Reflections

As I reflect on this last day of the year, it is hard to believe it is almost January again. Last January I began in earnest on the road that brought me to my new country. In March I learned that I would be going for sure. In May I started packing. This packing and unpacking was the most wearying part of the whole process and was to last until I moved into my final home a few weeks ago. In June I moved my furniture to my mother's house. In July I said good-bye to my apartment, my job, and my world in Houston. In August I went to another state to attend orientation. In September my beloved cat, Monday, died suddenly. In October I finished my orientation and returned to Texas. At the end of October, I said good-bye to my cat Tuesday and left him with my mother in America. On the first day of November, I set my foot for the first time on the soil of my new country. On the 29th of November, I aquired a new kitten. In December I moved into my new home.

As I reflect on the changes, it seems too much to pack into one small paragraph. But I am nothing if not concise! Each of these changes alone would have been huge. But so many in so short a time? Well, sufficent to say that I have seen my Father's graciouness in each step of the way. Always in the back of my mind, the thought hovers that He is for my good. He is often a bit mysterious and He does things His own way but He is always in my corner. In the midst of a year of change, He is still Abba and that will never change.

Recent Events

All,

I wanted to give everyone a quick rundown on recent events in my country. As most of you probably watch the news, you know it has been turbulent for the last several days. As reassurance, I am doing fine. There was some violence in other parts of the city on Thursday evening but my neighborhood is very safe and I experienced no problems. On Friday and on the weekend, most of the shops in the city were shut down due to the situation. I have mostly stayed at home during that time. I did attend a wedding yesterday. Today is Monday afternoon and the city seems to be coming alive again. I took a walk earlier today and observed the mood of the city. Businesses were open, public transportation was running, and people were up and moving about. All this is good - it means things have settled down.

Za Cor

Ok - the house is coming together. After weeks of worrying - no, let's be honest - obsessing about this - it finally beginning to look like a home. I got carpets yesterday. My language teacher and I went to a bazaar on the outskirts of town. This bazaar is locally called the Smugglers' Bazaar because apparently there are lot of things there that are intended for other places and just miraculously appear here. Anyway, it is a great place to go to get higher end things at good prices. I got one room of wall to wall carpeting and two large beautiful Turkish rugs. One of the rugs is shot with browns and creams. There is a large cream flower design in the center of it. I put this one in my dining room. The other carpet is cream with a dark red pattern. It also has touches of green in it. It is a beautiful rug and something I plan to keep for years and years - Enshallah. It is in the bedroom. The rugs have also made the house much warmer as some of the floors are marble...

First Edition Poor

Zama Cor - in the language that I am learning that means 'my house.' After weeks of saying that phrase for a variety of situations, we have finally arrived. I moved into my new place on Saturday. Me and peshu (that is 'cat' in my new language). By the way, I figured out that the cat speaks the local language and not English. When I say 'Peshu, Peshu' he comes running. When I say 'Here kitty kitty' I get a blank cat look!

Well, back to the house. I had a mattress delivered on Saturday. The only problem was it did not fit going up the stairs! So I slept on a toshak last night (they truly are multi-purpose). A toshak is a large cushion that is used for sitting and also at times for sleeping. Kind of like a sofa but more portable. We finally got the mattress up the stairs tonight. I have very little furniture right but have ordered a bedroom suite, a kitchen table, a china cabinet, and a dining room table. The furniture is being made so that will be several weeks before I get it.

I feel like I am 25 again and setting up housekeeping - for those of you who were single for longer than 5 minutes, perhaps you remember your first place. If it was anything like mine, it came with carpet that had seen better days - a lot better days! My first carpet was orange shag that had lost the shag a long time ago but not the funky orange color! The furniture was whatever could be begged or borrowed from family, friends, and people who I just happened to meet on the street and who felt sorry for me. My first couch had orange flowers - vintage 1950s! It had been left in the apartment and the manager was going to put it out on the curb. I said 'No, I'll take it' - I had no couch and frankly, no prospects of getting one. I used that couch for 4 years and my mother had it for another 10 years. She just recently gave it away - it is still in service. My first kitchen utensils came from a relative's house who had a reputation for stopping on the street on trash days and going through whatever was sitting on the curb. Lest you think I was ungrateful, I was not. The set of silverware that came from that relative - well, I used it for 12 years, always with gratitude that she cared enough to give. As I replace all the things I left behind, I find myself missing the stories behind them. For those of you who, like me, have cobbled your life together, possessions become a way to remember, recollections of people we have known and places we have been. For me, I left behind the depression glass bowel that my sister got me for Christmas during a lean year, the cross stitch from Lois in CA, the candelabra that came from a co-worker - the list could go on and on. It is not the possessions that I miss - it is the stories and connections behind them that I long for, I think. One of my friends from those early years (she was equally single and equally poor) used to say that we were furnished in 'first edition poor' Well, poor it certainly was but somehow, the stories made for a fabric of untold richness.

Paper People II

Here is a poem I wrote a couple of months ago.

Paper People

I dreamt of paper people
People who were once real
Flesh and blood and weeping bone
As real as you and I
All they have left is me
You have colored my eyes
And framed my smile
And my strong will
I long for a letter, a sound, a sigh
a glimpse of your ordinary days
I have your DNA
But you are enigma
And I am left to beg for crumbs
Of distant stories and
Half remembered legends

You left me kin
My cousins
And distant cousins
And more distant cousins
They are my blood and my tie
Yet I barely know their names

I whisper with longing to know
My paper people
I shout with triumph
To read of your beginnings and your ending
I hunt with frantic uncertainty
Through dusty files and courthouse records
I stare at pictures so faded
I wonder about your cycles and
how you felt to know that
You were pregnant again –
Did you know that you were carrying
my great grandfather in your womb?
Did you feel him turning and spinning and dancing madly
in your belly
did you know that this was the most important thing
you would ever do?

I long to know the year that the crops failed
And why did you sell the wagon in 1863?
How did you feel about the black
And the gray and the blue?
At twelve, did you huddle under your bed in old Johnsonville
And listen to the cannons pound their fury in your backyard
Did you walk among the dead and look for your kin
Did you come to hate the color blue?
Why did you leave your daughter and your daughter’s daughter
To face an uncertain future in a foreign land called Texas?

How did you feel to ship into Galveston
While the salt air mussed your hair
And stand on the wharf and know no one?
Not a dollar in your pocket or a word
of my language on your tongue
Did you rejoice,
did you grieve,
For the shores you left behind?

I am your legacy
I am the future
Made from dust and sweat
and a thousand days of your
ceaseless toiling on small farms
I am the reason for your rising in
the early morning hours before the dawn
And the cornbread cooking in the wood stove

I am ten thousand prayers
Whispered on wooden church pews in
long abandoned churches

I am your blood.

rrw
summer 2007

Birthday

Hello all,

Today is my birthday. I am not going to say how old I am - that would be telling. For the record, 21 and holding. I have said for years 21 is the perfect age. You can take it as a compliment if people think you are younger and as flattery if they think you are older. However, when I look back, I would not return to 21 for anything. My life has been a rich tapestry. It has not been any easy life or even, at times, a settled life. However, I thank God for these years I have been given. For those of you who know me well, you know the birthday memories are not always the best. However, on this day, let me give thanks for the weaving that my life has become. I have been so richly blessed with family and friends, with purpose, with education, even with possessions.

Most of all, I have been blessed with an Abba who loves me. It has crossed my mind many times that He let me born on this particular day. He could have picked the day before, the day after... Yet, He picked this day to be the first day that my eyes would see light, the first day that I would cry as a tiny infant for nourishment, the first day of the rest of my life. He knows the length and breath of my days and He holds my times in His hand. May this life be a drink offering poured out to Him.

Corban

Yesterday I was given a precious gift - a tiny little Siamese kitten. This event started with a phone call about 2:00 in the afternoon. My friend that I am staying with called from a city about two hours a away. She said she was at the vet's office and they had cats there to give away. There were several options but I wanted a kitten and they had a Siamese male kitten there. He came home about 6:00 yesterday evening. He is seven weeks old and is a tiny little thing. I had big cats in America and though I know they were once this small, I don't remember them at this size. This afternoon we took a nap and he fit perfectly on my chest, his tail curled around himself, feeling my heartbeat. He has blue eyes and may end up being a seal point Siamese, which I am told is a rich chocolate brown color.

I have played with several names for him but I think I am going to go with Corban. It means 'sacrifice' or loosely, something dedicated to God. I have felt my Father's pleasure over this. In less than 24 hours God has reached deep and healed some of the pain of leaving behind everything familiar, including a beloved cat in America. There have been tears in this but they are tears of release, of finally beginning to accept this place as home. I am awed at Abba, who so beautifully meets my needs, even those I did not know I had.

Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving. For most of my family and friends in America, it is probably about 3:00 am. My day is mostly done but just for a momemt, let me ponder and be grateful for the priceless gift of ordinary days. Days filled with family and friends, days of good smells (like cloves and cinnamon), days of being able to follow the same routine every morning. Those kinds of things are the things we miss most when our lives are disrupted. I thank God this Thanksgiving that so far my transition to this new life has been relatively smooth. Today I especially thank God for pumpkin bread. I got in the kitchen this afternoon and made pumpkin bread - an old Amish recipe with roots deep in the life of simplicity that the Amish live. This is one of my fall traditions - something that I do every year. A simple thing - making pumpkin bread - but one that brings normalacy in this year of change. Frankly, the pumpkin bread didn't even turn out that great. But for me, it was the simple fact of doing something common and ordinary. For that, I give thanks.

Home

I finally got to see the place that my friends here have been talking about for a while - the place that they had picked for me to live before I even arrived in Central Asia. By the standards here, it is very nice - also by American standards too! The flat is above a local family There are five adult daughters and one son, plus father and mother in this family. They live on the bottom floor and I would have the second story.

It has its own separate staircase so I would have my own entrance in and out. There is a room coming up the stairs that could serve as a parlor. Actually, I think I would use it as a sitting room for me. It has a bathroom attached with a squatty potty - this is the traditional 'toilet' here. Next there is a large open area that would lend itself to toshaks and perhaps a dining table. I think I would keep this room for entertaining. It is a rectangular room with crown modeling on the ceiling and painted a nice yellow color. The windows are also trimmed with wood - almost European in its look. There are two bedrooms but one of them is being used for storage by the landlord. The other bedroom has a bathroom with a western style toilet. The bedroom is spacious and already has a wardrobe built into the wall. The kitchen is a little separate - it is just a few steps off the patio area. The kitchen has black marble counter tops, glass fronted cabinets, and some pretty tile work on the counter top backsplash. Here they do not supply the appliances so I would have to get a stove, refrigerator, and washing machine. I would also have to get heaters and window units. One neat thing about this place is that in every room there are triangular insets in the walls for gas heaters. There is an enclosed area on the roof where I can put the washing machine and a few chairs.

The thought of setting up a household from scratch is daunting. Fun but daunting. I will enjoy shopping and I have a generous setup allowance. However, there is no Wal-Mart here (don't laugh!) so it will require many trips to different places to make this an inviting home. And, that in the long run, is my goal. To make this an inviting and peaceful place to call home.

Liminal Spaces

Liminal spaces. I first heard this term a few months ago and it stuck. What is a liminal space, you ask? It is an between place - like when you walk into a restaurant off the street and there is a sign that says 'please wait to be seated' You are not where you were (on the street) but not where you will be either (at your table). Profound concept in something so simple - a waiting place. In C.S. Lewis's 'The Magician's Nephew' the world between the woods is a liminal space. I found this quote that seemed to express it best:

"Psychologists call 'liminal space' "a place where boundaries dissolve a little and we stand there, on the threshold, getting ourselves ready to move across the limits of what we were into what we are to be."

That really describes where I am at in my life. In some ways, my whole life has been liminal space - waiting to get to the moment that I am now. Now that I am here, I am still waiting. Waiting to learn language, waiting to learn how act and dress, waiting (really waiting!) to get my own place. Perhaps for a few minutes, a few days, a few years, I felt the lessening liminal spaces and called a place home.

Today I am just really missing my apartment in Houston. For those of you that never visited me there, indulge me for a moment. My apartment was in a ordinary part of town - neither to rich or too poor. It was brick and second story. The neighborhood was quiet and safe and I never hesitated to walk there, even at night. I lived upstairs and a thousand times I climbed those stairs. I really miss my stairs. My stairs were another kind of liminal space - they meant I was almost home. When I reached my door, the key meant the liminal space had ended and I was where I was meant to be. Peace. And cats. My cats were always at home to greet me. Seeing my cats meant I was back in my space. I miss Tuesday so much. There was peace and order in that place and I thrived on that. There was an oak tree right outside my window and in the mornings the sun came through the front window and danced with light and shadow. The morning that I left my home forever, it was about about noon and the sun was peaking through my oak tree. I thanked God for a thousand days of splendor in this place... I like to think that no matter who lives there after me will feel the remnants of a lingering peace in that place.

As followers of the Way, our lives here in on Earth are liminal spaces. We are not what we were but we are not yet what we will become. We are waiting for that perfect home - a place with no sun because the Father's face is so bright. A place where the healing of the nations is found in the fruit of the tree of life. A place of no sorrow and no night. How I long for that place...what has come before are only the Shadowlands compared to what will be.

The Market

I got to go to the local grocery store today with our housekeeper, Zebba. She invited me - sort of an impulse on her part (and one I trust she didn't regret!). Anyway, we went in a rickshaw in one of the local markets. This was my first trip in a rickshaw. This is one of the very common ways to get around here. It is fairly cheap and many women choose this as public transportation. It is a little like riding in a very colorful golf cart. It has a driver front and two seats behind the driver. It has two small doors and a roof on either side but otherwise is open air. It has an advantage in that it is small and can maneuver easily in the crowded streets. I noticed was a small section in front of our seat with a mirror - about the size and width of a two by four. I was advised by my companion that the old(er) men were better drivers. Zebba had passed up a young man with a rickshaw and chosen one where the driver was probably 55 or 60 (it is hard to tell ages here as life is so hard).

When we arrived at Zebba's market of choice, we went first to a vegetable and fruit stand. The city is strewn with these. The produce at this one seemed fresh and well-displayed. After we finished the purchases at this place, we proceeded to a grocery store. This place was really no larger than an average size room in America. It, however, seemed to have everything one could need as far as dry goods. There were also a few fresh food items, including eggs. Eggs here are not boxed as a dozen like we have in the States. The eggs today were on a large square egg crate. You pick the number of eggs you want and then they put them in a thin plastic bag. This seems to work as I have not yet seen the eggs get broken.

There were shelves stacked with goods all the way to the ceiling. Several times the shopkeeper's helper pulled a bamboo ladder around and climbed to the top shelves to pull down items that were needed. There was an old fashioned counter that the shop keeper stood behind and that divided the store. There were three freezers in this small space. The shop keeper was an old friend of Zebba's and said he had known her for 20 years. It took about 30 minutes to complete the transactions as the shop keeper and his helper collected the items needed one by one and placed them on the counter. They also sent out for several items they apparently did not have in the store. All during the shopping, the shop keeper carefully wrote down the items we were buying and then the price. At the end he totaled them up with a simple hand calculator.

We returned home in rickshaw with our bundles around our feet, having purchased food and dry goods - enough to take us through at least the next few days.

The Baazar

I had my first trip to the bazaar yesterday. The bazaar is the local marketplace. You can obtain anything and everything there. There are several bazaars in my city and I went to one of the larger ones. I am told that most bazaars specialize in certain items - IE... household goods, etc. The one that I went to yesterday was called the Sutter Bazaar. There were tons and tons of fabric shops (and of course accessories to match). It was a little like being in New York but with men in turbans and women in all states of covering - some in full burkas, some veiled so only the eyes show, and others with only the hair covered. There were small narrow streets packed with people and little shops lining the streets. There were also street vendors and of course, the inevitable beggars.

The only problem I encountered was selecting fabric. There were tons of shops and endless choices. Once you have your fabric, elastic,and trim, then you go to a tailor. I got material for three outfits. One is a satiny orange that will have gold, black, and copper trim, another is an Irish green with gold weavings, and the third is a fallish looking brown paisley that will be matched with tan pants (shalwars). I also purchased three chuddars (head coverings). They are like huge scarfs - I am still fighting to learn how to wear one appropriately. I can put it on but it keeps slipping off. As a woman's hair is considered sexy here, this is not a good thing if your chaddar falls off out in public. One of the chuddars was a cream fabric with little gold rind stones, another was black with copper butterflies trimming, and the third was a more winter type of chuddar of paisley - black and reddish orange. I will post pictures once I have the outfits made up if I can figure out how to do that! I want to get a burka with full face covering and wear it to the bazaar. This may seem weird but I want to see the world from a woman's point of view at least once - through the mesh. I also think that it will allow me to observe the world around me in a broader way.

The sights and sounds in this place are incredible. The smells and dust are not so great! I am adjusting but missing the cleanliness of America. For most of my adult life I have taken cleanliness for granted - I walk down the street and the trash is picked up. The sideswalks are paved and sewer is only a word. I take it for granted that toilets flush and don't smell. I have had more dust on my hands and the bottoms of my feet in the last few days than I have had in years.

I'm Here

All,

I have arrived safely in Central Asia, minus 3 pieces of luggage. Only one of my three pieces of checked luggage arrived. I will have to wait until Tuesday to find out if it comes in because the airline only flys to my city twice a week - Tuesday and Thursdays. Hopefully the luggage will arrive on Tuesday. So far I have gotten to see a little of the city. I did not bring the cat as I found the day before I left that it would be $3,000 (yes, in American money!). I will write more later. I am off to a barbecue to meet some of the other ex-pats here in my city.

Starbucks Anyone??

I spend several hours packing today. It is an interesting perspective to see your worldly goods condensed down to 3 duffel bags and one large suitcase. I have been preparing for this moment for months - sorting, re-sorting, constantly weighing sentimental attachment and practicality. In the end, a lot of what I chose to take were things that I believe I cannot find in Central Asia. Some of these things may seem silly but right now they are important to me. Some of these things include an extra tube of my favorite lipstick, some Bath and Body Works products(Fresh Vanilla scent!), and, lest you think that all I packed was make-up, a box of Tazo Passion Tea (you know, the Starbucks kind). Humm...I wonder if they have Starbucks in Central Asia. Well, stay tuned for the next episode of 'As Central Asia Turns' - we will have the answer about Starbucks very shortly.

How to Post

All,

I have had several questions about posting to a blog. For all you non-techies out there (of which I am one!), here are instructions on how to post:

1. go to the bottom of the post that you want to comment on
2. go to the part that says 'Links to Post'
3. Go to 'Post a Comment' On this particular blog, this is in green script.
4. write your comments in the box - sorry, it will only go up 300 characters. I have not yet figured out how to have unlimited characters. If anyone knows, please send me a comment on how to fix this.
5. click on the bubble that says 'annoymous' or 'other.' 'Annoymous' is easier as it does not require any additional information to be entered. However, please sign your comment so that I will know who wrote if you send it annoymous.
6. click on 'publish your comment'

Plesae send me feedback on this if it doesn't work! I am still learning and want to make sure this blog viable!

Small Town Ramblings

Hello all! I will be traveling to Alice today to visit with old friends. I also planned to see my aunt and uncle near Corpus Christi. It will be a short visit but one that I am looking forward to.

Nothing new in Dilley. It has been almost 20 years since I lived here and I couldn't wait to leave when I was a teenager but age provides pros as well as cons. Here are some ramblings on life in a small (very small!!!) town.

pro - everything is two minutes away.

pro - a traffic jam is waiting for two cars to pass by

con - the highlight of the day is a trip to the post office (seriously, I put on makeup for this!)

pro - my mother and i went to get gas yesterday. I tell her - 'you have to pay before you pump' she says 'It's all right - they know me' - they did - no problemo.

pro - an old friend called last night and we hung out. No appointment, no calendar, just come on over. I didn't even have to give her directions to my house.

con - people want to know - there is a strange car parked in your driveway and it makes the neighborhood buzz.

pro or con? - my mother calls Hwy 35 'the superway' and drives on the access road.

definite pro - San Antonio is only an hour and half way - an hour the way I drive!

con - after twenty years, I see a face in the store or some other locality. The face looks strangely familiar - sometimes I even have a name to match. But I am hesitant to approach - what if I am wrong? Or, heaven forbid, it is a classmate's child - grown and gone but looks just their mom or dad at that age?

pro - I don't have grandchildren. I don't even have children! I ran into someone I went to high school with years back. She had her first baby when we were in high school. That baby now has a daughter.

pro - people know you. "sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name..."
enough said.

pro - you know the dirt on people - even from years ago.

con - they know the dirt on you - even from years ago.

con - the grocery store - everything is way over-priced. There is no such thing as bargain shopping because this is the only store in town. Oh, well.

con - there are two restaurants in town. Dairy Queen and Pacho's. Due to the overwhelming variety, people still cook at home (maybe that should go in the pro list)

pro - both restaurants are air-conditioned.

The Chronicles of Narnia

I love the Chronicles of Narnia. In some way, they are everything good about childhood - a place where the wicked are defeated, children have the wisdom to be kings and queens, and Aslan is just around the corner. At odd times, quotes will echo in my head, with just the faintest hint of a proper British accent. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the Chronicles. If you have not read these books, you are in for a treat.

" 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."
Mr. Beaver

"Once a king or a queen in Narnia, always a king or queen. Bear it well, Sons of Adam. Bear it well, Daughters of Eve."
Aslan

"One of the drawbacks about adventures is that when you come to the most beautiful places you are often too anxious and hurried to appreciate them; so that Aravis (though she remembered them years later) had only a vague impression of grey lawns, quietly bubbling fountains, and the long black shadows of cypress trees."
The Horse and His Boy

"Aslan threw up his shaggy head and opened his mouth, and uttered a long single note; not very loud but full of power.... anyone who heard that call would want to obey it and (what's more) would be able to obey it, however many worlds and ages lay between."
Polly

"But battles are ugly when women fight."
Father Christmas

""You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve, and that is both honor enough to erect the head of the poorest begger, and shame enough to bow the head of the greatest emperor on on earth. Be content."
Aslan

Wrong will be right when Aslan comes in sight.
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more.
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death.
And when he shakes his Mane, we shall have spring again.

"They are a wise, wealthy, courteous, cruel, and ancient people."
of the Calormens

"You are the King of Narnia...You shall not please yourself with adventures as if you were a private person."
Reepicheep

"I've been lessoned but I'll not be baited."
Prince Caspian

"Sometimes, perhaps, I am a little impatient, waiting for the day when they can be governed by wisdom instead of this rough magic.
Coriakin

" 'In our world, a star is a huge ball of flaming glass' said Eustance. 'Even in your world, my son,that is not what a star is but only what it is made of.' "
Eustance and Ramandu

Texas

I arrived in south Texas yesterday evening. I will be staying with my mother for several weeks. I will be departing for overseas in late October. I picked up Tuesday in San Antonio - he is doing well and seemed very glad to see me, contrary to my fears that he would be really really mad (expressed as feline outrage). He seemed glad to get back to my mother's house and spent a while roaming around and rubbing against tables, chairs and other objects.

While in Houston, I went to the consulate regarding my visa. The application process seemed to go smoothly. I should have the visa by the end of the week. Please keep this in your prayers.

Via Con Dios!

Life of a Nomad

All,

I am leaving VA tomorrow. Here is my schedule so that you will know where I am. I am driving to GA on Tuesday and staying in at the New Ebenezer Retreat Center near Savannah. I will be leaving there Friday morning and driving Long Beach MS and staying a bed and breakfast there. On Saturday morning I will be arising (probably very early!) and driving to Houston. I will be staying with my cousin Kay for several days. On Monday I plan to leave for Dilley to spend the remaining time with my mother. I depart overseas in late October. Please pray for me that God uses this time on the road to restore and renew me.

Leaving

I will be leaving VA on Tuesday. In some ways, this has been one of the hardest and most challenging times of my life. In other ways, it has been one of the richest and most blessed times. There are a lot of mixed emotions right now - sadness about leaving, joy at new beginnings, anxiety - oh, the anxiety - such a slow and killing stress! My friends and I will be scattering to the four winds. The gestation is over and the labor has just begun. For me, it will be the labor of a lifetime. I cannot forsee the future nor predict it. I can only embrace it. 'This becoming is harder than it seems' - Rich Mullins, I think. To my fellow FPOers, it has been a joy to know you - Via Con Dios.

New York New York

New York was great. We went to the Empire State building (did not climb to the top as it was $18 to do so), went to Battery Park and viewed the Statue of Liberty from across the Harbor, saw Ground Zero, went to Times Square, Central Park, and past the New York Public Library. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant and then went to Tiffany's. It was a lot to pack into one day! I think the coolest thing for me was seeing the city wake up. Our bus arrived at 6:00 am in China Town on Sat. morning. There was no one on the streets or the subway. As the day progressed the city came alive. By the time we left, the subways were standing room only. It was fascinting to see this great city come alive and realize even New York has its rhythms and times of solitude. One day I would like go back and spend a couple of days just being a tourist. What a great land we live in!

Please Write Me!

To all my friends, family, and aquitances out there - please 'post' me! I am eagerly seeking posts (nice ones please) - I am checking frequently and beginning to feel like ET - stranded and needing to phone home. Am I am the only one reading my posts?(that's a sad commentary on my lonely life!!!!!!!!)

New York

I will be traveling to New York tonight on a bus with 3 other girls. This was a last minute invitation of sorts but I have never been to New York. We will be traveling through the night, arriving in New York sometime tomorrow morning and spending the day there. We will board the bus back to VA at 5:00 pm tomorrow evening. If you have questions please see the blog title (cheat sheet - 'The Grand Adventure'). In the words of Lady Marsden, "Something about it appealed to me" For anyone who has read 'Oldest Living Confederate Widow' I will not end up in wrapped in a bedsheet sitting in a smoking tree. But something about a trip to New York did appeal... Carpe diem!

Obituary for Monday

Monday Walker died Monday, September 10, 2007. He is survived by a brother, Tuesday, currently of San Antonio, and his mommie, Rebecca, currenty of Virgina. Monday was my cat for 10 years. He was beloved and will be greatly missed.

September 17th

Today would be my grandmother's 111th birthday if she were alive. I cherish wonderful memories of my grandmother. My sister and I have talked at endless length about the chocolate covered cherries she kept in her china cabinet (to be brought out when the parents were not present), lying in her front bedroom and listening to the night traffic in the moonlight, and banging on the old upright piano in her living room. I remember sitting on my grandmother's front porch and watching the evening sun slant through the pecan trees. That moment is forever fixed in my mind as a pinacle of peace.

My grandmother gave me many things, most of them intangiable and unseen except by the heart. She gave me a sense of belonging, her indominable spirit of generosity, and her fierce independence. One of the things that is etched in my memory is that every time we visited (and that was often as my mother had four children under the age of 5), she would go to the top drawer of her dining room buffet and take out money. It was only years later that I learned from my mother that this was usually only five or ten dollars - just enough to pick up milk on the way home or meet another need that is now long forgotten. Not much to us, but a lot to an elderly widow living on social security. Yet it was such a ritual between her and my mother that I marked it in my child's mind and the selflessness etched itself on my soul.

I wonder what she would think if she could see me now (and I believe that she can)? Would she be pleased with this venture into the unknown? Would she worry, would she offer to pack a lunch for me? Would she be proud of me, spirit of her spirit and bone of her bone?

To my grandmother - Lorine Goodwin Shackelford
Born September 17, 1896
Died Decemember 9, 1980

Greetings!

Hello fellow journeyers! This blog is intended to give you a look, funny or not, at my life in Central Asia. I will be in America until late October but will be keeping you posted through this website. Please keep in mind that this website is just the day to day stuff. Blessings to each of you.