Memories of My Dad Coming to Me While in the LawBrary, Trying to Write A Paper

I remember chicken marabella and couscous that mom cooked, the way it rolled in it’s own light olive-colored sauce, the tiny bubbles of oil pooling at the bottom of the bowl as I lifted it to the dishwasher.

I remember cherry pie and mango ice cream, him twisting the ice cream maker’s handle with his large hands.

I remember his hands, with black hairy knuckles and broad, flat fingernails; how I used to play with them in church, try to stick my pudgy fingers into his cavernous palm before it closed on me.

I remember sitting in the yoga room (before it was even that, I guess) on the burnt orange couch, sitting there with a sketchbook in the evening, and seeing his sure, easy fingers draw the smoky outline of a face, a woman’s face, beautiful and definite. “You come from a line of beautiful women”, he told me there, while I sat staring in frustration at the page, an unhappy thirteen year old. “Let me tell you about yourself. You’ve got your mothers lips, big and full, and that’s a good thing, although you may not think that now.” and he drew them there, a curving, gentle line with a smoky dark shadow under it. I stared at the page. He smiled as he drew. “You’ve had your mom’s lips since the day you were born, and you’re lucky.” And I thought of a picture of me, maybe three months old, clutching a tiny teddy bear and puffing out my lips, wide eyed and whispy haired. (I feel that way now, sometimes, just sitting and clutching and staring, adjusting in my body, knowing my own skin and eyes, sitting breathless in my own life.) “And,” he said, “you’ve got your grandmother’s hair. My mom.” I winced a little, running a hand over my frizzy splitting ponytail and wishing that I had inherited something a little less unruly. His voice changed for a moment, thinking, not talking to me anymore. “Your grandmother was a beautiful woman.” I thought about her, hunched and a bit paunchy now, generally looking stressed. Carma. I hardly know her, I wonder sadly, Grandma Carma. I thought of her name, Carma Carma Carma. What a beautiful name, I thought. I wish dad had a photograph of her when she was young, like a wedding picture. I imagined Carma with brown, curling hair, still short, but very thin, like all the girls of the 50’s. Maybe she wasn’t like this at all, I didn’t know though, so I let her name and Dad’s thoughtful description whisk me away, while he sketched.

“Carma Carma Carma.” I remember this.

If I Ran The Zoo...

A few days ago, one of my friends asked me why I was taking German. I shuffled through the various reasons:

• because I've heard too many lame jokes about choking on your food and being mistaken for speaking German
  
• because after three years of Latin in High School, I didn't feel up for another romance language, but wasn't quite ready to commit to hours of meticulous scratching over kanji or Chinese script during my first semester of college
• because Germany and Austria sounded completely bomber places to visit
• because it wasn't Spanish, which somehow seemed so boring (and now, I envy the pure range of communication that any Spanish speaker has, just the functionality of being able to speak with so many people in America...unfortunately, there aren't that many Germans wandering the Utah highways, asking for directions...)

and then suddenly, I realized why:

Because when I take over the world, I'll be able to communicate with the most organized and technical people on Earth, who have already had some decent experience with world domination.
Bingo.

And then my friend reminded me that with my background in Latin, I'll have both the Germans AND the Romans behind me. Alll RIGHT.

(Mostly) all joking aside, though, what would I do if I ran the Zoo? A few thoughts:

• have more art and music taught in schools
• abolish billboards
• bigger libraries, with higher paid librarians
• more funding for the UN
• tax breaks for people who recycle, and for people who bike to work
  
• frisbee more popular than football
• start breaking down the military-industrial complex
  
• more cobblestoned streets
• un-invent drugs. (...unfortunately, this is a very hypothetical world...)
  
• have mango trees in my backyard
  
• more bike racks
• lower the prices of: climbing shoes, ice cream, hand lotion, tie-dye kits and laundromats
• more stores closed on Sundays
• no torture, ever.
• give funding for free concerts in the summer
• live in a place where the Wasatch Front meets the North Atlantic Ocean
• more local businesses!
  
• lose the drug taboo on dreds
• be able to slackline/hang hammocks on BYU campus

• and, as a shout out to the newly Oscar-ed Ms. Bullock: World Peace.

And what about YOU? What would YOU do if you ran the Zoo?

Which direction is YOUR duck facing?

Today in Sunday School, I heard an interesting idea. The young man teaching the class (which happened to be about love and communication within relationships) told a story about his friends, recently married and living in San Francisco. For their wedding, they received a traditional Korean gift (er, did I mention they were Korean? So the present wasn't as random as it sounds...)
The gift was two miniature ducks, carved from wood. The couple would place the ducks on a mantle or shelf, and used them as a weathervane for their relationship:

Ducks facing each other: all was well. No misunderstandings, no hurt feelings. He was using enough dishsoap in the washer, she was folding the towels right way, the dog was being fed, things were going smoothly.

However, a Duck facing away: trouble. Someone's hurt, upset, a little confused, feeling uncommunicated with. Maybe her back is sore today, maybe the radio was on too loud last night, maybe there were unkind words said in the car, maybe there was just a little problem with the tax receipts--but now, we're all aware of it, thanks to the unassuming, unbiased ducks, and now, it can be solved.


Strange? Maybe a little. Visual representations of personal conflicts are always a bit uncomfortable. But think of the genius: if I had my feelings hurt, but knew my (theoretical) husband was too busy to talk at the moment, how simple to sneak to the table and do a quick rearrangement of the Duck Creche, knowing that resolution would come quickly, at a better time for both of us. Also, ducks can't gaze in spite: no hurtful words would need to be said to initiate the issue, it could just be a simple conversation. ("Sooo, the ducks are fortelling a little conflict, hmmm?" "You look happy tonight sweetheart, but the ducks tell another story..." Heh.) But seriously, no emotional elephants lurking in the corners of the living room. And maybe, just looking at the two, unassuming animals gazing in opposite directions would be enough to soften my perspective. Interesting, how when I am forced to take physical (and not just verbal) action on my inner feelings, I tend to adjust them. Are the dishes left in the sink really worthy of a duck adjustment? Probably not.


So, I haven't scampered out to buy duck effigies yet, but I'm thinking about it! Until then, I'll just try to keep my duck facing in. :)

A Small Poem.

(Painting: Monk By The Sea, by Caspar David Friederich)

A monk by the sea,
A monk by the sea,
With his ponderous cloak
and back bent like a tree.
He peers through the mist
past the soft-spoken glee
of the wind-ruffled waves,
and he whispers his plea.
oh what does he see
as he stares out to sea?
Perhaps it's a vision of you
and of me.

Repentance and Thrice-Wrapped Scarves

Today, I ran into a good friend whose writing makes me drool (and whose blog you really must check out, called Word of Me, it's brilliant) and we talked about writing, Sherlock Holmes, Ghana, and blogging, among other things. And so I've decided to repent! And write more, just little pieces, to keep words fresh within myself.

So. Tonight, as I walked home from Spencer's apartment, (where I brought him a grapefruit and five dollars and returned with an original piece of artwork, a fortuitous exchange!) it was so cold that I wrapped my scarf around my neck three times (until I almost couldn't lower my chin without fear of cutting off my windpipe) and then once more, across my face. And then I sang all the way home, as loud as I wanted, all sneaky-like because the cars dashing by had only a smeared view of my eyes, forehead, and very shiny earrings before I disappeared again. My breath evaporated before me, slipping back into my face as I trotted homewards, back to muffins, a toasty afghan, and a good dose of literary analysis on "The Importance of Being Earnest." What strange breath of fortune tangles my hair on evenings like these.

...To Those Who Raise an Eyebrow at the Poets

The Camp at Mauthausen sat grave, grey, authentically numbing. The wind washed over the barren hills of the nearby countryside, bringing with it a barrage of snow and freezing rain which snuck under the collar of my peacoat and through the thin cotton of my gloves until the sub-freezing temperature had burrowed inside of me, chilling me from the stomach outwards. I wandered through the barracks and fields with my oversized audioguide (forced to keep one hand out of my wool pocket, clasping its awkward bulk to my ear, horrible punishment in its own quiet way), my coat pulled tight against the snow and cutting wind. The numbers and testimonials that swept into my ear in a measured English accent were unreal, horrifying—thousands of deaths, overcrowded tent camps, starvation walks, ashes from the ovens dumped indiscriminately into piles along the road, people being hosed down naked and forced to run outside in the snow (imagine! I pull my woolen coat tighter against my ribs), prostitutes shipped in from Treblinka as part of the so-called “camp incentive system”, medicinal tests on prisoners...it was seemingly endless, one long pavilion of human suffering and sleet slipping down my neck.

Eventually, I began distancing myself—I had to distance myself, disconnect me and my own humanity from the people who lived and starved and burned here on the white-washed strips of cement. But when I did allow the tiniest connection, two wires of application brushed together to snap into a spark of personal impact (—these testimonials of dying men suddenly becoming my dad’s, my brothers’—can I imagine them here? Those skinny knees, those swollen eyes as theirs?—) I was overwhelmed with grief, amazement, disbelief, and that unswallowable question: how?

A quote from one man saved me. I found his story recorded in a solitary booth inside the stone-gray museum, his interview from 2003. His name was Leon Ceglarz, and he was Polish—and after 15 minutes of watching him explain the plummeting sequence of his life: capture, grueling labor, starvation, even being beaten almost to death with a soup ladle (a soup ladle! What a debasing way to be tortured!), he ended, and his dignified old-man eyes wrinkled with tears; explaining that to survive, we needed to connect ourselves with humanity, to not forget the ties we hold to one another. For him, he clung to his ties of family (a wife and new baby, only four months old when he left); to Poland, the reason his imprisonment in Mauthasen in the first place; for the young people he had taught before the war; these were the things that kept him human.

And, finally—and when he said this next part, the tears moved from the creases of his eyes to his cheeks, and I, watching a screen with headphones strapped to my ears, I began to cry too, struck with the importance (essentiality?) of language and words and expression—he said that: “I stood outside doors left ajar and listened to beautiful poetry—and that is what strengthened me.”

Humanity, family, hope, nation, and poetry.

What beautiful, crucial things to live for.

Apricots and Recollections

Today:
I am eating a bag of dried apricots at 9.50 AM, and I realize that I haven’t written on my blog for over a month. I freeze, the leathery button of fruit half-eaten between my thumb and forefinger.

What to write about?

Maybe I need to write about the swimming in the Danube last Thursday, its frigid, brown water closing over my head as I dive in, ahhhhhh!!!! gasping and spitting out flecks of ancient water, feeling deliciously patronized by this old, unimpressed river. The Donau has seen its fair share of foreign idiots jumping in and out on warm autumn days, so my white legs and streaming eyes were nothing new to her; but she was new to me, and I laughed and skipped rocks, feeling impudent in the newness of my first European swim.

Or about the smell this morning when I stumbled across the living room and into the bathroom (watch out for sleeping cats, they’re like furry landmines; especially Chou Chou, the one who speaks German and won’t let me pet her)—it reminded me of autumn mornings at the Fryeburg Fair, and electric blue skies and orange leaves and Dad making apple crisp late at night. I stood in the kitchen with cold bare feet on the wooden floor and breathed in deeply: cinnamon and apples and autumn. Apfelstrudel. Frau Panzenböck is a genius, an easy-smiling Martha Stewart, and I dance down the outdoor hallway, electric in anticipation.

Or maybe talking with Franz, my host brother, as we walked home after a brief two hour stint at the rock gym that left us both weak and somewhat discouraged. Walking next to him, I’m surprised about how tall he actually is—maybe six and a half feet? (And how many centimeters is that? My European conversions are still greatly lacking.) He is wearing his enormous army coat and his dreds are in a ponytail, still reaching past his shoulders. And he’s talking about the government. “I hate all politicians,” he says, “all they do is talk talk talk talk talk. And does anything actually happen? No!” I suggest that maybe politicians do more than we can do in areas that we can’t affect—schools, hospitals, etc. He laughs. “Sure, sure, that’s what they say. But people can take care of each other much better than one person can take care of all of us. We don’t need politics.” Ten minutes later, I almost give up. “Franz, do you even vote?”
He grins. “Of course. Last time, I voted for the communist party. A whole .02 percent of the country was on my side.”

So yes, Austria is a place for me now, with cold rivers, apfel strudels, and communist brothers. Could I ask for anything else?

On second thought, maybe more apricots, I’m almost out. :)
Happy Tuesday, all.