Mar 5, 2016
Seventeen years ago, when I was 51, Joe and I donned 35-pound backpacks and hiked down the South Kaibab trail click to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. There we camped for two days, eating huge delicious meals at Phantom Ranch, and then hiked out on the Bright Angel trail. click We started out early in the morning, and I was so exhilarated by the beautiful dawn light and the glory of the Canyon that after we crossed the bridge and began climbing, I started to sing. ‘Yay for me, yay for me, I’m as happy as a bunny in a tree, Yay for me, yay for us, if it came along you know I’d take a bus.’ This proved conclusively that exercise is intoxicating, and annoyed the hell out of four exhausted hikers in spandex bike suits who were sprawled by the side of the trail.
When we emerged from the Canyon, I was both giddy and exhausted. A mother with two young girls stopped us. “Excuse me, did you just hike up from the bottom?” Proudly I said yes. “Would you mind if I ask how old you are?” Proudly I told her. “You see, girls.” she said, “You can do ANYTHING.”
Back when we were young
Planning for our Thanksgiving 2015 trip to the Grand Canyon began a year in advance. Joe reserved two cabins for two nights at Phantom Ranch. Originally, there were going to be ten of us. But two women got pregnant and one man developed knee issues, so they and their partners had to drop out. Other preparations included Amanda saying she wouldn’t go, and me telling the trainer at the gym that I had to train for the hike.
And train I did, until I was rowing at a furious pace, proudly dead-lifting 80 pounds, and doing all kinds of lunges and burpees and other horrors, which became less horrible as I grew stronger. I climbed down and up the 230 stairs at the Devil’s Millhopper, working up to six repetitions, defeated only by boredom. My pulse stayed pretty low through the climbing and rowing, but I quickly grew short of breath. Still, after an echocardiogram and pulmonary tests, my doctor cleared me to go.
image:epicweird
I knew I was fitter than I had ever been. I had strengthened my legs so that as I walked I felt a new sense, or perhaps a youthful sense, of certainty, confident that if I stumbled on loose rock or uneven ground, my legs would not let me fall. I knew I would be slower than the others, but that would give me precious solitude. I looked forward to coming out of the Canyon with the same sense of triumph and pride I had felt seventeen years before.
As Thanksgiving approached, Joe’s emails to the rapidly shrinking group increased. So did Amanda’s resistance. I began to worry that we would have to drag her on to the plane. Since she is 120 pounds of solid muscle, this would not have gone well. Then someone suggested we invite her best friend to come along. To my surprise, Ella’s family agreed she could go. Amanda was very pleased: “At least Ella and I can suffer together.”
Our trip started in Las Vegas, a city at the top of the hole-in-my-bucket-list of places I had vowed never to visit. I was surprised and pleased to find that everything about it made me laugh. And the girls loved it. Our 20-year-old Australian cousin Johanna joined us after a grueling trip from Sidney, and the five of us shared a hotel room surprisingly amicably. Joe’s brother Matt and his wife Amber (one of the pregnant non-hikers) were in town for a conference, and we all went together to Valley of Fire State Park, where we walked a trail of rocks and cliffs entirely covered with ancient Native American graffiti. Petroglyphs are among my very favorite things. That night Amber had a birthday party for Matt, complete with an astounding magician, who delighted everyone, but especially the girls. All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a happier beginning to our adventure. My throat was sore and scratchy, but I attributed it to the zero humidity.
Petroglyphs at Valley of Fire image:inzumi.com
We made the five and a half hour drive to the Canyon with no mishaps, checked into our motel, and walked to the rim to see the views. Amanda took a zillion pictures with her new selfie stick. We were up late getting our packs ready, and up very early to eat breakfast and catch the 7am shuttle bus to the Kaibab trailhead. It was freezing cold, clear, and beautiful. I was so excited.
At the trailhead
The girls start down the trail
The other four soon were far ahead of me, and I enjoyed the solitude. The early morning light just adds to the magic of the Canyon. Down and down and down, awed by the constantly-changing views, getting used to the hiking poles, opening my jacket, removing my hat and scarf as I got warmer. I passed people, and people passed me, and we all exchanged cheerful greetings. Younger hikers expressed admiration in that sweet but condescending way that young people talk to old people. I kept drinking plenty of water, and I tried to eat some snacks, but I found I had no appetite. The trail became tricky – lots of ruts and loose rock.
At Cedar Ridge, (1.5 miles down), my gang had waited for me. There were pit toilets, and beautiful views. At Skeleton Point (3 miles down) a lot of people had stopped to rest and have lunch, and I found my gang again. I ate what I could – some cheese and sausage, some bread – but I didn’t feel hungry. Mostly I feasted on the view. After eating a lot, the girls were restless, and we sent them on ahead. They leaped and pranced down the steep switchbacks.
After Skeleton Point, nausea set in. I tried to nibble on trail mix, but I couldn’t keep it down, and didn’t dare put anything else in my queasy stomach. The others were far ahead, and I wondered whether I should turn back, send a message down to Joe with passing hikers. I was afraid he would be angry. I didn’t want to give up my dream of the trip. I wanted to do this, goddamn it. So I continued to Tonto Platform (4.5 miles down), where they had been waiting half an hour. I ate bread and jam, lay down for a bit, and trudged on.
Passing hikers now expressed concern instead of admiration. A woman hiking alone said, “You look like you’re worn out,” and I said yes, annoyed. “You’re kind of grouchy.” “I’m just trying to keep going, I don’t want to talk.” “Let me have your pack.” And then I saw the patch on her jacket – she was a ranger. She took my pack, commented that it was heavy (I always take too much water) and strapped it over her chest, so now she had one in back and one in front. It was a lot easier walking without it, and even easier because she chattered away, distracting me from the hard slog. I asked her if there was any way out besides hiking – maybe there was an extra mule? – and she said no. But she assured me that our route out on the Bright Angel was much easier – the Kaibab trail was a mess, she said, and passed some remarks about Congress and funding. She stayed with me to the foot bridge over the Colorado River (6.3 miles down) and then turned around to hike back up to the ranger station, leaving me with a mile and a half of easy level walking to Phantom Ranch. I had been hiking nine hours, though the trail usually takes about six.
Footbridge over the river
My family was already settled in. Amanda and Ella shared one cabin, which they never left except for showers and meals. Joe, Johanna and I shared the other. The cabins were built in the 1920’s; each had four bunk beds, a nightstand, chair, sink and toilet, and very little remaining floor space. We used the extra bunks for our gear. I had time for a shower in the bathhouse before dinner.
Dinner is served family-style at the Ranch – steak or hikers’ stew, salad, cornbread, chocolate cake. After an all-day hike it is the best meal you ever ate, though the stew, loaded with beef and vegetables, is oddly seasoned with cloves. But I was still nauseated, and could only nibble a bit. I went to bed immediately after dinner, and knew nothing until morning.
Phantom Ranch cabins image:tinyhousedesign.com
In the morning my hunger was as huge as the breakfast – eggs,sausage, bacon, pancakes, potatoes, juice and canned fruit. The day was sunny and warm, and like my appetite, my happiness had returned. Johanna went off by herself, and Joe and I walked the trail along Bright Angel Creek for a couple of hours. In the afternoon we wrote postcards in the dining room, and at dinner I did justice to the meal.
The Creek Trail (little white line at the bottom)
Happy on the Creek Trail
Cactuses on the Creek Trail (Honi soit qui mal y pense)
We didn’t settle down to sleep till 11. About 1am my cold came on full force. With my nose completely blocked I slept little, and lay awake dreading the day ahead. We got up at 5:30. We had agreed I would start before the others, and when they caught up, Joe would hang back with me, and Johanna, Amanda and Ella could go on as fast as they liked. He gave them our credit card so they could check into the motel when they reached the rim. Still hungry, I ate a big breakfast, and started off alone under the stars.
I crossed the bridge. I was happy, proud, grateful to Joe for planning the trip and watching out for me. The vastness, the solitude, the sky brightening and the river gold with dawn, my legs strong, and my head clear now that I was no longer lying down. The colors of the Canyon gradually emerged with the light. We had five miles of beauty and steady walking up hill. Approaching Indian Gardens, the half-way point, where there is a campground and ranger station, the trail is lined with tall feathery cottonwood trees, and the view is green all around you. We were ready for a long lunch break. We took off our packs, sat on the benches, and pulled out the food.
Indian Gardens image:cedarmesa.com
Still happy at Indian Gardens
The mules came and the riders creaked down from the saddles, staggered around on their unaccustomed legs. I was so glad not to be on the mules. At narrow sections of the trail the dizzying views threaten to suck you over the edge; I can’t imagine being elevated above mule-height, with no control over the four legs beneath me.
image: grandcanyonhistory.clas.asu.edu
I ate a big lunch, feeling content, and we started off again. The next stop would be in a mile and a half, at the rest house three miles from the rim. But as we got closer, I had less and less breath. My sinuses were clear, but the cold had reached my chest. I could catch my breath after a brief rest, but only two or three steps left me breathless again, and I was really cold. Though I hated my weakness, we quickly realized I couldn’t keep going.
Joe settled me on a bench in the rest house, a small open stone shelter. He wrapped me in an emergency blanket and called the rangers on the emergency phone. The dispatcher asked many questions as he reported on my condition, and said they’d send a paramedic ranger down to help. I felt guilty and ashamed, but mostly I felt enormous relief at the thought of being rescued. I was still cold, but getting warmer under the blanket.
Three-mile resthouse image:visionbib.com
The ranger, a young woman, arrived in about half an hour. She unlocked the emergency stores box, wrapped me in a sleeping bag, and began heating water for ramen on the little stove. She questioned me at length, and then explained our options. She could hike back down with us to Indian Gardens and we could spend the night at the ranger station there, then hike out. Or we could all slowly continue the hike out, and evaluate my condition when we reached the next shelter, a mile and a half from the rim. If necessary, we could spend the night there. She said it might be one in the morning before we made it out, but she could definitely get us to the rim. The helicopter I had been dreaming of was not an option. I learned later that at $20,000 a trip, the helicopter is reserved for cases which have to get to the hospital fast. Even a broken leg only gets you carried out on a stretcher.
Neither Joe nor I was willing to give up the elevation we had gained after Indian Gardens and hike that mile and a half over again. So we decided to hike out with the ranger. I was miserable, but also relieved to have the ranger take charge of my pack and our pace. Joe was relieved too; it was hard to be the one responsible in what had become a dangerous situations. After more ramen soup, we started out, first the ranger, then me, then Joe. We walked at a pace so slow that I didn’t lose my breath, and we stopped to rest, sitting on rocks, about every hundred yards. The ranger kept us entertained with stories. We walked that way for hours. By the time the stars had come out I was falling asleep every time I sat down.
We reached the next shelter about 10:30. The last mile and a half of the trail is a brutal series of steep switchbacks; the ranger said I couldn’t possibly tackle them without some sleep. We would have to spend the night in the shelter. That was bad news, but I knew she was right. The really bad news was yet to come. She only had an hour left in her shift. They’re not allowed to work overtime, and so she couldn’t stay with us. It was Thanksgiving night, and though she checked with the dispatcher, there was nobody else to send down. She would set us up with emergency supplies, but we’d be on our own. Joe was furious, but he controlled his temper. I was just stunned, and horrified. I had felt so safe with the ranger there. And I was still trying to get my mind around the thought that we were going to have to spend the night outside, in temperatures below freezing.
Shelter for the night image:gjhikes
She heated up more soup, and spread sleeping bags on the floor. She covered us with emergency blankets, and spread a tent over us for more warmth. She promised to get a message to Johanna that we would hike out in the morning. And then she left.
I slept hard. I woke several times to take the long walk up to the toilets. The full moon lit the looming cliffs and deep drops of the Canyon.
image: gubbyblog.blogspot.com
We set out again before sunrise. Five hours of sleep had restored me. We had a mile and a half of steep climbing ahead of us, but I had learned how slowly I needed to go, and had no doubt that I could do it. Joe went ahead to tell the girls we were okay. I found my way back to the motel, we packed up, and drove the five hours to the airport. I slept all the way. I don’t remember anything about the flight home.
For ten weeks I battled repeated respiratory and ear infections, with three courses of antibiotics. I learned that you don’t treat a cold with a ten mile climb and freezing weather. Joe remains convinced that I didn’t train sufficiently. This makes me angry, but I know I can’t change his mind. I also know he’s wrong – the only part of me that didn’t fail was my muscles. I was only a tiny bit stiff after both hikes. Nevertheless I was ashamed of my failure. I couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t write about it, couldn’t think about it much. I couldn’t look at the pictures; they brought back my fear and desperation.
It was a long time before I realized that I hadn’t failed. I had hiked seven miles down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and hiked back up ten miles. I had survived the freezing temperatures and high altitude, and persisted through nausea and a respiratory infection. It was anything but an elegant hike; it was a slog and a struggle. It’s still hard for me to focus on the details. But bit by bit I am remembering the glorious times as well as the horror. Slowly I am coming to feel proud of what I willy nilly accomplished.
Some people find comfort in their faith in a benevolent and loving God. I find comfort in the indifference of the universe. All the joys and troubles of my life don’t matter a bit in the large perspective, and I am no more significant than a dust mote in space. I felt that comfort as I looked out into the Canyon under the full moon. I was awed by its power. I know I was fortunate to be forced to spend the night in this place.
As for Amanda, our reluctant and resentful hiker? She hasn’t thanked us for the trip. But she never complained during the hike. And in the last month she has said no fewer than three times, “I still don’t like walking. But sometimes I like it if we have to walk a mile or so. I tell my friends, ‘This is nothing. I hiked ten miles out of the Grand Canyon.’ ”
Unless otherwise credited, photos are by Joe, taken with his cellphone.
Feb 11, 2015
In the previous post, I wrote about some misadventures on our trip to Argentina. Why Argentina? I was born there. My father worked for an imperialistic American company, which I am still embarrassed to name, and he handled their legal affairs in Argentina. My parents lived in Buenos Aires for many years; my brothers Don and Dick were raised there. My younger brother fell in love with Esther, the little girl next door; they married at 22, had seven children, and were together almost sixty years.
Dick and Esther and the first three
We left Argentina and returned to the States when I was 6 months old. I had been back only once, for a glorious two weeks at Christmas when I was nine. We lived in Bolivia, and though we were living high on the hog, it was a very scrawny hog.
Surely our parents took us around to see the sights, but all that I remember from that vacation is the food. In Buenos Aires we ate huge quantities of beef and dairy. I had frogs’ legs and snails for the first time, bamboo ray with black butter and capers. We stayed in a luxurious old hotel, and breakfasted in our room on eggs, bacon, creamed mushrooms, croissants, and hot chocolate with whipped cream. At night my parents went out and Luli and I had room service again: delicious sandwiches of turkey and ham, fresh fruit and butter cookies.
In the 1930’s when my parents moved to Argentina, many middle class families in the US still had maids. When they moved back home in 1948, they didn’t understand life in the States. They brought with them an Argentine cook, a maid, and a nurse for my brother, who was recovering from polio. The maid and the nurse soon found other jobs; Elisa Dellepiane, the cook, stayed with us until I was eighteen, and returned to nurse my mother when she was dying.click
I write this in my newly cozy office, where I’m now spending a lot of time on the day bed, Here I read, write, crochet, practice my singing, and retreat from my uneasy role as mother of a teenager. To my left is a large sepia photograph of my mother at twenty, in front of me a black and white photo of her at forty. In this room I feel loved.
Like any immigrant who goes back to the old country to find her roots, I went to Argentina looking for echoes of my family’s life. I knew the stores and streets had changed. But on every corner, in every cafe, I tried to imagine my mother.
Mother about 1932
On Christmas Eve, after our money-changing adventure click, we took our taxi back to the Recoleta neighborhood for lunch and a museum. Our driver pointed out all the sights along the way, including the race track and polo grounds. My parents loved to go to polo matches and horse races, along with Buenos Aires high society, which took its cue from the British aristocracy.
Dad was descended from Jewish Eastern European immigrants. His maternal grandfather had gone to Colombia in the nineteenth century and established a sugar plantation. My great-grandfather is referred to as El Fundador (the founder); I call the Colombian side of the family the oligarchs.
El Fundador
Dad grew up in New York, and while he acknowledged that his father was Jewish, he always denied that his mother was. Like the Argentines, he yearned to be British aristocracy. Esther, my sister-in-law, says he always reminded her of a little boy pressing his nose against a bakery window.
We sat outside at an elegant Recoleta cafe, and relaxed for perhaps the first time in BA. Amanda had a very disappointing ham and cheese sandwich; Joe and I split a delicious “lomo” sandwich on baguette – the most tender, tasty beef, cooked medium rare. Amanda was happy and jokey, asking about how I learned Spanish, interested in everything she saw.
We sat a long time in the warm sunny day, under the shade of a huge historic rubber tree. Its spreading branches were supported by posts, except for one, held up by a statue of a man bending over and taking its weight on his back. A busker nearby, wearing a most penile clown nose, played carnival music on his accordian.
That evening we went to the outdoor ‘midnight’ mass at Iglesia Nuestra Senora de Pilar, next to Recoleta Cemetery. It was held at 9PM, since Argentine families have their Santa Claus and Christmas feast on Christmas Eve. As we neared the church after a mile-long walk I heard Adeste Fideles in Spanish. The night was soft and clear; people brought folding chairs from inside the church. It was a big crowd. The choir, high school kids, sang many songs, and the congregation often sang along – Christmas carols, soft rock, folky songs.
Iglesia Nuestra Senora de Pilar source:Barriada.com.ar
The priest’s brief sermon was sweet and kind, focusing on the shepherds, and how you can change the world, Argentina, Buenos Aires, and yourself, by letting Christ into your heart. Or something like that. I understood 87 percent of everything that was said, and of course recognized all the readings from Luke and Matthew. They finally got the bread turned into flesh and the wine turned into blood, and many people lined up to take communion, while others carried their chairs inside and left.
The service moved me, because it all carried my own past, while I felt the strength of this community and how much I was not a part of it. And throughout it I was thinking of Mother. She was Episcopalian, my father was an atheist, but I imagine they both went to the Anglican church in Buenos Aires. They probably went to Christmas Eve midnight mass. The feeling kept rising in me, “I want my Mommy.”
Joe wanted to see inside the church. I stayed outside with Amanda, who had been well-behaved and surely dreadfully bored during the service, despite the lots of music, and was now surly and loud-voiced. ‘Ooh, I want to drink the wine, why can’t I.’ I told her I was disgusted and ashamed of her and I didn’t want to hear another word until we left the service. She shut up for a while, and then said, “Can I ask a nice question?” I agreed, and she asked why we left Argentina. She was very interested in my history, and impressed, I think, by my fluency in Spanish, as was I.
On Christmas Day we tried and failed to visit several parks and zoos, and found them closed. But one of the most famous places in Buenos Aires was open. The fourteen-acre Recoleta Cemetery is almost two hundred years old. Over four thousand above-ground tombs are crowded together along paved paths divided by tree-shaded pedestrian boulevards, each family striving to outdo its neighbor.
“La Recoleta Cemetery entrance” by Christian Haugen
“Liliana Crociati de Szaszak (full)” by Iridescent
We arrived in the late afternoon when the light was particularly lovely, with long shadows and glowing statues. Joe went off to take pictures, and I was free to follow the pamphlet guide I had printed from the internet. Without it I would have been lost and aimless in that huge corpse-filled place.
The pamphlet gave a lot of information about Argentine history, which I appreciated, and explained the arrangement of the tombs. You can peek inside and see one or two coffins, maybe some urns, with an altar above them. The decor is elaborate – stained glass and wood paneling, sculpture and bas relief, crucifixes, paintings and photographs. Stairs lead underground so that when a new corpse arrives the decomposed remains can be moved to the basement. Families must pay for maintenance; when they stop paying, the spiders and dust move in.
I only made it to the first twenty-one tombs highlighted by the guide, but it was plenty. I didn’t see Evita Peron’s tomb, but the pamphlet had lots of information about her, unlike the stupid French biography I had tried to read, which was full of dreamy postmodern musings.
Eva Peron
Evita died at 33 of uterine cancer. The military didn’t want her embalmed corpse to be a political organizing symbol, so they stole it from where it was displayed in the Peronist’s headquarters, and each general kept it for a while in his house. One general was so worried about it being stolen that he slept with a gun under his pillow. When his wife came home late one night he claimed he thought it was a Peronista come for the corpse, so he shot her dead. Hmmm.
Another story of marital disharmony was reflected in a large elaborate tomb. White marble man seated pompously, looking like a nineteenth century business man. Seated behind him, back to back, white marble wife, looking like a satisfied and respected materfamilias. She was a very extravagant woman, and he became so frustrated that he put a legal notice in the paper: ‘I will not be responsible for any debts incurred…’ She was so angry that when she had the tomb built she said she wanted to face away from him for eternity.
The sky was deep blue, the sun hot but the air dry. I loved all the stories, loved the puzzle of following the map and locating the tombs, peeking inside, looking at the statues. A guard came through, ‘fifteen minutes to closing,’ so I made my way to the entrance. I glanced at a very new tomb on a corner, brown granite with a full-length metal bas-relief of a rather glum woman with leaves above her. The family name was Dellepiane. I was stunned – that was Elisa’s name, Elisa who had been for me some combination of grandmother and aunt, who spoiled me and Luli in the kitchen, who shared the mate gourd with us in the afternoons.
Elisa, Liz, Luli
For a few moments I thought, My God, could it be Elisa’s family? I looked for names and dates, but apparently nobody was buried there yet. I was pretty sure Elisa’s family was not of the class that would be buried in Recoleta. Sure enough, when I googled it, I found a famous general, an Avenida Dellepiane, a Dellepiane Bar listed under gay bars, and all kinds of Dellepiane’s on Facebook, far too many to try to track her down. With all my thinking and grieving about Mother as I wandered in Buenos Aires – I only just then realized and remembered that this was Elisa’s life too.
Memory comes in scraps and bits, woven together by imagination. The stories I imagined as I wandered around Buenos Aires weren’t even my own. I pictured Mother with my baby carriage in the square in Belgrano, Don and Dick and Esther in the white uniform smocks that children wore to school, Elisa returning to her niece’s family when she retired.
School uniforms
It is all fiction, but if I were rich, I would go back to Argentina for a month or two, and dream more memories.
Jan 5, 2015
“I love traveling and I hate traveling.” – Amanda the Wise
For over thirty years I have celebrated Christmas at home with family and friends. But none of my family were coming this year, and Joe finds the traditions a little tiresome, so we decided to try Christmas away from home. We arranged a trip to Argentina: six days in Buenos Aires, where I was born, and two days at Iguazu Falls. We arrived in Buenos Aires at nine-thirty at night on December 23.
We had rented an apartment in Recoleta, a posh neighborhood filled with trees, parks, cafes and shops. The manager, Mariana, let us in and showed us around. She had stocked the kitchen with coffee, oranges, and chocolate alfajores, cookies filled with dulce de leche. I loved the apartment, with its huge windows, wood floors, hundreds of books and an impressive collection of CDs, mostly American music from the sixties and seventies.
After Mariana left we went out to find dinner. I was amazed to find myself out and about at one in the morning. Amanda was impressed to see families with children in all the cafes and restaurants at that hour. After filling up on empanadas and pizza, we returned exhausted to the apartment, ready for bed.
Now we met our first challenge. The key to the building worked fine. The elevator worked fine, though it was barely bigger than a phone booth, and landed each time with a most disquieting shudder and thud. We were on the fourth floor. At the tiny landing shared with one other apartment, Joe took out the ring of three old-fashioned keys. He tried each key in every lock. Ten minutes of trying. He couldn’t open the door.
We went back downstairs to take the rear elevator to the back door. We couldn’t open it. “I’m at a loss,” Joe said. It was past two o’clock. We had been traveling since 6:30 the previous morning. Everything we owned was inside the apartment, including contact information for Mariana. I pictured us lying down to sleep on the landing. Going out to find a hotel. Finding a friendly police officer to help us.
Can I find a friendly one?
We went back to the front door, Joe tried and tried, as did Amanda, as did I. No one was pleasant, though Amanda and I were smart enough to hold our tongues as Joe struggled. Finally, he did it. Within a few minutes, we were all in bed. The lock was a problem when we came home the next afternoon too, but Joe figured out the proper combination of jiggling and turning and pulling, and we all mastered it.
The next morning I made great coffee, and we feasted on oranges and cookies. Our first and very urgent job was to change money. We knew that stores and everything else would begin to close about noon, and stay closed through at least Christmas day.
Argentina is once again suffering terrible inflation. The official exchange rate is 8.5 to the dollar, but the unofficial “blue’ rate, published daily in the newspaper, is about 13, so no one goes to the bank to change money. People keep and carry huge amounts of cash, and assault and robbery have become more common. (There is a video on You Tube of a tourist being robbed at gunpoint by a man on a motor scooter. I didn’t watch it, having been sufficiently spooked by all the articles I read on the internet.)
Money-changers on the street call out their rate, but they are likely to give counterfeit pesos, so you go to an exchange office, or casa de cambio. I am befuddled by the ethics of all this, uncomfortable at taking advantage of another country’s economic mess, uneasily telling myself “when in Rome.”
Mariana had drawn us a map for the best casa de cambio – in a gallery-mall next to the snazziest hotel in BA (rooms start at $600 US/night). It was a very long walk, but she said the taxi would wait while we changed our money. We should call first to be sure they were open.
I called – it went to voice mail. I called the snazzy hotel to ask if the mall and cambio were open today, on Christmas Eve. No. The snazzy hotel clerk went off to inquire, and returned to tell me that no casas de cambio were open December 24 or 25. Banks were also closed. They would all open on Friday. But on Friday we were being picked up at 8:30 to spend the day on the Pampas, in gaucho country, and we wouldn’t be back till 8 at night. Cambios don’t open till 10am, not to mention that we needed pesos Wednesday and Thursday.
I called Mariana. “Let me call Carlos.” I’d never heard of Carlos, but that was okay. She called Carlos, who called someone else, and then Mariana called us back with the following instructions. We were to go to a lottery shop in Belgrano, ask for Lucas, although he would not be there, and tell them Carlos sent us. “It’s a code,” Mariana said.
The lottery shop closed at noon, and it was now just before 11. As usual, Amanda was getting a slow start. We told her she could stay behind, but then reconsidered. We could be getting into any kind of mess, and if we didn’t come back, there she’d be all alone. So she had to come with us.
It was easy to hail a cab. Thrilled that my Spanish was quite fluent, I had a long chat with the taxi driver. His son had just graduated from medical school, and they would soon return to Barcelona, where they had lived a dozen years and his four other sons still lived. I told him about my parents, my brothers, our trip to Africa. All the while the clock and the meter were ticking. I asked Joe, “Is that a decimal point after the 82?” Yes, thank God, so the fare so far was only about seven bucks at the blue rate.
We got to the lottery office about 11:45. It was a tiny office, filled with colorful posters listing the numbers you should play depending on your dreams. A man stood at the counter behind a grid. “I’d like to speak to Lucas, please. Carlos sent me.” Briefly I became a willowy blonde in a suit with padded shoulders, smoking a cigarette.
The man said Lucas was not there; how much did we want to exchange? I said 500 dollars. He unlocked the gate. ‘Thank God it’s working,’ I thought. ‘We’re going to be robbed and murdered,’ I thought. But no, he told us he’d give us 13 to the dollar, and pulled out huge wads of 100 peso bills, holding them below the counter so they were not visible from the office or street, and asked us to count them. We exchanged some amiable remarks and walked out with 6500 pesos.
The next day was Christmas, a family holiday. For tourists, it’s a good day to visit parks and the famous Recoleta Cemetery. I searched the internet to see what was open. All the parks run by the city of Buenos Aires would be closed; the list included the Lakes of Palermo and the Botanical Garden, but the zoo wasn’t on the list, and the cemetery was open from 7am to 6pm.
While I searched the internet, Joe had mapped our route. A short walk, he said. But Amanda refused to come. The New York Times had an article the other day about the Obamas facing the challenge of traveling with teenagers – I was amused and reassured, as it resembled our experience, though of course the article contained none of the painful details of the sulking, grumbling and carping. And I imagine when the Obamas leave Malia and Sasha to sleep late in a foreign country the girls are under heavy guard. Nevertheless, forcing her to go to the zoo didn’t seem wise, and I wanted to send the message that we knew she would be fine on her own. With some trepidation, we left her, with strict instructions not to go out. I had gone to the supermarket the day before so there were plenty of sandwich fixings in the refrigerator.
We had no security guards for Amanda
It was a beautiful day, with an intensely blue sky, hot sun, cool breezes, and the temperature in the eighties. And it was lovely to be alone with Joe. We walked and walked and walked through Recoleta and into Palermo and finally came to the botanical garden, which looked beautiful through the locked gate. Joe couldn’t understand why you would close a park; it’s not as though you need staff there. I held my tongue.
The zoo entrance was beyond the garden, another long two blocks. It too was locked. I stopped a young couple to ask, and they confirmed that it was closed. “But I looked on the internet and it didn’t say anything about the zoo being closed.” They had done the same; they were also tourists, from Brazil. “I can’t believe this,” said Joe. “That’s because you expect things to work as they should; I assume things will go wrong.” He thought I was criticizing his attitude, but we resolved that. The little frictions of travel are so much easier to smooth out without an adolescent third party observing and commenting.
The elephants were on holiday
We walked on past the zoo, which was surrounded by a low stone wall topped by a fence. Graffiti on the wall called for ‘Liberacion de animales’ in red spray paint. ‘Zoo = carcel.’ Then a dialogue: another red ‘Zoo =,’ followed by a swastika. A black border had effaced the hooks of the swastika, leaving a simple box with a red cross inside. Had the second artist been offended by the swastika, or by equating the animals’ imprisonment with the Holocaust?
Dense bamboo blocked our view through the fence. I could hear strange bird calls and monkey screams. Then a gap in the bamboo revealed three llamas standing in the sunlight, necks erect, long faces disdainful. We watched them a while; they never moved. It was their day off.
The zoo is in a tree-filled city neighborhood of tall apartment buildings. I imagined living in the penthouse. I would sit out on my balcony behind my red geraniums, eating medialunas with my excellent coffee, and look down into the whole zoo. I wondered about the animal racket. Joe wondered about the smell.
Alas, our trip to the zoo included very little zoo.The challenges of travel are exhausting and frustrating. Novelty is exhilarating, but familiarity is a comfort. When we arrived back in Miami Amanda said, “Yes! Everything is in English.” I haven’t decided whether for the holidays you can’t beat home sweet home. Next Thanksgiving we’re planning to hike the Grand Canyon. Maybe we’ll spend Christmas in Gainesville.
Nov 29, 2014
My brother Richard Eder died last Friday, after a long illness and two final days in the hospital. I have just come from three days with family – his wife and seven grown children, six grandchildren, two great-grands, and assorted mates – and a funeral mass and burial in Mt Auburn Cemetery. We spent the days together in Dickie and Esther’s apartment overlooking Fresh Pond Reservoir in Cambridge, talking, crying, laughing, singing. Lots of coffee and tea and wine, lots of food.
Mt. Auburn Cemetery image:bostoncalendar.com
And now I’m sitting in Logan Airport on Thanksgiving Day, with my sister Luli, in front of a television with three bright and smiling news announcers. The airport is fairly empty, the flights are fairly full. They are talking about Black Friday, interviewing a man who’s first in line at a Best Buy. He’s been camped there for a week. ‘What are you planning to buy?’ Two tablets, a laptop, a 55-inch TV…I lose track. And they speak in doleful tones of the dying out of the American Black Friday tradition. The thrill of the deal. Families camping out together. The great tradition is being eroded by sales that begin on Thanksgiving day, Internet Saturday specials and on and on.
Black Friday image:protectamerica.com
Black Friday has never been part of my life. It has been going on for about fifteen years. How can anyone call it a tradition, how can anyone mourn it, even in jest? It is a celebration that horrifies me, a celebration of buying stuff, stuff and more stuff, like eating contests where contestants down 60 hotdogs in ten minutes. I am not alone. Adbusters, a Canadian magazine, promotes Buy Nothing Day, and urges people to stage creative protests in stores and shopping malls. click
For me, Thanksgiving tradition is families coming together from near and far, eating too much of the foods they have always eaten, a long spell of digestion in the living room with desultory conversation, a long walk together, and then a return to the kitchen for sandwiches of leftovers and more slices of pie. It is consumption, but not consumerism. If I had my druthers I’d introduce a custom of going around the table with everybody saying what they’re grateful for. And if I were religious I’d surely include prayers that directed our thanks to God.
Postprandial walk
Like Thanksgiving, weddings and funerals bring families together. Thanksgiving usually includes somebody aggravating somebody. click Weddings primarily glorify the bride while providing plenty of material for gossip. In my happily limited experience, funerals focus on love and grief. They are a time for family to be kind, to take care of each other. Hearts are open, faces are naked. We remember the dead and dwell on what we loved about them.
I didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving this year. I celebrated and mourned my brother, surrounded and supported by the family I love.
Richard Eder image:washingtonpost.com -upi
Sep 27, 2014
Congratulate me – I am a Parent of a Teenager, or POT. Oh, technically she’s not a teenager – she’ll be just 12 in November. But she’s been well into puberty for a year, and where her body goes, her psyche, behavior and attitude follow.
they got attitude source: gettyimages.com
You know, I’ve done this before. My son, now 44, was once a teenage boy. He did what many boys do – barely spoke to me for several years, and occasionally took my car at night and went Lord knows where. Once he got it stuck in the mud behind a convenience store and the police brought him home. Another time they caught him swimming in the public pool at midnight. He did twenty hours of community service.
source: beforeitsnews.com
Amanda’s mother, now 31, was once a teenage girl. She spoke to me a great deal. She also spoke on the phone a great deal, and I remember our life together as a constant battle to prevent her from using the phone late at night. (This was before cell phones). She ran up over a thousand dollars in phone calls to psychics and sex-chat lines, and I ended by cutting the wires in the phone jack in her room. POTs are sometimes driven to bizarre actions in a desperate and futile attempt to keep some control of the situation.
source:spiritsconnect.com
So here I am on my third go-round. (My stepdaughter Leah doesn’t count, as she lived with her mother, who took the brunt of it.) It should be easier this time, because I’m not doing it alone. All POTs sorely need a woe-sharer and perspective-provider, and Joe is a most magnificent partner. On the other hand, I’m 67, and have been heard to mutter, “I’m too old for this shit.”
maybe I’m not too old for this shit source: imgur.com
Many parents turn to books to help them through all the ages and stages of child-rearing. My Bible is Get out of My Life, but First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall? by Anthony Wolf, a clinical psychologist. When I’m living with a teenager, I’m always talking to other parents to find out if theirs is as horrible as mine. Wolf’s book is full of dialogues and situations that sound as though he’s been spying on us. It reassures me that this is all normal, and I’m not alone.
A strange experience for POTs is to hear about their child from other adults – coaches, teachers, friends’ parents. We met last week with all of Amanda’s teachers, and the praise flew around the room – responsible, mature, engaged, willing, bright, asks good questions. The one that moved me close to tears was ‘happy.’ But I did wonder if they had the right child. It’s enough to make you believe in doppelgangers.
are there two of her? source:loscuatroojos.com
Wolf says the child self and the becoming-adult self live side by side in the teenager, and if things are going right, she will reserve the child-self for home, while the outside world gets the grown-up. “The self that adolescents bring out to deal with the world is in fact a truer reflection of the level of maturity that they have achieved.”
The adolescent’s job is to break away from her parents. The stronger the bond, the fiercer the struggle. And the feelings are ambivalent. It wasn’t all that bad being a little kid – it’s tough to give up all the perks of childhood and venture out into a world where you’ll have to make your own way and do your own laundry, especially when you secretly fear you won’t be able to. All the feelings of loss and fear distill into anger at those all-powerful creatures, your parents.
out into the world source:flickr.com
Most of my interactions with Amanda are at meals and in the car. In about fifty percent of them I am the target of her contempt. She may tell me that the way I eat apples is disgusting, or ask what that red bump is under my nose. She can express contempt silently, with only a glance or a glare. This morning I put on my turn signal earlier than she considers appropriate, and the scorn shivered about her skin like heat on a pavement.
I usually handle all this loathing pretty well. But sometimes in response to withering contempt, I do wither. I feel despicable and disgusting. Other times I fume silently: ‘All I do for you…you can walk home from the bus stop in the rain…forget about the earrings I was going to buy you…and the Halloween costume? you can just go as a bitch.’ The worst is when I giggle; teenagers hate to be laughed at. But what else can you do when after 60-odd years of eating apples an 11-year-old tells you you’re doing it wrong?
maybe there’sa better way
I have read Wolf’s book twice. What I have taken from it is the following: teenagers lie, disobey, and refuse to do household chores. The job of parents is to cope with this. Wolf accepts the reality, doesn’t waste energy in wishing it were different, and advises us how to handle it. “You do not win the battle for control with teenagers.”
The lying is interesting. They will lie adamantly, indignant at your doubt, surrounded by all the evidence that belies them. When called out, they will say something like, ‘oh, I forgot.’ Wolf gives spot-on, very amusing examples of this, and says, “If the trustworthiness of teenagers is the foundation of integrity in our society, we are in big trouble….Lying is bad. I am not defending it. But it is also the normal response of the vast majority of teenagers either to cover up a wrong or to manipulate a situation to advance their cause.” All we can do is verify when possible, especially if the issue is important, and call them on their lies.
a weak foundation source:pullyourownstrings.com
Though adolescent in her moods and attitudes, Amanda is still only 11. Her sins are mostly venial: leaving dirty dishes in her room, watching Netflix when she’s used up all her screen time, putting on makeup the minute she’s out of my sight. Sex, drugs and booze are still a little way down the road, though I know we’ll get there sooner than I wish. But Wolf’s general approach to disobedience applies to all levels of crime. We must not abandon our rules and requirements, but restate them firmly each time they are ignored. We should be judicious in devising and imposing consequences Piling consequence on consequence produces only a thick book of crimes and punishments, and a child grounded until she is 37. We probably don’t want them around that long.
a book of crimes source:durgeshlawhouse.in
As for refusing to do chores: “An absolute fact of adolescence is that if you do not nag, they will not do what you want…If having a teenager do nothing is acceptable to you, then do not nag. But if it is not, you are stuck with nagging.”
I always find myself surprised when it works. I tell her to change the kitty litter and walk away before she can argue. I repeat it every hour or so, always with no emotional involvement. She waits long enough to make it clear that she’s doing it only because it suits her, not because she has to obey me, and then she goes into the atrium and cleans the litter.
Teenagers are masters of manipulation and diversion, swift to turn a discussion of homework or chores or curfews into an emotional battle with “I’m just stupid and I’m dropping out of school,” “it’s not fair,” “you don’t trust me. ” Parents have to stick to the issue at hand. They must try not to let the outrageous statements and their own guilt and uncertainty pull them into the maelstrom. When our teenagers are hysterical, we must try not to be, and reserve our creative counterattacks for our rich fantasy life.
avoid the maelstrom source:zmescience.com
In the face of insults, defiance, and deceit we should continue providing the basic maintenance they need (feed them, buy them clothes and school supplies, drive them here and there) as well as go on doing all the loving, special things we used to do so happily when they were young and adorable. If we followed the rule of Tit for Tat, our children would probably starve and go naked, and we would certainly have to cancel Christmas, birthdays, and all family outings.
Wolf discusses a good deal more than I have mentioned, always with humor, intelligence, and a startling acceptance of reality. He covers specific problem situations with suggestions as to how we might cope. He does not expect us to be saints during the stormy years, nor to avoid mistakes. But he helps us to trust our judgment, and assures us that it is very likely our child will turn out to be an ok human being. Not all teenagers are hellions. But if you or someone you love is raising one who is, I strongly recommend this book.
Aug 29, 2014
My sister Luli has charisma. Her charm is compounded of her eccentricity, her humor, and her avid interest in all sorts of subjects – gypsies, lepers, neanderthals, nuns, books, cats, food, gardens – and especially other people.
image:bbc.co.uk image:societyofgenealogists.com
Luli makes friends everywhere and all the time. Some are friendly acquaintances, like the bus drivers with whom she shares gardening stories or the copy store clerk who helps her create her homemade greeting cards. Some are new friends, like the women she meets at the gym. She’ll arrange to meet for coffee, and soon progress to lunches that can last several hours. And then she has her long-time friends – the group of writers she calls the coven, her friend Mary Jane in New York.
meeting for coffee image:theconnector.co.nz
She has formed independent friendships with several of my friends, and arranges to have coffee with them when she comes to visit. This used to feel like poaching, but our sibling rivalry has diminished with time. (It’s okay as long as I know they love me best.)
Luli’s charm has overcome the usual distance which medical professionals maintain with their patients. Like all of us, she has had her share of medical issues. The most frightening was a pulmonary embolism, which, after many horrors, led to her joining a research project on effective dosages for blood thinners. She so charmed the doctors who were following her that they asked her to describe her experience to a class of medical students, and speak on a radio program about the research.
Listening intently, to Luli? image:classroom.synonym.com
But Luli’s most significant medical problem is not the thickness or thinness of her blood. Luli has had depression most of her life. Anyone who has experienced depression in themselves or a loved one knows it is an absolutely godawful chronic disease. Treatment is complex and long-term. Finding effective medication is a matter of heartbreaking trial and error, and some medicines will work for a while and then lose their efficacy. But medication alone is not enough to suppress the demons; I believe most experts agree that counseling is essential.
Since she moved from Manhattan fifteen years ago, Luli has been very lucky to have found a psychiatrist who suits her. And because Luli is so loveable, she and Dr. Shrink have formed a close relationship, and the doctor has gone to extraordinary lengths to help Luli through the terrible times.
A faculty member at a medical school, she is a consultant to the cardiology fitness program at a very swanky and expensive gym, which I shall call Merry Meadows. Because she believes that exercise is an essential component of treatment for depression, Dr. Shrink arranged a scholarship for Luli, who has a heart condition, to participate in the 12-week program, where trainers guide and monitor progress.
As she always does, Luli plunged in full-force, and astounded everyone at Merry Meadows with her enthusiasm and hard work. When her twelve weeks was up, she drew cartoon thank-you cards for the staff, and the program director told her she had been an inspiration to everyone, staff and geezers alike.
A swanky gym image:galleryhip.com
Meanwhile, the Merry Meadows program director has asked Dr Shrink to write a proposal for an exercise program to treat depression. I was lying in the hammock, watching a hummingbird play in the bamboo, when Luli told me about this in our daily phone call, and I immediately had a brilliant idea: the proposal should include a stipend for Luli.
Luli’s duties would include a monthly tea date with the director or a designee, who might be a program participant -Tea with Luli could be a bonus part of the treatment program. She would participate in publicity – TV or radio interviews – for the Merry Meadows program. But her primary duty would simply be Being Luli. It would be like a MacArthur Fellowship on a smaller scale.
Being Luli
Even when she’s a teapot, she’s still Being Luli
As for the stipend, $20,000 a year for the life of the program seems appropriate. (Luli said we should ask for a million, but as an old grant-writer, I told her that would look ridiculous and scare them off). In addition, Luli would get a lifetime gym membership including a trainer at Merry Meadows, and a lifetime supply of nice T-shirts to work out in. She says the participants don’t dress up, but I’m sure none of their attire is quite as stained, stretched and hole-y as Luli’s.
image:makingmecranky.com
Finally, when Luli, aged 99 and pleasantly exhausted from her Merry Meadows workout, fails to wake from a good night’s sleep, Merry Meadows will provide a lavish funeral, and pay travel costs so her nearest and dearest can attend. This is not an exorbitant demand. There probably won’t be that many of us by then; nobody’s offering ME a free gym membership.
Note to Luli: If you look to the right you will see that you now have your own category, so you can read about yourself till the cows come home.
