Location, Location, Location

I live near the downtown area of my city. That is enough to take away the suckiness that is my hometown.

I spent the majority of my life dreaming about getting away. I lived in the ghetto, or damn near it if you want to get technical, and as you might imagine, that does not instill a sense of wonder and awe. I wanted to go to there, there being anywhere that was not here. Whether it was Victorian England in the crappy (and not so crappy) romance novels I read, or to the stark northern environment that served as the non sci-fi backdrop of Madeleine L'Engle stories, I always wanted to be somewhere else. I read, I watched tv (when I was allowed to watch tv), I talked to old people at my grandfather's nursing home, people who were more than willing to share about times when they had been someplace other than there, all in an attempt to escape.

Finally, it was my time. I got into the plane without so much as a backwards glance to my home state and swept myself and my stuff up the eastern seaboard to my new home of Boston, MA. Pearl Jam's "Rearview Mirror" was my theme song and the line "I gather speed from you fucking with me" echoed in my head. I was there for two years. When I returned home, which fires and other misfortunes generally make you do, I realized I knew more about my adopted city of Boston, and the surrounding area of Cambridge, than I did about the place in which I lived for more than 17 years.

Actually, first I mourned. Six months in my pajamas, teaching our new dog to love the music of Korn, Pantera, and The Doors, roaming my boring neighborhood freely without knowing that my brother ran interference with every thug he played ball with so that I would be "looked after" but not sexually accosted by said gang members on my runs. I stayed up late, slept long, and ate little until one day my mom told me I was going to have to do something, get a job, volunteer, something(!) if I was gonna stay at her new, not burned down house.

So I got out, volunteered at a nearby school, realized I needed money, got a job, wanted to go back to school, met some nice people who introduced me to Downtown.

Now, at this point, the late 90s, the Downtown area was coming off of an all time low. Prostitution had once been so rampant, there was a city law that stated you couldn't walk down Cherry Street in red heels. I love that that's the sign of a prostitute. Anyway, drug deals and only a few businesses made it supposedly scary to be around Downtown at night, which meant no one was, especially once the drug dealers and prostitutes left from lack of business. Most had deserted this once beautiful area, but not all.

The place was a little nothing of a spot with a beautiful bay window, right next to this elegant, old hotel that had been turned into low income housing for old people. Inside, little cafe tables were spread haphazardly around the floor with clear line to the counter at the back of the store. On the inside of the bay window was a stage where you could get up and read your poetry or play music. It was not my first experience with a coffee house, but it is my most enduring coffee house memory. I went there with friends, some I've lost touch with, some who have died, and others who still remember those days. AOL disks as coasters, the best tea I've ever had in Macon, and delicious deserts, not to mention the bad poems and easy laughs we were always so willing to share, come flooding back when I think of J and the CC.

A few years later, I was invited by a comic book artist to share his creative space and write with him. Weeks later, he left town and I stayed in that creative art space as a writer for nearly 5 years. That was when I knew that my heart would belong to downtown. I walked constantly, never needing to fear for my life, although some lost possessions and one person lost their life just by being downtown. But couldn't it happen anywhere? I met people, I've seen establishments come and go. Even when I got married, I dreamed of the moment when my husband was as assured of my ability to take care of myself as I was so we could make the move downtown. For nearly three years, I lived and worked away from downtown, but as soon as I saw the opening, I pounced.

I ran into someone at the grocery story yesterday, an old friend from school. She asked me if I saw myself and my Honey moving any time soon. I told her we were going with the winds of grad school when that time came, but for now, I was content to be here because I lived downtown.

Don't get me wrong. The allure of being other places still haunts me. I dream of Africa weekly. I imagine Asia, going to China and Japan, going back to Paris and Barcelona and the want of those places weakens my knees. I think about our last trip to Boston and how walking around Cambridge made me long to be back in that area again. Also, since we drove from California back to Georgia, both the Honey and I have kind of kept Albuquerque in mind as a "someday, maybe" place. There are definitely other places I would like to be, but the friends I've made, the home I've made, and the connections I've made makes me not mind it if I have to stay right where I am for a long, long time.

Drunk Texting in a Pub in the New Year

So we drove to Boston for New Year's Eve, which is a sight further than driving to Atlanta to hang out with BigBen and watching a concert. Because I thought he'd be killing someone up in South Boston, I didn't invite him to come along because I swore we would meet up, but his contract killing got cancelled. Sorry, BigBen.

Instead, we all piled into the rental car and did the 19 hour drive in 18 hours 59 minutes. It was a thing of beauty. By the time we got through all the boring parts of the south (we mapped ourselves away from toll roads and thus, big, beautiful cities), it was too dark to see if we were driving through scenic beauty or boring, Texas-like, stretches of flat emptiness. It didn't matter. All we really wanted to do was go to sleep, but we only had a few days in the city to do it all.

It began to snow as soon as we got into Quincy, MA. It was beautiful, a blanket of white to welcome us. We drove in the first fresh fall of it, before it became a hazard, at the point when you are still thinking maybe you should try to do a snow angel, before the chemical salt goes down and it is a dirty mass of ice scooped to the side of the road. Of course, we didn't reach our goal of doing it all in the city. We went into Boston and ended up shopping because I forgot that canvas shoes are no good in the snow. By the time we made it to Prudential Center, the back of my heels were frozen and I was sure I would never feel my feet again. I ended up buying rubber shoes in a high gloss grey, shoes I will never wear until I'm once again back in Boston.

We headed back to Quincy to eat and drink, to drink and eat, to drink and drink. We went to a bar where we listened to true Irish accents and a cover band that wasn't bad, but wasn't good either. They had several Sam Adams on tap, but no other stout beers to speak of outside of Guinness, whose flavour has been reducing for the last few years. We ran over to a sports bar, fighting the biting wind, where we found blueberry beer that was like drinking a spring day and a clam chowder that we forced the girl allergic to seafood to try. Because it was that good. Whatever happened would be worth it. She agreed, even after whatever happened. We tried to go to another bar, just a bar, but it was too full for what we wanted, a quiet place to sit and talk and drink as we ushered in the New Year in a different city. We left that bar quickly and decided to brave the alleyway to check out places on a different street and came to a bar that was just what we were looking for. We ordered shots, played pool and as midnight crept up on us, the management passed out hats and tiaras and noise makers and offered us meatballs and sausage to snack on. Apparently, people will eat anything when they've been drinking. After Ryan Seacrest and Dick Clark brought in the New Year, champagne was passed around and both our table companion and the guys a table over went crazy with the noise makers, we called a cab to drive us the two miles back in the snow to our hotel. It cost $10.

And the drunk message I typed to all and sundry with cell phone and texting capabilities? Happy time wasting New Year! You all are great and I love you all, from a bar in Boston. Don't ask me about the champagne. I didn't get any.

This went to many people, some who didn't have my number anymore and one of the messages even crossed over into Africa. It was nice to wake up to a ton of message either wishing me the same or asking who I was.

It was a good NYE, a good night of food and drinks and camraderie. An excellent road trip and a brilliant start to the new year. Drunk texting and all.

Planet Earth Everyday

I've been telling tales of Africa since I got back, but really, it's to hold on to it for just a little bit longer.

You know how you'll have a fabulous dream, one that you wake from in complete pleasure and as you become more fully awake, your mind tries to hold to the leaking tendrils of the dream - but it escapes. It always escapes and by the time you've showered and gotten ready for work, all that remains is that feeling you had when you woke.

That's what it's been like for me. At 6pm, I have a vague notion that I should be looking to go to bed and when it is getting close to 11:00pm, my body doesn't want me to go to sleep because there is, once again, a vague notion that I need to be getting up. Even though I would like to sleep through the night, I let myself wake up at those odd wake up hours because I want to cling to Africa.

We have the BBC Planet Earth series at the house. The first full night I was home, I watched the disk that contained the Okavango Delta flooding. Our guide, Ian, told us about the slow flooding and it was interesting watching it happen. I'm taking bets on how many times I watch that video as the weeks go on.

Unfortunately, time has a funny way of blurring memories and eventually, all of my memories will be only notions of that time I was in Africa. I will stave it off as much as I can, but if the time comes where I can barely remember I had gone, I will be well on my way to that place once again.

Africa Sends Its Love

25.5 hours in planes, 4 major cities and stepping in a box of disinfecting solution so you don't carry foot and mouth disease into the wilds, and we are in Botswana, ready to hop an 8 seater to Camp Xakanaxa. We don't know what to expect. We were just told to step into a box and by doing that, we had eradicated every bit of a disease I'm not even sure we had. And since I wanted the co-pilot seat, I had special instructions: If something happens to the pilot, push him out so that Ian can fly the plane.

I wonder if I shouldn't just let Ian ride shotgun now.

Ian is our photographer guide - or at least that is what we thought as we got onto the plane. We didn't know that in 5 days, we were going to miss him like we missed our own families. We didn't know what fun we were in for as he helped us take better pictures AND became part of one of the best guide duos I've ever seen.

But then again, every other guide I'd seen was showing me where war had taken place. Civil War, The Battle of I812, The French and Indian War, etc. American History is a bloody, fascinating thing.

When we land at the camp, we were greeted by our guide, Water, as baboons and impala watched us from the edge of the airstrip. He asked if we wanted to go straight to camp or if we wanted to drive around. Being the adventurous lot, we decided a drive sounded nice. So at 5:20pm on a Saturday evening - although it did feel more like a Tuesday - we set out on our first ever safari.

We were realistic. We were not in a zoo. Animals were not guaranteed. If we just saw nature, we would be happy. We were in fucking Africa for God's sake! There is no other way to say that, no other way to feel than that. We were in fucking Africa. The wind was crisp, it was still winter, and the air around us sang - starlings crying out, franklins and their chicks peeping, the low, hollow sound of the calling doves. And then we came upon the impala. Though they are a common sight, to us, that day, they were magnificent. We had questions: horns or antlers, why so many males, how do herds operate, what kind of bird is that, what, how, why? Every question was answered.

Then we are sitting, staring at a herd of elephants. It is a picture waiting to happen, baby elephants, the reflection in such clear water, the herd circling to protect the young from the approaching vehicle they drink, they watch, their ears flapping. They decide we are mostly harmless and then they move on.

I was not going to cry, but it was beautiful.

For me, that is it. What more can we see today, I think. And we saw more. Waterbuck, red lechwe, more birds, more impala and then, in a little hole away from it all, a leopard.

I am by no means a vegetarian, but I can be a bit of a softie (when I'm not being a bit of a bitch) and I mourn for dead things. Not trees. I like dead trees. But anything else, it is almost automatic. But one of the most beautiful sights was nature being nature, a leopard gnawing at the bones of an impala, a fresh kill, looking for the marrow. I've made stock, little leopard. I understand.

And we sit there for what feels like hours, watching him as he watched us. And a giraffe walked by, heedless of the leopard, feeding on the leaves overhead. Which picture should we take now?

I was in fucking Africa. She sends her love.

Getting the Show on the Road

All I’ve seen is Airport – gleaming silver and various shades of grey and blue. It would have been depressing, more than a day of flying and sitting in airports, if Southern Africa wasn’t on the other end. Doing that kind of extensive traveling is almost a trial by fire as you’re at the mercy of airlines and the consideration and, most often, the inconsideration of other travelers.

There is almost no reward for doing good these days. Even that feeling of self satisfaction that once was abundant has become elusive. I think we all grudgingly do good because we know that the reward we once got for it, externally and internally, is elusive at best. And even when you help out a fellow traveler, it is often to your own detriment. For example, a couple with a child wanted our seats because the airline had bassinets that could hang from the wall. But it offered us leg room. We could fit in the seats with okay leg room, until the people in front of us lean their seats back. Then we are cramped tall people with knee problems sitting on a plane for 8 hours in pain because we wanted to be nice to a couple with a baby.
I did see two beautiful things. The sun rising over the horizon as we flew to Dubai (the end of a 12 hour straight flight after being on planes for 3 hours total and waiting in airports for 3 hours. The other beautiful thing were the mountains in Africa as we flew to Johannesburg.

Getting to Johannesburg is the beginning of our vacation. A day and a half in Josie before getting 7 days, 6 nights in Botswana divided between two camps and then a day and a half at Victoria Falls on the Zambia side.


The Southern Africa Series - as I'm going to call the next few posts - took place from July 24-August 3, 2008. I started this blog a bit early because I knew this trip would change me. Now I'm slowly adding my thoughts during the journey to this blog. Some will be straight from my journey journal, some will be understanding I came to as I thought on my travels later. Enjoy.

Conversations on Planes

The plane from Houston was filled to capacity. We were on the very last row, the only time in my 14 year of flying that I have ever been at the very back. At the worse, I'm a few seats up from the bathroom, which isn't a bad place to be.

The seats in the back are small, even for small airplanes. I am 5ft11. A smaller guy gets to my seat and points to the window. We both hope (I know I did and I'm sure he did too) that no one sits with us.

Then we see him. He must be 6ft3 or 4 inches tall and he was healthy. He wasn't fat, but he was a big dude. We could see his face drop as he realized he had the middle seat in the smallest seats on the plane.

For a while, we exist in some sort of seat limbo, where we know we will be fine as long as we don't have to move. My entire shoulder is sticking out and I have to juke and jive like I'm playing some sort of plane sport - dodge the butts. But then, of course, the guy by the window breaks the limbo. Window seat needs to use the restroom. We try to get up without disrupting those around us trying to sleep, but that's impossible because the only handrails we could use were the backs of the seats used by sleeping passengers.

They loved us.

So there was no effing way we would sit down until after he comes back from the bathroom so me and big dude strike up a conversation - a conversation that lasted for the remaining hour or so it took to get home. We mainly talked about travel. I'm telling everyone I'm going to South Africa as if the telling will make it come quicker, with the hope that the person I tell may be from there and can tell me something that will make my visit there a different kind of poignant, that will make it hit close to home for me. In many ways, just being on the continent hits home. We'll see how it will be for me.

It's weird that when you are in such close proximity to someone you can either completely ignore them or become the best of friends. Though I had to sit sideways for nearly two hours, killing my back, this was one of the most enjoyable plane trips I've taken. (I can still complain, even when something makes me happy - now that's talent).

Or not.

Austin, Texas

A few years ago, I wanted to leave my hometown. The only thing holding me here was nothing, so I thought, why not. I'll move. Everyone thought I should be afraid to do something like that, but my job wasn't all that lucrative (though it handled my needs at the time) and I figured I could have at least the same quality of living (lateral move) in a different place (which would be like getting a promotion).

I considered going back to Boston, but the quality of living would drop (Boston being more expensive than my poor little medium sized town) although going back has always been a dream. I thought about going down to Miami and hanging out with my college roommate. I'm pretty sure that Miami would have been the same as Boston as far as expense goes, but it would have been a bit better because I would have had someone that could help me out a bit. I thought about moving to Seattle. One word: Coffee. I mean, how could I not want to go to the home of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and coffee? Fuck the rain. I would get braid or 'locks if I had to.

Another place I looked at was Austin, Texas. At the time, I read that if you wanted to be around artists, Austin was the place to go. It looked like a good fit. Cost of living was similar and artists being starving and whatnot seemed to make this place very open to having someone like me in their midst.

In the end, I went to Los Angeles. There are many things I liked about Los Angeles. The church I was going to at the time, the weather (oh GOD, how I loved the weather), the beaches and the mountains right there, the people I became friends with. There were many things I disliked about Los Angeles: how fake it was, how much of your soul the city took from you, how hard it was to find a job, everything except what was named above. I admit that I was not ready to be there and in so many ways, I would not be ready to go back now.

This week, I am in Austin, Texas, the place I once considered going to. In so many ways, it is like my hometown - except it's a city and it wants to be. The fact that you can walk to so many of its places just makes it better.

I really like Austin. It is one of the places I would love to live. Jeremy, the Java Jive guy moved to Austin from Houston and belittled me for moving to Los Angeles instead. I understand. This is the first place where I don't feel weird. I was such a dogmatic Christian when I was in Los Angeles that I know I stood out for that. My weirdness was on my sleeve and no one else could match it. But here in Austin, my weirdness is on my sleeves and my shoes and my clothes and everybody loves it. It makes me feel that much more comfortable. I hope I have the chance to live here. I think that, in itself, will be interesting.

South Africa

South Africa - So full of controversy and beauty, it is no wonder people want to visit and tourism is so big. The country has everything that someone traveling to another country could want: its own wildlife, its own wine, and its own coffee. I wish I could go there for all of the above, but I am going with a few friends on a safari.

I get the wildlife.

Which isn't so bad when you understand just how much I love elephants. I had never seen an elephant in person. When I got married, my husband surprised me with circus tickets. I'd never been to the circus, so I was really excited.

(What kind of childhood did I have that I didn't go to the circus???)

I was excited about the clowns, though I find them creepy up close. From a distance, they can be mildly humourous. This one had a dog, and the dog was really funny. I saw acrobatics, I saw contortionists, I saw beautiful ladies and muscular men and then finally, I saw the elephants.

My fascination with elephants started in the 3rd grade. It was my first trip ever to a library. I didn't even know such a thing existed. But there we were, in amongst the stacks. Except I towered over the stacks for 3rd grade readers. I wanted to be with the books on shelves that were taller than me. So I wandered away from my group and walked towards the books that had more words than pictures.

I didn't know what I was doing or how to tell if one book was better than another so I decided I would read whatever I found interesting. Yes, I was judging books by their covers and ended up picking out three books. One book had the most beautiful prints of knights in armour, one book was a book of Native American mythology, and the other book had the most beautifully painted men and women and these men and women rode elephants. I devoured the stories and as the years progressed, I forgot what I read, but I never forgot the image of the people on elephants and how majestic and huge the animals were, but how gentle and kind they seemed. How could I tell?

It was in the elephant's eyes.

Of course, it wasn't until I was in college, reading a book of verse that seemed vaguely familiar, that I connected one of my first read books to the actual words. The Bhagavad Gita will always hold a special place in my heart.

So, the circus elephant has come out and at first I am excited. But I watch how tired the elephant looks as it walks around, lead by his trainer. I see the elephant's eyes and it looks as if it has finally given up hope. Suddenly, I am sad for the elephant, ashamed that we tolerate this treatment for our entertainment, and angry that there is nothing I can do. My husband, who had hoped to be my knight in shining armour for bringing me to see the elephants is now upset because I'm upset.

This is not an elephant, but someone's very large animal, it's elephant soul trained out of it.

But I relish the little things because though this elephant was beaten down, it was not broken. It did its tricks, but with such a mean spirit, it made me laugh. "You did your mean laugh. What's happening?" my husband asked. I pointed out the things I imagined showed that the elephant was simply biding its time until the right time came. We laughed as the elephant refused to stand on the ball, or when it threw the ball, threw it just a little too far. The impatience of the trainer was evident and we knew that the elephant was going to pay for it later on that day.

At least, that's what we imagined.

So when I get to Africa, I want to see elephants. Herds of them. And baby ones too. Because I want to see what an elephant looks like when it has its soul.