The big potato

"I bet you'll have an audience with the Pope," said Mom, scanning the itinerary.

"Mom, that's not how it works. Do you have any idea how many Catholics there are in the world?"

"They're probably hoping to surprise you. I mean it would fit right in to your course, right? The Pope is a Jesuit. Why else would they take you to Rome?"

"Because it's ROME, Ma. Not everyone has been there. We're just going to see Rome. You know, the Vatican, St. Peter's, the Sistine chapel - we're going to stand in line like normal tourists and see all the stuff you're supposed to see. THAT's how it fits into the course."

I give her grief for it, but I've always appreciated my mom's indomitable "Well, why NOT my kid?" optimism.

Our wake-up call is a punishing 6:45am, and that doesn't allow time for breakfast. We are supposed to attend Mass at St. Peter's basilica and then return to the hotel to eat. By now I should know better than to depend on the proposed meal schedule. My comrades have already teased me for squirreling away "bus butter" and "purse pizza." 

Hypoglycemia is a real thing, people. I looked it up. 

Our Roman guide, Rudy, returns from the gates of St Peter's square with a helpless shrug. "The church is closed." Our American leader, a

Jesuit priest, isn't shrugging. He looks appalled. "There is an audience," Rudy explains. "Special audience, so they have changed the routine. That's how it is with this Pope, you never know."

After MUCH standing around and failure to accept the reality of the church being closed, we end up in a metal carrel behind a bunch of nuns. Rudy is making new friends, getting the lay of the land. Turns out all these people - the nuns, the civilians (I count four languages), the men dressed up kind of like nuns (no idea, and I didn't ask. By this time I was just wishing I'd thought to bring a pocket pretzel or some backpack brioche) - have tickets for the special audience. We're not getting in to the church.

Just when I'm about to make Marc google hypoglycemia so I can show it to our leader and say "It's a real thing," we decide to cut our losses and return to the hotel. "You can stop by here at 9:20am, at the edge of the square," Rudy offers. "He will come out onto the platform in the distance there, maybe you will see him."

The square is closed and guarded when we return but I stride toward the guards with all the confidence that comes from standing next to Kendra, a beautiful blonde with a disarming smile. We are so getting past these guards. We offer the contents of our purses for search, and the guards look quizzically at me, holding up my undereye concealer wand. "HYPOGLYCEMIA IS A REAL THING," I want to shout. It gives me those high-fashion heroin eyes.

The ticket holders are gathered beneath the platform.  Marc, Brian, Sean and Noel made it through before the gates were closed; we find them easily by scanning the crowd for Mount Brian. We wait in the sun as a Cardinal announces the names of all the groups who have made a pilgrimage to be here today. Cheers erupt from the Indiana youth choir. The Portuguese are more dignified when their name is called. Up on the dais, every pregnant pause only produces another Cardinal, to repeat the litany in Spanish, then in French.

At either side of the square, where the arches meet the ancient walls, two enormous video monitors come to life. There is a shift in the crowd; people are scanning. The video screen shows the Pope in his carriage rolling along, waving, grasping hands. It looks like any image I've seen on tv but I realize he must be HERE, somewhere. I don't know which way to look so I watch the crowd; it gets a little momentum as people begin to spot him and start turning, larger and larger groups all looking in one direction. 

My friends start jumping up and down. I hear the vehicle before I see him; he's nineteen yards to my left and rolling fast this way. To my astonishment, he's going to pass right by us. None of us even use the zoom lens on our cameras. 

What began as a series of delays and disappointments has been transformed like the Eucharist into a close encounter with something soul-stirring. The moment the Jesuit Pope passes me, I say a prayer for what I want most: for my student, Andrew, not to have cancer anymore. I pray that he will be liberated from ever having to worry about it coming back. I pray that he'll get to play soccer again. Please, God, let it be Andrew's life and not his death that becomes a testament to the power of prayer. 

I stood in the spot that Rudy suggested for us, that Brian located, that Kendra secured, that only grace could have created. No one pushed me; no one jostled each other at all. I raised my arm and reached out. 

I didn't earn that audience with the Pope. I think God just sent me there to hold the camera.

Don't look at him; look at the nun.

"Seasickness is just a misunderstanding in the inner ear."

An unlikely oil scion who would have made an excellent Muppet for reasons too numerous to mention, Marc has nearly completed eleven years of training to become a Jesuit priest. He is funny and irreverent; he swears and he smokes. He beats me by 0.7 seconds with every witty quip, but he's also the first person to hug and thank someone who shares a personal insight during evening reflection. 

Marc chose a window seat directly behind me on the bus, where he sat for six days sharing a few personal reflections of his own, on everything from solar panels to sunflowers to acute motion sickness. "Press your fingers on the tendon in your wrist," I told him, "and look at the horizon." A diving guide named Octavio taught me that in Mexico. It doesn't work, but it gives you something to think about. 

 I was pressing my own wrist when we made the approach to Montserrat,  a rising series of switchbacks that reminded me of a marble maze. In the back of the bus, Kendra inquired about the window hammer. In case of emergency, you tap it in a rectangle shape around the window and force the glass out. "Just use it on me," Marc moaned.

title credit Paul Theroux

I can't hide in plain sight when it's this quiet in here

Traveling in a group has been in every.single.way foreign for me. Brian, a thirty-three-year-old from Iowa with blue eyes and a superb intellect, has never left North America before. He handles every exotic detail affably and expertly. He has a rejoinder for every quip and already knows which beer he likes best. He can order paella, large, hold the squid. Six foot eight and ducking through doorways, nothing seems to catch him by surprise. I've got fifty three countries on the guy and I'm caught up short by every change in the routine, every "ok, back on the bus!", every walking tour that should have ended an hour ago, every hotel wake up call. (Hell, every hotel. In Paris I slept on a bench in a bookshop; in Croatia, an abandoned fort; in Hong Kong, a shuttered shop window until my dignity got the better of me). 

The biggest adjustment, though, has been the silencing of my inner monologue. Without it, there can be no circus ninja. 

Martillo/Martilio

More translation hilarity ensued today when we visited the basilica of Our lady queen of hammers. I mean martyrs. 

Evidently not every burrito is my lucky burrito

Lingua ninja, not so much. It's only day two and I've broken my pledge to keep my Spanish skills on the down low. I don't know why I wanted to, but I really did. But I've been using it everywhere and today I was geeking out on word origins when another member of the group asked, "Are you a Spanish teacher?" Whoops. 

Perhaps part of the reason I wanted it quiet was so that people wouldn't think that *I* think my Spanish is good. We have a tour guide assigned to travel with us throughout the week; occasionally she has to translate when the local museum guides speak only Spanish and Basque. Sometimes I try to translate in my head before she gets to it. Results are mixed.

"That's where he had a burrito," is what I hear the docent say in Spanish.

"This is where he kept his donkey," says our guide.

You must be at least THIS tall to ride this autobiography

My travel cohort of 18 people includes my coworker Brad. (Fellow coworkers, if you're reading this and wondering who got that pseudonym, it's Brad!)

I didn't know him well but over the course of one large airport Bud Light (in a glass, which was strange: they handed it to me and I was like, "This comes in glasses? Is it really this color?") we connected on topics ranging from Israel to our Kairos speeches, with a few detours launched by me into "HAVE YOU HEARD THIS RADIO STATION YET??"

Brad had finished the pre-travel reading; I, predictably, had completed a third of it while watching the Cavs game but set it down because my toenail polish needed freshening. He cautioned me that the book, an autobiography of Saint Ignatius transcribed by his fellow Jesuit priests, ends abruptly. "It's like, he alludes to this other visionary experience he had, and mentions that he took thorough notes on it. Then the other priest says, 'Can I see them?' And he says 'No.' And THAT'S THE END! Of the book! Spoiler, sorry. Apparently the notes were later shredded and I'm like, this guy, what is he, the Ollie North of religious texts?"

Points for that reference, Brad. We'll circle back to the Iran Contra scandal if we run out of other conversation topics. 

For my part, I can't speak to the end of the book but I can tell you that the beginning is pretty entertaining. There is a lengthy preface/disclaimer by the scribe, essentially apologizing for what you are about to read. "Ok so this....we really badgered him to write this. But when he started talking, we had to decide whether to write it down exactly as he said it or, uh, modify it to be more...intelligible. 

...Also there was this one time I was supposed to meet him in the tower to take notes and I was late so he canceled that whole chapter."

This is the preface, people. As I said to Brad, if this were an improv game, would you play it? Two players: one has to tell a story and the other one has to tell the preface to the story. "Ok, my friend Jack is about to tell you the story of the time he went fishing with his uncle. Jack is...ok, two years ago he was concussed, ok?  Also he started to tell me this story last week but I had to take a phone call from this girl I'm sort of seeing and he got offended. But like, I had to take the call. Anyway English IS Jack's first language. I just want you to know that."

Pinocchio becomes a Real Boy

Home sweet truck. I roll in with the sunset and stare briefly into the truck bed wondering if the tent is even necessary. I've lined the bed with dense foam padding, after all. It's plenty warm out and I'm soaked in bug spray. I smell like childhood.

Some vague instinct spurs me to pitch the tent, rising in a high dome over the truck and clipping to its sides. I even attach the rain fly to one side but I don't pull it fully over the top, preferring the breeze through the mesh and the view of the rising full moon. 

At 3:18 am I awaken spontaneously. Recalling the mention of "rain later tonight" on my new favorite radio station, I step out gingerly, tug the rain fly into place, and curl up back inside. Not seven minutes later the heavens absolutely open up. I could fall asleep to the sound of the rain but I wouldn't want to miss a minute of it. My tent, so far untested, holds up - even the bottom of it is thoroughly waterproof, I note with relief as I feel water sluicing beneath it and soaking the foam. It pours and it pours, and I remain dry and joyous in my perfect little habitat. This is all I need. This is all I ever needed. 

Day two in Massachusetts is an errands day. I wait out rush hour in a cafe, listening to the benign chatter of the regulars. "Hear the rain last night?" These outer Boston accents are everything I ever dreamed they could be. 

The commute into the city is longer than I anticipated and confirms that my initial plan to camp up here every night would never have worked. For one thing, I sleep too damn well outside. It was 7:45am before I even wiggled my toes; with next month's classes starting at 9am I'd just never make it. 

All I have to go on is the address in the signature line of an email I received from school. Plugging that into the GPS dumps me out on Commonwealth avenue, where I leave my truck in a one hour space because what the hell else am I going to do with it, stumble onto campus with no orientation whatsoever, and follow one quaint white stone walkway after another until I find first the bathroom and then the library. It seems vivid now, because for once I took the time to tell myself, "Remember this; this is what the beginning felt like."

The library is called O'Neill, which I find comforting. I knew an O'Neill once.

I could tell you, but you wouldn't hear me, of two and a half more hours of reconning buildings and parking permits and locating the summer residential welcome center to confirm that they will have a key for me when I fly in from Rome on the Saturday of a three day weekend. "But you're in a one hour parking space," the observant among you will protest. That's right, I am, and after procuring a map I move my truck, and after reading the map more carefully I go back and move it again.

 I could tell you of the buildings whose names I mispronounce when asking directions, and of wishing someone were with me to hear me joke, "They forgot to put the 'you are here' sticker," on the portable paper map. I could tell you of the five flights of parking garage stairs I walk down before realizing the elevator is ten yards to my right, or that I triumphantly enter it and press "L", which turns out to be a short trip down one last floor. 

I could tell you, but you wouldn't be there with me. It would be better if you just think back and remember the last time you were a freshman. 

Answers in hand, I hightail it back to the campsite just before rush hour kicks in and take long walk to the pond. The next day I return to campus to leave the truck and repeat my newbie navigation, this time of the T to the airport. 

I suppose these logistics are no more challenging than making the land border crossing into Cambodia, but at least there even when I was buying toothpaste I got to be all, "What up world, I'M IN ASIA."

It has been a season of goodbyes. My apartment is shuttered and dark. My pet bunny rabbit is seeking out new floors to pee all over at my parents' house. I stayed two days to acclimate him there and maybe I imagined that he was more clingy than usual, as if he knew I was leaving. Surely it was me who couldn't let go. I said goodbye twice, and then a third time, reaching back behind the couch to make sure those furry ears were right where I left them. 

And my truck - my baby; my home; my most expensive, most beloved possession ever; that my nephew named "The Blue Shark,"; that I spent all last summer shopping for from an app on my phone while still in Asia; sits in an open lot on an unfamiliar campus. Hopefully I will find it unmoved ten days from now, with permit safely tacked to the windshield and inflatable shark guarding the rear of the cab. 

Everything has changed in a year. When I made landfall on country number 54 (China, technically, by way of Hong Kong), it was almost like I didn't live anywhere on earth. My world was in my backpack.

My balcony apartment was newly rented and devoid of furniture. The truck was a fantasy that was just taking shape ("A ranger, for sure. Extended cab. 4WD.") I bought the tent in August once I was pretty sure I'd find the right truck. The bunny wasn't even born yet. It was so easy, once, to believe that I wouldn't be missed.  

In only one year I've somehow landed, parachute unfolding like a Chinese takeout container to reveal me perched in the center of...well, things. I have accessories. I have a pet. 

I'm needed. I live in the world.

I'm as free as a bird and you float like a feather.

When I was a senior in high school, a boy from another school took me on my first date. We went to see the movie "Pulp Fiction." (If there's a less appropriate date movie I can't think of one. For an expanded list of things my parents wouldn't have let me do if they had been paying attention to pop culture, check out the collection of Guns N Roses cassettes I started accumulating at age ten.

 Tennnnnn.)

Pulp Fiction was released before the Internet, so there was no way to verify the claim made by John Travolta's character that in Europe they call a whopper a "Royale with cheese"." I've since been here and there in Europe and still haven't bothered to check this out. I took it at face value. What Vincent Vega was trying to say was that when you travel, it's the little things you notice. 

I've said it before, this year's travels are not nearly as adventurous as what I'm used to. Last year's "little differences" included observations like "hey, those aren't letters..."

This year I'm fixated on the Boston radio station. It's just DIFFERENT here. Please consider this sample from a standard rock station:

Kid rock: Sweet home Alabama

(This actually is the song that was playing when I turned the radio station on, and I absolutely would have changed the channel but as it happened I was driving one-handed while eating a burrito.

That ended up being my lucky burrito, because after I paid my kid rock tax I was treated to the following playlist:)

The Ramones: I want to be sedated. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd: Freebird. 

Radiohead: Creep

YOU READ THAT RIGHT, FREEBIRD FOLLOWED BY RADIOHEAD.

Aerosmith: angel. 

Green Day: paranoid.

Black sabbath: Iron Man. 

The killers: somebody told me. Motley Crue: girls girls girls.

The Foo Fighters. 

Pearl Jam.

I stopped clocking song titles because that killers/motley Crue one-two  punch kind of blew my mind. 

I think I've got their algorithm, after two hours of listening (I was only an hour and twenty minutes out from the campground when I found the radio station in the first place so I left my ignition on.) 

It basically alternates classic with contemporary, by which of course I mean mid-nineties,

and they choose a song that's sort of adjacent to the song you expect to hear. 

Like if it's time to play "Dream On" they reach for "Angel" instead. 

"Iron Man" over "Crazy Train." 

Know any Killers songs? Right, "Mr Brightside", "Human" and...that other one. Play that one. 

It JUST occurred to me that a Boston radio listener would come to my hometown and be like "HOLY SHIT THEY'RE PLAYING CRAZY TRAIN."

And then, "I just heard 'When I Come Around' ON THE RADIO."

And eventually, "IN THIS TOWN, FREE BIRD ALWAYS PRECEDES A COMMERCIAL BREAK."

What, you mean they never go straight from Free Bird to a radiohead song? Weird. 

It's the little differences, man.

title credits Lynyrd Skynyrd and Radiohead

"Her hands touch her childhood home in photos that she took. It's one more omission from a high school history book..."

I said goodbye to a dear friend yesterday. He's off on a three-year adventure to visit every national park in the United States. He'll live the whole time in a white van, though not exactly a nondescript one.

That's me putting the solar panels on it. I like this photo because
a) you can't really see me so my ninjatude is still basically intact and
b) I look like some sort of mantis who landed on the van from above. Carrying a power drill.

My own destinations are more subdued this year - Europe, grad school, beach - but the departure protocol is the same. I'm essentially moving out of my apartment and won't return for two months.

I'm actually getting worse at goodbyes. I used to ride out my lease, sell whatever car I was driving, and change my voicemail to "Please don't leave a message. I won't be back for a long time."
Now I'm walking from room to room and telling my apartment how much I'm going to miss it.

I was very methodical in packing. Now everything goes into the truck in reverse order. The suitcase I will live out of for a month of grad school, that goes in first. It'll sit there for ten days while I'm in Europe. There on top of it is the backpack for Europe. (See previous post. I left the leather bag in the apartment. Yeah, I might've told it I would miss it. So what.) Somewhere in there is the travel guitar.
The good guitar is on top of all that because it will come out of the truck at Mom and Dad's house and wait until I come back to go to the beach with everybody. Confused yet? It's a lot of logistics, I know.

Other items going to Mom and Dad's:
1. My laptop. It can't sit in a hot truck for ten days while I'm in Europe. I'll have to do without a laptop for the first two weeks of grad school and retrieve it mid-program when I come down for the Guns 'N' Roses concert. (See post, "Stairway to Kevin").
2. Trashy outfit for Guns 'N' Roses concert. I had to buy one special.
3. Two industrial garbage bags filled with hundreds of three-inch plastic balls to turn truck bed into ball pit for my niece and nephews.
4. Large jug with tap to make "spa water" at the beach or who am I kidding maybe we will dump a bottle of vodka, two bottles of champagne, and the juice from an entire watermelon in there and call it a day. I'm very popular with my family.

The camping gear can stay in the truck bed. I'll camp the first two nights near Boston before flying out to Europe, then again the last few nights of the summer. In between time I think they found me a dorm bed because I checked the commute from the campground and it's just too long.

The truck is ready, so I turn back to closing out the apartment. Shut the blinds and balcony door. Draw the curtains. Hop online to put a hold on mail delivery. Tape a spare key in a secret location at work in case somebody needs to get in. Lock the trunk containing twenty years of handwritten journals, in case that person does get in. Finish off all perishables in the fridge and turn the temperature up to 42. Empty both trash cans. Leave goodbye letters to family in prominent place in case of plane crash. Turn off the air conditioning. Take a last sip of coffee, put the cup in the dishwasher, and run it. Unplug all devices from every outlet in the apartment.

No wait. Better leave the TV and the DVR plugged in. I'll be away during Shark Week.

title credit the Weakerthans

Dress code: ninja, muted for company

I can't decide whether to let my freak flag fly on this upcoming trip to Spain (part of the summer course). I'm tempted to pack the way I always do - or, I should say, I'm incapable of packing any other way.
But I don't want to call attention to myself when I show up at the airport with just my purse. I'm trying to consider first impressions here.

Here's what I have planned:

That's the black shirred tank that I never get to wear because the neckline feels a smidge too low for work.


And there's the orange sheath dress that I love more than any other piece...with a hemline about a quarter inch too high for, you guessed it, work. I want to be Cathedral-ready for this trip, but it can't be harder than dressing for my job.



Those are pajamas. Pajamas! I usually sleep in my clothes to get one last wear out of them, but I'll be sharing a room and I'm trying to keep it classy.

The other items are
A yellow blouse that pairs with everything
A swingy navy blue tunic top
A black mesh cardigan for covering my shoulders in the cathedrals
Patterned palazzo pants
A red and turquoise (it works. trust me) patterned romper
Black skort
Yellow silk scarf in case I get cold, not likely

By my calculations I can wear each top three times, wear the dress alone once, wear the romper alone once, and I'm covered for an eleven-day trip. My companions will surely have noticed by the third wearing of the yellow blouse. Fortunately, I look amazing in yellow.

Shoes: metallic flats. I figure a closed toe is nicer than flip flops for the churches.

And now for the bag! Trusty blue backpack or stylish brown leather purse? Sadly, I think I know the answer. As much as I'd love to rock my leather purse all over Spain, my policy is never to travel with anything that I absolutely cannot bear to lose. (RIP, blue cotton lawn smock dress with tiny orange flowers that I accidentally left drying on the door handle of a hotel in Sarajevo. Six years on, I don't miss you any less. I've acquired new accessories that would pair so well with you. Grief is a spiral.)