mebtravelling

Megan drove us into another world today. We saw, I for the first time, the rooms where Charles Darwin worked and lived, including the study where he wrote On the Origin of the Species

So, this may not be the study, and I may not have played billiards, but then again…

…we must be headed to Omaha.

First, though, a stay-over in Howard Lake: Auggie, May, and by herself, Queen Evelyn.
I love the the crosses on their backs.

Many summers, my mother and I made drives like this, from Iowa to Nebraska, saw fields and farms like this. Tom drove us — past farmland you forget about when you’re somewhere else. This field is somewhere near Sioux City (or Salix or Sergeant Bluff, or Winnebago). I look at it as I’m writing this a month later in St Paul and think of ancestors who knew land like this so well.

Omaha’s Old Market never disappoints.

On cue, the seagulls appeared as the blessing began.

St Francis of Assisi would be pleased — thanks, Tom, THANK YOU, BROTHER WILLIAM!

Finn joined me in Atlanta with what I assumed was a summer cold, and by Athens I was hounding pharmacies for antihistamines and saline drops for both of us.

We carried on, easy to do in one of the world’s best cities —

Then an email from mn.gov informed me that someone I’d “been in contact with during the past 15 days” had just tested positive for COVID-19. It was one thing to consider changing flights and Airbnb’s because of the fires raging in Rhodes. Going into quarantine? Aargh. But we knew what we had to do.

Iva recommended a good lab. Sadigue and Amir came along with us — we’d spent a lot of time with them in the previous couple days — and off we all went for a Rapid Test.

In the end, all four of us tested negative, we said our good-byes, and went off to Porto Rafti for fishing and seafood.

It’s been hot, and I was This Close to excusing us from our cooking class. Fortunately, Finn – and my better judgment – prevailed. Best experience we’ve had. So far.

Delightful, smart, affirming teacher, plus companions-for-a-day to talk with and laugh at [yes] and with, from Wisconsin, S. Korea by way of the UK, and Austria.

We began at Athens’ Central Market, a place I’d warned Finn about: the smells, the sights, the screaming vendors. He loved it.

In the end, as the teacher picked out vegetables for our lesson, Finn eventually (not here – ) chose figs for us.

We’re in the foreground, Acropolis and Parthenon behind us… and that is as close as Finn and I will get. Just this morning, we chose Ermou Street/shopping over waiting in line to climb the Acropolis and visit the Parthenon. Or even waiting in line for the (imho…) spectacular Parthenon Museum. Yes!

Really, it’s crazy!

But 2020, the election, both gone

2021, the future, still hazy.

Really, it’s crazy!

Attend to this time-lapsed prayer plant by Daisy –

Attention swerves this way, then wheels anon

Really, it’s crazy!

But 2020, the election, both gone.

I had a day shy of two weeks in my Massachusetts quarantine spot, a rustic setting, with lazy days of walking, reading, Zooming, cooking (eating). And then one morning, “Could you come a day early?” And so I did, and so did he — Peter Alasdair Briel.

Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” has sometimes felt like a cliché to me, something to toss around when the personal or collective tunnel is in all likelihood ending. Tonight, though, it’s much more truth than cliché.

Whether you’re reading this in India, Thailand, Hong Kong, Israel, Greece, Switzerland, France, the UK, or the US, I’m afraid the killing of George Floyd by police in our Twin City across the Mississippi River is known to you. In the viral video, his calls for help – “I can’t breathe” – mark a stark contrast to the three silent police officers who look on as their brother officer plants his knee on George Floyd’s neck, applying BVD (“The Carotid”).

The day after the killing, fearful of the fires and looting that had occurred in Minneapolis, many Saint Paul businesses near me – cafes, restaurants, shops – hired carpenters to board up windows.

Tonight we still hear the sirens and helicopters, but many fewer, and by now most of us can tune them out. We’re not out of the tunnel, but let me mix that metaphor even more, and say that, yes, there is some light about to come through the crack.

Quite possibly, the desperate hunt for hope has started to reveal some of its treasure. Around the corner from my apartment this afternoon, I came across this group producing a mural to cover the boards that had been put up over the windows.

And there’s more.
The other day, a friend and her son – some of Totino-Grace High School‘s finest – designed their own Anthem, this one in the form of a question.

In her letter introducing the sign, Christy recalled putting a different one outside her home as she began working against the Marriage Amendment in 2012. Everyday when she looked at the “Vote No” sign in her lawn, she prayed for those who had gone before her – at lunch counter sit-ins, marches: people who sometimes gave their lives to clear the way for people like her and her husband and their children.Christy referred to this as a spiritual practice, and of course it was.

Now, I need to start that, too.

(RING THE BELLS THAT STILL CAN RING)

  I don’t care that the Times is printing articles about Zoom Fatigue. I’m still charmed.

Tuesday Centering Prayer usually takes place in the neoGothic sanctuary of St Thomas More Catholic Church here in St Paul. For over a month, we’ve been centering via Zoom. Others – from Minnesota, California, Nebraska – have also joined.

Two weeks ago a group of friends from the convent, some of whom had not seen one another in 50 years, met for a Zoom visit. We all told one another how great we looked, though later some of us probably said to ourselves, “I wouldn’t have recognized —–.” Anyhow, by popular demand, we’ll meet again this week.

And a few days ago, the Retired Teachers Monthly Luncheon metamorphosized into a lunch-less Zoom meetup. I was mildly nervous the teachers (including me) would talk too much, but our facilitator graciously moved us along. I’ll bet we’ll do it again sometime.

But by far, the technological gift that’s offered me both the most heart-satisfying and heart-rending moments has been Zooming classes with some of The Melissa Network, based in Athens. These women, most of them young mothers, would normally be gathering for class in one of the generous spaces upstairs or downstairs. Or weather-permitting, we might be having class in the the garden of  Melissa’s gracious  old house near Viktoria Square.

“Melissa” is Greek for honeybee, and consciously or not, the name describes the low buzz which would emanate from groups of these migrant women,  mostly African and Middle Eastern, as they gather most weekdays for companionship, as well as classes and therapy of all sorts. They’ve nearly all made the sea voyage, a sense of which a brilliant young American writer, filmmaker, and Melissa teacher taught them to capture on film.

The women would have a hot lunch, and before or after that, French Press or tea; their preschool children went to daycare downstairs.

These days, as I say, we Zoom. We started with grand intentions (mine), dividing into Farsi-Arab-French-speaking ESL students; then I added an advanced conversation group; after that, a basic ESL, and eventually, a Melissa Moms’ English-speaking group, to which Elizabeth, has brought her Hong Kong expertise as artist and facilitator of other Zoom groups.

But things happen, don’t they?

I’ve let go of the Basic ESL, and I’ve merged Farsi- and French-speaking ESL students. I’ll probably merge some more next week. This week and also last week, two women wrote me to say they were now homeless, so wouldn’t make it to class. Another has lost wifi, and yet another has moved to a place without a connection. They can Zoom on their phones, most do, but Wifi is the great issue. When you borrow your neighbors’ signal w/o mentioning it to them, you fade in and out. When you change apartments, it takes awhile to get a SIM with WiFi capabilities. Some never will.

Sometimes I think of starting a Women’s Wifi Collective (JK).

But back to Athens — because Greece responded quickly and strictly to the pandemic, some places in the city are now starting to open. The mothers we met with today, though, aren’t at all sure they trust the city. To make the point, one of them sent me this video from outside her neighborhood market: social distancing outside, and a few masks, but not so indoors. We’ll see what next Thursday’s meeting brings to the discussion. And the Thursdays after that.