Vermont, the last day of June, 2007:
España, te echo de menos.
rws 3:31 PM [+]
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Saturday, June 30, 2007 Vermont, the last day of June, 2007: España, te echo de menos. rws 3:31 PM [+] |
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Tuesday, June 26, 2007 A summer morning -- finally -- in northern Vermont. Fog burning off, leaving hazy blue sky and lovely, abundant sunshine. Irises and daises abound. Daylilies are preparing to put on their brief show. Foliage in general has filled every bit of once gray/brown space, the color green everywhere in countless shades. Robins hunt for bugs in the grass between the house and small barn. Nearby songbirds make music. Honeybees and their various cousins browse among clover blossoms. Now and then a car passes on the dirt road, otherwise I'm alone. Inside: ambient playing on the stereo. Cup of espresso, a warm croissant. Small piles of semi-messes scattered around the living space wait to be picked through and massaged into order. A summer morning, finally, and feeling just fine. I spend a fair amount of time in an online community, have some close friends there. One of them went through a kind of meltdown two nights ago, acting out via im. in intense, relentless fashion -- a person I've known a while and consider to be like a younger sibling I never had in real life. A sweet soul, not very secure in some ways and hard on themself, characteristics that now and then produce volatile behavior. Not much fun, that behavior, but something I've learned to weather by not hooking into the anger, responding instead with affection, and going away if it gets to be too much. This person went after a mutual friend that evening, destroying a connection with someone who cared. And in all that emotional chaos, the person acting out became a teacher for me in a way my biological parents sometimes were, showing me what I don't want to be, how I don't want to act -- no small gift. And reminding me to appreciate what I have -- home, possessions, loved ones -- and to let people in my life who matter know what they mean to me. It's transitory, this life -- we have nothing but the present moment, with no guarantee of what comes next. Better to talk, not leave statements of love and affection unspoken. That passage two nights ago sent me offline and out the door seeking peace and relief, into the mild evening where I suddenly found myself doing work that had been waiting -- turning earth, clearing it of weeds, dropping plants in the ground, in particular lily of the valley, several of which had been waiting for a long, unhappy time to make the move from plastic containers into soil. Not sure what happened that night, but since then I've been in a nicely low-key kind of work mode, ready to do lots of tasks that have accumulated while I made the inner transition from Madrid to this part of the world -- a transition that's been a long, slow slog this time around, my bod still waking up on European time, often leaving me a bit bleary. But time staggers forward and everything gives way before it, even bodies wishing they were several time zones to the east. The local weather types have been warning today will be genuinely hot, with temperatures sliding up past 90. Right now that sounds just fine to me. Anyway. Later. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vermont backroad beneath hazy, gray skies:  España, te echo de menos. rws 10:24 AM [+] |
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007 Drove into town yesterday morning, took care of errands. As I started the ride back home, I passed the Vermont College Quad, saw a big Red Cross truck parked in front a building, remembered seeing ads around town for a blood drive. The last time I'd given blood: three years ago, during the days after the bombings in Madrid. The sight of the Red Cross truck sparked a sudden, vivid memory of sitting in a blood donation bus in Sol, in the heart of the Spanish capital, people from all over the Spanish-speaking world around me, all trying to contribute in some small way after the catastrophe. That image did something: I suddenly found myself pulling into a parking space, locking the car, walking past the truck into the hall. Inside: people, noise, activity. Two gray-haired 60-something women sat just inside the door at a table stacked with clipboards holding forms to read and sign. They handed me one, I asked for a writing implement. They pointed at my clipboard, I grabbed hold of the elastic coil that should have secured a pen and waved it at them. They fell against each other laughing, handed me another clipboard. I sat, read, signed, stood up, handed it over. They motioned me to the next station, I drifted in that direction. A nurse met me, ushered me into her cubbyhole: a desk, two chairs, a laptop, all hidden away behind wheeled screens. Nice person. We chatted, then she launched into a long list of questions, a long, long list that seemed to stretch on and on. I commented that it seemed like a lot of work for a pint of blood. She pointed out that one pint could potentially save three lives, suggested that ten minutes of Q&A might not be an outrageous amount of effort for that kind of payoff. I could only agree. Once done, she herded me over toward the chaise lounge area, where someone else herded me to my very own indoor plasma-loss lawn chair. A 30-something gent in a lab coat, shorts, sneakers, prematurely graying hair, and an eastern European accent told me to get comfy. Once he'd finished with my neighbor -- an attractive 40-something woman with a patrician nose, looking like an older version of the young Patricia Hodge -- he returned to me, asked questions, set up bags and tubes, began feeling around inside my elbow for a likely puncture point. Seemed to be having trouble finding one, felt and probed and poked and searched and felt and probed some more. Me not being an intravenous drug type, having an abundance of blue veins clearly visible to the naked eye, it began making me nervous. After a while he painted the inside of my arm with iodine, got ready to do the plasma-sucking thing. There was a time when I worked in an ambulance, working six long, miserably-paid months as an EMT. The me of that time got used to blood and gore and needles and all that. These days I'd rather not watch something pointed go into my skin. So I don't. I look away, watch something else. When eastern Europe guy finally pushed the needle into my arm, I was admiring an attractive 30ish woman, one of the Red Cross staff. Needle in. Squeezing fist. Blood oozing into bag. In the background, a radio played an old ZZ Top song ("Legs"). People came and went, some who knew each other called out hellos, exchanged hugs. Eventually, E.E. dude returned, finished up, removed needle, bandaged my arm, sent me off to eat/drink. I found a chair at a table across from a burly 30ish army type, dressed in fatigues. We exchanged heys, he asked how I was doing, I said I thought I was doing just fine. I grabbed a half-sandwich, bit into it, realized I was ravenous, inhaled the rest. Grabbed two more, inhaled them, chased them with some grapes. Restrained myself from wiping out the entire tray of sandwiches, got to my feet, returned to the car. Drove home via back roads, appreciating the fluid that runs through my arteries and veins. A Monday in mid-June. Northern Vermont. España, te echo de menos. rws 7:24 PM [+] |
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Friday, June 15, 2007 Mid-June, northern Vermont:  España, te echo de menos. rws 2:32 PM [+] |
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Monday, June 04, 2007 Back from an overnight trip to the Hudson Valley for a family wedding. Sunday: awake far too early, as often happens on a traveling day. Several hours of packing and putzing around, followed by five hours behind the wheel. Tooling along winding two-lanes through Vermont landscape so lush and vividly green it almost seemed unreal. Overcast thinning outside of Rutland, hazy sunshine flooding down, green, looming slopes shining beneath suddenly open skies. Crossing into New York, landscape still lush and rolling (minus green peaks stretching skyward). Traffic increasing, two-lanes leading to the Northway, packed with cars and trucks barreling along at warp speed. And everywhere enormous passenger vehicles -- gashogs on steroids. Vermont has its share of bizarrely oversized pick-ups, but nothing like eastern New York's display of rolling fortresses. Heading south, Northway leading to Thruway, traffic sailing through bands of driving rainstorms, so intense that road speeds immediately dropped from 70-80 to 30 or less. Off the highway at Kingston, far enough ahead of schedule to allow a pitstop. Found a likely looking diner, parked, stumbled inside, exchanging hey-how-ya-doin's with a wiry, friendly everydude heading to his car, bags of take-out dangling from either hand. Grabbed a booth, gazed around at fellow customers, an impressive array of obese humans, including a family of five stuffed into a nearby booth -- mother, father, grandmother, two boys -- one of the male offsping bearing a startling resemblance to Pugsley from The Addams Family. Good food, turned out. Friendly waitstaff. Then back outside, sky occasionally glimmering with diffuse sunlight, air mild and soft. Dove into the car's backseat, changed from traveling duds to pants/shirt more suitable for a wedding. Threw a necktie around my throat, pulled on pointy boots. Drove the remaining miles, pulled into the driveway of the house shared by bride and groom. A lovely spot on a winding road, house and drive giving out on a coupla-acres backyard, with stream, a large pond, many towering trees, everything green as could be. An intimate affair, twenty-five individuals at most -- family and a handful of friends. Ten or twenty minutes of hellos and small talk until the bride appeared, escorted by her brother. A brief, sweet ceremony, officiated by the bride's father (recently elected to local political office), ended by the strewing of wildflower seeds on a large plot of newly-turned earth. Post-ceremony joy:  A drive through miles of narrow, winding roads to a restored inn (200+ years old) for the reception. Phase one: an hour at tables outside the inn, wiping out plate after plate of hors d'oeuvres. The initial round or two: platters of seafood sushi, me -- not generally a seafood fan -- searching fruitlessly for something without raw fish, etc. A sad question from me about that apparently gave everyone the impression I'm vegetarian (the truth: here in the States? not exactly veggie, though I tend not to gobble down much meat; in Spain? not vegetarian, will consume just about any plate of non-seafood fare that lands in front of me). For some reason, I said nothing about the vegetarian thing, instead observed how it seemed to become accepted fact, everyone suddenly considering me a non-meat-eater, arranging for me to have a veggie main course when the party moved indoors. Good main course, turned out, arranged prettily on the plate by some wacky artiste back in the kitchen. But consisting of little actual food, leaving me nearly as ravenous post-entree as pre-. Phase two: the meal indoors -- in a long room, around a common table. A long affair, courses of luscious food coming slowly with vast spans of time between, me mostly watching and listening to the assembled attendees, longing for chow. Noting how the noise level zoomed upward in direct relation to the amount of wine imbibed by everyone. Three seats to my left sat this character, a celebrity in certain specialized circles, and apparently now playing on big screens in this bit of goofiness. (Said not a word to my humble self during either wedding or reception, apart from an expressionless "Excuse me" as he pushed past at one point.) [continued in next entry] España, te echo de menos. rws 2:59 PM [+] |
