Breaking the silence on a Thursday

So all day I’ve been thinking about how I could best break my blog silence and write a post about the fact that in less than two weeks, I’ll be moving to Cambodia.

On my drive back to Knoxville today, I thought of all the ways I could sum up such a random and unexplained move. I thought of opening with an inspiring story about the day I first realized I was capable of traveling on my own (it was a beautiful day in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas and I found my 19-year-old self staring at hundreds of paper kites that had gotten trapped in a tangle of power lines).

I thought of explaining all the thousands of intimate reasons that had been building over the last year that radically shaped my perception of what is most valuable in life and what should be prioritized. I thought of simply saying that though I had many reasons, at the same time I had none at all and that was the beauty of it.

While I was thinking all of these thoughts and driving peacefully along the interstate, suddenly a huge cloud of thick dark dirt engulfed the road. A tree came crashing down in the lane next to me, nearly hitting my car. I rolled to a stop on the left-hand shoulder, along with a few other cars. A handful of people jumped from their vehicles and ran to the right-hand shoulder, peering down into a densely wooded ditch. It quickly dawned on me that something, someone was in that ditch.

I scrambled from my car and ran to the guardrail next to two other bystanders. About ten feet down the hillside lay a flat-bed semi-truck, the cab twisted and buried in the undergrowth. My heart was racing. I saw a man in a yellow shirt halfway down the hill, on the phone with what I assumed must be 911. Everything I learned years ago in a Wilderness First Responder course came flooding to my mind. My certification had long since expired but weirdly I call out in a strong calm voice, “does anyone here have any sort of medical or emergency training?” Two guys look at me like I was either an angel or insane. Please say yes, someone please say yes. Surely I can’t be the only one who has any training. My training was years ago and was a joke compared to most WFR courses.

No one answers. No one moves. It’s clear that someone needs to check on the driver. Yellow shirt man climbs back up the hill, so without any clear plan, I take off down the hill, wading through poison-ivy-galore to get to the cab. Quickly, a scrawny guy in a blue shirt follows me. As I make my way to the passenger-side of the cab, I see someone disappear around the front of the truck, trying to get to the driver-side. “He’s moving!” mystery man shouts at me. I relay the message to the yellow shirt on the phone. I can see the driver sitting upright in the cab, faintly moving his head. I knock on the window but he doesn’t respond. Then his lips move and I see mystery man emerge by his door, talking to him through the glass.

Behind me, a husband and wife from the farm nearest to the interstate peek through some barbed wire to ask what happened. They heard the crash from their house. I watch as mystery man talks to the driver, who is alert but not quite coherent. He shouts for the driver to unlock his door.

Immediately I start running through the ABCs of emergency care. A: Airway, check. B: Breathing, check. C: Circulation, I guess. After all the driver is moving. D… crap, what was D?? My flip flop slips and I realize I’m standing in a growing pond of gasoline. Beside me, some strange round piece of debris is smoking ominously. E: Environment. I might not be the best judge, but again, my voice shouts out without me, “unless this truck is in danger of catching fire, DO NOT MOVE HIM.” Mystery man grunts his acknowledgement. “Ask him his name, keep him talking.” Who is this strangely calm person inhabiting my body, standing in a pool of gasoline at the bottom of a ditch shouting clear-yet-unqualified emergency advice for a wounded semi-truck driver? Surely not me. Blue shirt is still standing beside me, helplessly.

We can’t get around to the driver-side, so eventually I decide to climb halfway back up and relay messages to the police who just showed up. “Yes, he’s alert, he’s moving, they got the door open.” An ambulance pulls up and I decide to climb back up to the roadway and watch.

About ten more bystanders have gathered by the guard rail, swapping equally pointless stories.

“Did you see it? I didn’t see it. Is he ok? I heard he’s moving.”

“I didn’t see it, I pulled over though!”

“We were going the other way and had to stop! Is he ok?”

I watched as the police, EMTs, and a crowd of good ole boys (ball caps, boots, and some even shirtless) carried the driver up the hill on a backboard and loaded him into the ambulance.  Afterwards the men all shook hands, clapped backs, and congratulated each other on their great work of standing around. One guy turned around and I caught a glimpse of a handgun sticking out of his shorts. Who in the world brings a gun to an accident?!?! Two other guys (one shirtless for no apparent reason) shook hands and concluded the event with a hearty “great to see ya again! See you at the rodeo!”

I quietly slipped past the ambulance and crossed the highway back to my car, shoes still soaked in gasoline. I drove home absentmindedly scratching what I’m sure will be poison ivy. What a Thursday.

So there you have it folks. I’m reviving my blog. Oh yeah, and in two weeks I’m moving to CAMBODIA!!!!!

When I go

"Spring, spirit dancer, nimble and thin,
I will leap like coyote when I go.
Tireless entrancer, lend me your skin,
I will run like the gray wolf when I go.

I will climb the rise at daybreak, I will kiss the sky at noon,
Raise my yearning voice at midnight to my mother in the moon.
I will make the lay of long defeat and draw the chorus slow;
I'll send this message down the wire and hope that someone wise is listening when I go."

-Dave Carter, When I Go

Fish Soup

Recently, I was grading my students’ responses to a book review I had assigned. In my assignment, I had thrown in a few questions pulled from the study guide at the back of the book, without giving much thought to the answers to the pre-made questions. As I read over the responses, however, I found my students beautifully describing a concept that seemed to impact them as much as their responses impacted me. It was the idea of fish soup.

The book I assigned is called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. It is a classic ethnographic tale of two cultures clashing when a Hmong family brings their epileptic daughter to a California hospital for treatment. Throughout the book, language barriers and cultural misunderstandings threaten to overwhelm any chance the toddler has of avoiding seizures and receiving care. Woven simultaneously into the stories of American doctors and the Hmong family, is the history of the entire Hmong culture. Wars and migrations, oppressions, empires, entire centuries slip into chapters about a single doctor’s visit in California.

Early in the book, there is an anecdote about a Hmong student who is asked to give a five-minute report as part of a language class;

“His chosen topic was a recipe for la soupe de poisson: Fish Soup. To prepare Fish Soup, he said, you must have a fish, and in order to have a fish, you have to go fishing. In order to go fishing you need a hook, and in order to choose the right hook, you need to know whether the fish you are fishing for lives in fresh or salt water, how big it is, and what shape its mouth is [Fadiman 1997: 12].”

The book goes on to explain:

“…that Hmong have a phrase hais cuaj txub kaum txub, which means ‘to speak of all kinds of things.’ It is often used at the beginning of an oral narrative as a way of reminding listeners that the world is full of things that may not seem to be connected but actually are; that no event occurs in isolation; that you can miss a lot by sticking to the point [Fadiman 1997:13].”

Lately, perhaps because of the cold weather that drives me inside to my books and my bed where my thoughts can wander freely, I’ve been stewing my own sort of fish soup.  I’ve been reminded lately of the all the stories of people I’ve encountered in my own journey; people I’ve grown up with, people I’ve met while travelling, people I know only through letters and family stories. So many times in life, we encounter another soul for even a brief moment, yet part of his or her story stays with us over the years. And though in isolation, these moments seem disparate and unrelated, they are stewing together within us our own fish soup.

In a film I watched recently set during the Holocaust, a young German girl runs out into the line of Jews being marched out of the city. She looks desperately for her friend while whispering to each man that passes by, I won’t forget you. I won’t forget you.

At times, I wish I could tell the same to the people whose stories have stuck with me. I won’t forget you. You are part of my fish soup. I would tell it to the woman in a Thai prison who hadn’t seen her daughter in years and in her place gave me a mother’s hug. I would tell it to the hardened and stoic fireman who broke down into tears while telling me of the first time he saw death on the job. I would tell it to the family in Cairo who tried to give my friend and I a ride home after we got lost in the market. I would tell it to the family in Chile that I’ve never met, but who call me their gringa niece and tell me stories of my mother. I would tell it to the children I worked with in India years ago, Shivam, Afshar Ali, Rishi. They are all grown up now, who knows where they are. I would tell it to the boy who sat across from me on a balcony in Bangkok one night when I was 17, who in many ways started it all by telling me everyone had a story to tell, even me. I won’t forget you.

There are so many moments we experience so briefly, so many different chapters in our lives that sometimes, they can seem incredibly disconnected. Where I am now looks nothing like where I was two years ago, or five years ago, or ten. Sometimes I’m not quite sure what to make of all the people I’ve met, the stories I’ve heard, and the places I’ve been. But one thing is certain, they are all connected. We are all connected. And to me, that is a beautiful thing and a thought worth sharing.

Letter to a friend

Be kind, be strong. Take action but do not rush. There is beauty in patience. Be mature, be the bigger person. There is no need for their approval, only your own. Listen to the silence and learn what you want. Fight for it, but don't take anyone down with you if you fall. Stand up and move on down the road without regret. Appreciate the good, but don't be afraid to let it go, as all moments turn to memories and all memories fade with enough sunsets. Breathe and take heart, child. Have faith in people and in yourself. Never stop taking risks. Never stop seeking the good. 

Awaken

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken.” 

― Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

After seeing Les Mis

Me: Daddy, you're my Jean Valjean.

Dad: Yes, now I just need to marry you off so I can die. 

Snippets

Oh to be a waiter and overhear my family's dinner conversations out of context:

“Yeah he was supposed to lead me around customs but he forgot. Guess my career smuggling alcohol into Muslim countries ended early.” (For the record, wasn't me).

“There was a momma bear and her two cubs walking up the river. I don’t remember where you kids were.” 

          “Wearing bear suits and playing in the river."

“So how did you attach the detector to the robotic arm?”  

"When you're watching glacier videos on youtube, you've got to be prepared to wait. I started one three years ago and still haven't seen it move."

“I bet that trucker was glad to get us out of his cab after a couple miles. Lucky for him that mom didn’t drive off while she could."    

          "You didn't all get in the truck. I still had one." 

“I had long hair and a big red beard so I at least looked sympathetic.” 

“Remember that slime mold you had growing in the kitchen? You used to feed it oatmeal every day.”

"And this coming from the woman who smacked a black bear in the nose with a copy of the Knoxville News Sentinal."

• "All I want is to pack up my truck and drive the trailer into the middle of the Yukon and watch TV." 

•           "You'll need satellite." 

•           "I'm coming with you and I'm packin' a pistol."