Not Done With This Here Blog

Nope, not done with this here blog.

Originally, I was going to call this blog something like "Travel with Grace". However, dear Ashley pointed out that I might want to keep up with myself even if I'm not traveling. So, in the hopes that I can muster the creativity and energy to "keep up with grace?", the blog ended up with a more generic name.

I've made it home. Safe and sound (but perhaps a bit unstable?). So many musings in such little time-- here is just a sampling:

1. Is it sad that my first meal was at Chili's Restaurant in the Miami Airport? I don't think so. The service was incredible. I mean, the server was happy to take an order for beef-free nachos. She kept refilling my glass with clean water. Seriously, it's amazing how a market economy drives the quality of goods and services. I'm a believer.

2. I got back to my apartment around 1am after an impressively pleasant and safe taxi ride. I was the only passenger. And there was a meter- no bargaining required.

3. Because I was so happy to back home, I couldn't fall asleep. I found a Newcastle in the refrigerator and, cold beer in hand, proceeded to test out each sitting surface in the apartment. The difference between me and Goldilocks is that every thing I found was just right. Just right. Nothing too big, too small, too hot, too cold, too hard, too soft, too dusty, too clean. I tested the faucets in the kitchen (separate ones for hot and cold). And they were just right. I test the faucets in the bathroom shower and sink. They were just right too! Unbelievable. I opened the windows, and the breeze was just right. The bed? I tested it for 6 hours and it, too, was Just Right. The only problem was that my excitement at all the perfection kept me from sleeping past 8:00am. No problem! I called Ashley and Brian and we went to the Farmer's Market in the park across the street in the morning. I bought a watermelon. And it was JUST RIGHT! I came home and tried on a pair of my earrings and felt like a million bucks.

4. Two years ago, I bought a tiny little thing that couldn't really call itself a plant at the Soulard Farmer's Market during my first week in St. Louis two years ago. It was sort of like a plant fetus rooted in dirt rather than placenta. As some of you know, that was a pretty horrible time in my life. This plant has grown into its own jungle. Like the little engine that could. It has suffered some serious trauma on several occasions, but it keeps on growing and sprouting leaves and making new vines. Last summer (just one example), during some horrible storms in St. Louis it was blown from a windowsill in my old apartment; I didn't find it for several hours (because the storm had caught me by surprise in the great outdoors and I was trying to survive it). I scooped this plant back up, repotted it, and watched it come back to life. I've watered the plant well (some may say 'drowned) in preparation for long trips away. In increasing duration of neglect, it shrivels up, its leaves turning brown and yellow, seeming ready to give up. With just a little encouragement upon my return, it always comes around. This is all written to set a little stage..... I left this plant alone when I went to Haiti. I had figured out how to pay bills during the tenure, I had found a place for my car, I had taken care of everything-- but the plant situation was a mystery. Dear Tim watered it once or twice before he moved to New York. Tom came home for a couple of weeks mid-summer and found the plant listless. He watered it, it perked up, and he put it outside for the neighbor to look after when he left for Haiti again. When he told me this, my heart sank a little, because for all its vigor and resilience, this is not an outdoor plant. Oh well, I was in Haiti and this little plant that had breathed in and out with me for nearly two years was a world away, and I found myself immersed in the business of malnourished children, extreme poverty, utter isolation (amidst hordes of people), and multiple near-death experiences. I put this 'little plant that could' on the far back burner of my mind's oven. Obviously. After that most amazing taxi ride home from the St. Louis airport, I climbed the fire escape entrance to the apartment and found the plant, it's long and listless vines weeping over the edge of the balcony. Once again, it seemed ready to give up. I carried my bags inside. Before testing all the apartment's amenities, but after opening that Newcastle, I scooped the plant into my arms and set it atop its special box above the radiator. Over the past 3 days it has been sucking up water like the split and scorched earth might devour the rain. Here's the thing- it's entire being is green and muscular again, and it's vines are turgid and taught again. It's got turgor (World Book Dictionary: The normal, tense condition of living plant and animal cells, capillaries, and the like, caused by the pressure of water and other fluid within). Here's the real thing, I want to be like this plant.

4. Dr. Pat gave me a beautiful painting for my birthday in Haiti (photo to follow....). I have this old and rather bizarre frame around. When I was living with my dad in middle school, my sister and I had painted the frame with the same sky blue and yellow hues we had used on the walls. Well, the mirror part is long gone, but I've used the strange frame box on several walls in several apartments in many cities to hug different drawings. But, at this new apartment it's only been gathering dust. Well, it turns out that this haphazardly acquired relic of angst-ridden years is a perfect fit for this lovely painting that marks my current life. This morning, I took out my oil paints, mixed together some yellow ochre, crimson red, and alizaron crimson to coax the painting into its new home. Delightful.

5. Several times already I have been driving on the well-marked, well-paved, and well, perfect streets here in St. Louis and have found myself near tears. Some of it, I can't yet articulate. Much of it comes from this obvious conundrum: How can this wonderful place of autonomy, plenty, self-determination, and opportunity exist in the same world where I found Haiti? What separates Miami from Cap Haitien is a 2.5 hour, low-altitude, 16-seater flight across a body of water. I'll admit I'm sensitive and wide-eyed, but I also can't deny that I've done a fair amount of traveling. Nothing could have prepared me for Haiti. No amount of reading, or comparison-making, or poring over Development Indices, or discussions with experts, or viewing of glossy pictures (the ones can't possibly convey heat and smell in addition to imagery, mind you) prepared me for Haiti. And everything here is perfect. Relatively. Have I become openly patriotic? For the first time? I won't ever tell any of you all that I stood by and witnessed on the western one-third of the island of Hispaniola. I suppose I have neither the capacity nor the will.

6. Now, I must hit the ground running. Fortunately, the ground provides appropriate and safe surfaces for moving forward, as there are no cars careening toward me, goats in my path, dust blinding my vision, or metal scraps slicing my feet. Classes start on Thursday. I'm taking a Research Seminar to keep grappling with this project with which I am now so intimately involved. I'm also taking a course in program evaluation (more and different data for this one), and Advanced Statistics. About that last one, I just remind myself that statistics won't kill me. It might make me sad and remind me of 4th grade when I couldn't grasp long-division until a full hour of crying had passed. But, it had better make my mind stronger.