Constance Israel

A Small Piece of the Whole

8/15/2014

I work in animal rescue. Sometimes it’s frustrating and difficult. Sometimes it’s enraging. Sometimes it breaks my heart. I invite you to join me.

When I was a child, I would place my stuffed animals all over my bedroom. My bed was my boat, the world was flooded, and I had to save all the creatures. I haven’t moved all that far away from this scenario. I’m constantly rescuing whatever life forms my cats bring through the pet door, whether it’s a beetle, lizard, or mouse. I frequently find fledglings or hurt birds while out walking my dog. I’ve done some trapping and transporting work with a feral cat rescue. I’ve walked dogs at the local humane society. For the past three years, I’ve been involved with Golden Bone Rescue.

It all started innocently enough. I saw something in the newspaper about Golden Bone needing donated blankets. I cleaned out my closets, asked friends to do the same, and then added to the growing pile by contacting a nearby thrift shop and taking what they could not sell.

After donating several loads of blankets, I made my annual pilgrimage to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. On the return trip, I stopped at the Dumpsters at The Gap (a remote part of the western Navajo Nation in the middle of nowhere, Northern Arizona). I knew this was a common dumping ground for unwanted pets, and I’d made a habit of stopping here to leave food and water for the past several years. I was happy to see no animals at the first place I looked, no animals at the second place, and I thought I was all clear at the third and final place when a little fuzzy head popped up. A puppy was curled in a tiny ball in front of one of the bins, lying on top of a pile of trash.

He was thrilled to have water and food, quite willing to be shoved into a collapsible kennel in the car, and was fine for the drive back to Sedona. Golden Bone agreed to take him on financially. He had a nasty wound on his neck, and when we got him to the vet the next morning, we learned he had probably been shot with a gun or an arrow. Along with his neck surgery, he was neutered and updated on inoculations. A few weeks later he was adopted into his forever home, where he is adored.

Some of our rescues come from very sad situations. Some have been mistreated. Some have been thrown away. Some have to be surrendered due to unavoidable changes in their people’s lives. Ultimately though, none of this matters. What matters is keeping them safe, getting them healthy, and finding them new, loving, forever homes.

And here’s the really good news: Everybody can help. If you’re not a hands-on kind of person, you don’t need to interact with either the animals or the people who are surrendering them. You can do social media, taking photos of animals in need of new homes and/or posting them on various sites for people to peruse. You can check phone messages. You can file paperwork.

If you do enjoy animals, you can walk dogs, socialize cats, transport animals to appointments. If you enjoy people, you can attend adoption events, fundraisers, and whatever else might come up. You can serve on the frontlines or waaaay back in the background.

If you’re like me, you might end up with a pit bull living in your bedroom for two months, while your very territorial husky lurks on the other side of the door. Or you might never encounter a single animal involved with the agency you volunteer with. The choice is yours.

Whether you adopt, foster, donate, or volunteer to take on some of the myriad daily operations of this or any other rescue organization, your help is vital. By participating, you make us whole. You make this work. You save lives. You’re the backbone, the heart, the skin, the soul. Please join me.

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Footprints on the Toilet Seat: Travel in South Asia

8/1/2014

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Escape to Sri Lanka

In Asia, everybody squats. Merchants squat beside their wares, commuters squat while waiting for their bus, and everyone squats over the toilet. However, heavily traveled areas have a number of western-style toilet facilities. It’s not all that rare to find footprints on the toilet seat, since the sit toilet is an anomaly in much of the eastern world. In order to squat over such a bulky object, one might logically stand on the seat. I recently left my own footprints in a number of Asian countries, though not on any toilet seats.

In April of 2000, I embarked on a five-month journey to South Asia and Australia. I’d traveled around the world two years before, starting out with a close friend, then traveling solo for several months. That experience had changed my life, and I wanted more. More change, more growth, more life-affirming experiences. I'd been planning this trip since my spring return from my first journey. Leaving the U.S. in the spring two years later, I seemed to be right on schedule. What I hadn't planned on was that during that interim, I'd fall in love, enjoy a passionate albeit brief relationship, and then suffer a broken heart when the relationship ended. While this may not seem like the best time to travel, I had no intention of changing my plans and no intention of giving this breakup so much credence that a change of plans might seem like a viable option. Besides, four months had passed. It was time to move on, figuratively and literally.

So I left. Alone. Thinking I had no expectations, yet expecting all along that this journey would prove as cathartic and awe-inspiring as its predecessor. I believed that my heart and soul had pretty much healed. I believed I was ready to travel through a number of countries in which I didn't speak the language. I believed this challenge would expedite whatever vaguely dark inner journey I was on. I expected, without really realizing it, that I would come home glowing, victorious, on fire with the love of life. It didn't quite work out that way.

After five hectic weeks of covering too much ground in India, during which I literally felt as if I were on the run, I spent a few days relaxing in the southwestern beach town of Kovalum. Here I prepared my escape to the small island nation of Sri Lanka. I met a woman who had spent the past few weeks traveling there. After seeing news reports about the 17-year-old civil war between the Sinhalese and the Tamils heating up, I asked if she’d run into any trouble. She said the beach boys would wank off in front of western women, and she had to push one guy away from her door after he followed her all the way back to her room. Then there were the travelers she’d met who ran into some Tamil Tigers (an organization that relies on guerilla strategies in its fight to establish an independent Tamil state) in one of the national parks in the southeast. Oh, and the monsoon rains had just begun. I was still looking forward to getting there.

Ancient Cities and Dehydration

My flight landed in the capital city of Colombo. After India, I’d had enough big, hot cities to last a while, so I took a bus to the smaller size and cooler climate of Kandy. A small lake marked the middle of town, and on its north shore was Dalada Maligawa, also known as the Temple of the Tooth. Here, the country’s most important Buddhist relic, the tooth of the Buddha, is housed. The tooth itself is housed in a series of caskets that are displayed to the public on occasion. I didn't see the tooth, and I didn't see the caskets. I didn't even know for sure if I was looking at the door that might open into the room where the caskets were. Still, I was somewhere close to Buddha’s tooth, and sometimes that’s as good as it gets.

My visit coincided with Vesak, the full moon holiday celebrated during May. Each full moon is celebrated, but this is the holiest, since Buddha was born during a full moon in May, attained enlightenment during a full moon in May, and died during a full moon in May. Thousands of people lined up to enter the temple. There was a procession to celebrate the holy day. Elephants clad in colored robes clambered by. They were followed by musicians, dancers, and men snapping long whips back and forth across the street.

From Kandy, I went north to visit some of the ancient cities, built during the golden age of Sinhalese civilization. I had met a young couple, Mark and Sham, in the airport at Colombo and we had traveled to Kandy together. We decided to continue on to the ancient city of Polonnaruwa. This one-time capital is filled with thousand-year-old Buddhist ruins. Most striking was Gal Vihara, where four separate images of Buddha have all been carved from one slab of granite. The standing Buddha is seven meters tall. The reclining Buddha is 14 meters long, approximately equal to the width of a basketball court. These massive figures seemed gentle and calm, as if some of the actual qualities of the religious philosopher exuded from the stone.

Mark, Sham, and I had rented bicycles to tour the ruins. May is a hot month in Sri Lanka, and the relentless heat had severely dehydrated me. It was impossible to ever get completely cool, and I sweat even as I slept. Unable to ingest as much liquid as I was losing, I was accompanied throughout the ruins with a two-day-old headache, a stiff neck, and sore muscles. I drank over one and a half gallons of liquid in one day trying to rehydrate. In the meantime, every bump, every hole, and every rock along the way sent shock waves up through the bike stem and into my head.

The next stop was Dambulla, where I visited 2000-year-old cave temples. Each of the five temples was filled with Buddha images, some of them carved out of granite, some made of plaster, others painted on the walls. Dambulla provided more serenity than I had experienced in weeks. I'd ventured forth without Mark and Sham, who were traveling on a limited budget. Since I didn't have to consider their tight purse strings, I'd splurged on a guide, an expense equivalent to about one dollar. He provided information, humor, and company during my tour of the temples. The caves are at the top of a steep walkway, and by the time I reached them, I was literally drenched with sweat. Yet inside it was cool and quiet, dark and peaceful. Monkeys ran across the stone terrace, from which I could see my final destination in the area, Sigiriya.

The ancient fortress of Sigiriya was built on top of a 200-meter granite slab during the fifth century. I went early one morning to avoid the heat, arriving before anyone else. A guide offered his services during the climb to the top. While I never really agreed to pay him, he accompanied me, providing a few facts along the way in halting English. The final vertiginous ascent up a series of metal stairwells, attached to the rockface in recent years, made me very happy to have his company. Once on top, I sat on the granite throne and surveyed the kingdom as the wind whipped around me. This would have been a wonderful seat to share with a friend, looking out over the treetops below, imagining the people who once lived here. My loneliness soon drove me back down, with a stop en route to look at the 1500-year-old frescoes of scantily clad women. Even during the fifth century, men depicted the ideal woman with Barbie doll proportions.

Mark and Sham were astonished to see me back so soon. Once again, it seemed I was on the run, quickly moving through the paces without feeling like I was a part of the experience. I didn't really want to be with them anymore, but I didn't want to be alone. I found solo public transport to be exhausting, making it worthwhile to travel with a couple of cheapskates for a while.

Tea-Covered Mountainsides

The next day, solo again, I was quite excited to find a bus to the hill country after only asking twice. The bus filled to capacity and beyond, while vendors and beggars and a guy with a guitar held together with tape all filed through. The woman next to me dozed off immediately, using my shoulder as a pillow. The girl on the other side gave her seat to a pregnant woman who then invited the girl to sit with her, so I was crushed and crooked against the sleeping woman. The seat in front of me kept reclining further and further back, eventually touching my knees. The passenger couldn’t make it go back up. Then my seat did the same thing, much to the disdain of the girl behind me. She periodically kicked and smacked the back of my seat, not wanting me to forget that the angle was causing discomfort to someone besides myself. The countryside was a welcome distraction: mountainsides covered with lush tea plantations, thick forests, and cool air.

I spent one night in Nuwara Eliya, an old British hill station. (When the British were in residence, they built villages up in the hills to escape the summer heat in the lower areas.) I’d met a bitter old American woman while in Kandy, who griped incessantly about everything. When I had mentioned that I was going to Nuwara Eliya, she informed me that there was “nothing there.” Unfortunately, I agreed with her. I booked a seat on the train to Ella the following day. There were no first-class tickets available, so I bought a ticket for second-class seating. When the train arrived, I walked its entire length and back again, but there was not a single empty space. Even the doorways were crowded with people. As the train rolled out of the station, I jumped in the luggage car. Inside were two Sri Lankan men, sitting quietly by one of the two open doors, no luggage, and lots of space. I placed my backpack on the floor by the other open door, sat on top of it, and watched the tea-covered mountainsides roll by. It was an enjoyable journey, much preferred to a bus with broken seats.

Three hours later, we were in Ella. As the only guest at the Lizzie Villa Guest House, I enjoyed a solitary evening, sitting on the porch listening to chirping crickets and barking dogs. Dinner consisted of a massive plate of steaming hot brown rice, dahl (lentils), beans, cabbage with coconut, stewed tomatoes, and pappadam (crispy fried dough). I went to bed full and content.

The next day, I studied the homemade map posted on the wall of the guesthouse, and set out walking to the waterfall and to Ella Rock. The only verbal instruction I’d received from the guesthouse proprietress was to turn left after reaching the black railroad bridge. After walking along the tracks for what seemed like an inordinately long time, I passed a man wearing a loose white shirt and baggy pants. Hoping he spoke English, I said “Bridge?” He did speak English, but he didn’t know this word. He immediately fell into step beside me, talking about other things. We soon arrived at the bridge, where Sugath learned a new English word, and I got a great guide. Without his help, I would have found the bridge and nothing else.

He took me to a nearby waterfall, and when I asked him how to get to Ella Rock, he led the way. We walked through his farmland and to his tiny one-room house. He pulled two pieces of corn from a pot of hot water, shook them off, wrapped them in newspaper, and had me put them in my backpack for our lunch. We then walked on a barely visible trail and began to climb. And climb and climb and climb. After several breaks during which I tried to catch my breath, we reached the top. A small Sri Lankan flag had been tied to a long stick that was jammed into the earth. I sat beside it and smiled out over the expanse of mountains and valley. The not-so-tall, dark, and handsome farmer sat nearby. He provided half a day's guidance and sweet companionship, both of which I sorely needed.

Sawasdeeka! Hello from Thailand.

Dr. Seuss must have been an avid snorkeler or diver; the underwater world looks so much like his books it’s uncanny.

Underneath the rolling waves there are many critters

Some are lumpy ugly things much like apple fritters.

Underneath the rolling waves you’ll find neon colors

Splashed upon twisty things that look a bit like crullers.

Nowhere else will you find creatures so quixotic

And never will doughnuts be quite this exotic.

I swam past schools of hundreds of fish, listening to the coral crunch as they fed, hearing only that and my own breath. Purple clams with iridescent blue and green around their edges clapped shut when I waved my hand over their shells. I was fascinated by Christmas tree worms, which look like little feathered flowers in the shape of an evergreen; if you get too close, they withdraw completely into holes in the coral, effectively disappearing.

While visiting Ko Phi Phi, an island on the Andaman Sea, I was told where the blacktip reef sharks congregate. Early the next morning, I took my snorkel, swam out as directed, and found two of them. Or perhaps they found me. As they swam slow, lazy circles around me, I became acutely aware of my solitude, but at the same time I was exhilarated. I reminded myself that blacktips are not aggressive, so I swam a few more strokes. Four additional sleek, finned torpedoes joined the circle. Again I felt very alone and vulnerable. I don’t know why being accompanied by another hunk of human flesh would have provided comfort, but I knew it would. Maybe because the odds of my being the victim of a freak attack by non-aggressive sharks would decrease. More likely, I longed for the psychological buffer that a companion provides. I turned to swim toward shore, and a big fat shark glided past. I grinned for the rest of the morning.

After ordering rice and devilled crab at the beachfront restaurant, I was joined by so many flies that I carried the two plates to my room. There I struggled with the crab shell, getting the sauce all over myself in the process, and ultimately only swallowed a few bites of meat. Traveling alone is like eating devilled crab. It’s messy and difficult and frustrating, but the few bites of sweet flesh make it mostly worthwhile.

Hanging with the Monkeys in Indonesia

I walked to the Monkey Forest in Ubud, Bali, where the locals worship at a variety of temples, and the monkeys intimidate the tourists until they surrender the bananas they bought at the entrance. Thick vines hung from the highest branches of the trees all the way down to the ground. Bright green moss covered the stone statues. And the monkeys seemed to celebrate their good fortune...I watched one spinning in circles as he went down the walkway. After spotting a cute small fellow in a tree, I walked over to offer him a banana. Unfortunately, one of the big brutes intercepted me. When these guys approach, you pay attention. I found the best solution is to toss a banana (two if they’re really insistent) and keep walking. Otherwise, they’ll bully you out of your entire stash.

After hearing people yelling, I walked over to check out the commotion, a tip I picked up from previous travel (if someone’s yelling, there’s probably something to see). A monkey had managed to steal a roll of film from a tourist and had run up a tree to chew on it. Since I was surrounded by scads of the creatures, I crouched to photograph the scene, keeping a tight grip on my camera. Suddenly, a monkey jumped on my back, giving a whole new meaning to the old cliché, and scaring the crap out of me. Another man, evidently a monkey magnet, had approached with a camcorder, and the animals used him as a jungle gym.

Dealing with the Dead

I caught a flight to the southern tip of Sulawesi. After a ten-hour bus trip, I arrived in Tanatoraja. The next day, I attended a funeral ceremony (the dry season, July to September, is the time of year that many funerals, weddings, and house blessings take place). Ever wondered what kind of sucking sound a buffalo with a lacerated windpipe makes? Neither had I, but now I know, after witnessing the slaughter of five of them. A French spectator did a face plant, fainting dead away. I appreciated this immensely for a couple of reasons. One, because she fainted and I didn't, and two, it gave me somewhere to focus my attention, besides the gory spectacle in front of me.

After tending to the French woman, I watched as the buffalo were led, one at a time, into the courtyard. One of the animal’s back legs was tied to a stump, then a man whacked the buffalo’s neck with a machete. Sometimes only one blow was needed; other times, a lot more effort was involved.

The funeral is the most important of the many Torajan ceremonies. This elaborate send-off to the afterlife involves the sacrifice of both buffalo and pigs. The buffalo in particular is a very important animal in Tanatoraja (the Toraja build their houses in the shape of buffalo horns). The number of animals sacrificed indicates the wealth of the deceased. It is also believed that it impresses the gods, who then will look more favorably upon the surviving family members. In addition, the animals are believed to accompany their masters to the next life, serving as vehicles to heaven.

Funeral ceremonies last from one to seven days. Family members file in and are seated in bamboo pavilions. Following the ceremony, the numerous guests feast on the plentiful meat.

The next day, I stopped by a travel agency to get information about other events. I didn’t get as much help as I’d wanted (I think I wanted glossy brochures, a reserved seat on an air-con bus, and instant companions), but I did run into some German acquaintances whom I had met in a few days earlier. I accompanied them to a cockfight. Butchery is really not my idea of a good time, but when in Toraja.…

Before each fight, a low rumble rolled through the crowd as men excitedly placed their bets. Then the cocks fought, the loser had his leg cut off and his neck broken, and the next fight began. For me, the entertainment was watching the spectators, and the one man responsible for controlling them. He would periodically whack people with a towel or throw water when individuals edged too close to the ring.

Over the next few days, I visited a number of remarkable gravesites. Some of the gravesites are marked with tau taus, or wooden effigies. In Tanatoraja, people aren’t buried in the earth, but placed in caves or in manmade holes in a sheer rock face.

I visited a 'traditional village' called Keta Kesu. I hated it instantly: a bunch of identical odd-shaped houses, all in a sterile-feeling square compound, none of them inhabited, topped off by an unexpected entrance fee. However, I wandered past the shops and found cliffs with coffins hanging along their sides. A few coffins were intricately carved, some in the shape of buffalo, some in the shape of pigs. As the coffins rot, bones tumble down. The ground was littered with skulls and femurs. I felt like I’d passed through the looking glass. Beyond the commercial hype, I sat and watched the shadows play across the wood, rock, and bone. I found such clear evidence of mortality refreshing, clarifying values and priorities and reality.

The Ugly American

After Tanatoraja, I went to Ujung Padang, in order to catch my flight for my next destination. Unfortunately, I had three days until my flight. I became impatient, grumpy, and rude. I became the Ugly American.

It began when I was awakened early in the morning by the hotel staff, asking if I wanted to get up and eat breakfast. Well, no; if I did, I’d already be up consuming that boiled egg and slice of white bread. I went by the post office to see if any letters had been delivered via poste restante (general delivery)--no mail. I walked to a travel agent’s office to get information about diving in the area, but the guy I needed to talk to wasn’t due for another hour and a half. To fill the time, I checked flight availability, because I didn’t want to be stuck in Ujung Padang any longer than absolutely necessary. No seats were available.

No rooms were available at the guesthouse I wanted to stay in. I found an Internet Cafe so I could check email, but couldn’t access my account. I returned to the travel agency and tried to get a ticket out again. No luck. Voicing my mounting frustrations, I tried to get dive information. The agent finally just gave me the name of a dive shop and was probably happy to see me go. En route to the shop, I saw a Garuda airline office. I went in to check the ticket situation again. (This is Asia, and just because you’ve been told ‘no’ once or twice or ten times, it might not be true.) This visit seemed encouraging, with the agent calling someone then telling me to go to the main office for the airline. I hired a becak (bicycle rickshaw), not bothering to negotiate the price beforehand. When I asked the price after arriving, this cheeky bastard had the nerve to say 20,000 rupiah. That’s almost as much as a 30-kilometer ride in an air-conditioned taxi. I refused, rather vehemently. We went back and forth a few times before I got too fed up to deal with him. I went in the office, and he waited outside the door. I tried one last time to get a ticket out of Ujung Padang. No flights. The fight with the becak driver proceeded. He was willing to settle for 10,000 now, after I’d offered him 5000, which, despite it being a long ride, was still too much. I walked away; he ran after me. I’d say we engaged in a yelling match, but that would imply both of us were yelling. In reality, of course, it was just me. I cussed him out and asked him the question that had been foremost on my mind: “Don’t you EVER get tired of ripping people off?” A stupid question of course. It’s just business. Besides, he didn’t speak English...

I tossed the 5000 note on the ground, muttered “fuck you” to every offer for another becak, and caught a cab. I managed to find the dive shop, a tiny office, poorly marked, on the waterfront. The guide had the flu, there were no other guides, and this was the only dive shop in town. I returned to the hotel to find my one English-language television channel, MTV, which a head-injured 13-year-old might enjoy, was not working. Despite the fact that I would never watch MTV at home, not even if I owned a TV, this seemed like an inconsolable loss.

I felt like I was in junior high school again, with all its attendant traumas. I felt out-of-place, conspicuous, and vulnerable. Raw. Lonely. Separate. Here I was, 10,000 miles from home, struggling to belong. In the most densely populated part of the world, I was utterly alone. I was in a country whose language I didn't know, I was a foot taller than everyone else, and I was lashing out like a caged beast. What I really wanted was to bridge the gap, close the separation, and feel whole again.

At the end of August, I came home. Not with the glow in my eyes that so many people had commented on before, not with the clarity of what my trip had meant. But home, to the security of my own nest, to the familiarity of my own town, to the love of my friends and family. I still feel a vague sense of separation, though it's not nearly so amplified in familiar surroundings. It's as if something in me has come unmoored. Love is the biggest risk we take, and we do it with the expectation that it will bring us security. Not unlike jumping off a cliff in search of solid ground. Not unlike tromping through Asia alone when you should probably just get a dog and stay at home. Still, I don’t regret the trip, and I don’t regret the relationship. Slowly, step by step, I've continued to find my way.

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Wrestling India

8/1/2014

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Namaste!* Where’s the Bathroom?
(* Namaste--a beautiful sentiment expressed in a single word: I salute that in you which is divine.)

Many of the one billion residents of India probably wondered why a tall, white woman with yellow hair was traveling alone in their country, frowning intently a good bit of the time. I wondered too, and I am that woman. In April of 2000, I embarked on a five-month journey to South Asia. I’d traveled around the world two years before, spending two short weeks in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Since India had been one of the countries I had loved most on my first trip, I returned, planning to spend six to eight weeks exploring.

Within 36 hours of landing in New Delhi, I was hit with my first wave of illness. I was sitting in a restaurant writing when I suddenly felt as if a train was careening through my head. There was a dull roar, my vision narrowed, and I knew if I didn’t put my head down I would faint. So I sat with my head on the table, mopping sweat from my face and chest, feeling sweat soak through my pants. Several minutes later, I felt okay. Within the next week, however, the germs that came riding in on that train had taken up residence in my gut. This was no longer the kind of thing that could be dealt with by simply putting my head down for a while.

During the 15-hour bus trip from Delhi to McLeod Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama and headquarters of the Tibetan-government-in-exile, I had spoken with Darrell, a Canadian therapist who had been in India for several months. He recommended a doctor of Tibetan medicine for help with my rumbling gut. Dr. Pasang Gyalmo Khangkar asked about my symptoms, checked my pulse and eyes, and gave me an herbal remedy that looked like rabbit turds. These were to be choked down twice a day, after being ground into powder. Having forgotten to pack my mortar and pestle, I wrapped the designated number of pills in a piece of paper and pounded them to dust with the padlock from my door. Unfortunately, the rabbit pills did not do the trick.

I decided to go to the local hospital to see what they could do for me. I walked down the winding mountain road to a large white building. Signs on the stairwell, written in Hindi and English, asked patients to please refrain from spitting. The woman at the registration desk sent me to another office, and from there I was sent to the inpatient area to get a prescription for a stool test. I got the prescription and went back to the office, where I was asked, “Where’s the stool?” Well, it was still in me, so I went back to the inpatient ward where I performed my test and passed with flying colors. At least that’s my interpretation of the ability to squirt diarrhea into a tiny bottle no taller than a quarter with a mouth no wider than a dime. I went to the waiting room, on the roof of the hospital, while the lab work was completed. Then I was sent back to the inpatient area, where I watched birds flying in and out of the room, adding to their already-well-established nest above the doorway. The diagnosis was dysentery. I got antibiotics, along with oral rehydration salts to try to replace the liquid I’d lost during my stint as the Human Sieve. Happily, within a few days the antibiotics seemed to clear things up.

The Quintessential Salesman

Back in Delhi, I was walking along a crowded street with my therapist friend Darrell. He astutely noted, “These people do not look happy. They look stressed.” About half a second later, we heard a loud crack and looked up to see a man chasing after another man with a chair raised as a weapon. Maybe it was because one was trying to sell the other something he didn’t want. A typical interaction with a merchant or would-be merchant goes something like this:

“Hello Madam. Cold drink? Mineral water? Pepsi? Fanta? Chips? Excuse me. Hello. What country? Dutch? Hello Madam. Excuse me, excuse me. What is your job? Can I help you? Shopping? What are you looking for? What do you want? How much will you pay? Change money? Hello Madam. What is your good name? Rickshaw? Taxi? Excuse me madam.”

I was taught, as a very young child, that ‘no’ means ‘no,’ but it doesn’t. Not in business, not always in relationships, and virtually NEVER in India. The only semi-effective solution I found was to avoid eye contact, make no verbal response, and try to become selectively deaf. Even this could fail though, as some merchants would run alongside me, asking repeatedly what I had against them, and trying to convince me that they weren’t like all the other merchants. “Hello madam, I am here. Would you like to look in my shop? Make your eyes happy. No buy, just look. Looking is free.”

Lions and Tigers and Mormons, Oh My!

It’s worrisome when you keep asking people for information about your next destination, and none of them have ever heard of it, despite the fact that they live relatively close by. I knew I needed to exit the train in Umaria in order to catch a ride to Bandhavgarh National Park. But I didn’t know how to arrange the ride. The young man at the government tourist office was polite, but he couldn’t help me, beyond saying I’d need to speak to a travel agent. I found a travel agent, but he told me he had no contacts in Umaria. I decided I’d figure things out later, and proceeded to the train station.

I stopped at the Information Booth to ask which platform I needed to go to, but the uniformed attendant sat glowering at his desk behind the dirty glass window, refusing to move to the counter to look at my ticket. Instead, he pointed at the guy standing beside me in line, and when he couldn’t help, the attendant pointed to the guy on my other side. He didn’t know either, so I pushed my way up to the Enquiry Window. The answer was “Platform 6” but as I turned away I heard a parenthetical “or 5.” I went to Platform 6 where I asked again, and this time I was told the train would arrive at Platform 4, 5, or 6, and to listen carefully for the announcements. Unfortunately, the announcements sounded like the garbled voices of adults on Charlie Brown cartoons. Somehow, I ended up on the right train.

The next day, I found a jeep that took me to the national park, which I was visiting with the hopes of seeing some of the few remaining tigers in the wild. Here, I developed a new friendship with a fellow traveler. Clark and I had briefly crossed paths a few days earlier on the Varanasi ghats. Due to earlier riots that had resulted in a death, Varanasi was under curfew. Travel was restricted, many shops were closed, and the temperature was unbearable. A distinct disadvantage to solo travel is not having a human buffer to divert one’s attention from the negative. What might be interesting or funny if shared with someone else is frequently just horrible and disgusting if alone. I wondered how the holy Ganges could possibly feel holy to anyone. I couldn’t quite get beyond the bloated dead cows that floated by, along with raw sewage, garbage, and human body parts. I beat a hasty retreat for Bandhavghar.

During dinner one night, a tall, handsome man pulled up a chair beside me and asked how I’d liked Varanasi. It took me a moment to place his face as that of the stranger who’d passed by and muttered an inappropriate but amusing comment while I sat watching a cremation. Sporting an affable demeanor and a bright grin, he asked if I’d like to share a jeep with him the following day for an excursion into the park. I gladly agreed.

As our jeep bounced along the rutted roads, Clark and I got acquainted. He’s a Mormon, married, politically conservative, and the kind of person who has never met a stranger (he’s been known to swim out to small outrigger canoes and climb aboard after introducing himself to the fisherman). I’m religiously undecided, gay, politically liberal, and the kind of person who fails miserably at small talk. We got along famously.

Our driver learned of a tiger sighting, so we sped up the road to join the crowds of others who’d heard the same thing. Elephants were brought in, and the occupants of each jeep clambered aboard, four to each pachyderm. We lumbered into the forest, joining a group of other tourists and an entire IMAX film crew, all lined up beside a regal tigress and her two cubs. Clark and I were on a bad-boy elephant, who kept grabbing thin tree limbs with his trunk, moving around, and disrupting the camera-clicking hordes. At one point, the elephant grabbed a supple limb, pulled it back, then let it go, whacking a woman one elephant over in the face. We got a couple of angry looks from other tourists, but what does one do with an unruly elephant? Clark and I were both going on to Bombay, so we decided to travel together. He had rented a car and driver while in Varanasi, so we proposed that the driver take us to Katni, a tiny place three hours away from the park via some very bad roads, so that we could catch a train. The original agreement had been for the driver to take Clark to Bandhavghar, then return with him to Varanasi. India is not known as the Land of Bureaucracy without reason. Following a long, drawn-out ordeal of negotiations, phone calls to the office in Varanasi, and a few angry exchanges with the driver, Clark agreed to write a note to the owner of the rental business, explaining the change in plans. This innocuous act seemed to finally satisfy all involved parties.

Why Go to the Taj Mahal? Take a Trip to Bhopal!

We purchased tickets to Bhopal, site of the worst industrial disaster of the century. In 1984, tons of lethal gas leaked from a Union Carbide factory, with a death toll of more than 16,000. Bhopal was not a destination high on either of our itineraries, but it seemed like a logical place to stop and break up our 24-hour train trip to Bombay.

We were informed that our 12:00 train would arrive at 12:30. The station was small, hot, and foul-smelling. Hordes of people stared at us. (I would say this was because few tourists travel to Katni, but in my experience, Indians stare intently no matter how lightly- or heavily-traveled an area is. I started to feel like a walking movie, a gripping drama that the audience just couldn’t tear themselves away from.) Clouds of flies descended upon us. A cow wandered along the platform eating garbage. Another cow walked along the tracks. (What do you call a cow walking on the railroad tracks? Hamburger!)

We also tried to find someone who could tell us the number of our train and the number of the platform where we should embark, to no avail. After being told the train was further delayed and would arrive at 2:00, 5:00, or 7:00, we headed off in search of lunch. We entered a restaurant close to the train station, not wanting to get too far away in case our train arrived at one of the earlier times among our many options. We walked hesitantly into the dark back room. One man stood at the bar talking with the bartender. There were no other customers. The ceiling was wet. The floors were wet. Water dripped from chairs and tables. A thin, young man dressed in white mopped at the puddles, the mess apparently caused by a pipe bursting in the ceiling. Almost all of the lights were off. We were ushered to a table by a man who dried the seats with a rag. Clark and I split an order of palak paneer, a spinach dish with a type of Indian cheese in it. Right after we finished eating, smoke started billowing out of the kitchen. Bhopal was looking better and better.

Despite my having quit smoking a couple of weeks earlier, we shared cigarettes and swatted flies until 7:00, when we finally found someone who could tell us our train number. An hour later, the train for Bhopal arrived. We were relieved to finally board, but we were immediately informed we didn’t have seats. We were directed to a double-tier berth with four beds, five other people, and every inch of floor space covered with piles of luggage. These kind-hearted souls sent one person to another berth and then doubled up in their narrow beds, freeing up two beds for us and our backpacks. I didn’t get much sleep, but it was a glorious relief to lie down for a while.

We arrived in Bhopal in the pre-dawn hours, found a room, and slept briefly. We arrived at the bank as soon as it opened, only to find we couldn’t exchange traveler’s checks until 10:30. We were both out of cash (I was down to my last 60 rupees, the equivalent of about $1.50), and we were both starving (having split only one meal the day before). Clark rummaged through his pockets and found some extra rupees, so we pooled our money and went to get breakfast. The first two places we tried were closed. We settled for a dumpy little place where my meal stayed in my body about as long as it took me to rush through the kitchen to the bathroom.

Despite our initial reservations about Bhopal, it actually had quite a few points of interest. Two lakes comprised the center of the city. The largest mosque in the country, Taj-ul-Masajid, was nestled in the town’s center. About 30 miles away were the Buddhist ruins of Sanchi, dating back from the 3rd century BC. But we were so focused on trying to make things work the way we wanted them to, and getting to Bombay, that we missed our opportunity to enjoy the place where we’d ended up.

Following a trip to a bank that didn’t have foreign exchange services, we found the bank we needed, got some cash, then headed on to another train station. We waited in a long line at the reservation desk, where we were told that there were no seats available to Bombay. We held our ground at the counter, asking what else we could do, elbowing those who tried to push their way up to the window. Eventually, we got our names on the wait list, then we were directed to the chief reservation supervisor’s office to ask about the emergency quota. India’s trains are frequently booked up days or weeks in advance. For the traveler, there are tourist quotas that assure their wait for tickets will be minimal. There are also emergency quotas, tickets set aside for an individual’s use during a personal emergency. Using the emergency quota, the supervisor booked us on a mail train, in a compartment with six beds instead of four, leaving the following afternoon.

That night, we rented the hotel pool table, providing entertainment for the staff and neighborhood children, who gathered around and laughed at the spectacle. As usual, I was not sure why watching us was so amusing. Perhaps it was because women do not usually participate in such activities. Exhausted by our past couple of days, I went to the room we were sharing and fell asleep. Clark sat downstairs in the lobby and read. Around midnight, Clark came in and woke me with the fateful words, "I’m in trouble." Then he rushed into the bathroom, where he was violently ill. I ran downstairs and woke the hotel staff to get a taxi. As I was shepherding Clark into the vehicle, the guy from the front desk yelled out “200 rupees!” naming his price for our ride to the hospital.

Approximately two kilometers later (about a 10 rupee ride), we stopped at a tiny, dingy clinic in an alley. There were four rooms with curtains for doors, opening into the main area where the doctor’s desk was. One oscillating fan swept back and forth between the patients’ rooms that were adjoined. Clark’s room had a simple cot in it, along with a tank of oxygen that looked like it had been recovered from the ocean floor. Sitting in the only chair was a container for him to urinate in that looked very much like a teakettle.

The doctor, who spoke fluent English, entered wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. After examining the patient, diagnosing kidney stones (which Clark had already surmised), and hooking up an IV, he injected Clark’s stomach with drugs to help relax the muscle spasms. The doctor gave him seven pills, the vast majority of which must have been powerful sedatives, because his eyes were closing after he’d swallowed only half of them. I was sitting beside Clark brushing back his sweat-soaked hair, when the doctor called me out to his desk. Clark told me later that he had awakened briefly and thought, “What the hell is my doctor doing to Constance? Is he possibly reading her palm? Well, I’m not surprised; he probably has Rolexes for sale too.”

Never having had my palms read before, I wasn’t sure of the protocol. The doctor told me to just ask questions about things of interest to me. I asked about my health. He informed me it wasn’t very good. I wanted to yell, “That’s because I’m in India!” but I didn’t. Instead, I returned to the room and slept a few hours before the clerk at the front desk called to say “Money, money!” still trying to get his extortionate taxi fee. Back at the clinic, I learned that Clark had been given the green light to travel. While he had a few more tests run, I went to the hotel and crammed all of our stuff in our packs, then schlepped all four bags downstairs simultaneously. The extortionist was not in sight, and I happily stiffed the hotel on the cab fare, a small but much-cherished victory in what felt like a losing war. Clark and I decided a 15-20 hour train trip was not a wise option, so we went to the airport. We were told we could book seats for that afternoon, and after four or five hours of waiting, we did. But our reservations were for the next day. So we checked into a different hotel and settled in for another night in Bhopal.

In the morning, we took a taxi to the airport, tickets in hand for our 12:00 flight. When the announcement of the brief flight delay came over the intercom, Clark pointed out that it might well mean no flight was coming at all. He likened it to a joke: A man sees a boy cutting a dog’s tail. The boy is cutting one tiny bit off at a time. The man says, “Son, why are you docking the dog’s tail like that? Why don’t you just cut if off short and get it over with?” To which the boy replied, “Well I figure I better do it this way. You see how much this is hurting him. If I did it all at once, it might kill him.” We left at 8 p.m. If India and I were wrestling, surely she had me pinned to the mat by now.

Respite and Perspective

Bombay provided some much-needed relaxation and relief, and Clark’s health held up. The city, covering several islands, had a palpable energy. Its 15 million residents jostled down the sidewalks, across the many bridges, and along the tree-lined streets. In addition, there were numerous much-appreciated amenities, such as the air-conditioned room we rented, complete with cable television.

During my first few weeks in India, I struggled frequently with the difficulty of being in the moment. Things happened and it was not until later, minutes or hours or days, that I really could process it, and even then I didn’t seem to feel it fully. For example, while visiting McLeod Ganj, I went to a restaurant to hear a Tibetan woman speak of her experience as a prisoner of the Chinese for 27 years. She was incarcerated at a number of different prisons. One time she was transferred with 100 other women to a labor camp; of the 100, only four survived. I bought her book (The Voice that Remembers), and I saw her around town a couple of times after the talk. How do you get your mind around something like that? Sometimes I felt as if I couldn’t see...and I didn’t know if it was because I was focused on something else (tickets for the next destination, shopping, finding a toilet), or because I didn’t want some of the sights to register (a crippled child crawling down the street, lepers begging for coins, a child with open sores, stray pups scrounging for food, raw sewage, filth, squalor...). Maybe I was afraid if I was constantly in the moment I’d spend my entire time weeping.

More than once, traveling in India reminded me of my past experience as a mental health worker at a psychiatric center: lots of hard, unpleasant work with rewards that can be few and far between. In India, I felt like I was on the run, constantly tired and frustrated. Still, the rewards that presented themselves were priceless: The sounds of chanting monks, rollicking trains, spinning prayer wheels, screaming peacocks, pounding surf. The scents of curries, jasmine, incense, bidis. The taste of fresh palak paneer, gulab jamun, naan. The sight of monkeys on the roadside, intricate Jain temples, crimson-robed monks lined up at computer terminals. The feel of cool Himalayan air, a shower after a long hike, an embrace from a new friend.

India is exhilarating and exhausting. It is a land of intense extremes, both wonderful and terrible. Despite tearfully vowing I would never return, I probably will. I know I will. Namaste, India. Namaste.

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Travel Tips: Never Put Anything on the Back of the Toilet

8/1/2014

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A Few Thoughts
When you tell people you’ve just returned from five months of travel, they tend to react in one of two ways. They either say, “Wow, I wish I could do that. It must have been fabulous.” Or they say, “Ewww, why would you want to travel for that long in all those dirty places?” There’s nothing in between. Even my own reactions and expectations didn’t allow for the Middle Ground where I spent a good bit of my time.

My journey through south Asia certainly included a number of priceless experiences. I met some people who I will forever carry in my heart. I moved beyond the insulation of my life as an American citizen. I had experiences that broke through the heavy door of my own skepticism. But I also struggled with my situations, my reactions, and myself throughout the journey, perhaps in part because I visited so many strife-torn areas. I mean, who planned this itinerary anyway? India, one of the most heavily populated places in the world, with the attendant problems of poverty, pollution, and disease; Sri Lanka, slogging through a multi-year-old civil war; Cambodia, whose history during my lifetime alone contains more death, destruction, and horror than I can comprehend; Indonesia, where various islands struggle for independence, where the government is shaky following the end of Suharto’s 30-plus year dictatorship, where the economy is still in a shambles. Maybe the difficulty was due to the mostly unacknowledged expectation I harbored that travel would have the same effect on me as dunking an Easter egg in dye. Complete change. But even if I came out a different color, my essence would be the same. I’d STILL be a boiled egg.

During this trip, I learned how difficult (impossible) it is to have no expectations. I practiced meditation (with some success). I tried to figure out the meaning of life (with no success). I contemplated religion, but the only conclusion I came up with is that it’s easy to believe there are reasons for everything until the bad shit happens to you. I learned the value of covering small sections of territory vs. the expanse (but that didn’t keep me from trying to cover the expanse). I learned that just because someone speaks English doesn’t mean someone can tell you what is going on. I learned more about dehydration than I ever wanted to know. I listened to the Karmapa Lama speak. I wondered why I was traveling. I planned future trips. I met a seer, who knew things about my past by simply touching me. I developed a profound appreciation for air-conditioning. I underplanned, after overplanning other trips. I became aware of how much comfort I get from being in my own nest. I was touched by the grace and joy of providing for others. I was reminded that each person’s soul is a piece of God; each of us has a spark of the fire.

A Few Observations
Riding a camel hurts. Contact lenses and sand dunes are a bad combination. It’s hot in the desert. There’s nothing quite like being in a small vehicle with a dozen other people to remind you you’re in Asia, and to make you feel like you have a huge Western butt. When there’s a commotion, there’s probably something interesting to see. The bus stops when the driver has to go. The island is bigger than you think. (Corollary: Don’t try to walk around it if a boat is waiting for you.) When you’re getting directions from a policeman, and he asks if you’re going by bus or on foot, your destination is probably far away. If you leave the water bottle open, you will knock it over. Rainforests are humid. Riding a motorcycle in the rain can be painful. Just because you can get into a country doesn’t mean you can get out. Swimming at low tide in rough surf over a coral reef is unwise. Having an airline reservation doesn’t mean there will be a flight. When the first thing the crew hands out is life jackets and the second thing is vomit bags, it's going to be a rough ride. There are good people everywhere.

A Few Suggestions
Never try to enter India without a visa. Never assume the thing you’re about to step on is solid. Try not to puke on the cab door. Always carry toilet paper. Whenever you’re thinking your job is difficult, remember how people make gravel. (Walk down to the river. Stoop, lift large stones, and drop them into the basket on your back. Trudge up the hillside. Dump rocks in a pile. Squat beside rocks. Pick up your small sledgehammer. Pound stones until they’ve all been broken into tiny pieces. Repeat.) Don’t wash your hair with bar soap for an extended period of time. Try to step beyond, not in, the gutter. Don’t smear jam all over your toast before tasting the jam. When someone says they’re coming to pick you up, don’t assume a vehicle will be involved. The back of the boat and the front of the bus are where you want to be. If you have to shit in a squat toilet, move forward more than you think you need to. Always walk on the inside of the path when a donkey train is passing. Never, ever put anything on the back of the toilet. Do not take a heavy sleeping bag, long johns, and a synchilla top to the tropics. If you hate your guide, get another one. Always travel with good earplugs. Don’t pay too much attention to guidebooks. Ignore a lot. Ask before taking pictures of people. Be tenacious. Try not to be peevish. At the very least, learn how to say “hello” and “thank you” in the native tongue of each place you visit. Buy food from street vendors. Don’t buy non-refrigerated chocolate on the beach. Carry antihistamines, especially if you’re allergic to bee stings. If you order barracuda and are served a piña colada, ask some questions. Make frequent checks to see that your passport is still where it’s supposed to be. After applying mosquito repellent, and before removing your contacts, wash your hands. When in countries inhabited by people of smaller stature than you, remember to duck frequently. Don’t smear oil near your eyes without knowing what’s in it. Always buy snacks before boarding transport. Try not to offer cigarettes and food to Muslims during Ramadan. See if the bathroom door has a knob inside before closing it. Always pack more candy than you think you need. When you have a connecting flight, remember to check your bags through. Take clothes with lots of pockets. If you’re going to climb a coconut tree, don’t grip with your knees. Take your time. Don’t use antibiotic eye drops while wearing contact lenses. Ask for filter coffee; otherwise, you’ll get Nescafé. If you see something you want, buy it. (If you don’t, you’ll wish you had later when you realize just how inexpensive it really was.) If you leave your bedroom door open, don’t be too surprised if a monkey wanders in. When stopped by oncoming traffic on a narrow street, remember your feet. Don’t travel to the tropics with meltable medicine. If you sit under a palm tree, be aware of where the coconuts fall. Don’t accept torn or taped bills; the person you try to give them to won’t. If you go down the hall to shower and you decide to wash the clothes you’re wearing, try to remember that your towel might not be big enough to cover your naked body for the trip back to your room. If you change flight reservations, remember the connecting flights must be changed as well. Don’t let yourself run out of cash on a Sunday. Pay attention to intuition. Try to find travel clothes that don’t make you look like a pathetic slob. If you have home mail forwarded to someone else so they can pay your bills, remember to include ‘in care of’ plus their name with the change of address. (Otherwise, your bills will end up floating around in the ether, not getting paid.) Do not, even for a minute, consider taking any white clothes. Take the kind of headphones that won’t break when shoved into baggage. Take lots of duct tape. If you really want to rile a bureaucrat, ask “why?” Always say “I love you” early in a long-distance phone conversation. Try to keep your eyes, mind, and heart open. No one else’s path works for you; follow your own path.

A Few Final Words

I’m beginning to realize that my path frequently crisscrosses that unmapped Middle Ground. While I’ve never really wanted to spend much time here, I inevitably find myself returning. Like all fertile earth, Middle Ground harbors its own treasures. I’m learning to look for them.

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Elegy

8/1/2014

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William Earl Israel, October 23, 1925--March 10, 2010

The holy father

How to write about my father without making him sound like an ogre, or a god. How to write about my relationship with him without sounding like a neurotic basketcase. Maybe the focus is already all wrong. Maybe he will sound like an ogre, maybe I will sound like a nut; say it anyway.

Sometimes when I get a letter from my dad, I try to think if anything I’ve said in recent phone conversations or in a recent letter of my own might have made him angry. I wait to open the envelope, wondering if sliding my finger under its flap will be like opening Pandora’s Box. But what is this fear? How did I get to this place, more than four decades into my life, that opening a letter with news about what movies he and Mom have seen, or who he had lunch with, or how wonderful his young friends are, can cause me to hesitate and wonder, ‘What have I said…?’

Memory is, of course, amorphous, as are one’s perceptions, perhaps especially those formed during childhood. What struck me thirty-five or forty years ago probably does not even exist as a memory for my father. Yet it is my reality, and that’s all I’ve got.

How do I explain who he is without explaining who he is not? Perhaps that is the beginning. Who he is not. He is not an abusive man. He is not an alcoholic, or a tower of seething rage. And yet it is his anger, his intensity, that has shaped me so profoundly, and that I continue to struggle with, long after it has virtually ceased to exist in him.

My father was diagnosed with cancer in 1989. I remember the phone call, I remember pacing and then sitting on the wooden floor of the small dining room of my rental house, wondering what this meant, wondering what was next. I never would have imagined it would mean our relationship would change so dramatically. I’d always described our relationship as being like two magnets having the same charge, so alike, yet repelling one another when held too close together. Over the next few years, we would break beyond this electrical charge, defying physics and the natural laws of the universe, and becoming as close as I’d always wished we could be. Another factor in this dynamic was my at-the-time newfound sobriety.

It seems the combination of Dad’s diagnosis, perhaps his awareness of his mortality, and some of his medications made him much more approachable. He was open and expressive. Due to the testosterone-inhibiting drugs he was on, his anger was gone. And while he mourned the loss, I celebrated it, seizing the opportunity to bridge the gaps caused by my intimidation of him and his moods.

But then our bond changed again. Flux, perhaps, is the only constant in relationships. We lost the closeness, the easy camaraderie, the ability to discuss things that mattered. And I missed it, as I’d so frequently missed it even before I ever had it. Hence a lifetime in which too much energy has been spent focusing on my father, seeking his approval, needing his love. More recently, I’ve compared my father’s emotions as the sun that my family orbits around. I am the angry meteor who crashes into him only to get burned up. I’m ready for a different galaxy now. But how do I get there?

Sometimes I wonder if there’s any point in going to visit. My interactions with my father are so brief. He’s frequently away with his friends or visiting hospice patients. If he’s home, he’s either resting, visiting with his buffoonish friend that no one else can tolerate, or feeling too depressed to talk. I miss our conversations; I miss his interest in my life. I feel disconnected from him, as I have so frequently. Like a kid looking in the window, so close to where I want to be, yet so completely separated by a wall of glass.

My mother told me how joyous Dad had been at each child’s birth. She said he used to go and just stand beside our cribs and watch us sleep. I waited a while, but I had to be sure, so I asked, ‘Even mine?’

The child is father to the man

As usual, I went to Birmingham in December of 2000 to celebrate Christmas with my family. It was the best opportunity I had to hook up with parents and siblings. We might not all show up on the same day, but we would all show up. Given that I lived in Texas at the time, Cindy lives in Kentucky, Greg lives in northern Alabama, and my parents live in central Alabama, it’s rare for us all to be in one place at one time. And the rarity grows, given incidents such as those I experienced on this trip.

My father does not like changes or interruptions, particularly to his established routine. I am an interruption. And boy, did he make that clear on this trip. The most aggravating single incident involved a gift basket from some of the neighbors. My father still walks, and I still walk with him, just as I did when I was four, five, too small to keep up. Dad and I were out walking when some neighbors gave Dad a basket wrapped in green, translucent cellophane. We took it home, and he put it on the table in the kitchen. As is his way, he disappeared into his room, perhaps trying to find comfort from all the disruptions in solitude. I was curious about the basket, and since I thought the neighbors had said it was a gift for the whole family, I peeled back a section of the cellophane to see what was inside. The basket was filled with oranges, and there was a small tin filled with cookies. I didn’t eat or move anything. But a while later, when Dad walked through the kitchen, he yelled “Who opened my present?” I thought he was joking. I told him I had. Then I realized he was furious, petulant as a five-year-old child. He ranted, not directing his words at anyone in particular, but making it impossible for anyone in the downstairs part of the house to avoid hearing him. He groused about it being his gift, and then he found some tape and taped the cellophane back together. He stormed out of the room, leaving the basket on the table. I was stunned. A little later, I knocked on Dad’s closed bedroom door. It was early, but the room was dark and he was in bed. He said nothing. I went in and apologized, explaining that I thought the basket was for everyone. While I didn’t necessarily feel like I should have to apologize, I thought I’d go ahead and do it, in the hopes that some dialogue might ensue. Instead, he replied angrily, “Never mind.” At a further loss, I asked if he needed anything. He said “no.” I left. Fa la la, deck the halls, happy holidays, and when the hell can I leave for Texas?

Father knows best

He adjusts the warm stream of water so that it won’t splash out of the sink. He holds his hands under the stream, turning them so that both sides are wet. He lifts the bar of soap, rolling it a few times in his dominant left hand. He holds his hands together, and rubs vigorously. He carefully returns the soap to its dish, then rubs his suds-covered palms together again. He holds his right hand palm down and rubs the soapy water along the back of it, then turns it palm up and repeats the procedure. Then he washes the palm of the left hand, then the back of the left hand. He repeats the process, then rinses both the tops and bottoms of his hands. He turns off the water, wipes the stray drops of water off the sink, and then dries his hands on the towel by the door.

Running the gauntlet of squeaky floorboards, attempting to complete the traverse without Dad hearing from his bed, where he lay in the darkness and his voice inevitably boomed out some query or command, as if God Himself had been awakened. The hallway outside my room was easy until you go to the corner. Then you had to pass by Dad’s open door, scarcely breathing, and step gingerly yet with a long stride beyond the first squeaky spot. Then you were in the living room. Crossing this was a snap. A dinosaur could have gotten over it quietly. But that left the true minefield of squeaky boards in the dining room, those with no carpet muffling them, those that no matter how you stepped, no matter which direction you took, no matter how fast or how slow you went, there was going to be noise. More than likely, there would be the double squeak, one footfall to another, high then low, and once you hit these, it was all over with Dad. You might as well have driven a Mack truck through the house, horn blaring, radio twanging country tunes with static and chatter crunching across the CB radio airwaves.

He walks at least three miles a day. Usually, he walks in his small house, where his track is a loop from the front hall, through the dining room, kitchen, and living room. He goes around and around and around, maintaining a focused and fast pace, until his allotted time has passed. He walked when I was a child, a mile-long loop around our neighborhood, sometimes ten times a day. As a very small child, I’d beg to go with him.

I’d cry, running to keep up, falling behind, running to catch up again, but refusing to stay home.

He writes notes in tiny, tight handwriting. When the page is filled and the items on the list have been completed, he erases the page and starts a new list.

He sits in the wing chair by the dining room window with his homemade lap-desk. One side of the lap-desk is a cushion, and the other side is a smooth piece of wood. With the cushion in his lap, he shuffles a deck of cards and plays hand after hand of solitaire.

Father Time

I am not my father. I’ve had a couple of friends remind me of this, and it’s always been helpful to hear. Yet I know no one will ever shape me as indelibly as he has.

I grew up with dogs. First there was Bitsy, then Bootsie, then Puddles, then came Sugar and Spice. We had this pair for about 15 years, the longest of any of our dogs. Eventually, they fell apart to the point that we had to have them put to sleep. I went with Mom when it was Sugar’s time. She had always been “my” dog, so I had to go. I went again the next year, with both Mom and Dad. Spice had always been “his” dog. While Sugar had been silent during the procedure, Spice demonstrated his beagle genes and howled. I ran out of the room and out of the building, blindly. Dad caught me at the door and wrapped me in his arms. It was a gray day in Birmingham, and he was wearing a raincoat. He held me as I wept, as I’m sure he needed to be held.

Dad loved his yard, and he made it incredibly beautiful. He planted scores of ferns, added big beautiful rocks, pulled weeds, raked endlessly, and was inspired to turn the upper backyard into an English garden. He told me once, “I hope when I die it’s from a heart attack in the backyard. After I’ve finished raking the leaves…”

During one of our family trips to Europe, one in 1971 and another in 1973, we drove by a mountainside, covered with an ancient huge, famous depiction of a man. It was essentially a stick figure with a large penis, and Dad remarked with disgust, “You’d think they’d cover him.” This is the same man who, many years later, asked the doctor who removed his testicles if he could keep them, saying he wanted Mom to wear one of them around her neck.

When I was four or five years old, he used to pay me a nickel to dance to his honky-tonk records while he lay on the sofa and laughed. Over the years, he went from the serious man in the suit to the guy in a t-shirt drinking beer in the backyard.

I have a photograph of me with my father that I have always loved. It was taken at Lake Travis in Texas. My mother snapped a shot of the two of us sitting together at a picnic table. We were sitting side by side and looking at her, so I didn’t know until I got the film developed that my father and I had each raised our dominant hands (his left, my right) and rested our chins on our fists. Our smiles are similar. I’m proud to be so much like my dad. He taught me so many things I want to do and be, and so many things I don’t want to do and be. The problem is, I wasn’t done. I need more lessons. I miss you, Dad.

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Communication Is an Intimate Act

8/1/2014

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As many people of a certain age, I used to watch “The Brady Bunch.” Whenever this melded family of six kids had a problem, they would gather in the den to have a group discussion. I loved this. I used to fantasize about my family having group discussions, where we could, you know, discuss things. It never happened.

My sister informed me once, when I, as a young adult, was puzzling over communication problems with my parents, that my style was to keep really quiet for a long time, and then suddenly drop a bomb before retreating to the hills. I must admit, she was right. I probably still do that. I imagine a therapist would call it stuffing one’s emotions, and then exploding.

My dad was a good model for this. Whenever he was angry, you could feel it in the air. You didn’t have to see his face. He didn’t have to slam a door, or curse, or throw something (though he was likely to do any or all of those things, eventually). The molecules of the atmosphere changed. They became dense and agitated.

Why couldn’t he just say “I’m upset about xyz”? Why can’t I do that now? How can something so simple be so difficult?

Of course, we all communicate all the time, whether it’s with direct statements, action or inaction, tone of voice, or facial expressions. But what I longed for as a child was the words – validation, dialogue, a map of letters to lead the way.

When I was about four, we were making a family trip up the east coast. Dad was fed up with all the bickering between the children, and at one point he informed us, “If you don’t behave, I’m going to turn this car around and go home.” I was sitting in between Mom and Dad in the front seat. I peered up at him, I’m sure with brow furrowed, and said, “I wish you would.”

This statement was made before I began overthinking everything. It was before I began editing myself to the point of silence, which would ultimately be interrupted by an explosion of exclamation points. I’d like to get back to that unedited place, the purity of the four-year-old mind.

I don’t talk a lot around many people. Sometimes my reason is as basic as believing that so much is just not worth saying. Sometimes it’s because I know the person I’m with doesn’t really want to listen, they just want to talk -- frequently about things I don’t want to hear about (how many times they vomited or had diarrhea overnight, how terrible the world is, today’s headlines, last night’s TV shows).

So much of our communication is superfluous; maybe that’s why I’m an editor. I remember how incredibly irritated I felt while visiting the Taj Mahal in 1997. My travel companion kept saying, “It’s so beautiful,” over and over again, as if this had some meaning, as if I couldn’t see, as if she didn’t have a brain.

I prefer communication that, well, communicates something, and yes, I realize this is completely subjective. In other words, your comments about farts are disgusting, while mine are hilarious.

Communication is an intimate act. It involves trust, release, give and take. Connecting with someone in a way that makes me want to pour out everything that I’ve been holding in is liberating, exciting, and very rare. When it occurs, I feel like one of those rapid-fire irrigation systems that shoots like a machine gun. Whoosh whoosh whoosh splatsplatsplatsplatsplatsplat! And if you come away wet and grinning, like a kid who’s just run through a sprinkler in July, I’ve succeeded, which is another rush.

So round up those six kids, two parents, and the maid, and let’s meet in the den. We’ve got some talking to do.

Copyright 2020 Constance Israel. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder.

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