Day 31 - Discretion

A I Cuza University in Iasi, Romania, image by blankdots,
via Flickr

When I lived in Romania, I learned a lot about the need for discretion. The best example is the story I heard twice and what the second story teller didn't realize she was giving away that the first story teller had been so careful to hide.  I know it is unlikely that more than one reader of this piece knows any of the same people I do in Romania, but I will give my two story tellers fictitious names in order to illustrate discretion myself.  The need for discretion in this case is gone, but its value is eternal.

The English department of the University in Iasi consisted of a large room, with tables and chairs lining three sides, leaving an area open in the middle of the room. This room served as the communal office for all of the faculty of the English department, in contrast to the separate offices - or at most one shared with one other person - University instructors are accustomed to in the United States. A desk served as the communications center where a bound ledger for messages was kept.  The first thing any of the teachers did when they entered the English department was to look for the ledger to see if there were any messages for them.  A teacher was on duty throughout the day. That teacher's responsibility consisted of answering the telephone and taking messages in the ledger. It was that rotating responsibility of serving as the teacher on duty that gave me the opportunity to meet the other teachers.

Most of the time, there was at least one more person than the teacher on duty in the department. If students had a question for a teacher, they also would enter the department to meet the teacher or to leave a message.  It was therefore very difficult for any of the teachers to share information privately with me or one another. So it is remarkable that there were two occasions during my year there when I was in the department with two different teachers long enough for them to tell me their stories.

London, image by Anirudh Koul, via Flickr

I'll call the first story teller Marina. She was not much older than I. She hadn't had many opportunities to travel, so she was eager to tell me about her one trip to England for a month-long course in English. As was typical of the times, Romanians were seldom permitted to travel on their own outside of the country, so Marina's trip was as part of a group of Romanian teachers of English. But even being part of a group wasn't sufficient assurance to the Romanian government that she would return; the fact that Marina was married was essential to the arrangements. Marina was allowed to travel to London with a group of other Romanian English teachers because her husband, and I think there may be been a child, remained behind to "guarantee" her return. But Marina told me that as soon as she learned she would be allowed to travel to England, she made plans to extend her stay.

Romanian currency was not convertible, not a hard currency. That is in contrast to US dollars, which were and still are accepted in payment for goods and services around the world and can be converted into nearly any other currency imaginable. In Romania, therefore, I could take US dollars to the bank and exchange them for Romanian lei, but if I left the country with any lei - an illegal act - I wouldn't be able to take them to a bank in the US to get dollars in exchange.

So the first challenge for Marina was to figure out a way to accumulate enough hard currency to be able to live on during her extended stay.  Just as it was illegal to take lei out of the country, it was illegal for Romanians to possess hard currency. That meant Marina had to figure out how to make the British pound Sterling allowance she would receive during the month's training cover more than her expenses. To do that, Marina got up very early every morning so that she could walk from the hotel to the school, saving the cost of the train or bus. She also ate as much as she could at breakfast, included with the cost of the hotel, and she took packages of crackers with her to eat in place of lunch and dinner. She walked from the school back to the hotel as well.

At the end of the month, Marina deliberately missed the bus to the airport so that she missed the plane back to Romania. The tickets of all of the teachers were on the Romanian national airline, Tarom; there was no option for Marina to get back to Romania on another airline. And since the organizers of the group had all of the passports -- the government would never allow individuals to hold their own passports -- she would have to wait another week for someone to bring her passport back to London so she could catch the next Tarom flight back to Romania.

Marina may have told me how she spent her time in London, but if she did, those details were not as memorable as the story of how she arranged the week. I was still having difficulty understanding what life was like under such a system. My passport had so many entry and exit stamps in it that I had had to get extension pages added, and I had only had my passport for less than three years.

Statue of Alexandru Ioan Cuza in Iasi,
Romania, image by Waqas Ahmed, via
Flickr

It was my passport, with its extension pages, that led to the second story. I'll call the second story teller Ana. I had had to leave my passport at the University to get a residence permit. When my residence permit was ready, it along with my passport was turned over to the teacher on duty in the English department for me to pick up. Ana was on duty when I arrived. When she pulled my passport out of the drawer, she held onto it a little longer so she could open it up and pull out all those extension pages to examine the stamps indicating the number of countries I had visited since it was issued. As she was looking at my passport, Ana said she had only traveled outside of Romania once, a few summers ago, when she went with a group of other English teachers to England for a month's training course. Ana's story was the same as Marina's except in one detail: Ana told me that she and a friend had decided ahead of time that they would stay in England for an additional week. Ana never named the friend. She understood the need for discretion to that degree. But in telling the story in second person plural, Ana unwittingly gave away Marina's role in the story at the same time as illustrating to me just how important discretion is.

Before hearing the two versions of the story of Marina's and Ana's adventure in London, I was annoyed when someone told a story as though they were alone when I had a good idea that there was another person involved. But after hearing Marina's and Ana's stories, I realized that my annoyance was misplaced. Those story tellers weren't trying to hide something. They were just being discrete.

Day 30 - Orphans

This could never happen today. But life in small town Minnesota was simpler and safer back "then."

While I was in college, my boyfriend was away in the Navy. I still went out with my girlfriends to movies and even to dances, but I didn't go out on dates, because that would have been wrong, right? But I did want to go to events that my friends went to, even though they were on dates, so I came up with a scheme that I thought would work. It would be a way for me to go out, especially to sporting events, without really being on a date. But I am an introvert, so it took me a long time to think about my scheme before I did anything about it.

And all that time was probably the reason that the idea kept sounding better and better each time I considered it. I didn't share the idea with anyone else, so I didn't have a devil's advocate, or even a reasonable person, to poke holes in it. But in the meantime I kept thinking about the idea, working out the details - or at least the appealing ones - in my head.

Image by Bazule, via Flickr

I can still conjure up the image that was central to my scheme. He was about 8 years old, had blue eyes and curly blond hair. He lived in an orphanage. I imagined meeting him and taking him to basketball games and other events that I thought 8-year-olds would be interested in.

He didn't exist, of course. He was just in my imagination. And I imagined that if I met him and if I took him with me to ball games, he would sit next to me and we would share popcorn and soft drinks, and somehow spending time with him would turn into some type of "credit" for my future. I think I even let my imagination get so out of control as to think that once my boyfriend returned from the Navy, he and I would continue to take the blue-eyed, blond boy to ball games and maybe even end up adopting him.

I was so naive.

I didn't realize not every child living in an orphanage is actually an orphan. And I certainly had no idea that children living in orphanages came from families where children might be damaged, either physically or emotionally or both. My image of an orphanage came from children's books, or maybe even from fairy tales, where good little boys and girls were harassed by witches, trolls, or evil step-mothers, but the boys and girls always triumphed, still good.

Eventually, I did get up the courage to call the local orphanage.  I think the only reason the administrator there, or the social worker he put me into contact with, even listened to me was that the orphanage was sponsored by Lutheran Social Services and I attended the local Lutheran college. There may even have been a phone call or two that I wasn't aware of between the social services organization and the pastor of my church, to verify that I wasn't damaged. At least, I hope there was. But no one told me so.

I explained to the social worker that I was offering to take a boy from to a basketball game. I'm sure the social worker asked me more about my motivation, but I don't recall the questions or my answers.

The social worker suggested that the evening would be more successful if I brought two boys with me, so that the boys would have someone they each knew with them for the evening. I wonder now why she never suggested that I take a girl or two instead of boys, but I don't recall that option ever coming up. Because I would be picking up two boys, I asked one of my girlfriends, Lynne, if she would come with me.

The basketball game was between two local college teams. I attended one; my girlfriend attended the other. We picked up the two boys at the orphanage and went to the game.

Image by theirhistory, via Flickr

One of the boys may have been a little older than the other. Neither of them were blue-eyed blonds. And they were both very clever, a more than even match for my naive self, in spite of my 10-year advantage in age. On the ride over to the field house, I learned that neither of them were orphans. Each was living at the orphanage because his parents were unable to care for him. No details about the reasons for parental unavailability were shared.

When we entered the field house, the older boy suggested I get them something to eat and drink. Since that was part of my imaginary scheme, I bought them something. I don't think more than five minutes passed after we sat down before the older boy suggested that he and his friend might want to sit on the other side of the court. Well, now this wasn't part of my imaginary scheme, but I didn't know how to insist they stay with us, so I told them they had to come back to where we were sitting at half time. At least I hope I was smart enough to insist on that.

Image by TheImageGroup, via Flickr

After the game ended, the older boy suggested that we get something to eat before going back to the orphanage. He was big on suggesting. We went to a drive-through fast food place, probably King Leo's, for hamburgers and soft drinks. And then we drove back to the orphanage and dropped off the boys. They both said thanks and that was the end of the evening. And of my scheme.

As I said, those were simpler days, days before there were stories in the news about children being abducted or assaulted by adults who should have been their protectors - teachers, scout leaders, even religious figures. I am so glad I grew up in that simpler, safer time in that simpler, safer place. Sometimes I wonder now why I ever wanted to leave it behind.

Day 29 - American Language Institute (ALI)

Greece image by archer10 (Dennis), via Flickr

A Greek, a Libyan and a Tahitian walked into a bar in San Francisco. That might sound like the opening of a joke, but it is a description of the activities of a trio of students at the American Language Institute where I taught English while in graduate school. I don't remember their names, so I'll call them Alex, Mohammed, and Oscar.

The three of them were in the same class at ALI, so they has no choice about spending at least six hours a day together. But they liked one another and chose to spend much of the rest of their time together, too.

ALI is an English language prepartory program for university-bound international students. Students were put into classes based on their scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). The classes stayed together for just one term of about 12 weeks. At the end of the term, they retook TOEFL to determine whether their progress was sufficient to enter their chosen university or more preparation was needed. The pressure to get through in one term was tremendous, ALI's standards were high, and discipline was strict. Many of the students had never been without an externally imposed structure such as from family or government. The contrast offered by the freedom and lack of social constraints in San Francisco in the early 1970's was extreme. And since all of our students were expected to go on to universities all across the country where foreign student advisors may or may not be available to help with their transition, our director, affectionately known as Mrs. B, set up rules to help with the transition. For example, she insisted that students attend every class; no more than two absences were permitted in a term. Students were assigned advisors from among the four permanent staff members. They were required to write at least a page in English every day in a diary which they turned in every Friday and received back, with comments and corrections, on Mondays. Students were not allowed to leave town without permission. Students who ignored these rules were removed from the school and encouraged to find other English programs. And we all knew ALI was the best.

Libya image by sludgegulper, via Flickr

One of the reasons ALI students were successful was that no class had more than three students in it who spoke the same language. That meant English was the only common language. Other programs put all the Spanish speakers together or all the Japanese students together, robbing the students of a powerful incentive to use English - necessity. So it wasn't unusual at ALI to find three such different young men in one another's company.

Another of Mrs. B's rules was that the students were not allowed to socialize with the teachers. In addition to the four permanent staff members, there were about two dozen graduate students like me who taught at ALI.  Many of us were about the same age as the students, so without the prohibition on socializing, it is likely that we would have mixed outside of class. But ALI rules applied to teachers, too.

One of the advisors, Al, had great hopes for Mohammed, the Libyan, precisely because he wasn't spending his time with the other Libyan students. Al had watched group after group of Libyan students arrive without the proper motivation or discipline. Most recently, three Libyan students had decided to spend the Thanksgiving break in St. Louis. One of them had a friend at school there, so they told Al they planned to drive to St. Louis, leaving Wednesday before Thankgiving and returning the Sunday after. Al pointed out that they would not have any time to spend in St. Louis as it would take all their time to drive there and back. He strongly recommended they not make the trip. They didn't listen. They drove to St. Louis and were late getting back. And they were then dropped from the student roster. So Mohammed's friendship with Alex and Oscar was a good sign.

That summer was tough on Alex, the Greek. It was the year of the end of the Greek military junta that had been in power since 1967. While most of us assumed that the military rule coming to an end in July was a good thing, it is difficult for anyone with ties to a land on the other side of the earth to know that all is well with family and friends when the news deals with such changes. In addition, many of the students at ALI were on scholarships from their governments which meant that changes to the government were not always welcome.

Oscar brought with him a number of items that tourists were likely to pick up when traveling to Tahiti. Among them were a number of necklaces made from shells. Joseph from Nigeria, another student that summer, also brought beaded necklaces which he showed both students and teachers. But when the teachers asked him whether he would sell them, Joseph wouldn't - or couldn't - answer. Joseph's English was excellent, so long as he was reading something written on the board or in a book or he was writing, but his listening comprehension was very weak and his speech was so heavily accented that none of us, neither students nor teachers, understood much of what he said.

Tahiti image by Mitch Allen, via Flickr

Each term ended with a party at which time the students received the results of their most recent TOEFL. Those who scored above 500 were on their way to the university. Those who scored below that level would have to complete another term, if finances and other resources permitted, or make alternative educational arrangements.

At the party that summer, all three members of the trio scored high enough to go on. Because they had all succeeded, they knew they would no longer be our students. The prohibition on socializing was over.

At the end of that party, Oscar gave me one of the shell necklaces from Tahiti. And Mohammed had managed to strike a bargain with Joseph for one of the beaded necklaces which he gave me. I was flattered, and just a tiny bit worried what my colleagues would think, so I wore the necklaces in the weeks to come, to be sure they knew I didn't have anything to hide. The three of them, Alex, Mohammed, and Oscar, went separate ways. A few months later, I also left San Francisco, never to return.

Day 27 - My Guardian Angel

Mom

When Mom died, I knew I had lost more than my mother. I had lost the one person I knew prayed for me every day, whether I needed it or not. I had spent a lot of time poo pooing Mom's advice that the solution to any problem was prayer. I remembered, because she reminded me of it often, that I had stopped biting my nails when I was about six after I prayed to God for his help. I don't think I would have remembered those prayers if Mom hadn't reminded me. But she was right. With her encouragement, I had prayed that God would help me stop biting my nails, and I stopped.

But I also thought that with Mom's death, my guardian angel may also be gone. I was more comfortable thinking that I had a guardian angel than thinking Mom's prayers were what kept me safe. And I had a very large number of experiences that I attributed to my guardian angel.

One of the most dramatic set of examples all came from the same summer, a summer when I am certain Mom spent a lot of her praying on me. It was the summer of 1973, a year after I had made several significant decisions. First, it was the year after I decided to get divorced. Or at least I thought that was my decision. Second, I decided to go to graduate school. I didn't know how I was going to pay for it, but I made the decision, and I was accepted.  I think I left it up to my guardian angel to figure out the details.

Image by tyfn, via Flickr

The summer of 1972, I had travelled by bus from Berkeley, California, to Moorhead, Minnesota, in order to attend my sister's graduation from high school. My husband at the time, Don, couldn't leave as early as I needed to. I wasn't confident enough to consider driving by myself, and the cost of flying was entirely out of the question. A train ticket was twice the cost of a bus ticket, and I wouldn't have arrived any sooner. So I traveled that time by bus.

I didn't consider that trip to be the beginning of the end of my marriage, but that is what it turned out to be. As I entered the bus in Oakland, I tried to convey as sophisticated an image as possible. I thought I was so worldly. But as I walked toward the back of the bus, the strap of my purse caught on the armrest of one of the seats, pulling me backwards as I made my way. I caught myself before falling down, and dusted off my slightly bruised ego, untangled my purse strap, and continued toward the back where I had spotted an empty row. I managed to get my bag stowed above the seat and then I stepped up to sit down. I hadn't noticed that the elevation of the step where the seats were woudn't permit me to stand up. So I bumped my head pretty hard on the overhead ledge which made my landing on the seat quick, and without grace. So much for my sophisticated start on this, my first solo traveling experience.

A gentleman dressed in western clothes, complete with a cowboy hat, asked if he could have the seat next to me. We talked most of the way from Oakland to Reno, our dinner stop. He was a rodeo competitor, on his way to Montana. He invited me to join him for dinner in Reno, a pleasant option to what otherwise would have been a solitary event. After dinner, he excused himself because he wanted to try his luck with the slot machines. I made my way to a bookstore where I bought the book The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer.

Image by Globalism Pictures, via Flickr

The bus traveled though Nevada overnight with Salt Lake City as our breakfast stop. I don't recall if the cowboy was on the same bus, but I know he wasn't next to me on the next leg, from Salt Lake City to Missoula. Instead, my seat mate was a high school boy who was on his way to a dude ranch in Montana where his dad worked. He spent every summer with his dad, but he spent the school years with his mom. He said his mom had been married five times, so he was used to being around lots of step fathers. I suppose it wasn't all that surprising that he asked me if I liked being married. No one had ever asked me that before. And I'm not sure I had even asked it of myself. I am sure the pause between his asking the question and my answering it was longer than he expected. I think my answer was an equivocal sometimes I liked it and sometimes I didn't. I had already read some of my book before he and I started talking, so I guess I had begun to wonder whether I was happy with all my choices.

By the time I reached Moorhead, I knew the answer to that young boy's question was that I wasn't happy. But that didn't mean I was ready to give up. I called Don and tried to tell him that I wasn't happy, but since I was in my parents' house, I couldn't get the words out. I went upstairs and sat at the desk that had been mine while I was in high school and college, and I decided to write him a letter. When I opened the first desk drawer, I found a paper with my sister's handwriting. It was a copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, Self Reliance, one of my favorites. And that cinched it. I wrote Don a letter telling him that I was not happy and that when I got back to Berkeley, we had to make some changes. A few days later, after he had received the letter, Don called me at my parents' house and reassured me that we would do something when I got back.

I returned to Berkeley by bus with no memorable traveling companions. When Don picked me up at the bus station, he announced that he had already moved out of our apartment. He proposed that I keep the car and he would take the bicycle. Since I would have the apartment, he would take our tent. And that was the extent of our discussion. He had bought a do-it-yourself divorce book and said he thought that since he had no job, he should file for a no-contest divorce. It was final in February of 1973, the year I am convinced Mom spent a lot of her prayer time on me.

Image by Will Carter Photography, via Flickr

I entered San Francisco State University's masters program in January of 1973. At the end of that semester, I packed up everything I owned into my VW bug and drove from San Francisco to Moorhead, to spend the summer with my family. I had already made one round-trip between California and Minnesota since that bus trip. This time, I drove 2,198 miles across country without a problem. But when I was two miles from home, at the off ramp of I-94 and 8th Street South in Moorhead, my car blew a piston and stopped dead at the stop sign. It was bad news, but delivered with the softest possible blow. How else could I explain my car not breaking down earlier but to attribute it to a guardian angel?

I took my bike off the rack at the back of my car, reinflated the tires, rode down 8th street to the first gas station I could find and arranged to have the car towed to my parents. Eventually, I got my VW to a shop that specialized in repairs to foreign cars. The estimate for the repair: $120. I knew I needed $60 to get back to San Francisco at the end of the summer. I had $180 in my pocket when I arrived in Moorhead. It seemed like another act on the part of my guardian angel.

Image by Eva Luedin, via Flickr

That summer, I spent most of my time driving a man from Bolivia, Ruben, from farm to farm in the Red River Valley. He had been brought to the area by his brother to serve as a Lutheran missionary to the migrant workers. But he spoke no English and he couldn't drive. I was his driver and translator for the summer. I had received no salary, but the organization sponsoring Ruben agreed to pay for my gas. That meant I would still have the $60 I needed to get back to California.

At one point that summer, as I was driving along a gravel country road, Ruben saw some workers in the field and he asked me to pull over so he could talk with them. It looked like there a shoulder, so I pulled over -- onto tall grass. I felt my car beginning to roll, but instead of continuing down the ditch, it came to a gentle rest against a sign that warned of an upcoming curve in the road. Once I realized what had happened, I looked up and down that country road and could not see another sign. How else could I explain that I chose that spot to pull over but to consider it the work of my guardian angel?

Image by jimforest, via Flickr

There are many more examples of bad things happening in my life, but in the least possible harmful way. I have continued to give my guardian angel credit for these events, though I have also always thought Mom and her prayers were that guardian angel. I still think she is.

Day 26 - Katherine Anne Porter

We are going to a play tonight, so I need to settle for something that meets my 500 word minimum instead of a finished product. So I have decided to write my observations about Katherine Anne Porter's work. I have been reading a book of her collected stories and it feels as though I am reading what I have always wanted to write. I don't think I had ever read any of her writing before. Nothing seems familiar, or at least nothing seems like anything I have read before, except that everything seems familiar in an eerie sort of way.

The first stories were set in Mexico, written in 1922 in New York. All the qualities that I thought I wanted in my writing - a foreign location but written while living in New York.

But later in the collected stories was one about an American poet living in Mexico who fell in love with a woman who joined him in Mexico. And she was from Minnesota. I had a hard time feeling any sympathy for the poet. I was apparently identifying with the Minnesota gal.

Every story, even though they were written around the time my mother was a toddler, every story felt like the words were the ones I had been waiting to write.

And then I got to the short novel Old Mortality. There shouldn't be anything in it that seems familiar. It begins in 1885. It is set in Kentucky on a horse ranch. The main characters so far are two sisters, 8 and 12, whose mother died when they were much younger. But there is something about it that feels like it is my story. Maybe it is because much of the action so far centers around the contents of a trunk that the girls' grandmother goes through twice a year and the girls get to sit nearby and watch, if they are quiet enough. It reminds me a bit of the wooden chest that was in the basement of my parents' first house, the one that had all sorts of mysterious items in it that we were not allowed to open the trunk to look at, but we could watch when Mom or Dad opened it.

In it were the silk kimono and the silk fan from Japan, the silk "grass" skirt from Hawaii, and the real grass skirt from the Phillipines that Dad brought back from his years with the Merchant Marines. And the cewpie doll that Dad won for Mom at some fair. Also there were comic books. Comic books that we couldn't take out to read on our own; we had to wait for Dad to give them to us.

While I am not certain just where Katherine Anne Porter grew up, I choose at this point to believe it was in Kentucky, or at least in the south. If that is true, then Old Mortality has something in common with what I have learned about my own writing from this project: that the subject of one's childhood is a rich source for material, even it if lacks the exotic qualities of a foreign location and the experience of living and writing in New York.

Day 25 - The Duke's Diary

Dear Diary,

What a day! What a night! And again, what a day! He did it again. The king never seems to realize the time it takes to accomplish his commands. As usual, he got a bee in his crown and decided something needed to be done about it right now. It's the prince again. His nibs is never satisfied with what the poor boy does. And yesterday morning he decided the prince must marry and must marry right away.

Image by Jane's Jubilee, via Flickr

I shall never understand why he is so hard on the prince. First he gives the boy anything he asks for, and even some things he hadn't asked for.  Then he tells the boy he must not settle for less than the best, and since the king's past actions have brought the boy fine tastes indeed, that set him off on a search for the best in everything: the best clothes, the best music, the best food, the best education, and he set out to become the best musician, the best sportsman, the best cook. No wonder he hasn't had time to look for a suitable companion.

Then his nibs gets it into his head the the prince is spending too much time on all these "hobbies" as he calls them. He says the boy is frittering away his time, wasting his energy when what he should be doing is settling down and starting a family.

So yesterday morning, the king tells me he will wait no longer. The prince must marry and if that means he, the king, must bring every eligible girl in the kingdom for the prince to choose from, well, then, that is what he - and by this, of couse he means me - will do.

"Arrange a ball for tonight, and invite every eligible girl from the kingdom to meet the prince," he says to me, with a flourish of his arm as if there were a wand attached that would make it so.

Does he think I'm clairvoyant and have the invitations sitting in a closet? Oh nooooo, I have to get them printed, the envelopes addressed, and then dragoon all the courtiers into getting them delivered to every home in the land. What a lot of favors I am going to have to pay back for getting that lot to help! Still, the really clever ones realized that a handful of invitations itself was an opportunity to hand out some favors of their own. Not every eligible young lady has a ball gown in the closet for such an event, so a more timely delivered invitation could give one young thing an advantage over a rival as the number of seamstresses in the land is limited.

Getting the ballroom ready was the least of my troubles, of course, as we have had plenty of practice keeping it spotless for just such last minute events. The kitchen staff also always come through to produce just enough nibbles to give the impression of sumptuousness, especially since it was clear that none of the ladies were likely to indulge as it might risk spoiling their make up or whatever finery they could put together at such short notice.

Image by disneyandy, via Flickr

The ballroom was quite a sight last evening. Every eligible girl in the kingdom must have been there, although some who were eligible no longer were young. Yet each one was presented to both the king and the prince. The prince truly was a prince, greeting each hopeful girl graciously, keeping each one's hopes high. But then, with about a quarter of the eligibles still in line, the prince bolted across the room and took the arm of a young lady who hadn't yet been presented, and he kept her away from the king for the rest of the evening.

I convinced those still in line to gather in an adjoining room where I promised them the prince would return to meet them shortly for a more private introduction. I could see their eyes light up as they considered the advantage of such an introduction, and all at once the race was on. While they pushed and shoved one another to get through the door, I rounded up one of the palace footman who is about the same height, build, and coloring as the prince, and I got him into one of the prince's uniforms to be his stand-in.

Tho eligibles still in the main ballroom were content, if that word could ever be appropriate, to eye one another jealously, speculating on who were their most serious rivals. As the last of the ladies in the adjoining room rejoined the others in the main ballroom, just after midnight, the prince reappeared, alone, thus unwittingly ensuring my charade with the footman succeeded. As the crowd thinned and the eligibles left, the prince told his father that he had found the woman he wished to marry, sending the old man to blissful dreams. But to me, the prince announced that he didn't know who she was or where she lived, turning my dreams into nightmares. All he had was one of her shoes which had fallen off as she ran away to her carriage.

Image by Loren Javier, via Flickr

This morning, when the king asked the prince about the girl, he was furious, of course, and demanded that I find the girl - or any girl - whose foot fit into the shoe. The first girl whose foot fit into the shoe would marry the prince.

This time there was nothing I could task the courtiers with doing. There weren't hundred of invitations to be delivered, but rather a single shoe to be tried on by hundreds of eligibles. How I wished the shoe were of a less unique design! There was no way for me to avoid handling this task myself. I kept going with the hope that the shoe was a common size. The king didn't demand that I find the girl. He only demanded that I find a girl.

And I did find her. The girl. If only I had the courage to tell her, to warn her, of what a life she is getting herself into. Oh, the prince - he's fine. But she won't be marrying just the prince; she'll be joined to the whole family - the prince, the king, the courtiers, all of us. She doesn't know the half of that old saying, if the shoe fits, wear it.

Day 24 - Claire

It was Saturday, the only day Claire could sleep in. She woke up while the room was still dark, but took time to "rest her eyes" and enjoy that in-between state of not sleeping but not being fully awake, of almost dreaming although having just a bit of control over the sequence of events that played out in her not quite subconscious mind.

Image by Ryan Holst, via Flickr

Once the room was light enough for her to know the sun was up, she slipped out of bed, into her slippers, and made her way to draw the drapes for her first view of the day. The sky was blue, the sun was shining, and the ground was covered in snow, several inches of it, Claire estimated. Without having to look at a thermostat or turn on a radio or TV to get a weather report, Claire knew it was cold outside. The few animals not hibernating during the winter had left some footprints on the snow. The edges of the prints were crisp, clearly defined, and without any evidence of melting that would otherwise indicate the sun's warmth.

Claire felt a shiver come over her as she imagined what the air outside was like. In defense, she grabbed her robe and headed for the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee to get warmed up before getting dressed and heading out to shovel the sidewalk and driveway. While the coffee brewed, she dropped two slides of Healthy Nut bread into the toaster and grabbed the margarine from the refrigerator and the marmalade from the cupboard. She switched on the radio which was always tuned to a Public Broadcasting station where the morning news programs were more balanced, she felt, than on the commercial stations which seemed to feature either disc jockeys yelling at the audience between pieces of music or talk shows whose moderators seemed bent on provoking their listeners into yelling at them. Her local PBS channel played classical music between news broadcasts, music to soothe away any anxieties or worries Claire brought home from work or picked up from news stories.

After savoring her toast and coffee - there was no need to rush - Claire got dressed to face the snow. In layers. She knew layers were the key to keeping her warm. She had silk long johns from her short-lived experiment with cross-country skiing, one of the activities she tried in her desperate effort to find something about winter to like, to look forward to, so the long johns were the inner layer. Next she pulled on knee-high socks and a long-sleeved t-shirt. A pair of jeans covered the socks, with an oversized pair of jogging pants on top of the jeans. Over the t-shirt, she layered a flannel shirt and an Irish fisherman sweater. Before putting on her boots, she pulled on a pair of wool socks to keep her feet warm, and then topped off her layers with a North Face ski jacket, with hood which she pulled over a scarf and matching stocking cap her mother had knitted for her as a Christmas present.

Image by yourauntjam, via Flickr

The snow wasn't a surprise. Claire had left her shovel on the porch the evening before so that she would have it handy to clear the steps and sidewalk before she had to tackle the driveway. The snow was deep, but not heavy. It wasn't wet enough to be good for making snowmen. Clearing the porch and steps just meant pushing the snow down to the next level. But clearing the sidewalk required removing the snow in layers, first the top three inches and then the rest, down to the pavement. She cleared a path the width of the shovel from the steps to the street and then shoveled the rest of the snow off the sidewalk in perpendicular swaths. She had to clear the snow from the sidewalk alongside the street as well. The county had passed a regulation at the end of the last winter requiring all public pedestrian walkways be cleared at least two-feet in width within 12 hours of the end of any snow fall, unless the snow depth was over 4 inches when the time limit was extended to 36 hours. Claire felt certain there were more than 4 inches on the ground, but there was no advantage to waiting another day to clear the path.

Once the sidewalks were clear, Claire considered whether to take on clearing the driveway, or to put it off. Once again, she thought about how much easier it would be if she gave in and bought a snow blower, but each winter she hoped would be her last in this climate. Buying a snow blower would be too close to giving up hope of a life somewhere else, somewhere warmer, somewhere exotic, somewhere she always knew she wanted to live, even without yet knowing its name.

Day 23 - Ben Wheeler, 6, Student

BenWheeler, image by MSN

Ben Wheeler wasn't really such a troublesome student - he was just her biggest challenge this year. Dawn had seen many worse. Unlike typical first grade discipline problems, Ben wasn't violent. He wasn't a bully. He wasn't late. He wasn't a thief. He always did his homework. But. . .

Ben had a way of following instructions while at the same time pushing to find where the edges are. For example, when Dawn assigned her students the task of bringing in pictures of objects that began with specific letter of the alphabet, most of her students seemed already to have developed a healthy sense of competition, each trying to bring in more or bigger or more colorful pictures. Ben alternated between bringing in just one picture or a dozen pictures of the same object.

Ben was also unable to sit still for more than 10 minutes. While he never got up from his desk without permission, his energy level seemed to spill over so that something would drop from his desk or fly off across the room. Then his hand would go up to ask for permission to pick up the book or collect the pencil. It was that politeness that made it so difficult to figure out how to respond to Ben's behavior.

In contrast to Allison, Ben was always willing to volunteer for show-and-tell. But Dawn was never sure just what Ben would say, so she rarely called on him. She had talked with Ben's parents about the inappropriate story Ben had shared during show-and-tell about the dinner party his parents had hosted. Dawn was certain the other students hadn't understood why Ben's parents would be embarrassed, but six-year-olds were so much more worldly now than they were 25 year ago when Dawn began teaching.

Dawn Hochsprung, image by MSN

During art, Ben always seemed to get his paint or paste or fingers onto someone else's project. And he was always so sorry. But where Dawn found his apologies almost endearing, she recognized that his classmates weren't ready to say "never mind." Instead, some of his classmates were clearly annoyed with Ben although Dawn's classroom ground rules that prohibited speaking ill of anyone were still holding. Dawn saw eyes roll a couple of times, and she wondered how far beyond the school grounds her rules worked.

And that was the attention-seeking, disruptive behavior Dawn was concerned about.

Because Dawn began each school year lining up the children in their seats in alphabetical order, Ben was just ahead of Allison at the beginning of the school year. They were the last two in the row furthest to the right of her classroom, right next to the window. But Ben spent too much time staring out the window when he should have been reading or doing other work. At the end of the first 9-week term, Dawn placed him at the opposite side of the room. So now the two students Dawn was most concerned about were on the opposite sides of the room. To keep her eye on them, she was certain to keep her eye on all those in between as well.

Day 22 - Dawn Hochspung, 47, Teacher

Dawn Hochsprung, image by MSN

Allison's teacher, Dawn Hochsprung, was delighted when she saw Allison's hand go up during show-and-tell time. It was only the second time she recalled Allison raising her hand for anything. When Dawn called on her, Allison always had either the right answer, when the question called for a single answer, or a good thought in those cases where the child's creativity was being probed. Dawn had done all she could think of to encourage Allison to take part in activities, to build up her confidence. So when Allison raised her hand, Dawn called on her and watched as she made her way to the front of the room.

Dawn was pleased that Allison wasn't hanging her head as she walked. But once Allison reached the front of the room, Dawn noticed a little hesitation, as though Allison was reconsidering her volunteering. Just a hint of rose came over Allison's cheeks, a blush of embarrassment, Dawn thought. But as quickly as the blush appeared, it disappeared as Allison seemed to get back her courage and pointed to the knee-high socks she was wearing and told the class that they were new.  While others who volunteered for show-and-tell were reluctant to give up their platform at the front of the room when called on, Allison said her piece and then was done.

Dawn watched as the young girl walked back to her desk with more energy than she had shown on her way to the front of the classroom. Dawn hoped that energy was evidence that Allison found some confidence through her speaking, but she knew it could as easily be that Allison's confidence had escaped, leaving Allison with no option but to get back to the comfort of her desk as soon as possible.

As show-and-tell continued, Dawn continued watching Allison who began to shrink into herself. Instead of increased confidence, it appeared that her confidence was wilting. By the time show-and-tell ended, Allison was back to her usual self, head lowered so she could hide behind her hair as she concentrated on her text books and papers.

Benjamin Wheeler, Image from MSN

Dawn didn't believe she showed favoritism towards any of her students. She believed she was equally concerned about each of them, but the challenges each faced were not the same so that the time required to address each student's challenges couldn't be equal. For that reason, she knew there may be others who might accuse her of having a favorite or two. But Dawn spent time as her students required, not according to a rota.

For example, she spent more time on Benjamin Wheeler, too, her most troublesome student. Dawn was convinced Ben wasn't getting the attention he wanted, that he deserved, at home, probably because he was the middle son in this family of three boys. Ben's older brother was born when his parents had been married for ten years, Ben a year later, and the youngest was still an infant. Not surprisingly, after waiting so long to begin their family, his parents doted on the older son and found the infant a handful as they hadn't planned on having a larger family, especially at their age. After five years of being their baby, Ben found he had lost much of his parents' attention which Dawn assumed led him to act out in class where he was assured of getting attention from not only his teacher, but also the rest of his classmates. Dawn was struggling to find a way to turn his attention-seeking behavior into something positive, but she hadn't found the key yet. Both his young age and his infectious smile made it difficult to discipline him. She hadn't yet decided if at six-years-old Ben had learned to manipulate those around him or if he was just a desperately lonely child who was trying all methods he could think of to get attention.

By the end of the day, Dawn had stopped wondering why Allison's confidence had slipped away after show-and-tell. She dismissed her students when the end-of-the-day bell rang and she watched as they seemed to fly out of their desks and through the classroom door.

Day 21 - Writer's Block, Day 2

Image by Incessant Flux via Flickr

Last night we watched Cinderella. And for the first time, I spent time observing the bit players instead of the usual ones. I paid attention to the king, his duke, even the prince, instead of Cinderella, her step-mother and step-sisters, even her fairy godmother.

I didn't recall, for example, that the king was so unhappy with his son's frittering away his time instead of looking for an appropriate wife. I didn't recall that the king gave his duke only one day to arrange the ball. And I didn't recall that Cinderella wasn't aware that the handsome man she danced with all night was the prince.

Watching the king reminded me of some ambassadors whose expectations of what can be done run right up against the boundary of the impossible. The duke reminded me of management officers who are usually the ones expected to pull off the near impossible.

The night before we watched Arthur, not the 1980's version with Dudley Moore, the later version with Russell Brand. Arthur's mother's disappointment in her son's activities and choices resonated in the king of Cinderella's statements about the prince's frittering away his time.

So it got me thinking about a play I saw in New York in 1968 by Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a play written from the perspective of two minor characters in Hamlet. And I also started wondering just how the prince frittered away his time. In the Disney version, it is hard to imagine what he did - or didn't do - between becoming an adult and the ball. Those are ideas I'll explore later.

Day 20 - Writer's Block

Image by Tony Dowler via Flickr

I am having a lot of trouble getting started today. I turned to the Writers Exercise Generator for ideas and tried several of them, looking for inspiration. But none of them worked. So I'm going to have to try just writing for the sake of writing, without great hopes for the results.

There was a lot of banging around our house today as Henry and his plumbing crew began their work to replace the sewer pipes below our house. Not surprising, given the age of our house, the task is not entirely straightforward or a simple as it looked yesterday. The fact that our house was built in stages explains why the plumbing is really three segments joined together in an expedient, but not necessarily the most efficient manner.

The pipes under the main house have all been replaced. So we have water and drains for the kitchen, laundry and two of the bathrooms. But sewers leading from the master bath to the main house go under the garage and all our efforts to find a hatch failed. And in the course of replacing the pipes that could be replaced, Henry found there are roots in the pipes outside the house. So that means those pipes need to be replaced as well, and that will require trenching through out yard.

Henry did solve one mystery that has nothing to do with plumbing. He noticed clumps of dirt in our yard and explained that we have a gopher - or two. Our yard is very lumpy, not nice an level like I am used to.  He also pointed out one area of our lawn that appears to be in so much better shape than the rest. The shape of the particularly green patch suggested to Henry that there may be a a break in the underground irrigation system pipes. That system was put in place by the investors who bought the house and then renovated it, so it is not at all old. Unless we see our water bills growing unreasonably, we'll probably just accept that some of the lawn looks in better shape than the rest. The direction that the trench for the sewer line will have to go won't give us any clues to the status of the irrigation system.

We did find one mystery that I'll have to explore further another time. Henry noticed the floor in the closet in the laundry room was wooden and there was a hinged hatch with two holes in it that looked just right for opening it. After we moved all the items out of the closet and Henry lifted the hatch, all we found was an underground cavity, a little like a safe built into a wall, without the security of a metal door and lock. But more curious was that the portion of the floor next to the hatch had holes in it, holes that appeared to be air holes for whatever living thing might be put into the cavity. Each one of us when we saw the holes had the same reaction - what are they for?

Day 19 - Henry

Image by Scott O'Dell via Flickr

Henry was born in Tijuana, was raised in Santa Monica, and lives now in San Diego with his wife and the younger of his eight children. He has a plumbing business with two of his older sons. He hired his son-in-law to teach him the plumbing business when his son-in-law returned from a tour with the U.S. Marines in Desert Storm and couldn't get a job that would allow him to remain at home with his wife and two young children. After two years, Henry sent his son-in-law out on his own because he knew he couldn't teach him any more. Henry encouraged his son-in-law to work for another plumbing business where he could learn heating and ventilation as well. Henry's one regret in his business is that he didn't learn HVAC. Instead, he specialized in plumbing. And he is good.

Henry was the first plumber in the San Diego area to use a video camera on a snake to allow his customers to see what is in the sewer line. He doesn't need the camera. He knows what is in the sewer by the feel of the snake in his hands as he feeds it into the pipes. But the camera shows the customers. When his boss asked if he thought an underwater video signal would be helpful, he knew he didn't need it. But he agreed to use one. When he saw his customers' reactions, he was convinced.

Image by PhylB via Flickr

Henry is a keen observer. He was in a bank where he noticed a table in the lobby where customers could pour out a cup of coffee while the waited. It was something he hadn't seen elsewhere, so it caught his attention. Then he noticed a man standing near the table who was stirring his coffee cup with a spoon. For a long time. For a really long time. And then he noticed another man standing near the door. Just standing there, scanning the room from side to side. Henry got out of line and walked to the security guard and mentioned that the two men seemed a little suspicious. The guard nodded and Henry got back into line. The guard then circled the lobby and returned to Henry to whisper that the coffee stirrer's cup was empty. The guard suggested Henry leave the bank. Henry did.

After half an hour, Henry returned to the bank to find police cars outside, a helicopter circling above, and the two men face down on the ground with policemen standing over them.

Henry is an immigrant. He is a successful businessman, a successful family man and an all around great guy. Henry is an example of the reason immigration is important for our country.

Day 18 - The Project

On Day 1, I completed the first exercise in the 12-Day Plan for Simple Writing Exercises. For today, I'd like to expand on each of the 10 potential book titles from that exercise by including a paragraph summary of the book.

Day 1:  Write 10 potential book titles of books you’d like to write.

1.     Another Day in Paradise
      During her three years on the island of Barbados, Olivia Engel discovered a world where time passes at a different pace, words often mean the opposite of what she thought, and those who looked like the good guys weren't.
2.     Someone to Watch Over Me
      From early childhood Ana Marquez-Greene had always felt a presence, a spirit that kept her from harm. But after her mother's death, the presence was absent.

3.     Death Of an American
      For the past eight years, Foreign Service Officer Dylan Hockley had served as staff assistant to the ambassador of a major western European ally, served as political reporting officer of a South American country, and desk officer for two small African countries. He thought he could handle anything. but he wasn't prepared as consular officer in a small eastern European country to receive a call about the death of an American when he learned the American was his friend, Benjamin Wheeler.  

4.     Mirror, Mirror
      Catherine Hubbard bounced from foster home to foster home until she turned 18 and found herself homeless and living on the streets. Determined to get a college education, but convinced that her circumstances would prevent her from being accepted, Catherine created an alternate persona 

5.     Always a Bridesmaid
      Grace McDonnell knew she was exceptional. Intelligent, musically talented, a graceful dancer, but unlucky. At least that's how she felt. In spite of her talents, she seemed doomed to come in second. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

6.     Please Pass the Potatoes
      The youngest of eight children, Jesse Lewis felt himself in competition for attention. At school, teachers compared him to his older siblings, expecting the same high grades. At home, his parents did their best to provide all their children with the attention they wanted and needed. But Jesse felt short-changed and misunderstood.

7.     Dancing in Yemen
      Emilie Parker, Peace Corps volunteer, found herself in a village just to the north of the capital Sana'a where the tribal chief decided to kidnap a diplomat from a western embassy in an attempt to force the government of Yemen to build a school for the  girls of the village.

8.     Behind the Closed Door
      A successful lawyer, Noah Pozner's life changed on the day a client walked into his office requesting her will be drawn up. What he learned about his client tempted him to consider opening doors to learning more about his past, doors that might be best left closed.

9.     The Price of Sweaters in Tehran
      In 1976, the Shah of Iran felt sufficiently in control of the local Islamic establishment to permit public observation of the Shi'a religious holiday Day of Ashura. Public observation had been banned since the 1950s when several foreigners were killed in the demonstrations in the bazaar. This year, Jack Pinto found himself caught up in an exuberant, threatening crowd, 

10. But What About Doha?
      Jessica Rekos joined the teaching staff of the Georgetown University in Doha and found herself in the middle of intrigue and mystery surrounding a former instructor whose students either loved or hated him.

Day 17 - An Unfinished Story

Nasser, on right, with a friend

In the 1960s, a nine-year-old boy in what was then Ethiopia but is now Eritrea contracted measles.  He recovered, but not without consequences.  He lost his sight.  His name was Nasser.

Nasser's story is one of closing doors and an enormously open mind.

The Ethiopian government provided education for the blind, but it meant Nasser had to attend school away from home, away from the Arab Muslim traditions of his family.

While at school, he formed a friendship with another blind student, Elfey.  The two of them became teachers.  They were sent to different villages to teach. The only way they could be assigned to the same place was to get married.  But Elfey is Christian.  In spite of Nasser’s family’s objections, they married, Nasser became a Christian, and they were assigned to schools in Addis Ababa, away from both their families.  

While in Ethiopia, Nasser joined the Ethiopian National Association for the Blind.  He became an advocate for improving the educational opportunities of students with visual limitations.

Saron, one of Erirea's chldren

In 1991, Eritrean rebels won their independence from Ethiopia.  Since both Nasser and Elfey had been born and raised within the boundaries of the newly independent Eritrean country, the Ethiopians expelled them.  They returned to Eritrea where they continued teaching.  They also found their family greatly expanded as Elfey’s sister’s husband was killed during the Civil War so she and her children needed a place to live and a source of financial support.  Elfey’s brother-in-law fought against the Ethiopian government, but not with the winning rebels.  Instead of being considered a martyr by the Eritrean government, he was just another dead soldier. And his widow and children received nothing on his death.

In addition to teaching, Nasser became one of the founders of the Eritrean National Association for the Blind, hoping to continue the work he had begun in Ethiopia.  In 2001, he was one of a group of 20 teachers, the only non-sighted among the group, who received scholarships from the Eritrean government to study in South Africa where he received a master’s degree in education, with specialization in inclusive education for children with special needs.  It was a big step toward his ultimate goal.

Tekelu, Nasser's nephew

In 2004, Nasser returned from South Africa, when I met him during my last week in the country.  After I left, Nasser obtained funding from the U.S. Embassy to develop a workshop for local teachers.  He was also teaching again by then, but the Eritrean government was suspicious of his connections with the embassy.  And that developed into a combination of jealousy from his colleagues and suspicion from his superiors.

Then, the Eritrean Association shifted its focus to address the needs of those who lost their sight in the Civil War, not as a result of disease.  And most of those victims are adults, not the children Nasser so desperately wanted to help.  He was removed from the Board of the Association and its committees.

Because Nasser was no longer on the Board of the Eritrean National Association for the Blind, he lost his teaching job.  The Ministry of Education encouraged him to look for work outside of Eritrea as they recognized they would not be able to help him meet his goal.  So Nasser made plans to travel to Sudan to visit relatives and look for work.

After a month in Sudan, he left, but didn’t return to Eritrea.  Instead, he returned to Addis Ababa, by means that I have never asked him to explain.  I don’t really want to know.  His wife, Elfey, their three children, his sister-in-law and her children, and his mother-in-law remained in Eritrea, with only Elfey’s salary to support them, so long as she continued teaching, so long as the Eritrean government didn’t turn its suspicion in her direction.

This is an unfinished story.  

Nasser remained in Ethiopia more that two years, during which time he lived in one of the refugee camps where he would have to collect water each morning to bathe and fuel to cook his meals.  After more that a year on a list with the UNHCR for resettlement in Norway, Canada, or the United States, his family still remained in Eritrea.  Throughout that experience, Nasser continued to write proposals for grants to share his experience, thoughts, and theories on inclusive education for blind and deaf children.  Throughout this experience, he remained positive, focused on his goals.  Throughout this experience, he sought to find his own means, turning to a friend for help only when he sees no other option.  And throughout this experience, he has continued to teach me the value of recognizing that when a door closes, sometimes there is a sign on it pointing to another open door with an even better prize behind it.

Nasser is now in the United States, in Syracuse, NY. His wife and children are in Ethiopia. His wife's case has been approved to join Nasser, but hls children's cases are still pending. Nasser works doing some tutoring and medical translation.

This story is unfinished.  But I have no doubt that it will be a success story.