The Glass

A favorite quote from my husband, and he really believes it:
The glass is not half empty or half full, but overflowing!

Peace

The homeless guys outside the soup kitchen got in an altercation after lunch today. Someone must have called Sister Anna Maria (even though the police station is across the street) because before too long--before too many bad words had polluted the air--I heard Sister's voice raised firmly above the rabble. From my office on the other side of the window, I could not hear her words, but she diffused the rancor and shortly I heard conversation and laughter.
On the roadways in India--the Himalayan Highways--if there is an accident or fatality (animal or human), the whole community comes to resolve the issue. If a child or cow gets killed by a speeding vehicle, the neighbors--all witnesses--gather together and decide the culpability and retribution before the police even arrive.
Once when I was quite young, on one of the rare occasions we had a vehicle, my parents were tending to some business and I was waiting in the Land Rover parked on the edge of the street. All of a sudden, the slate roof of the house next to the car collapsed with a crash. One corner landed on the hood of the Land Rover. The neighbors and my parents all came out to investigate and discovered a baby swinging in a  hammock under the corner of the porch that had been caught by the Land Rover. They proclaimed it a miracle--new vocabulary: bachaio = saved. We all raised a collective prayer of thanksgiving.
I grew up and married, and we taught our four kids that they possess within themselves the resources they need to resolve conflicts.

Nails

A long time has passed since I had time to take care of my nails. It's getting embarrassing! Finally, I can't wait and I decide I'll just clip them. I always carry my clippers with me, but the problem is where. Where can you clip your nails and it won't be weird? How can you do it and not gross people out? What do you do with the nails if you clip them in your office? Besides, my office is so close to everyone else's they would all hear me. I can't clip them in the car, because I'm driving . I just get in position and the light changes, and I have to start all over again. And I can't do it in the coffee shop, the library, the lunch room, the doctor's office, or the grocery store.
I finally choose the bus stop. I look all around; nobody is on the sidewalk in either direction. Looking way down the road, I can't see the bus anywhere. But there is a steady stream of cars (and their drivers) passing by within ten feet of my chosen spot. Last week a couple of guys in a dump truck laughed at me for doing up my hair at the bus stop. What would they say about clipping my nails?
I look up and down the road again. My bus isn't due for at least five minutes. So I turn around in the bus stall, so the drivers won't see. I hope their music is turned up so they won't hear. The nails can go on the ground outside. All this bother, just to clip my nails!
It makes me think of traveling by train in India. Everyone in the whole car has to use the two toilets on either end of the carriage. Fortunately, there's a sink outside the toilets in the hall. In the morning, there's a carefully orchestrated arrangement involving the chai wallahs calling their first round of morning tea through the train and the elderly aunties, who automatically get to go first. People on the top bunks either have to be very early risers, or wait until the rush is over, after the third cup of chai. I always try to be polite while I watch young brides change out of their jeans and slip on the sparkle-trimmed salwar-kamiz or purda just before their stop, or sleep-deprived mothers brushing up the little girls' hair with oil and bright hair ties, or dignified gentlemen switching their pajama-kurta for a suit and tie.
Funny thing: everyone just washes their face or brushes their teeth right there in the open, and it's ok. Who would think of not brushing your teeth? Why would you take up precious time inside the toilet? People take full baths inside the toilet compartments  They come out combing their hair and adjusting their pants.
It's silly that it should be embarrassing to clip your fingernails in public.

Play

Riding the bus from downtown, I saw kids playing basketball under the shade of the freeway overpass. Across the street, women sat on their door steps talking, trying to escape the heat inside their cramped apartments. Some big boys were playing marbles against the wall of their row-house.
The snapshot transported me back to the village in Nepal where I grew up. In the warm afternoons, after school was done and before evening chores and dinner, the boys would gather in the village green, along the dirt road, or under the big resting tree to play. They played chase, or soccer (if someone had a ball), or marbles, or a finger football game with players they folded out of discarded cigarette packets. Being a girl, I was never invited, but I didn't have field work or house work to do like most of the other girls, so I watched, never really understanding the rules, or the roles. I watched, fascinated by the interactions, by the insider knowledge of the game and the fierce competition for something that seemed so simple.
As the light of the day grew dim, mothers would start to call for people to come home for dinner. "Oh, Raju!" sang out from a house three streets away. The boys all looked at Raju, who eventually called back to acknowledge that he was coming home, and dawdled a few minutes more for some strategic play in the game. Slowly the boys would drift away, as their mothers called, or if they saw their fathers walking home from work, and the games were put on hold for the next afternoon.
As my bus rumbled on, the stops got fewer and farther between. When I got off at my corner and walked into my neighborhood I did not see anybody out. I saw cars parked in driveways. I could see TV's on behind gauze curtains.
I pick up the trash on my street, one side of the street today and the other side tomorrow. I'll make supper, and we'll all sit down together to eat. After dishes are cleared away, I'll probably play a couple of games of solitaire on the computer. I may or may not win.

Edgehill

I know there are no real hills in Delaware. But there is a street called "Edgehill Ave" in Dover. I wonder what they named it after.
In the hill stations in India, all the houses have names. One large house on the edge of a hill in the first range of the Himalayas bears the name "Edgehill". Nowadays it acts as a dormitory for a prestigious boarding school. Sounds of children playing and the huge dorm dog barking are audible all around the amphitheater of hills. The dorm bell chimes the schedule: wake up, time to leave for school, tea time, study hall, bed time.
Thirty years ago, Edgehill played the role of guest house to visiting parents and families of school children, retired missionaries on holiday, and christian workers who got overheated on the plains before the rains set in. The hostess facilitated informal dinners; mothers relaxed under the broad veranda while their children renewed once a year friendships and played in the clear mountain air; bearers brought buckets of warm water for the morning bath. Just a short walk along the eyebrow of the hill, the bazaar offered mild diversion and basic supplies.
I wonder what life at Edgehill held before that.

Hot Tea at Dawn

When you're trekking in Nepal, you walk from early until mid-morning tea and biscuits, either at the top of a mountain or at the bottom, depending on how you feel. You stop again at the end of the day, at a local goTh or someone's house along the road. You can order dinner with your stay. If your'e lucky, they'll have some fresh meat to go with your rice and dahl, for a few extra rupees. If you're really lucky, there will be a vegetable.
There's no rest like the sleep of exhaustion after a day on the trail. If it's a one-flea establishment, you might get a room for your family apart from the other travelers  They'll let you use your own bedding. If it's a five-flea place, you'll be happy for a few wooden slats between you and the animals. Sometimes those are the best spots. Sometimes that's as far as you could make it before the next place to stop.
Next morning the hostess will get you tea at dawn before you start the day's trek.
On the doorstep of my colonial two-story in an older, established neighborhood in the Brandywine Hundred,  I stand to greet the dawn. The tag from my tea bag hangs from my no-spill travel mug, as I wait for my carpool. It'll be two or three mountain passes before I can stop tonight, but I'll be back home here at the end of it.

The Same

As I waited for the city bus in the rain, my memories carried me back to another rainy afternoon, far away. I pulled the drawstring tight around my hood, pulled my hands inside the fur lined sleeves of my city coat. Today is a bad day to forget my gloves. At least the outside of my coat is waterproof, but the wind is strong and cold is finding its way in at the seams, up under the edge; the waterproof coating has already worn off the boots I wear to work.
It was a late storm that caught us unprepared at the top of our trek. I'm pretty sure I had Indian-made tennis shoes on my feet, and no fur-lined coat. The backpack helped keep my back warm, but the cold water ran down and soaked my kurta and jeans. We were young, though, and it didn't really matter. We ducked down into the shepherds' hut, laughing, and sat close together to keep out the cold. Some of the shepherds shared their woolen shawls and blankets, and they used up some of their precious firewood to heat up the smokey hut.
The lights of the bus finally distinguished themselves from the other rush hour traffic. I climbed up, gratefully looking back at the stone pillar of the church that had broken the wind during my wait. My cell phone rang in my pocket. It was my husband saying he'd been happy to come pick me up at work so I wouldn't have to wait in the rain.
Drying out on the bus towards home, my thoughts range many highways I have traveled. I want to tell my stories, to share my experiences. I want it to be worthwhile for others to read. I also want to join my highways, span the oceans separating them. There is really not that much distance between my rainy afternoon in Delaware and a high sheep pasture on the side of a mountain in Northwestern India. Is there?