Istanbul

Three summers ago, I had the chance of a lifetime to go to Turkey for three weeks.  We were studying the Ottoman Empire, and we traveled all over the country looking at historically significant buildings, cities, and tombs.  We explored traditions that still exist and things that had passed on since the Ottoman Empire dissolved.  It was a truly amazing trip.

While the whole thing was unforgettable, parts of it stand out to me in perfect detail.  One was eating at this truck stop on the side of a highway.  The entire place was surrounded by a seemingly endless field of sunflowers in full bloom.  It was like something out of a fairy tale.  I wanted to just run out into the middle of it and take in the wonder of it.  I settled for a ton of photos instead.

The second was standing under the dome of Selimiye in Edirne.  We also saw Suleymaniye in Istanbul, and it was indeed lovely, but its older sister took my breath away.  Sinan was a genius, and when left to his own devices, a creator of perfect grace and symmetry.

The most unforgettable place was much, much older.  I had wanted to see Hagia Sophia for as long as I can remember knowing about it. I have loved the name since I learned what it means, Holy Wisdom.  When I stood under that golden dome on floors over a thousand years old, it completely stole not my breath but my heart.  I went back again on my own when we had a free day just so I could sit down on the cool stone and stare up into that glory.  The beauty of that place, its sense of sacredness, was like a physical thing.  I have only ever been one other place that came close, the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi.

Even though we were on the road for a solid week, the rest of our time was spent based in the Sultanahmet district near the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome, Topkapi, the Grand Bazaar, and the Basilica Cistern.  We learned, we met people, we explored, and I came to love that city.  We never met anyone who wasn't willing to help us.  Everywhere people were kind and friendly.  Part of me very much wanted to stay there and know it better.

So now, when I see that the rabid violence of suicide bombing has attacked it again, has blown up the very airport we came into and out of, I grieve for the lost and the injured, but I also grieve for Istanbul.  That city, that ancient lovely place, deserves to be cherished and protected. It is a unique thing that spans centuries, cultures, empires, languages, even continents.  The true goal of the terrorists is, of course, to make people afraid.  Afraid to go to places like Istanbul or Paris, these important places where it's possible to see both the ancient past and maybe the future side by side.  Afraid to go to places away from home.  Afraid of "others."

I've had the "it's not safe to go" conversation already today.  I'll hear it increasingly.  I've thought it myself.  I have to keep telling myself, though, that it's not safe anywhere.  Psychopaths walk into our schools and universities, our night clubs, our office buildings, every day with evil intent and heavy weaponry.  Even here in this tiny rural place I live, child abductions are attempted, homes are invaded when predators think those inside are elderly or weak.  Whatever safety we used to think we had has somehow disappeared, and national borders don't seem to have a lot to do with it. Why then should we allow them to cage us in a corner?

Hamlet tells us that "the readiness is all."  We cannot know when our time is coming.  We cannot live our whole lives looking for the shadow to fall, listening for Death's soft footfalls coming up behind us.  I think we live in a world where it is easy to be afraid all the time, where we certainly have cause for fear.  If we give in to it, though, all those horrible, rabid, twisted bastards win.  I think we have to keep going places, embracing each other, learning about each other.  If this plague of hate is ever going to be defeated, it has to come from its opposite, unity instead of isolation.

Thoughts on the Day of Muhammad Ali's Funeral

When we registered yesterday, we were warned to take the Skyway (or, as I like to call it, the Habitrail) to and from the convention center today because of the crowds expected to be lining the street for Muhammad Ali's funeral.  Everyone standing in line everywhere was abuzz with the list of people who were going to be in attendance.

This morning, we left to go grade papers in the cool of the dawn, and there was nobody out yet.  By the time we went into the large open area outside the grading room for our morning break, streets had been blocked off and official vehicles could be seen over at the YUM! Center.  It had begun.

We couldn't see any of the actual procession, but we saw bunches of people standing around waiting for it.  Some of the readers looked up the live stream on their phones, and so groups of two or three stood there at the windows watching slow moving progress on the tiny screens and trying to figure out if it would get to our location before we had to go back inside again.

At lunch, I needed to get out and walk around a minute, and I took the opportunity to walk to a souvenir shop/information center right across the street from the convention center.  There was a huge line of people, and they were all clamoring to buy orange shirts commemorating the day.

After the day's grading, I went to grab a sandwich, and everywhere, there were things related to Ali, signs on the side of city buses, a big electric billboard showing images from this life, people walking by in shirts.  After I got my food, I walked back to the hotel.  When I got to the street the YUM! Center is on, it was lined with makeshift booths fabricated from crates, folding tables, tarps.  People were hawking $10 shirts for two city blocks' worth of space.  It was a little surreal.

The thought that kept coming to me over and over again was how his family felt about this, how he would have felt about this.  I guess to me grief is just such a private thing that I hate the thought of sharing it with anyone.  Maybe it is different for them since he was such a world-famous icon.  They'd been sharing him with everyone everywhere for so long that it has to be different, I suppose.

 It bothered me that people were lined up and selling shirts for the same reason. It always seems so unbearably crass and, to be honest, cruel when I see what looks like someone trying to make money of someone else's tragedy.  Maybe they were out there with them to honor a hero.  Maybe it was a tribute somehow.

Then there are those who were buying the shirts. Did the people who bought them do so to honor him?  Or was it sort of a "been there, done that" trophy?  We wound up being here by the greatest accident of timing.  Thousands of others made the journey specifically for this funeral.  Why did they come?  It's a question I would especially like to ask of the "dignitaries" who have kept the skies and the police force busy.  Some of them had meaningful ties to Ali and his family.  It made sense that they would come to honor that.  How many others showed up because it was the place where all the cameras were running right now?

None of it is really my business.  I just hope that it was all the way he would have wanted it, the way his family felt comfortable with.  In the end, that is the only thing that could possibly have mattered today.  No matter what he was to the rest of the world the rest of the time, he was their husband, father, family member, friend, and now he is gone.  Their grief deserves respect.  I hope they feel that it was given.

Vicksburg

I needed to get out of the house today.  I had wanted to go to Clarksdale, but it is simply too far away for a pleasant day trip.  I decided to go back to Vicksburg and go to the Military Park.

It has been two or three years since I was last there, and I always forget the size of the place.  Every time I think I am about to turn the last corner, a new segment of the park opens up instead.  It is huge.

It is also the oddest mixture of solemnity and celebration.  From the very first moment one passes through the entrance, memorials to the dead soldiers and leaders of the Union line the sides of the road.  Separate granite monuments honor the contributions of every state; one can find Ohio, Indiana, even tiny Rhode Island.  Blue and Red cast-iron markers show where the troops on both sides dug trenches, positioned cannon, mined to capture the enemy.  Preserved cannon perch on ridge tops.  Huge constructions of bronze and stone tower over the landscape in grandiose mourning and tribute.

At the same time, tourists are snapping selfies on the steps of the Illinois Monument.  Small children slide down the 47-step-a-step-for-every-day-of-the-siege staircase's banister and whistle and sing inside the Pantheon-imitating dome so they can hear the echoes bounce. Brave fit young things scurry down steep hills and fight their way back up again shouting insults and encouragement to one another. A motorcycle club picnics next to the remains of a restored ironclad ship.  A father and daughter look around and think they are unobserved, then suddenly race up the steps of Wisconsin's monument and do the Rocky bounce, arms held high and laughing, when they reach the top.  A little boy runs up to an array of cannon and immediately starts yelling, "Boom!"

I feel like I'm seeing double.  On the one hand, this is a place of sadness and mourning.  So many people died here.  So many lives changed or ended.  A city was brought to collapse and destruction after a blockade and siege of more than a month and a half.  Now, though, this is a tourist destination, a place where grandparents follow faster-moving grandchildren up grassy hills, a place where competition bicyclists push up the steep grades for training,  a place where families bring their dogs for exercise.

Could those serious men locked in battle so long ago have possibly ever dreamed of this place as it is now, green and verdant, spring blooming flowers and wisteria scenting the air?  Could they have imagined the steady stream of vehicles with tags from every state in the nation come to touch history for themselves?  What would they have thought?  Would a glimpse into a place that for them had to be full of grim determination, fear, and death instead 150 years in the future being a place of tranquility, recreation, and communion please them?

I was thinking all these things as I drove slowly through the park.  At the center of the spiral is the National Cemetery, rows and rows of graves for those who laid down their lives on one side or the other, small, tidy stones like grey teeth protruding from the early spring grass.  Families were hiking among them, pausing to look at something that caught their attention, perhaps a name, perhaps an identification of place of origin.  I hope that those people would all find something hopeful in what their resting place has become.  Something beautiful grew in that place of great loss and ugliness.

Graceland

 After years of being curious, I finally got to go to Graceland last Wednesday.  My best friend and I got up, ate a hotel buffet breakfast, and braved cross-town traffic to arrive in an nearly-empty parking lot.

We paid our fee, passed through a queue and an unexpected photo stop, were handed the headphone set/audio guide that has become de rigeur at tourist attractions, and loaded onto a small shuttle bus which rolled across Elvis Presley Boulevard, through open gates, and up a small hill.
And there it was.

I am not sure what I was expecting.  This wasn't it.

Maybe I just expected the sort of excess that one sees in the homes of Hollywood elite today, flash, excess, too much of everything to be a truly livable space.  Instead, what was there was a home.  Large, spacious, elegant, but still a home.

Our little headphoned herd passed through the large front door and on either side of us were the home's public spaces.  There was a formal parlor, furnished in white, gold, and blue, on the right, and to the left, there was a formal dining room, the height of elegance for the time period in which it had been decorated.

We looked into a couple of bedrooms tucked down a small hall, and then we went around a corner to the kitchen.  It was here that the contrast of the two parts of the house really struck me.  The kitchen was described as the heart of Elvis's home, and I could tell the difference automatically.  It looked like a place real people could cook and eat and sneak down to raid the fridge in the middle of the night.   In fact, there was a stairwell that would allow just that. It looked like real people had at one time had real lives there, not just a set for photo ops or a display of conspicuous consumption.  

The downstairs rooms and even the famous Jungle Room felt the same way.  The private spaces of Graceland were comfortable and functional, full of expensive things, perhaps, but not a museum, not a slick spread in a magazine.  People used and enjoyed those rooms.

I liked it quite a lot.

The divisions he'd created, the idea of a public formal space in which he could meet those who perhaps were not close to him, is a very Southern thing.  The formal front parlor has been around for a long time.  I found it interesting that he had continued that tradition in his home.  He had enough money to have created anything he wanted, but what he created was a home.

Of course, the house itself is only a small part of the tour.  The outbuildings that have been converted or added are storehouses of memorabilia, costumes, personal items, and above all, gold and platinum records.  Trophies of all kinds were everywhere.

We finished up in the memory garden where the graves are.  People were snapping image after image of the graves, and to me, it felt a little odd.  To me, the graves were a private place, and the neverending parade of tourists, myself included, seemed a little inappropriate.  I admit that I've toured cathedrals of Europe, and I certainly took pictures of Dante's monument in Santa Croce and Shakespeare's in Holy Trinity, but this hit me differently.  I felt like I'd crawled over a fence and invaded someone's privacy.

We loaded back up, were carted across the road, and got off in the miniature theme park where we'd started.  We dutifully toured the automobile collection, browsed in shops, had our photo made with Elvis through the magic of Photoshop, got pressed pennies, bought the obligatory t-shirts.

We took a break and ate a hamburger and a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich with some of the best fries I've ever had in one of the two restaurants on the Graceland property, and the 50s diner decor included the obligatory beautiful Wurlitzer filled with Elvis's music.  We listened, ate, and took a minute to refuel. The whole time, though I couldn't stop thinking about what Elvis himself might have thought about this whole thing.  He had tried to make a home, a refuge for himself and those he loved.  He hadn't built a palace to excess, although he certainly had the financial means to do so.  This means that he treasured that space and what it represented.

So would he have been okay with what it has become?  Would he have seen it as just another part of the business, or would it have bothered him that we were traipsing through his kitchen, snapping photos of his formal parlor?

The question continued to resonate with me all the way back out to the now-filled parking lot and all the way down I-55 to my own refuge.  It lingers still.

Twitter Is Blocked in Turkey

....and the people have flipped a big old electronic bird to the oppressor by simply sliding around that block.  I want to stand up and cheer.  The images I see of people spray-painting the DNS numbers to skate around the government ban over Erdogan's own political posters fill me with the same satisfaction all those portraits of Ataturk flying on red backgrounds and plastered accusingly on the walls opposite the presidential residence did when we were last year.

Turkey is so dear to me after the Ottomans course and the travel that went with it.  The people who live in that wonderful place deserve better than their leader is giving them.  What a tremendously condescending insult to think that he has the right to shut them off from the electronic world.  What a tremendously arrogant stance to pretend he has that kind of power.  I keep thinking we're about to have a "V" moment there, and the results will be shown to us by the Instagram feeds, YouTube videos, and tweets of the people who will rebuild what he's tried to tear down and repress.

I want to applaud Twitter and Google, too, for standing up to a world leader who is trying to hide his own sins by denying his people freedom and access.  He's literally trying to cover not only his own eyes with dirty hands but also the eyes of the whole world like a petulant child who cannot get his way.  It heartens me to see them standing up, providing backdoors and work-arounds instead of folding their hands and waiting passively for someone else to do something.

I'm not much of a revolutionary.  I hate politics passionately.  It just makes me furious when I see such a vibrant nation under the heel of such a massive hubris-filled jackass.  So by all means, let's #occupytwitter since #twitterisblockedinturkey.

Sufis

For some reason, just tonight, that evening in Istanbul when we saw the Sufi performance is stuck in my head.  It's almost like I'm there in that domelike converted bath chamber seeing and hearing it again.

I remember seeing all of them, being interested in the diversity of ages and expressions on the men as they stepped into the circle for the performance.  One looked so young and somehow nervous.  One was stately and older.  One had the face of an angel.

I remember the way their dance began, the way their arms slowly unfurled to their dancing positions as though it were something as natural as a plant's leaves slowly growing under the sun.  I remember the way they seemed to switch off the act of leading until everyone had started the pattern.  It was soothing and compelling.  It made me wonder what it would be like to be one of them, to spin and spin and accept and let go at the same time....

Once I knew the symbolism of what they were doing, something I found out later, it was even more powerful, and it continues to be even now that they are spinning only in my mind.  I'm stealing this from Wikipedia because it's faster than my telling it all myself.  Semazen is another word for sufi:

In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, the semazen's camel's hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego; his wide, white skirt (tennure) represents the ego's shroud. By removing his black cloak (hırka), he is spiritually reborn to the truth. At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God's unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God's beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth. The semazen conveys God's spiritual gift to those who are witnessing the Sema. Revolving from right to left around the heart, the semazen embraces all humanity with love. The human being has been created with love in order to love. Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi says, "All loves are a bridge to Divine love. Yet, those who have not had a taste of it do not know!"

The Sufis have been turned into big-time tourist capital by Turkey.  Almost any product you can imagine can be found with their image on it. Every country has something like that, some symbol from their past they've turned into a cultural shorthand for commercial endeavours.  I sort of think it's a shame that this really deeply personal thing has been used for that.

On the other hand, maybe it's all good.  Maybe the symbolism and the beauty of it can reach out through all the tshirts and spinning glass dolls somehow.  Maybe when people use the Iznik trivet with the brightly painted dancers on its surface, some of the original intention is passed along.  I am not wise enough to know.  All I can say with any certainty is that, along with the Hagia Sophia's golden dome, the slow wheel of Sufis rests permanently in my mind.

The Great Game

It's been a long time since I was in a country where I could use my haggling skills.  I know some people hate it, but I sort of love it.  It's a game.  How low can I get you to go?  The price you receive depends directly on the skills you bring.  It's like competitive shopping.

I always come armed to the teeth.  One thing about growing up in the Deep South, I know how to manipulate the male ego.  It's not something I do often.  I find it almost distatefully easy when it doesn't matter to me.  It's not something we're taught.  It's something we sort of absorb, I suppose.

Like all fine arts, there is a procedure for it.  I find something I want and ask its price.  Then I get all sweet and Southern.  I smile a lot. My accent becomes a little more pronounced.  I start my end of the game at half of whatever the asked me for in the first place.  Every Southern man knows that underneath that little butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth smile is a straight razor.  These guys know it, too, I'm sure.  Maybe all men recognize that steel under the sweet.  God help them if they don't.  After all, it's all a part of the game.  Whether they see it or not, I must say that the straight razor never seems to bother them....

I got a marriage proposal today.  I wanted a scarf, and I could have come away with a husband.  This is another part of the game.  "You're so beautiful.  You're so fascinating.  Won't you give me a little more money if I tell you this?"  Perhaps this is their version of the straight-razor.

Again, Southern woman training comes in handy for that.  We grow up surrounded by gallant men who are so full of crap that hip boots are commonly required.  I know how to smile and say, "Aw.  Thank you, honey," and walk off to the next challenge.

And really, everybody is happy at the end of it.   Somehow the items I get this way mean more to me.  I have a ring I got in Costa Rica that was my best ever haggle. I paid less than half of his asking price. Every time I put it on, I think about it and smile to myself.  That was a good day.

Today was, too. Today I was sweetheart, darling, and I think even precious one time.  That's fine.  I got good prices on everything I purchased, and I felt like I won a State Championship.  They got what was undoubtedly a good profit on me, since that is the way of these things, and they also got to feel all manly and stuff.  Win-win.  Totally win-win.  I wish we did this back home.  I would probably shop more if we did.

Getting Ready

Tomorrow my journey to Turkey begins.  I've been waiting for it so long that it hardly seems possible that I will finally get on a plane and start the long, long process of getting there.

Today was dedicated to packing.  I got out my new bag and loaded it.  I love that thing.  It was some of the best money I've ever spent.  While I was trying not to have to carry a rolling carry-on, I still have one for my camera gear and so forth.  Everything else, and I do mean EVERYTHING else fit inside that new back and I'm almost ten pounds under the weight limit.  It's surreal.

Every trip is the beginning of a new way of looking at the world.  Every journey opens up a new perspective.  I feel as if this one is going to truly momentous, though.  Maybe it's because of how long it is.  Maybe it's the distance I'm going.  I don't know.  It just feels like I'm on the edge of a big cliff waiting for the courage to leap.  How thrilling.

That Was Unexpected

I went on a trip recently.  I wasn't expecting much from it.  In fact, I had totally negative expectations.  I was grumpy.  I stomped my feet.  I did not want to go.

Shows what I know.

I had a great trip.  Unexpectedly, I found myself with lots of people whose company I really enjoyed.  Some of them were old friends rediscovered.  Some of them were brand new acquaintances I hope to know better.  We had meals, saw the sights, talked together, and it was refreshing in a way I really needed.

Additionally, we got lots of new information and ideas to bring back to our school.  We had conversations with administration at the school and district level.  That hasn't happened in a long time.  I feel more positive about the upcoming school year than I have in a long, long time.

The most unexpected thing was meeting someone who caught my attention.  He's cute.  He's smart.  He's interesting.  Of course, I did what I always do in such prime situations.  I ran like hell, couldn't even talk much to him, he unnerved me so much.  (Sigh.)  I don't know if I'll see him again, but it's likely.  We're both "local," so I imagine we'll run into each other at some point.  Another chance to run away on another day....

Despite my general lack of sense and courage, the trip I was dreading turned into something quite refreshing.  It's nice when that happens.  Hopeful, sort of....

Preparing for Travel

I have a couple of trips coming up, and although I like to travel once I'm on the road, the process leading up to that moment is always mixed for me.  There is such a mixture of anticipation and dread that comes with heading out the door.

I think part of it is the million things that have to be taken care of before I can leave.  There's the laundry, the cleaning, the shopping, the packing.  Just the packing itself is enough to be discouraging.  There are money matters and last-minute crises.  It gets overwhelming.

There's also the leaving of the animals.  Yoda especially has been through this enough with me to know that when suitcases are spotted, separation is imminent.  She hates my suitcases and goes back and forth between packing herself inside them, refusing to get out or be removed and clawing the outside with those discrete sabers she keeps at the ends of her paws.

A strange immobility engulfs me.  There are things I know I need to do.  Minutes click away, and still I wait.  Since this action (or inaction) actually causes more stress and last-minute problems, I can't for the life of me figure out why I do it.  But I do.  Every single time.

Even this blog is just a form of it.  Soon the trip will be on, and I will be involved in it.  I just have to find a way to start the ball rolling to begin with.

Travel Companion

Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where –" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"– so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
~ Alice and the Cheshire Cat, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
____________

For a long time, I have wanted to have something to take pictures with on my travels.  I suspect this started when I saw Amalie.  I (and the rest of the entire universe) loved it when she sent her father's gnome travelling.

As a part of the Teachers for Global Classrooms program, I met people who had been doing this for years.  One of them has a sock monkey who actually has his own Facebook page.  Another has a laminated cut out of her high school's mascot.  I started thinking about it again when I saw theirs, but I couldn't find anything that was small enough not to be a nuisance.  I know enough about myself as a traveler to know that if it's a hassle, I'm not going to fool with it.  I considered several items - a small beanie of our school mascot, an exceedingly tiny and grumpy sock monkey, a small blue owl someone gave me - but none of them seemed right.

A couple of weeks ago, a teacher buddy of mine started putting up pictures of a tiny finger puppet of Vincent Van Gogh she'd gotten at a museum.  I had a forehead-smacking moment when I saw it.  I actually have the William Shakespeare from that same series.  I bought it at the Frazier Museum in Louisville the first year I read for the AP test.  It's been guarding my Diet Mt. Dew in my classroom since that summer.

However, I didn't want to travel with Will.  I have so many things that are Shakespeare.  I love him.  I just didn't want to travel with him.  I looked over the line of the puppets from the Unemployed Philosopher's Guild for another option. They're all so cute and funny that the kid in me wanted all of them.  The adult in charge of the checkbook managed to limit that other aspect to purchasing two:  the Cheshire Cat and Emily Dickinson.

I got Chessy today.  I am pretty positive that he will be the one I travel with.  The quote at the top is most of the reason why, but there are other quotes that fit every long journey I've ever been on.  The one that springs to mind is the famous:

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."

As anybody who has ever traveled knows, there comes a point (maybe the exact moment you break out the suitcases) that this quote becomes painfully true....

I also like Chessy because he's a cat. That fits in with many things, the real-life furry beasts sleeping on my furniture that I miss when I'm travelling, the mankei neko I collected in Japan, the mascot of my school.  Cats are also good travel buddies because they remind you to be curious, to dress simply but with elegance, to enjoy any and all luxuries that come your way, and to sniff at unfamiliar things (possibly also while smacking them lightly with your paw) before accepting them.

It's a silly little thing, but I am looking forward to taking Chessie with me to Turkey.  If I can get a picture of him inside the Hagia Sofia, then that's going to be a very good thing.

Not Politics. Just Hope.

I've been watching the news on Turkey carefully the past couple of days.  I also follow some people on Instagram who are there in the protests, and I see things on Tumblr from them, too.  The images have been both profoundly distressing, police in riot gear, water cannons, clouds of tear gas,  people being carried away on stretchers, blood streaming down faces. The situation, something that began over saving a public park from allegedly corrupt development, has acted as a spark to an apparently vast powder keg of other issues and has spread all over the country.  The seams are coming apart in Turkey.

And yet, there have been other images that somehow give a kind of hope in the grimness, pictures of peaceful protesters holding up books to the police who stand behind them in riot gear, groups that normally do not have much to do with each other standing shoulder to shoulder.  These immediately pulled me back to what I've been reading in my course texts.  The great strength of the Ottoman Empire was in its tolerance and acceptance of "the other," according to the book we have been required to read.  Unlike most of the rest of medieval Europe, at its height, the Empire based worth on what you could do as much as where you were from or whom you worshipped.  Different did not have to mean evil or marked for destruction under their rule.  Instead, "different" mean exactly that, not the same, but not unworthy.  Even the "big three" religions managed to find a way to coexist there in what, when compared to the rest of the world at that time, can be considered to be mostly peaceful.  Not total equality or total freedom, but mostly peacful. It was not any sort of democratic or Utopian paradise, but it was something beyond the Inquisition and the pogroms.

That same idea of tolerance and unity seems to be showing up in these protesters.  One news article I read talked about how people from different ethnic groups, people from different regions, even people from rival soccer teams are coming together in these protests against the increasing strictness of the current government.  Even though the violence and the injuries that are accompanying them are terrible, there is something remarkable about that unification of differences.

As the readings for this course have made me more aware of the history of the Ottoman Empire, I have realized suddenly just how much the lands it used to control are still in flux, still searching for themselves in the wake of its decline.  Surely most of us probably think of nations as something permanent, something always there, even those of us living in a nation as new as this one.  The truth of it is that the people of Turkey (and everywhere else that the Ottomans once governed) are less than ninety years out of the rule of a government that held some of them, for better or for worse, for more than six centuries.  The powers of the West that carved the dead empire up into pieces and parcels for themselves after its demise have only prolonged the process of growth, of a necessary forging of identity.  Therefore, even though they are standing on ancient foundations, they are new construction, and probably we should not be surprised that they change as that process continues.

I very much hope that the protests in Turkey come to some form of peaceful and...well...right...resolution.  That may sound very naive.  It may actually be so.  I do not pretend to be wise enough to know what "right" is in this case.  It's not my land; they aren't my issues, even though one of the sources of unrest is the NATO presence on the Syrian border.  However, Turkey has been making great strides economically and a time of seemingly slow renaissance for its place in the world has started.  I think it would be terrible if that forward motion and self-definition were damaged by the usual suspects:  selfishness, powermongering, and pride.  Again, I will say that I don't know who is right and who needs to change in this moment.   I hope that, even as controversial as it might be, the legacy of that seven-hundred-year old empire can give all that was good and wise of unity and coexistence to its children and allow its darkness and bloodshed to fall away.

Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

I bought my tickets for Turkey yesterday.   I shopped around, tried to use my SkyMiles to defray the cost of the ticket, and finally just clicked "Purchase" with no small amount of both trepidation and relief.  It's done.  When you click the big green button, it's done.

I still can't believe it, though.  The more I read and discover, the more fantastic it all seems.  I got my main course textbook from Primary Source last week, and I looked at it some last night.  I also got on our course Moodle and started meeting the people I'm going to be traveling with.  As usual, I'm the only person from the Deep South.  Well.  Every trip needs a token chick from MS, right?  In all seriousness, it looks like it will be a good mix of disciplines, grade levels, and parts of the country.

I also started digging through the list of "extras" one of the course instructors put up.  I ordered a couple of used copies of some books about Istanbul/Ottoman Turkey from Amazon, and I got one of Orham Pamuk's novels on my Kindle.  I can see that what I'm supposed to be doing and what I want to be doing are going to be at war with each other for the next few weeks.  (So what else is new, right?)

One of my last purchases, a whim I indulged after somebody else brought it up again on FB, was the They Might Be Giants song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)."  I remember that song from a million years ago.  C. and I laughed about it when we were in Venice and I was still waiting to find out whether or not I had gotten in for this institute.  It's a very silly song, but somehow it was the perfect thing to celebrate.  It feels very, very good to have this ticket, something to hold on to in the rough week ahead of me.

I'm now running very late to start my day, but it's worth it.  If you haven't heard this song or heard it in a long time, I leave it here to get stuck in your head, too.  Enjoy.

Turkey

I had a morning of professional development and car problems.  When I got out of a two-hour assembly, I had a voicemail waiting.  It was one of the coordinators from the NEH Summer Institute I had applied for.  Out of more than 200 applications, I had been chosen to be one of thirty teachers to spend three weeks exploring the Ottoman Empire in Turkey.

I am afraid that I jumped up and down and squeaked like a cartoon character at that point.

It still hasn't fully registered that it is real.  I have been pinning stuff about Turkey on a special board on Pinterest since I first became aware of this program.  While I was in Venice, Constantinople (now, of course, Istanbul) was everywhere because of the trade ties and seemingly-regular wars.  Now, I have the chance to see the other side of that total equation.  It is incredible.

In all my life, I have never imagined that I would be able to see Turkey.  I have to pay for my own plane ticket, but the NEH provides a stipend to pay for the other expenses in-country.  Even if I have to eat rice for three months, I will find a way to pay for that ticket.

The Bridge of Sighs

Beautiful, isn't it?  Clean white limestone shining above the canal.  Graceful arches, delicate carvings.  Yes, this is the famous Bridge of Sighs, one of the great sights in Venice.  The name sounds like a dream, like a place where lovers go to repine over unreturned affection.  The reality of it is somewhat less glamorous.

The Bridge of Sighs connects the official rooms of the Doge's Palace to the prisons.  It took its rather fanciful name from the fact that the last sight of the free world for most of those who crossed it was out the intricate metal lattice of its windows.  The prisoner could see the beauty of free Venice and give one last sigh of regret and loss before the darkness to come swallowed them.

While I was in Venice, I got to tour the Doge's Palace, now a museum.  It's more than a little overwhelming, which was its original intent.  All who came to the Doge's Palace were to feel the wealth and the power of the city-state of Venice pressing down upon them as they traveled through the government offices.  Ceilings of rare woods covered in plaster relief and pure gold compete with paintings and frescoes by known masters.  Sculptures and bronzes stand in pools of light from Murano glass windows.

This excess of ornamentation is only one part of the Doge's power in Venice.  As the tour progressed, we saw the rest of it.  The dungeon prison cells of the palace are windowless, cold, small.  They do not face each other, so although there are some cells with walls of woven iron bars,  there could have been no possibility of the simple comfort of finding a human face nearby.  The lower the floor for the cells, the less space and air they provided.

It was cold on the day we visited, yet it could not be called deepest winter.  Venice also floods on a regular basis, the street level being submerged under enough water to cause walkways high enough to serve as seats for tired tourists when the water isn't up.  Just thinking of that as I walked through those cells made me shiver with something that had nothing to do with the chill in the air.  Suddenly, the idea of being in those stone walls with water rising was a claustrophobic hand around my throat.

One of the last parts of the tour was a walk over the Bridge of Sighs itself.  I was still mentally in the jail cells when I walked up the short staircase onto it.  I glanced out a window and saw the canal.  Suddenly, I realized where I was.  I stood for a long time, running the tips of my fingers against the smooth cold stone walls.  All I could think of was how many people never made the journey I was making, how many only took the trip in the other direction.  How could it carry any other name?

Another short set of steps led back down into opulence.  I walked over to one of the many windows that spilled light and air into the chamber and stared out at the short expanse of stone upon which I'd just been standing.  Eventually, I turned away and followed the sparse crowd to another part of the museum.  Even after I was walking in the spotty sunlight of Saint Mark's Square, some shadow of that limestone passage lingered.

Three Italian Guys

(thus begin the blogs from Italy)

On my recent trip to Italy, I learned more about famous Italian philosophers, artists, and saints.  Here's a look at three and why I think they're fabulous.

Dante

Dante isn't new to me.  Likely, he's not new to you, either.  Even if all you know is the image of a guy touring hell, Dante is one of those all-pervasive writers.  Last time we were in Florence, I saw the reconstruction of his house.  We visited the tiny square where it stands this time, as well.  Images of him are all over Florence, and a statue of him stands tall outside the church of Santa Croce where his tomb is visited by tourists from all over the world.

He's the favorite son of Florence.  Everybody seems to overlook the uncomfortable fact that once upon a time, Florence kicked him right out.

Dante has my heart for two reasons.  First, the Divine Comedy is the first work to be written in the language of the common man.  Dante chose "vulgar Italian" instead of Latin for his work because he believed in the beauty and value of his own language.  This makes him brother to Chaucer, an educated man who elevated and celebrated his own dialect.  

The second reason I love him is because he got the best of all possible revenges.  He sent everyone who ticked him off or exiled him straight to hell, and they've been there ever since.  He filled his Inferno with creative punishments for those who he found offensive.  I can just imagine his satisfaction as he penned their torments.  I imagine, or at least I hope, that it was highly therapeutic.  This brings me to my second artist...

Michelangelo

Again, he's not new to anyone, but I think he gets caricatured or reduced.  He's a famous name, one highly likely to be recalled if someone is looking for an artist.  The thing about Michelangelo is that he lived according to the artistic vision in his head and was unwilling to compromise.  He saw the human body as an expression of divine beauty.  He broke the law to do secret dissections to understand the inner workings of muscle, bone, and tendon.  He turned his knowledge into such grace and splendor, and he refused to see anything "dirty" in what he created.  

This trip, I got to go to see the David at the Accademia del Arte.  Everybody has seen images of the David.  It's one of the great cliched pieces of world art, and I wasn't actually expecting that much.  I spent about thirty minutes waiting to get in to the museum passing souvenir carts full of images of the statue, including boxer shorts depicting its groin, postcards of zoom shots of that same region, and various other tacky items.  When we got in, I heard several people comment on just one aspect of the statue:  his exposed genitals.  

I couldn't help but be exasperated by that.  The David is famous for a reason.  It is, quite simply, astonishing.  Forget the cheap imitations.  Forget the touristy trinkets.  Everybody should see it.  While I didn't have the heart-stopping reaction my best friend did when she saw it after so many years of waiting, I did feel a catch in my breath, that little "Oh" reaction.  Even on a cloudy Florentine day, the light spilling across the marble from the simple dome above was the only adornment it could possibly have needed.  We walked forward slowly, sat down to take it all in.  Every curve, every tendon, every delineation of vein or hollow of muscle was beautiful.  The longer one looks at the David, the more spectacular it becomes.  How can anyone be so crass as to reduce it to that one component, to make a dirty joke of something profoundly pure?

Unlike so many others, Michelangelo never perceived the body as a source of wickedness.  If you look at his paintings, he celebrates the wonder that every person should feel when the intricacies of our bodies are considered.  The body for him seems to have been its own form of art with nothing prurient implied in it.  Too bad more people can't take that opinion.  Too bad more people can't see the beauty that he did.

And his contemporaries missed it over and over, really.  I didn't know until this trip that the figures in the Sistine Chapel had been painted as nudes.  All of mankind was naked and perfect before its creator.  He felt that this was perfection.  Of course, people being what they are, he was accused of painting pornography on the walls of the Vatican by one of the cardinals, the official censor.  He denied this and to get revenge for the criticism, he painted the man in hell in the great scene of the last judgment.  Not only did he publicly condemn his critic, Michelangelo also stripped him down and had him tortured for eternity by having a giant serpent wrap around him and devour the very portion of his anatomy that seemed to lead the cardinal's thinking.  Irony is a wonderful thing. 

Of course, his critics got the last word.  About three years after he died (while working on the mosaics of Saint Peter's), the powers that be forced one of his students to come in and add seco drapes to the original frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.  That snake still buries his fangs into the cardinal though.  I guess you can learn from this and from Dante that offending the artist is, to say the least, unwise....

Saint Francis of Assisi

As with the other two, I can't imagine many people haven't at least seen the image of St. Francis.  The gentle brown-robed figure so often depicted with birds or beasts is common even outside the Catholic church.  I have a concrete figure of him standing watch in a bed full of day lilies near my bird feeders.

We actually got to go to Assisi this time, and for the first time, that concrete icon became a real person.  At the great basilica of Saint Francis, we met Brother Michael, a Franciscan priest.  He was one of those rare people who just radiates that type of holy serenity.  There was nothing rigid or formal about him.  He was totally welcoming of us without knowing us at all.  One of the things he said as we stood outside the doors of the lower basilica that I will probably never forget was that the basilica had been built with us in mind.  Not that the people who started it some seven or eight centuries ago knew us personally, but that they knew travelers would come from all over the world to their doors, and they wanted us all, people from every place and in every time, to feel peace and hospitality when we arrived.

The great basilica itself has three levels.  We started in the lower basilica, and I have never seen a place with such beautiful art.  Most of it was done by or is in the school of Giotto, the "father of the Renaissance."  The dark blue ceiling curves protectively overhead, and a sense of absolute serenity enfolded me as we entered.  After looking at the features of the architecture, we were sent downstairs to the crypt. By this point, we had seen lots of "saints-in-a-box," as I have come to think of the displayed remains of the deceased holy.  There was nothing ostentatious about Saint Francis's tomb.  The sarcophagus wasn't showy marble or glass-sided.  It was simple stone surrounded by the limestone foundations of the great church above.  For all its lack of ornamentation, it was the most moving of all of such things I saw.

I think it was because of what we were told about Saint Francis himself.  He had everything, wealth, privilege, the status of the oldest son which meant more property and power would come his way when his merchant father died.  He tried to find meaning in excess, in reveling in the things his money could get him, but he found it hollow.  He tried next to find it in service to his country, joining the military and winding up as a prisoner of war.  When he came home, he turned to God after a spectacular conversion including a vision that ordered him to rebuild the church.  He did this literally and with his own hands, but he came to understand that it wasn't physical labor that he was meant to do.  His father tried to stop him, thought him insane, and after a massive and public confrontation, disowned him.  Francis took this in stride, and went on to give up everything in order to do that which he felt he had been called to do.

I admire Francis because in his own way, he was every bit as misunderstood and rebellious as Michelangelo and Dante.  While to the best of my knowledge, he was much more about the forgiveness than the eternal revenge, the austere life of service he chose was just as much against the grain of his society, the medieval church, as were the lives of the other two.  The church of his day was full of greed, materialism, and politics.  Everything in his past fitted him for pursuit of these things, but he knew just how little actual fulfillment was to be had from them, so he chose another way:  putting the needs of others first.  He had wisdom and dedication, and apparently, he also kept his humor.  Today, he still inspires people to live with such tremendous care for others and kindness.  

Even the symbols associated with Saint Francis are compelling to me.  The Tau cross he chose as his personal emblem sums it up.  According to what I was told, he picked it because it was the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, connecting to the idea of giving up the old and transitioning to the new, ending one life and starting another.  I think no matter what your spiritual beliefs, there comes a time when the idea of leaving something broken behind in search of something else is important.

There are lessons to be taken from all three of these revolutionaries.  I cannot help but feel that even though they were such different people, all of them were great because all of them were somehow able to transcend themselves, escape the narrow focus that enfolds so many of us.  They are an inspiration to pursue the heart's great desire no matter what obstacles arise.  They overcame banishment, censorship, and the disapproval of those closest to them to do the thing they knew they had to do, the thing they were meant to do.  If in any way I can manage to emulate this, while I know any sort of eternal greatness is not portioned for me, perhaps I can avoid mediocrity.

Previously Recorded

(written in Pisa 3/11/13)

I suppose everybody has a “bucket list,” although to be honest I hate that term. Mine includes visiting several places, mostly because I can’t believe they’re real until I see them for myself. Today, I was able to check another of those locations off my list, but as usual with such idealistic goals, it didn’t turn out exactly the way I’d imagined.

We got up early, loaded our faithful tour bus, and headed out for a short trip (read: two hours) to Pisa. The weather started out totally foul, rainy and cold complete with spectacular displays of lightning popping the mountain tops. The nearer we came to Pisa, however, the brighter the day became, and by the time we arrived at the bus parking lot, clear, brilliant sun had emerged to bathe the scene before us. We stepped out, stretched and sighed, and were immediately attacked by umbrella vendors.

I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else I’ve been. There must have been fifteen guys with cheap umbrellas and knock-off RayBans just waiting for each bus of tourists to arrive. Then, like a flock of vultures with a fresh kill handy, they would converge. Even if you had an umbrella in hand, they tried to sell you an umbrella.

They were simply everywhere. It became a running joke. One of the guys said, “I’m kind of afraid to go into the bathroom. I’m scared some guy is going to pop out and ask me if I want to buy some toilet tissue.” And really, I’m not sure this was an absurd notion….

We braved the gauntlet and got to the square of Pisa. It was lovely. I have seen pictures of the tower all my life, but for some reason, I never noticed how oddly delicate and lovely it really is. I took about a million photographs, including the ubiquitous holding-up-the-tower one, and sat for a while just looking up at it. Our guide told us a lot about the restoration efforts over the centuries, and I had even more respect for the structure that Pisa just refuses to let fall. There is something admirable about that kind of stubbornness to me.

Another part of our tour was inside the cathedral for which the Tower serves as a bell tower. It was simple, austere, and lovely. The Pisan Romanesque style is simpler, cleaner, and although the Florentine Gothic is beautiful, something about the Moorish arches inside this Pisa church pleased me. We walked through and saw wonder everywhere. One part of the church held a saint in his green-marble-and-glass coffin. Although I have taught Chaucer for years and explained people coming to Canterbury to worship the remains of St. Thomas a Beckett each time, I have never actually seen what I couldn’t help thinking of as a “saint in a box.” I took pictures of him to show next time I teach Chaucer.

As unexpected as all that was, the real shocker of the day came when we left the cathedral. One hundred days before the final exam for high school students, kids from all around Tuscany gather in Pisa to walk around the monuments for luck. Actually, what they do is mass up, fill the area, drink, fight, smoke, “get to know each other well,” grope perfect strangers, and play football. Enter American tour group us to this mix.

Yeah. It was like that.

In the time it took us to cross from the cathedral to its baptistery, we were separated numerous times, inspected physically by people we didn’t know, yelled at, invited to frolic, greeted in broken English, jostled, and generally roughed up. By the time we got from the baptistery to the exit, some fool had put his hands on me without written permission (a thing that will get you killed), and one of the college girls on our trip had been surrounded by a horde of five guys who proceeded to be altogether too free with their hands.

We made it out and got to the bus stop only to be assailed by that location’s team of intrepid umbrella sellers. They were the most persistent of any we were to encounter. At one point, all of us were chorusing “NO! NO!” every time they offered an umbrella. They remained undaunted, circling us until the blessed arrival of public transportation.

Even though elements I had not expected were introduced, nothing can take away the beauty of Pisa. Maybe the umbrella men and the idiot teenagers somehow make it even better. We all survived. We all got to see and enjoy the sights. We have a tale to take away. It truly was a “bucket list” moment, memorable in every way.

This Broadcast Was Taped Before a Live Audience

(written in Venice 3/8/13 but delayed due to lack of wi-fi)

For a very long time, I have wanted to visit Venice. It has always seemed totally unreal to me, like a set somebody in Hollywood conjured and other people took as reality. I’ve seen it in tons of movies, read about it in countless books, but I have never believed I would ever get to see the real place.

We came in last night after a day full of flight hell, and by the time we got to our hotel here in the mainland suburbs, rain was falling, everyone was too exhausted to care, and our only goal was to fall down as expeditiously as possible.

Today, I visited Venice.

Our journey toward the city of 118 islands started a little oddly. As we were loading our water taxi, a smaller boat nearby was loading a corpse in a body bag. We all sort of stared, looked away, and shuffled our feet, not quite sure what to do with that. Welcome to the place where every sort of activity is done on the water, ladies and gentlemen.

We started in a glass-blowing factory on a small island off the coast of Venice proper. We watched a man make an entire horse in under two minutes. It was considered to be “impure” and was recycled after we left. It was pretty awesome to us. The tour continued, as is the way of such things on these trips, with a journey through their showroom. I had wanted to buy a Murano glass ball to go with the one I was given in Brazil, but since I am not able to shell out a couple of hundred dollars for a paperweight, no matter how lovely, I bought a few other small things instead.

Then we came to the city itself. We started with a walking tour, and I was immediately struck by the previously-mentioned unreality of Venice. The tiny canals everywhere were filled with boats, the tourist gondolas, some guy moving from one place to another, water taxis, everything, everything slipping quietly by. I kept feeling as though I would look up at one of the palazzo windows and see an Animatronic figure singing “It’s a Small World” at any moment.

The colors and textures, the smells and the stones, the curiously lovely blue-green of the quiet water, all were lovely. The thing that takes the breath away, though, is the architecture. We came to Campo San Marco, and while the façade of the square is lovely, Basilica San Marco is one of the loveliest churches I have ever seen. Every inch of the ceiling and much of the external façade is covered in mosaics made of tiny colored glass pieces and gold. I think that one could easily sit and stare at the front of that building for weeks, maybe months, and still find new details to delight the eyes. Inside its dim hushed domes, mosaics made of marble from every corner of the world form geometric perfection.

Our trip to Venice had three true highpoints for me. The first was a gondola ride. Who doesn’t associate the gondola with Venice? It’s one of those stereotypical and iconic cultural icons that comes almost automatically. When I found out that I was coming here, one of my first thoughts was “gondola ride.” After a walking tour, we assembled at one of the canals, divided up into small groups, and clambered aboard the sleek black ships awaiting us.

It was amazing. After I stopped being scared I’d flip the boat, I relaxed somewhat into the plush red upholstery and looked around. Every bridge we passed seemed to have something charming carved into it. I wondered if that was just to delight the eye of the water-bourne passenger. Everywhere, there were gondolas full of tourists. Nobody was loud or yelling even though many of the boats were filled with teenagers. A certain hush seemed to fall. Nobody wanted to break it, and even talking to groups in other boats was done quietly.

We slid past ancient water-doors, over submerged stone and marble steps, and the true face of the city emerged. Everywhere tiny piers jutted out into the canals. Here and there, an iron gate closed off access to what had been a main entrance to the commercial part of the old palazzos.

The journey was everything I had hoped it would be. I took a picture of myself in the gondola, and I’m smiling like crazy in it. I will use it for my new FB picture, and each time I see it, I will remember how good it felt.

The second highpoint of the day came while I was touring Saint Mark’s Basilica. Almost as soon as we walked in, the sound of the cathedral organ filled the air. I held my breath, fearing that I would hear only tuning or practice runs as I had the day we were in the Duomo in Florence two years ago, but instead, the mighty voice of the instrument soared, rebounded, and filled the golden-domed space with beauty. It actually brought tears to my eyes. I looked around the upper galleries, knowing one of them held the organist, and finally, I found a space in which I could see him. I watched him play, reveling in the tactile nature of the deep notes of a great organ. He played two or three songs before I could bring myself to wander on. Another great wish of mine, to hear a cathedral organ played, had been granted.

The final gift from Venice came in the form of a tiny china cup of espresso. When we arrived in Venice, our guide had told us about Café Florian, the first public coffee house in Europe. She told us that it was COSTLY, but the ambiance wasn’t to be missed. After we left San Marco, we decided to go try out the coffee in the place where revolutions, coups, and operas had been cobbled together. I had an espresso and a piece of ricotta cheesecake. It did turn out to be VERY expensive. However, sitting in the great square of Venice sipping one of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever had and watching the world stroll by was worth every single euro.

Tomorrow, we leave here headed for Florence. I know that returning to that beautiful city will bring another set of highpoints. I can only say that I look forward to meeting them as they come.

Airstream Dream

Last night, I had a nightmare.  The details wouldn't mean a thing to you.  The monsters involved have been hanging around a long time.  I woke up from it disconcerted.  That icky feeling that lingers after something stirs up the sediment of the subconscious persisted through a flying early morning trip to the central post office, drug store, and (God help me) Wal-Mart.  When I got home, I went outside and filled up all my bird feeders, came in, watched Singing in the Rain, and played a lot, and I do mean A LOT, on Pinterest.

While I was avoiding reality online, I searched Pinterest for stuff about Airstreams.  Then three hours of my life disappeared.  There are a million pins about vintage travel trailers.  Some are restorations while others are total makeovers.  All of them made me yearn.  Oh, how very, very much I want an Airstream.

I want to fit it up with vintage colors and cool old stuff, much of which I probably could take from right here in the house.  I want to give it a clever name painted right on the outside, install solar panels on the roof, hook up an old Chevy pickup to it, load up you and the dogs (Chewie and Roux, at least), and head out.

We could start with small trips, I guess, but what I really want to do is head down the road with sort of an end goal, maybe California or Seattle in three weeks, but nothing in the middle nailed down.  I want to stop on the side of the road and take pictures of old neon signs.  I want to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon and have my breath taken away.  I want to a cook meal of dubious quality on equipment older than both of us and pray it comes out okay, find a place to stop if it doesn't.

I want to stand outside with you silently in the starlight somewhere that isn't here and look up into the sky until the majesty of it fills me up.  I want to fight with you over something stupid like the stereo or the shower or the inevitable flat tire or the dog walking or the washing-up (as would be bound to happen if we were really trapped together for three weeks in something so small as a truck and my theoretical Airstream) and after, find a way to tape it all back together again, understand each other better through it.  I want to sleep on a bed that we have to set up together, shoo large dogs off, and put away again in the morning.  I want to pour you coffee from my grandfather's stove percolator into a white milkglass Fire King mug I found years ago on eBay.

Ah, today, my gypsy feet are itching, itching, and sometimes lately I think I could happily take only what would fit into this imaginary caravan I'm creating in my mind and not look back.  It's a crazy sort of wide-awake dream, I suppose, but it helps to counter the darkness left behind by the other kind.  It won't hurt either of us if I indulge it just a little bit longer.

A Letter from Myself

(this arrived in the mail today.  we wrote letters to ourselves on the last day of the TGC Brazil trip as a final reflection.  although I knew it was coming, opening it still came as a poignant moment.)

__________

23 June 2012

Dear You,

Please remember what you've learned and seen here.  Even on the days when things get terrible, appreciate all you have.

Don't forget the students you've met.  Don't forget David Campista and their great generosity.  Take it with you and remember that beauty.

Remember the monkey.  Wild things can be gentle, too, when approached with the appropriate attitude.  This is good classroom advice.

Remember the joy of being alone.  Remember the joy of being with others.

It's okay to order the caipirinha.

It's okay to go back to the hotel if your head hurts, too.

Take a minute and look back over the pictures.  Watch the light go through the crystal ball.  And, finally, if you are not as happy right now as you were at every moment in Brazil....get your ass back there.

ME