Silver Linings and Small Things

Man, I was in one of those moods today! Usually, the full moon sets it off, for me, but today was especially negative! Nothing was looking up! Stupid drivers. Stupid people. Stupid work. Incompetence. A mess in my finances (not my fault!). Stupid questions. “Shoveling (everybody else’s) shit  throughout the day”. You know – one of those days.

And my response to it all was crank! I tell you what, my mood was so rotten, if there was a new born puppy in my way today, I would have for sure kicked it! Just nothing, not a thing, made me realize that I was still breathing – and in fact, I need to be grateful for that, at least!  Nothing.

And then, I came home. And after starting my chores, I went outside and went on watering my yard. And all of a sudden, I looked up. There was that crazy, Western light in the air, where everything is crisp! The yellows are the yellowest and the greens the greenest and the sky the bluest – so crisp, your eyes hurt. I didn’t have a camera to capture it, but if I did no setting was required for the camera: I would have pointed and shot, and the picture would have come out perfect. That’s how insanely clear and beautiful and rich the light was.

And in the 90+ degree evening there was almost a breeze in the air, and my plants beneath my water were breathing and sighing … The clouds were casting clear shadows onto the green of the mountains, and my brain, for the first time, cleared up.

And then, I looked down and saw, in between my millions of rocks in the front yard, a $5 bill. A whole $5 I did not have before! I picked it up and handed it to my husband. I never, and I mean never win or find anything. What could this mean? I still don’t know, but I no longer care.

 A couple of seconds later I looked down again and the most beautiful rock is peaking amongst all the others, all the layers of Utah soil frozen in this one little pebble. And I smiled, for the first time, I think, today. I did. And I thanked life and nature for its gifts and for reminding me that there are things I should be grateful for, no matter how dark my darkness is …

I hope all of you can find something, however small, to give you a reason to hope. Whether you look up, or down, I hope you know life is special, just because we’re here and just because of the possibilities. In this world, no darkness nor light is forever and it’s hard, in the trap of our everyday existence, to remember that simple truth.

I hope something gives you a reason, however small, to smile. Even something as trivial as a dollar bill. 

 My small things ...

Fancy Picking

If you’ve read this blog for a while, you already know that there are many things that spell “summer” to me. Just like there are many others that spell winter, and fall and spring, too. But this note won’t be about tomatoes. Again. No. Not yet. It’ll be about raspberries, with apologies to my husband who hates them. I know! I don’t get it, either!

My sister and I spent every summer of our childhood in the mountains. We spent it picking mushrooms, wild strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and making hay. We lived on a family farm, and we worked hard, pricked our fingers in all sorts of thistles, fell off of picket fences, got picked on (literally) by sharp chicken beaks, fell in the cold mountain stream more than once, drank fresh spring water every day and at the end of every day, we collapsed in the hay stack, almost too tired to move, and definitely too tired to worry about the rats and the snakes we were sharing the bed with! It was amazing!

I wish for every summer second that her kids will grow to know at least one of the many miracles of life, the rewards of hard work and the beauty of nature that we savored as kids!

When I moved to the mountains myself, and I got a yard big enough to have a legitimate garden in, I had to have berry bushes in it, for the ol’ times’ sake! In our childhood summers, I remember how it was an adventure to pick the raspberries, mostly. For some reason, they were more treacherous to pick than anything else. They didn’t grow on the mountain, in the pastures, like all the other berries. They grew in the valley, along the train tracks. We had to climb on the train tracks, listen really closely, beyond the noise of the traffic close by, and of the mooing cows, for trains that might come by, and move out of the way in the bushes, if we heard them, and then start picking.

Raspberries always had one or two snakes hidden in them, for some reason, and unlike strawberries and mushrooms, they pricked us! So many hazards! Although I remember very vividly all of these hardships, the one memory that sticks out the most is the heavenly sweetness of our mountain fruits, the juiciness, and the little beads popping in our mouth. We were supposed to bring some of the harvest home, and we did. Some of it. Very little of it. But we ate so much of what we picked that our tummies hurt! And then we would lie to our hosts that some kid chased us and we fell and spilled the goods, therefore what we brought home was very puny.

My favorite memory is when my sister and I compared tongues, lips and hands! Whose were the reddest (when on raspberry picking) and whose were the bluest/ purplest (when picking blueberries). For some reason, she always won.

Nowadays, I have a raspberry bush in my yard, and two blueberry ones. I have cages around them, so they’ll grow tall and not drag on the ground or be broken by crazy desert winds. And I have nets over the raspberries, so that my crazy magpies won’t eat the fruit! I squat down on mulch when I pick them. I come home from work sometimes, and before I start watering the yard, I have a couple of handfuls of raspberries. I choke on them, I eat so many at a time. No hazard here: no snakes, no trains to dodge. The prickles are still there, poking at memories. I close my eyes, and I can feel her close to me. And I am transposed.

The fruit will never be as sweet as it’s not shared. The tongue is reddest now, but who cares?! Wish she were closer and I would gladly let her win! 

 Summer is here, for sure: my fancy, backyard garden, caged raspberries. Can you see the prickles?! And yes, I have eaten a couple!

Trapped on ... Freedom Day

"Imagine … a brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...”

33 years later, after silencing the guy who wrote these words, America still has trouble imagining this. Or so it feels, sometimes.

It was July 4^thof this year. We went into a Verizon Wireless store, as we had opened up a new plan with them, bought two new phones and signed our lives away for 2 years the day before, but Bryan, the nice man who sold us the package, forgot one very important thing: to tag on to my phone the international calling plan. This plan (for a little bit extra a month) allows me to call internationally for a lower rate.

Now, as you know all of my family is … out there. Internationally. My parents live in Romania. My sister lives in Canada. I have friends and extended family in Germany. So, I talk to them. Some of them, quite a lot. This is a plan I have always had tagged onto my phones – whether mobile or land lines. Always. For 15 years now of living in the US, I always make sure I pay around $4/ month extra to get to speak to my mom for $0.30/ minute instead of $2.50/ a minute. Anyone who knows me or my family, or Romanians for that matter,knows that we love to talk!

Yes, we do chat online and all, but sometimes, you just have to have the phone!

Anyhoo, I digress. Bryan, from the Verizon store, had forgotten to put this on my phone. So, the next day, which is July 4, we go in, and Bryan is … not there. So, we ask someone else for help. We describe the whole predicament: we just bought two new phones, we have an unlimited everything plan with them, we need one extra service added. No problem, the answer comes from the lady that greeted us. She logs into our account, and tries to add the service. She can’t. Some odd message shows up on the screen and she calls the manager. I will call him Dick, because the name fits.

So, Dick comes along, and tells her that “oh, they want to add international calling?! Well, that will have to require a call to Credit”. I am puzzled, but I am trying to be patient. She calls someone from the Verizon cloud worlds. She describes to that person the situation and then she gives the phone to me.

The voice on the phone explains that they will need to perform a credit check on me, for this particular service to be added. At this point, I am pretty sure they don’t understand what I want or need, but I play along. A $4 extra charge would require a credit check? But them sending me a bill every month for $130 does not?! Anyway, I try to be patient and answer her questions: “We show that you applied for a mortgage in 2007? Who is the mortgage with?” – multiple choice answer? “In what bracket does the age of the head of your household fit in?” – multiple choice answer? Etc …

I answer the questions, and then the voice wants to talk to the in store Verizon lady, again. I put her through, with Dick closely watching. The two ladies talk to each other and then the in store lady hangs up. OK. I breathe. All done, right?! I ask. She says: “Umm… no, not quite. You will need to bring in a utility bill and a federally released ID so we can finish the credit check. You need to either be a customer with us for 6 months, or else you have to prove to us that you have a credit history in this country.” I am in awe and my blood pressure is rising at this point. You have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me. We just bought a crapload of stuff from you people, the day before, AND you’re gonna bill me for all $130/month of it! That requires proof that I can pay, no?! For two whole years, we have a contract together, a proof of trust, right?!, and for a $4 charge, you need to turn my whole life upside down and prove to you that I have a credit history?! I am not buying a house, or a boat, even. I am not even buying  a phone! Did that already! You're serious?!

So, I voice all this: that this is all ridiculous. That I have had these plans for 15 years and I have never had to do this for a phone plan! Dick gets a voice, now. A very loud one, too, and almost yells at me: “Well, ma’am, this is the law!” – he pukes emphatically and batting his eyelashes at me like I am 5 years old and just pooped on the living room floor with The President visiting in the next hour! “Every company is doing this”, he continues. “T-mobile, AT&T, all of them”. I rebut, because I know damn well T-mobile is not doing this – this is who I am switching from! This is not the flipping law! He yells further, that this is the law and if it were not “anyone could come up in here and buy a phone and start calling internationally!”.

And I just start laughing, because oh, it’s OK and “come in here and buy a phone for two years, with an expensive plan, but by God, it is a crime to dial a number that starts with 011!”. Seriously?! You’re telling me, on July 4^th, when you celebrate your stupid freedom, that I cannot call my mother, because it is a crime that she does not live within the boundaries of the great US of A. Right?! Right! He pretty much says! “We need to prove who you are”. As if, my ID, social security number, and pay stub are lesser in importance to determine my identity as a … water freaking bill! Un-flipping-believable. At this point I feel trapped in the “free world”. Truly do!

I try to call mom, and the operator says “I am sorry, this call is not authorized. Please call Verizon customer service to authorize this call”. I feel like a big, fat nothing, at this point. In my very rare, typically Romanian drama persona, I think: If I die of a heart attack right now, my husband cannot even call my mom to tell her I died! Sure, we can buy calling cards, but we have a freaking phone! My frustration is beyond words!

But Dick, or the Verizon Gods,  will not do it! He will not open my phone so I can call internationally. I have to go home (15 miles away), and find a utility bill. Now, that, my friends, is harder than you’d expect. I am not on any of our utility bills. My husband is, because he is the one that opened them when he bought this house, before we were married. I do have a house in NC, with its utility bills, but I have had renters in there, who paid the utilities themselves. So, I come home, and dig. I pull credit card bills, in my name, car payment bills, in my name, and a NC utility bill from February, when I had no renters in the unit for one short month, so it is in my name.

The next day, I go back to the Verizon store, and Bryan is there, thank God. He is helpful and so very kind. I explain to him the whole craziness and he agrees with me, that this is not necessary and he has never heard of such a thing, all during his 3 year tenure with Verizon. I gloat: “see, this is bogus”. And he gets into my account again. But … he is sent back to the Credit lady! I tell him I already talked to her. He calls. Yep! He needs to fax her my utility bill and a copy of my ID. I give him the utility bill from NC. He faxes. Five minutes later, Bryan calls back to check if the fax is there. It is, but the bill is not good. It need to be a bill within the last 30 days! F*&^!!! Can’t do that! Renter paid those.

My husband (who is right there with me, watching the drama) has a bill for our home, from last month. He is on the same cell phone plan as me, and he is an owner/ manager on the Verizon account, just like me. So, Bryan faxes yet another bill, with my husband’s name on it, and it is a legitimate utility (water) bill.

Five minutes of waiting and another call to Credit later … nope, that bill is not good, either, because the international plan is going on my phone, not my husband’s, and the account is in my name (forget the equal power he has!!), because I needed to get the discount from work on it!

Bryan tells them that I have a bill for my car payment. Several for my credit cards. Nope. No good. Utility bill! And then … a silver lining! They will also take a car registration! Bingo! My car is registered in my name! Alas - salvation! I run into the parking lot, glove compartment, back in, out of breath to Bryan – please fax the darn freaking thing!

And wait … Five minutes become 10 and then 20. I try to call mom, and keep getting “nope, you’re a criminal” voice! Bryan!! So, after several more minutes, he calls Credit again. And they talk. And talk. The registration was good and all that – not sure what the delay is. But finally, they “unlock” my phone. And I call mom, and she answers and all is good.

I am still thinking that I am in some kind of a dream or a Kafka novel, at least! But I am glad to hear mom’s voice and I thank Bryan, and then I go back to work – almost two hours later. So, after three trips in three days, to the Verizon store (who said you can do everything online, nowadays?!), after several faxes and innumerable calls to Credit later, I can finally make some use of this phone! Thank the Lord!

I think. But as with dramas … there is always more. We go home, and then the next day (day number four, for those counting), my husband (no, not me!!, but him), the unimportant, your bill is no good and you’re not the owner of this account, good for nothing person, gets a call from … Verizon. “Just to make sure you did, indeed, authorize for international calls to be activated on your other line.”

I will let you ponder on this for a bit: I have committed to this company for 2 years. I am paying good money for it, and they had no problem trusting me, at face value, with the promise that I will pay them every month. There was Bryan’s time on the phone with Credit, and the lady greeter person, and Dick’s time to yell to my face and feel like a man, and then, there were … the Credit people (several), several scans and wasted bandwidth and electricity. All this wasted energy and people resources, for what?! Because, for some reason, making a call outside the borders of this country requires all this! I am still having a hard time googling and finding out who is requiring this, precisely?! We talk about a United Europe, a global economy, how are we expected to communicate, then?!

What is the purpose? What did they accomplish? Why can’t America be less paranoid?! Why can’t we not only love, but at least accept everyone, accept that there is a bigger world out there, other than “us”, but instead we find it 'wrong' that people don't worship us?! 

Does America feel safer now, knowing that I drive a white Prius registered in Utah – I am sure this record is out there, in some file now that will never purge. Do they feel safer knowing that and that … I sometimes start my dial number with 011?! Who benefits from this? Do you feel safer knowing that now, they did a thorough job of checking me out, before they will allow me to call my dad in a week for his birthday?! Do you? Or do you feel better now that I know also have the permission of my husband to call my dad, as well?! The irony leaves me speechless (well, beyond what I have already written…), so I will stop here.

“You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one.”

Where You’ll Fear to Tread

They say that the core of the Navajo spirituality is balance. Balance with nature. Balance within the soul. In everything they do, the Navajos strive to restore balance and harmony.

I am still fuzzy on who chose who first: the Navajo nation – the Utah/Arizona/New Mexico land? Or the other way around? You may travel there and you may never get to speak to a native, but when you look at their surroundings, savor their food, marvel at their art work, you’ll see the spirit of harmony in everything around them. And it slowly seeps into your own soul.

We took a trip around Utah, yet again, a couple of weeks back. This time, we included the Monument Valley area, which we had never seen before. We were travelling with some friends, all huddled in a car, all chatting about our boring lives and travails. The chatter came to a sudden stop as we approached the Monument Valley Tribal Park. We all subconsciously felt like something beyond our imagination or understanding was about to happen.

We paid our fee (similar to a state park fee), we parked our car, we walked into the hotel to check in, and there – beyond the lobby windows, the vast valley opened up. It was so majestic, so splendid, so beyond words … we were afraid to breathe. We felt like we were in a temple, and we were afraid we’ll disturb other people’s prayer time. 

 

The iconic trio: West, East Mittens and Merrick Butte, right outside our hotel - before sun setting 

The View Hotel is perched atop the mountain that borders The Valley to the West (I think). Its view, from every room, is the whole display of beauty and rocky majestic-ness that this natural park offers. There are small, uninteresting windows opening to the West in this hotel. Every room, every common area (restaurant, store, lobby) open to the East, so that you can take in the beautiful scenery. 

 

A room with a view: The View Hotel, hanging off the cliff, above Monument Valley Park 

I will not pretend that I have even an iota of the talent that would be able to render in words what beauty was before my eyes in this place! I will just tell you that this is one of the very few places on Earth that moved me to my core, and left me completely helpless and empty. 

 

The Mittens, while the sun still lathers everything in light 

In face of such grandeur and beauty one feels small and unimportant. All my fears, personal daily dramas and ambitions are insignificant and futile. I am not sure what it is that had such an effect on me. The territory is vast and red desert. The vastness is again understated. As far as your eye can see and beyond, there is nothing but flat red rock. Very little vegetation, almost not worth mentioning. Then, scattered on this plateau, there are the giant rock formations, some springing over a thousand feet off the floor of the valley – true altars for various gods, it seems.

Their shape is one thing to marvel about, their colors in the various lights of the sun is another. The stark contrast between the nothingness of the valley and the somethingness of the mesas and buttes is what is surprising and amazing at the same time. 

 

The road towards Elephant Butte and the Camel Buttes 

You go to Greece and Italy and you visit the ruins of ancient temples, with nothing but their columns still sticking up into the world. It’s the same thing here, only here, God and nature built them, to begin with. That’s where the humility and smallness you feel come from, I guess, too.

We got there around sunset. We drove a bit on the dirt road of the park, that takes you closer to the rock formations, but we turned around, in a thick cloud of red dust, after a mile or so of very harsh and bumpy driving. The bumps and rocks we drove over were completely worth it, though! You can take a Navajo guide to drive you the entire length of the road (17 miles), or you can do most of it yourself. However, you not only need a 4 wheel drive car (which we had), but you need lots of clearance underneath.

 

Elephant Butte in the eerie light of the sunset 

After the drive, we gathered on our room patio, with drinks and cameras, to take in the view and watch as the sun was setting behind us, casting unreal shades on the formations before our eyes. The whole valley went from burning red orange to muted mustard yellow to dark brown in an hour or so. Every five minutes, the valley looked different, and grew short lived shades that were coming and going with no explanation whatsoever. 

 

Looking at the sun setting through the Three Sisters formation 

If there is one word that could describe the whole view while all these changes were happening, that word would be “harmony”. Nothing, not an air bubble, not a fleeting doom, not a pebble, not a wall, not even a shade of a color was out of place. It all sang beautifully in unison, in the grand opera theater of Monument Valley, beyond our railings.     

 

Mitchell Mesa casting an enormous shadow over the valley floor, towards Elephant Butte 

We were all in awe! The hand of God at work, right before our eyes! I cannot explain why a set of rocks in the sunset light is breathtaking and life changing. But it just is. You’ll just have to travel the roads and see for yourselves.

Millions of years were passing before my brain’s eyes, as I was watching the spectacle: how these rocks came to be, alone and resolute in the middle of nothingness, standing stubbornly for millions of years and facing the same sun. Then, a closer history, of the American Natives – how they found this land and how it spoke to them. How they figured, as I figure now, that some of these mountains are sacred and they belong to a higher being they ask for protection and balance. The long years of pain the Navajos went through, all looking at this beauty and praying on each rock that tomorrow will bring something better. All of these thoughts moved the last fiber inside of me, with shivers of piety and respect.

And today, I am witness. I thanked not only God and nature for all this beauty. I thanked the Navajos and even the White Man for preserving it and keeping it whole. I thanked my parents for giving me life and for sending me into the world to explore such beauty. I thanked my husband for driving me there. And thanked God once again for giving me the brain and the heart to understand and appreciate it all.

After the sun set, the valley looked just like a stage after the performance closed: the décor was all there, untouched, deserted and dusty. The spotlights were off. The players went home. The silence was heavy and overwhelming. That’s the thing about the desert: there are no sounds. There are no trees to swish, no stream to gurgle nearby. It’s silence and you. And you have to figure out what you’re going to do with yourself now, all alone and lost. 

 The Mittens and Merick Butte, right before the sun set - last glimpses of light ...

The people who inhabit this area are just as surprising and interesting as the world around them. The food they cook is deliciously home made and so deep in flavor and rich in ingredients. My husband is not a fan of hominy, but if you’re going to find good hominy, you’ve got to let the Indians make it for you – he loved it, here. The green chili chicken stew with blue corn tortilla is absolutely to die for – best comfort food I have ever had! 

 Navajo coziness: our room at The View Hotel and the green chilli and chicken stew at The View Restaurant

Everyone was so nice and laid back, always willing to please in small and unintruding ways. They all have a wisdom about them, carved sharply in their features. They look at the world with different, mature and astute eyes, deepened in thought and insight not accessible to us, regular humans. They have a seriousness that’s not in the least off-putting, but rather calming and soothing about their gaze.

On our way out of the reservation, we stopped at a small hut where a Navajo girl and her grandfather were selling jewelry made by hand right here, in the park. The Navajos are renowned silversmiths, we have learned. It’s the first time I saw silver beads threaded on silver thread – no fishing line there, no cotton thread. It gives the jewelry more firmness, while it preserves the fragile look about it. 

The girl apologized that the jewelry looks dirty with what might be perceived as dust. She explained that it’s not dust, but that they blessed it with corn pollen, for good luck, as many people ask them to bless their “gifts”. I didn’t find it dirty at all – the pollen was left behind and what I brought home was beautiful, shiny, clean silver.

The grandfather talked to us, too. He wore a huge silver buckle, with a giant turquoise stone in the middle, to hold up his Levi’s jeans. He wore a straw cowboy hat, too. He told us he was tired. He had gotten back from Flagstaff (Arizona), where he has a grandson that graduated from high school – so he went there to witness that with the boy’s family. Times have changed, I guess. Old and new live happily here, as well. 

 

The crafts hut, inside the Tribal Park - check out the flag. 

Driving away from it, I felt like leaving a church. I had left all my prayers and deeper thoughts locked in that place, entrusted them with God and those people who will make sure they reach Him. 

"When the music's over: turn out the lights..." 

(click on the picture for a complete album of the pictures of all the magical places we saw on this trip)