Ooh...Aah...

Hiking the Jud Wiebe Trail above Telluride.

Telluride Gondola service

Three cousin reunion - Kris, Susi and Rob

Paul, Susi, Art, Kris & Rob - Catching up!

Rob - our guide extraordinaire

Looking down at Ooh Aah Point - Grand Canyon

Ooh Aah Point

The Grand Canyon at last

Ooh…Aah….

            The phone rang one day late last summer and it was my cousin Susi from Houston.  “How would you and Art like to come to Telluride next summer to visit us for a week?” she said.  We did not need time to think it over as we’d heard about Telluride from Susi and Paul for years – a place they have been vacationing in for years.  A month later, we met again at a family wedding in Ann Arbor.  Rob and Kim, who were hosting the wedding, heard us making plans for Telluride the following summer and chimed in with, “you must come visit us in Flagstaff the next week and we’ll show you all the sights.  When we got home from the wedding we added “trip to Colorado and Arizona” to the 2014 calendar.

Eleven months later, with my nose pressed to the window of a small propeller airplane, I gazed over the tops of the jagged brown Rockies - the dark green of the canyons like pieces of velvet spread out for miles, and the clouds just beneath us looking like large pieces of floating cotton.  We bumped along at 24,000 ft. for the 39 min. flight to Montrose with occasional apologies from the cockpit for the rough ride.  I felt a familiar sense of adventure remembering the many airplanes I had been on as a child traveling back and forth to Buenos Aires in the 1950’s.  This was how travel used to be…smaller airplanes, slower speeds at lower altitudes but so much closer to the ground.  I also remembered a flight from San Jose, Costa Rica to Manuel Antonio in the early 1980’s and the spectacular snow capped Himalayas from my window on the propeller flight from Pokhara to Kathmandu in the late 2000’s.  As recently as last spring I was on a thirty-minute propeller flight from Charlotte to Asheville flying over the Blue Ridge Mountains. I do like knowing there are still a few of those old prop planes around.

The Franz Klammer Lodge owned by the Fairmount Hotel in Mountain Village is where we stayed at Susi and Paul’s condominium. At 9500 ft., it is the highest altitude I have been to with the exception of Cuzco, Machu Picchu and La Paz. Bolivia…but that was a lifetime ago! My slight headache went away in a day or so and I was eager to start exploring.  A free service of gondolas operate daily from Mountain Village up and over the mountains, down to the town Telluride – like riding a shuttle bus from place to place with breathtaking views, - that is, if you aren’t squeamish about heights.  There are special gondola cars for dog riders and Tadgh, Susi and Paul’s Wheaten terrier, is a veteran traveler.

Telluride was an old mining town in the late 1800’s and is in a canyon along the San Juan Mountain Range at 8,745 ft. above sea level.  Today it is a National Historic District, an ski resort and a summer vacation destination for hikers, campers, and mountain bikers. Telluride hosts many festivals such as the Telluride Film Festival that was happening when we were there. Laid out in a grid, the cross streets that are named after trees - Aspen, Oak, Fir, Pine, Spruce, and Willow – are lined with charming narrow two-story houses that once were lived in by miner’s families. Today they are million dollar properties with perfectly landscaped gardens.  A five or six block long Main Street has upscale boutiques, art galleries, outdoor clothing stores and ethnic restaurants and cafes. We even shopped at a Farmer’s Market for organic fruits and vegetables grown on the Colorado plateau.  It seems the perfect picturesque town and not as crowded as the popular resorts near Denver simply because it’s harder to get to. I couldn’t help but notice an air of friendliness everywhere that reminded me of small town Vermont. Locals gather outside the post office, the library, and the popular cafés to catch up on town happenings.  You can tell the locals from the vacationers just because they all know each other well.

We hiked the Jud Wiebe Trail one day that goes straight up to 10,000 ft. above the town of Telluride. The switchback trail comes to an open meadow and into a forest of graceful aspen trees, their silver dollar leaves fluttering in the clear mountain air. I was panting so hard when I reached the top I decided high altitude hiking is not for me.  I bowed out on the next up and down hike to Bear Creek but Susi, Paul, and Art were not fazed.

 

Susi and I started our mornings with Yoga classes in a studio on the top floor of the lodge with windows facing the mountains. We ended our days with many laughs over friendly bridge games – the girls challenging the guys and then one couple against the other. Our walks and daily excursions were punctuated late in the day with relaxation in one of the many hot tubs. My early birthday gift was a ninety-minute full body massage at the spa at the Franz Klammer.  Heavenly!

 On a rainy day Susi and Paul drove us to Ouray, Colorado another old mining town and vacation spot.  We stopped along the way in Ridgway for a lunch at the True Grit Café that was part of the original movie set for John Wayne’s “True Grit”.  Art kept saying as we woke up each day in the high Rockies and watched the sun set from the top of our lodge across the valley, “this all looks like a movie set…could it be real?”

Six days later at 6 am on a Sunday, we left with Susie and Paul and the Tadgh in their car headed south to New Mexico.  We stopped in Dolores at the Ponderosa Restaurant for an 8 a.m. breakfast.  Driving south out of the canyons and away from the mountains the landscape becomes flat, the land is gray and dusty with occasional shrubs and bizarre land formations in the distance - remnants of early volcanic formations.  Shacks, trailers, and small square houses with tin roofs dot the landscape, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  Driving through Cortez, past the Ute Mountain Casino, and onto the Navajo reservation lands that go for miles through southern Colorado and into New Mexico, I felt bereft at leaving behind the lush Telluride landscape.

            In four hours we found ourselves in a different world from where we started as we arrived in Gallup, New Mexico to Earl’s Restaurant where Rob had driven to meet us from Flagstaff.  The Navajo jewelry vendor’s tables were set up outside of Earl’s in the hot sunshine and Navajo families filled the tables indoors for Sunday lunch.  After lunch, Susi and Paul headed East towards Albuquerque and on to Houston and we headed West with Rob for Arizona.  As we drove down the flat straight highway I stared at the wide-open cloudless skies and empty landscape.  We were headed to Flagstaff and the foot of the San Francisco Peaks.

            My cousin Rob stepped into his role of “guide extraordinaire” for the next six days.  Kim had had to leave unexpectedly the week before to fly to Maine and care for youngest son Tyler recovering from an ankle operation.  I can imagine that the prospect of taking us everywhere on his own without Kim might have been daunting and yet, after all these months of planning he and we simply forged ahead as planned.  Rob had mapped the route to Flagstaff stopping at two historic “must see” sites – The Hubbell Trading Post and the La Posada Hotel.  The Hubbell Trading Post, between Gallup and Flagstaff, is a National Historic Site on the Navajo Reservation. The superb park ranger guide was a live walking history book spouting facts, figures, and stories with great enthusiasm and drawing us in to the history of this place!  Names like General James Carleton, Kit Carson, General William Sherman and John Lorenzo Hubbell were all part of this historic trading post on Navajo lands that was opened to support Navajo arts and crafts.  It is still a trading post today with many original hand woven rug, gorgeous turquoise and silver jewelry, pottery, and baskets for sale.

            Our next stop was Winslow, Arizona on Route #66 an unimpressive small town but home to the historic La Posada Hotel.  Designed by Mary Colter and owned by Fred Harvey a railroad magnate in the 1930’s it was built next to the railroad tracks and was a major stop on the Santa Fe Railroad.  Walking through the hotel that has been renovated like a museum and but still hosts tourists, I was transported back to my visits in Mexico. The hotel is a gem of Spanish art and architecture. La Posada seems an unlikely sight today in an ordinary town on the plains of northern Arizona but the freight trains still pass by as well as the daily Amtrak en route from Chicago to Los Angeles. If only La Posada closer we’d spend a few days there…the rates were amazingly reasonable and there was something unique about watching the trains go by.

            Flagstaff, at 7000 ft., was another surprise – a small city in northern Arizona surrounded by lush green pine forests at the foot of tall mountains.  Originally a camp where pioneers stopped on the way to California, today it is a college town - home to Northern Arizona University, - and a recreation area for hikers, campers, and tourists.  I felt wonderful waking up to clean clear air, cool mornings, and warm sunny days.  Rob took us to some of the local sites including The Riordan Mansion  (no comparison to Biltmore House)  and we learned the history of the Riordan brothers who came from the Midwest, started a successful logging industry as well as many other businesses and community improvements in Flagstaff.  We loved the Northern Arizona Museum where Kim is a docent and missed what might have been a highlight, of her guiding us through her museum. A superb special exhibit of large oil paintings by Shonto Begay introduced us to this Navajo painter we had not heard of.

            The red rock formations in and around Sedona, just an hour from Flagstaff are another “must see”.  We started on a hike to Cathedral Rock but the sun beat down relentlessly at 5000 ft.  and we did not make it very far. Instead we opted for a gourmet lunch outdoors at a French restaurant in Tlaquepaque.  Copied after Mexican architecture this arts and crafts village has tall shady trees, arches, fountains, plazas, iron railing verandas and decorative tiles. Sedona is full of serious art galleries full of luscious Native American sculptures and paintings. We saw several we could have easily brought home…but didn’t, of course.

            Seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time was a thrill.  Jaded world travelers that we are, Art kept saying “I had no idea we had such a natural wonder in our country.”  My cousin Rob is probably the best guide one could have to the Canyon.  An avid outdoorsman, he has hiked every trail with a 40-pound backpack and camped all over the canyon floor, for the past seven years he has lived out West.  As I write this, he is off on a 10-day camping trip on a creek off of the Colorado River working as a volunteer helping biologists and fish experts who are working to eradicate trout from the canyon streams in order to bring back certain endangered species of fish.

            The South rim of the Grand Canyon is a 75-mile drive from Flagstaff. Rob introduced us to the canyon with a hike to Ooh Aah Point, a rock formation that has a 360-degree view down into the canyon. It is less than a mile straight down from the head of the South Kaibab trail but I was nervous about managing the steep and narrow path. We took our time and I noticed other tourists doing the same thing most of whom were foreigners. Throughout the day I kept eavesdropping on bits of other languages from all over the world – a reminder that the Grand Canyon is a world renown destination.

 We reached Ooh Aah Point at 6440 ft. and found ourselves sharing photo taking time with Chinese tourists. From here we could look down several miles to the floor of the canyon and in the distance see the geologic layers that trace a history of the earth. Looking up to the rim of the canyon was the steep ridge we had just came along down a narrow switchback trail. It was only 1.8 miles down to “Ooh Aah Point” and back up to the rim and but took us nearly 2 hours.

 

We realized the enormity of the canyon and using the easy shuttle buses we stopped at number of lookout points never tiring of what we were seeing.  We spotted one or two rare condors, an endangered species that have been introduced back into the Grand Canyon environment.  It was only through binoculars that we could appreciate the rapids on the Colorado River, that runs through the Canyon, and finally understood what it might be like to take a rafting trip down the Colorado. We stopped at the historic El Tovar Hotel and sat out on one of the verandas to eat our picnic lunch.  El Tovar, sits on the rim of the canyon and was owned by the Fred Harvey Company, and is still a very popular resort hotel.  The sunset over the South rim was like a curtain coming down on our day and on our trip. It was time to head home.

Now that I’m home I carry the memory of all that spectacular scenery in my head.. I miss being surrounded by  tallmountains, with unusual rock formations that look like someone with an artistic eye carved them.  I miss the feel of the wide-open spaces, the very deep blue skies, the reddish orange color of the earth, and the pure mountain air at altitudes high above the Blue Ridge. I miss the warmth and love of my Iowa cousins who showed it all to us. Mostly, I miss what I now find myself calling the “ooh and aah “ of being in a new place.   But that is what keeps me travelling and, so… I’ll get on with planning our next adventure.

         

Old Age is Not for Sissies....

            Last Monday we took mother to the eye doctor for a check up. Having regularly been on top of doctor appointments it had been 10 months since our last visit. But then, we had not expected Mom to have a stroke in November and a fall and fractured pelvis this past March.  In an optimistic moment a week ago, I thought it might be a good to get her eyes checked.

             Art came with me to help with the wheel chair and between the two of us got her there.  Asheville Eye Associates has unquestionably the best ophthalmologists in this area. But it is a factory.  Never have I been more aware of this than I was on Monday.  There are at least a dozen doctors and I couldn’t guess how many people pass through here daily. The parking lot is packed at all hours and the waiting room is the size of a ballroom. When you check in at the front door you are directed to areas of the waiting room that go from Area A to at least half the alphabet.  Once in the waiting room, assistants come out all up and down the huge open room calling out patient names every 3 to 5 minutes.

          

            The afternoon turned out to be long and arduous especially if you are 94 and frail.  (This was not Mom’s first visit.) First, we had to wait for an exam room that would accommodate a wheel chair.  When she was finally called we had been waiting nearly an hour.  A young efficient assistant who was used to getting patients prepared to see the doctor quickly, updated Mom’s chart and medications and then set about testing her eyesight.  Darkening the room, explaining in her Southern accent to cover an eye and look up on the wall and read the letters.  Mom hesitated because she hadn’t heard her clearly… then said she couldn’t see the letters.  The assistant changed the line on the chart and tried again…”No, I can’t see that…” mother said.  She tried a third time and finally mother simply said, “I can’t read any of it”.  

There was silence, as the assistant was not quite sure how to proceed. After all, everyone can read something on the wall chart unless you are legally blind.  And mother is not blind!  How was she to record this on the chart?  Suddenly she excused herself and we were left in the dark room.  Back she came with the doctor who greeted us kindly, looked over Mom’s chart and ordered dilation.  He left.  The assistant dilated her eyes. Then we waited in the “ballroom” another half hour.  Finally back again, we sat in the exam room for another 20 minutes until I wandered into the hall to see if we had been forgotten.  No…there were a few people still around.  I was losing patience but Mom sat quietly in her “good girl” mode as she had all afternoon.  I wondered what she was thinking.

Finally Dr. Haynes came back and looked into Mom’s dilated eyes with a special instrument.  Then checking her chart he announced that there was very little change since the last time we’d been there.  Her eyes were fine, and neither the glaucoma nor the macular degeneration had worsened.  What a relief to hear that she was not going blind which was what we were thinking. When he addressed why she had not been able to read the chart he said perhaps it was “situational”.  I told him that this was one of the few times that my mother had even been out in “the real world” in the past 10 months. He had no idea of the significance of this. Before he left he said we must come back in 4 months so she could be checked again.

 

Just as he was leaving,  he did lean close to Mom, seemingly sensitive to the fact that she is hard of hearing, and reiterated, “You are doing fine.  You are not going blind.”  He spoke to her in a slow, loud voice as people do when they are talking to someone very old. Then he was out the door and on to the next patient.

At the checkout desk, we were given her “follow up” appointment for four months.  Art drove us through rush hour traffic while Mom sat quietly in the front seat.   She was already a half hour late for her dinner but didn’t say a word.  I sat in the back seat going over what we’d just experienced.  It was then I knew I would not be taking her back there…ever!  After all, she is not going blind…no need to submit her to that factory assembly line again.

The Next Generations

            Unlike most Americans, trips to Washington D.C. have become a regular event for us throughout the year as we visit the newest Aaronson – our grandson. Landing in the city after an hour flight from the mountains of Western North Carolina always catches me by surprise.  The skyline of the Capitol building, the Washington monument and the rooftops of the Smithsonian and other monuments on the Mall never fail to excite me.  After all, this is a world famous national capital!

            Having just returned, we can report that unlike most of what goes on in Washington these days, Hayden, Jessica and Austin are thriving.  Just a week ago we landed at Reagan National and headed for the Metro and the Yellow Line to Gallery Place, changed to the Red Line for the leg to Union Station. (We do this now as if we were seasoned commuters.) After lunch at one of the many station restaurants, we continued via taxi for the last 15 blocks to Hayden’s house in northeast D.C.  Each time we go we hope the new H Street trolley will be up and running from Union Station north.   It’s almost ready, they say. But not just yet…

            The first and most important reason for our visit was to see Austin who is almost 6 months old now.  And so we walked around the block to knock on the door of a pink stucco townhouse where Therese, the nanny was caring for Austin and Kyle.  She was expecting us but said Austin was napping and she’d bring him around when he woke up and so we left.  An hour later she was at Hayden’s door with a double stroller and Kyle and Austin awake.  We eagerly picked up Austin and Therese settled Kyle and we visited.

            Therese is Rwandan – a small black, middle-aged energetic woman less than 5 ft. tall who speaks broken English. Her eyes come alive when she smiles and she has that African kindness and gentle demeanor that we were so drawn to when visiting Uganda.  She smiles from the heart as she picks up each baby and cares for him as if he were hers. From our conversation we learned she had lived in Washington for a long time and her husband is from Benin and works as a driver for the Belgian Embassy.  As she was not blessed with children of her own she has devoted many years to caring for other people’s children – many of whom she stayed with until they were school aged and even teens.  She is organized and knows the value of a keeping to a schedule especially when charged with two 5 ½ month old babies.  Kyle and Austin share Therese and it all seems to work well.

 

White and adopted from California, Kyle is 10 days older than Austin and is more hyperactive. He lives with his two Dads just around the corner. Therese knows each baby’s personality and she told us that Austin is the quiet and calm one who has been nursed since birth.  Kyle takes the bottle and squirms around more.

Every two weeks Therese changes houses. Each house is well stocked with baby equipment.  Therese could just as well do without all the American baby gadgets as she knows what babies need and they manage perfectly well in Rwanda without all the “stuff” American parents seem to feel is necessary. (I was continually reminded of the “used” baby things we had with Hayden and how lucky we were to have them in Chile. Nowadays parents are told it is unsafe to have anything used.) However, Therese does like the double stroller for outings in the neighborhood.  At first glance Kyle and Austin in the side-by-side stroller could be twins. Sometimes she will get Kyle to nap by swaddling him on her back African style.  Austin, on the other hand, will happily fall asleep lulled by the motion of being pushed in the stroller.

Austin got used to us very quickly.  I was instantly mesmerized by his translucent inquisitive large blue eyes, which seemed to serenely watch everything going on around him.  He just draws you in with his gaze.  His soft white skin and blonde fluff on his head remind me of a “Gerber baby”. I don’t even know if they still exist. As a grandparent, it’s lovely to simply be there and watch Hayden and Jessica take care of him perfectly as they do.  Austin rarely cries except when he’s hungry.  Then he might just give a little mewling whine before Jessica swoops him up and “tops him off” as she likes to joke when she puts him to her breast.  He will go for hours just napping and gazing at the world, playing with his toys on his gym mat on the floor or bouncing up and down on his strong chubby legs on Grandpa or Grandma’s lap or simply being held lovingly by Mom or Dad.  I did hear him really cry at bedtime as his parents are trying to introduce him to going to sleep in his crib at night on his own.  That is hard and Austin hasn’t quite mastered that yet.

Visiting for a few days was a reminder of what a difficult job it is to be parents who work full time at jobs.  It takes patience and devotion in spite of sleepless nights – organization, planning, and flexibility to change course in an instant.  I found myself wondering if we once had the energy to do all of this when Hayden was a baby.   Did we really go through days sleep deprived but still crazy about our son?”  Of course we did.  But then 37 years ago we had much more energy than we do now.

While Austin was the highlight of our weekend in Washington, so was a rare family gathering of cousins who all happened to be in town when we were.  Jess and Hayden welcomed everyone to a barbecue on Saturday afternoon.  Megan, Hayden’s first cousin, and husband Cruz and 2 ¾ year old Noah just happened to be visiting the East coast from California and they came.  Cory, Hayden’s second cousin and husband Roberto and 1 ½ year old Arthur who have been in D.C. for several years but are moving to Texas next month also came.  Megan and Cory who are second cousins, grew up in California but had never met before and so it was a memorable reunion.  Roberto and Cruz discovered they both graduated the same year from U. of Texas from the engineering school.

 Thank goodness for Hayden’s backyard which is small but a rare amenity on Capitol Hill.  We had three little boys – at three different stages all being watched by their parents as we visited, took lots of photos, and had a lovely time together.  And I just basked in the fun of watching it all - this generation of smart, well educated, and fun young people all enjoying each other and their children .

Our weekend flew by and I stored up as much “Austin time” as I could - cuddling and holding him so that I can still feel him in my arms now that I’m home again.  As we drove back from Greenville, S.C. airport on Monday night through the lush green mountains to Asheville, Art and I talked about what perfect parents Hayden and Jessica are.  We agreed that it is wonderful for Austin to be cared for by an African nanny and learning to share with Kyle who is growing up in a gay family.   Austin will truly be in tune with the 21^st century world where people of all ethnicities, nationalities, beliefs and lifestyles are living closely together and accepting one another. 

Mostly, we basked in feeling appreciated and loved by Jessica and Hayden who always include us and make us part of their lives. As grandparents it’s nice to know they will always welcome family and keep their home open just as they did last weekend when we had our cousin reunion.  While world news often seems dire we come back from our Washington D.C. visits with optimism about the generations to come – especially about future generations of Aaronsons!

  

   

             

              

Being neighborly...

“What have you been up to lately?” a friend asked me the other day.

“Oh…I took my neighbor shopping all morning.  You know, the one from Florida who just moved in next door.  She’s 82 and drives but she didn’t know the way to the East Asheville Mall,” I added.

“Doesn’t she have a GPS?” my friend asked.

That took me by surprise.  Did I need to explain why an 82-year old neighbor might be delighted to go with me on a trip to the mall?  Would an 82-year old woman even own a GPS? My friend was serious when she posed the GPS question.  Why did I feel myself getting upset with her and why couldn’t she have said “how nice that you could help her out?”  Or “did you have a fun morning?”

The truth is I like feeling useful. Having moved often I have never forgotten how grateful I was to have someone  show me around when I was new somewhere.  Barbara, my neighbor, is energetic and pleasant and it was easy to spend a morning with her.  It reminded me how long it’s been since I went on “ all girl’” shopping trips with my mother when she was in her early 80’s. It was one of our favorite things to do together. We would help each other shop for new clothes and we both loved that.  Now in her mid-nineties - that seems like a lifetime ago. 

I took my car to the Mall and as soon as we were out the driveway, Barbara had pencil and paper in hand taking careful notes of where I turned and which roads we were on.  I showed her my shortcut to avoid the faster highway traffic. She was delighted and kept saying “I’ll have to show this route to my daughter." I doubt a GPS would be able to discern the best route for an elderly person avoiding the busy roads as I was doing.  As I called off street names and directions, I realized that this is how I like to navigate - by having some written directions. 
I am not in my 80’s just yet, and we do have a GPS, thanks to a Christmas present from our niece at least four Christmases ago.  (We have come to rely on the younger generation to push us into the newer technology because it isn’t something that we feel we need until we get used to it. Then we wonder how we lived without it.)  Of course, I’ve learned to use the GPS and take it on long trips. But, when I was new and finding my way around Asheville, I never quite trusted the GPS and would consult the AAA city map first and then Google directions instead.  I’d set out with instructions in hand and the GPS for backup only if we should get lost.  If someone was willing to go with me and show me the way, that was even better.

Thinking about this simple conversation with my friend, I should have let it all go. But her question about the GPS continued to annoy me.  I was struck by how good it feels to help someone else as I did my neighbor. It is the human interactions that our fast paced high tech culture often negates.  I love my laptop, the cell phone and even the GPS in certain situations but it is knowing when to set them aside and simply be in the moment and especially be there for someone else that really counts.

Summer

We just celebrated the summer solstice in North Carolina and the longest day of the year.  I don't want to think about the shorter days to come because I'm just getting into the swing of summer.

The days start early usually with a morning walk around the lake. The cool mountain air, sweetness of wild honeysuckle bushes, the loamy smell of lake water mixed with the scent of freshly mown grass embraces me each morning.  Mist rises off the still water of the lake as the sun comes up.  All around me is the cacophony of trilling, cooing, whistling, and chirping birds against the distant whooshing sound of traffic. It feels like an oasis in the middle of a growing city. I walk past the beach at one end of the lake where the leftover castles and moats dug yesterday by children are still visible in the sand. Plastic buckets and shovels, beach towels, and “noodles” lie abandoned. The regular early morning joggers and dog walkers pass me on the trail with a nod or a "good morning". Many are plugged into IPods and IPhones . I never understand why they want to block out the sounds of nature.

Summer makes me want to be outdoors most of the time.  I can’t focus on an indoor project except for cooking which is a necessity.  But even that involves my herb garden in pots on the deck.  This year I have thick curly parsley to pick from, two pots of thriving basil, thyme that survived the winter indoors, rosemary, tarragon, oregano, mint, dill, and even lavender for delicious sweet scent.  Before starting lunch or supper, I grab my scissors and am out the door to decide which herbs I will add to what I am making.  Most of the time I don’t follow a recipe but experiment instead. Picking my own fresh herbs is so satisfying.

I have replaced heavy soups I made in the winter with a summer salads. I try new recipes constantly – everything from arugula, corn, and tomato salad to quinoa, to pasta vegetable salad to farro salad with beans and feta. We keep the pitcher with green tea full in the refrigerator and the Filipino basket on the kitchen counter piled with fresh fruit especially after trips to the Farmer’s Market.  We haven't eaten so well in years – not since the days we shopped at the outdoor feria in Santiago, Chile or headed to the Carrefour in Dubai where fresh fruits and vegetables from every conceivable country in the world were for sale.  In Manila and Costa Rica we ate locally grown pineapples, papayas, and mangoes.  But summer in Western North Carolina is rich in with farm-grown fruits and vegetables.

Summer brings sudden thunderstorms and showery rains.  On weekdays the drone of mowers permeates the neighborhood and in the evenings you can hear the whirring and clicking of sprinklers watering the pristine lawns.  The compulsion to be outdoors makes me take a lawn chair into the shade and read for an afternoon or write in my journal.  There are still hours of daylight once the dinner dishes are in the dishwasher. We can walk the surrounding streets, watching the new houses go up, perhaps meet a new neighbor, or catch up with ones we already know.

Summer is when we go to classical music concerts at the Brevard Music Center. We can be outdoors as we did last Sunday watching Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops conduct the summer Brevard Orchestra playing works by Ravel and Rachmaninoff.  Brevard is the Tanglewood of the southeast and has become a much anticipated part of our summer in Western North Carolina. Our summer also  means going to Flat Rock Playhouse in Hendersonville to see favorite shows like the recent “My Fair Lady”.  

While I love the long days of summer, I realized recently that they don’t make as much difference as when I lived a thousand miles north in Vermont. There, the long summer and short winter days were more dramatically contrasted.  We looked forward all year to more daylight.
  The summer solstice is the official beginning of summer and, no matter where I live, I like the change and all that comes with it.   Right now,  I want to be immersed in summer activities and nature around me.  I am not ready to think about fall or winter. But, as summer moves on towards fall, I know there will come a day when I'll be ready and eager for the next season.  I always am.

Angelica

            “Good morning…Pase... (come in)…” Angelica greets me with her lovely broad smile as I let myself in through the lower back door of her two-story split-level home.  I am only 5 feet 4 inches tall and I tower over Angelica.  She is short and stocky with shoulder length dark hair and black eyes that sparkle when she smiles.  Each Monday morning I drive the 3 miles from my house to tutor her in English.  When I walk in,  I am enveloped in her warm Mexican hospitality that reminds me why I do this.

            Angelica or “Angie” as she calls herself with Americans, lives in a quiet lower middle class neighborhood with neat small houses  The lower level is a finished basement where she used to have a children's day care. There are built in shelves everywhere still full of toys, many of which she gladly loaned me when Noah, my great nephew, came to visit recently.   The room is nicely carpeted and painted.  There is a table and two chairs and a whiteboard against one wall. This has become our English classroom.  She and her family bought this house two years ago after 10 years of renting apartments all around Asheville.  They came to the U.S. when the children were still in elementary school. While the children speak English like natives, her husband is fluent enough to work as a mechanic. But Angelica has lagged behind in English. taking care of the family, working nights at hotels and motels as a cleaning woman interacting mostly with Spanish speaking people.  She knows that to get a better job she has to improve her English.  Hers is the American immigrant story that you hear so often but it is not one I knew firsthand.

            “How is your family?” I ask each week, to which she often replies “fine... fine.”  She immediately counters with, “How is your mother?  And your grandson?”  Family is the most important thing and we’ve learned quite a bit about each other in 13 months.  I get her to tell me whatever is on her mind in English although sometimes in her enthusiasm and desire to communicate she will launch into Spanish.  I, of course, can understand her perfectly.  But I have to force myself to insist “ say it in English” even though I’d love to just sit and chat in Spanish.  Telling me things in English slows her down but does not discourage her searching to find the right words.  These “teaching moments” when I explain new vocabulary that she jots down in her notebook, make me feel useful.

            Mornings are quiet at Angelica’s house as her husband, Angel is at work at the service department of the VW dealer.  Their driveway is full of cars her husband fixes for private clients in the evenings and on weekends to earn extra money. Her daughter Viridiana, who is 23, is at her office job and younger son Jose is sleeping in after working late hours as a chef at the popular Stone Ridge Tavern.  She has confided to me how much she would love her children to start community college but there is no money for that.  Angelica is a cleaning maid at the Western North Carolina Health Services Clinic where she works part time in the afternoons.  A close-knit family with the adult children living at home and helping their parents as most Hispanics do, they are the hard working and committed to making a better life in the United States.

            Once we have “checked up” on each other's families, I can move on to the lesson planned for the day using the materials from the Literacy Council.  Angelica is nearly always prepared with her homework and has become so comfortable with me that she asks many questions.  For her, each new thing she learns is taking a step closer to understanding American culture.  And she genuinely gets excited when she learns something new. Last week in our unit on celebrations she found out  that it is an American custom to send thank you notes when people give you a gift especially for weddings and graduations.  She was amazed and told me "we never do that in Mexico."

            During our year together I have learned about her childhood in a suburb of Mexico City going to work when she was 14 in a neighborhood bakery handing over all her earnings to her mother.  Married at a young age, there were difficulties with a husband who drank too much and whom she couldn’t always rely on. When they moved to the U.S., she told me, the drinking stopped and her husband began working hard to make ends meet. Our textbook units and new vocabulary lead to many personal reminiscences like recounting the difficult pregnancy and birth of her son Jose. Or she has shared about the hard times when her husband was diagnosed with cancer and out of work for many months. When she talks about her house and the neighborhood where she now lives I learned that when they bought the house the neighbors were parking in their driveway and using their fenced in back yard for their dogs. They resented having to give this up and took their time about moving cars and dogs even though the house had been sold.  I suspect they simply chose to ignore Angelica's family because they are Mexicans in a white neighborhood.  As Mexican immigrants they walk a fine line between what legal rights they have and how much they want to draw attention to themselves.  Americans aren’t always understanding or patient with foreigners and Mexicans live with many stereotypes.

            The weeks go by quickly and Angelica has made progress scoring higher this year on the Literacy exam and graduating to an Intermediate High level of language learning. Recently she told me excitedly that her work schedule had changed to afternoons from night work which means she now gets to interact more with English speakers and not just with the other maintenance workers who who are all Hispanic.  "I can practice more," she tells me with excitement.

              I took the training course to be a Literacy Council Volunteer ESL tutor when we moved to Asheville 3 years ago  because I craved  having some interaction with foreigners and particularly Hispanics.   I was born and raised in Latin America and I miss the warmth of Latin people and their culture. It is a side of me most people wouldn’t understand, but being comfortable with Latin culture,  is part of who I am. I have never shared with Angelica the fact that my father was an American diplomat in Mexico City for 3 years and my parents lived in a  large modern home behind high walls and tall wooden gate. with a complete staff of household help including chauffeur and gardener.  I visited there numerous times before I was married.  Ironically Art and I were even married for a second time in that very elegant house with some of my parents high society Mexican friends attending whom we didn't even know.  But that is a whole other story from many years ago.
              Right now knowing her and helping Angelica learn English keeps me going back for more.  I love being her maestra but I have also gained an insight in what it means to be a Mexican immigrant in the United States today. It is not an easy life.

          

Navigating Old Age

            “Look,” I said to Art, “there’s a New York Times on the lawn next door!”  For most people that wouldn’t be worth commenting on but I was looking for clues to who our new neighbors might be. I hoped they’d be quiet, intelligent, friendly but not too intrusive….just pleasant.

“That’s a good sign,” I said feeling some relief.  “It might mean we’ll have something in common when we meet them.”

            Several weeks ago we heard that the townhouse next door had sold after a year on the market.  It has been empty much of the time we’ve lived at Black Horse Run because the previous owners were in California and only used it two weeks out of the year.  Naturally we speculated as to who might move in.  Our front porches are side by side and we’d not had neighbors this close before. 

One day, there was a car in the driveway and I met the daughter and son-in-law and learned more.  Our new neighbors are elderly, in their 80’s, and moving from Florida to be close to their daughter and son-in-law who moved to Biltmore Lake from Seattle.  (All roads from everywhere must lead to Asheville. This is a familiar scenario here.)  “My Dad is not well,” she told me, “and if my mother is left alone I want her to be close to me.”

            While chatting from our front porches the daughter told me, “I am the daughter…the eldest…and the caregiver for my parents.”  Then she hesitated as if she wanted to add more. It all sounded very familiar.  I told her she didn’t need to explain because I had moved my mother to Asheville after we moved here, too. I am her caregiver.  I jokingly suggested we start a caregivers support group and she told me seriously she was on the verge of doing just that. She went on to explain, “We’re my parents landlords now because we bought this place. We live a few blocks over in a big house but perhaps someday when we are old we’ll move in here.”

            I never imagined I would be a caregiver for an elderly parent.  Many of my generation feel the same. I can remember my father declaring proudly, “we can take care of ourselves…we’ve saved and planned and we don’t need help from anyone.” He was a self-made man who became successful with no help from family.  Early in his retirement years he chose an expensive life care retirement community in Chapel Hill where it is easy to imagine moving seamlessly from independent living to assisted living to nursing home care all on the same campus.  When his health declined and he could no longer make decisions, I was the one who stepped in to help my mother.  When he died, there was no family in Chapel Hill. Mother readily agreed to come to Asheville.

 I, too, am a daughter, the eldest and steeped in a lifetime of “doing the right thing”.  Mother is now nearing 95 and lives in an assisted living facility near me where she has help with daily tasks.  She has often said, “I never imagined I’d live so long.”  When I am with her she will take my hand in hers and lovingly tell me “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”  I almost want to reply out loud that I don’t know what she’d do without me either...but I don’t say it.

There are so many clichés batted around that quip “growing old is not for sissies” or “ageing is mind over matter” or “you are as old as you feel”.  It all makes it sound easy but it’s not.  The reality is that unlike most cultures in the world we do not have an extended family network in place to care for and respect the elderly in our American society. Our culture reveres youth. We are good at building institutions for old age living but I have learned in the years as a caregiver to my parents that in no way does this substitute or go far enough in what is needed in old age.  Family is what counts.

We have now met Barbara and Tom Browne, our new 82-year old neighbors from Florida. Tom has entertaining life stories to tell of being a CEO of his own company and living in France for many years. But the conversations turn serious when he talks of exposure to chemicals in factories he ran that have affected his health.  Barbara is peppy and enthusiastic as she tells us matter-of-factly that this is their twentieth move!  Tom sits in the garage on his walker and smokes his pipe or likes to sit on the back deck watching the busy traffic go by on Lake Drive.  Barbara is often up at the clubhouse already immersing herself in friendly bridge games.  I like to see their daughter’s car in the driveway as she comes over daily to check up on things and help out.  It is a nice arrangement and working for that family.

            Knowing the time commitment and patience that goes along with helping elderly parents cope makes me wonder who will care for me.  Like my father, I want to say, “but of course, I’m prepared to care for myself.” as I’d never want to be a burden on my son and daughter-in-law.  I now have first-hand experience letting go of things in my own life and being there for my mother when she needs me. I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I suspect my new neighbor’s daughter and son-in-law feel exactly the same and there is some comfort knowing I’m not alone in helping a parent navigate the difficult path into old age.

Austin

            ‘They’re here!” Art called to me after waiting all afternoon for Austin to arrive.  We rushed outside to the red Mini Cooper in the driveway with roof rack and shell just as Hayden was climbing out.  Jessica reached back to unbuckle Austin from the car seat after the 9-hour trip and handed him to me.  “Here he is,” she said with a warm smile. I took him and felt his warm body cuddle against mine. Looking over my shoulder he surveyed this new place he’d come to for the first time. “Welcome to Asheville and Grandma’s house, ”I told him.  Now 11 weeks old, this was the longest trip of his life.

            “He did great,” Hayden told us.  “Didn’t cry once and slept the whole way from Washington.”  Art and I were not surprised because after all, he has those family “travel” genes. (As a baby I crossed the Equator at least twice by the time I was a year old and so did Hayden.  While still in the womb Jessica carried Austin to Senegal and Ivory Coast and even to Seoul, Korea on her business trips.)

            When I took Austin into the house and put him down I could see how much he’d changed in nine weeks.  His eyes really are a clear medium blue that now look deeply into mine as he’s learned to focus on what is around him.  He has a sweet chubby face with double chins and fat strong thighs and skin that feels smoother than the most delicate soft velvet. The wisps of light reddish brown hair on his head are the subject of much speculation.  Jessica sweeps them up with her fingers to a point on his head in a punk rock style.  “This drives my mother crazy,” she told me.  It must be a generational thing because I agree with her mother. The ongoing discussion centers around whether Austin will have curls and what color his hair will eventually be. His little fists punch the air and when I put my index finger into his fist he grasps it strongly with long delicate fingers. No question he is the picture of health and the product of doting parents.

            Our weekend with Hayden and Jessica centered on Austin who is a perfect baby.  He is calm, quiet, and almost serene as he studies the world around him.  He never cries - only when he’s hungry.  Then, Jessica is ready in an instant to feed him before he can get going with any more distress signals.  Once fed, I burped him and then he wanted to exercise.  He fussed a bit until I put him down on his back preferably on his gym mat so that he could kick and stretch and punch with his fists.  He has this need to move now as if that is stimulating his growth and he’s strong.  Amazingly he is practicing for the day when he will roll himself over because he almost did it one morning on our living room floor.   When he tired of his exercise regime we would put him in his bouncy chair that vibrates and his eyelids would begin to droop. Before long he was taking a peaceful nap.

            Each day Hayden and family were here we took Austin to visit his Great grandmother Virginia.  Walking into Mom’s room at the nursing home she was resting in her blue recliner chair. Jessica walked right over and deposited Austin in the crook of her arm.  I watched Mom’s eyes light up like I hadn’t seen them in weeks as she gazed at him in awe lying quietly in her lap.  We rushed around taking dozens of photos as if we could save this special moment.   We can’t.  But after Austin had left to go home, I took the best photo of Mom holding Austin and put it in a frame right by her chair.  When she looks at it a smile creeps across her face and that glimmer of life comes into her eyes.  I know she remembers it all perfectly.

              Over the weekend I found myself memorizing Austin every minute he was awake or asleep.  I never tired of his facial expressions and movements and pictured telling him someday, “I can remember when you were a tiny baby visiting me for the first time and we were trying and get you to smile. But you took your time with that.”  I might tell him that he’s always had an independent streak wanting to do things his own way in his own time.  I might say with encouragement “ That’s a good thing and one of your best traits.” I like to imagine Austin having a special relationship with us and doing things together when he’s older that he will always remember.

            The highlight of the weekend for Art and me was being asked to babysit so that Jessica and Hayden could go out on a “date” on Saturday night, play tennis on Sunday, and even shop at the Discount Shoe Store.  Perhaps this is my inauguration into true "grandmotherhood"  because I was much more excited to stay home with Austin than to go anywhere.  
            As a grandparent, I have the perspective of how quickly children grow up and are gone from home into their own lives as Hayden is now.  Yet when we were new parents I remember feeling at times that raising a child seemed to go on forever.  My mother always said to me “savor each minute because it goes by quickly.”  I’d look at her and think that that is just what mothers say.  But she was right.  I find myself wanting to pass that along to Hayden and Jessica but they will find it out for themselves.

            Austin’s first visit to our house was perfect and made even more special because his great -grandmother is here.  He has no idea how much joy his presence in the world has brought to her.  I will make sure and tell him that someday because as his grandmother I intend to be part of his life for many years to come.