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On Mortality, Banality, and Boobs, Part 2

At the rather bluntly named “Breast Care Center,” a nurse escorted me back to the same room, where I had learned I would need to have a needle biopsy just a few days earlier. I couldn’t wait to get it over with. The sooner they got the pathology results back from the biopsy, the sooner I would know one way or another what my life would be like for the next few months, or perhaps years.

The nurse told me that a doctor would come in and talk with me in a little while. She left a clipboard and a brand new marker sealed in a plastic pouch on the counter and walked out. As I waited for the doctor to arrive, I idly wondered if the marker was for me to doodle with in case I got bored.

Suddenly, an adorable little boy dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt popped his head into the room. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, and smiled at me from his twinkly Asian eyes. I wanted to pinch his cheeks, give him a lollipop, and then help him find his mommy. He could have been my own son. It turned out he was my doctor.

He opened the marker, wrote something on my chest above the breast in which lurked the “areas of concern,” and then tossed the marker into the trashcan. He explained to me what was going to happen next and then we headed to the room.

Another young doctor and two nurses were waiting for us in the room. I lay on my side on a stretcher and they wheeled me up to the mammogram machine. They clamped my left breast into place and once again I got up close and personal with the cold hard surfaces of the mammogram machine. I couldn’t see anything or anyone, but I felt one of the nurses grab my fingers. She told me I could squeeze hers as they numbed the area with four or five shots of lidocaine. Disembodied voices asked me meaningless questions. I knew no one really cared where I was from, or how long I’d lived in Charlottesville, but I understood that these questions were meant as a kindness and so I gave answers as if they mattered. Every now and then throughout the procedure one of the nurses would give my hip a pat and then let her hand come to a rest there. I usually hate being touched by strangers, but I think I will remember the warm weight of her reassuring hand with gratitude for the rest of my life.

The area numbed up quickly and they extracted a tissue sample and inserted a titanium marker in its place as a permanent souvenir of my visit to the Breast Care Center. As for the tissue sample, they put it in what the nurse described as “our Suzy Bake Oven” to make sure they had enough and wouldn’t need to go in for more. Once they took a few more photos of my traitorous appendage, I was unclamped and wheeled away from the machine.

And now the second young doctor was mashing down my boob with both of his hands…hard.

“I have to do this for the next ten minutes,” he said apologetically, “It will stop the bleeding.”

“OK,” I said and I turned my head away to look at the clock. Making eye contact in such a situation did not quite seem the thing to do. The horrible thought suddenly crossed my mind that the two young doctors who had worked on me that morning, from Asia and India, might easily be one of the many international students who pass through my office on a daily basis for a travel signature or a program extension. I see so many students that it is impossible to remember all of their faces or names. Maybe I helped this young man file for work authorization so that he could be legally permitted to be here pinning down my boob as if it were going to run away. This thought – like so many of the other thoughts that had been racing through my head for the last couple of weeks – had to be shoved away just as quickly as it reared its ugly head.

After the ten minutes were up, I was bandaged and the nurses gave me my post-procedure instructions. It had seemed like an eternity, but the entire procedure was over in less than an hour.

“You’re heading straight home now, right?” one of them asked.

“I was planning to go to work, actually,” I answered.

“No, honey,” the nurse shook her head, “You’re not going to work. You’ve been through a lot and you’re going to be exhausted. Go home, get into pajamas, take some Tylenol and watch a movie.”

And so I did.

Related post: On Mortality, Banality, and Boobs, Part 1

On Mortality, Banality, and Boobs, Part I

I can’t stand suspense…not in movies or books, not in sporting events, and certainly not in real life. The past couple of weeks have been one long, suspenseful nightmare because I thought I might have cancer. Let me tell you right upfront that I do not.

It all began with a callback mammogram. I got a letter in the mail explaining that it was sometimes difficult for mammograms to produce clear images for people with “dense breast tissue.” Dense breast tissue — hunh?! After nursing three babies, more like droopy, flaccid hackysacks that have lost all their stuffing. But – whatever.

This was not my first rodeo. I had been called back for a second mammogram once before so I knew what to expect. I knew I would be in for a torture session that would somehow manage to be simultaneously futuristic and medieval. I would be asked to mash the side of my face against the plastic and metal of a mammogram machine. I would be made to sling my arm around it as if in a lover’s embrace. A stranger (a lovely and kind nurse, but a stranger nonetheless), would pat and squash and arrange my breast as casually as if she were making a biscuit…if making biscuits also involved mashing the dough impossibly thin between two cold, hard plates. I would endure the torture with stoicism, wincing only when I simply couldn’t bear it.

“Too tight?” the nurse would ask as she turned a knob that would cause the boob vise to clamp down ever tighter.

“Yes,” I’d gasp.

She would loosen the crank a touch, but then with a cruel, deft flick of her wrist, she would tighten it right back to its original position.

“I saw that!” I would think bitterly each time it happened.

Never mind. It would all be over soon enough. I’d receive my benediction and be dismissed to go on with the rest of my life. Only this time I wasn’t.

I knew something was up when the nurse escorted me to a back room I’d never seen before and told me that a doctor would come talk with me soon. I was pretty sure she was trying to avoid making eye contact with me. The doctor spoke to me in gentle, soothing tones. She told me that there were “areas of concern” that would need to be further examined. I would be scheduled for a needle biopsy. Once the pathology report was back, if there was evidence of cancer, we would discuss my treatment options.

 

Fellow Travelers

It was a lovely Easter weekend, but Monday morning came crashing down upon our heads like a furious hailstorm. I will spare you the gory details, but it was not pretty. I drove to my early morning doctor’s appointment feeling beleaguered and rattled to the core.

I stood in line at the reception desk behind a man I would consider to be the exact opposite of who I am in just about every respect. He was a wiry, older white man with no discernible top teeth. He reeked of cigarette smoke. I caught only snatches of what he was saying to the receptionist, but I could feel myself stiffen when I heard him say in a thick southern accent that this country was goin’ to hell. I was just waiting for him to start extolling the virtues of Donald Trump. I wondered if the very sight of my non-Caucasian face might make him bridle. He finally got checked in and shuffled off somewhere. I finished checking in too and found an empty seat in the waiting room as far away from anyone else as I could.

To my dismay, the man who had been ahead of me reappeared and sat down next to me. I pretended not to notice, and was already deploying my imaginary bubble shield when he addressed me.

“Hello, how are you?” he asked politely.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I replied warily. “How are you?”

“I been better,” he said.

“Oh. Well…I’m really sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah…had to take another day off work to come back here to get checked out. When I was here last week they found a spot on my lung. A big one. I knew somethin’ was wrong, but I avoided coming to see a doctor, ’cause I was afraid of what they were going to find.”

“I’m sorry. I hope it turns out to be nothing…”

“That’s how my dad and my brother died.”

“Oh, that’s terrible…”

“Yeah, well it’s been a terrible year. My daughter just died too.”

“What?! Oh no!”

“She was in a big accident. You probably heard about it. It was on the news and in the papers. She was going to Richmond for a NASCAR race and she got hit by a tractor trailer as she was pulling onto 64.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“She had a little daughter too.”

“Oh no! That’s so sad!”

“Her husband’s fighting it out with insurance, trying to get them to pay. They want him to take a settlement, but he’s just trying to take care of his daughter. At least make sure she can go to college.”

“How old is the little girl?”

“She’s eight.”

“They should pay! Especially when there’s a child to raise.”

“Yeah, my daughter was a stay-at-home mother. Her husband’s doing the best he can. He works nights in a factory in Waynesboro. My other daughter stays with the little girl until midnight, and her daddy’s home with her during the day before he has to go to work.”

“It’s so good to have siblings.”

He nodded, “Yeah, it’s good to have people around you who can help out. I took care of her for a couple weeks too. She ’bout near drove me crazy.”

I laughed, but he looked me straight in the eye and said with emphasis, “I’m dead serious. She ’bout near drove me crazy. One day she set there on my lap and looked up at me and said ‘I miss my mama.’ I don’t know how much she really understands about what happened, you know? I asked her, ‘Do you know where your mama is?’ She said, ‘Yeah! My mama’s on vacation!’ Then when I told her I had to go to the doctor, she asked me, ‘Are you going on vacation too?'”

We both laughed ruefully and then I was called for my appointment. The man extended his hand to me. As we shook hands, he wished me luck. I wished him the same.

Nothing really changed. The problems I began with that morning did not go away. The man is facing a frightening diagnosis. His granddaughter is still missing her mama. But in the midst of suffering and pain, there was an unexpected moment of human connection and understanding. We were no longer strangers, but fellow travelers. For me, it was exactly the grace I needed that morning.

4th and 5th Graders’ Hopes for the Future

Last week in Canticle of the Turning I wrote about the pictures the 4th and 5th graders I help teach in Sunday School drew to illustrate their hopes for the future. Here are some of them:

Amen.

 

Jungle Jenny’s Flying Menagerie

Claire and I were chatting one day when she casually mentioned that her husband Lionel had been the pilot for an historic KLM flight in May 1949. He flew the largest shipment of animals ever to travel by air. My jaw dropped as she mentioned some details of the flight.

“Jungle Jenny was on board and she had to wrangle tigers that escaped from their cages…”

I was so intrigued by the story that she lent me her scrapbook filled with news clippings so that I could take notes for what I thought would make an amazing children’s story. I wrote many versions of the story, but was never satisfied with any of them. I wish I could have done the story more justice, but in honor of Claire and Captain Metz, I am posting one of the versions here: 

metzThis is the true story of a brave and adventurous girl named Genevieve, Jenny for short. When Jenny was just a little girl, her mother died and she was sent to live with friends of the family. Arthur and Marie had lost their own little daughter, and gladly welcomed Jenny into their own home.

From the outside, their house looked like any other. But Jenny was startled to hear strange noises as she stepped out of the car to see her new home for the first time. The noises grew louder as Arthur and Marie led her through the house and into their huge backyard. It was a zoo!

Arthur was an animal collector. He traveled far and wide to find animals for zoos and circuses all over the world. The animals lived in his backyard until it was time to go to their new homes.

Jenny grew up with no brothers or sisters, and no other playmates but the animals. She loved the monkeys and the elephants best. She would dress the monkeys in clothes she made herself, drape the elephants with ribbons, and pretend she had her own circus.

Jenny was happy, but she longed for one thing. Jenny dreamed about seeing the faraway places from where the animals had come. Every time her father packed his bags to leave on one of his trips, she begged him to take her along. She wanted to be an animal collector one day, just like him.

Now Arthur was a kind man, but an old-fashioned one. “It wouldn’t be proper for a young girl to be an animal collector,” he told Jenny. “When you’re old enough, you’ll get married to a nice boy and settle down.”

When Jenny got older, she had many marriage proposals, but she wasn’t ready to get married and settle down. She kept pleading with her father to take her on one of his voyages.

One day, her father announced with a grin: “Pack your bags, Jenny! For your twenty-first birthday, I’m taking you with me to India and Africa. But only if you promise to settle down and get married when we get back home.”

Jenny was delighted! She was ready to promise anything for her chance to see the world.

Jenny had hardly ever left her little hometown in New Jersey. She was dazzled by the sights and sounds of India and Africa. But it was a difficult and dangerous trip. They arrived in India in the middle of a war! They traveled more than a thousand miles through India trying to flee from danger.

Two train cars holding the animals they had collected were derailed. For weeks heavy floods brought all transportation to a standstill. Some of their shipments of animals got lost.

They finally sailed back home six months later with dozens of pythons and cobras, three hundred monkeys, more than a thousand birds, and a pair of elephants. Arthur was completely frazzled and utterly exhausted. He declared it the worst trip of his life. But for Jenny the dangers and near disasters had made for a thrilling adventure that had ended much too soon.

She had shown great courage throughout the difficult trip and thought her father would surely now see how helpful she could be to him in his work. What despair she felt when he reminded her of the promise she had made to gt married and settle down, and told her he would never take her on another trip again.

What could Jenny do? She became a secretary. Glumly, she filed papers all day long, daydreaming all the while about the adventures she had had.

Two years later Arthur was traveling in Singapore to collect a shipment for an animal dealer named Henry Trefflich, when he fell ill and died. Jenny called Mr. Trefflich to explain the sad news.

“I’m so sorry,” Mr. Trefflich said. “Your father was the best in the business. Who could possibly go to Singapore to collect those animals for me?” he wondered out loud.

“I’ll go!” Jenny blurted out. The very next week she was on a ship headed for Singapore.

During the long forty-two day voyage Jenny had plenty of time to worry about where she would stay in Singapore, how she would find the animals, how much she should pay for them, and how she would bring them back.

When she arrived, Jenny bought a motorcycle and headed to the animal market. She was the only woman there. At first, the dealers wouldn’t have anything to do with this young motorcyle-riding American girl.

One dealer tried to trick her by selling her a python that had just been fed. Snakes were sold by the foot, and the body of a snake that has just eaten is temporarily stretched out longer. With a shake of her head and a polite smile, Jenny said no.

The dealers soon realized Jenny couldn’t be fooled. They could see she was smart. They could see she understood animals. She was good at striking  bargain, but was always respectful and fair.  By the end of her time in Singapore, Jenny had become friends with everyone at the animal market.

Jenny sailed back to America with one hundred eighty-seven gibbons and Javanese monkeys, thirty-four pythons, a Malayan sun bear, and a very expensive baby orangutan she couldn’t resist buying at the last minute. She thought he looked like a bratty redhead! She dressed him in baby clothes to keep him warm. When Mr. Trefflich saw the orangutan, he was delighted. This rare ape would fetch a fortune.

“When can you start out again?” he asked. And so Jenny’s dream of being an animal collector came true!

On one of Jenny’s many voyages there was a terrible storm. In the middle of the night a cabin boy shook Jenny awake, crying, “Miss Jenny! A board fell and smashed the python’s crate open and now it’s missing!” Jenny and two cabin boys searched frantically for the one hundred seventy-five pound, twenty-seven foot python. The alarmed chattering of the monkeys soon told them where to look. The snake was curled up right next to their crate.

Now if there was one animal Jenny was frightened of, it was snakes. But Jenny knew she was the only one on board who could handle the python.

“Right, boys! I’ll grab the snake’s head so it can’t bite. As soon as I grab it, pull as hard as you can on its tail so it doesn’t squeeze my arm, OK?”

The cabin boys looked queasy with fear, but nodded their heads.

Jenny took a deep breath. In one sudden move, she caught the snake!

“Now, boys! Pull!” she cried.

“Boys?”

Jenny felt the snake coiling ever more tightly around her arm. She looked up and saw that she was alone. The frightened cabin boys had run away!

She lowered the snake down into a dark box and stroked his body to soothe him. The python finally let go of her arm and slithered into the box.

“Slam!” went the lid.

On another voyage, Jenny was transporting seven leopards. One was tame; the other six were wild. A boy cleaning the cages pulled up the door he thought held the tame leopard. He let out the wrong one!

Jenny tried to force the door back down, but the leopard managed to slip out. Angry at having been squashed by the door, he lunged at Jenny. She grabbed the fallen board and held it in front of her as a shield. The leopard’s mighty leap flung the board away and Jenny was knocked down. She raised her arm to protect herself. The leopard gnawed on Jenny’s arm and clawed at her with his paw. Fighting for her life, Jenny managed to flip over and lie on top of the leopard, pinning him under her own body. Jenny was in the hospital for weeks, and had to have several operations.

Now you might think that after such a terrifying encounter, Jenny would have retired, but that was not the kind of woman she was. Her greatest adventure was still ahead.

Mr. Trefflich decided to transport a large number of wild animals by airplane. It had never been tried before. It would cost twice as much, but a sea voyage of a month and a half would only take six days by plane. Jenny was back to work!

Twelve hundred animals were boarded onto the airplane. Two elephants were on either end of the fuselage. Three rows of crates held seven hundred twenty java monkeys, sixteen gibbons, five pigtail monkeys, a baby orangutan, a sun bear, forty hornbill birds, forty mynah birds, three pheasants, five king cobras, nine pythons, a krait snake, a binturong, four monitor lizards, two golden pumas, two black panthers…and three tigers.

In the main cabin with all the animals there was just one chair for Jenny. Captain Metz and his crew were glad to stay in the cockpit, well away from the wild animals.

On the third night after feeding the animals and cleaning their cages, Jenny set her broom aside, turned off the lights, and settled into her chair to sleep.

Suddenly she was woken up by the trumpeting of elephants and the screaming of monkeys. She turned on her flashlight and saw two pairs of lowing eyes peering out between rows of boxes. Another pair of eyes glowed from atop a crate containing terrified, shrieking gibbons. It was the tigers! They had chewed their way out of their crates.

The radio operator raised the alarm, “Captain! The tigers have escaped!”

The pilot chuckled at first, thinking it was a joke. He cracked open the door an gasped when he saw the tigers for himself. He quickly slammed the door shut and said, “We better leave it to Jenny.”

Jenny switched on the lights. She reached for her broom and waggled it at the two tigers slinking right toward her with their tails slowly swishing back and forth.

“Scat!” she cried. They looked scornfully at her and the broom and gave low rumbling growls. Certain they had shown this small creature who was in charge, they sauntered off to explore the rest of the plane. Jenny bravely followed right behind with nothing but her broom.

The third tiger noticed the hullabaloo and prepared to attach Jenny from his perch atop the monkeys’ cage. Jenny leaped up onto the crate and thrust the broom in his face.

The startled tiger jumped down, and now Jenny chased all three tigers through the plane.

They ran in a row, up and down the narrow aisles made by the stacked crates. Around and around they ran, to the alarmed chattering and frenzied screams of the animals watching from their crates. Jenny wondered if she would have to keep chasing those tigers all the way to New York.

Suddenly, as the tigers rounded the corner where one of the elephants stood, it let out a terrific trumpeting scream that shook the whole airplane! The tigers froze in their tracks.

“SMACK!” went the elephant’s trunk on the floor of the plane. The three astonished tigers nervously slunk back into their crate. Jenny grabbed a feeding tray and held it over the broken slats of the crate. She used her flashlight to pound some nails over the tray.

“Phew!” she sighed, wiping her brow. She turned to give a shaky wave to the cheering crew.

Just then the plane hit an air pocket. As it lurched, Jenny was flung against the crate holding the panthers. One reached out and bit her arm!

She cleaned and bandaged the wound, and then stood guard over the tigers all night long. Only four nails held the tray over the slats, and she was afraid the tigers might break loose again.

There were a few more hiccups as the plane continued its journey. The baby orangutan caught a cold. Two of the monkeys got loose. Six of the hornbills pecked their way out of the crate. The elephants broke their tethers a few times. And the pigtail monkeys and the mynahs argued fiercely all the way to New York. It was nothing Jenny couldn’t handle.

The long journey from the East Indies to New York finally ended on May 6, 1949. Jenny and her flying menagerie had made history. It was the largest shipment of animals ever to travel so far by air.

Bananas and peanuts were strewn along the ramp to lure the elephants out of the plane. Jenny walked alongside them down the gangplank, smiling and waving to the cheering crowd of reporters, photographers, and zookeepers who had gathered on the airfield to greet her.

Many newspapers and magazine articles were written about Jenny. One journalist nicknamed her “Jungle Jenny” and the name stuck. In zoos all over the country, elephants, orangutans, and yes: even tigers were named after Jenny. Movie directors invited her to Hollywood to act in movies, but Jenny was not interested. She was doing exactly what she had always wanted to do.

Work was interesting today…

Some days are more interesting than others…

Today a couple of the UVa Men’s Basketball coaches and two of the players came to my office to hand deliver this thank you note and gift from Coach Bennett to me:

Even though I’m only 5’3, I’ve been tearing it up on the basketball court. My athletic prowess has been a huge, unexpected asset to the team.

OK, the truth is I helped with the paperwork for a last minute international recruit.

Sadly, I missed seeing them because I was busy with a panda photo shoot:

After spending so much time with the panda, I decided I needed a photo to commemorate our time together, so I handed my camera to my colleague. And then this happened:

It’s not every day you get felt up by a panda.

New Old House

I’m not going to lie…Things are a little crazy at the moment. Trying to buy a new, very old house and sell our current one has been stressful. I am a walking, or rather flailing disaster. I’m breaking out like a teenager. My stomach is churning. The other day I tried to relieve some tension by doing some step ups during my lunch hour. I missed the step and crashed backward into my desk – ripping my silk blouse and creating a vivid red, black, and greenish blue map of my anxiety on my back and backside. Yesterday, I somehow managed to jab my temple with my car keys, missing my eyeball by a half inch or so.

The thoughts running through my head tend to be cruel and taunting –

Are you freaking insane? Why yes, yes I AM. 

You’re going to let that beautiful old house go to hell in a hand basket with your slovenly ways and your complete lack of home savvy.

Pshhhht! Who do you think you are…Martha Stewart?!

We just had a very thorough six hour home inspection that lasted from 8:30 to 2:30. The report left me reeling…There’s a lot to fix, not to mention a dead animal or two to find and remove.

But look!

I was convinced there were hearts hidden in the doorknob to the front door:

Here’s hoping everything works out, (we’re still not at all sure that it will), and that I don’t manage to skewer my eyeball, end up in traction, or land myself in a psychiatric ward before we get to closing.

Quiz Time! The Sisters vs. The Kids Lightning Round

As promised, the third and final lightning round of Quiz Time! as devised by my husband.

1. What do the dots on a pair of dice add up to?

a) 21       b) 36       c) 42       d) 48

2. Who was the oldest person in the Bible?

a) Abraham     b) Jesus     c) Methuselah     d) Adam

3. What does an agoraphobic fear?

a) agriculture     b) open space     c) dancing     d) dogs

4. Which country has the longest coastline?

a) Canada     b) Norway     c) Russia     d) Australia

5. Which planet is 4th from the sun?

a) Saturn      b) Earth     c) Mars     d) Venus

6. What is the capital of South Africa?

a) Bloemfontein     b) Johannesburg      c) Pretoria     d) Cape Town

7. What is the capital of Canada?

a) Ottawa     b) Montreal     c) Vancouver     d) Toronto

8. Which city is furthest West?

a) Washington, DC     b) Montréal     c) Buenos Aires     d) Miami

9. Which city is furthest North?

a) Rome     b) Madrid     c) Istanbul     d) New York

10. What is the capital city of Australia?

a) Brisbane    b) Canberra    c) Sydney     d) Melbourne

1. c; 2. c; 3. b; 4. a; 5. c; 6. A trick question! a, c, and d – South Africa has THREE capitals: Pretoria is the administrative capital, Cape Town is the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital; 7. a; 8. a; 9. a; 10. b

It was all going so well until around question #4. We did abysmally. How about you?

It’s time to pack up our house for the big move. It may be a while before I’m back. See you later!

Poison Ivy

I couldn’t bring myself to post anything all last week, because on top of an extremely challenging and stressful week at work, I’ve been dealing with an incapacitating poison ivy rash. I must have rubbed up against some poison ivy by mistake when I foolishly ventured outdoors a few weeks ago. (When will I ever learn?! Indoor kitties should stay INDOORS). 

For more than two weeks now I have been dealing with a repulsive, oozing rash. Whenever I see people (and I see people ALL DAY LONG), I feel compelled to blurt out awkward things like, “Oh, hi, I swear I don’t have leprosy or Ebola…it’s just poison ivy. The pus isn’t contagious, but you probably don’t really want to shake my hand.”

Just poison ivy, but the itching! – the torturous, unrelenting itching that has brought me more than once to tears of despair! I can only describe the feeling as having insects crawling underneath my skin. I have become a bag lady, toting ice packs everywhere I go. Ice is the only thing that brings any kind of relief, and believe me, I’ve tried everything.

My mother was aghast when I turned up at her house last weekend, dripping from ugly patches all over my arms and legs. Unable to sleep for worry over her miserable daughter, my poor dear mama got up in the middle of the night to consult with everyone’s favorite primary care physician, Dr. Internet, who told her that chicken was the cure. I woke up to the smell of chicken soup. Even though I stopped eating meat years ago, I ate bowl after bowl of the soup, and maybe a dozen eggs that weekend. At this point, I would eat raw, pulverized worms if I thought it would help. Alas, the chicken cure has not had any discernible effect. What’s more, when I later googled “chicken” and “poison ivy” myself, I could find nothing. Could this all have been a ruse devised by my crafty mother to get me to eat meat again?

“Do you think it’s because Mom was searching on Korean websites?” I asked my husband.

“Of course,” he replied with an authoritative air, “She would have been looking on mudang.co.kr or something like that.”

Mudang means shaman in Korean.

If I thought insurance would pay for it, I’d ask to be put into an induced coma for a couple weeks. I’ve resorted to knocking myself out by trying sleeping pills for the first time in my life, with mixed results. I’ve engaged in fisticuffs with my husband, who tries to grab my desperately clawing hand to prevent me from tearing at my festering pustules.

Well. If you’re still reading, I’m astonished. Thank you for indulging me. I know there’s nothing more tedious than to hear someone complaining endlessly, so I will conclude this mournful lament with a solemn vow to never speak of such things ever again and a whimper: uuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggghhhhhwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

 

Weekend Snapshots 25

Even I, dogged chronicler that I am, have to admit that some moments are impossible to capture in words or on film. This weekend was full of those moments…

Friday

My fifteen year old came back from his pilgrimage with his youth group to Arizona. I picked him up late at night in the church parking lot. I drove him home with a smile on my face as I listened to him talk about the adventures he’d had.

“The Grand Canyon is amazing. Even more amazing than you can imagine. Pictures don’t do it justice.”

As we pulled off the interstate we slowed down so that I could show him another of the world’s wonders in our own backyard. There is a scrubby, weedy tree to the left as you exit the highway onto the dark country road which leads to my house. I believe it’s called a Tree of Heaven. In the daytime you wouldn’t look twice at it. For the past few nights, the whole canopy has been full of twinkling fireflies. The effect is indescribably beautiful.

Saturday

My very dear friendy Wendy, whom I’ve known since high school, came to visit me this weekend to say goodbye. After teaching elementary school kids in Arlington for almost twenty years, she is moving on to a new chapter of her life. Sadly for me, that chapter takes place all the way on the other side of this great big country.

My friendy Wendy

There would have been more photos, but for the fact that we spent the afternoon, evening, night, and the next day doing nothing but talking, talking, talking. (OK, and maybe we ate a little, too)!

Mas Tapas

As we drove back home late on Saturday night, I was glad to be able to show her the firefly tree.

Sunday

The next day as my friend prepared to drive back, I tried to express the ineffable sense of joy I felt for the new direction her life is taking mingled with my sorrow that she will be so far away.

“It’s NOT goodbye, Ada,” she said, using my old childhood nickname, “We’ll see each other soon, I promise!”

Later that night, I met up with my friend Katherine to go to the Charlottesville Free Clinic’s annual benefit concert at the Pavilion on the Downtown Mall. I was dismayed to see all of the signs forbidding any photography or recording. But as I sat with my friend in the sultry summer air and listened to the Indigo Girls and Mary Chapin Carpenter without once picking up my camera, I felt like I could swim in the music. For the final song – in gorgeous three-part harmony, some of it without any accompaniment at all – all three women sang The Water is Wide. I was spellbound.

On my drive home, I decided that I had to record an image of the firefly tree. I exited the highway, and pulled off to the side of the road where I tried and tried to capture the picture. No matter what setting or camera I tried, all I could get was a black frame. I finally gave up and drove the rest of the way home. My son was still up when I got back. We chatted about the music I had heard, and I looked up some of my favorite songs and played them for him on youtube. It just wasn’t the same. I kept finding myself saying apologetically, “It sounded much more amazing live…”

The truth is, sometimes the most beautiful moments can’t be pinned down. You just have to show up and be there.

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