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6
Feb 2006 When I approached the corner of Frenchmen and Royal, the spirit of pre-Katrina New Orleans met me for the first time since the storm. She came on the wings of the music that wafted out of the few clubs that have reopened, reopened to fewer musicians, fewer drinkers, and fewer dancers. But this night, in January 2006, nearly six months after the Katrina washed away neighborhoods and blew their inhabitants to the corners of the Earth, people spilled into the streets, drinks in hand and dance in their feet. A young hippie couple moved in unison, eyes closed, mouths open with love and laughter, and even those generally not so bold as to make a dancefloor of the sidewalk did a jig as they meandered along what has been the hot Jazz strip in New Orleans for at least the last decade. I stood on that corner for an undeterminable amount of time; minutes seemed eternal as that unique energy, that unique New Orleans' vibe, reached inside me, pulled my soul to the surface of my skin, and pushed a smile across my face. I consciously inhaled and hoped that this feeling would never wane. People who don't know New Orleans--or worse, only know it from television or from their one weekend spent on Bourbon Street--often complain that New Orleans is a city of sin, but I always feel God when I'm listening to that good jazz, when I see the interplay of light and shadow on the lamplit streets of my city, or when I'm walking through those neighborhood streets in the Quarter. And it was God that's
been missing since the storm, missing from the clubs, the streets, the
city. But it was God that I felt that night, standing on that corner,
and God, it felt good.
22
Jan 2006 Everywhere I go in New Orleans, people want to talk about Katrina. Everyone asks the same sorts of questions; everyone has a story. It's part of the recovery, I know. I feel the need to tell my story too--and I want to hear theirs. Yesterday, every single person I talked to is living in a FEMA trailer or waiting hopefully for one. These people lost everything, including their city and their day-to-day lives, and now they're either living with in-laws, sleeping on people's couches, or living in a trailer the size of a couch. Couple their stories with the story everyone can tell: our mail doesn't arrive, but bills are due anyway. we don't even know our account numbers. people outside the region send e-mails, expecting us to reply with the same rapidity as before. we can't even check our e-mail regularly and certainly don't have the time we once did because now we have drive thirty minutes (at least) to the grocery store where everything is in a different place and much isn't there. the power goes out fairly regularly, perhaps ruining the groceries we just bought. people we love call us from out of state; they want to know we're okay. we don't have the heart to tell them, "No. Life here sucks," because if we say it, we'll be betraying ourselves and our city. We'll be admitting to an Outsider what we don't even want to admit to ourselves. And what if another Pre-K New Orleanian hears us? It'd be like a mom admitting that she's tired of mothering and just needs a two-week hiatus. It's not socially acceptable. But it's true. It does suck here right now. But you know what? It's okay. After all, there was lots that sucked about New Orleans Pre-K, too. And any Pre-Ker will tell you that.
8
Jan 2006 I had red beans and rice delivered hot and fresh to my door yesterday thanks to the Red Cross, who comes by once a day, handing out a hot meal, water, and sometimes cookies! The red beans and rice, though, is the only meal I consider edible, and only then, after I pick out the hugesausage-ish thing they include. I've wanted to ask if they have a vegetarian meal--or at least a Kosher one--but it just seems rude. Today was some chicken-ish substance that looked like top-shelf cat food, but smelled like bottom-shelf dog food. It was served with an unidentifiable veggie-ish substance. Bobby thought yams; I thought carrots; we agreed to agree that they were orange-ish, and then thought that we should maybe stop taking the Red Cross handouts. But, really, having nice people bring you a hot meal every day seems so American--in the true sense of the term...not in the the capitalistic, GW, spy on citizens, laud corporations, may the poor die out while the rich get richer kind of way, but in the true sense of what America usually only pretends to stand for...people helping people, communities at work kind of way. Everyone hears the blurp, blurp horn of the Red Cross truck, and then we all open our doors, meet on the corner (they always stop at corners), talk and fellowship as we wait peacably in line for our share of the dole. We meet our neighbors--both pre-K and post-K--and we marvel at this new New Orleans where we get handed one free hot meal a day right on our doorstep (basically). All types come for the handout--white, Black, Latino, poor, not poor, clean, smelly, working folks and old folks; there's no shame in taking the hot meal, because it just feels right. It feels like community should feel. And I think it's that feeling that may cause my ears to perk (even if my stomach doesn't growl) when I hear that blurp, blurp tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.
22
Dec 2005 Compassion
is a practice--especially when traveling in your own country. Having compassion
is easier in a foreign land, but much harder when the folks are "types"
you know. Then, compassion becomes all the more necessary. note: pity is not love.
Our little "loveshell" (as Amy calls it) has been a refuge from the storm (sorry, I couldn't resist), but the time has come. Bobby and I are leaving paradise. The car tag arrives this week (yes, I've been driving illegally; that I haven't been pulled over is just another of uncountable blessings I've enjoyed the last few months), and we'll be hitting the road as soon as it does. Yikes! The real world. St. George really has provided me with a place to grieve, regroup, plan, and create. I spent the first few weeks (months?) in quiet on the beach, breathing with the waves, swimming with the dolphins, and flying with the seagulls. The dirt roads took me home where I ate delicious meals and had cold drinks on the screened in porch. I laughed. A lot. And I spent time listening to music, playing games, and talking. It was exactly what I needed when I needed--and what so many others didn't have: a life that didn't add any stress to what I was already feeling. Time passed-yes, even time passes here…oh so quickly! And for the last few weeks (months?), both Bobby and I have been busy. Gaming turned into crafting; thrifting became costuming (not clothing); and sea-shelling is now seashell-selling. Like the beach, I continue to shapeshift, finding myself one day full of shells to share and the next week hiding under the blanket of waves, and the cycle rolls on. The moon which is new tonight, the first of December-an auspicious time to be beginning again in a new place, which New Orleans surely will be…. ….remaking herself, part of a cycle to be sure. Today on the beach, I noticed these amazingly perfect circles drawn in the sand, and when Bobby explained that the plants--and indeed, there was a plant in the center of each one-had drawn them in the wind, I felt washed over with beauty. How lovely that all things are remakings of each other, all part and particle. The harmony is so obvious when you tune in. And it feels so good. Create a space. I shouldn't do anything that doesn't work toward that end.
18
Oct 2005 Sitting on the porch at my St. George Island refuge (thanks, Ada and Dail), looking at the blue break through the clouds and feeling chilled by the undercurrent of fall in the air, and I wonder about my friends and my future and my New Orleans. I think back on the nightmares I've had the past few nights and the memories I'm generating here, and I think about the nightmares that New Orleans must be having, with armed soldiers playing cops and cops playing bad frat boys beating up old men because they've shot all the dogs they can. And I look at the blue water here gurgling at the bay, and I wonder about the water in New Orleans and the water that has been in New Orleans and the water that will come to New Orleans and the pumps that continually seep water out of New Orleans, and I wonder: Am I living in pre-Atlantis New Orleans? I saw the images of Dauphin Island in the Katrina Edition of National Geographic, and saw how little of the island is left, and I remember that I learned some time ago that Louisiana loses a football field of land everyday, and I wonder how much land she's lost in the last month, and I wonder: Am I living in pre-beachfront property? I'm scared for my home. New Orleans. I'm scared for my home. Earth. Or as Amy once said, "Funny that we don't call Earth "Water," since it mostly is (thanks, Amy-and happy 30th BD). And I wonder about how much body modification it will take to see under the sea (thanks Cakes of Light). And I wonder if there is high enough ground to escape the next cataclysm (thanks, bobbycrowe). And I wonder: What time capsule will we leave behind? But I look at the sun illuminating the grass and the light playing on the water's back and the birds swooping in one motion and I'm glad to be here. To be alive. To be me. Bobby is here too, and we'll go back to New Orleans soon, where we hope to feel a part and particle of some great historic undertaking, where people come together and regenerate a spirit that we've carried with us to all of our refuges across the land and across the sea. Our landlord contacted us to let us know that she won't be returning until the 25th; (she'd originally thought the 8th), and we won't have power until she returns to re-fuse the fuse box -(yes, we still use fuse boxes in NOLA), but we're still hoping to make it home by Halloween. I may have to save my Poco-Ono or Yoko-Hauntus costume for next year, and recycle my Mardi Gras costume if it's still good. The landlord says we have some roof damage, and she's worried that the water may have seeped through our ceiling, so we're hoping for dry weather until we get back. We'd like to make a run for NOLA to check on the status, save Bobby's computer, and maybe get some warmer clothes, and we may get a wild hair and leave in the middle of the night. I dunno yet. Everytime we say we're going to go, the beach calls us back. Here's
a song I sung at the beach today:
Let me
know how you are, cause Love.open.hearted.
1
Oct 2005 It's weird and scary how such an event impacts one's sense of self, of place in the world. So much was so certain just five weeks ago; now, nothing is. And, frankly, even though I've been turned inside-out, I know that I'm one of the graced few. I'm graced because I'm white and middle class with a decent education and just enough work experience that I could restart almost anywhere, and no one would ask any of the hard questions (like, "Why did you leave your former post?"). I'm graced because I'm literate and understand how to use the Internet: I used MoveOn.org's site to locate a place to stay from two fabulous folks who aren't interested in managing my future or saving my soul (Thanks, Ada and Dail). I'm graced because I have a job that is offering on-line courses so I can stay put or go anywhere until January and still receive a pay check. I'm graced because Phyllis (my landlord) has agreed that I don't have to pay full rent during this ordeal (Thanks, Phyllis). I'm graced because Bobby is home again and is here and is doing a fabulous job at putting up with my crazy moodswings and fear (Thanks, Bobby). I'm graced because I'm staying at a totally luxus beach house on an island where my cell phone doesn't work, but I have Internet access-both a blessing, to be sure-(Thanks again, Ada and Dail). I'm graced because much of my day is spent picking up seashells on the seashore and working on a fabulous tan (Did I already say, Thanks, Ada and Dail?). Yes, I'm graced. So many
people aren't. Have you seen pictures of the folks who are STILL living
in shelters without walls, with no privacy, with no place to process this
terrible ordeal without revealing their vulnerability to others, to news
crews, to the world? People who are more likely than not products of New
Orleans's public schools, who have little or no work experience, who may
have never seen the Mississippi river, much less traveled outside of Louisiana.
Have you read about how these New Orleans's poor have been redistributed
across the South, with little means to return home should they want to?
Have you read about how many folks from New Orleans think that the redistribution
of the poor will be good for New Orleans? Have you read about how the
people in the places where the poor have been sent don't want them there?
Have you considered the cultural impact this redistribution effort will
have on New Orleans? I like dirty New Orleans. If I wanted to visit a
clean New Orleans, I'd go to Disneyland. If I wanted to visit a White
New Orleans, I'd go to Colorado. What makes New Orleans so special, what
makes New Orleans the only city in the states I want to live in is its
confluence of difference, of extremes: of extreme wealth and poverty,
extreme heat and extreme cold….a city where the clerk behind the
counter won't even tell you how much your purchase is, but people on the
streets speak to you like family. What will New Orleans be like now? I'm
scared. The culture that is New Orleans isn't wealthy, isn't White; nor
is it poor or Black; it's a mixture of both, where they live side-by-side,
and from this coming together blooms a beauty that is neither one nor
the other. What will happen when one is missing? I'm scared. Scared for my city, for its displaced people, scared for an America who is already forgetting that this tragedy is still happening and is instead returning to watch American Idol #44 or whatever. It makes me sad that the beauty and kindness I've felt and seen over the last four weeks are beginning to wane….that we can't maintain such a sense of compassion in the face of the quotidian, which may be just as tragic as a national disaster. Wait, how did this e-mail turn so preachy? My intentions were to simply tell you that Bobby and I are okay and safe and dry and it's getting better all the time (Thanks, MadHappy!), and that even though my cell doesn't work, you can try the landline here at the beach house: 850.927.4989, but don't call during sunset (7-7:45 Eastern Time), cause you won't get us. We're working hard to keep our hearts open and the love flowing, and it's easy here where beauty is everywhere we look, from the seagulls fishing on the bay, sweeping and swooping en masse, a choreographed dance for all to see; to the stars at night that twinkle and glow and fall from their places in the sky at random but on time, I'm sure, causing me to rethink time and place and space, nurturing a place in my heart where I like to go because I feel small, but part and parcel of something so much larger. It's good. We're good. And it is my prayer that you're good-and safe and dry. What are we going to do? I dunno. Bobby and I-like so many folks-are unsure of our plans or our intentions, but bathing in the ocean is helping us to figure it out. We may stay here until Christmas, or if NOLA gets her act together sooner, we may return home, or we may take a road trip, or we may move to another country, or….the possibilities seem endless. How graced we are to have so many options. Thanks. Thanks to all of you. We may be sleeping on your couch soon. Or, if you know of some folks who need a housesitter for their home on the beaches of Fiji or Belize, let us know. Open.hearted.love.
Monday,
September 12, 2005 I needed all the love I was feeling just to cope, but am feeling better now that I'm at the beach where dragonflies zip by, where I pick up shells on the beach for hours, and where I've already read three books and it's only day four. Where the light plays on the water's back, pretending to be jewels in her crown. Where a great blue heron fishes under my dock everyday like clockwork, but refuses to have his picture made. Where I sit and grieve that my city may never be the same, but am buoyed by hope that those like me who return will return with the spirit we took with us...that we have a responsibility to. And I will return--and not just because I have a job or not just because my apt. didn't flood--but because I am New Orleans' daughter and could never abandon her when she needs me most.
Wednesday,
August 31, 2005 My whole framework washed away this week, along with a 500,000 others'....down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. Everything is all so topsyturvyAlice-in-wonderland weird and scary, but I'm hopeful, and have faith in New Orleans. She's got a good spirit and Oya is a longtime friend. Destruction breeds (re)creation, and so I'm looking forward to riding the new phoenix to the stars.
13
Aug 2005 learn sign language and Spanish ride more roller coasters form a bad all-girl punk band; I'll play bass grow strawberries and carrots and spinach and eat them learn to throw pots live by the beach and swim with dolphins barter with market men in Morocco own an old car or at least a vintage Vespa learn to drive a motorcycle maybe
run a no-kill cat sanctuary in the mountains learn more about stars and see Saturn through a high-power telescope
13
Aug 2005 It's raining here. One of those new orleans' rains where lightning streaks across the sky and thunder booms so violently that the house seems to shake, and the sky, shaken, pours down raindrops as big as your fist and your cat runs for the closet and you'd consider crawling in too if the old Southern myth that darkness is cool were true. But it's not, and the many scarves as you staple to your windows to keep out the sun seem to hold the heat and the only option is bathing three times a day in lukewarm water 'cause the cold isn't really. And you wake up several times during the night to roll to cooler side of the bed and flip the pillow and curse and sweat and the fan doesn't seem to be moving any air, or it feels hotter than the air that stands and you can't believe that every window is open and you wonder if you'd wake up with slugs if you slept on the ground in the backyard, but even slugs are cooler than this, so you get up and realize that even though no one can really see, you feel compelled to wear at least a stitch or two if you're going out of doors, so you dig through your closet for your grannie's nightgown and slip it on and it feels cool to the skin. And you rip a scarf from the window where you'd stapled it earlier and you head out back where you lie on the cool ground in grannie's nightgown and you wonder why people ever built houses in New Orleans. But Nature hears your question and answers with a thunder so loud that the ground vibrates beneath you and immediately, the rain falls, pelting the canopy of trees above and the drops collect on the leaves before they fall, and you lay there and feel baptized and cold even, and chill bumps rise on your legs first and then your arms and you laugh outloud because for the first time, you're cold in a New Orleans' summer.
6
Aug 2005 * nearly getting "arrested" for dumpster diving * sunsets * the child with the flying feathers on the back of his dad's bicycle * the Gypsy children; their eyes; their house * "Czech girls are skinny Czech girls" * watching the birds fly for fun * smegny syr (fried cheese), maslo pomanske, chleb, marakansky, pivo * the walk to Vysehrad * the walk to the vineyard marked by the three characters: one legged blue suit man on crutches; fat, smelly man with long, yellow toenails, and crone with crooked finger * the walk through the park to Namesti Miru when we saw the woodsman bird * the old women feeding the swans clover; they ate it up! * the train ride to/from Olomouc * the fireworks every weekend * the feathers after Bobby left for Telc * Telc * the ride in the Skoda * Smet * the view from Letna beer garden * the crazy night of fifteen pivo on 100 crowns * the American band with their Joni and their "ahoj" song * the TV tower with the babies next to the Jewish cemetery stacked with tombstones next to the bizarre church * gaining 10 pounds from being a bread slave (and a chocolate, ice cream, and Bobby-dinner slave)
3
or 4 Aug 2005 I see myself as an old woman full of wrinkles and smiles.
30
July 2005 All are music.
7
July 2005 Sitting in a bar in Olomouc. Outside cobblestone streets give rise to cathedrals whose gold spires shine like stars in the night sky, and all is held in by a massive city wall protected by a lovely park where trees and hedgehogs and birds make way for bicyclists and lovers and dog-lovers, and I look on in wonder and lift a four-leaf clover from the grass. And I think of you often...how well we travel here where all is beauty and all sounds are music and all roads lead in circles. Can I ever live again in a square house, for all the squares here are round. An open heart, full of love, sails across seas on starlight and I sing with raindrops.
6
July 2005 ...on my mini-adventures where i wander through winding streets and get lost and don't care and can only smile at the grandeur of the ancient cobblestone streets where young czech girls walk in short skirts and high heels and old czech women bend forward heavy with shopping bags full of cabbage and carrots and mushrooms, where churches and castles dominate the horizons and you can't tell one from the other, both are so large and so old, where modern meets baroque meets renaissance meets middle ages and before, where i am at this moment. and where you are. and where all is. remember. remember this. remember this specifically. remember.
3
July 2005 in praha. ah....no words yet, only wonder.
fireworks
are one of the few things that still make me feel the way i did as a child,
full of wonder and awe and amazement and love.
25
June 2005 Full of love, full moon waning, wondering where i'll go next. can't believe the gifts i'm getting, but am feeling a little rubbish (too many beers, too little sleep, too much monday), but i'm still rescuing beauty from the czech eyes that no longer seem to see the magic and i'm passing it to all who'll listen to my energy explode silently from my eyes that overflow with full moon love. feel you more than you know. see you in my dreams more often than not. sending love across the seas on the wings of dark robins and in the magpies' song.
New Orleans and I have been hugging like old friends. God, I love this place---church ever night....incredible jazz and the beautiful people who see it, feel it, make it. Ahhh! Tomorrow I'll walk to the Quarter, and smell the sweet olive and the jasmine and the heat. I'll absorb everything so that I may take just a bit with me. Not that I'll need it....in Czech, I'll walk among 1000 years old churches and meet witches who still practice age old magic passed down from their Celtic grandmothers and see men who still practice Pagan customs and drink good beer in dark pubs where women don't go. I'll see symbols carved a thousand years ago in stone that I've only seen in books. I'll see ancient eyes in the beautiful faces that only Eastern Europe can produce. I'll see Gypsies dance, moving their bodies in ways that haven't changed since they came out of India, traveling the Romany trail. And while I'm there, maybe I'll see you. For I've seen-felt you several times in the last weeks, and even had a beautiful almost lucid dream, where you took a seat next to me, and I thought-said, "Ah, I thought I'd see you here," and you thought-said, "Yeah. It's nice." And it was. I knew that I was dreaming and that we were experiencing specialness and the sun was turning everything golden-rose and we both smiled and all was one. Then, then night grew, but the stars shone so brightly that your face was as clear as if we were standing in the sun and then we blinked at each other knowingly, and the moment came to a close, but continues in another (s)p(l)ace. And I smile now as I write this, and I thank Goodness for all the lovely teachers I'm meeting and the love I feel from all directions and for the poems I hear in a language I've never heard. And I'm remembering a recent memory. I was home last week, and on this day a week ago, my aunt, who's a preacher--a heretical occupation for a woman in my family--came to see me, and asked to pray for me, and I agreed, and she asked that I be shown visions and be given sacred insight, and she asked me to say "amen," but I refused until she also ask that I be given the strength to bear what I see and the ability to interpret it, and she was shocked, but acquiesced, and I'm waiting to see. Little does she know that I'd already been granted with such grace and I was sad that she couldn't see past her field of vision, but I'm trying to relinquish feeling sadness for others' shortcomings, and instead, understand that we all come to God in different ways and simply to be on the path, no matter how far, is a gift. I told her about a book I'd been reading (_Autobiography of a Yogi_) in which the yoga student writes about his teacher whose image couldn't be captured on film until he agreed that it be so and who walked with his eyes mostly shut because he was too busy looking into the real world to be bothered with this one, and she said that she hoped he was tapped into the "right" spirit because we can be trapped by evil ones, and I said that I thought her god was alpha and omega and all powerful and everything, and if that is so, then how can any spirit not be of him? And she looked perplexed, and I was glad. And the lady at the church who played the piano and who'd visited New Orleans during a job convention said that she was sorry that I had to live in New Orleans, for it is so sinful, and I said that I find God in all things, except maybe the tourists who come to New Orleans on job conventions and then regretted my underhanded meanness. And. And. And.
14
June 2005 i'm at my parents' house, and the stars here are unbelievable, and as i stared at them in awe the other night, i thought, "i'll bet i can see a shooting star," and just at that moment, one sailed across the sky. i was immediately transported back to costa rica where i laid on the ground all night after seeing first one, then two, then uncountable stars slip from their place in the night's sky and soar across the darkness. when i transported back to rockmart, ga, I saw yet another...and this one was a big blaze arcing west to east. truly amazing. tonight i climbed on the back of my dad's harley-d and accompanied him on his weekly outing to yes, hooters, where he meets his other red-neck harley-riding buddies who drink lots of beer and harangue the poor, poor waitresses. as we rode home, i watched the sunset in his reflective helmet and felt the slap of my clothes in the rushing wind. i remembered the thrill of riding on the back of his chopper when i was nine, asking him to go faster around the curves. i've seen old friends whose lives i don't envy and who make me glad the "good old days" are old and over. i've seen my old high school, now abandoned, and I went up the steps for the first time in nearly 15 years and looked inside. it's a cliche, i'm know, but i was shocked at how small it seemed. i walked around campus, sad that such a relic, such a monument, isn't seen as such, and instead is left to fight weather and age all alone.
5
June 2005 The sky opened up and out came a downpour like only NOLA is capable of…..thunder, lightning, and the biggest raindrops you've ever seen. I stood outside for only a moment and allowed the rain to wash away my thoughts, but when I returned to this world, you were the first one to dance across my mind.
"Homo sentimentalis cannot be defined as a man with feelings (for we all have feelings), but as a man who has raised feelings to a category of value. As soon as feelings are seen as a value, everyone wants to feel…. The transformation of feelings into a value had already occurred in Europe some time around the twelfth century: the troubadours who sang with such great passion to their beloved, the unattainable princess, seemed so admirable and beautiful to all who hear them that everyone wised to follow their example by falling prey to some wild upheaval of the heart. No one revealed homo sentimentalis as lucidly as Cervantes. Don Quixote decides to love a certain lady named Dulcinea, in spite of the fact he hardly knows her (this comes as no surprise, because we all know that when it's a question of wahre Liebe, true love, the beloved hardly matters). …. It is part of the definition of feeling that it is born in us without our will, often against our will. As soon as we want to feel (decide to feel…), feeling is no longer feeling but an imitation of feeling, a show of feeling."
Early
August 2004 Puerto Viejo feels like home. I love the magic in the people's eyes, the music that pounds the air, the water that turns pink with the sunset, the landscape that changes before your eyes. The richness of the landscape is mirrored by the richness of the culture. Parents ride bikes with children as soon as they're old enough to hang on--and they learn early. Skinny boys offer rides to fleshy girls, who sit side-saddle-style, only love holding them on, and even the tourists who ride the scooters seem to be part and parcel and particle of it all.
A Wednesday in Aug 2004 Finally feel part of Puerto Viejo. Don't have any concept of time...I eat when I'm hungry; sleep when I'm sleepy, bathe when I'm dirty (maybe) and generally just live. feels right.
Early
August 2004 I dreamt of pink teeth filled with flowers and I awoke to a feeling of peace I've not felt in months. Butterflies and birds dominate the lush greenery, while crabs, not tourists, dominate the beaches. Children kick soccer balls in the dirt roads; women lay laundry out to dry on rocks, and men work in mud or else hang in hammocks to escape what passes for heat, but truthfully, the weather couldn't be more temperate. Chickens roam free searching anyone's yard for bugs and other goodies, while dogs beg tourists for food and scour the beaches for fish who've lost their schools. Locals--Ticos--smile and say hello and perhaps wonder at Americans who've ventured so close to the rustic lives that seek to simply persevere, lives that will never know the excesses of the northern continent. Americans surely wonder at the Ticos who never seem to notice the beauty of the landscape, so burdened by it they are.
31
July 2004 When we taxied into the San Jose airport, I was excited to see how incredibly small it is. Then, we we exited down stairs to a bus (instead of a terminal to into the airport), I knew that an adventure had begun. Thankfully, Bobby's friend Jim Lee picked us up from the airport amid a grey drizzle. His friend bargained for a cheap taxi, and we left the chaos of the airport for the verdant hills, windy roads, and coffee fields. The drive from the airport to San Ramon was freckled with pilgrims, with goats, cows and chickens, and with near collisions with large buses and small cars. I irritated everyone by gushing over the intense beauty of the nature that dominated the panorama, but I couldn't help myself. The joy of seeing, of looking, overpowered by desire to be seen as "cool." When we arrived in San Ramon, I was immediately reminded of Mexico, where the town bustles with people but the buildings refuse to intercept the horizon. Old vehicles fought for their rights of way and old people pushed their way down the uneven sidewalks, paved with tiles. An amazing church with tall steeples is the only man-made construction that raises itself toward God, and its pinnacles are visible from all over town. The locals are thrilled about a new shopping mall being built on the edge of town, but I hate to think of the detrimental impact it will have on the now-thriving downtown centre. Of course, they're happy for the food it promises to bring to their tables, and for that, you cannot blame them.
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