travel

I’ve often wondered if I was a throw-back, a soul that came before, and if so, how did that affect me? Even now, as I look into the eyes of my grand-kids, I sense times of long ago, and hold onto old-fashioned ways.  I followed in the footsteps of my Bubbie in her world of baking from scratch. Each recipe held a story: matzo balls, gefilte-fish, strudel, mandel bread and chicken soup told of her history.  Her essence was tradition.  I clung to the old ways with a sensibility that pulled me inward.  

Now a days they have labels for this behavior—traditionalist, conservationist, hippy, sustainable living, back to the basics.  I call it prudent with understanding.

The idea of “old soul” has been reinforced since I was a child. I remember my first blanket.  It captivated me with a story, I never understood.  I carried it with me until the quilted figure and rhyme of Old King Cole, a merry auld soul, disintegrated. I don’t know who gave the blanket to me, but I do remember the struggle that followed as my parents tired to coax it away when I went to school.  I associated it with giving up thumb sucking and maturing.  Neither of which made sense to me or my Bubbie.  Her answer was more pragmatic.  She thought my mother should rework the quilt into a coat and save my thumb for a prize on my return home.  

An old soul connects to the earth and beyond. Although I didn’t garden when I lived in Baltimore, I chased dandelion dust.   The flower was like the sun, the white puffs, like the moon, and the dust like the bright stars of nighttime magic.   I even placed buttercups under my chin, to see if there was a yellow reflection.   None appeared. I believe the old wise tale, that it if you had a yellow reflection, you liked butter.  I’ve always eaten my toast dry, enjoying the yeasty crunch on its own.

When my grandkids visit, we take walks and search out the dandelions—yellow suns and then blow the white-moon puffs apart so the stars reach the sky.  I love when Paige says, “Bubbie remember when we took a walk, where did the dandelions go?”   So far neither Paige nor Lane have the yellow reflection of the buttercup, but we’ll see as time goes by.

My old-soul inklings toward flowering weeds extends to wild roses, with their sweet smell and unpretentious petals and to the monstrous Gunnera plant. Commercial roses are too tight, too pushy in their beauty. It’s the soft open pedals that cause me pause. 

I first saw the Gunnera at a garden in British Columbia. Since then, I’ve always included one in my home garden. I imagine the plant in prehistoric times, when dinosaurs roamed, and ate the prickly leaves that rose from four to eight feet high. They remind me of giant rhubarb, but Gunnera isn’t edible and they prefer boggy soil.   I’m impressed that each year the leaves die back to their crown, only to rise again, larger and stronger.

Some say that old souls have wisdom beyond their years.  Others say that the soulful, listen and observe before they speak.  Old souls are intuitive and draw out what is already there.

I think of Einstein who was wiser and more brilliant than the technology of his age.  He discovered quantum physics and talked about gravity waves that dealt with measuring time and space.  His thoughts challenged Newton and the dropping of the apple, and the basic ideas I grew up with concerning gravity’s pull on the earth.  Jim and I had the enlightening and most confusing pleasure of visiting LIGO at the Hanford Reserve. (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory).  Einstein’s theory was finally proven true in 2015 when the two national facilities, one in Washington and the other in Louisiana, detected the gravitational waves generated by a pair of colliding black holes, 1.3 billion light years away. Measuring the minute ripples in space-time proved what the sage, scientist already knew.

I never met my grandfather, my namesake, Abraham. But as time goes by, I get inklings of his soul.  He was a mechanic and an inventor.  I have no talent in this area, but as Jim and I put together a cabinet, I noticed a special female part called a “cam lock”.  Something about its shape reminded me of my grandfather’s repurposed car part inventions.  Downsized from piston proportions to that of a nickel, I imagine my grandfather years ahead of himself with an oversized fastener mechanism. The one used in our cabinet to lay flush and catch the male screw, was invented in 1985, thirty-three years after he died.

My adult children used to and may still believe I know everything about life. Not the specifics, but manners of the heart and business. I on the other hand, realize they have technological knowledge still foreign to me and can maneuver in a more complex world.   I see reflected in their eyes, the souls of my parents.  My three children are exactly as I wish them to be.  New souls with the souls of those that went before.

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My Usage
Overwhelmed at the wedding of her daughter, her words caught in her throat, verklempt by the emotion. Her tears ruined the fard, carefully applied by the beautician to accent her eyes.

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 I feel a sensation running just below my skin, a twitch of an itch, and my stomach is a touch uneasy, like a butterfly with wings upside-down. Don’t call the paramedics.  These are just my flags—markers that I’m about to enter a vulnerable stage.

Vulnerability is my reluctant partner in development.  I’ve come to understand the nuances and remain patient. I call this my tentative state, where a path doesn’t exist, there is no black or white, no right or wrong, in fact, there is only colorful desire.

Desire makes me smile. It’s a yearning that drives me to meet myself anew.   It’s like the dogwood tree that only opens it’s flowers upward, reaching beyond.  Or the magnolia that flowers with whites and pink even before the green leaves appear. Even the quaking aspen’s leaves return bottoms upward, so that the top branches remain bare, as the wind shakes its leaves.  Desire hides behind the ever-faithful rhododendron that keeps its year- long greenery, fully dressed, unexposed as new growth buds.

Last week, I invited an acquaintance over for lunch.  We’ve only known each other through writing and from other friends. I remember as a kid, knocking on doors in our new neighborhood, just as the moving vans left our driveway.  I was five with my wise sister of six. She’d knock and when the door opened, I would look up with saucer sized brown eyes, “Do you have any kids here we can play with? It was easy back then to acquire playmates.  Even if there were no kids in the house, the adults took us under their wings.

But now with patterns set, creating new lasting relationships takes time. I must be willing to reveal myself slowly and pay attention to the life of another. Real relationships create a bend, an opening where none existed before. You can’t rush laughter, listening, wonder. 

Retiring from my restaurant of fourteen years, keeps me home in my paradise.  I find myself content, yet still yearning. It’s that desire to establish another way that pushes me to seek out local writers, other groups than those I worked with in my business life. But I’m still the same person with the old resistance to driving at night or in unfamiliar areas.  I find excuses to stay in my comfort zone, not willing to commit to a project, if I’m not willing to give it my all.  I tip-toe, exploring Friends of the Central Skagit Library, the local writer groups.

My friend, vulnerability, reminds me that when I am ready, I’ll launch. Baby steps lead me to the library often.  I bring home stacks of books based on whims.  I read, I return weekly, getting to know the staff, finding my way.

I dip into the past, finding on Facebook, childhood friends from Pikesville, Maryland, my old neighborhood.  Names jump out at me and I click the request.  They all respond. I’m overwhelmed that they remember me from sixty years of absence.  My awkward stages are what they knew.  Because of this, it’s easy to connect. Vulnerability creates common ground, imperfections shared without expectations.

There in lies the key to all relationships—no expectations. Desire’s motivation stems from caring, a passion of discovery. Like the bare tree trunk growing towards the sky, rising without knowing if the leaves and flowers will come.  Commitment only works if the caring overrides the stoppers. 

My twitches manifest even as I read the stack of books by my night-table. I’m confused by stories written with no direction as in Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday. Three separate stories interlocked, and I failed to find the connection although my heart felt for each character.  I left disappointed that I had failed as a reader to get the author’s message.  In reading, How to Read Water Tristan Gooley, the subject fascinated me, but I lacked scientific abilities to grasp the complex concepts.  I was more comfortable reading Everything Here Is Beautiful, by Mira T. Lee, and The Pianist from Syria by Aeham Ahmad, as I was grounded in the places and actions based on my own life and travels.   

My discomfort didn’t keep me from finishing the books.  I found lessons despite my reluctance. Examining why I cared about the books or failed to, gave insight into my readiness to open my mind, to think critically.  The overriding commitment was to learn, not to master or like any one subject.

Being earnest is an attribute, but I’m reminded that forcing a situation, a change, or desire, puts the me first, and leaves out the connections. No matter how lofty the goal is, I can’t push a rock up a steep hill. And if the rock is important, then I need some help.   Asking for help reveals my vulnerabilities. The joy follows when the task is shared, whether the rock arrives at the top of the hill or even if it slides back down.

I have muddled memories that don’t coincide necessarily with my childhood friends. The island Gail and I discovered and named with our initials BRAG (Bober, Rolnick, Abbe, Gail) wasn’t part of Gail’s memory, nor the long walks where a developer was building a shopping mall. But it was what I cherished and relayed to my children explaining my life as a kid. Gail’s fondness for me, she explained, was that I paid attention to her life.

I can remember back to kindergarten, when my teacher decided to have a picnic outside. She asked me to let her aid know.  For some reason, I felt those butterflies flip-flopping inside.  I knocked on every teachers’ door in the school and invited them to join us down by the pond.  My teacher never reprimanded me, even as ten classes of little kids streamed down the hill. She thanked me for my passion, my willingness to share my joy.

I still feel the upside-down flutters of the butterfly. I’m patient. With no expectations, I smile at my desire, and rejoice when the tulips Jim planted last year, found a way to rise despite a harsh winter.  Vibrant will—connects me to colorful desire. I’m committed to the journey. Yes, I’m vulnerable. Who knows what is next?

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Somethings never change.  Of if they do, I tend to hold onto the simplest way of things. Call it old fashion, or wise, or stubborn.  It doesn’t matter.  I’m writing this blog article with a computer, way better than a typewriter where I’d make a multitude of errors and I’d have to begin again.  Just ask my best friend from high school, Teri. She once watched me try to type my homework assignment.  After five tries, she pulled my latest attempt out of the typewriter and within minutes had completed the assignment error-free.  In my defense, she plays piano, has long fingers, and well, she’s talented.
 
For the longest time I used cartridge pens, the kind that left ink on the edge of the middle finger. I finally graduated to the fancy Cross pens, which left my papers smudge-less, and my hands clean.  But for me it’s the pencil that satisfies my sense of order. If I’m stuck, I pull my hair up into a pony tail, and sharpen a pencil.

Not any sharpener will do. Recently Jim found his father’s old pencil sharpener—metal with a hand-crank, that works best if screwed into the wall or to a table.  A circular set of sizes allows the sharpener to fit any width of pencil.  I tend to like soft pencils, dark graphite, and a point that has girth.  I write ineligibly and this combination at least gives the reader a chance to understand my words.

I have two boxes filled with hand-written journals, that contain themes of angst, love, fear, and finally acceptance. From the teen years where I have the green-keyed diary to college misadventures with fancy journals, to later adult years where the old fashion school tablets with wide lines sufficed. Reading my words from long ago, I step back in time to smile. I wrote but I wasn’t a writer.  That didn’t happen until I let go of worrying about impressions. When I finally took the emotions off the pages and put them into a story that wasn’t my own, I authored tales that had universal meaning—showed and let others decide on the significance.

I’ve abandoned journal writing for essays, short stories, and novels. I create what I want, change the vision.  And if the writing doesn’t go well, and a sharpened pencil doesn’t clear the mind, I mow the lawn.

Mowers are like pencils to me. I have visions of my father walking back and forth in the front of our suburban home in Pikesville, Maryland.  One day my Bubbie was coming to visit.  Above the din of his mowing, my father hears a voice from a car. “Excuse me sir, do you know where Muddy Rolnick lives?”  It was my Bubbie lost, and my father., Morton, smiled and replied, “Muddy, why that’s Me.”

I’ve graduated to a self-propelled lawn-mower. I’m not one for a riding mower, but either am I a purist—going motor-less.  It seems that every few years we must buy a new mower. (Carburetor problems). This year was the year.  I found out that I’d been using a front-wheel mower, and that a rear-wheel mower had more umpf for bumps and uneven rises in our lawn.  I upped the motor size, but refused the push button igniter, opting for the cord pull to get the mower humming.

My insistence on mulching and losing myself in thought, has created some funny stories, some are in book Tattle Tales: Essays and Stories Along the Way.  The ten-dollar bill, that I have patched on my refrigerator is one these stories.   Usually after an hour, my pony-tailed hair, has bobbed up and down sufficiently to rattle my thoughts and clear my head. I return to the essay at hand.

In 1984, I lived without electricity or running water. Not by choice, but by necessity as the land was raw and the finances flowed slowly in line with our needs. No cell phones, or faxes or computers, one land-line, pencils galore, and a quarter mile walk to the mailbox.

I communicated with long thoughtful handwritten letters.  I even used carbon paper so that I’d have a copy.  To this day my most favorite walk is to the mailbox.  Our mailbox now has a key. Sadly, this means there have been too many stealing events. Times change and with it, I must adapt.  I love to put the red flag up, to signal the mail carrier a letter is going out.  The mail carrier and I have a silent but ongoing relationship.  An exchange of messages. I know her route, her black and white jeep, when she takes a smoke break, and when she is late or ruffled. I wonder what stories my carrier could tell about me, my neighbors, and that dog that nips at my heels.

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What person will I be today?  I’ve noticed that when I say I’m on an adventure, my attitude, my demeanor, and my openness changes.  I walk with a spring in my gait, and I see more.   As a writer, I do this with an empty page.  Closing my eyes, I let my characters take me down a road, eat in a restaurant, do things I don’t normally do.

This afternoon, I took my morning walk late.  The sun was way overhead.  I didn’t have to bundle up like a snowwoman.  For some reason the possum that Jim discovered yesterday, sunning itself near our cactus bed, was on the driveway.  He greeted me with a paused disdain.  Standing still with dark beady eyes, he stared, unmoving.  I took the other side of the path and pretended he wasn’t there.  A false ignorance that didn’t fool either of us.   

The crunch of ice underfoot, this late in the day, had melted and I avoided puddled potholes. The two horses, I normally see, were out in another field.  I missed whispering, “I see you,” to them.  Our acknowledgement plays out as a ritual of neighborly space sharing. I’ve never had the urge to pet them, bother their stately stance.  Their big eyes follow me as they turn their heads.  One will snort, the other neigh.

The barking dog, that normally runs out into the road to harass me, is busy with a family gathering.   In their driveway which abuts the road, I count five extra cars. A total of ten plus a boat.  I’ve never been inside but I know when the kids get on the school bus, and when the baby cries.

I usually turn around where the sheep no longer are. These woolly lumps that look like rocks, have been gone for over six years.  They fascinated me as I often searched the big barn, even peeked inside, when their bodies merged into the landscape.  These sheep appeared in my second novel, Color of Lies.  I invented a story to explain their disappearance.

Why is it that a trip on a plane triggers the adventure button and that our daily rituals playout with a nonchalance and lack of importance?   I answer my own question when I befriend solitude.   

In my mind, I have a dialogue, but it isn’t often that others will listen to these mundane queries unless there’s pizazz, drama, angst. Travel to a foreign country peeks the interest of everyone. But who wants to hear about a walk along a country road?

My comic inclinations push me to relate and confess the travails of my shopping for a mother-of -the bride’s wedding dress.  Just driving to Seattle, a big city with traffic, crowds, and chaos, sets me into a tizzy.  That is, until I put on my adventure hat.  I dress the part with leggings, a long, orange tunic, and a black wool, trench-coat bought ten years ago.  I’ve made an appointment with a personal stylist at Nordstrom’s.   

I feel like Miss Mavis from the Amazon TV’s series, The Marvelous Miss Mavis, but in reverse.  She’s a department store clerk, who dresses all the society ladies, and she becomes a stand-up comedian.  I’m a non-shopper, who can only laugh at the task.   Don’t get me wrong.  I can dress-up, be professional.  If only I could dole out the one-liners, when I’m asked by the stylist, “What brands do you prefer?”  I can’t name any brands, but those from REI—for the leisure nature lovers.   When we arrive, Jim, who is always up for shopping, sits in the waiting room, as I model dress after dress.  I want to look elegant, sexy but not provocative.  I must find the balance between modesty and “rules” for the mother of the bride.  Colors, texture, and family pictures are elements of the decision.   The stylist is more patient than a saint.  Knows what will fit, but still we go home empty handed.  We’ve ordered and paid for three dresses from various Nordstrom stores, that have the mark of potential approval.   I’ll return to Seattle in a week, with shoes, shawls, jewelry with the hope that I’ll make my daughter proud.

But back to the adventure…. Big Cities mean dining, wine a little luxury.   Before we head home, Jim and I linger at the Wild Ginger—speak with the owner, share three plates of Thai food.   We people watch as our seat is along the road—a way to advertise to passer-byes that this restaurant is where you find entertainment and good food.

These thoughts are luxurious, ones that occur only for those living in a first world.  Undeveloped countries, with unstable economies and governments don’t have the privilege of these decisions.  They are more worried about feeding their children, getting an education, shelter, staying safe.   

I learned long ago, that I can be any person I want to be.  I remember walking down the streets of Boston, just after I had transferred from the University of Florida, to Boston University.  I had that same gait of an adventurer, a demeanor of openness.  I had stepped out of one culture into another.   My mind, ready to absorb, filled with the politics of the 70’s, the subways, the cold bitter wind that took my breath and made white streams of thought visible.   

It doesn’t matter what I wear, where I am, but what does matter is my attitude, my openness, my ability to feel just a little bit out of my comfort zone.   I must care about everything—even if it upsets me.   

Which bring me back to the walk home.  The possum had hardly moved more than 20 feet in my absence. But at the head of my driveway, were our property meets the private logging road and shared access to yet another neighbor, I meet the owner. Just like the possum, the owner, stares me down.  He wears headphones, has a gun in a holster on his hip, and sports a walking stick and beer in each of his hands.  Upset, knowing that we’ve had to put a restraining order in the past, I feign nonchalance. 

I’m an author. My power comes from writing.  He has become another character in Color of Lies, taking the form of Molly McCain, the old bully.  I disarm him. Render him powerless and leave him to his own demise.  I keep my solitude.

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