At six o'clock in the morning there's not a huge demand for the piano in the Village Center, so that's when and where I go to practice. Formal piano instruction accompanied my third through fifth grade years, and as a consequence I can still read sheet music (one more half-learned language from years gone by), but can't play much of anything. I'm trying to pick it up again.
I'm staying in Lodge One for now. Soon I'll move, but for now a morning walk to the Village Center takes me right past the cafeteria and the Ark and the porch of Lodge Four. And it's true that someone was banging, loudly and repeatedly, on a window from inside Lodge Four, but at 6am it's also true that it took me a moment to realize this was something out of the ordinary.
And then of course I saw what the banger was trying to scare away.
There he was, a marauding, medium-sized black bear, pawing through the cans on Lodge Four's porch, slightly bewildered by the banging but untroubled since it wasn't much more noise than he was making himself. I took it upon myself to make things a little clearer.
I had Charles Dickens' Great Expectations in my hand -- I keep my sheet music tucked between the pages because then if all the pianos in the Village happened to be busy I would still have something to do. I started thumping on it and yelled, "Hey!" and moved in on the porch.
The bear loped away to the Ark, and our unwitting Garbologist came in on him from the other side. We stopped and waited for him to calm down and get off the tree in the Ark's middle, and at last he did and I moved in again.
I picked up a rock but didn't throw it this time, opting for some much less effective English yelling: "Get out of here!" and the like, while he loped along up Chalet Hill and cut across the woods. I had to follow him, weary and annoyed, because now he was just making for the Garbology Dock. And so I tripped along until he cut across the road and then across the footbridge and I lost sight of him.
It turns out a large part of my self-appointed Village responsibilities has been chasing off black bears. They're finding too much food left carelessly out in the Village, and that's a reward that will keep them coming, and keep them teaching their cubs to come. If we can't show them ourselves that entering the Village is no fun at all, it won't be very long before one or two or six of them are shot and I'm figuring out how to fix bear meat in the kitchen.
So I learned when a black bear tried to accompany the head maverick and me to church one night that I'm perfectly okay with throwing rocks at a bear. We chased him toward the river, tripping through mud and weeds, rocks in our hands, and when we thought he'd gone he came back only a minute later. So Daniel and I chased him again, and that's where the trouble started.
We got closer to the river and farther from one another, see. I circled around to the playground because I'd have hated to think we'd chased "Home-Dude" (as our former head maverick was fond of calling this one) right into a pile of kids. Narnia was off to my left. Daniel went off to the right, until I couldn't see him anymore.
In layers, there's the river, there's a line of trees, and then there's a foot-path about four feet wide, before the thicker trees and a line of buildings that includes Koinonia, the Village Center, and Narnia. I took the foot-path and thought sinkingly that if I were a bear and I were being chased, I'd be on that same foot-path for sure. Narnia came into view, and I heard kids shouting and playing and not being frightened by a bear, which was a relief for just a second because then I caught the flash of black fur at the river's edge beside me.
Whimpering and wondering where the hell the head maverick was, I dodged ahead to get between playground and bear, then cut across to the river bank.
And Home-Dude came out of the trees right in front of me.
"Hey!" I yelled, deep and loud, and I threw the rock in my hand. It went wide, but that was okay. All he needed was to see a human and he took off down the river's edge, away from Narnia.
"Jesus," I breathed, and went to church, where the head maverick had his feet up since his trip into the woods hadn't been nearly so eventful, and shaking I gave him the what-for as I sank onto the pew and stripped off my sweatshirt.
Confidential to Karl: I'll try punching him in the face next time. The bear. Not the head maverick.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
In which our hero spends her first day at a new place in tears.
I arrived on a Thursday. "Hunger Awareness Day," for anybody familiar with the goings-on of Holden Village -- although I'll admit, I'd forgotten. Thursday's lunch is always spare, and the money saved out of our food budget donated to Lutheran World Relief or another humanitarian aid organization.
The upshot, for our purposes, is that I wandered off the bus and ate a large plate of plain rice by myself.
And then I went through staff orientation, where I was the only one in my class, and not knowing what else to do but eagerly await a proper meal at dinner, I read for a while from John Steinbeck's East of Eden. I was to the part where a pile of likeable Hamiltons died, and then Lee left and came back -- typical of the tragic-comic nature of that section of the book.
At Vespers, I learned that a woman on teaching staff that week was a dance instructor, when she led an uncomplicated version of the same circle dance we use to Psalm 133 in the Soul Purpose play "And They Danced." Her class demonstrated, and then what must have been a hundred people got up to join when invited. The rest of us sang along -- the same traditional melody we adopted for our use in the play, the words in Hebrew. "Hinei ma'tov u ma'naim / Shevet achim gam ya-had..."
The Hebrew made me think of Phil's and Isaac's and Mark's and my drinking song from years ago, the singing and the stomping of years of looking on as Esther.
And that was my very existential first day in the Village.
The upshot, for our purposes, is that I wandered off the bus and ate a large plate of plain rice by myself.
And then I went through staff orientation, where I was the only one in my class, and not knowing what else to do but eagerly await a proper meal at dinner, I read for a while from John Steinbeck's East of Eden. I was to the part where a pile of likeable Hamiltons died, and then Lee left and came back -- typical of the tragic-comic nature of that section of the book.
At Vespers, I learned that a woman on teaching staff that week was a dance instructor, when she led an uncomplicated version of the same circle dance we use to Psalm 133 in the Soul Purpose play "And They Danced." Her class demonstrated, and then what must have been a hundred people got up to join when invited. The rest of us sang along -- the same traditional melody we adopted for our use in the play, the words in Hebrew. "Hinei ma'tov u ma'naim / Shevet achim gam ya-had..."
The Hebrew made me think of Phil's and Isaac's and Mark's and my drinking song from years ago, the singing and the stomping of years of looking on as Esther.
And that was my very existential first day in the Village.
Friday, August 22, 2008
The Travel Diary
I could have avoided arrest altogether at the Chicago O'Hare airport if I had remembered my Nalgene was still half full of water before I made it to Security. But that's just one on a long list of things you learn about yourself and about the world on a trip across the country.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 5:45am
Location: Big Rapids, MI
After five days with relatives and too much food in Michigan I need to get on a train bound for Chicago's Union Station. I'm packed and loaded into the car, but Grandma wants me to fit more of "my" food in my backpack, and echoes of my own protestations ("Look, I'll eat the shrimp cocktail and corn on the cob for breakfast, I swear!") are dying in my ear.
The train is full from Grand Rapids to Chicago -- and rumor has it, oversold. This does not stop the family of four seated in front of me from abandoning their entire row of seats to visit the dining car about three minutes before our first stop in Holland, MI. The train stopped and flooded with people, and I defended the family's claim as best I could from ones and twos and threes of people with heavy bags, until finally I abandoned my own seat and proceeded to occupy the family's entire row -- myself on one side of the aisle, John Steinbeck's East of Eden occupying the other side. Stay out, we said, without having to say anything. As the train lurched forward again, I was thinking bitterly that the family wasn't even coming back to their seats at all, but then they arrived, laden with boxed breakfasts and wondering why I was spread across their daughters' chairs.
My own seat had been lost in the deluge, and for my reward I sat near a man who spent the whole journey talking loudly on his cell phone, talking loudly to the book he had brought along for reading, and executing the unsettling practice of cracking his elbow, wherein he threw his arm forward like a whip to hyperextend the joint. I tensed every time.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 3:00pm
Location: Chicago O'Hare Airport
Maneuvering through security, I'd extracted my laptop from my bag and laid it in its own tray, remembered to take off my coat and shoes and belt, and was showing an officer the inside of my hat when another showed me my orange nalgene bottle, half full of water, and my spirits fell. I'd spent most of the last two days writing, which brings every possible emotion right up to your skin, and that's the only way I can account for my overly dramatic disappointment in myself -- How could I forget the nalgene! -- which the officials sensed and, not knowing what else to do, sent me to a nearby trashcan to empty the thing and promised I wouldn't have to get back in line.
Well, the bartender in me didn't want to dump 16oz of liquid into a trashcan because I know what it's like to throw it out after too many people have done that. So without processing the implications I actually exited Security and threw the water down a drain.
I dodged back into line, under a barrier, nalgene empty, and was showing my new friend the inside of my hat again, when a police officer skidded to a halt beside me. I looked up at him, affronted. "Did you just almost tackle me?"
He seemed impressed with the quickness of his own reaction, which threw him off. "Yeah," he said simply, at the same time negotiating signal input from the other security employees who were kindly trying to assure him I wasn't a threat.
And then he wandered away.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 9:48pm
Location: McCarran Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada
I'm exhausted and starving, and pay as much for my Amber Bock draft as I do for my sandwich.
On the plane, no one else in my row shows up. I can hardly believe my luck and sit patiently through take off before adjusting my seatbelt and wiping out on three US Airways seats.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 12:48am
Location: Seattle, WA
United stole my guitar from US Airways, but happily I got it back. I proceeded to sleep fitfully across another conveniently empty row of armrest-free seats in baggage claim. This was not the best idea I've ever had.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 5:13am
Location: Seattle, WA
The heck with this. I wander outside into the public transit bay and hop a city bus across town to the Amtrak station and sleep there.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 1:20pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA
A four hour bus ride to Wenatchee and I'm nearly there -- an inexpensive intercity bus route will take me the thirty miles further into Chelan, and I go for it. On Highway 97 we pass a small pear orchard and I decide I am in a magical land.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 2:45pm
Location: Chelan, WA
I know the ferry won't leave until tomorrow, so I start scouting around for a place to stay. There's nothing here. I find a Forestry Service house, wander in, and absolutely melt down when the girl behind the desk tells me local hotels are easily $150-$250 a night, and no, they don't rent tents there.
I discover I have a singular hatred for Chelan, and get on a bus back to Wenatchee.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 6:00pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA
Wandering up Wenatchee Avenue, I try to find a hotel that won't be such a far walk back to Columbia Station in the morning. I find the "Holiday Lodge," check in, and initiate a fantastic bar crawl that includes a British Fish & Chips place where the server gave me a Bass so cold it hurt my hand.
Thursday, August 21
Local Time: 7:45am
Location: Lake Chelan, WA
I brave the busride back over to Chelan and buy a one-way ticket to Lucerne and Holden Village. Shivering on the dock, waiting for the crew to call for boarding, I think uncharitably that this was a really, really stupid idea.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 5:45am
Location: Big Rapids, MI
After five days with relatives and too much food in Michigan I need to get on a train bound for Chicago's Union Station. I'm packed and loaded into the car, but Grandma wants me to fit more of "my" food in my backpack, and echoes of my own protestations ("Look, I'll eat the shrimp cocktail and corn on the cob for breakfast, I swear!") are dying in my ear.
The train is full from Grand Rapids to Chicago -- and rumor has it, oversold. This does not stop the family of four seated in front of me from abandoning their entire row of seats to visit the dining car about three minutes before our first stop in Holland, MI. The train stopped and flooded with people, and I defended the family's claim as best I could from ones and twos and threes of people with heavy bags, until finally I abandoned my own seat and proceeded to occupy the family's entire row -- myself on one side of the aisle, John Steinbeck's East of Eden occupying the other side. Stay out, we said, without having to say anything. As the train lurched forward again, I was thinking bitterly that the family wasn't even coming back to their seats at all, but then they arrived, laden with boxed breakfasts and wondering why I was spread across their daughters' chairs.
My own seat had been lost in the deluge, and for my reward I sat near a man who spent the whole journey talking loudly on his cell phone, talking loudly to the book he had brought along for reading, and executing the unsettling practice of cracking his elbow, wherein he threw his arm forward like a whip to hyperextend the joint. I tensed every time.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 3:00pm
Location: Chicago O'Hare Airport
Maneuvering through security, I'd extracted my laptop from my bag and laid it in its own tray, remembered to take off my coat and shoes and belt, and was showing an officer the inside of my hat when another showed me my orange nalgene bottle, half full of water, and my spirits fell. I'd spent most of the last two days writing, which brings every possible emotion right up to your skin, and that's the only way I can account for my overly dramatic disappointment in myself -- How could I forget the nalgene! -- which the officials sensed and, not knowing what else to do, sent me to a nearby trashcan to empty the thing and promised I wouldn't have to get back in line.
Well, the bartender in me didn't want to dump 16oz of liquid into a trashcan because I know what it's like to throw it out after too many people have done that. So without processing the implications I actually exited Security and threw the water down a drain.
I dodged back into line, under a barrier, nalgene empty, and was showing my new friend the inside of my hat again, when a police officer skidded to a halt beside me. I looked up at him, affronted. "Did you just almost tackle me?"
He seemed impressed with the quickness of his own reaction, which threw him off. "Yeah," he said simply, at the same time negotiating signal input from the other security employees who were kindly trying to assure him I wasn't a threat.
And then he wandered away.
Tuesday, August 19
Local Time: 9:48pm
Location: McCarran Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada
I'm exhausted and starving, and pay as much for my Amber Bock draft as I do for my sandwich.
On the plane, no one else in my row shows up. I can hardly believe my luck and sit patiently through take off before adjusting my seatbelt and wiping out on three US Airways seats.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 12:48am
Location: Seattle, WA
United stole my guitar from US Airways, but happily I got it back. I proceeded to sleep fitfully across another conveniently empty row of armrest-free seats in baggage claim. This was not the best idea I've ever had.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 5:13am
Location: Seattle, WA
The heck with this. I wander outside into the public transit bay and hop a city bus across town to the Amtrak station and sleep there.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 1:20pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA
A four hour bus ride to Wenatchee and I'm nearly there -- an inexpensive intercity bus route will take me the thirty miles further into Chelan, and I go for it. On Highway 97 we pass a small pear orchard and I decide I am in a magical land.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 2:45pm
Location: Chelan, WA
I know the ferry won't leave until tomorrow, so I start scouting around for a place to stay. There's nothing here. I find a Forestry Service house, wander in, and absolutely melt down when the girl behind the desk tells me local hotels are easily $150-$250 a night, and no, they don't rent tents there.
I discover I have a singular hatred for Chelan, and get on a bus back to Wenatchee.
Wednesday, August 20
Local Time: 6:00pm
Location: Wenatchee, WA
Wandering up Wenatchee Avenue, I try to find a hotel that won't be such a far walk back to Columbia Station in the morning. I find the "Holiday Lodge," check in, and initiate a fantastic bar crawl that includes a British Fish & Chips place where the server gave me a Bass so cold it hurt my hand.
Thursday, August 21
Local Time: 7:45am
Location: Lake Chelan, WA
I brave the busride back over to Chelan and buy a one-way ticket to Lucerne and Holden Village. Shivering on the dock, waiting for the crew to call for boarding, I think uncharitably that this was a really, really stupid idea.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Image for the Human Condition
The latest basement I've slept in this journey belongs to an aunt and uncle and several cousins in Grand Rapids, Michigan. When I inquired after the possibility of a shower, they directed me to one at the top of the stairs: "the kids' bathroom."
It is so designated for two reasons. The bathroom is in the kids' collective jurisdiction first to use, and second to clean and keep up after -- to till it and keep it, perhaps. It is the parents' will that the kids keep it clean, and of course should the bathroom fall into disarray, this would be against the parents' will, but the parents' will allows it.
The effective result of this delicate balance?
Well, for anyone whose experience of the world allows this to remain a mystery, here follows an inventory of items I had to avoid -- not on the bathroom floor, but on the shower floor:
* near empty bottles of shampoo (3), conditioner (1), and shower gel (3)
* two wet washcloths
* a wet hand towel
* a flyswatter (also wet)
* a string of Mardi Gras beads
* a single metal spoon
So there it is.
It is so designated for two reasons. The bathroom is in the kids' collective jurisdiction first to use, and second to clean and keep up after -- to till it and keep it, perhaps. It is the parents' will that the kids keep it clean, and of course should the bathroom fall into disarray, this would be against the parents' will, but the parents' will allows it.
The effective result of this delicate balance?
Well, for anyone whose experience of the world allows this to remain a mystery, here follows an inventory of items I had to avoid -- not on the bathroom floor, but on the shower floor:
* near empty bottles of shampoo (3), conditioner (1), and shower gel (3)
* two wet washcloths
* a wet hand towel
* a flyswatter (also wet)
* a string of Mardi Gras beads
* a single metal spoon
So there it is.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Katie's Last Week in Florida, Part II
Friday, Aug 8
My last round with the Middle School Youth Group. It goes well. Someone asks me why it is I'm leaving exactly, and it feels suspiciously like I don't have a good answer.
Saturday, Aug 9
I head to the post office and ship winter clothes and books to Chelan, Washington -- then to the public library where I pay off fines and late fees accrued over the past year. The two transactions come to about $100. People who know me can debate just how much went to either errand.
My last shift at the Green Iguana. The manager buys me a Yuengling, the bartender buys me a shot. I'm tired and pick a Jager Bomb. The bartender makes it and disappears, and the next thing I know I'm taking a five-gallon bucket of ice water full in the face. One of the ways they say Bye there, and part of me knew I should have been prepared for it. My cell phone stops working just in time for a loosely-coordinated cross-country jaunt.
Sunday, Aug 10
After church I go out to lunch with my family. Then my brother and I go windsurfing, which almost makes me late to High School Youth Group. After youth group I'm almost dry, and spend the rest of the night packing and cleaning. I realize belatedly that I left something in my (former) office at the church.
My Valpo pennant.
Monday, Aug 11 (early)
I get on a plane.
My last round with the Middle School Youth Group. It goes well. Someone asks me why it is I'm leaving exactly, and it feels suspiciously like I don't have a good answer.
Saturday, Aug 9
I head to the post office and ship winter clothes and books to Chelan, Washington -- then to the public library where I pay off fines and late fees accrued over the past year. The two transactions come to about $100. People who know me can debate just how much went to either errand.
My last shift at the Green Iguana. The manager buys me a Yuengling, the bartender buys me a shot. I'm tired and pick a Jager Bomb. The bartender makes it and disappears, and the next thing I know I'm taking a five-gallon bucket of ice water full in the face. One of the ways they say Bye there, and part of me knew I should have been prepared for it. My cell phone stops working just in time for a loosely-coordinated cross-country jaunt.
Sunday, Aug 10
After church I go out to lunch with my family. Then my brother and I go windsurfing, which almost makes me late to High School Youth Group. After youth group I'm almost dry, and spend the rest of the night packing and cleaning. I realize belatedly that I left something in my (former) office at the church.
My Valpo pennant.
Monday, Aug 11 (early)
I get on a plane.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Scenes from Pentecost 12, or Katie's Last Week in Florida, Part I
Sunday, Aug 3
I gave the children's sermon at two services, a "contemporary" and a "traditional". Positive reactions from folks who attended the first slipped utterly away into obscurity when I learned that a woman at the second, who had taught my confirmation class for the better part of a year, was affronted by my appearance in the sanctuary (too casual) and particularly my hat (cf. I Cor 11.6, 13, and 16 you stodgy old coot). I don't think she remembers me.
Monday, Aug 4
Management surprised me by sending some kid in for me to train behind the bar at the Green Iguana. He went by his initials, but I somehow convinced him to tell me his real name. (Kim.) I promptly asked him if he took a lot of shit for that, and he laughed, and I wished that it were always like this, where I can just say whatever comes into my head.
Another server at GI got tired of seeing perfectly good (if partially eaten) hamburger meat go to waste, and decided to collect it for her dog. She labeled a To Go box and set it at the outside service station for collection.
KATIE (clearing a table): Here, N*, I guess you can have this.
N*: Awww, Katie, are you gonna put beef in my box?
KATIE: Yep, I'm gonna put... (notices general laughter among the guys) I hate you all.
Tuesday, Aug 5
I decide to eat Cuban sandwiches all week or until I get sick.
J*: (another server at GI, who DOES THIS, all the time): Katie, do gay people go straight to hell?
R* (before I could answer): Oh, please, we were around before the Bible was.
I gave the children's sermon at two services, a "contemporary" and a "traditional". Positive reactions from folks who attended the first slipped utterly away into obscurity when I learned that a woman at the second, who had taught my confirmation class for the better part of a year, was affronted by my appearance in the sanctuary (too casual) and particularly my hat (cf. I Cor 11.6, 13, and 16 you stodgy old coot). I don't think she remembers me.
Monday, Aug 4
Management surprised me by sending some kid in for me to train behind the bar at the Green Iguana. He went by his initials, but I somehow convinced him to tell me his real name. (Kim.) I promptly asked him if he took a lot of shit for that, and he laughed, and I wished that it were always like this, where I can just say whatever comes into my head.
Another server at GI got tired of seeing perfectly good (if partially eaten) hamburger meat go to waste, and decided to collect it for her dog. She labeled a To Go box and set it at the outside service station for collection.
KATIE (clearing a table): Here, N*, I guess you can have this.
N*: Awww, Katie, are you gonna put beef in my box?
KATIE: Yep, I'm gonna put... (notices general laughter among the guys) I hate you all.
Tuesday, Aug 5
I decide to eat Cuban sandwiches all week or until I get sick.
J*: (another server at GI, who DOES THIS, all the time): Katie, do gay people go straight to hell?
R* (before I could answer): Oh, please, we were around before the Bible was.
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