Vietnam: Bike Wheels Past

I am humbled by the local's ability to live full and vibrant lives here. Vietnam faces infrastructure and educational deficits, poverty, and overpopulation. Over fifty percent of the country is under thirty, leading the ancient cultural to shift rapidly. Not to mention the heat, which is one of my biggest challenges (a few days ago it was 100° – perceived as 109°). Of course, this makes me feel guilty. My life is so easy. I am a 57-year-old family doctor working part time so I can take classes in the MFA program at Chatham University. That’s how I ended up here for two weeks, traveling with twenty-three of my fellow creative writing graduate students. Even where my life’s hard, it is a cakewalk compared to a day in the life here. The hardest thing I do physically is choose to take the hills on my daily walk in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park, or on a really big day, I’ll walk and do yoga. Still, surrounded by Buddhists (and travelers), I’m trying to be my best self in the moments I’m given.

That's not always easy. Today we have a bike trip to a rural farm on the outskirts of Hoi An, where we will help with farming and tour rice fields. As I wait in the precious shade to get started, I take a picture of the bikes. As if to sneak a peak at danger. At challenge. At dread. Nevertheless, I get on one. It has a classic bicycle bell that rings a little every time I go over a bump. I take that as a sign to stay present (gongs and bells are a call to attention, to meditation). Don't worry, I tell myself. You can do this.

                        

When we start out, it’s wonderful. In Hoi An, merchants live in the backs of their shops and restaurants. They sit as families on the front sidewalk and share a meal at a low table with tiny plastic chairs. A father spoons noodles into his toddler’s mouth. He pays no mind to the passersby. We continue our ride though life in Vietnam as we navigate alleys and back roads. Aromas of open fires and breakfast food alternate with rotting fruit or magnolia blossoms. We pass large patches of golden rice as it’s laid flat to dry on the sides of blacktop roads and in front of huts and houses. With the city behind us, it’s refreshing to watch a water buffalo and her baby roll over in wet fields of rice or morning glory (a popular dish here, served sautéed with garlic). 

But it’s getting hotter by the minute and because I haven’t biked in years, my aching quadriceps muscles stop recovering during the few moments where I can coast. I stop enjoying the scenery because of my fretful and scattered thoughts: we’re only halfway there; I’ll never make it. Even if I do, how will I make it back in the mid-day sun? And what about the other students? We still have planting to do. Outside. In this heat. Two students have already come down with heat symptoms, and that was without exercising. (As a physician), I should know better. The best way to avoid heat-related illness is to avoid activity. It starts to seem crazy to me, risky. Unnecessary.

And then it gets harder. We leave the asphalt and bike on dirt roads. The paths thin out until there’s only a thin gully of dirt, thin enough for one foot at a time and ankle deep. Ruts from bike wheels past. These wind on tortuously on elevated mounds of dirt the between rectangular bodies of water – shrimp farms, they tell me. The mounds between the waters are the width and height of a trash truck. Plunge off one side or the other and I’m in shrimp water. It’s hard to keep my front wheel in the rut, and even when I manage to do it, I have to watch for divots and rocks. I almost fall multiple times, each time catching myself, but not soon enough to prevent the surge of adrenalin and the weakness and shaking that follow. Over and over. I am out of breath (and facing the fact that I’m not aerobically in shape) and oh, so hot. My cheeks burn. I pour water on my face, down my shirt. I’m grateful for the warm breeze – probably thanks to these small bodies of water, but my hat keeps flying off. As I try to adjust the strap, I veer off the path enough to create another near-fall. I fight back tears. I feel feeble and inadequate. Quit it, I tell myself. It’ll zap your limited energy. Just breathe and pedal and stay on the path.

I settle down for a bit, but the exhaustion, heat, and near falls persist. I think about my two sore knees. I’ve already fallen twice on this trip – once on the wet floor at the airport and another time on uneven sidewalk in Hoi An. While I’m distracted with my bruises, my front wheel catches the tall side of a rut and my bike drops sideways beneath me. I have to hop three times to avoid the fall. That’s it! I can't do this, I just can't. I curse out loud and nearly throw my bike in the water. 

Mary Jo, our tour guide, comes up behind me, shares her water (I am well out by now), and listens generously. I calm down, rest a little, and forge on.

As I try to fight self-pity I suddenly remember the war. The war. On this very land. In this climate. By boys my son’s age. Young and strong and for the most part, stoic. They had to dress in heavy clothing, thick socks and boots. They had to carry food and medical supplies and weaponry. They missed home. They performed and witnessed atrocities. Our boys feared the tricky Vietcong fighters, who themselves had to experience or create suffering and death. Then they all had to live with it later. It’s fleeting, the way I know this, but it gets me in the gut.

I remind myself that suffering happens when you want something to be different than it is, but right now, I sure wish things were different. Somewhere between facing my own discomfort and limitations (which pale pathetically in comparison to the wartime traumas), and worrying about what I’ll find in the way of heat-exhausted students when I get there, I find time to regret the past. The intense, and in my view, senseless, suffering of soldiers. All while navigating thin ruts in the road on an old bicycle. I wish I could say the ring of my bicycle bell brings me back, but it doesn’t. Somehow the past and future all roll into my present moment, and I indulge myself in a good cry.

After a few more breaks, and bringing up the rear, I reach my destination.  I’m wobbly as I park my bike with the others. As I turn, one of the students approaches me hurriedly. I must glance down or look away as she advances, because I notice she leans in and looks directly into my eyes, as if to get my full attention, or maybe to find something in me I don’t know about. She tells me another student is in a full-body shake. I scan the crowd on my way in. They are flushed and glistening with sweat, but they are all settled at tables in the shade. I somehow find a way to attend, if only briefly, to my overheated young friend. She is shivering and pale and tachycardic. They had doused her head, but she still has her shoes and socks on. I suggest she remove them. With that, and a little time, the shade, and some black-seed fruit juice, she does fine. And, having glimpsed my limitations and my strength, so do I. 

Check out inTravel Magazine for my first (creative writing) publication!

see: inTravel Magazine, Authentic Travel
http://intravelmag.com/10120-inTravel-Magazine/10368-2011-November-December

Maho Bay Camps: An Endangered Species?

Janice M Anderson

If only I believed people really meant it when they asked, “How was your vacation?” I’d tell them about my week with no running water and the ten-flight walk to a bathroom, where pull-cord showers only ran cold. I’d show them bites on my ankles from sand fleas and mention the long flight delay. But then I’d urge them to book the same trip – before it’s too late. 

   

Pat, the adventuresome love of my life, likes to “travel.” I prefer “vacationing,” by which I mean beach-to-fridge on the Outer Banks. Maho Bay Camps, in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, seemed like a good compromise: restful Caribbean beaches for me, water adventure for her, and the idea of “eco-friendly” yet comfy camping, intrigued us both. To be honest, I’m not a good traveler no matter where I’m going. I get antsy on long drives. If I’m flying, I hate even one layover. This trip was scheduled for four: two flights, two taxis and a ferry.


Read more about Maho Bay Camps: An Endangered Species? by intravelmag.com

http://intravelmag.com/

very exciting.

Read more about Maho Bay Camps: An Endangered Species? by intravelmag.com

Depending on a Two-year-old

Recently, I’ve begun to veer off the familiar and well-maintained trails in Frick Park. I choose instead thin and muddy bike-paths that wind around inclines so steep I fear for the biker's safety. This challenges me to find my way and keeps my ankles strong. It’s taken me a long time to venture to the park at all, let alone, by myself. You see, Frick is a dog-lovers park and I harbor an old and deeply embedded fear of dogs – apparently a big old friendly mutt knocked me down when I was two. I’ve come to learn that park dogs generally don't have any interest in me, but when they do trot, or run toward me, I freeze in place and depend on their owners to reassure me I’m safe.

Last night, I attended a “candle party” at my daughter-in-love’s. She and my son recently bought a house on a street with other 2-bedroom homes with small yards. About halfway through the party, when the candle scents became too much for me and the frequent “don’t-touch-that”s too much for my granddaughter, she and I went out together to explore her new neighborhood. She’s 2 ½. Hand in hand we walked up the streets and down an alleys.

“Dat my neighbor, dat my neighbor, dat my neighbor,” Nicole said rhythmically. (She hasn’t mastered "th" or "s" yet). She pointed to all the kid’s yard toys: bicycles, little plastic picnic tables, and foot-powered mini coups. We stopped for a good while as she peered through one fence and yearned to ride a carousel-colored rocking horse.

We rounded the bend at the end of her block to return by way of the alley, and to my dismay, we came upon an unleashed dog. He just stood there, staring at us from three houses up. Fear seized my stomach; I squeezed Nicole’s hand a little harder.

"Come on honey, let's go this way," I tried to make a quick U-turn.  

"No, di way," she pulled my hand toward the dog. "Puppy!"   

Instantly, I had visceral plan: I’ll scoop her up Heimlich-wise, bend over her with my arms and body, so the dog could only chew on my back when he attacked. (I’m not sure if this was before or after my (now embarrassing) inclination to hide behind her).

"Come on!" she pulled again. "Di way!"

I didn’t move. Her light brown curls flung off her shoulder as she turned to look up at me, eyes wide and brow furrowed.

“Puppy!” she said again.

I reassessed. The dog wasn't moving toward us. He wasn't barking. Maybe it would be okay. Probably it would be okay. And surely, I didn't want her to internalize my fear. I scanned the yards for a neighbor I could shout to, in case of attack. Then, with my plan in place, I let her lead me forward.

It was fine, of course. The dog was calm and friendly and cute. His owner, also friendly, was only ten feet away, hidden from my view as he worked in his garage. 

Nicole tried to tug me into the future as I hung on to the past. As I think of myself standing there, balanced between two, I’m grateful I could choose the future. Grateful for my strong ankles, for my ability to inch forward on narrow strips of land on steep hills without tumbling down.

On my Father, and Mark Twain’s Racism

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1

Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith  

          As a memoirist, I found Mark Twain’s Autobiography, Volume 1 interesting from a craft perspective. In it, he meanders through his life’s memories based on the daily news, the week’s correspondence, or his own whim. This style paralleled his life. Never one for doing anything “by the book” – any book, Twain meandered from one walk of life to another, from one adventure, one financial endeavor, one outlandish story to the next. In what ways did these experiences change Twain over his writing life? How is his autobiography different from, for example, Innocents Abroad, where his comments were at best culturally insensitive, and at worst classist and racist?

                 In Twainian style, allow me start with a side story of my own. I am a lesbian. Perhaps I should thank Providence that I have lived in a time where being a sexual minority didn’t cause me deep pain, or shame, or regret. Even so, I have had to stand along side of many a loved-one as they processed my situation for themselves. My father, an Irish Catholic and World War II vet from Camden, was a good example.  While I was in college, and before I “came out” to my parents, I took my girlfriend home to meet them. We stayed in my room and giggled much of the night, as (Twain would tell you) girls sometimes do. A few weeks later, I told my parents that I was a lesbian. They took the news pretty well, all things considered. Mom said, “As long as you’re happy, nothing else needs to be said.” And I was happy. My father thought through it differently. He called me a week or so later. “Well, Janice,” he said in his fatherly voice, “the rule here in our house is that if you’re not married you can’t sleep together under our roof.”  Hmm, I thought, at least he gets it. A few months after that, he called me and said, “You know, I’ve been thinking, you two can’t get married; so we’ll bend those rules next time you come home.” 

                He went on like this, processing and changing his preconceived notions little by little. Every time I came home he’d have taken another step. “Let’s go for a ride,” he’d say and we’d talk it over. He worried about the harm my openness would have on my career, my safety. Once he asked if I thought it was due to anything he had done. Another time he told me he suspected his brother might be gay and maybe that was why. (Which he was ...we think.) 
              Years later, my sister had what she called her “real wedding ceremony” with friends and family after she had married out-of-state with a justice of the peace. Pat and I had been together for 8 years by then. Right after the ceremony, my father put one arm around Pat and the other around me and said, “Couldn’t you two do something like this?” 

            He changed. His deeply embedded beliefs had been shaken to the core. He had to rebuild them, little by little. But his honest approach, his constant striving was more than any daughter could ask. 

            This is what I see in Mark Twain’s autobiography. Evidence of change. Throughout his life, Twain reevaluated his own beliefs and moved along a continuum. Still, he remained bound by his time in history, his country of birth, and his religious upbringing. In one of his earliest pieces, Innocents Abroad, his embedded racism leaked all over the pages. He painted a picture depicting White American Protestant men as the only people worth a damn. His habit of calling people “savages” carried marked negative connotations, especially from this man who knew and valued the precision of language. To his credit, Twain demonstrated movement even within that work when he said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness…” underscoring his own transformation.

           

            Further change is evident in Twain’s autobiography. In an early section, he said of a family slave, Uncle Dan’l: “It was on the farm that I got my strong liking for his race and my appreciation of certain of its fine qualities. This feeling and this estimate have stood the test of sixty years and more and have suffered no impairment. The black face is as welcome to me now as it was then.” He refers to the slave children as his “comrades.” Importantly, he follows this by noting the ways in which they were “not comrades” because “color and condition interposed a subtle line which both parties were conscious of, and which rendered complete fusion impossible.” With this comment I detect truth and insight topped with a spoonful of respect. Absent from his autobiography are any of the painful and blatant racist and classist comments of his earlier work. He described George, his butler of 18 years, as “a colored man--the children's darling” and “a member of the family.” Twain demonstrated this respectful relation with others of his servants. He describes Patrick, his long time Irish coachman, as his friend. And, in fact, Patrick was pallbearer at Twain's funeral. When writing of the last thirteen days of his daughter Susy's life, he said, “she had faithful old friends” at her side. These included “Patrick, the coachman; Katy, who had begun to serve …(them) when Susy was eight; and John and Ellen, (the gardener and cook).”

            As far as I could tell, these servants were all Irish. I did notice that George, the “colored butler,” was not mentioned as present during Susy’s final precious and coveted moments. Does this imply an outer limit of Twain’s progress towards extinguishing his racism? Neither my father nor I were totally spared the rod of homophobia. While he came to full acceptance, he never quite made it to pride. As for me, to this day I am wary of reaching for my love’s hand in public. Changing behaviors is difficult; changing deeply embedded beliefs is even harder. Twain remained bound by the limits of his race and class and time in history. But he moved; he changed over time and stayed well ahead of many in his generation. What else can we expect from the ‘father of American fiction’?

Sweet Life

I love ice cream. Just like my father. I spooned a little through his dry lips on his deathbed. Right before his final smile.

Now, I eat it everyday. Breyers, the purest form. Vanilla. And not just any vanilla, vanilla bean - the one with specks. Low fat, of course. Avoids the Chap Stick feeling of creamy types.

Working from home, it’s my midday pleasure. Read one more chapter, write one more page, and then dish it up. The cool sweet milk slips from the spoon to my tongue, just pleasing my mouth to no end.

Except there is an end.
There's always an end.

The specks matter.

Unfading Beauty

On Facelifts and Forgiveness

It started with a poem: Pretty, by the talented slam poet, Katie Makkai. I posted a link to her performance on my Facebook page and wrote, “wow... talk about words with power,” as much an invitation to my writer friends as an exclamation. Later that day I had plenty of “likes” and comments such as: “wow, I had to share it too;” “pretty awesome;” and “Hell Yeah!”

Then Joan posted this: “Saw this verse this morning and reminded me of your link, 1 Peter 3:3-4 (New Living Translation).”

Scripture? Really? I didn’t even finish reading it; I went immediately to Facebook’s help page to find out how to drop her.

I knew Joan from my old life; we went to a New Jersey community college together; neither of us were “religious” at the time. I moved to Pittsburgh to go to medical school; jumped the bisexual fence; adopted a son with my beloved, Pat; broke legal ground for his right to two parents; and lost track of Joan. She married Ray, her high school sweetheart; had two children; found religion; and then, some twenty years later, ‘friended’ me on Facebook.

I guess my reaction to block her posts came from my feeling peripheralized by the bible-quoting religious right. I’ve heard that I’m an abomination in their eyes, which makes me angry, and who has time for that? When asked to articulate my beliefs I say, “I’m spiritual, but not religious.” In practice, I find God in nature. I rarely go to formal services, and if I do it’s to a Unitarian Universalist church, with an occasional yoga class or meditation session thrown in.

But life being what life is, it didn’t end there. The next morning, I found this email from Joan in my inbox:

Subject: peace

Dearest Janice,

I am so sorry if the scripture I felt paralleled the video offended or hurt you in any way. I have a little calendar my brother gave with daily verse it just happened to be the verse for the 28th, and that video just came to mind when I read it. That little video really got me thinking (pondering). I have actually been thinking of a face-lift for quite some time. (Always looking in the mirror tugging on my brow pulling back my face. Ray can tell you, Ha) I found it odd I would be obsessing over this and muttered a little prayer, god if you don't think I should do this then take away the desire for it. Then I saw this video, which gets to the core.... One of the things I have always loved about you is the depth and vulnerability of your soul, it's a gift of character you do not find often and it can be intriguing, refreshing, uncomfortable, cool, thought provoking. Anyway please do not feel bad at all about FB thing, it should be a joy for you and if anything disrupts it...let it go. I would.

Busted. I guess I’d been naïve to think she wouldn’t know that I’d blocked her. Now, I had to face it directly. I went for a walk, a long walk. On my return I collected my scattered thoughts like the piles of crisp fall leaves I’d just been swishing through. Here’s what I came up with:

Joan, thanks for the kind words. I guess I didn't know that you'd know I blocked you on FB. Now that you do, and since you were so kind as to write a “peace note” to me despite it, I’ll tell you about why. It’s simple, really. As a lesbian and life-long worker in women's rights, I have been hurt (and, maybe more importantly, many of the people I love have been hurt) seriously by, if I may, "the religious right". Honestly, I do not count you in that, as I have never, ever felt judged harshly by you. But I must admit quoting scripture does scare me; I think that right around the corner there will be a very hurtful statement (including, though it is not always obvious to the person who says so, "forgive the sinner not the sin"). So, once I saw scripture quoted, I felt it safest for my mental health (and the friends who see my page) to block it. Sorry if it hurt you in any way, 'cause I understand spiritual, I understand inspirational readings (my favorites happen to come from the Buddhist tradition), and I believe with all my heart you have a right, maybe even an obligation, to live your life in a way that makes you happy inside, cause if you're happy inside, "at peace" as it were, you're likely doing well by the world (and this includes, by the way, a facelift).

Later that day, I had lunch with Kathy, my bible-quoting sister-in-love. [Since I’m all about the power of words today, bear with me while I deconstruct that last sentence. I want you to notice that I have to invent new words for my life; she’s not my sister-in-law, because marriage to my love of 27 years is not (yet) lawful. This is due, for the most part, to those whose religious beliefs bleed onto their politics. Also, “bible-quoting” is an easy summary of Kathy for this piece, but it is constricted and somewhat derogatory and required a pre-blog email where I tried to excuse it. She said “…if that is the worst thing someone could say about me than I'm not doing too badly! :)”]. At lunch I spilled the beans to Kathy about my Facebook faux pas. I’m indebted to her for my embryonic ability to see the situation with Joan in a new light. She told me that Joan might feel peripheralized by me, by my leftist politics. That was a revelation for me; it seems like “they’re” always in charge. In my own mini-search for sanity (ironically all this happened while Jon Stewart held his March for Sanity), I went back to Joan’s post and read it:

“3 Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. 4 You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.”

Well, I basically agree with that. Her religion isn’t mine, and my politics aren’t hers. I’ll continue to be nervous when I hear scripture quoted and I’ll go on fighting for GLBT and women's rights. I’ll fight for her right to a facelift as I work towards a culture where it is not needed. Just as I suspect she’ll work toward a culture where human and civil rights prevail and the need for abortion goes down.

And I hope she’ll hit Accept when I re-friend her on Facebook.

---

Pretty, by Katie Makkai

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6wJl37N9C0

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother “What will I be? Will I be pretty?” Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? What comes next? Oh right, will I be rich which is almost pretty depending on where you shop. And the pretty question infects from conception passing blood and breath into cells. The word hangs from our mothers’ hearts in a shrill of fluorescent floodlight of worry.

“Will I be wanted? Worthy? Pretty? But puberty left me this funhouse mirror dry add: teeth set at science fiction angles, crooked nose, face donkey-long, and pox-marked where the hormones went finger-painting my poor mother.

“How could this happen? You’ll have porcelain skin as soon as we can see a dermatologist.” “You sucked your thumb. That’s why your teeth look like that! ” “You were hit in the face with a Frisbee when you were six, otherwise your nose would have been fine! ”

Don’t worry; we will get it all fixed she would say, grasping my face, twisting it this way and that as if it were a cabbage she might buy. But, this is not about her. Not her fault she, too, was raised to believe the greatest asset she could bestow upon her awkward little girl was a marketable appearance.

By sixteen I was pickled by ointments, medications, peroxides. Teeth corralled into steel prongs, laying in a hospital bed. Face packed with gauze, cushioning the brand new nose the surgeon had carved.

Belly gorged on two pints of my own blood I had swallowed under anesthesia, and every convulsive twist, like my body screaming at me from the inside out “What did you let them do to you? ” All the while this never-ending chorus groaning on and on like the IV needle dripping liquid beauty into my blood.

“Will I be pretty? ” Will I be pretty like my mother, unwrapping the gift-wrap to reveal the bouquet of daughter her $10,000 bought her? Pretty? Pretty.

And now I have not seen my own face in ten years. I have not seen my own face in ten years, but this is not about me! This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl thirty stores in six malls to find the right cocktail dress, but haven’t a clue where to find fulfillment or how to wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath those two pretty syllables.

This, this is about my own some-day daughter. When you approach me, already stung-stayed with insecurity, begging, “Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? , ” I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap lipstick and answer no.

The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters. You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing, but you will never be merely “pretty.” Katie Makkai

A world apart

I have been visiting a world in which I do not belong. A right brain world. A world of real writers. A world where given a prompt of “chain linked fence” one ends up with an intriguing riff of exquisite words. Sites and sounds and scents appear. Souls are revealed. And civilizations come to an end. All this in twelve minutes.

Upon initially visiting this world (back in, let’s see, the winter of 2008?) I met warm and welcoming writers: Laurie, then Marc and Libba, and, the young woman who told me what I had written enhanced her own reaction to a friend whose professor had made unwanted advances. Along the way, I met inspiring teachers: Sandy and Sheryl, even Amy, who liked what I had to say, even if she never liked how I said it. It was fun roaming around there. While it lasted. While I believed I could write something worth the work of writing, and reading.

Worth something. It had to be worth something. Even now, if I talk out loud about what I've been trying to write, it sounds worth doing: small t trauma (as in PtSD) happens, and often; denial is a misunderstood coping mechanism, one that can exacerbate small t trauma; there is a parallel to physical trauma that might elucidate emotional trauma; but mainly, it might be worth knowing that PtSD can come from a relatively minor assault, like getting grabbed or groped on a bus or knocked down on the street for your purse.

I’m not talking about large T trauma, like rape, or old trauma like child abuse, or ongoing trauma like domestic violence, because people seem to get that already. I’m talking about a full blown grief reaction to an early miscarriage; a shattered self-concept after a birth experience that appears “normal” to an outsider; or a compound reaction to an attempted strangulation at work, where one would expect to find large T trauma, but finds instead that the difficulty lies in internalizing the trusted boss’s reaction – “what did you do (read: to deserve it)”?

This sounds worth writing about. Maybe I should hire someone with better skills. How bourgeois is that? Being a homeowner, I spend much of my time hiring people: contractors, roofers, painters, plumbers; why not hire a ghostwriter or a regular writer who can spin a story of exquisite words? A story that shows what I have just told. Because, after an enjoyable trek through my own right brain, I've returned to my left, from where it seems clear I do not have what it takes for the task. For today, at least, it feels as simple as that.