Hospitality

“Want to go to Jordan with me?”

This was September, 2013, and so my answer was swift.

“Are you crazy?  We just invaded Iraq.”

Her answer was equally swift.  “So?”

Linda is a New York Speech Pathologist.  She had been invited to lecture at a conference in Amman.  The doctors there asked her to recruit an ENT surgeon to come along to teach them a procedure that restores voice to patients after removal of a cancerous voice box.

It was a worthy project and I wasn’t too busy to go.  I had just relocated to Springfield, Illinois, and my practice hadn’t ramped up yet.  No State Department advisories about travel to Jordan.  So, after a few days of equivocation, I agreed. 

Getting there was easy:  A direct flight from Chicago O’Hare to Amman.  On landing at Queen Aliah airport , I spied three Iraqi passenger jets, grounded since the onset of Desert Storm. 

A couple of other activities had been added to my agenda.  I was immediately whisked from the airport to a conference at the Jordan University of Science and Technology, about an hour north of Amman, near the Syrian border.  In the midst of a sea hijabs, my long blonde hair was exposed for all the world to see.  At first, I was embarrassed, intimidated, thought that I must look like a harlot to them.  But I was received warmly.  I was told that the hajib is a choice, not a commandment.

I lectured in the morning.  In view of my jet lag, I was humanely excused from the afternoon session.  After lunch, when everyone else returned to the conference, I was instructed to wait outside for a driver. 

I stood on the sidewalk, near the curb, gazing at the new and modern buildings that gleamed in the bright sun.  I wasn’t wearing my watch, so I don’t know how long I stood there.  It was long enough for me to be concerned. 

The car that screeched to a stop in front of me was a far cry from the sleek Mercedes that had collected me at the Airport.  This car had seen better days—had a dented fender and needed a paint job.  The driver leapt from the vehicle, grabbed my rollerbag, and motioned for me to get in.

As we sped off, I thanked him for picking me up.  No response.  He leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel tightly.  I couldn’t see the speedometer, but we were moving very fast, and the wind was doing a number on my hair.  I struggled in vain to close the window, but the hand crank was broken. 

I started to wonder, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten into this car.  Who was this driver who would not speak?  What if I’m a hostage?  Visions of beheading videos played out in my mind.  Would I ever see my family again?

My chest felt tight and it hurt to breathe.  I had felt this way once before, when our two year-old son disappeared, briefly, from our home in La Jolla.  We called 911 and searched desperately for what seemed to be forever.  I couldn’t stop thinking, “My son is going to be a picture on a milk carton.”  Within 10 minutes, he reappeared, pedaling up the sidewalk on his tricycle.  He had just toodled off, right under our noses, as my husband and I stood in our driveway, consulting with an architect about a wall to secure our front yard. 

I wouldn’t be on a milk carton.  Worst case scenario, maybe on the news.  And as the car continued southward, I convinced myself that my fears were unfounded.  I resolved to dismiss the dark thoughts and put my trust in the kind people who had arranged the transport. 

Until the car began to decelerate.  As far as I could tell, we were in the middle of nowhere.  To add fuel to my paranoia, a large sedan was parked on the roadside ahead and it was clear that we were pulling in behind it.

The driver of that car got out and turned to face us as we approached.  Two figures stepped out of the rear doors, one on each side, each clad from head to toe in light gray gowns and hijabs.

“My handlers?” I wondered.  My heart pounded in my throat.  I only hesitated a moment after my driver yanked my door open.  What options did I have?  Out in the middle of nowhere? 

As I climbed into the back of the sedan, a bright, voice called to me from the front passenger seat, “Hello there!” 

All was explained.  The passenger in front was a Professor of Midwifery from Australia who had also been lecturing at the same conference.  The sedan was already en route to take her back to Amman when the decision was made to send me back to my hotel, so a second car was dispatched to catch up .  It was a perfectly logical plan.  The only flaw was that my driver didn’t speak English.  Or that I didn’t speak Arabic.

The remainder of the drive delightful.  The two women who flanked me in the back seat were also midwives.  They were charming, intelligent, ardent feminists.  Not as in free loving bra burners.  They were strong and vocal advocates for women’s rights:  education, health care, autonomy…  We arrived at my hotel too soon.

My husband and I have made multiple visits to Jordan to help care for patients and have forged strong friendships with our colleagues there.  It is not a wealthy country—no massive mineral resources—but is the most compassionate and hospitable place I have ever been.  Consider the ratio of refugees to the general population.  At my last visit, the Iraqi jets were still on the runway.

DAWN AS A DRAGON

Dusk and dawn are two sides of the same coin—sunlight refracted by the atmosphere, the same colors and intensity of light, but in reverse order of appearance.

I have long been a fan of sunsets.  We hear a lot about rainbows—the Bible says they are a sign of God’s promise not to destroy the world by flood again.  He seems to be leaving that task up to us, now, as we saturate the air with CO2, melt the ice caps.  I think sunsets are a much more hopeful sign.

You never know what the sky will look like as we rotate in andout of sunlight.  Sometimes it is gold and rosy, sometimes clouds completely blot out the spectacle, and sometimes the sky is so perfectly clear that the sun just plops under the horizon.  But a beautiful sunset, when you get a chance to see it, can fill you with peace.  If you’re not starving, and you have a comfortable bed somewhere, a sunset gives hope that tomorrow will be better—if not immediate tomorrow, the very next day, then the future, however distant.

Dawn was not often my cup of tea in the first half of my life.  I preferred to sleep in.  And when I did arise early, it was because I had something to do.  I was full of purpose, on a mission, no time to meditate on the horizon.  As a child, I clung so stubbornly to my bed that I never had time for breakfast and was often late for school.  As a solution, my father took to waking me before sunrise, to engage me in some task, feeding the chickens, tending to the horses, milking the cows.  That was fun, and I was ready for school on time.  One summer, I joined the swim team, and the sun was usually a bright red ball on the horizon as my mother drove us to practice.

I have become more of a dawn person in my later years, in retirement.  A major activity each day is a long morning walk with my husband and our dogs, before the heat of the day sets in.  But I still prefer sunsets, looking across the Indian River Lagoon with a glass of wine, as we look forward to a good night’s sleep, with pleasant dreams.

Dusk and dawn look very different, depending on where you are.  From the west coast of Zanzibar, sunset is breath-taking.  But on the east coast, it is dawn that inspires awe.  Long before the sun rises from the sea, its light can play through tall thunder clouds and patchy rain showers.  The orange orb turns yellow, then becomes too bright for our eyes, as it burns away the mist, bakes the sand on the beach.

Dawn is a fire breathing dragon, that cremates last night’s dreams and nightmares.

Artificial Insolence

Why do we impute intent to machines?  We curse the lawnmower when it won’t start, plead with a sluggish car that won’t turn over… Case in point:  my new robot vacuum cleaner.  Let’s put aside, for the moment, the propriety of a husband giving his wife a household appliance as a Christmas gift.  I know this is a serious issue that cuts across many cultures.  But I don’t want to talk about it now, OK?

George (my husband, Tom, chose that name for the robot) really does have a mind of his own.  He does not follow instructions.  The first thing I wanted him to do was to suck up the needles that fell from our artificial Christmas tree during its deconstruction.  I thought it would be simple.  I placed him in front of the offending fake foliage and expected him to clean it up.  He made one pass through the middle of the mess, bumped into the wall, and then headed for the kitchen.  So I picked him up and put him back where I wanted him.  This time he scooted under the dining table. 

I reminded myself that this is just what he is programmed to do: roll around in seemingly random paths until eventually the whole area is clean—much like the proverbial infinite number of monkeys at infinite typewriters reproducing all the great works of literature.  All that was required of me was patience.  So I resigned myself to granting George some space and time.  I went to the other end of the house to do some other chores.

Before long, there was an incident.  The sliding door leading out to the deck was open and George couldn’t resist a chance for fresh air.  He knows better than to go down stairs, but unfortunately, he couldn’t manage this small drop off.  I heard some distress noises, and there he was, on his back, rollers and brush flailing, like a flipped turtle.  I put him back on the living room floor and closed the glass doors.

It was less than ten minutes later that I heard an eerie voice calling to me.  I was too far away to catch the words, but I knew it had to be something to do with George.  It couldn’t be him speaking, because it was a woman’s voice, not a man.  I don’t know why Tom had selected a masculine name, but that was the identity imprinted in my brain.  And the voice was creepy.  Like that disembodied female voice that you hear in spy movies announcing that you only have 55 seconds to vacate the premises before the whole thing blows.

It was an error message.  But I knew immediately, when I saw the carnage, that this had been no mistake.  George had known exactly what he was doing.  It was a crime of passion: a premeditated attack on a poor defenseless cordless hand held vacuum.  That mindless appliance had been innocently resting on a chair, plugged in to be recharged.  George knew, even before the idea occurred to me, that I would inevitably become frustrated with him and turn to the mini-Shark for consolation.  He was insanely jealous--couldn’t take the competition, the fear that he could be replaced.  He viciously ran over the hand-vac’s charging cord, unplugging it from both the wall socket and the minivac.  The cord became tangled up in George's own rollers, bringing him to a screeching halt.   

Fortunately, I was able to unravel everything.  There is no permanent damage, aside from my own psychological scars.  Too traumatized to risk another incident so soon, I resorted to a broom and dustpan to clean up the mess.  Both vacs are currently functional and, plugged into their respective chargers.  I hope George learned his lesson, but I am not optimistic.

I know this story sounds far-fetched, but I swear it is true.  There is some literary precedent.   Think:  The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat.

My best Christmas

My favorite Christmas wasn’t the one when I got the Tiny Tears or the Chatty Cathy, or even the Barbie Dream Kitchen.  It wasn’t the time we visited cousins in Iowa and I saw snow for the first time.  It was my father’s last Christmas.

We didn’t know at the time, or at least would not admit to ourselves, that it was his last, even though he had been noticeably fading.  We intended to celebrate a White Christmas in Illinois with our nuclear family.  Dad’s philosophy was “The successful family is a self-destructive unit,” and he would not hear of us spending Christmas in Texas, or flying him up to Springfield.  Three of our four children were coming home for the holidays. We were all going to sing with our church choir at the midnight Christmas Eve service.   I ordered a huge prime rib roast through the internet and we were looking forward to quite a feast on Christmas Day.  My husband and would visit my father in January, on Martin Luther King weekend.  But when Dad was hospitalized, our plans suddenly changed. 

Sarah and Greg arrived, and the last “chick” to be gathered was, Nick, who flew into Bloomington from Atlanta late on December 23, in a snow storm.  We set out for Texas the next morning and drove straight through, in a two-car caravan, frozen roast, dogs and all, stopping only for gasoline and the awful road trip food that one finds at truck stops.  We arrived in Wharton and midnight on Christmas Eve and drove straight to the hospital.  I knew his room number, so I ran inside to check on him while the others waited in the car.

He was not in the room.  There was no sign of him.  The bed was neatly made and the room recently cleaned with a fresh set of amenities on the bedside table.  We were too late.  I was desolate.  I sat on the chair in the room and sobbed.  Until a nurse came into the room and told me that he had been transferred back to Hearthstone, his assisted living facility.  It was a reprieve.

Dad (Papa, Grandpa, Dr. Woodson, or Woody to anyone else who loved him) had been a GP in Wharton, Texas for his whole career, and after retirement wrote a "Health Tips" column for the local paper.  His columns also told tales of caring for patients in a rural practice and recollections of his childhood in East Texas.  The columns were ultimately published as a book to benefit local charity.

On that Christmas Day, my brother and sister and I and our families and friends gathered at the homestead.  Dad was not well, but on the mend, up to staggered visits from all his children and grandchildren throughout Christmas Day.  We put two of those new-fangled digital picture frames by his bedside and loaded them up with favorite family photos.  He stayed at Hearthstone on Christmas Night, while we, his family and friends, had a wondrous feast in his honor—the prime rib we had brought with us, a luscious beef tenderloin prepared by my brother, and multiple side dishes and desserts.  When we were all stuffed with food, my wonderful friend, Janet, had a great idea.  Janet (who would show up on the doorstep a month later, bearing a bag of kolaches and a jug of orange juice, the morning after Dad passed away) said, “We should all go and visit Woody.”

We invaded the assisted living facility, occupying the lobby because there were too many of us to fit into his room.  He held court, beaming, while we all sang Christmas Carols.  There was no other scheduled event at Hearthstone that evening and many other residents came out to join us. We have a custom, almost a ritual, of “hat” pictures at the Woodson home: everyone at the party selects a hat from an eclectic collection of toppers and we all pose for a group picture.  The hats were transported to Hearthstone that night, and the tradition was honored. 

It was one of those magical evenings when we all felt connected to something wonderful and eternal. 

Dad has compared the end of life to the bonfires of his childhood that would flicker and flare up and intermittently before fading away.  That Christmas night, we were treated to a major sparkle of his soul before he sailed away from us.  He wouldn't say Goodbye.  He just said, "See ya.'

Rejuvenation, African Style

REJUVENATION, AFRICAN STYLE

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  I grew up with this aphorism, and it makes a lot of sense.  The African version of this philosophy is a bit more extreme.  I will articulate it as, “If you can tape it, don’t toss it.”  If the Formica is chipped or warped, it can still serve as a writing surface.  If the chipped and cracked teacup does not leak (or only just a little) it is still useful.  And so on.  You get the picture.

Thus, I was surprised when Mohammed insisted that we get the car painted.  But, on further thought, he was absolutely right.  If repainted, the 16 year-old RAV 4 would last another 10 years or so.  If left to its own devices, the roof would most assuredly rust through before too long.  It was solid thinking, just a little more visionary than one generally encounters in Tanzania.

The paint shop—actually, much more than a paint shop, it is a vehicle restoration establishment—came with sterling credentials.  They paint police cars.  I wondered if perhaps they could make our vehicle look official, so that we would not be waved over so often by the ice cream suit cops.  This was, of course, an idle fantasy.

We were instructed to head toward the sugar plantation and look for the first green gate after the railroad tracks, the railroad tracks being the most solid reference point.  We had never been to the sugar plantation, and we had to head down three different streets off the roundabout before finding a street that actually crossed the tracks. One could also argue whether or not the gate is actually green.  I would label it as chartreuse, bordering on yellow.

There was only a narrow “bridge” over the deep stonelined drainage sluice.  Inside the gate was a scene that could have been the set for Mad Max.  I state this with no authority, since I have only ever seen the previews.  There were trucks and large I-don’t-know-what vehicles that had all seen much better days, but were still functional.  We were regarded with some consternation when we first entered.  Workers seemed to wonder why we were there.  The chips and dents on the sides and bumpers hardly warranted their attention.  But when we pointed out the sad state of the sun-burned roof, there were earnest nods of comprehension.

One of the men pulled out chairs for us to wait in while an estimate was prepared.  The chairs had nearly matching deficits in the wooden backs.  The pseudo leather covering each seat had an identical large side to side split that revealed an equivalent deep chasm in the underlying foam.  They were comfortable. 

Newman, in a shirt that formerly belonged to a MacDonald’s worker, opened up the hood and looked at the engine.  I’m not sure why.  Then he strolled around the car, and retreated to some office.

A large squarish rusted machine had some fearsome projections and foot pedals that looked like they came from a piano.  My husband told me that it was a machine that takes tires off of wheels, and this one looked like it could have removed a million in its time.  I told him that the tire guys at the Orix station never resort to such technology.  They do everything by hand.  I have great admiration for the Orix guys.  They keep me entertained whenever we stop to refuel our RAV 4.

Numerous old spare parts of questionable utility were interspersed around the workspace.  I hesitate to use the term, “scattered” since they could well have been placed strategically.  I used such a system on my desk, back when I had an office.  It looked jumbled, but I knew where everything was, just in case I might need it.  The thickness of the red dust layer was highly variable, but it covered everything except our chairs.

I marveled at the idea that a place so apparently cluttered and dusty could produce such pristine painting results.

After half an hour, no estimate was forthcoming.  We were told we should go on, as someone would contact us.  That has not happened yet, and no one answers the phone when we call.

Mohammed says we should give them a couple of days.  I can certainly do that. And even if we never succeed in getting our car repainted, even if the roof ultimately rusts through, I will always treasure my afternoon in the garden of ancient automotive artifacts.

Nuclear Phobia

I heard the news On September 9, 2016, just before six in the morning.   I was parking my car in the basement of the hospital.  North Korea had successfully tested a powerful bomb that could fit on a missile and the missile could be deployed on a submarine from anywhere in the world.

Anywhere.

I had a sudden flashback to my childhood recollections of the Cuban missile crisis.  My parents were out of town when that happened and  I was convinced I would never see them again.  There were grainy black and white images on TV of the deadly weapons crossing the ocean in ships, school assemblies about what to do in case of attack, 4-H meetings that taught us about bomb shelters… 4-H club was the worst because we were told that one essential item in any bomb shelter was a gun so that you could kill anyone who tried to come in and share your food, your water, your filtered air…

Anyone.

I had terrible nightmares during those times, one dream so vivid that I still recall it in great detail.  We were standing in front of our home, my mother, my sister, and I.  We had just returned from a shopping trip in Houston, and my mother was talking to a friend who had stopped her car at the end of our driveway.  My sister and I waited, staring at the moonless midnight blue velvet sky studded with stars.  In the south, I saw what looked like an exceptionally bright falling star, to the left of Orion.  It poofed into a little flash before hitting the horizon.  Then there was a blinding light everywhere and a huge mushroom cloud rose where the star had fallen.  We rushed to get into the house.  “Why?” I thought.  ‘”It won’t be any safer in there.”  My sister stumbled, and I saw her face melting.  I was overcome with despair.  We were all going to die.  I looked at my mother, whose face was still intact.  She smiled.  That’s when it hit me.  At least, we were all going together.

When I awoke, my bed was still shaking.  The sun streamed in through the white wooden shutters onto the pale yellow walls.  I could hear my mother across the hall, talking on the telephone, placing an order for a delivery from our local grocer.  Life was still good.

The threat of nuclear holocaust was an overriding and terrifying theme in the world during my childhood and adolescence—not always verbalized, but always present.  In my first year of college, I was petrified by a chilling movie on the topic that was screened at a campus film fest.  My then boyfriend consoled me with his rational explanation of nuclear deterrence.  Since he was a PoliSci major I trusted his assessment.

I don’t know when the fear finally abated.  I think it was gradual, drowned out by fury over the injustice of the Viet Nam War and the cruel bombing of Cambodia.  And later deterrence was replaced by detente.

The primal gut wrenching feeling is still way inside there.  It never went away, I just gradually encased it in a sturdy capsule, much as an oyster forms a pearl around a grain of sand.  This morning’s news bored a hole in that defense system and the fear is leaking out again.  My perspective is different now.  I no longer have my whole life in front of me.  I’m actually nearing the end.  So it is my children and grandchildren for whom I ache.  It’s a different kind of fear now.  And far more deeply chilling.

I am aware of the irony in this piece.  I sit secure in my comfortable dwelling while elsewhere in the world, people face the threat of suicide bombers when they go shopping or even drone strikes in their homes.  And in parts of our own country a child can be shot dead while playing in her own front yard.  We don’t choose when and where we are born and we don’t choose what we fear.

Beating the Heat

I was born in the year 8 BAC:  8 years before we had a window unit air conditioner in our home—a window unit in my parents’ bedroom.  We lived in Southeast Texas, near the Gulf of Mexico where hot and humid summers lingered into early October.  So how did we manage before the advent of cool air?

One of my earliest memories is a summer day in our kitchen, with a light breeze wafting in through the screen door.  I watched Mary do the ironing while I made little animals from scraps of pie crust dough.  We listened to her “story” on the radio as she sprinkled the laundry with a Coke bottle fitted with a cork stopper with a perforated metal top, then rolled everything up to chill in the refrigerator before pressing.  Mary kept water in a Mason jar in the small freezer compartment.  Periodically she would take the jar out, punch a hole in the thin layer of ice, and sip the cool water.

Summer mornings, for us children, involved many hours in the swimming pool at the country club.  Our mothers in their shirtwaist dresses would smoke cigarettes and watch us from Adirondack chairs in the shade of the pecan trees.  My sister and I played at being mermaids, and using the steps leading into the shallow end as our castle.  Mid-day hours were mostly spent inside at home to avoid the scorching sun.  Even my father, who left home shortly after dawn each morning to make house calls, would return home for a lunch and a post-prandial nap. My brother and I ventured out one day to see if we could really fry an egg on the side walk.  Not only did succeed at this, we were also able to cook a slice of bacon on the ashphalt road.  There is a good reason for siestas in warmer climes.

Nights could be very oppressive.  Even though the temperature would drop 10 degrees or so, when we lay in bed, waiting to go to sleep, there was not much to distract attention from the heat and humidity.  We had a huge fan that sucked air into the attic through a large grate in the ceiling of the hall, pulling air into the house through the windows.  And there was an oscillating fan in the bedroom I shared with my sister, rotating to blow alternately on me and then her, cooling us by evaporating the sweat that collected in the thin bedsheets.  So relief from came in waves, until we drifted into the oblivion of sleep. 

The best way to beat the heat was to go to the movies, the only air conditioned space in town.  A large Penguin decal on the glass entry door proclaimed “It’s Kool Inside,” Kool being a brand of mentholated cigarettes.  The theater had originally been a vaudeville venue.  There was a stage in front of the screen and thick velvet curtains that would open at the beginning of the show.  The walls were elaborately decorated with something that I imagined to be seaweed, pretending that we were all under the ocean.  There was a glassed in, sound proofed “cry room,” in the back of the theater, where mothers could sit with their babies.  And there was this mysterious balcony.

I wanted to sit in the balcony, and searched for stairs that would take me there.  Eventually my mother told me we weren’t allowed, because that was the colored section.  I asked, “What color is it?”  She told me that it was the place where colored people sat.  Colored people were the ones that looked like Mary.  She showed me the door outside, just to the right of the ticket booth, that was labeled “Colored Entrance.”  I felt indignant that those people had the privilege of sitting in the mysterious balcony, while we were restricted to the boring main floor.  The extent of that ignorance and naiveté still shames me today.

We often met my Dad for dinner at the Country Club, hamburgers or steaks on the terrace.  Eventually I realized that the only colored people I saw at the country club were the ones that cooked, cleaned, and waited on us.  My favorite was Maddie, the cook and bartender who made chocolate pie with the most incredibly thick meringue.  She had a secret pact with my mother.  Maddie would monitor the slot machine and let my mother know when it was about to pay off.  I believe they split the winnings pretty evenly.  The country club was definitely the place to be in summer.  Except for the polio year.  But that is another story.