said goodbyes and left the comfort of the cabin and her home. She carried her dreams and her insecurities in two suitcases as she braved the wide, wide world alone. The young one saw explosions of color in foreign sunsets and heard symphonies in the night and she was glad that she was gone.
But every once and again, she longed for the smell of those log walls in the small town that she had left behind. And she thought of the way that the sky opened up and shone its light on a green tin roof in the first days of fall.
And the young girl promised that if she ever made it home again she would live there happily ever after.
Posted in writing 10 Comments »
October 21, 2008
“Did you have a good sleep?” he’d ask me every morning and my answer was always the same. “Yes, sir.”
My last day working at Port Hacking, Atto told me he’d miss being called Sir and to this day if I answer my mom with a “yes” there’s a “yes, what?” that comes quickly on its heels. But that’s fair, she still says “yes, ma’am” to her mother as well.
I guess with that upbringing it’s no surprise that I use sirs and ma’ams so often. It’s a habit that I’m pretty fond of and that I seem to pass on without realizing it.
Today I was teaching like a mad woman. We were talking about cheeseburgers and picking fights and treasure maps and pirates and long division and how they all go together. (If you’re a teacher and want to hear this little math story, let me know. It’s a gem. Har-dee-har-har.)
There was shoutin’ and screamin’ and we were all getting excited. It was a why I teach sort of moment.
In a last burst of energy I asked with heartfelt fervor, “SOOOO, should you ever ever ever EVER go looking for that quotient treasure without your treasure map, MY FRIENDCITOS???!!!”
And with that same contagious enthusiam all twenty-six of my precious Colombian children shouted out, “No ma’am!”
And my Southern heart nearly burst wide open.
Posted in colombia, home, teaching 12 Comments »
October 20, 2008
Snoozing on the first leg of the trip.
Catching some shut eye on the final leg, too.
And here are a few from along the way.
About ten minutes into our three hour hike through the Amazon jungle.
This was the easy part. The 40 meter climb up the tree — not so much.
Sunset on the Amazon River.
Is this really my life?
Posted in colombia, travel 7 Comments »
October 20, 2008
I need to take a deep, cleansing breath.
Because if I don’t some folks might die today and that’s just not becoming of a lady, now is it?
A list should suffice as the aforementioned deep, cleansing breath.
- I cannot expect people to value my time as much as I do.
- Manizales weather does NOTHING for my hair.
- It’s fall in Mississippi and I’m not there.
- I should learn to say no more often.
- There is no Sonic Diet Coke in Colombia.
- The Virus o’ Death stole my Spanish.
- I could eat my weight in biscuits today and y’all, that’s a lot of biscuits.
Thank you, bloggy friends, for the diarreah of the mouth that you just allowed me. Which, I assure you, is so very much better than the diarreah o’ death of last week’s glory. Although, I did lose eight pounds.
It’s not the diet of choice, but hey, whatever works.
Posted in colombia, friendcitos, home, rambling 5 Comments »
October 17, 2008
I am fascinated by people.
There’s a young man sitting on the porch of a house next to the river. His boots are standing neatly on the floor beside him, mud on their soles. His skin is dark and rich and his hair is askew. There are books scattered on the table around him each one open with pages that are tattered from constant turning. His notebook is small, but full and he writes in furious spurtrs and then rests. In the pauses his eyes turn to the water, the bosque, the jars in front of him.
I wonder what he’s writing.
She sits with one foot tucked beneath her, the other dangles in the murky water. There’s a bright blue bucket beside her heaping with laundry. Her hands move swiftly- lathering, rinsing, scrubbing – but she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. She works as though today were like every other and I am mesmerized by her leisure. Lathering, scrubbing, rinsing in the river.
I wonder what’s she’s thinking.
“I share a house with the monkeys,” she told me. Her greying hair wrapped her face in silvery light and her eyes shone with curiosity and compassion. She talked easily and lovingly about her primate companions and the twenty years she’s been among them. And then she turned and hurried toward the water. “Ya vienen!” It’s coming now, they yelled. She threw a wave and a smile in our direction and then climbed onto the boat.
I wonder if she’s lonely.
Posted in colombia 1 Comment »
October 16, 2008
The taxi picked us up at 3:00 a.m. this morning and there was more waiting than I’d expected, but we are here at last.
I’m lying beneath a mosquito net on a bed in a room with no true walls. The edges of the sheer material are tucked snugly beneath my thin mattress and I feel like this space is my own so I settle in a bit. My thoughts are scattered and many, and my travel induced weariness makes it hard to organize them all.
But I must, lest I forget it all.
The docks in Leticia were a whirlwind of shuffling and running and squeezing into tight spaces. Somehow I found a seat on the boat bound for Amacayacu. There were two loaves of bread at my feet, a sand covered bag at my side, and a young Colombian girl in my lap and it occurred to me that this might all be a dream.
I stared at longboats heavy with plantains coming to dock from the river as we waited to shove off and I watched as people ambled about on the banks with their broad, bare feet walking nimbly over boards and puddles and boats along the way. I saw fishing nets cast and drawn time and time again and I listened as shouts of hellos or helps rang out in the afternoon heat.
And it was not a dream.
The ride to the national park took an hour and a half and I sat on the hard bottomed boat with the sleeping child in my lap as the wind blew through my dirty, tangled hair. The Amazon River rolled and ran beneath us and her banks were heavy with stories and mysteries that I longed to hear.
Houses with thatched roofs built high on stilts and steps carved into the mud. Children swimming in the coffee colored water. A family of eight piled into a canoe, their wide smiles gapped their hands waving enthusiastically. Fishing lines running parallel to the shores and thoughts of the jungle hiding behind it all.
What will tomorrow hold?
You can read another point of view about our trip on Celeste’s site. Tell her I said hello.
Posted in colombia 5 Comments »
October 15, 2008
I know. I know. I promised Saturday, but by the end of this post you’ll feel sorry for me. And if you don’t, just don’t tell me. I like to believe that the world is sympathetic. Thanks.
Yes, I had a fantastic trip to the Amazon. It was all that I expected and more. It was breathtaking and heartbreaking and awe inspiring and I have a journal full of things to share with you soon.
Yes, I said soon.
Because today, friends, is day four of the Virus o’ Death.
Or near death for those of you that might think I’m being dramatic.
I felt it coming on as our plane landed late on Friday night and by Saturday morning at 2:00 a.m. I was curled on the bathroom floor praying to the good Lord, whimpering for Momma, and cursing parasites, foreign countries, and salty tastes that bring on wretching.
Sunday and Monday were more of the same and today I finally went to the doctor. (talk about challenging my Spanish vocabulary!) I was poked and prodded and told I had invisible veins, but beautiful milky white arms.
Sisser would call me Casper or Pasty, but I rolled with it. So did my stomach now that I think about it.
After three hours of an IV, a blood test, and another test you don’t want to know anything about, I am home. Home with my inflamed colon, constricted gastrointestinal tract, a bag full of medicine, an order to stay home for another day and a Virus o’ Death that shall soon be defeated.
So, there. Now you know why I haven’t written and hopefully your heart is just bleeding with sympathy. I mean, it is, right?
Posted in rambling, travel 13 Comments »
October 8, 2008
That could be because she isn’t with me….
Nonetheless, I’m off to the Amazon!
It’s October break here and three friends and I are headed out in the morning at a not-so-bright 3:00. IN THE A.M.!
I have no clue where we’re staying or what we’re doing or what to pack or how my Spanish works in the wee hours of the morning, but I’m going.
And, I promise, I’ll blog it all when I get back. (That’d be Saturday for those of you that check up on me.)
I’ll blog the Amazon, and how McDonald’s get props from me, and how blue paper thongs aren’t meant to be shared, and how I’m a sucker for the bad kids, and I’ll introduce you to a new bloggy friend.
Doesn’t that just make you guys all giddy with excitement inside?
I knew it would.
Posted in friendcitos, travel 8 Comments »
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