2015 saw the first of the seven BIG trips I intend to take before retiring. It was truly Around the World, designed to set the parameters for all to follow—in other words any place on our fragile planet can be on the list; and yes, the Arctic and Antarctica are there.
Here’s the actual mileage: 18,287, shorter than the almost 25,000 it would have been had I exactly followed the equator. All across Eurasia by land and over the two oceans by Delta (the latter could have been so much better on a tramp steamer with only seagulls indicating the approach of land).
The trip was…a journey…an adventure…an exploration…an experience. I loved it, although as you read my posts, sometimes liberally sprinkled with kvetching about a variety of things, you might think otherwise. The highs far far outweighed those momentary discomforts experienced on every journey near and far, probably most especially those at the budget end of the spectrum.
Albuquerque to Dallas to London to Oslo to Stockholm to Riga to Minsk to St. Petersburg to Moscow to Ulan Bator to Beijing to Seoul and back to Albuquerque I went and came.
Of course 2015 had its share of family trips and I included some local outings here and there during the blogging year because after all it’s the richness of everything in between that makes the big journeys adventures and not escapes .
The following quote from John Steinbeck is just right; it presents the idea of a trip, any trip, in a new light for me. “Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless.
“We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip.
“Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” — John Steinbeck, “Travels with Charley: In Search of America.”
The personality of my trip-around-the-world can be described as curiosity and discovery chasing each other back and forth across every street, out every train window, through every hotel room—all the while lit dimly or brightly with small miseries and unexpected delights. Of course this could describe many trips…but this one, because it was land travel across a very large land mass, was different. It provided a unique challenge to, above all else, pay attention to the world going by as it gradually and irretrievably changed landscapes and cultures. Norwegian to Eastern European to Russian to Mongolian to Chinese to Korean and every gradation in between. It was awesome in that old sense of the word, truly awesome.
-
- The BIGGEST DEAL, The SIBERIAN TRAIN TO MONGOLIA
-
- This would be ‘home away from home’ for a few days.
OFF TO CAMP.
Boyhood. I called my California son after watching it and asked, “I was a better mother than her wasn’t I? No drunken daddies.” “Yes,” he said, “You were, mom.” But he may have been leaning toward the kind side by not mentioning the things his parents had in common with the Boyhood parents—not all them in my favor—many in his dad’s. Not all of them in either of our favors.
Where do I start? Boyhood felt so personal to me. My two kids are boys but since the movie is all about a boy growing up I’m leaving the girl out of my emotional equation for now.
My sons will enjoy Boyhood for the ‘boy’ adventures and traumas and joys that are theirs alone. It took me down my own memory lane….
My boys’ Boyhood.
Mom forever in college. Dad away a lot in the Air Force. Divorce. Dad disappears for awhile, mom does too much work, school, politics. Boys are NOT neglected. Maybe. ARE neglected. Maybe. Depends on who’s counting I guess.
There’s a golden moment in my mind’s eye. Steve is all blonde smarty-pants 10-year-old. He’s washing whatever old car we had at the time. The couch where I’m sitting faces the screen door so I can glance up from my book and see him washing and spraying and playing. He is golden in the sun haloed by wet sparkles. Yelling, “Hey mom, look at the car, good job huh?” I wrote this image down in one of those journals I was forever keeping. The me concerned about jobs and politics and always more school and sometimes boyfriends and always always money—and sometimes the boys and their boyhood got lost in that silly shuffle.
Moments and memories as I watched Boyhood. Why didn’t I forgo the me angst and spend a lot more time washing the car with this boy, plodding through homework with that boy, more energy on and pleasure in the minutia of the daily family grind, less on whether McGovern got elected? .
About the Boyhood dad and my kids’ dad. Quite a bit in common there too. Both of them full of fun and games. Great companions for their sons. When they were present. Both of them essentially very good guys who loved their kids a lot. Too much in absentia perhaps…but big love nevertheless.
So what is it about these moms and this dads? All of us who identified with Boyhood? I am sad for the families that could have been—but not for what they may have turned into without that partings of the ways. We will never know which was which.
That Boyhood boy and my boys have survived rather nicely it seems. Both because of us and in spite of us. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for consuming all that mac and powdered cheese and for not turning into Republicans when they were coerced into distributing campaign literature and for putting up with a mom too often following her own pursuits to do justice to homework and sit-down meals.
The boys in my life turned into outstanding human beings, very nearly perfect fathers and sons and responsible citizens of the world. So I guess boyhoods can be survived with just barely enough help from moms and dads who are only pretty good. B- perhaps.
The other mom-of-sons coming to the Oscar night party tomorrow night is bringing macaroni and cheese in honor of Boyhood. We laughed when I said ‘not Kraft’ but I think I’ll call her today and suggest that to pay honest tribute to our boys’ boyhoods it indeed must be Kraft.
FLORIDA BOY SCOTT
STEVEN ON HIS WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE.
SCOTT AND HIS FRIEND MELISSA IN THE PHILIPPINES.
STEVEN ON A BAD HAIR DAY.
SCOTT’S DAD BROUGHT A PYTHON HOME AND STEVEN NEVER CHANGED HIS SOCKS AT CAMP.
THEY GREW HANDSOME.
AND GENERALLY STAYED OUT OF TROUBLE.
SPENT SOME TIME WITH GRANDMA AND GRANDPA.
SCOTT, BACKYARD ON JEFFERSON, OUR BEST HOUSE.
STEVEN FRONT YARD. GOOD-LOOKING GUYS, YES?
*
*
*
FAST FORWARD AND HERE WE ARE IN 2013 OR 2014. A GATHERING OF THE WHOLE CLAN. (We had a professional photographer who may have gone a bit overboard airbrushing out our flaws, not that we have that many!)
-
- ME AND THE BOYS, 2014 I THINK.
-
- MARSHA AND ROBERT, THE BRO AND WIFE.
-
- ROBERT AND HIS WOMEN.
-
- STEVEN AND MICHELE.
-
- THE ALBUQUERQUE GIRLS, SARA AND PATRICIA
-
- SCOTT, SANDRA, TERESA AND STEVEN
EXOTIC MOROCCO…
DECORATING SCOTT.
MAP OF AFRICA.
MORE ESSAOUIRA ON THE ATLANTIC.
ESSAOUIRA. The windiest city on the African continent or at least in Morocco.
THE MARKET. THE REAL MARKET. NOT THE TOURIST MARKET.
Beats the hell out of Walmart and probably better product.
Morocco 2009 with Scott was a special time…how often does one get to hang out with an interesting inquisitive kind and funny son for a whole week in a magnificent country with a lively, rich and ancient culture and grand and beautiful scenery. I’ve just included a scattering of photos in these posts. First city, now country, then market, on to a different city and finally odds and ends.
In 2009 I met son Scott in Morocco and we had a most splendid time and travel in that fascinating country. I wasn’t blogging back then so these albums are just now appearing. Enjoy.
MOROCCAN VERSION OF THE REAPERS.
Pulling out of my driveway this AM. That’s a FULL MOON, not an explosion.
Slept badly. Up at 3AM. But who cares—I have new travel plans, more travel plans, scary travel plans. I have email exchanges going with Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. And texting and phone calls with my lovely T. to go visit the Virginia Tech campus with her—one of the schools she’s considering for her masters.
And my birthday present from San Diego son is a plane ticket for a week with him ending in my April birthday. And AmEx gave me a plane ticket for Minnesota May/June. While it’s not exactly a present from them it sort of feels like it because the miles just accrue. It’s like Social Security which feels like a present also even though I know it was earned through the sweat of my brow—well actually I didn’t sweat that much but my brow did furrow a lot in all those dance years.
It just doesn’t matter what else is going on in my life (all good really) or how much I would like to pay all my bills off or how much I would like not to spend all my weekend hours theater-sitting for comp hours or how much I contemplate the vulnerabilities of age—any tinkle of the travel bell and I’m off.
My plans already included the new countries of Latvia, Russia and Mongolia. Since my travel buddy has decided not to be that I’ve decided to alter the trip to include Belarus in the beginning, Kazakhstan in a stopover on the Siberian train and an overnight in South Korea on the way home and I will have reached 100! Actually 101 if I count Kosovo.
Now an email must go to my travel helper/guide/booker at RealRussia to tell her I definitely want to make these changes. Do I have the stamina for this? But when will I be any younger or richer—so if not now when?
Stockman’s, one of the best department stores ever. Helsinki.
Home from work and the gym. Enjoying the snow with Anderson. Just some random memories and photos about snow.
I was in NYC once when there was a smaller snowstorm and it was amazing…the city all quieted down, red and green and gold of traffic lights opaque in the snow, like Christmas tree lights trying to shine through that cottony snow stuff we decorated with once. Some restaurants were open, crowded, noisy, happy; people in NYC are generally much more neighborly than in your normal everyday city and especially so after an ‘event’ of the good or bad kind.
A couple of Decembers ago I was in Helsinki during some serious snow days. It was cold and white and cheerful with a fabulous department store of shiny tasty pretty odd smart wooly things very near my hotel. Restaurants had reindeer roasts and a dance festival kept the indoors cozily eclectic. The problem was the slippery slidey packed snow on every surface preventing me from striding forth like the descendant of Vikings instead of creeping every so carefully forward like a little old lady from New Mexico afraid of some ordinary snow.
And my Minnesota snow. Well that’s a book not a paragraph. I do miss weather. I know I keep saying that and no one in Koochiching, Itasca or Beltrami counties in up north Minnesota thinks I really mean it. But I do. Even if…The last time I lived in Minneapolis I was in the graduate program at Augsburg College and working at various jobs, including the Salvation Army where we checked in homeless people each evening to keep them from freezing to death.
I lived on the 8th floor with our parking lot across the street. I had a wretched old rusted-out vehicle and a choice each evening if I wanted my car to start in the morning. Since there was no available plug-in for a battery warmer I could remove the battery and take it in with me which was beyond my mechanical abilities. Or I could get up in the middle of the night, put on some weighty woolens, call Max the best dog ever and we’d head across the street, get in and start that miserable wreck and the two of us would enjoy each other’s company for approximately half an hour as the engine gradually warmed.
So why is it I want to be in NYC tonight? Weather, like geography, is exciting. And each kind has its mood and encourages particular activities…cuddling, snacking, weather-window-watching, netflixing, making love, planning crimes…what am I forgetting? Thinking of Cathy and Bernard and Jessica in the CITY and how is it in Dover Tom?
It’s nice here in Albuquerque, not too cold and it will be SUNNY tomorrow. Again. And Again. And Again.
Road heading up to the “old place”. Minnesota.
Main Street, My Home Town, Northome MN.
Winter winter winter.
Lavender Helsinki…Not sure why my camera did that but it’s quite lovely I think.
Eating is a problem. Eating is complicated. It’s about everything except going from feeling hungry to feeling full. In fact, it turns out, you are better off never feeling like you’ve eaten enough. And anyone who eats until he/she is stuffed gorged sated is going to be fat, sick or, at the very least, socially incorrect.
I am trying to figure out the right times, types and tastes for me since my stomach is too sensitive for everyday life to roll on as smoothly as I would like. Fortunately there’s lot of information out there and some of it seems to make a lot of sense. Two recent articles in the NYT have become my gastro-guides.
The first advised me to not eat or drink late in the day. We all sort of know that but ignore it for the momentary pleasure of 8pm enchiladas and margaritas with friends or a few cookies and a glass of wine before bedtime. That may work for you; such small indulgences frequently awaken me with post-midnight stomach aches.
Rule number one: do not eat after 5pm unless it is a very special occasion—perhaps tea and biscuits with Downton Abbey or something even better with out-of-town guests—in which case be sparing. And take Prilosec.
I don’t remember the details of the second article as well as I should but basically it is this—reputable studies with mice prove that (at least for the mice) if food is consumed over somewhat limited hours, say a ten or twelve hour time block, it leads to better weight control and generally better overall health than if you spread the same amount of food out over longer time periods—such as 15 or more hours. Or, put another way, no nibbling after hours.
Rule number two is limit eating hours, even for small things.
The two rules fit together very well into Marjorie’s Big Time-Based Eating Rule: I have ten hours to eat from the first milky morning coffee which means stopping all food intake after 3 or 4PM. I might lose the five pounds I’ve been working on for the last five years but, better yet, I will not be awakened at 2AM with a nervous aching upset stomach.
If there is a purpose to posting this humdrum bit of information it is the possibility that someone else may have similar issues and find the information useful.
More than that though, this is an age-story. It is all about making the changes that will keep you relatively content during the process of eliminating actions or substances that were, at one time, important to your perceived happiness!
These are only two of the items on my ‘healthy’ list. More to follow.