Crowded

Writing prompt: "The train was crowded..."
I've been in crowded trains before, most notably during the strike in 1979. Ko Man Singh, our driver, had to physically lift my mother and me through the crowds onto the train in Lucknow so that I could get to school on time.  Since then I've tried not to think what it was like for my mother coming back alone.
But right now, my brain is crowded, with pain. My whole body aches like the flu, because our cat Furrgus died.  Sweet memories of how happy he was to be let outside and the knowledge of how inevitable it was that he would get run over because he was deaf jostle and shout in my head. How he was so ravenous when he came to us as a tiny kitten rescued off the city streets, how he flopped down on the ground whenever we pet him, how he liked to help everyone with our projects whatever they involved (home improvement, lesson prep, sorting the mail), and how much laughter he brought to our family with his silly, relaxed personality, so much in contrast to Stella's high-maintenance mode. They finally figured out how to play off of each other without squabbling.
It all happened so fast, and now he's gone, leaving this painful ache.  We all agreed how it was better this way than any other way--instantaneous death, no half-dead questions to answer. But it still hurts so incredibly.
And on top of that, the month of May had already been crowded.  A couple days before Furrgus, I finally had to surrender and replace my 5-year-old "dumb phone" with a "smart phone" ('not sure who's really smart).  We all did a lot of traveling and packing, what with graduation in Boston and end of the year in Minnesota, visiting Grampi in between.  My office moved from 30 years of renting space into our own new building.  We spent two entire weekends at church for special events, with no day off.  I started a new term teaching English at Wilmington University (grammar and writing: my favorite!), and also started and finished my own training for online teaching.  ...All good things, just, there's only so many good things you can pack into one mental month.
I end with gratitude: thanks to be traveling on this crowded train, even though it's a bit uncomfortable at times.
Because that's the only way to go that makes any sense.

Delaware Himalaya

From the crest of the bridge, if I look out from my car, I can see a little rise of the earth on the horizon. Delaware's so small, that little hill is probably in Maryland! Everything else is flat all around. I can almost see the ocean from the top of the bridge, too, and it looks flat from here. For now, I will imagine the mountains that I can't see, rising beyond that little hill, in the Poconos, or the Appalachians, or the Adirondacks.
At the gym, I choose the "Variety" workout. Do I want to enter my age and weight to optimize my workout? And what do I want to monitor: strides, distance, or ___, whatever that is. For now, I will pretend the little blinking lights on the screen are leading me up Himalayan paths, over passes where I get a lookout to the peaks in the next range. I can pretend there's a tea shop at the bottom near the rushing mountain stream next to the wide-based resting tree. I can spot the village half-way up the next range where we hope to rest tonight, and I catch glimpses of the trail winding through clearings and between rocky outcroppings.
For now, I can pretend the smash mouth they play at the gym--to inspire fitness and sweat and performance? is the Himalayan thrush, and the call of the shepherds gathering their stock. Or maybe it's the kids singing as they walk to school in the morning.
I try not to get distracted by the soundless images advocating medications or sports snacks, explaining in too much detail the current traffic snags or last night's shooting in the neighborhood. Self-important, they flash on TV screens strategically placed at every vantage point. I wish it were a Himalayan condor soaring past at eye level, looking for a meal in the shadowy valley floor. I wish it were a rhododendron bush in full red bloom. I wish it were the neighbor ladies gathered on their front porches to clean the rice and pick stones out of the lentils for tonight's dinner.
For now, the handles I grasp for the "arm blaster" cycle booster can stand in for a sturdy walking stick I picked from the forest that will steady my feet on the sometimes treacherous path, on to the next resting tree or a stopping place for the night. If it's a particularly worthy walking stick, I will stand it in the corner when I get home, near the door, to remind me the mountains are out there.
The other day I wanted to wear my sari, and my blouse was too tight! 

Wedding

Creative writing prompt:  And then I saw it...
the perfect sari for my daughter's wedding.  Oh, no, not for her. She already has her dress, in the Western style. She's marrying a local boy.  My other two daughters will stand with her: they already have their dresses, too, in light pink.  There were two saris there on the sale rack in the light pink, one with silver decorations and one with multi-colored.
The tall Punjabi saleswoman draped it and I looked in the mirror.  Something wasn't right.  Maybe it would have worked when I was younger.  I was disappointed.  My husband was disappointed.
I turned back to the rack.  It was the top of my budget range.  I couldn't go anywhere else.  I'd seen possibilities in the first two shops, but I had thought this one was perfect.  Right next to the two light pink, a bolder pink with delicate silver beading caught my eye. I had thought it was too dark.
Shopping in India is a community affair.  You never walk in and pick your own size from a rack of all the same style. There is always a salesperson to advise you, and usually some bystanders giving opinions too.  If you do successfully negotiate a purchase, you are likely to get any number of curious bystanders asking how your bargaining was (or commenting on its deficiencies).

Scarcity

In India, my yearly salary as a second tier experienced teacher was about $8000. My ayah earned about $600 annually. In Wilmington, I earn more at 50 than I have every earned in my life. When our friends in India ask if we can give them some money for school expenses for their kids, we tell them we can't afford it. We give to the church and to LCS a faith-based social service agency, and to Heifer Project and ELCA World Hunger, but we don't have a whole lot more, after paying the mortgage the electric the phone and cable bill car insurance and our three kids' college tuition. Some weeks we have to car pool or ride the bus because there's not enough gas in the car.
Some people get $15 worth of food stamps for the month and say it's not worth the trouble, and some people get $15 worth of food stamps and say every little bit helps. Some people say 2 pieces of chicken to feed three people for a day is not enough. If I could count the times I fed my kids "potato patties" for dinner--a couple of grated potatoes, an egg, a grated onion, a spoonful of flour, salt and pepper, fried in a little vegetable oil... They all grew up to be contributing members of society.
But we're rich. We have a roof over our heads and clothes to wear, food to eat and enough for a treat every once in a while. Our kids are in college. We both have masters degrees. My husband and I still love each other after 27 years together. We have loving family and stimulating friends. We have jobs that are meaningful to us. We have international experience, speak different languages, and Skype people in other countries. We have faith that has stood the test of time. Our bodies and minds still work and we still laugh and breathe and enjoy the sunset. We are rich.

Hot Tea at Dawn

My dawn cup of tea these days is taken in front of the computer with my spectacles on. I'm in virtual office hours for my college level ESL Grammar and Writing course.

Bridges

"The hanging bridge is closed for repairs, It will be opening again in the fall," the sign proclaims. The footbridge crosses the Brandywine just above the diversion into the canal. The water is deep and still, a refuge for ducks and other water-loving creatures. I just checked; they still have chain link fence around the entrance and you have to go to another crossing point if you're going to the other side.
As I stand, stopped on my route, I remember a different bridge that crosses the Sethi Khola right at the entrance to Pokhara, situated right where the gorge is narrowest, so there would be less bridge to build. It's just a little wider than the one in Wilmington, maybe a little shorter. It used to accommodate the animal and human foot traffic, but now with the areas on both sides of the river developed, it seems sadly inadequate.
On our way to school in fifth grade my friends and I would always pause at least for a minute to throw a stone down the dark gully imagining we could see the foaming water that we could hear while it coursed between fortress rock walls. We could see the the calm power of the river before it entered the narrows, and just downriver it spewed out the other end of the gorge in a torrent of white water. We never heard the rock hit bottom, but we had to try anyway. It never lost its intrigue.
It reminds me of another gorge, deeper and narrower, that I visited with my husband years later. It crosses the Rio Pastaza near Baños in Ecuador, under the shadow of the volcano Tungurahua. That must have been the vacation my husband and I took when our oldest two children stayed with Grami and Grampim when we realized there would be another one joining our family soon. We took pictures posing on the rocks in the pool at the bottom of that gorge with the untamed river tumbling in the background.
The pictures, snapped at a moment in time, span spaces and times in my life, a testament to deep gorges successfully crossed.

Shelter

In a shady cove in the woods in Brandywine Park, almost invisible from the main trail, a sturdy stone and beam shelter stands lonely. Those who happen upon it these days are up to no good -- as attested by the graffiti on the walls and smells and detritus around the back. But if those stone could speak, they would tell stories of families gathering to commemorate a marriage (low-budget) or graduation, badminton and punch, neighbors being community. It used to be fully equipped for a day in the park. These days it stand empty from dusk till dawn when the park is closed, while homeless men sleep under the freeway bridge a few steps away.
High in the Himalayas, in shady spots along the way, public shelters are common, mapped out about a day's trek apart, waiting for the next night's trekkers: tourists, mountaineers, merchants, refugees, goat herders. They provide a fire pit for cooking rice and dahl, maybe a nettle stew. Signs of previous occupants remain day after day, connecting users with others. It's safe shelter for the night.
In the modern day, editorials decry the lack of care for the religious pilgrimage sites (Hindustani Times, June 2013), and far too much graffiti mars these Indian national treasures. Now visitors drive their SUV's up mountainsides and don't take the time to stay overnight.
One day, maybe you can visit one of these shelters, either in the Brandywine, or in the Himalayas, or in your local park, and stay a minute to read the stories written there.