Tag Archives: travel

Saint Christopher Was Lost

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If you follow me on Instagram (baddestmotherever), you already know that I’ve got a precious collection of Christmas ornaments and for the last few weeks, they’re the only thing I seem to be able to write about. This time, every year, when I unwrap and unbox them and hang each on the tree, every one whispers a memory about some other day, some other adventure, some memory sweet enough that I made the choice to commemorate it with a bauble. Decorating the tree is like reading myself a story that I’ve been writing one line at a time for the last 25 years.

This year, I lost a small part of that story and fear of losing it forever paralyzed me for days. Here’s what happened…

I bought this dark green glass St. Christopher medal on the island of Santorini, in the Greek Cyclades:

St. Christopher of Lycia, or ο Άγιος Χριστόφορος to his people.

St. Christopher of Lycia, or ο Άγιος Χριστόφορος to his people.

Richard and I had just survived a harrowing taxi cab ride along some 500-foot cliffs. The driver was a fisherman on his off days, and he was telling us about a giant fish he had speared recently. As he leaned across the passenger seat to retrieve a photo of the fish from the glove compartment, the taxi slewed hard to the right. Tires crunched onto the gravel shoulder, RIGHT ABOVE THE DROP of the cliff because there are no guard rails. The driver jerked the wheel back to the left just in time to save us all. And he went on talking about his fish.

The adrenaline hit my guts and limbs at the same moment and while I fought to keep from barfing, I nodded politely to admire the photo of the speared fish that was thrust into the back seat. That’s when I noticed a St. Christopher medal swaying drunkenly from the cab driver’s rear view mirror.

Cab drivers in Greece are a rare breed (maybe because they don’t always live long enough to breed?). They drive modern cars filled with modern tourists on roads that were carved out long before modern times. Most roads can accommodate 1.5 car widths, which makes passing on a cliff a lot like accidentally joining Cirque de Soleil. There is a superstition that if you have seen the image of St. Christopher, you cannot die on that day. While the Greek Orthodox church has not validated this idea, Greek cab drivers are willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Every cab has a St. Christopher medal to honor the patron saint of travelers.

As soon as we were dropped off at the hotel in Oia, and as soon thereafter as my legs stopped shaking, I went into a gift shop and secured this St. Christopher medal because I never wanted to forget that I had survived that cab ride.

This medal is small, so I hang it near the top of the tree. And, because 2016 just can’t let us have anything nice, I dropped it. I dropped a 1-inch dark green ornament made of glass into a 9-foot dark green tree.

There was no THUNK to indicate that it had reached the floor. I climbed down from the ladder and started searching the branches below it–no medal. I couldn’t shake the tree to dislodge the ornament because I might break everything else in the quest for this one lost item. And it’s glass, so shaking didn’t seem like the best plan. I tried to focus on the red of the ribbon but saw nothing. I searched and searched. I looked on the other side of the tree, as if St. Christopher might have bounced off a limb and taken a detour. I turned the lights off for a different perspective. I turned on every light in the room in hopes of making a glint in all that dark green.

I gave up. I reassured myself that I would come back later with fresh eyes.

But what if I forgot to look for St. Christopher? What if I got used to it being lost and forgot to be sad and whatever snag had snagged him held him all the way to the chipper in the New Year? For two days, I kept returning to the tree in search of St. Christopher. I even set a reminder in my calendar to look for the lost green medal.

I was overtaken by a deep sadness. I had lost my patron saint of travelers at the same time I was losing my story-telling voice. Sick for three weeks straight, overwhelmed with holiday tasks, busy at work, aghast at every cabinet pick and tweet.

Christopher of Lycia was a giant who was known for carrying others safely across a raging river. He was a sure-footed and strong ferry. One day, he agreed to carry a small child across the river. Out in the depths, Christopher felt pulled down for the first time, crushed by a weight that didn’t seem to match the size of the child. He feared that they weren’t going to make it. Legend tells it that on the other bank, after Christopher had found a way across, the child revealed that he was the Christ and the weight Christopher felt was the weight of the world that the child carried.

After all the other ornaments had been placed on the tree, I gave it one more shot. Sometimes the best way to look for something is the opposite way. Read an essay backwards to find typos. Look in the freezer for your car keys. Do the opposite of what makes sense. So I lay down on the floor and I slid myself up under the lowest branches of the tree. Instead of looking down in the path that the ornament would have fallen, I looked up.

And that’s when I saw a little flash of red ribbon, tangled around a branch high above my head. I slid back out and with great joy, snaked my hand into the depths of the tree. There lay Saint Christopher, gold side down and ribbon tangled in the branch, utterly invisible from the outside. I hung him right up on a safe branch, on the other side of the river and out of trouble. I gave him a tap so that the medal swung like a pendulum, counting out the even arc of time.

In my own heart, I put down the burden and the weight of the world and I remembered that I can tell stories. I remembered that sometimes there are raging rivers and stories help us cross them. That’s what I can do.

And I will.

A Flower to Say He Was Sorry

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Jasmine lobbed out a great conversation starter today on Facebook: “Let’s play show and tell. Post an image in the comments then tell us something about it.” I love threads like this, so I checked my phone to see what pictures I had taken in the last few days.

An apology, twelve years after the fact

An apology, twelve years after the fact

I posted this picture of a white gladiolus that is blooming in the higgledy-piggledy overgrown strip next to my driveway. My story: “This is a scraggly lone gladiolus in my yard. I keep it because my late husband bought me the bag of bulbs in the Amsterdam airport as an apology for an argument we had at five a.m. in the Berlin airport.”

I’ve been hanging on to this flower (and his one wonkier orange cousin) for over a decade now. We had a vision of turning that dirt next to the driveway into a garden, but that never happened. But you know how bulbs are–you throw them in the dirt and forget about them until a year later. You enjoy them for a while, then forget that they are buried down there, still waiting for another time to bloom. Life moves on past the bulbs, so that every year, I am pleasantly surprised by daffodils, delighted with the grape hyacinths, then sentimental over the wonky gladiolus.

Richard and I didn’t argue much, maybe five times in four years together. And two of those happened when he was jonesing for a cigarette. Yes, he smoked. He HATED the fact that he was a smoker. Hid it from people, quit over and over. He was mostly 100% quit here at home (gave himself a pass during tax prep), but every time we went to Europe, he’d fall off the wagon again. As he put it, “Everyone smokes in Europe.” As soon as our plane landed in Amsterdam or Berlin or Paris, I would rush off to buy a pound of Leonidas candied orange rinds in dark chocolate and he would run in the other direction to buy Marlboros he could have gotten for half the price in Atlanta. But he only smoked in Europe–no fudging of the rules.

So we were in Berlin one time and on our last full day there, he finished the pack of cigarettes before dinner time. “You gonna break down and buy a new pack or start bumming them?” I teased. He had it all worked out. “I’ve got three left in a pack in the hotel. One for tonight, one for in the morning, one for at the airport.” Always a man with a plan.

But when we got back to the hotel, he couldn’t find the three cigarettes. He ransacked the room. He opened every pocket on his back pack and mine. He looked under the bed, in the bathroom, behind the curtains on the window sill, in the night stand drawers that we had never opened. He went through our luggage again.

When he started to grumble that the maid had probably stolen them, I said, “Why don’t you just go downstairs and buy another pack?” Nope. That was not the plan. He continued to stomp around looking high and low in our Ibis Hotel room that was probably 80 square feet total. He was bound and determined not to break down and buy another pack with so little time left on the Smoking Continent. He went to sleep, a bundle of bristly nerves.

He woke up the same way at 3:45 a.m. We stumbled around getting dressed and packing the last of the stuff. It was so early that the desk clerk had to call us a cab to Tegel. We didn’t talk much. Because he WAS FINE AND DID NOT SEE ANY REASON TO DISCUSS IT FURTHER THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

We got to the airport with plenty of time before our 6:30 a.m. flight to Amsterdam. It was still too early for much to be open, so I sat there hurting for a Diet Coke and four more hours of sleep. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Richard zipping and unzipping pockets on that godforsaken back pack, still muttering about the larcenous hotel maid.

“Would you PLEASE just go buy a pack of cigarettes?” I snarled.

He snapped right back. It makes me sad to realize that I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was something along the lines of “I am a grown ass man and will make my own decisions.” After someone dies, even remembering a fight gets sentimental, because at least they were there and snarling at you. Together.

That was that. We flew to Amsterdam in silence. At Schipol, we found the gate to Atlanta and I plopped my ass down with a book, a Diet Coke, and a very high wall of GoToHellYouRatBastard around myself. He wandered off to buy cigarettes.

He came back smelling of Marlboros and carrying a mesh bag of flower bulbs. He held them out to me like a bouquet and apologized. “I would have bought you flowers, but we couldn’t bring them in through Customs. These will get past the sniffer dogs.” Ever the romantic.

That was the only spring we got to live here together. I planted the glads along the driveway. The next year when they bloomed for the first time, he was gone. I had my apology, but he was gone.

After remembering this story today, I did some research on glads. Turns out, Gladiolus (plural gladioli) is the birth flower for the month of August, Richard’s birth month. This spiky, colorful flower is also called the Sword Lily for its likeness to a gladiator’s sword. With its connections to fearless warriors, Gladiolus symbolizes strength of character, faithfulness and honor.

But here’s the fact I learned today that made my hand flutter up to rest on my heart. The Gladiolus flower signifies remembrance.

Every summer, I remember that morning in a strange airport, the smell of smoke, the way it felt to argue and the way it felt to forgive ourselves. It makes me glad.

 

The wonky orange one

The wonky orange one

Going Places

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I’ve been in Springfield, Missouri for the last 30 hours and WHAT FUN! I love going places. If you haven’t been in Springfield, MO for the last 30 hours, here’s just a taste of what you have missed:

  1.  Folks in Missouri are friendly, but you can keep your yoga pants in your own damn parking lot. We don’t want your patchouli smellin’ stretchy pants up in here, thank you very much.11080409_10205180175817015_1207847801974418780_o
  2. My hotel is hosting the Professional Outdoor Media Association conference and film festival (most of the short films that were showing in the lobby tonight have scores by Bob Seger or AC/DC). During breakfast, I sat next to four guys who talked about chiggers and deer ticks for 25 minutes straight. It was me, the outdoor media dudes, and the North Dakota State basketball team fighting it out for the breakfast buffet. Those suckers never saw me coming and I left with ALL the honeydew. 11070108_10205180176177024_577964643176630744_o
  3. This is my friend from all the way back in college, Dr. Pamela Sailors. She is a philosopher who specializes in the field of sports ethics (which means that our lunch conversation included topics like whether/when you are obligated to rescue a fellow climber on Mount Everest). She is my favorite kind of person: smart, funny, genuine, and interested in the world.11080308_10205180176537033_6232986941661935303_o
  4. We had lunch at Cafe Cuzco in the revitalized downtown district. This restaurant is the creation of a chef who liked the food in Peru so much that he decided to bring it to this neck of the woods. Along the way, they restored a defunct pharmacy building. It has a pressed tin ceiling and wooden booths imported from Peru, so it’s beautiful AND you get food that is healthy, fresh and delicious. I had the yerba mate (green tea) and a chicken aji verde that was sublime. 
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  5. While we were eating this sublime food, the sounds of classical guitar swirled around us. I didn’t even realize the music was live until we got up to leave. I thanked this man for sharing his gift. What a beautiful sound on a gloomy gray day! 11079996_10205180177537058_2513801032847963695_o
  6. When Pam listed some local tourist attractions, she mentioned the Bass Pro Shop. I assured her, “Oh, we have one of those in Georgia.” Ha. This is THE Bass Pro Shop, the one that started them all. It was so much fun! I almost bought me some jelly worms. I got G a little can of shredded up beef jerkey that looks like a can of Copenhagen. How perfect is THAT?  10379473_10205180177817065_3496000441032756092_o
  7. This is a bronze statue of a whitetail buck, 15x life size. Look how shiny it is! 10603971_10205180178217075_6237605206013174341_o
  8. This grizzly reminded me of the time that Daddy borrowed a lake house from a client of his who was a big trophy hunter (gross). Right in the entryway of the house was a 10 foot stuffed grizzly, just like this one. We told the nephews, who were little boys at the time, that they weren’t allowed to touch these taxidermy pieces that were scattered throughout the house. The next morning, I found them all clustered behind the grizzly bear. I asked what they were doing and Jackson said, “Trying to find his butthole.” 11060022_10205180178537083_601292825915523298_o
  9. I got to give a talk for Women In History Month. I put a lot of work into it and the work paid off. I told stories, asked people to think, tied ideas together, and got a few laughs. It meant a lot to me, because as much as I’ve been in front of audiences, I felt like this was the first time I was there as a Writer. 11034350_10205180178977094_7757958567080325868_o
  10. And then there was beer, and it was good. 1900661_10205180179817115_7530389651993740343_o
  11. “You go through St. Louie, Joplin Missouri, Oklahoma City looks might pretty…” We cruised down Route 66! (Even if it was only for a mile or so). I’ve always wanted to see Route 66 and now I have! What a surprise. 10999865_10205180180337128_6352332042109551612_o
  12. This is a hotel where Elvis stayed in 1956. Their digital sign says, “Elvis Slept Here….Pets Welcome!…Free Wifi.” 475516_10205180180617135_2145954506772130903_o
  13.  Once I’ve rested a bit, I’ll post parts of the talk. I learned some cool stuff while putting it together. It felt so good to feel people listening, to see people nodding their heads at the interesting parts and laughing at the funny parts. 10869748_10205180175657011_3354801227045631841_o

 

 

So, to sum up my first trip to Missouri: no yoga parking, chiggers, yerba mate, dear friends, guitar, jelly worms, grizzly butthole, writer, get your kicks, beer, Elvis Slept Here, nodding and listening.

And that’s the day that makes me grateful to be going places.

The Memory Keeper

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It’s pouring tonight and I can’t sleep, so I took my magical notebook and sat by the tree to listen to the rain.

Fred and Ginger, Innsbruck Austria

Fred and Ginger, Innsbruck Austria

This adorable pair smiled down from the top of the tree. Their names are Fred and Ginger (because they make such an elegant pair) and I bought them many years ago on a rainy night like tonight in Innsbruck, Austria. I chose them for their clumping big feet and his crooked smile. They are the hopelessly dorky and clumsy embodiment of how I felt when I went skiing in Austria. We were really there for Richard, who was a double black diamond, ski backwards down the mountain with no poles kind of athlete. I have been skiing exactly twice in my life: for the first time on a fraternity trip to Boone, NC and for the second time on the Stubaier Glacier 11,000 feet above Innsbruck….where they had the Olympics. Let’s just say it was inelegant. I prefer sports that include oxygen.

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Jumping Johannes, Salzburg Austria

This is Johannes, also from Austria. One year, I got a stomach bug on our Christmas trip. I was sick as a dog from Griffin to Gay to Atlanta to DC to Berlin to Salzburg. I crashed into the clean white sheets of a hotel room. The white plaster walls glowed with Teutonic cleanliness and order. I slept for a few hours and when I woke, Richard had returned from his explorations with a dinner from a schnitzel cart owned by a Bosnian family. He brought me soft cheese, flatbread still warm from the oven and an ice cold Diet Coke. I ate a bite and came alive again. The next morning, we wandered into a church square just in time to hear the carillon play “Silent Night.” The whole square stopped and listened as the notes rang out across the cold, clear air. That carol was written in Salzburg. The joy that I felt in that moment, feeling alive again after all that sickness, comes back to me when I see Johannes. I bought him in that square.

 

A pilot from Munich, a bell from Salzburg, Pere Noel from Paris

A pilot from Munich, a bell from Salzburg, Pere Noel from Paris

On that same day in Salzburg, we were exploring a part of the city wall next to the cemetary where Mozart’s wife is buried. We rested in little turret and discovered a bell hanging there. I asked Richard to take my picture pretending to ring the bell. And you can guess what happened next. I tugged just a little too hard and the damn thing went CLANGALANGALANG across the city. Oops. So I bought that little beaded silver bell to remember that moment.

And yes, there’s a black velvet Elvis painting on the tree, too. I found him in Maine, on our last trip together. My family has a black velvet Elvis that makes the rounds every few years at Christmas. G got him last year!

The Queen of the Ball, Munich Germany. The Frog Prince, New Orleans. The Cat King, Luxembourg.

The Queen of the Ball, Munich Germany. The Frog Prince, New Orleans. The Cat King, Luxembourg.

This elephant? She’s my favorite on the whole tree, of the hundreds of stories I remember every year. I found her in a shop in Munich and it was love at first sight. She was part of a pair, with a bull elephant in white tie and tails. I couldn’t afford both–she was almost $50. Richard used to tease me about my ornament mania as I collected them on trips. I knew he would give me hell if he saw how much this one cost. I gave him hell about smoking–but on this cold night, I said, “Why don’t you go outside and have a cigarette while I finish up here?” The owner of the shop spoke beautiful English. As soon as he was out the door, we shared a good laugh at men and the excuses she had heard to get them outside. I treasure this belle of the ball because she is so happy to be herself, so sure of her beauty, not in spite of but BECAUSE she is an elephant.

Putting her with the Frog Prince and the Cat King is new this year. I like it. With my old fake tree, I bent limbs and made her a little stage of her own. With a real tree, I had to find a sturdy limb to hold her, up high and off to the side in case Carlos or the cats brought the tree crashing down.

Grandmama Eunice's bell. Pink sand from Bermuda. A Star of David from Prague.

Grandmama Eunice’s bell. Pink sand from Bermuda. A Star of David from Prague. Scots Presbyterian from Charleston SC.

That blue glass bell? Daddy was warned not to touch it when he was a boy because it was old then. The ceramic Santa is from Paris. He always hangs sideways and seems a little judgy. I bought the Star of David in Prague to remember how I was moved to tears in the empty synagogues of the Jewish Quarter. Not every memory on the tree is a happy time. I have an angel that I bought in the gift shop of Johns Hopkins, and a little nest of robin eggs that reminds me of a quilt that hung on the wall in the chemo room there. It had the line from Dickinson:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

 

That tiny white church near the top? It’s another memory that needed to be remembered, not for joy, but for solemnity. It’s one of the first ornaments I collected–when Fartbuster and I went to Charleston, South Carolina for our honeymoon. The church is Scots Presbyterian. During the Civil War, the church donated its bells to be melted down and turned into ammunition. After the devastation of the war, they decided to leave the bell towers empty as a silent reminder of all that had been lost. A quiet memory.

Well. I could go on. But it’s after 1 a.m. and tomorrow is a busy day.

May the memories that visit you at this time be quiet ones, filled with reminders about how wide the world is, and how welcome you are to explore it.

Getting High and Gay Walking in San Francisco

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Today I realized that, even after all our adventures, my daughter is a Country Mouse. You know the old story of the City Mouse and the Country Mouse?

Up and up then up some more!

Up and up then up some more!

Vivi doesn’t know much about navigating a city. She thunders down the sidewalk and manages to slam into the only other pedistrian on the block. She doesn’t know which way to face when we stand on a curb waiting for a light. And the light? Good grief. Two years ago when we went to DC, I tried to explain to her that the red hand means stop and the white man means walk. That turned into “White man! Walking!” Which she proceeded to SHOUT every time we crossed a street. That’s now become an inside joke with us.

My sister lives in a busy city, so this stuff is second nature to her. She knows which direction of traffic has the right of way, even without the White Man Walking. She glides across streets whenever the notion takes her (or she smells coffee). Today, she stepped out into the road so many times I decided we would start calling it Gay Walking instead of jay walking.

And by the way? San Francisco is a funny town when your name is “Gay.” I learned that last time we were here after I was trying to get her attention in a crowd and yelled, “GAY!” Half the place turned around.

Call a damn cab!

Call a damn cab!

It takes me a while to adjust to a city, too. Vivi comes by her Country Mouseness honestly. There are so many sounds and I lack some filter that blocks out the unimportant ones. Everyone walks so fast and no one is lost. There are people here who actually know how to ride BUSES. I can’t even.

New York is easy–when I’m lost, I just hail a cab. Here…no cabs. I’m sure there are some, but I can’t find them. Because lost. And we’re staying in an apartment instead of a hotel, so no taxi stand or doorman to help. Good Lord…did I just say that?

Traveling with my sister has spoiled Vivi and me rotten. She got tired today and whined, “Can’t we just get a taxiiiiii?” I pretended that wasn’t a fantastic idea. Thanks to Aunt Gay and the Uber private car app, Vivi now thinks that large black SUVs with very clean interiors just magically appear for us when we wait by a curb. Last year when we took her ice skating at Rockefeller Center, I got a deep sense of foreboding after Vivi stood on the crowded curb and said, “Is our car here yet?” Girl, please. I’m going to have to teach her how to ride the bus. Or find someone who can.

I have a pretty good sense of direction, but San Francisco discombobulates me. I think it’s because the water is east even though the Pacific Ocean is west. And the hills upon hills upon hill10714357_10204112596008187_7555641961668401898_os–can’t see anything! With all this newness to navigate, only one solution came to mind: we needed to get high.

We climbed allllll the way up Telegraph Hill (seriously, it’s like a 60 degree slant) to the fresh breezes and blue sky around Coit Tower. From the pinnacle, we showed Vivi Alcatraz, the piers, the Golden Gate. Gay traced back through the maze of streets and pointed out the house we’re renting.

Vivi wanted to see the house for herself. I pointed off into the distance. “See that gray house there? Find the diagonal street then go up a couple of blocks and that’s it, past the tennis courts at that playground we walked by.” She grew frustrated when she still couldn’t find it.

Then I realized–Vivi has no idea what a tennis court looks like from a quarter mile away. She doesn’t know how to measure a block. It’s all so much, so new. And she’s still learning. The only way to learn about the great wide world is to get out in it and explore.

We came back down to earth from the tower height. We did a little more Gay Walking and managed to get back home. Here we sit, back at the apartment in the room we are sharing. Vivi’s already asleep. I can’t shut out the noise from Lombard Street.

All of it–all of it–is turning into stories that we will share together.

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They’ve Seen My Boobs In Greece

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Sunbathing in Crete

Soaking up the sun

Now THAT’S how you write a title.

We’ve been swimming a lot this summer because Carlos is tall enough to touch the bottom of the shallow end on his tippy toes.  Vivi is a fish.  Finally, an hour in the pool isn’t a constant vigil to make sure no one dies.  I can even sit in the inflatable recliner while they entertain themselves.  And if a nice glass of wine sits in the cup holder on that recliner, who am I to say no?

Last week, Vivi wanted to play horse and pull me around by my foot while I rode in my “carriage.”  Again, who am I to crush her dreams?  As she towed me around the deep end, the water kept flipping the loose top of my swimsuit up over my belly.  And I kept jerking it down.  The first time it happened, I felt a real moment of panic for a second–my BELLY was out in the OPEN.  Every time the pale wobbly skin peeked out, I rushed to cover it back up.

Imagine the horror.  My very own skin, exposed.  In front of…my children?  In…my own pool? Right out there…behind an eight-foot privacy fence?

What the hell?

Seriously…what the hell was I ashamed of in my own space among people who have actually occupied that belly?  What do I have to hide?

For the 10 years that I was with Fartbuster, I didn’t put on a swimsuit.  Not even in my dad’s pool.  His dad’s pool.  No trips to the beach.  No afternoons at our neighborhood pool.  I felt like I was too hideously fat to be able to wear a suit.  For Pete’s sake…I wore like a FOURTEEN.  Monster.

As soon as we split up, that summer, I put on a raggedy old black one-piece and crept into Daddy and Gay’s pool.  By myself.  And I stayed under the surface.  It felt great.  Cool water on a hot July day.  It also felt great to reclaim that part of my life.

I got used to the feel of the sun on my skin again.  There was more skin there than there had been in my youth, but it was MY skin and I got OK with it again.

A few summers passed in conservative black one pieces.  Sturdy suits.  No frippery, all function.

Then along came Greece.  Richard and I had been talking about it for a while.  He knew it had been #1 on my bucket list since I was a girl.  Flights got cheap, the vacation days built up.  We decided to go for it in the summer of 2003.  Our first destination was Crete for some beach time and archaeology.

Do you know what people do on the beaches in Greece?  They avoid tan lines.  They are right up there with Brasilians in their hatred of tan lines.

I didn’t think I could go the Full Monty, but I was willing to take The Girls out for a spin. Unfortunately, you can’t just put the top down when you’re wearing a sturdy one-piece.  This adventure called for a BIKINI.  Yipes.  Because at this point in my life, I was still wearing a FOURTEEN.  And Richard loved me nonetheless, go figure.  Luckily, by that late date, the tankini had been invented.  I got myself one (and some SPF 80 sunscreen for the girls) and off we went to Greece.

I slid into my nautical striped tankini in the hotel outside Xania then made my way down to the water.  It was a Tuesday morning, not crowded at all, but I was still nervous about the unveiling.

Here’s what I learned on that beach.  We Americans think that only the hot people sunbathe topless.  Nope.  Everybody does it. Y’mom and them.  Errabody.  I looked to my left and there sat a German couple in their 70s, letting it all hang out.  Not even sitting on a towel.  To my right, another pair, maybe Dutch, maybe 50ish.  Flapping in the wind.  I was The Hottie on that beach…and it didn’t matter.

I wiggled out of that top and slapped some SPF80 on The Girls.  I tried to act like it wasn’t the first time they had seen the light of day since the 1970s.  After a while, after I realized that nobody gave a damn what my boobs looked like or which way they were heading, I forgot all about it and just had a lovely day at the beach.

With no tan lines.

I discovered that, the less swimsuit I wore, the more comfortable I felt with my body.  Even a few days later on the weekend, when the real hotties showed up, I was OK. I let the girls out to play in Crete, Santorini, Mykonos.  The Greek Islands Boob Tour of 2003.  We should have sold t-shirts but no one would have worn them.  A few weeks after we returned, I went to the beach in Maryland with my brother and his family and I remember thinking, “GAH!  This suit is so hot!  Let me outta here!”

So how did I end up 10 years later, hastily hiding my white belly from my children in the safety of my own backyard?

Well, that’s a story for the therapist’s couch.  Regardless, we’ve been swimming so much this summer that my old Mom Suits have begun to disintegrate.  That means…it’s time to buy a swimsuit.  The other day, I read a story by Jenny Trout called “I Wore a Bikini and Nothing Happened.” It’s an entertaining tale with a surprise ending–no one was struck blind and the sky did not rain toads when she dared to wear a bikini in public.  Imagine that!

I did imagine that.  My bikini came in the mail today.

GULP.

I’m going to put on a little Greek music, throw some lamb on the grill, and see if I can’t recapture some of that woman who let it all hang out in 2003. I apologize in advance for any toads that rain from the sky!

You Can Feel Safe Holding Hands

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amsterdam-79417_640The first big overseas trip that my late husband Richard and I took together began in Amsterdam.  It’s a city that’s just as fun as you’ve heard–and that’s all I will say about THAT in this forum.  The second afternoon we were there, we were meandering around in the Red Light District.  Richard stepped into an exchange bureau to exchange some American money so we could buy more…souvenirs.  I waited for him outside on the narrow sidewalk by the canal.

When he stepped out of the tiny storefront, Richard took my hand and we continued on our walk.  Before we had gone 20 feet, a very stoned and twitchy man who looked alarmingly like Osama bin Laden approached Richard.  He stuck his hand out and muttered something about money.  Richard waved him off and said, “I don’t have any change.”  We kept walking with purpose, eyes forward.

Well.  That dude thought he had found an easy mark.  A short, slight American who had just stepped out of a currency exchange office and now had a lump in the pocket of his jacket?  The guy snarled, “I’m not interested in CHANGE!” and snatched as hard as he could at Richard’s pocket.  He was disappointed when only a pack of cigarettes fell to the cobblestones.  And when Richard gave him a sharp side elbow to the face.

It was on.  I expected the man to run away, but he was ready to fight.  The two of them circled each other.  The pickpocket kept waggling his hands at Richard in a “come at me bro” way and saying “Fucker mother!  Fucker mother!”  Richard kept his hands up and all his weight on the balls of his feet.  The thief took another dive at his pocket.  Richard feinted to the right and popped the guy in the head.  

Dude KEPT ON yelling “Fucker mother!  Fucker mother!” and swatting at Richard.  By that time, even in the sparse afternoon crowds, a few people had come over to see what was going on.  The pickpocket decided it was time to move on.

bicycle-2761_640I ran to Richard.  He was breathing heavy and shivered from adrenaline.  He knelt down and retrieved his Marlboros.  “Don’t mess with my cigarettes, right?”  We laughed in relief.  I turned and shouted at the pickpocket’s retreating back:  “It’s ‘MOTHER FUCKER!'”  

Richard took my hand and we ducked into the nearest bar.  I always felt safe after that when I was holding his hand, because he may have been small but I had proof he was fierce and wily.  Richard was 5’4″ of badassery if ever the need arose.

This story came back to me last night when Facebook displayed an ad in the sidebar for a trip to Amsterdam.  The trip is offered by Olivia Travel–the premiere lesbian travel company.  Sorry, Facebook ad algorithm. You misinterpreted all those Wesleyan posts where I talked about how much I love my sisters.  Still, I was intrigued by the concept of a lesbian travel company, so I clicked the ad to see what makes it different.  This line jumped out at me in the description of Amsterdam as a host city:  “You can feel very secure holding hands and being yourself while walking the streets of Amsterdam.”

homomo05052000lesbDang.  Going on vacation to a place where you can feel secure holding hands and being yourself.  That wasn’t in my Top 50 reasons to visit Amsterdam.  True, The Netherlands was the first country to legalize gay marriage.  It’s also the site of the Homomonument in Amsterdam–a series of pink granite triangles built in memory of those killed by the Nazis for being homosexual.  Jews wore the yellow star; homosexuals wore the pink triangle.  We went there on our way to the Anne Frank House.  But it never even crossed my mind.

The tagline on the Olivia ad was “feel free.”  They charter the entire ship, or rent out an entire resort, so that their clients can relax and be themselves.

My eyes were opened a little wider because of that ad and I’m glad for it.  I’ve never had to go somewhere other than my home just so I could be myself.  To do something as simple as holding hands as I walk down the street beside the person I love.  My experience of feeling safe holding hands in Amsterdam is very different from some of my sisters’.  I only had to worry about being robbed–not being judged and robbed.

I feel free to squeeze my partner’s hand, or give him a peck on the lips, or say goodbye with a hug wherever we are–PTO meeting, Kroger parking lot, cafeteria at work, airport curb.  Hell, I feel free to have a snarling fight with him in those places, too, because we’re just free.

Holding hands for a stroll down the beach, or for comfort after a robbery attempt, or during the prayer at church–that’s a simple thing so many of us take for granted.  And so many of us can’t.

olivia