My Aunt and General Noriega

Lots of snow had fallen by 6 p.m. that day. We drove along the hilly Connecticut roads flanked by magical scenes. Majestic trees, stone walls lining the slopes, the front porches of wooden homes - even the vast parking lots at shopping malls were beautiful under the snow.

I had lived in Amsterdam for a decade and my daughter was born there, so the New England winter scene was nothing short of spectacular for us both. Amsterdam winters are mild, and if it does snow, I rush to an upper-story window to watch the airborne flakes. More often than not, they melt before reaching the ground.

Another difference: the snow in Connecticut that day was heavy enough to weigh down pine branches and restrict car routes to those which had been shoveled free, but the point was - the roads and entrances to lots had indeed been cleared for traffic. The Netherlands leads the pack in protecting human infrastructure against the sea, but a light dusting of snow inevitably overburdens road-clearing resources each time.

Nevertheless, progress was slow on the drive back to my Mother’s home. By sometime after 6 o’clock, the rental van needed gas and we needed a snack, so on December 20, 1989, my daughter and I ate hotdogs sold at a roadside service station in the USA. This was possibly her first real hotdog. No one would dare serve second-rate dogs to Connecticut motorists, and these were really good. I kept the receipt, and used it to note the day's historic importance before tucking it into my wallet.

We drove on, happy with the warm food, the exotic setting and with each other’s company. The car radio was another source of pleasure, with Connecticut’s Hispanic stations a major attraction to both me and my half-Colombian daughter. That day, we listened to less music than usual because the invasion of Panama by U.S. forces dominated the news. I was appreciative of the listening time carved out by the car ride. My normal attention to radio and TV news is always interrupted on the road, especially during family visits.

The news was not surprising: another U.S.-backed agent in Latin America was being taken down. It took a few days to capture General Noriega, allowing time for the image of his face to take on a dartboard function in the press and on TV. All reports backed the notion that Noriega was big, nasty fish, that it was worth killing people to get him and that his removal would pave the way for government by virtue. Noriega’s pock-marked face drew derision nationwide.

Many, many Panamanians died as a result of the invasion. To the extent that I was able to tune into mainstream TV and radio during that period - I heard no one questioning U.S. motive or strategy. Friends and family, even those attached to critical, left-ish causes in the past - they were either indifferent towards or enthusiastic about the assault on Noriega. Articulate, well-educated individuals sneered at his bad complexion. The only exception was my Aunt, my daughter’s Great-Aunt, who we had visited that day in the Connecticut countryside.

My daughter had rolled in the snow like a pup, bending over to rub her long dark hair in the fresh drifts, shrieking with delight as she jumped up and whipped her head around. I was deeply happy, seeing her delirious in play, and remembering being a small child myself on those same hills, where my lanky woodsman Uncle would glide along on snowshoes in order to pull my sled. The final packing before moving from this home was happening that week in December. This chance at a final romp was pure coincidence.

My Aunt was my father’s baby sister. Clan complexities had imposed a fairly formal grid on our communications, and that day was not much different. While my daughter rushed around in celebration of all that was new and snowy and beautiful, I cautiously asked my Aunt what she thought about the invasion of Panama. She felt that truth was being withheld by the government, and she questioned the legality of propping up a leader elsewhere and then ferociously bringing him down, asking U.S. citizens to back both campaigns. Our conversations expanded into other fields after that day.

It Had to Happen Sometime Pt.1

Onward, Mississippi is not a rallying cry for this state in the southern USA, but rather the name of a location, a town at a crossroads. Not the crossroads of Robert Johnson and the Devil and the birth of the Blues fame, that's farther north in the Delta. Onward marks the spot where drivers of cars heading North anticipate entering the 'real' Delta, and where south-bound travellers leave the flat Delta fields behind. Either way, people stop for gas or food at the Onward market, becoming aware, if they didn't already know, of the site's true claim to fame: the mythology around the origin of the term 'Teddy Bear.'

At the heart of the legend is President Theodore Roosevelt's refusal to shoot a bear cub while on a hunting trip. A remarkable tale, as Teddy Roosevelt was so assertive at other moments: he championed the triumph over Natives in the American West as well as in other continents, where the ‘dominant races’ had pushed on bravely and avoided the shame of leaving these vast terrains as ‘nothing but a game preserve for squalid savages;’ he led key campaigns in the Spanish-American War, and he was the overseer of Panama’s ‘liberation’ from Colombia and the subsequent construction of the Panama Canal.

I remember staring in confusion (for quite a long time) at the signs in Onward. The only feeling I could identify was ambivalence: inspired by Teddy's legacy (other hunters have spared cubs, but few to none have been Presidents), the Delta's past and present and the unifying role of the sweet stuffed creature. At the time, nobody could have imagined that this, too, would change.

Integration Tip

A friend gets the credit for planting the notion of "The International Grease and Starch Cookbook" in my brain. She was referring to the fact that everywhere you go, there's a favorite way of serving puffy, deep-fried flour: doughnuts, Indian fry bread, Latin American Buñuelos, Spanish Churros, Chinese You Tiao, and the list goes on and on.
I was once served the Corsican variant, to my surprise, by a fierce French-food-fundamentalist and health-oriented French Corsican who proudly introduced me to this tasty, oil-soaked treat. In the steamy Caribbean-rim zone, I watched traders from French Guyana disembark from ferries and water-taxi's on the Surinamese side of the river with bottles of European wine and trays of locally-fried German jelly doughnuts or "Berliner Bollen," as they are known in the former Dutch colony.
Simplify the Berliner Bollen recipe just a bit and you've got the basics for Dutch "Oliebollen" or "Oil Balls." With or without currants or raisins, the dough is plunged into boiling oil and dusted with powdered sugar. The scent from this operation is in the Dutch air from mid-Autumn throughout the Winter, whether or not the temperature drops. Next to tram-stops, on bridges, at intersections - anywhere there is a free rectangle of space, the cheery frying stalls on wheels, most with old-fashioned facades, take position.
I had consumed many oliebollen in my early years in the Netherlands before the moment arrived when I decided to produce a homemade batch, and I set out on the oil ball mission with confidence. Inside the supermarket, bent over the baking supplies, I found myself surrounded by smiling shoppers. I asked them for advice. These women were so nice, so responsive to my inquiry in accented Dutch. One woman reached into her handbag and found an envelope which she used to write down the oil ball ingredients: flour, milk, yeast, currants. She added that I could buy apples to produce the deep-fried beignets that are also part of the traditional New Year's Eve party menu. She even wrote it down in two columns, detailing amounts needed for smaller or larger efforts.
The sense of shopping urgency fell away and three or four of us continued the conversation. The experienced Oil Ball bakers traded tips. Just before a silence could fall at the end of their sentences I would insert another question to keep things going: does it matter whether you use currants or raisins? What's the best kind of oil to fry in? Are oil balls the same all over the country, or are their regional differences? I did want answers, but mostly, I just wanted to share their enthusiasm. The envelope meant a lot to me, and I saved it.
I had used shopping as a ruse in the past, as a new arrival, when I began learning the language. Standing next to Dutch shoppers in action on street markets, I listened to their requests and ordered exactly the same, repeating their words as well as possible. Shopping bags yielded remarkable results.

Global Local Something Like This Pt.1

The globe you see was made by imprisoned Sinhalese Marxists sometime before December 1993, when it came into my hands as a gift from a therapist in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo. This therapist worked with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) sufferers, including combat and torture survivors. Among his patients were leftist Sinhalese nationalists seized during anti-government uprisings.

Once in prison, these Marxist-Leninists were encouraged by occupational therapists to make globes out of papier-mâché, an excellent paper and glue precursor to plastic, lightweight but sturdy. (Nevertheless, as a precaution I carried it in my hand luggage on the return flight home)

There is something supremely optimistic about mustering up the energy and curiousity from inside a jail on a war-shattered island to produce a replica of our planet. At the same time, this particular group was indeed part of a movement which ascribed to world revolution. Small-scale globe production could be seen as a valuable pastime behind bars. As you can see, Leningrad has not yet been renamed as St. Petersburg on this object, suggesting either that it was made before the name switch in 1991 or that a Trotskyite craftsperson chose to ignore this minor detail.

Many accurate placenames are correct, others are correct but misspelled, and still others attest to bold flights of the imagination: Algeria is fine, while Balgeria, Hungeria and Yogoslo are evidence of the will to try. Interrupted education shines through (in fact perhaps they hadn't yet heard about Leningrad being dropped from the list), with Switzarland alluding to imperial pasts, albeit not of the alpine variety. Unite Kingdom Britain, an irreverent amalgamation of often inaccurately interchanged names relating to the former colonial power, could be the opening verse of a church hymn. It’s not, of course, but then again, Protestant missionaries have run many a school on this isle, so they can't be ruled out.

No Coincidence

Had I remembered to take the book I was reading when I left the house, none of this would have happened. Recalling the events of that ride is as hectic as the journey through the over-built landscape of the Netherlands at locomotive speed is peaceful, or so one might expect.

The train sped through fields lower than the barges on the parallel waterway with its perfect border of trees. I held my small digital camera by the window and switched from photos to video, to record the conversation in the seats behind me, but the microphone is evidently not as good as the lens. (You'll only hear a cough, not the early evening chatter about mathematical theories.) Many people in Holland are concerned about the intrusion of industry throughout the countryside, as illustrated by the buildings seen from the train, but the family behind me laughed with delight, and recited the countdown out loud in three languages.

Halloween seems like only Yesterday

A Love Poem for Celebrating Halloween in China

We could just as well have been there,
celebrating Halloween in China.
It is large-scale. Entire highways of witches united in the tonal ‘boo’.
All the single-child families dress the babe
for the encounter with the spirits.
They are horribly proud of their offspring.
Toothless elders screech with delight.

Clusters in masquerade let people do
that clever Chinese thing of fulfilling yourself

without standing alone,
of not having to be
separate in the way we non-Chinese
are stuck with ourselves, because
we’re in our own disguise that we made,
which makes a double you.
There’s too much to recall in costume.

We always honour death itself, with ceremonies
and shrines, great tombs or the ash-paved path.
Why not equal awe for the great beyond?
No more posters on walls, fat photo albums
passed from lap to lap,
but images in motion on the streets,
cult characters set free
in the vague network of timeless feasts.

Dragon boat races set the tone: ancestral vessels
flushed downstream by brawn.
Then somebody’s beauty interrupts, stronger
and bigger than the race.
It could make you wander around the edge of the crowd
pretending to buy a mooncake or two
to get a better view.
The boat flashes by. You’re certain the eyes caught yours.
Take the coloured banners as a good sign.
Waving on the horizon, they greet you.

But here we go again, meeting on clouds.
They can be anywhere, hiding half a moon above,
hanging low, above altars, taking on incense and
ghost money fumes, absorbing flakes
rising from Phoenix-brand cigarettes.
The charcoal fires would look great inside
hollowed-out pumpkins. That’s how we lure people to our doors,

by the way, on Halloween.

Candles behind smiles, that inner glow.

The mysterious exterior
that Oriental evenness of feature.
It’s like a mask already -
I’m sure it would work:
An entire continent afoot with paper bags
held open for treats.
After unleashing tricks:
Hungry ghosts no longer in hiding,
chocolate-crunching hordes,
a potential 100-million impostors
in one province alone.

Maybe we should just search,
together, plainclothed,
for the unspoken thrill,
for the tiny gifts,
or the big reward, love when the truth is out,
without martial posturing,
without that ritual fear of nights
with the unknown.

I'd like to bring this up now because tomorrow is Halloween

I do appreciate good use of the Subject Line in e-mails, but this one caught me off guard.
I was taken aback, even though I had indeed been corresponding with the General Manager of the cemetery where a number of family members are buried. Most significantly: my parents are there. When these four words popped into view on my computer screen, awareness of previous communications failed to sustain me.
The cemetery had generated anxiety in the past. My father was buried there over thirty-five years ago; my mother's ashes interred in the mid-1990's. My mother's ashes, I should say, were partially buried there, as other family members had, to my dismay, requested small portions of ash for transfer (at their discretion) to other sites. Anyway, the anxiety to which I refer had been triggered by difficulties in acquiring a new headstone for the plot which had originally been occupied by Dad alone. When Mom died, and it was decided to have her join Dad underground, it seemed appropriate to order a new headstone which they would also share, rather than add a second marker for her which could either match or clash with the marker already there for him. A design with text was eventually agreed upon and the order placed. No one involved in ordering the new marker lived nearby, so the cemetery Management promised to send a photo when the marker was ready.
A picture was indeed eventually sent by the mason, depicting the new marker in place on the plot, surrounded by the older stones of Grandparents and Great-Aunts and -Uncles who had departed this earth long before our times. The problem was: the stone set in place bore other names entirely, not ours at all, so that our parents were identified as "Mr. and Mrs. Byrd" or some such thing.
I welcomed the hilarity, imagining laughter from them both in the great beyond. The mason, however, was an elderly Italian man who took great pride in his work, and he was hugely ashamed of his error in placement. We reassured him and asked him to please not worry about the mistake. In no time, the correct marker was in place. From time to time, I pass by to share a few moments on that hill. At some point I left my e-mail address with the Manager's office, in case 'anything came up.' I had once inquired about the term 'perpetual care' which applies to family plots like this, confirming my suspicion that this implied little more than lawn-mowing and general up-keep of the grounds. I wondered about stone cleaning and maintenance, and was told that most people preferred the ‘old look’ and that virtually no marker scrubbing was carried out. After that, a long silence ensued.
So when a 'Question from the Cemetery' appeared, my eyebrows remained on high for several long moments. The question was not at all what I expected: in anticipation of my next visit to the cemetery, the General Manager was hoping I might be willing to bring special stockings for a ‘lady friend.’ To be honest, I really did not want to build up this type of relationship with his office. I imagined an infinite number of Subject Lines in the future, injecting, without warning, the shock of a 'Question from The Cemetery' on my screen.
I sent a reply: "Your request ... is indeed unique. If this is an item which is easily identified (size, color, material, quality, strength, price limit) then I am willing to look if I find myself in appropriate stores before travelling..., but without details to simplify the search, I'm afraid it cannot be done. I am not a 'shopper' and do not spend time comparing goods."

The Manager eventually replied, thanking me for my response and informing me that he anticipated visiting Amsterdam (with his ‘lady friend’) and would take care of the matter himself. I shuddered, alarmed at the prospect of seeing 'Visit from The Cemetery' in e-mails to come, but so far no such bulletins have materialized.

Eventually I visited the family plot again, intending to pass by the Manager's office to clarify the issue of perpetual care, but as I started down the green burial slopes on that afternoon in May, I saw his car moving slowly down the flat driveway to the exit gate. The gleam of afternoon sunlight on the car’s black surface was extraordinary.