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My favorite thing to do in all the world is pack. This time I am using my mother’s suitcase (circa 1945) with square corners and tidy little pockets for little things. The edges are frayed and it is just off the carry-on size but this time I am traveling in the blue auto. We never decided on a name: Smurfmobile, Marge Simpson, Biko.

I imagine the suitcase flat on the back seat reachable with a stretch so I can put away my scarf when we glide into another climate zone–not nearly soon enough for all the snow and subzero we’ve survived so far this winter. The gliding necessitates a variety of fabric types and thicknesses. I would love to heave the layers out the window as we glide but what would I have for the return trip as we slowly descend into the arctic climate again.

I pack and tick off another item on my list. Wait–where did I put my swimming suit?

I was much amused by the latest headline that first born children have a higher intelligence than those that come after. Having just lived through (Oh, Lordy, it is over, isn’t it?) a frustrating experience with the first born of my nuclear (a good name because those within one certainly carry around weapons) family of birth, I wonder who the hell decided the higher bit.

Oh, wait. Does conniving, backstabbing, lying, thieving, (I could go on) denote intelligence?

If so, my brother is a supremely intelligent guy.

When my mother died her urn of ashes was set on my brother’s mantel beside the urn filled with my father’s ashes. This was in January of 2003. In the years since, everytime I mentioned spreading their ashes in the Pacific, as they had said they wanted, my brother would make excuses. The sea was too choppy to take out the boat. It is illegal to walk out on a pier in California to drop ashes in the Paciic. Between the excuses from my brother came the realization that he forged my name on two of my inheritance checks. He began lying to me when we spoke on the telephone and then finally stopped returning my calls altogether.

Last month I wrote a letter to his wife asking about the ashes of my parents. She replied in a letter that they walked out onto a pier last September and placed the ashes into the Pacific (she’s a first born, too).

And why wasn’t I consulted in their planning? And when were they going to tell me about their stroll on the pier?

I was devestated. Legs kicked out from under me. Back to counting breaths. Forcing myself to eat. Shaking with silent rage.

One morning as I lay on the sofa I noticed the sun filtering through checkered curtains. I heard the birds. I realized that I would live through this. I remembered the joy of picnics, hikes, bike rides with my parents. I remembered the joy my children gave them. And then I laughed at the headlines.

I got on the wrong bus again yesterday. I seem to have done it all my life.

I wanted to see a mountain ski town without having to drive the up and down and whirl around mountain roads by myself. The local senior center has a weekly bus to a different ski town every Wednesday. Easy to hop aboard, doze through the ups and downs and disembark at 9,000 feet. The problem began when it became known that I was the only non-skiier (except for the driver) on the bus. This is not a difficulty for me because I have always been fascinated by skiing and watching skiing but unfortunatly it branded me as an outsider. And we (them and me) seemed to be speaking different languages.

While waiting for the bus to take us back to the flatlands “How many times did you go down?” (I meant “down the mountain”) was interpreted as “How many times did you fall down?” so my conversation with that person squeeked to a halt.

The cafe (with alcohol) where we waited for the bus added to the ‘I’m in the wrong place’ feeling. Skiiers clumped around on the soddened floor talking skiing and leaving trash all over the place for the minimum wage workers to tidy up. Added to this was the indoctrination of children into the skiing lifestyle by adults. Must have a new generation to pay a hundred dollars for a lift ticket and purchase expensive ski equipment.

Ah, for the skiing days that Elizabeth Zimmerman describes in her auto. Ride a train to the base of a mountain, walk sideways up on skis, ski down, eat porridge for lunch (very light to transport, very filling, toasty warm in the tum), ride the train home in a doze.

On the ride back I was surrounded by throat constricting talk. To my right was a blonde complaining about how difficult it is to return to classes after a day of skiing. Behind me two men were discussing Iraq (where students have difficulty living through the journey to classes), how to get out of paying taxes, and the $350,000 house one of them is building on a lake.

It all was totally head reeling and out of my world feeling. I was so glad to get back to the flatland city though they all begrudged me wanting to get off the bus first instead of waiting half an hour while they gathered their junk. Skiing is high on my “elite sports” now — along with golf.

I understand why cowboys drink.

I attended my first rodeo yesterday. First, let me say that I rarely go to large buildings where an uncountable number of people sit to watch other people do things. No baseball games, football games, hockey games. In fact the last time I was in such a situation was an anti-war get together (it was concerning the other stupid war that the Democrats — that time — had started). Similarities: a hard wooden seat, pyrotechnics, and manure.

What was new and refreshing at the rodeo was the courage of the people I watched do things. On the way to the hard wooden seat I walked past stalls and cages of animals. The small, fuzzy ones in the cages were dear but as I progressed to the arena the animals I walked past kept getting larger and more muscular until I was sashaying past the rear end of huge horses, the last group being draft. If you were there, I was the woman in black, nose encapsuled in her black scarf (so many enclosed animals, so much end products of food and water) muttering soothing words as she passed by the fore and aft of glossy horses:

“Excuse me, sweetie, I am back here. I come in peace.”
“Looking good today. Keep all four of those well shod feet on the sawdust.”
“I’m just going to oodge by here. Have good show — don’t break a leg (kicking out at me).
“Yes, I know you have gorgeous teeth — not imbedded in my flesh, please.”

My walking part, though trepidatious, was easy. I recovered on my hard seat, knitting and watching preparations going on in the dirt oval below me. People then began climbing onto the horses I had just walked by — climbing on sometimes after the irritant of a cinch strategically placed in a sensitive area had been put on the beast. Ditto bulls. Women were not excluded. At one time 50 horses with women riders galloped in patterns on the dirt. In the dark.

During the barrel races, a single (or widowed) woman sped around barrels and back to the starting shute. (One contestant rode around the barrels in a different direction which hastened me to worry that points would be added, so into it all I was — until someone behind me cleared it up=”Oh, she’s left handed.”)

All this comes down to courage. Courage to get on these whimsical, unpredictable beasts. After watching cowboys lasso, harness, fall off of, get smashed I needed some Jack Daniels.

I understand why cowboys drink.

As an update on the May 27th blog I would like to say that adult diapers and little white pills from the doctor satisfactorily solved my culotte problem. When I got home a colonoscopy (in the middle of which I woke up screaming in pain) revealed part of the problem: tortuous colon.

This is all is written in case any of the Minnesotans read this to explain why I wore the same outfit for a week: my suitcase was full of adult diapers.

We returned from our latest (I won’t say last because I’m going back) trip to Europe some time ago but I remained in such a wonderful Europe buzz that I found I couln’t write. This time our group’s number was 38 — 22 of which were a gaggle of post-menopausal women from Minnesota. Things I noticed:

1. They happily shuffled and resorted their buddy system and palled (okay, “chummed”) around with each other in a comfortable fashion having known each other back in Minnesota.

2. I detected little gibes at unpresent people in their group, all done kindly. (What was their gibe about me? “She’s wore that outfit and socks for a week.” True.)

2.5 How could they everyone of them look so damn good every damn day?

3. None of them seemed to have read up on anywhere on our planned trip –

4. This was actually a shopping expedition for them. (One bought six leather purses in Florence. The bus smelled heavenly.)

5. Because of #3 it was fun to hear one of them say as we drove past the Colliseum, “They knew how to build things a long time ago!”

6. They named our Irish tour guide “Mary Poppins.”

Today begins a new category. I ask someone to give me a sentence and I write a while.
*****
The turtle plodded on and won the race. Which, in the end, was fortunate for him because he escaped the crockpot. Unfortunate for me because I had to round up other ingredients for supper.

Could I really have eaten Lucky? I think not. He glistened with too many memories of Aruba from which I carried him as contraband. He had lived through hours in a damp Tupperware bowl, the lid burped open just enough to supply oxygen. Since then he had contributed to the entertainment in too many bars and roadhouses to count.

I scooped him up into my pocket and glided, slightly unsteadily, out the swinging door to my car. My car — a steal at a sheriff’s auction two months ago. The only thing wrong with it was a confused gas gauge. Never accurate, it ran empty at half full. But that was destined to improve after some sharp investigation by my neighbor Nick, scheduled for this afternoon.

I was searching for lettuce in the refrigerator cave to give to Lucky when Nick burst through the hanging beads in the doorway. In his greasy hands was a nasty, gas-smelling vacuum locked bag. through the clear plastic I saw a Sunday “Frank and
Ernest”. Drips of a nasty liquid from the bag did not bode well for the worn lino covered floor.

“Nick, I’ve read the Sunday funnies!”

With a Cheshire smile on his face, Nick gently found a place on the kitchen table for the bag. Wordlessly, he unwrapped the funnies and removed what they contained. Our eyes met over a pile of bundled 100 dollar bills.

The challenge of dinner had been solved by the former owner’s drug money stash in my gas tank.

All of September has gone with a part of August since I’ve written here. The front yard is barren of sunflowers now — some killed by our frosty nights, some tromped down by the overflow of a party the nearest neighbors had recently. (Grrr)

We are concentrating on getting in shape to walk around Europe again.

Seen on my ride this morning:
A path wanders between the railroad tracks and backyards and offers a peek at the back of houses instead of the usual tidy fronts. Along a rusted chain fence all colors of morning glories have wandered, flowers open.

Here the prominent color of fall leaves is yellow. When I looked to the west there were layers of color, each layer taller than the one in front of it: yellow trees, brown hills, charcoal grey mountains with the blue of sky above them all.

The final feeling of contentment at the end of the ride. Beginning grumpy, frustrated with things in the news. Sweating when I stop to rest. Reading in the bookstore until I get hungry then a salad served by a waitress with braids. And home, contented.

“You pick up bits and pieces of treasure and trash, pain and pleasure, passions and disappointments, and you start throwing them in your bag, your bag of experience. You do some dumb things that don’t work out at all. You stumble excitedly on little gems that you never saw coming. And you stuff them all in your bag. You pursue the things you love and believe in. You cast off the images of yourself that don’t fit. And suddenly you look behind you and a pattern emerges.

You look in front of you and the path makes sense. There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current. Wouldn’t you know your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become. This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, your lovers. Your path is your character defining itself more and more every day, like a photograph coming into focus.”

Jody Foster @ the U of PA

Lying upstairs in bed cooled by a shower, fresh breeze cavorting over my bod I hear the murmurings of talk between my middle child-son visiting and his father. I cannot discern individual words but they come out in a mellow ebb and flow. All’s right with me.

While riding my bike in the early morning sun, the shadow of my sweater, worn in the chill, flaps.

Breakfast in the middle of the bike ride. Early at the restaurant so that the waitress is as bumbly just awake as I am. She has no forced cheeriness thus her attitude is genuine.