No, this is not going to be about my dog, Manny, though I will use him as a starting point. I often envy the simplicity of his happiness and the unfiltered expression of his emotion – tail wag=happy, whine=unhappy, e basta, as the Italians would say.
We humans often forget that we are animals - social animals – and that, often, our nonverbal communication is equally, if not more, important than our verbal communication.
What got me thinking about this? Conference calls, or, more generally, working far away from co-workers such that all of your communication becomes one dimensional – either verbal or written (I will tackle written communication in another blog), both leaving out the critical body language component – the proverbial wagging tail. As an aside, it is important to note that in-person meetings have their own flaws and aren’t always the most productive, but, I want to address the additional layer of difficulty in accomplishing things with a group of people that you don’t share the same physical space with.
Conference calls - When you’re “meeting” on a call rather than in a room with other people, it is easier for each attendee’s mind to drift into his/her own separate thoughts because the human voice alone is not nearly as captivating as watching a person’s face as they speak - watching them scratch their head, breathe deeply, or maybe crack a smile. Needless to say, those subtle human movements are not only captivating but communicative. Eyebrows raised conveys interest or surprise. Furrowed brow shows you are concentrating or displeased. If you look at someone as you say something challenging, you convey confidence. If you look away, you are nervous.
This gets at one of the major reasons why conference calls are often not productive. Who’s in charge? In my opinion, a conference call REALLY needs a benevolent dictator, whereas an in-person meeting can be more of a brainstorming session where all players are more or less equal (though that can flop as well). This is because there is often confusion about who should be speaking and how to take turns doing so without the nonverbal cues. The director needs to make sure everyone gets his or her turn to contribute. It is also the director’s responsibility to recognize where there is agreement and use that to move the meeting along. In-person meetings have the advantage of behaviors including the head nod (up and down)=I agree and I also want to see if others in the room agree, the head nod (side to side) = I disagree but am not quite sure what I want to say in opposition, and so forth. You can move a meeting along just by reading these signals. On a conference call, however, you can stick your voice out there into the void and let it hang there for a minute, uncomfortably waiting to see what the response is from the invisible audience. Someone actually has to ask, “Are we in agreement about this?” rather than saying “I can see that we are all on the same page.” Cue the benevolent dictator who can help to ensure that the geographic distance between the people doesn’t result in a misperceived disparity of opinion.
So, how do we solve this? There are great new technologies out there to allow people to be virtually together – the videoconferencing. The technology for this has gotten much better so that there are fewer awkward delays that lead to people talking over one another or not understanding what is being said. And this gets us part of the way. But, there is still a sense of camaraderie missing – a kind of human chemistry that helps us to understand each other. Back to dogs - think about what they are able to communicate just by sniffing each other (not that I would suggest a similar technique with humans). This points out the multidimensionality of our relationships with each other – in a videoconference, we can hear each other, see each other, but we still can’t BE with each other. At my recent staff retreat of co-workers with whom I have spent many hours on the phone, some of whom I’d never met, there was a frenzy of socializing, condensing many months’ of missing contact into 2 ½ days, and a realization that we all just felt better to spend some time getting to know each other.
This geographic separation seems to have evolved from employers wanting to hire the very best people, no matter where they live in the country – the national search for candidates for a position for which, in all reality, there is probably someone pretty darned qualified right down the street, or at least closer than halfway across the country. There was a period where people just picked up and moved for work, plucking up their families from their comfortable communities where they knew where to buy the best cup of coffee and where the best shortcuts were to get around the rush hour traffic, to move across the country and learn the intricacies of a brand new place. Hmm . . . I guess I did that too, or at least as a tag-along military wife for the past several years. I have already written about the challenges of moving all over the country (see “Why I Have No Friends”), so I won’t belabor that. Anyway, more recently, technology has allowed people to stay put in Durango, while working for a company in San Francisco. This is essentially the expression of priorities – give up camaraderie with co-workers in order to keep camaraderie with those you really care about, your friends and family. I can’t argue with that.
But, can’t we have both? Let’s all just stop moving! If everyone stayed in the same place for awhile, maybe employers would look for local job candidates and they would be there, not out in California. And, businesses would become more localized and co-workers could have real, in-person, interactions with each other. And, maybe we’d all get more done - and wag our tails a bit more.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Information Inundation
I think I have started to write about this before, but taken off on another tangent. So, here it is in depth – the “information inundation” unraveled. Everyone talks about it, I know. But, I have a little different perspective having recently been in a culture where I was hungry for information, as most of what was around me was difficult for me to understand. Signs along the road, newspapers in waiting rooms, napkins at restaurants, conversations of passersby, slogans on the radio and stories on TV, were all in media-speak, which they don’t teach on language cds. I could usually figure out the gist of things, but I never got familiar enough with the language for it to come easily. Thus, it was a conscious choice TO understand things around me rather than NOT TO understand them. Rather than quickly scanning signs or advertisements and getting a sense of all of them, I had to choose the ones I wanted to figure out and make an effort to translate them, sometimes to comedic ends, as I didn’t quite get puns or figures of speech. Or, if I wasn’t in the mood for more input, I simply looked at text as art and conversation as music and moved along in my own little world.
Upon moving back, I was thrilled to have so much of my surroundings so readily accessible. I didn’t feel like a stranger – I could fully participate in the American culture. I realize that things in Sardinia were different on a number of levels: not only due to the language barrier, but there was also just less “stuff” to understand since we lived in a rural area there and now live in a city (or, at least a cheater city, as I like to call Portland – meaning that very much as a compliment).
This newfound level of participation was exciting. I felt stimulated and alive in a way I didn’t realize I’d missed while overseas. . . until it gave me a big, fat headache and I realized that my little brain couldn’t possibly hold in all this input without literally exploding. Thump, thump went my head as the information inside kicked and screamed to get out. I had no input filter, as I was eager and curious to take everything in, and so now I had to figure out how to let some of it back out. My rapidly firing synapses were like a pinball machine zipping from one thing to the next (have I used that metaphor before?), trying to snip off little samples of everything. I felt like a kid who eagerly gets out all her toys at once and then throws a tantrum because she can’t decide which one to play with. Too many is sometimes not enough and one can be the world - Basho should have said that. I found a great quote awhile back by George Wald, a scientist who studied vision, which says that something you are entranced and stimulated by can be like “a very narrow window through which at a distance one can see only a crack of light. As one comes closer the view grows wider and wider until finally through this small narrow window one is looking at the universe.” You just need to land on something and that, if you stick with it, it can become the world, encompass all of your passions, and design your understanding of everything around you.
So then, how do you choose? There’s only so much that one person can do and trying to do everything often results in accomplishing nothing. But, I am one of those people who reads every word accompanying each display at a museum exhibit. I have this fear that I might miss something good. But, I am beginning to understand that I will always miss something good and that’s okay.
Recently, on a stroll through the lovely brick streets of Portland, it dawned on me as I peeked in windows filled with brightly colored objects and read posters stuck on lampposts with upcoming events, that I’m really quite spoiled - how much better it is to have too many good things to do that you can’t possibly do them all than to be bored by everything around you such that you become lethargic and depressed. But, again, the trick is to learn that you must choose.
There was recently a great article by Sandra Tsing Loh, one of my favorite writers on what I like to call “the modern woman dilemma,” who talked about trying to balance family life and a career. This is really a subject for another blog. But, the sentiment, “You can do it all, if you live like a man,” is relevant. You have to let some things go for the sake of pursuing others and it can be fun when you do it for something worthwhile. Go for a walk on a sunny day and forget the pile of laundry on the floor – look at it and laugh as you walk out the door. This is really a different situation because sunny walks are definitely more appealing than laundry. The problem I described before is that there is often more than one good option and that those options compete with each other. And, then there’s always the worthless stuff as well. Somehow, you have to let just the good stuff filter through, keeping the junk out, and then choose amongst them.
So, I’m working on building a filter and on being glad that there is often more than one appealing option and that making a choice doesn’t necessarily close doors, it just challenges you to find a way to incorporate your other interests into what you are currently doing. And, there’s always tomorrow – one wouldn’t want to run out of interesting things to do and they don’t all have to happen at once, despite what the pace of life may seem to dictate. One thing at a time, Italian style; peek through the window, find your way into the sun and stay there awhile. The rest will follow.
Upon moving back, I was thrilled to have so much of my surroundings so readily accessible. I didn’t feel like a stranger – I could fully participate in the American culture. I realize that things in Sardinia were different on a number of levels: not only due to the language barrier, but there was also just less “stuff” to understand since we lived in a rural area there and now live in a city (or, at least a cheater city, as I like to call Portland – meaning that very much as a compliment).
This newfound level of participation was exciting. I felt stimulated and alive in a way I didn’t realize I’d missed while overseas. . . until it gave me a big, fat headache and I realized that my little brain couldn’t possibly hold in all this input without literally exploding. Thump, thump went my head as the information inside kicked and screamed to get out. I had no input filter, as I was eager and curious to take everything in, and so now I had to figure out how to let some of it back out. My rapidly firing synapses were like a pinball machine zipping from one thing to the next (have I used that metaphor before?), trying to snip off little samples of everything. I felt like a kid who eagerly gets out all her toys at once and then throws a tantrum because she can’t decide which one to play with. Too many is sometimes not enough and one can be the world - Basho should have said that. I found a great quote awhile back by George Wald, a scientist who studied vision, which says that something you are entranced and stimulated by can be like “a very narrow window through which at a distance one can see only a crack of light. As one comes closer the view grows wider and wider until finally through this small narrow window one is looking at the universe.” You just need to land on something and that, if you stick with it, it can become the world, encompass all of your passions, and design your understanding of everything around you.
So then, how do you choose? There’s only so much that one person can do and trying to do everything often results in accomplishing nothing. But, I am one of those people who reads every word accompanying each display at a museum exhibit. I have this fear that I might miss something good. But, I am beginning to understand that I will always miss something good and that’s okay.
Recently, on a stroll through the lovely brick streets of Portland, it dawned on me as I peeked in windows filled with brightly colored objects and read posters stuck on lampposts with upcoming events, that I’m really quite spoiled - how much better it is to have too many good things to do that you can’t possibly do them all than to be bored by everything around you such that you become lethargic and depressed. But, again, the trick is to learn that you must choose.
There was recently a great article by Sandra Tsing Loh, one of my favorite writers on what I like to call “the modern woman dilemma,” who talked about trying to balance family life and a career. This is really a subject for another blog. But, the sentiment, “You can do it all, if you live like a man,” is relevant. You have to let some things go for the sake of pursuing others and it can be fun when you do it for something worthwhile. Go for a walk on a sunny day and forget the pile of laundry on the floor – look at it and laugh as you walk out the door. This is really a different situation because sunny walks are definitely more appealing than laundry. The problem I described before is that there is often more than one good option and that those options compete with each other. And, then there’s always the worthless stuff as well. Somehow, you have to let just the good stuff filter through, keeping the junk out, and then choose amongst them.
So, I’m working on building a filter and on being glad that there is often more than one appealing option and that making a choice doesn’t necessarily close doors, it just challenges you to find a way to incorporate your other interests into what you are currently doing. And, there’s always tomorrow – one wouldn’t want to run out of interesting things to do and they don’t all have to happen at once, despite what the pace of life may seem to dictate. One thing at a time, Italian style; peek through the window, find your way into the sun and stay there awhile. The rest will follow.
Monday, September 8, 2008
"Sunlight captured in water . . ."
After a few entries of ponderings, I have finally decided to write another travelogue. It isn’t as if we haven’t had wonderful weekend romps and paddles since returning to Maine, but my mind has been too full of other “musings” to focus on those experiences enough to write them all down. So, after an amazing weekend spent in Downeast Maine, I am finally getting around to writing another recounting of travels. Being back in Maine and reconsidering what an “adventure” is, I realize that Maine prepared me well for adventures far away in that I truly learned to adventure while living in Maine, seeking out the nooks and crannies of the state for magical hikes and quiet small towns, and that it prepared me well for adventures afar. And now, I am back adventuring in Maine with a renewed enthusiasm that has been enhanced by my experiences away. In a way, I have started treating Maine as an island similar to Sardegna that I need to explore all corners of in order to have a complete sense of it.
Thus begins the tale of Labor Day weekend. In pursuit of a manageable long weekend adventure, and having been curious about the northernmost part of the coast of Maine for quite some time, we decided that it was time. The state of Maine is really darn big and that in all my travels within it, I had never been all the way up the coast.
As a bit of an aside, but with relevance to my previous blog about the lack of local friends, I have to start on Friday of the weekend and describe how our evening picnic came to be. While running on the Eastern Promenade one afternoon, I had a double-take moment where I thought I recognized a classmate from Bowdoin. Then, a few more strides down the path, I realized that it was, in fact, who I thought it was, though I was now out of comfortable earshot. I passed this information on to Chad, who did a little research through “Linked-In” for me (as you know, I am still a hold-out on social networks for the moment) and managed to get in touch with our friend, Pete. On my home from work the next day, I stopped at the tailor and happened to see Pete’s wife and we exchanged numbers and addresses – realizing that we lived only blocks away from each other. On my way out of the store, I got a message from Chad saying that, at the very moment when I had run into Joan in person, he had been chatting with Pete over email. We all decided it was fated that we should get together and arranged for a picnic on the Promenade . . .and voila, local friends, and we reconnected with them in person, (though we did reconnect over cyberspace as well). And so it finally begins – the making of local friends. Too bad they’re moving to South Portland next week.
On to Saturday. After loading up the car with loads of equipment and provisions for the weekend, we were off to see old friends – not so old, but in the strange conception of time when you have left a far away and different experience, it feels like longer ago than it really is. These are friends from La Maddalena who now live in Gardiner, Maine in a great old farmhouse that they’ve renovated. We lunched Italian style, visiting on their porch in the sun with a glass of wine and then enjoying a delicious, lingering meal while discussing where to buy rare Sardinian foods, like pane carasau (a cracker-crisp flat bread) and pecorino cheese, in Maine - they being foodies like us. We waxed on about the lifestyle we had in Italy and how other-worldly it seems now looking back. Finally, roused ourselves for the long drive north.
Our first destination was Cobscook Bay State Park, located, not surp
risingly, on Cobscook Bay. On the drive up, we listened to a western story on cd, making us remark on the first red-tipped leaves of late summer (we don’t use the "f" word yet) in accents as if we were gangster and gun moll. We finally got there and schlepped our stuff to our campsite (car camping does not inspire conservative packing and we had managed to easily fill up the Jetta with stuff, ourselves, and the pup), which was quite private and quiet. Just as we had set up our little blue tent, gotten the grill going with our lovely salmon filet we’d brought along, and set the picnic table for a fancy camp-dining experience, a few drops began to fall. Luckily, Chad had precautionarily put up the rain fly before we started cooking and we had kept our rain jackets handy - too bad Manny didn’t have his own slicker. He was quickly ushered into the vestibule of the tent, much to his dismay, so as not to become a wet, chilly dog, whereupon he repeatedly poked his nose out from under the flap 
and attempted to escape and we had to take turns pushing him back in. Despite the rain, we managed to eat our salmon, pouring a bit of water off our plates, and drink a little watered-down wine. Then, we headed to our snug tent for the requisite terrible first night’s sleep of any camping experience. We hadn’t exactly earned our Thermarests that day, spending most of it eating or sitting in the car – lesson learned. Through the night, Manny only attempted to escape twice, both times followed by attempts to enter the tent with us, instead acquiescing to simply laying as close as possible to me in my sleeping bag while the door was still closed,
making our small tent even more squished.
Thus begins the tale of Labor Day weekend. In pursuit of a manageable long weekend adventure, and having been curious about the northernmost part of the coast of Maine for quite some time, we decided that it was time. The state of Maine is really darn big and that in all my travels within it, I had never been all the way up the coast.
As a bit of an aside, but with relevance to my previous blog about the lack of local friends, I have to start on Friday of the weekend and describe how our evening picnic came to be. While running on the Eastern Promenade one afternoon, I had a double-take moment where I thought I recognized a classmate from Bowdoin. Then, a few more strides down the path, I realized that it was, in fact, who I thought it was, though I was now out of comfortable earshot. I passed this information on to Chad, who did a little research through “Linked-In” for me (as you know, I am still a hold-out on social networks for the moment) and managed to get in touch with our friend, Pete. On my home from work the next day, I stopped at the tailor and happened to see Pete’s wife and we exchanged numbers and addresses – realizing that we lived only blocks away from each other. On my way out of the store, I got a message from Chad saying that, at the very moment when I had run into Joan in person, he had been chatting with Pete over email. We all decided it was fated that we should get together and arranged for a picnic on the Promenade . . .and voila, local friends, and we reconnected with them in person, (though we did reconnect over cyberspace as well). And so it finally begins – the making of local friends. Too bad they’re moving to South Portland next week.
On to Saturday. After loading up the car with loads of equipment and provisions for the weekend, we were off to see old friends – not so old, but in the strange conception of time when you have left a far away and different experience, it feels like longer ago than it really is. These are friends from La Maddalena who now live in Gardiner, Maine in a great old farmhouse that they’ve renovated. We lunched Italian style, visiting on their porch in the sun with a glass of wine and then enjoying a delicious, lingering meal while discussing where to buy rare Sardinian foods, like pane carasau (a cracker-crisp flat bread) and pecorino cheese, in Maine - they being foodies like us. We waxed on about the lifestyle we had in Italy and how other-worldly it seems now looking back. Finally, roused ourselves for the long drive north.
Our first destination was Cobscook Bay State Park, located, not surp
risingly, on Cobscook Bay. On the drive up, we listened to a western story on cd, making us remark on the first red-tipped leaves of late summer (we don’t use the "f" word yet) in accents as if we were gangster and gun moll. We finally got there and schlepped our stuff to our campsite (car camping does not inspire conservative packing and we had managed to easily fill up the Jetta with stuff, ourselves, and the pup), which was quite private and quiet. Just as we had set up our little blue tent, gotten the grill going with our lovely salmon filet we’d brought along, and set the picnic table for a fancy camp-dining experience, a few drops began to fall. Luckily, Chad had precautionarily put up the rain fly before we started cooking and we had kept our rain jackets handy - too bad Manny didn’t have his own slicker. He was quickly ushered into the vestibule of the tent, much to his dismay, so as not to become a wet, chilly dog, whereupon he repeatedly poked his nose out from under the flap 
and attempted to escape and we had to take turns pushing him back in. Despite the rain, we managed to eat our salmon, pouring a bit of water off our plates, and drink a little watered-down wine. Then, we headed to our snug tent for the requisite terrible first night’s sleep of any camping experience. We hadn’t exactly earned our Thermarests that day, spending most of it eating or sitting in the car – lesson learned. Through the night, Manny only attempted to escape twice, both times followed by attempts to enter the tent with us, instead acquiescing to simply laying as close as possible to me in my sleeping bag while the door was still closed,
making our small tent even more squished. The next morning, we caffeinated ourselves with our handy Italian stovetop caffeteria and were on our way to Quoddy Head State Park, 
located on a headland looking out towards Campobello Island in Canada. It was a gorgeous hike, which took us on a side loop along a plank path through a peat bog filled with red and green sphagnum mosses and insect-eating pitcher plants – apparently the result of a retreating glacier a long, long time ago. We ended our hike at a smooth rock beach, perfect for picnicking and a wade out into the 
chilly, clear water, and then scrambled up to the famous striped lighthouse. After our picnic, we went into the town of Lubec, dubbed the “easternmost town in the United States,” which was also one of the sleepiest – an interesting mix of neat 
frame captain’s houses that were painted whimsical colors set next to shoddier versions of the same that looked long abandoned. In a quick moment, we had seen the entire town.
This left us a bit more time than anticipated, so that we could see Eastport, the “easternmost city in the US,” though I might down-classify these both locales as a village and a town, the c
laim to Eastport’s city-dom being a bit presumptuous. That said, I had imagined Eastport to be a little run down and depressing, having lost much of its fishing and processing industry years ago, but it was burgeoning with art galleries and renovations to early 20th century brick buildings that lined the main street. At one end of town, we were reminded of the 
fishing heritage by a large gnome-like statue of a fisherman, supposedly erected for a reality TV show. The harbor was full of well-kept fishing boats and loads of people fishing off the pier for mackerel, swimming through the swift current. On our way out of town, we saw the current ripping through the narrows with fish jumping and a plevy of seals having an easy meal.
located on a headland looking out towards Campobello Island in Canada. It was a gorgeous hike, which took us on a side loop along a plank path through a peat bog filled with red and green sphagnum mosses and insect-eating pitcher plants – apparently the result of a retreating glacier a long, long time ago. We ended our hike at a smooth rock beach, perfect for picnicking and a wade out into the 
chilly, clear water, and then scrambled up to the famous striped lighthouse. After our picnic, we went into the town of Lubec, dubbed the “easternmost town in the United States,” which was also one of the sleepiest – an interesting mix of neat 
frame captain’s houses that were painted whimsical colors set next to shoddier versions of the same that looked long abandoned. In a quick moment, we had seen the entire town.This left us a bit more time than anticipated, so that we could see Eastport, the “easternmost city in the US,” though I might down-classify these both locales as a village and a town, the c
laim to Eastport’s city-dom being a bit presumptuous. That said, I had imagined Eastport to be a little run down and depressing, having lost much of its fishing and processing industry years ago, but it was burgeoning with art galleries and renovations to early 20th century brick buildings that lined the main street. At one end of town, we were reminded of the 
fishing heritage by a large gnome-like statue of a fisherman, supposedly erected for a reality TV show. The harbor was full of well-kept fishing boats and loads of people fishing off the pier for mackerel, swimming through the swift current. On our way out of town, we saw the current ripping through the narrows with fish jumping and a plevy of seals having an easy meal. From there, we drove out to Shackford Head, where we went for a quick walk out the headland through drizzly rain, hoping that we would return to have a drier dinner experience that night. We read that the beach nearby was the site where several Civil Wa
r ships had been burned - their stories told on an array of plaques. Maybe they just needed an out of the way spot that wouldn’t draw too much attention. The precipice at the end of our hike looked out in one direction over an array of salmon aquaculture pens, which are an important part of the economy in Downeast Maine, and, in the other, over the breaking clouds and streaming evening light on the water. Afterwards, we happily made use of the campground showers before preparing dinner under clear skies at our campsite. A long day of exploring, hot showers, a filling dinner finished by some Kahlua-enhanced hot chocolate enjoyed fireside, all led to a good night’s sleep. Just to be sure of it, we also clipped Manny’s leash to the tent to prevent a midnight runaway pup.
The next morning, we drove to Cutler to hike the Bold Coast Trail, having provisioned with a picnic and plenty o
f water for the 10-mile loop. It was truly a magical experience with no one on the trail but us for nearly the whole distance. We walked the inland portion of the trail first, discovering woodland delights such as a purple fungus, a wood frog hopping across the path, and an array of 
animal scat filled with the wild berries that grew rampant – blackberries, raspberries, and low bush blueberries (our favorite). Finally, we emerged at the coast, sunlight illuminating the tiny village of Cutler with its picturesque white lighthouse. We lunched at a fantastic rocky outcropping and watched the waves crash below while airing out our sweaty t-shirts, (an illustration of gender differences).
Amidst the rocks, we found cranberries
growing and glugged the rest of a near-empty water bottle to make a collection container, now prepped to gather more berries on the return journey. There were endless patches of blueberries, bigger than any wild ones I’d seen, and we couldn’t stop picking them until we’d filled up the entire bottle. Even Manny partook, nibbling away as we stooped over the bushes. I recently saw a sign outside a shop in Portland that said, “wine is sunlight trapped in water.” I think blueberries are Maine summer captured in water. A bit disappointed that our lunch spot didn’t provide a swimming opportunity, I spotted a perfect pebbly beach part 
way back and we refreshed our tired, sweaty selves – rinfrescante, as the Italians would say – quite cold! All told, one of the best hikes we’ve ever done anywhere in the world – really.
And for the final leg of our journey, we drove south to Acadia National Park to visit friends who live in Bar Harbor. Almost comically, as we crossed onto Mount Desert Island, a bald eagle flew over head. Matt and Sara, our friends there, said they had ordered it to greet us. We spent a relaxing night with them, sharing recent life stories, and then said goodbye in the morning after a short hike in the park.
A long, but very scenic drive back, accompanied by more coarse western stories, put us back at 5 Sheridan where we did a marathon of laundry and dishes after cleaning out our car of all the camping accoutrements (when you’re camping for just a few days, who really needs to do dishes?). Even Manny got a bath. And, thus ends the first Portland travelogue. We are determined to have many more, so stay tuned, though I am sure to muse some more as well along the way as well.
r ships had been burned - their stories told on an array of plaques. Maybe they just needed an out of the way spot that wouldn’t draw too much attention. The precipice at the end of our hike looked out in one direction over an array of salmon aquaculture pens, which are an important part of the economy in Downeast Maine, and, in the other, over the breaking clouds and streaming evening light on the water. Afterwards, we happily made use of the campground showers before preparing dinner under clear skies at our campsite. A long day of exploring, hot showers, a filling dinner finished by some Kahlua-enhanced hot chocolate enjoyed fireside, all led to a good night’s sleep. Just to be sure of it, we also clipped Manny’s leash to the tent to prevent a midnight runaway pup.
The next morning, we drove to Cutler to hike the Bold Coast Trail, having provisioned with a picnic and plenty o
f water for the 10-mile loop. It was truly a magical experience with no one on the trail but us for nearly the whole distance. We walked the inland portion of the trail first, discovering woodland delights such as a purple fungus, a wood frog hopping across the path, and an array of 
animal scat filled with the wild berries that grew rampant – blackberries, raspberries, and low bush blueberries (our favorite). Finally, we emerged at the coast, sunlight illuminating the tiny village of Cutler with its picturesque white lighthouse. We lunched at a fantastic rocky outcropping and watched the waves crash below while airing out our sweaty t-shirts, (an illustration of gender differences).Amidst the rocks, we found cranberries
growing and glugged the rest of a near-empty water bottle to make a collection container, now prepped to gather more berries on the return journey. There were endless patches of blueberries, bigger than any wild ones I’d seen, and we couldn’t stop picking them until we’d filled up the entire bottle. Even Manny partook, nibbling away as we stooped over the bushes. I recently saw a sign outside a shop in Portland that said, “wine is sunlight trapped in water.” I think blueberries are Maine summer captured in water. A bit disappointed that our lunch spot didn’t provide a swimming opportunity, I spotted a perfect pebbly beach part 
way back and we refreshed our tired, sweaty selves – rinfrescante, as the Italians would say – quite cold! All told, one of the best hikes we’ve ever done anywhere in the world – really.And for the final leg of our journey, we drove south to Acadia National Park to visit friends who live in Bar Harbor. Almost comically, as we crossed onto Mount Desert Island, a bald eagle flew over head. Matt and Sara, our friends there, said they had ordered it to greet us. We spent a relaxing night with them, sharing recent life stories, and then said goodbye in the morning after a short hike in the park.
A long, but very scenic drive back, accompanied by more coarse western stories, put us back at 5 Sheridan where we did a marathon of laundry and dishes after cleaning out our car of all the camping accoutrements (when you’re camping for just a few days, who really needs to do dishes?). Even Manny got a bath. And, thus ends the first Portland travelogue. We are determined to have many more, so stay tuned, though I am sure to muse some more as well along the way as well.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Why I have no friends
Ok, I have lots of friends. But, none of them are here. Every weekend, it seems we are going somewhere. And then, we come home and we are alone in the great city of Portland. I think that, since moving back to Portland in March, we have been in Portland for a grand total of four complete weekends. And, most of those we have spent mostly alone and are glad to do so as we have had a very busy social calendar in just five short months. So, it feels like we have loads of friends, sometimes like we have too many and we’d just like some peace and quiet. But, what we don’t have is local friends to call up last minute and grab a drink or dinner on a Saturday night. One of the things that we had looked forward to getting out of the Navy and moving back to the US and especially choosing to live in town in Portland was to be part of a community where we could develop a local network and put down some roots and not worry about leaving in a couple of years. But, here we are. I realize that this is a bit premature as we haven’t even been here for six months, but it still feels funny.
We have loads of friends in the states of New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts, all within an afternoon’s drive from us. These are the people that we spend most of our time with. We travel to see each other – a kind of social commuting. Think of the cost of this. Sometimes I think I should start a “Friend Local” campaign to complement the “Buy Local” movement that has grown so popular. It would encourage people to cut down on their social carbon footprint and support local communities by making friends with their neighbors instead of driving to and fro all of the time. It really does seem silly how many people are essentially trading places on the weekends to see their friends in different places. But, we love them and no new friend can live up to the worn warmth of an old friend. It’s just that we don’t have any energy left to add in local friends to the mix and so we remain in this transient state - although we so much want to be part of a community, we just aren’t here enough because we are busy with friends elsewhere.
I would never give these friends up and I could never relegate them to simply being electronic friends because of the fantastic immeasurable value of physical human togetherness, though I have had to do this with many friends who are simply too far away to see on a regular basis, which brings up another challenge to making local friends.
I know they’re out there. Every day I see people who look jolly and adventurous – perfect “new friend material,” but then my cell phone rings and it is a friend from San Francisco and they’re gone. When I get home, I think, maybe I’ll walk up to the local coffee shop and hang out for a bit and see if I meet any interesting people. But, then I check my email and there’s a new note from a friend in Spain and I forget about getting coffee. And, here I am, blogging, to keep in touch with all of you rather than meeting the people who live next door. You get so good at distance communication and find ways to use emoticons and punctuation to show your emotions when you can’t literally show them, that you feel like you’re almost there with a person. It’s amazing how much someone’s own “voice” can come through in the tone of an email and how skilled we’ve become in getting that across when we can’t see each other face to face.
I have wonderful friends all over the country and I love that I can keep in touch with them when I can’t see them and that it is so easy to communicate with people so far away. Think about what it must have been like back in the days of letter writing when months would pass with no news from loved ones because the ship carrying the letter sank in a storm or maybe the letter was just lost. Now, in a matter of seconds, you can have an exchange with someone halfway around the world! And, knowing that you may only get one letter through every few months, think of the effort put into composing that letter. It would be no dashed off two line email to say you heard a song that reminded you of the time you were at summer camp together.
You would think that because communication is so much more efficient now, we would spend less time doing it. But, it seems to be just the opposite. It is so simple to call or text or email or Skype or chat or blog that you can hardly resist. And, other people can’t resist either, so that you’ve got to respond to all of these flitting thoughts all of the time. On one hand, I love to know when a distant friend is thinking of me, but on another, I feel compelled to immediately write back. As a result, it sometimes seems like I have a virtual secondary life, and I don’t even participate in online gaming or serious virtual worlding that is out there.
Between seeing not-so-local friends and keeping up with distant friends, I find that my social budget is pretty much used up both in hours and emotional supply and that there isn’t much left to make friends in my own neighborhood.
Enter the social inventions of “Facebook” and “Linked In” and the like. These sites attempt to reunite the floating lost souls who once hung out in college or at an old job and have since moved across the country and lost each other, as we have all become so ridiculously mobile that this is more the norm than the exception. The mere existence of such networking sites proves that quick communication is imperfect and that you can still lose touch with people and that there is a need for a way to reunite. Although, I have snobbishly never subscribed to these website because I figure that I am in touch with anyone that I would want to find and that I probably lost touch with those others for a reason. I do admit, however, that I have heard many stories of successful reunions and have also poached these reconnections from other people who have alerted me to old friends who now live nearby.
This brings up the concept of the friend swap. Every time I move to a new city or have a friend that is doing so, we swap contact lists of people who we think the other would enjoy. I recently had one of these experiences where I had a kind of friend “first date” with a friend of a friend. You talk about the friend in common, a bit about yourselves, suffer through a few pauses, and then evaluate whether you think you’ll actually ever hang out. While I have never had an unpleasant experience of this sort, it always feels a little forced; really, you have been set up on a blind date. Sometimes it works and sometimes you pleasantly part and go your separate ways.
So, what do we do about this? I really don’t know. I want to have it all – not-so-local friends, distant friends, AND local friends. I know it will require patience, for one, but also perhaps some creativity. Maybe I do need to join “Facebook” – who knows. Any ideas? I’d love to hear them. Commiserations are welcome too, of course.
We have loads of friends in the states of New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts, all within an afternoon’s drive from us. These are the people that we spend most of our time with. We travel to see each other – a kind of social commuting. Think of the cost of this. Sometimes I think I should start a “Friend Local” campaign to complement the “Buy Local” movement that has grown so popular. It would encourage people to cut down on their social carbon footprint and support local communities by making friends with their neighbors instead of driving to and fro all of the time. It really does seem silly how many people are essentially trading places on the weekends to see their friends in different places. But, we love them and no new friend can live up to the worn warmth of an old friend. It’s just that we don’t have any energy left to add in local friends to the mix and so we remain in this transient state - although we so much want to be part of a community, we just aren’t here enough because we are busy with friends elsewhere.
I would never give these friends up and I could never relegate them to simply being electronic friends because of the fantastic immeasurable value of physical human togetherness, though I have had to do this with many friends who are simply too far away to see on a regular basis, which brings up another challenge to making local friends.
I know they’re out there. Every day I see people who look jolly and adventurous – perfect “new friend material,” but then my cell phone rings and it is a friend from San Francisco and they’re gone. When I get home, I think, maybe I’ll walk up to the local coffee shop and hang out for a bit and see if I meet any interesting people. But, then I check my email and there’s a new note from a friend in Spain and I forget about getting coffee. And, here I am, blogging, to keep in touch with all of you rather than meeting the people who live next door. You get so good at distance communication and find ways to use emoticons and punctuation to show your emotions when you can’t literally show them, that you feel like you’re almost there with a person. It’s amazing how much someone’s own “voice” can come through in the tone of an email and how skilled we’ve become in getting that across when we can’t see each other face to face.
I have wonderful friends all over the country and I love that I can keep in touch with them when I can’t see them and that it is so easy to communicate with people so far away. Think about what it must have been like back in the days of letter writing when months would pass with no news from loved ones because the ship carrying the letter sank in a storm or maybe the letter was just lost. Now, in a matter of seconds, you can have an exchange with someone halfway around the world! And, knowing that you may only get one letter through every few months, think of the effort put into composing that letter. It would be no dashed off two line email to say you heard a song that reminded you of the time you were at summer camp together.
You would think that because communication is so much more efficient now, we would spend less time doing it. But, it seems to be just the opposite. It is so simple to call or text or email or Skype or chat or blog that you can hardly resist. And, other people can’t resist either, so that you’ve got to respond to all of these flitting thoughts all of the time. On one hand, I love to know when a distant friend is thinking of me, but on another, I feel compelled to immediately write back. As a result, it sometimes seems like I have a virtual secondary life, and I don’t even participate in online gaming or serious virtual worlding that is out there.
Between seeing not-so-local friends and keeping up with distant friends, I find that my social budget is pretty much used up both in hours and emotional supply and that there isn’t much left to make friends in my own neighborhood.
Enter the social inventions of “Facebook” and “Linked In” and the like. These sites attempt to reunite the floating lost souls who once hung out in college or at an old job and have since moved across the country and lost each other, as we have all become so ridiculously mobile that this is more the norm than the exception. The mere existence of such networking sites proves that quick communication is imperfect and that you can still lose touch with people and that there is a need for a way to reunite. Although, I have snobbishly never subscribed to these website because I figure that I am in touch with anyone that I would want to find and that I probably lost touch with those others for a reason. I do admit, however, that I have heard many stories of successful reunions and have also poached these reconnections from other people who have alerted me to old friends who now live nearby.
This brings up the concept of the friend swap. Every time I move to a new city or have a friend that is doing so, we swap contact lists of people who we think the other would enjoy. I recently had one of these experiences where I had a kind of friend “first date” with a friend of a friend. You talk about the friend in common, a bit about yourselves, suffer through a few pauses, and then evaluate whether you think you’ll actually ever hang out. While I have never had an unpleasant experience of this sort, it always feels a little forced; really, you have been set up on a blind date. Sometimes it works and sometimes you pleasantly part and go your separate ways.
So, what do we do about this? I really don’t know. I want to have it all – not-so-local friends, distant friends, AND local friends. I know it will require patience, for one, but also perhaps some creativity. Maybe I do need to join “Facebook” – who knows. Any ideas? I’d love to hear them. Commiserations are welcome too, of course.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Why We Work
One afternoon at the Sheraton Conference center in Wakefield, MA, running on a treadmill next to twenty or so other young professionals getting in their day’s activity, I was suddenly struck by the absurdity of the productivity level of all of these bodies spinning machines with fancy lighted displays showing how many calories have been burned or how many virtual miles have been traveled. How was it that this required electricity rather than generated it? This seemed particularly poignant as I was at a meeting for the Ocean Conservancy, where I am now working to protect the ocean environment from the effects of humankind, one of which is the enormous amount of resources we consume every day.
It is inspiring to be part of an organization so dedicated to conservation and actually making a difference in bringing about new legislation and protections for the marine environment. The environmental movement is much more advanced in this country than in Italy where organizations such as the National Park of the La Maddalena Archipelago, ostensibly designed to protect the area, are mere facades of conservation rather than actually doing much to conserve anything. In fact, the environmental movement was born in the US as a part of the country’s heritage and appreciation of the seemingly boundless resources here. The first national park, Yellowstone, was designated in 1872 in order to protect a piece of nature for all to enjoy in the future, thus putting a distinct value on nature as a necessary source of happiness for Americans. There is a recognition of the inherent value of nature and the landscape, which is also expressed as part of the - to have a piece of its land for yourself, a kind of natural oasis of privacy from the rest of the world.
But, as I was watching all of this vigorous activity vaporize into the moist gym-air against the backdrop of flashing electronic panels, using electricity rather than generating it, the conundrum hit me. We have to protect the resources that we love because we use loads of them. As a part of the American dream, we build big houses set on big plots of land connected by roads that we drive down in our big cars to get to the big stores. The largess of things is a tangential topic, which I won’t go into right now, but is relevant nonetheless. On top of the scale of things, think of the power and water and sewer lines that run criss-crossing long distances to provide services to all of these little oases. Having lived in a culture where everyone lives virtually on top of one another even when there is ample space to spread out, I can say that it is definitely nice to be back in a culture where people place a high value on personal space, but it has also become apparent that, in order to have it, requires a lot of resources.
Add to that the busyness of our culture and the drive to be productive in all that we do. I plead guilty to reading my email about one subject, writing unrelated notes about a second, all while talking on the phone about a third. But, I’m saving the planet, right? It just requires that I create lots of reports and brochures that I print out on reams of paper and ship all over the place (not to mention the people that fundraise for environmental non-profits through zillions of mailings), and I drive to places like Wakefield for meetings or fly to DC and I need to have an office with a fax and a copier and telephones and computers and lights and heating and cooling systems that are on all the time in order that I can successfully protect the world’s oceans. If I wasn’t doing this, I would probably be outside enjoying the ocean and using virtually no resources at all, having walked or biked my way there and relishing in being disconnected from all electronic devices. This is not to mention the fact that I have noticed that the more I work, the more resources I consume in my personal life – I dry my laundry in a dryer rather than hanging it outside, I vacuum instead of sweep, making use of machines that I have to plug in to do my work in less time. Add to that driving more, eating more pre-packaged food, and working out at gymns!
Maybe it is out of a sense of collective guilt that environmentalism has grown increasingly popular. We love the idea of conservation of the very nature that drew people to populate this country in the first place and that we identify with so strongly. And so, we race around working very hard to protect it and we are, on the whole, well ahead of the rest of the world. In Italy, for example, there is a great appreciation for nature as well, but the same sense of stewardship does not exist. Nature is thought of as a place that is there for everyone to enjoy but no one to take ownership or responsibility for. Here, we are so used to the idea of owning our own piece of it that it makes sense to organize ourselves to manage it well – to have established parks, monitoring programs to keep track of wildlife, water quality protections in place, and rules – lots of rules – in place to tell people how to behave when using this nature.
While we are ahead in protections for the environment, we are far behind in reducing our resource consumption. Don’t we have to do promote environmentalism because we use so many resources on a daily basis that if we didn’t use up some of these resources protecting and defending nature, it wouldn’t be there at all? Or, could we just use less in the first place and spend fewer resources protecting it? Skeptics of the environmental movement might then say that all of us environmentalists ought to quit our jobs and stay home and we’d have a bigger impact. Maybe we’d all be happier too. But, part one of the great things about Americans is their drive towards progress - we all have a need to be a part of that which is ingrained through our upbringing and reinforced by everything around us. So, perhaps there is a middle ground out there where we will realize that a pace that is a little slower is actually more productive and consumes fewer resources. Then, I think we really would all be happier (and save the planet too).
It is inspiring to be part of an organization so dedicated to conservation and actually making a difference in bringing about new legislation and protections for the marine environment. The environmental movement is much more advanced in this country than in Italy where organizations such as the National Park of the La Maddalena Archipelago, ostensibly designed to protect the area, are mere facades of conservation rather than actually doing much to conserve anything. In fact, the environmental movement was born in the US as a part of the country’s heritage and appreciation of the seemingly boundless resources here. The first national park, Yellowstone, was designated in 1872 in order to protect a piece of nature for all to enjoy in the future, thus putting a distinct value on nature as a necessary source of happiness for Americans. There is a recognition of the inherent value of nature and the landscape, which is also expressed as part of the - to have a piece of its land for yourself, a kind of natural oasis of privacy from the rest of the world.
But, as I was watching all of this vigorous activity vaporize into the moist gym-air against the backdrop of flashing electronic panels, using electricity rather than generating it, the conundrum hit me. We have to protect the resources that we love because we use loads of them. As a part of the American dream, we build big houses set on big plots of land connected by roads that we drive down in our big cars to get to the big stores. The largess of things is a tangential topic, which I won’t go into right now, but is relevant nonetheless. On top of the scale of things, think of the power and water and sewer lines that run criss-crossing long distances to provide services to all of these little oases. Having lived in a culture where everyone lives virtually on top of one another even when there is ample space to spread out, I can say that it is definitely nice to be back in a culture where people place a high value on personal space, but it has also become apparent that, in order to have it, requires a lot of resources.
Add to that the busyness of our culture and the drive to be productive in all that we do. I plead guilty to reading my email about one subject, writing unrelated notes about a second, all while talking on the phone about a third. But, I’m saving the planet, right? It just requires that I create lots of reports and brochures that I print out on reams of paper and ship all over the place (not to mention the people that fundraise for environmental non-profits through zillions of mailings), and I drive to places like Wakefield for meetings or fly to DC and I need to have an office with a fax and a copier and telephones and computers and lights and heating and cooling systems that are on all the time in order that I can successfully protect the world’s oceans. If I wasn’t doing this, I would probably be outside enjoying the ocean and using virtually no resources at all, having walked or biked my way there and relishing in being disconnected from all electronic devices. This is not to mention the fact that I have noticed that the more I work, the more resources I consume in my personal life – I dry my laundry in a dryer rather than hanging it outside, I vacuum instead of sweep, making use of machines that I have to plug in to do my work in less time. Add to that driving more, eating more pre-packaged food, and working out at gymns!
Maybe it is out of a sense of collective guilt that environmentalism has grown increasingly popular. We love the idea of conservation of the very nature that drew people to populate this country in the first place and that we identify with so strongly. And so, we race around working very hard to protect it and we are, on the whole, well ahead of the rest of the world. In Italy, for example, there is a great appreciation for nature as well, but the same sense of stewardship does not exist. Nature is thought of as a place that is there for everyone to enjoy but no one to take ownership or responsibility for. Here, we are so used to the idea of owning our own piece of it that it makes sense to organize ourselves to manage it well – to have established parks, monitoring programs to keep track of wildlife, water quality protections in place, and rules – lots of rules – in place to tell people how to behave when using this nature.
While we are ahead in protections for the environment, we are far behind in reducing our resource consumption. Don’t we have to do promote environmentalism because we use so many resources on a daily basis that if we didn’t use up some of these resources protecting and defending nature, it wouldn’t be there at all? Or, could we just use less in the first place and spend fewer resources protecting it? Skeptics of the environmental movement might then say that all of us environmentalists ought to quit our jobs and stay home and we’d have a bigger impact. Maybe we’d all be happier too. But, part one of the great things about Americans is their drive towards progress - we all have a need to be a part of that which is ingrained through our upbringing and reinforced by everything around us. So, perhaps there is a middle ground out there where we will realize that a pace that is a little slower is actually more productive and consumes fewer resources. Then, I think we really would all be happier (and save the planet too).
Friday, June 13, 2008
Zinging
I have started this several times now and have gotten stuck on how to do a Portland blog. I haven’t traveled to any exotic places lately, or eaten wormy cheese. I am, instead, finding intrigue in the daily life of living back in the United States after being away for 18 months. These are the things that I think about, not the next grand adventure, and so I have to start a fresh blog that is completely different, but that is a big challenge. I know that it is rather commonplace to say that living overseas gives you a new perspective on life in your own country, but certain things are repeated because they are true. At the risk of sounding snobby, it is a little like climbing the Eiffel Tower. You think, “I don’t need to do that. Everyone who comes to Paris thinks they need to go up the tower. I’d rather spend the afternoon looking for the out-of-the-way spots than succumb to another tourist trap.” But, then, you give in and go up, and it is fantastic, and you think, “There is actually a reason why everyone goes up in the tower.” There are two age-old truths here: that you don’t appreciate something until you experience it for yourself and that many people have already discovered what, for you, is a new discovery. To that end, I have always scoffed at people who said that living abroad enlightened them with regard to American culture, and thought it sounded rather erudite. But, now I am experiencing it for myself, and it is enlightening, but also a little uncomfortable.
I think that there are certain things worth exploring about this transitional period and thought that, perhaps, that is the best theme for my Portland blog. I am approaching it as a sort of regular column with my musings on life in America as a 30-something living in Portland, Maine and figuring out what I miss about Italy and what I missed about the U.S. So, I have called in “New American Musings,” though that might not stick. I am open to other suggestions . . .
As I said, I have tried to start a Portland blog several times and gotten stuck because I have so many things zinging through my head about what it has been like to move back. So, I think that is the best first topic: the zinging itself and where it originates. Being a food-centric person, as well as one who is interested in the basic elements of a culture and how people function within it, I will begin with what it was like to go to an American grocery store for the first time upon my return. For contrast, you can read my story entitled, “Making Thai Curry in Sardegna,” about learning the ropes of the Italian grocery shopping experience. Now, I’ve got to learn the reverse.
We moved back to Maine in March and arrived before all of our belongings, which were coming via ship, plane, and truck both from San Diego, where we had stored things that we had long forgotten the identities of, and from Sardinia. With a kind of survival kit lovingly packed by Chad’s mom, we moved into our rented house in Portland in the middle of the month and waited for our stuff. We dined on a picnic table salvaged from the garage, using place mats as seats on the old benches, which would otherwise have left prints of old paint on our pants, and used our sets of two: two plates, two forks, two knives, two glasses, marveling at the simplicity of cooking with one pot and a frying pan. I have gotten ahead of myself a little bit, as none of this was possible without a trip to the grocery store. Portland has its local Hannaford store on the Back Cove, which was redone just as we were leaving Maine nearly five years ago and it is often ogled over for its selection of wonderful breads, fresh produce, and a myriad of ethnic foods. So, we were excited to check it out and buy some basic supplies to make our first dinner in our new place.
Without getting too bogged down in the details, I will summarize by saying that I made it through the store in a sort of wide-eyed daze that seemed a bit like what I imagine it might be like to experience a strong hallucinogenic drug. The store was a carnival of sensory experience with mounds of fresh produce from all over the world, self-serve stations filled with a dozen types of olives, and a deli case filled with meats of all sorts – ground, sliced, bone in or boneless, skin on or off, free range pent-up? or whatever you call its opposite, not to mention those that were marinated in one of three different sauces, skewered on kebabs or stuffed with a variety of goodies. My head was spinning before I even made it to the dry goods section. There, the canned tomatoes took up nearly half an aisle – stewed, diced, whole, peeled, crushed, organic, imported. . . “Who cares! I just want some damned tomatoes,” I thought. At this point, Chad began to see the glazed look on my face of a Sooz-turned-automaton just trying to hang on through the pin-ball machine of the store and out through the nearest escape hatch, having collected as many goods along the way while being battered back and forth by the innumerable choices.
In Sardinia, I was dying for the selection I had once had in the U.S., where I could buy Mexican, Thai, and Greek foods all at the same store in any variety and quantity I desired. But, now I wasn’t sure I could handle the variety. The biggest store in Palau, where I shopped, would fit in half of the produce section of this store. No wonder Americans are so stressed – one can only handle making so many decisions each day and most of them are used up before you run to the store at the end of the day to pick something up for dinner. What power can you possibly have left to navigate such a carnival.
In addition to the having been overwhelmed by this variety, I emerged, outside, at the end of it all, having never interacted with a single other human being. Not even a friendly checker, as we had avoided the day’s-end long lines and headed through the self check-out. Had I tried to purchase a bottle of wine, which requires an ID, I might have actually talked to another human, but I did not. Chad might even argue that I didn’t interact with him, as it was all I could do just to focus on surviving the shopping experience. We were able to do the self check-out because, despite the enormity of items available, we had successfully stuck to a short list of basic supplies in an effort to get out of there as quickly as possible. Even so, to get these same items back in Palau, I would have had to talk to at least four people – the butcher, the produce vendor, the cheese lady, and the checker. These were the people that, though my Italian was never perfect, always said hello and helped me to find what I needed. Here, I thought, back in my own culture, where I am perfectly equipped to have conversations with anyone I please and can intelligently discuss complicated issues without having to come up with hand gestures to help me in my explanations, I had not a single interaction in my whole shopping experience! What is wrong here! Have we modernized ourselves right out of human interaction? I suppose everyone is too busy virtually interacting with each other on the blackberries and cell phones or on My Space or Face Book, but what about the irreplaceable face-to-face interactions of humans satisfying their innate, animal, social needs.
Thus was my introduction back into shopping in America. While it may seem silly to focus on a grocery store experience, it is something that nearly everyone has to do in every culture around the world and it has the power to shape your human experience. In this case, it brought to light more all-encompassing aspects of American culture than I had anticipated and made me think hard about the way that we American functions. I realize that I am comparing two things that are unequal on several levels in that I lived in a small town in Sardinia and now live in a medium-sized city in America. I do not intend to compare the US to Italy, as many of my observations about American life are likely to be similar in the urban areas of Italy as well. But, it doesn’t really matter. The observations are the same. The point is that I never quite realized the impact that these small daily events, such as grocery shopping, both illustrate the culture of a group and define it at the same time until I saw it as if I were an outsider.
So, I am faced with a dilemma: do I continue to gripe about things and try to find another way to shop – there are several small neighborhood grocery stores, but they are specialty shops and few carry basic things like meats and produce. Otherwise, I would seize this opportunity happily and forgo the big weekly grocery trip that I have now adopted into my routine. But, this would, in some ways keep me in a culture in which I no longer live and inhibit my attempts to assimilate into my "new” culture. Or, I can charge forward and embrace the variety and efficiency that an impersonal shopping experience affords, thus better experiencing what the masses do. Then, I can be a grouch with them about the same things in the same way and thereby feel a part of things, for better or for worse. At the moment, I have chosen mostly to do the latter and to buck up for the big weekly shop, though I have incorporated a run around the Back Cove prior to shopping to calm my nerves. I can look at my weekly shopping trip as a kind of sociological experiment and deal with it more easily as a study in common experience. Although, I recently heard that there is a new neighborhood market opening up that will have produce and meats – a one-stop dinner shopping spot which is sure to require human interaction and have a smaller selection of items to choose from. I will have to decide whether I’ve had enough of my cultural experiment and can now choose the alternate path. Or, perhaps, by then, I will have adapted and shopping at the big store will be a breeze.
I hope you have enjoyed the first edition of my “Musings”. You will notice that there is a comments section where you can post your thoughts, or just say hello and let me know what you are up to. I would love to hear from you all in either case.
I think that there are certain things worth exploring about this transitional period and thought that, perhaps, that is the best theme for my Portland blog. I am approaching it as a sort of regular column with my musings on life in America as a 30-something living in Portland, Maine and figuring out what I miss about Italy and what I missed about the U.S. So, I have called in “New American Musings,” though that might not stick. I am open to other suggestions . . .
As I said, I have tried to start a Portland blog several times and gotten stuck because I have so many things zinging through my head about what it has been like to move back. So, I think that is the best first topic: the zinging itself and where it originates. Being a food-centric person, as well as one who is interested in the basic elements of a culture and how people function within it, I will begin with what it was like to go to an American grocery store for the first time upon my return. For contrast, you can read my story entitled, “Making Thai Curry in Sardegna,” about learning the ropes of the Italian grocery shopping experience. Now, I’ve got to learn the reverse.
We moved back to Maine in March and arrived before all of our belongings, which were coming via ship, plane, and truck both from San Diego, where we had stored things that we had long forgotten the identities of, and from Sardinia. With a kind of survival kit lovingly packed by Chad’s mom, we moved into our rented house in Portland in the middle of the month and waited for our stuff. We dined on a picnic table salvaged from the garage, using place mats as seats on the old benches, which would otherwise have left prints of old paint on our pants, and used our sets of two: two plates, two forks, two knives, two glasses, marveling at the simplicity of cooking with one pot and a frying pan. I have gotten ahead of myself a little bit, as none of this was possible without a trip to the grocery store. Portland has its local Hannaford store on the Back Cove, which was redone just as we were leaving Maine nearly five years ago and it is often ogled over for its selection of wonderful breads, fresh produce, and a myriad of ethnic foods. So, we were excited to check it out and buy some basic supplies to make our first dinner in our new place.
Without getting too bogged down in the details, I will summarize by saying that I made it through the store in a sort of wide-eyed daze that seemed a bit like what I imagine it might be like to experience a strong hallucinogenic drug. The store was a carnival of sensory experience with mounds of fresh produce from all over the world, self-serve stations filled with a dozen types of olives, and a deli case filled with meats of all sorts – ground, sliced, bone in or boneless, skin on or off, free range pent-up? or whatever you call its opposite, not to mention those that were marinated in one of three different sauces, skewered on kebabs or stuffed with a variety of goodies. My head was spinning before I even made it to the dry goods section. There, the canned tomatoes took up nearly half an aisle – stewed, diced, whole, peeled, crushed, organic, imported. . . “Who cares! I just want some damned tomatoes,” I thought. At this point, Chad began to see the glazed look on my face of a Sooz-turned-automaton just trying to hang on through the pin-ball machine of the store and out through the nearest escape hatch, having collected as many goods along the way while being battered back and forth by the innumerable choices.
In Sardinia, I was dying for the selection I had once had in the U.S., where I could buy Mexican, Thai, and Greek foods all at the same store in any variety and quantity I desired. But, now I wasn’t sure I could handle the variety. The biggest store in Palau, where I shopped, would fit in half of the produce section of this store. No wonder Americans are so stressed – one can only handle making so many decisions each day and most of them are used up before you run to the store at the end of the day to pick something up for dinner. What power can you possibly have left to navigate such a carnival.
In addition to the having been overwhelmed by this variety, I emerged, outside, at the end of it all, having never interacted with a single other human being. Not even a friendly checker, as we had avoided the day’s-end long lines and headed through the self check-out. Had I tried to purchase a bottle of wine, which requires an ID, I might have actually talked to another human, but I did not. Chad might even argue that I didn’t interact with him, as it was all I could do just to focus on surviving the shopping experience. We were able to do the self check-out because, despite the enormity of items available, we had successfully stuck to a short list of basic supplies in an effort to get out of there as quickly as possible. Even so, to get these same items back in Palau, I would have had to talk to at least four people – the butcher, the produce vendor, the cheese lady, and the checker. These were the people that, though my Italian was never perfect, always said hello and helped me to find what I needed. Here, I thought, back in my own culture, where I am perfectly equipped to have conversations with anyone I please and can intelligently discuss complicated issues without having to come up with hand gestures to help me in my explanations, I had not a single interaction in my whole shopping experience! What is wrong here! Have we modernized ourselves right out of human interaction? I suppose everyone is too busy virtually interacting with each other on the blackberries and cell phones or on My Space or Face Book, but what about the irreplaceable face-to-face interactions of humans satisfying their innate, animal, social needs.
Thus was my introduction back into shopping in America. While it may seem silly to focus on a grocery store experience, it is something that nearly everyone has to do in every culture around the world and it has the power to shape your human experience. In this case, it brought to light more all-encompassing aspects of American culture than I had anticipated and made me think hard about the way that we American functions. I realize that I am comparing two things that are unequal on several levels in that I lived in a small town in Sardinia and now live in a medium-sized city in America. I do not intend to compare the US to Italy, as many of my observations about American life are likely to be similar in the urban areas of Italy as well. But, it doesn’t really matter. The observations are the same. The point is that I never quite realized the impact that these small daily events, such as grocery shopping, both illustrate the culture of a group and define it at the same time until I saw it as if I were an outsider.
So, I am faced with a dilemma: do I continue to gripe about things and try to find another way to shop – there are several small neighborhood grocery stores, but they are specialty shops and few carry basic things like meats and produce. Otherwise, I would seize this opportunity happily and forgo the big weekly grocery trip that I have now adopted into my routine. But, this would, in some ways keep me in a culture in which I no longer live and inhibit my attempts to assimilate into my "new” culture. Or, I can charge forward and embrace the variety and efficiency that an impersonal shopping experience affords, thus better experiencing what the masses do. Then, I can be a grouch with them about the same things in the same way and thereby feel a part of things, for better or for worse. At the moment, I have chosen mostly to do the latter and to buck up for the big weekly shop, though I have incorporated a run around the Back Cove prior to shopping to calm my nerves. I can look at my weekly shopping trip as a kind of sociological experiment and deal with it more easily as a study in common experience. Although, I recently heard that there is a new neighborhood market opening up that will have produce and meats – a one-stop dinner shopping spot which is sure to require human interaction and have a smaller selection of items to choose from. I will have to decide whether I’ve had enough of my cultural experiment and can now choose the alternate path. Or, perhaps, by then, I will have adapted and shopping at the big store will be a breeze.
I hope you have enjoyed the first edition of my “Musings”. You will notice that there is a comments section where you can post your thoughts, or just say hello and let me know what you are up to. I would love to hear from you all in either case.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
22 Marzo
As it has been awhile since my last blog, I have yet to capture a few other significant adventures in the month of February. Shortly after returning from our trip to Romania, we went with the
same crew plus a couple of other friends to Oristano, a couple of hours south of Palau, to see S’Artiglia, one of the many festivals of
Carnevale and tauted as one of the best. On our way there, looking for a place for an afternoon amble, we stopped at the small town of Leonardo dei Siete Fuentes, so-called for the seven springs in the hillside above town, its name also reflecting the Spanish-Catalan influence in this part of Sardegna. We found a charming walkway starting from a
centuries-old stone church and continuing along moss-covered rocks dripping with moisture through oak groves sheltering picnic areas built of giant slabs of granite, surely a welcome cool place of respite in the heat of the summer. We filled our water bottles before leaving, only to later find out that these springs are famous for their radioactive, diuretic water – we would, apparently, shortly be lighting our own way to the nearest restroom.We spent the night at the Agriturismo L’Orto in San Vero Milis; it was the best combination of local production and modern convenience we’ve found in Sardegna – heated rooms and hot water! amidst beautiful orange groves, the best-known product of this region. This provoked a lengthy discussion about starting a sort of agriturismo-style lodge in the U.S. upon return in order to live the country life and spend days making cheese and tending the garden.The morning of the festival, we awoke to pouring rain and, over a lingering breakfast in the main house, imagined how miserable it would be to stand outside all day for the festival under these conditions. But, it soon began to clear, and by the time we arrived in Oristano, the sun had returned. The festival began with the dressing of the lead rider in the town hall. The tradition goes that the virgins of the town bind his head in many cloths
and then affix bridal veils to his head beneath a carved wooden mask, a process that takes many hours due to the degree of ceremony. He is then carried to his horse and placed upon it, as it is unlucky for his feet to touch the ground once he has been dressed. His mission is to spear a silver star hanging at the entrance of town with his sword while galloping through on his horse. If he succeeds, he brings good luck to the town for thefollowing year. This is a tradition that apparently goes back 400 years and was originally a wedding celebration.
He is followed by many other riders who attempt to accomplish the same thing, all dressed fantastically in the Aragonese costumes complete with wooden masks and saddle blankets 
covered in elaborate ribboned rosettes of all colors. For the event, the streets had been covered in sand andgrandstands set up above the location of the star for ticketed spectators. We, on the other hand,took turns hoisting each other up or elbowing our way to the front of the crowd to catch a glimpse of the riders’ attempts. Apparently, this is followed by a series of horseback acrobatic displays, but, needing to return in time to help out with the evening’s Superbowl festivities on the base, we left before this part of the festival. Chad managed to stay up virtually all night to sadly watch the Patriots end a perfect season with their one final loss being the championship.
Back in Palau, the Carnevale festivities were much quieter this year with the absence of the Americans. We did manage to see the parade on Martedi Grasso (Fat Tuesday) with its many
wildly-dressed te
enagers and reveling onlookers. While last year, the party continued late into the evening, this year things were nearly wrapped up by 8 o’clock. The most humorous of the floats this year was a mini-submarine bearing an American flag and a tin cup on the back soliciting offerings for the poor remaining
enagers and reveling onlookers. While last year, the party continued late into the evening, this year things were nearly wrapped up by 8 o’clock. The most humorous of the floats this year was a mini-submarine bearing an American flag and a tin cup on the back soliciting offerings for the poor remaining La Maddalenians. On the cup was written, “Lacrymi dei La Maddalenini” (tears of the La Maddalenians). There is much apprehension regarding what will happen with the economy here in the period following the base closure.
At the end of the week, Meredith, a friend from Bowdoin, came to visit – our very last guest. We had a wonderful time taking Manny for long walks, punctuated by frequent bird-spottings by Meredith, and touring around Palau and La Maddalena. And, finally, at nearly our last opportunity, we headed south to tag the southernmost tip of Sardegna with a visit to Cagliari. The first afternoon, we stretched our legs with a walk in the Foresta dei Sette Fratelli; seven must be a lucky number, as these were the seven peaks and we had just been to
the seven springs. It was a much lusher, boreal forest than in northern Sardegna and full of chirping birds to satisfy Mer. We spent the night in an agriturismo north of Cagliari which wound up being a bit further down a long, dark dirt road than we’d anticipated, but where we had a
delicious meal including capretto (baby goat) and agnello (lamb) from their farm. The agriturismo was also an environmental education center that provided courses and excursions for students and there were many trails in the surrounding hills which we explored the next morning. Then, we headed into the big city. Cagliari had the feel of a mainland Italian city with its bustling streets and diverse population such that it was easy to forget we were in Sardegna. Chad left us on our own here and headed back to Palau. We were to return by train the next day.
We walked until we dropped that afternoon, exploring the walled Castello district with its many guard towers and narrow cobblestone streets, as well as hunting for the alleged Phoenician tunnels beneath the botanical gardens to no avail. The next morning, we took the bus out to the salt flats and lagoons near Poetto beach to hunt for flamingos and other migratory rarities. Unsure exactly of we were going, we got off at what looked like a likely spot and found the flats, but couldn’t manage to find a way across the dyke that separated the main road from them. However, just as we were feeling disappointed, Meredith spotted flamingos across the way with her expert binoculars and, afterwards, many other interesting marsh birds. So, it was not a wash after all. A couple more hours of city exploring, some lunch and a gelato later (liquorice for me – a first), we got on the train, thus ending our southern tour. There was something romantic about riding through the Sardegnan countryside, looking out the window at rolling hills filled with sheep and shepherds’ houses while listening to opera on my ipod– perhaps an improvement on D.H. Lawrence’s experience.
Back in Palau, we prepared for the last shipment of our things to leave and, after a matter of just a couple of hours one morning, the house was nearly empty. Afterwards, we dug out our landlord’s furniture, bedding, and some basics to use in the kitchen to make it feel a little more homey. The chaos of moving is, I suppose, a good thing in terms of accepting leaving a place as it makes things feel enough different and enough less comfortable that it is easier to leave. With little left at home and things mostly reorganized for the moment, Meredith and I spent her last day in Sardegna in Santa Teresa, about a half hour from Palau, bird-watching and picnicking on the beach. It was a welcome reprieve from the sadness of our echoey house.
And then, she was off, and we were left in our place to enjoy the last weekend in Palau and to, delightedly, see the first of the spring wildflowers – purple crocus and yellow daffodils – poking up between the coastal rocks. Spring is a beautiful time in Sardegna and I am sad to leave with just a tease of its show. The final stretch of the weekend was spent cleaning out the house and packing up the car to transfer over to La Maddalena. We had gone back and forth about whether to stay in our house until the very end or move over to a temporary apartment in La Maddalena, and decided that, for simplicity, we would close up in Palau and move over along with the other few remaining Americans on the base. This, also, made it easier to leave, as it felt like, when we left Palau, life as we knew it in Sardegna was finished and it was time think of what was ahead in Maine. I couldn’t leave without a last early morning walk on the beach with Manny and one last dip in the Med after a run up the railroad tracks. On our way out, we also passed by Pietro and Lucia’s, the caretaker of our condo and his wife, to have a café and say goodbye with promises to come again when we return for vacation. And then, we waved goodbye to our home in Palau.
Now, the days left in Sardegna are dwindling and this will, as such, be the last blog from here. I am writing from our temporary apartment in La Maddalena. It feels strange to stay here, as it is the same apartment where we stayed when we first came to La Maddalena a year and half ago. The owners, Daniele and Pina, were wonderful hosts to us then, so we decided to stay with them again for the last stretch. Walking the streets around the apartment, I have been reminded of my early feelings upon arrival in La Maddalena - wonder at our luck to be coming to such a place and eagerness to get to know this small island community. Now, the shine has rubbed off a bit and we are able to find things to gripe about like the always-speeding cars on the very narrow streets, the stray dogs that follow me in a train when walking Manny, and the tap water, the color of weak beef broth, which has again taken its toll on my stomach despite my careful efforts not to ingest any of it. I realize, however, that I have generated most of these complaints in a subconscious effort to begin to distance myself, as it is much easier to leave a
place by focusing on its flaws, thereby further illuminating the place to which you will go. Just think - clothes dryers, potable water, and houses with heat! (although heat is a luxury of our temporary apartment and one which we greatly enjoyed during a recent cold snap that left brina (frost) on the plants outside our door). Daniele and Pina have made us feel welcome and looked once again after our final week here with little touches like a bowl of fruit and cookies awaiting us upon arrival and a recent gift of a bottle of Mirto for a dinner party we had last night.
I did, however, miss Palau immediately upon moving over to La Maddalena, and found myself back there several days this week. Andrea, our landlord, invited us over for dinner one evening and prepared a wonderful traditional feast complete with home-made wine and porceddu (roast suckling pig), a Sardegnan specialty we are sure to miss. We had tearful goodbyes and made promises to return as soon as is possible. On Friday, I went to the Palau market for the last time and made the rounds to visit many of the local vendors whom I had gotten to know over the last year and a half – the butcher, the fishmonger, the hairdresser, the wine shop proprietor, among others, exchanging addresses and best wishes along the way and trying not to feel too melancholic about our departure. I had lunch at Paola’s, a marine biologist whom I had befriended, and said another tearful goodbye when I finally headed home late in the afternoon. It is “dolce-amaro,” bitter sweet, to leave; I am grateful to be sad, as it makes me appreciate the people and experiences that made my time in Sardegna so special, but I still wish I had a little more time to enjoy them.
On Saturday morning, after several recent failed attempts due to windy weather, we were finally able to get out to the island of Spargi, the third biggest in the La Maddalena Archipelago, with our friend, Massimo, who is a guide for the park. Andrea, a friend of his
who caretakes a house on Spargi, came over to get us in his gommone (an inflatable rubber motor boat) and, after a bit of a struggle to get our scared pup into the boat, we skimmed across some of the most tranquil, flat water I’ve seen since living here, and in a short time arrived at Cala Corsara, the beach we could see from our house in Palau. Once ashore, we began a
beautiful hike up the ridge along old military roads to the lookout tower,
battling the thick macchia (scrubby dense vegetation) along the way. Our legs are still recovering from the beating they got - through our pants. The view up top was spectacular and we documented it with a group picture captured by the self-timer on
our carefully-balanced camera. On our descent, we saw old farmhouses and military barracks and watchtowers breaking through the dense green below, and also the white house where Andrea was working and towards which we were slowly battling in what we dubbed “La Guerra della Macchia” (The War Against the Macchia). And, finally we emerged at the beautiful oasis we’d seen from above and followed the rising smoke to find the fire that Andrea had started for our afternoon picnic. We dumped the rocks out of our shoes, picked spines from our socks, and stretched out in the sun while the sausages sizzled on the fire, smelling the sweet scents of burning juniper and elicriso. Fresh fruit and sliced fennel, bread and cheese, and a bit of homemade wine all accompanied our salsiccia for a delightful seaside picnic well-earned after our battle against the macchia. After lunch, we went on an easy walk along a well-cleared path (much to our relief) up to Punta Banditi, the site of another old military watch point. At lunch, Augosto, another caretaker of the house, bet me that I would find a bar at the top of the point to have a café, but I was skeptical.
I was happily proven wrong upon our arrival and enjoyed a hot café with a beautiful view in a small rifugio (a sort of camp) tucked in the
rocks that several of the guides had fashioned. Fueled by a dose of caffeine, we proceeded to Petraiaccia, a series of fortresses constructed during WWII which were completely hidden in the rocks in order to avoid detection from the air by enemy planes.
It was a fantastical playground of caves and hidden staircases completely integrated into the wind-sculpted rocks. And, from there, we returned to the dock in time for a sunset return trip to La Maddalena. That night over dinner, we commented on “un giorno tremendo” (a splendid day), and then slept the heavy sleep made possible only by a day spent outdoors.
Sunday, we decided to have a small gathering of American friends at our apartment in La Madd to enjoy each others’ company before everyone’s departure. After preparing Zuppa Gallurese, a local specialty of layers of broth-soaked bread and cheese baked in the oven like lasagna, for Thanksgiving, a few friends here asked for a lesson on how to make it. I had gotten tips from many locals: the perfect soft sheep’s milk cheese to buy, to leave the bread out to become stale, and to make a broth from veal and sheep bones (the refuse of which made Manny very happy), and the proper mix of spices to add including surprising ingredients like star anise and cinnamon. Inspired by requests for a cooking lesson, we hosted a small gathering with loads of good food brought by all and finished off by tiramisu, another specialty I’ve learned to make while here, and Daniele’s home-made Mirto. It was a grand festa which concluded a fantastic final weekend here made magical by blue skies and sparkling Sardegnan sunshine.
One perk of living on La Maddalena has been the ability to hop on early-morning boat trips such as that to Spargi with Massimo. I had also been begging Pippo,
the husband of Liliana, who worksin Chad’s office, to go fishing with him sometime, and, finally, in our last week here, we arranged a trip. We left from Porto Massimo early enough to see the warm morning light on the horizon and took Pippo’s little fishing boat out to the island of Razzoli. As one who is alert to the idea of serendipitous or not-so-serendipitous events, it seemed perfectly fitting because I had just finished translating a story that Massimo wrote about the lighthouse on Razzoli and my curiosity about the island had been peaked.Pippo is not only a fisherman, but an avid student of human and natural history in the Archipelago. On the way out, he showed me a piece of an amphora he had collected while diving on a sunken Roman military vessel off one of the islands, and taught me how to identify the elegant white birds fishing on the rocks.
We tied up the boat in a small cove and set off for a walking tour around the island with the dogs in tow – Manny and his two 6-month-old hunting dogs, Speedy and Gonzalez. The rosemary bushes were in purple bloom and the elicriso scented the air in the growing breeze. Razzoli, unlike Spargi, had been used for cattle grazing over the years, helping to clear some of the macchia, making trekking much less painful. We arrived at the lighthouse, which I learned was the first one in Sardegna, and inspected the abandoned building now held up by rusting scaffolding – one of the many projects begun and then forgotten by the Italian government, according to Pippo. Pippo told me about the lighthouse keepers’ families that once lived there - four families in all, each of which had their own garden plot and grazing area, the walls of which were still visible amidst the macchia.
After a blustery afternoon on Razzoli, a café and a short nap to refuel, and a hot shower to warm up, we headed over to Palau to have one final dinner with the remaining other Americans from the base at Robertino’s, a favorite for local seafood. It was a fantastic final spread with good company and we barely wrapped things up in time for the 1030 ferry, feeling strange to be rushing to catch a ferry to La Maddalena in the evening rather than from it. The next morning, we met the same crew for café at Circolo, the Italian Officer’s Club, where the American officers regu
larly meet each morning. There were many goodbyes, but also promises to see each other soon, as a few friends from La Maddalena will be on the east coast and within visiting distance. One of the challenges of military life is that you are always meeting new people and then, all too quickly, telling them goodbye. This time, we are lucky to have friends who will still be living relatively nearby back in the US.
who were the farewell emissaries for their family and waved us goodbye as we pulled away from the port. We passed by the entrance to Faraglione, our condo complex, and along Acapulco Beach, both of which we had not visited since moving out the previous week. It was probably best given the emotions of leaving and seemed right to see them again only in passing on our final drive out. From there, all of our travels went remarkably smoothly. Meridiana, the airline from Olbia to Rome, let us virtually walk Manny onto the plane at the last moment of boarding, much to our surprise and Manny’s delight. That night, we stayed in Fiumicino, not far from the airport, at the same hotel where we had stayed on our way here a couple of summers ago. With Manny in tow, we sought out a place for dinner where we could eat outside and managed to convince the proprietor at a small pizzeria to set one of the empty plastic tables on the patio for us, despite his protestations that it was far too cold (it was at least 50˚F). After some gelato and a good night’s sleep, I took Manny for a romp on the beach to wear him out before the long flight and was taken aback by a neon pink sunrise at the end of the beach – a final send-off from Italy.
At the Rome airport, despite being told that Manny would not be able to fly into Boston because the temperature there was too cold, a very helpful attendant hesitantly stuck the check-in sticker on his crate to get him through Atlanta and on the plane to Boston. After 11 hours in flight to arrive in Atlanta, we were greeted in the customs area by a quick viewing of our pup, still wagging his tail, but we had to leave him shortly to catch our flight north. At the gate, we watched in anticipation to assure that his crate was loaded onto the plane and, after every single other bag was loaded, up bumped Manny’s crate and we, much relieved, boarded the plane. Finally, somewhere around 3am Sardinia time, we emerged into the baggage area at Logan Airport to find Chad’s dad’s smiling face and open arms, a most welcome sight! We could also hear Manny barking from down the corridor – a welcome sound after nearly 18 hours in his crate. I rescued him and ran across the traffic lanes in the pick-up area to find a patch of green grass – a little piece of heaven for poor Manny. The physiology of dogs is truly remarkable!
That brings us mostly up to the present. Aside from the wonders of such things as magical machines that you can put your clothes into and they come out dry, and water running out of the tap that is clear and drinkable, not to mention how many people here speak English, I am happy to say that it just feels good to be back in New England. Our first morning, we sat on the couch with steaming mugs of coffee in front of a fire and watched snow come down over the Piscataqua River while catching up with Chad’s parents. Being amongst the familiar and good friends and family is an indescribably comfortable feeling and, at least for now, overwhelms homesickness for Sardegna.
We had a short trip up to Portland, as well, to see the house that Chad’s parents scouted out for us and to get a feel for the city again (and to have a much-craved sushi lunch), and left reinvigorated and confident about our decision to live there. Then, I headed to St. Louis to
From there, we looped around to a series of small beaches protected by the Catene (Chains) of Razzoli, a long peninsula creating the Cala Lunga at its base, and then back to the boat for a picnic in a spot sheltered from the wind. We had planned on fishing in the afternoon, but the wind had picked up and white water blew off the crests of the waves. Instead, we made a short tour of the surrounding islands and then returned to Lily and Pippo’s house for a café and some research on the birds we’d seen on our island tour. Pippo had mentioned a particular bird, the Beccaccia, which could be found in the springtime on Razzoli, where it stopped over on its migration from North Africa. He described this bird of the woods with its camouflaged coloring and furtive nature, but I couldn’t come up with the English name for it. Upon looking it up, I discovered that it is a woodcock, the strange bird that I saw do its mating dance in spring in Maine, flying high up into the air and then spinning, fluttering downwards to the ground. Yet another fitting but unexpected link between the present and our future in Maine.
After a blustery afternoon on Razzoli, a café and a short nap to refuel, and a hot shower to warm up, we headed over to Palau to have one final dinner with the remaining other Americans from the base at Robertino’s, a favorite for local seafood. It was a fantastic final spread with good company and we barely wrapped things up in time for the 1030 ferry, feeling strange to be rushing to catch a ferry to La Maddalena in the evening rather than from it. The next morning, we met the same crew for café at Circolo, the Italian Officer’s Club, where the American officers regu
larly meet each morning. There were many goodbyes, but also promises to see each other soon, as a few friends from La Maddalena will be on the east coast and within visiting distance. One of the challenges of military life is that you are always meeting new people and then, all too quickly, telling them goodbye. This time, we are lucky to have friends who will still be living relatively nearby back in the US.Later that day, we were all packed up and loading our things into a taxi to leave the island. In a kind of farewell gesture, the sun broke through the clouds after a rainy, gray morning and provided the perfect setting for our last ferry ride across to Palau, which we celebrated with an Ichnusa (the local Sardinian beer) on the upper deck. On the other side, we were greeted by Giovanna and Giovanni, our landlord's daughter and her boyfriend,
who were the farewell emissaries for their family and waved us goodbye as we pulled away from the port. We passed by the entrance to Faraglione, our condo complex, and along Acapulco Beach, both of which we had not visited since moving out the previous week. It was probably best given the emotions of leaving and seemed right to see them again only in passing on our final drive out. From there, all of our travels went remarkably smoothly. Meridiana, the airline from Olbia to Rome, let us virtually walk Manny onto the plane at the last moment of boarding, much to our surprise and Manny’s delight. That night, we stayed in Fiumicino, not far from the airport, at the same hotel where we had stayed on our way here a couple of summers ago. With Manny in tow, we sought out a place for dinner where we could eat outside and managed to convince the proprietor at a small pizzeria to set one of the empty plastic tables on the patio for us, despite his protestations that it was far too cold (it was at least 50˚F). After some gelato and a good night’s sleep, I took Manny for a romp on the beach to wear him out before the long flight and was taken aback by a neon pink sunrise at the end of the beach – a final send-off from Italy.At the Rome airport, despite being told that Manny would not be able to fly into Boston because the temperature there was too cold, a very helpful attendant hesitantly stuck the check-in sticker on his crate to get him through Atlanta and on the plane to Boston. After 11 hours in flight to arrive in Atlanta, we were greeted in the customs area by a quick viewing of our pup, still wagging his tail, but we had to leave him shortly to catch our flight north. At the gate, we watched in anticipation to assure that his crate was loaded onto the plane and, after every single other bag was loaded, up bumped Manny’s crate and we, much relieved, boarded the plane. Finally, somewhere around 3am Sardinia time, we emerged into the baggage area at Logan Airport to find Chad’s dad’s smiling face and open arms, a most welcome sight! We could also hear Manny barking from down the corridor – a welcome sound after nearly 18 hours in his crate. I rescued him and ran across the traffic lanes in the pick-up area to find a patch of green grass – a little piece of heaven for poor Manny. The physiology of dogs is truly remarkable!
That brings us mostly up to the present. Aside from the wonders of such things as magical machines that you can put your clothes into and they come out dry, and water running out of the tap that is clear and drinkable, not to mention how many people here speak English, I am happy to say that it just feels good to be back in New England. Our first morning, we sat on the couch with steaming mugs of coffee in front of a fire and watched snow come down over the Piscataqua River while catching up with Chad’s parents. Being amongst the familiar and good friends and family is an indescribably comfortable feeling and, at least for now, overwhelms homesickness for Sardegna.
We had a short trip up to Portland, as well, to see the house that Chad’s parents scouted out for us and to get a feel for the city again (and to have a much-craved sushi lunch), and left reinvigorated and confident about our decision to live there. Then, I headed to St. Louis to
family and Chad went to Rhode Island to go through the formalities of leaving the Navy. Now, we have returned to await the arrival of our many shipments of things by air, mail and ship, and prepare to start anew in Maine. For now, we continue in the Leap Year state of things, being neither fully here nor there in both location and mind, and are just trying to digest it all in the transition and to prepare to reshape our lives as Americans once again.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
24 Gennaio
The weather gods are smiling upon us today as it is unusually calm and the sky is crystal clear so that I can see the crisp white snow atop the Corsican mountains. I am happily sitting outside where it feels a bit less stark compared to the inside of our house which is missing most of its furniture after our first day of packing out yesterday. We’re not too bad off since the apartment was fully furnished before we arrived and most of the things were up in the attic storage space for us to bring down. But, we’re still waiting for our landlord to bring over a sofa. At the moment, we have a single chair and small wooden table in the living room, so it isn’t the coziest place. Hopefully, that will be rectified tomorrow morning.Things here are racing to a close as we have now begun to pack up and have sadly already said goodbye to many of our friends. Tomorrow, there is a closure ceremony on the base, which will make things feel more official, though I think there are a grand total of about fifty people remaining to attend the celebration. I suppose, as more friends leave and life here becomes lonelier, we will be more eager and less melancholic about leaving ourselves.
Of course, we are trying to pack in as much travel as possible as well
and have just returned from another weekend trip. Aside from Turkey, this was perhaps the most culturally different place to which we have traveled. We spent the weekend in the tiny village of Miklosvar in Transylvania, Romania at the guesthouses of the Count Kolnoky. Apparently, his family, royalty under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was exiled during the Communist period and lost their property. Recently, the Count has returned to Transylvania to reclaim the family castle, hunting lodge and guesthouses and is slowly renovating each property.
Our journey to get there was a bit longer than we’d anticipated, starting with a very early flight to Rome, then another to Bucharest, and then a more than four-hour van ride to Miklosvar (not the simple 3-hour transfer advertised by our hotel). But, along the way, we were able to learn a bit about Romania from our driver, Josef, who met us at the airport clad in grey woolen pants and sweater and a well-worn fur cap. He taught us a few words in Hungarian, which we learned was the language spoken in Miklosvar, rather than Romanian. The only word that stuck was “Koszonom,” meaning thank you, and we used it prolifically. In the more central part of Romania near the airport, Romanian was spoken. Because it is a Latin-based language, we were able to recognize many of the words on the signs along the road. Hearing it, however, was an entirely different story. The scenery along the way included a strange mix of turn-of-the-century buildings with elaborate wooden carved adornments with desolate communist bloc high-rise apartment buildings – and the occasional horse-drawn cart pulling a load of wood down the road.After our long journey, we arrived in Miklosvar, a tiny village made up of colorful square Saxon-style houses along a single main street punctuated by old hand-crank
ed wells that were still very much in use. The chilly air and low evening fog over the snow covered streets made for a bleak and eerie scene. However, shortly after we arrived, we were shown to our guesthouse just down the road from the main lodge and found it to be the perfect cozy respite. Inside, we found creaky wooden floors and heavy 
ceiling beams, a thick down comforter on our hand-carved bed and a traditional tiled Russian woodstove which provided wonderful radiant heat. The lodge was similarly appointed with traditionally carved and painted cabinets and multiple woodstoves and fireplaces. Our dinner that night was down in the wine cellar where we were served soup from a la
rge steaming terrine followed by platters of veal, potatoes and red cabbage topped with a rich sour cream – all carried by women with arms that looked like they had kneaded a lot of bread. There is a sturdiness to everything here from the solid square houses to the thick-legged horses to the dark, stoutly built locals. I suppose the mode of living necessitates a certain amount of heartiness both in build and in character. Sadly, we were not able to communicate with any of the people we came across in town, so it was difficult to get a sense of their friendliness or lack thereof.
Because of the difficulties in communication, one of the services that the guesthouse offered was to provide guided tours – by English-speaking locals. Each night at dinner, we were presented with the next day’s options. We decided to spend our first day in Brasov, about a half-hour away, in order to see a few historical sites. Before heading to bed, however, we retired to what became known as the “Brandy Room” to taste the guesthouse’s caraway brandy fireside and peruse some of the information on the area. Apparently, along with potatoes, home-brewed brandy is considered a culinary staple in this region.The next morning, after a snug night’s sleep and a curious breakfast inc
luding the more familiar muesli and yogurt along with a garlicky eggplant spread and plates of sausage, cheese, tomatoes and strangely-pale green peppers, we headed off on our tour. We stopped first at a fortressed church built by the Teutonic Knights in the 12th century. It was not just a fortressed church, but a refuge for t
he entire village when it came under attack. We learned that their major adversary was the Turks and that Romania was a major region of conflict between the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian empires. Inside the fortress walls were rows of apartments to house the villagers, places to store water and food supplies and a church in the center. The history here is complicated and involves many ethnic groups including Romanians, Saxons, Turks, Hungarians, Seklers and Gypsies. I read a brief history of the interactions between these groups in one of the guesthouse books, but it was too much to absorb and relay. From there, we went into the city of Brasov. To gain some perspective, we rode a cable car up Tampa Mountain and looked down at the walled city below, nestled in the valley of snow-covered 
hills. Our guide, George, pointed out Brasov’s main square where we were going to have lunch upon our descent. Again, it was cool and moist out, and we were happy to tuck inside for a hot lunch. After the usual soups and plates of meat and potatoes, the highlight of the meal was apple strudel with a b
randy-soaked crust. Then, we were off to see the Black Church, so named because it was burned by the Austrians in 1689 and the smoke blackened the inner walls as well as a painting of the Madonna, the background of which was turned from blue to black. It was adorned with an impressive collection of 
Ottoman rugs as well – apparently the second largest collection in the world. We walked through town afterwards and window-shopped, converting the local currency, the Ron, into Euros to get a sense of local prices. Though Romania has been a member of the European Union for a year now, it has not yet adopted the Euro. The people with whom we have spoken have universally said that they think EU membership will bring good things to Romania, but that progress will be slow. Currently, the economy is fairly depressed with most people living very simply in a not-so-forgiving climate. Apparently, the government is corrupt and has not done much to improve general living conditions for its citizens, but that is already starting to change.At the end of a long day of traveling and absorbing many new things, we returned to Miklosvar for a short rest before dinner. This also included a visit to the guesthouse sauna, which we found to be warmer than it was hot, but sufficient to get the blood flowing. We enjoyed more soup followed by Hungarian stuffed peppers and more potatoes for dinner before the post-dinner fireside brandy where we visited with a few of the other guests and anticipated the next day’s sleigh ride.
The next day, we met another guide, Michael, who took us to what really were one-horse open sleighs waiting for us just down the street. They pulled us through the rolling snowy hills, jingling all the way.
The mist from the nearby river made everything quiet and mysterious such that, were it not for a slim line of skeletal trees, it would have been difficult to tell the difference between the hillside and the equally white sky. We stopped at a track going up the hill to have a walk through the woods and look for animal prints in the snow. We found fox, deer and dog prints as well as those of wil
d boar, the target of hunters at this time of year. Recently, the land in this area has been reclaimed by the older families by looking at the old Austro-Hungarian parcel maps and is now being used again for farming and grazing. When we returned to the village, we visited the Count’s old hunting lodge, now empty, but set to become a sort of cultural center for the village in the future. A bit chilly from the sleigh-ride, we returned to the guesthouse lodge and warmed our toes by the fire before consuming another hearty meal. In need of a good walk, I set off into the fields to explore. Along the way, I watched a woman draw water up from the well and a horse-drawn cart pass by with a load of wood, and thought how similar life is here now as it was a hundred years ago. It gives you a better sense of the youth of the United States and its culture to see a place with such a traditional way of life.
We sadly reached our final day in Romania and had to make our way back to the airport in Bucharest for an evening flight. We had time, however, to stop at the beautiful Peles Castle outside of Sinaia. We marveled at the ornate building and gardens outside, but that was as far as we got. The king was visiting and, apparently, did not want any visitors that day. Afterwards, we walked through the town of Sinaia, where we had a surprisingly difficult time acquiring souvenirs despite the fact that it was touted as a tourist village. And then, we were off for the long drive to Bucharest with George at the wheel driving our minibus like a racecar along the narrow, potholed streets.And that brings us back to the present where we are looking forward to just a little over a month remaining here and then it’s back to Maine where we welcome small conveniences like a clothes dryer, central heating, and stores that don’t close for riposo, but will certainly miss the beauty of this place and all of the culture that we’ve been able to observe here and around Europe. Mostly, we look forward to seeing many of you soon and finally being able to tell our tales in person.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)