Blustery weather and exercise

I took this picture last Thursday outside the Senior Center. Looking out the window, I saw that this tree had exploded with blossoms; spring is definitely here. So far my allergies haven't bothered me as they usually do. It could be because of the amazing amount of precipitation that we've had this past month. Perhaps it's helping to keep the pollen counts down. We usually get lots of rain in any event, but I have been hearing even seasoned residents complaining about the rain.

Before I moved here, I owned one raincoat, but now I have three, along with rain pants, a rain poncho, and three different sets of gaiters. My hiking boots are waterproof. These all help me to be out in the weather. If I were waiting for the rain to stop, I wouldn't be leaving my house much. I'm sure that many of you wouldn't be very happy living here; some people require much more sunshine that I do or depression sets in. I've read that exercise helps, but one needs to be motivated to be out in inclement weather. Where does my own motivation come from, I wonder?

Everybody is different. That's part of what makes life interesting, but since everything you read says that getting a certain amount of exercise is important to be healthy, finding my own style was important. I realize that I am a social exerciser: I need company to motivate me. At the gym, I take a class along with twenty other people, jumping around to the music to get my heart rate up. Being one of the regulars, I have a spot in the room that I gravitate toward and if for some reason I move to another place in the room, the instructor will notice and comment on it. If I don't show up for class, she will ask where I was the next time I see her. I like all that; it helps to keep me coming. If for some reason I'm going to miss the next class, I let her know. Joanne has taught this particular M-W-F class at 9:00am for a quarter century, and a core group of perhaps ten people rarely miss. I've become one of them.

Our local YMCA is where I travel every morning, four days a week. As I've mentioned before, I really need a daily routine to be happy, and starting every morning with a bus trip to the Y for my class has taken the place of heading to the office. There are times, like this past Friday, when I look outside and see that the wind is blowing the rain sideways and ponder the correct configuration of clothing for the weather. But I invariably head out, the question is only about what to wear. I'm always glad afterwards, and my need for social interaction has been satisfied as well.

A man and his wife are usually leaving the gym as I arrive. He's got some sort of degenerative disease and needs help walking. She is always right there with him, helping him down the stairs and into the street. In the four years that I've observed them, I noticed that his condition has deteriorated somewhat, but he keeps coming, working out and using his body to the best of his ability. He never fails to smile and has a great attitude. If he can keep coming every day with his infirmities, he must inspire many others besides me.

My Thursday hiking group, the Senior Trailblazers, have become dear friends. We know each other's foibles now, and who won't show up if it's raining and who will. I am constantly amazed at how the days turn out. Last Thursday was another one of those horizontal rain days, and I headed out thinking I was crazy, but I went anyway. The weather cooperated: the rain stopped just before we arrived at the trailhead, and we heard the wind but were in the lee of Blanchard Mountain, so we were protected from the strong southern wind. After a day out in the elements with good friends, even a day that isn't perfect is much more tolerable when I've got people to commiserate with.

I've become an integral part of the group. When I get home after the hike, I download my pictures onto the Mac and write a post on my other blog to document the day and the time we had. Several hikers have commented (tongue in cheek) that they had to read the post before knowing if they had a good time or not.

When I was working, I used my lunch hour for exercise. My office was located in the beautiful foothills of Boulder, and I'd take to the trails in my younger days, jogging several times a week. I was by myself, but the rest of the day was filled with social interaction, so the time spent outdoors alone was a welcome respite. We were also fortunate to have showers and no time clock. My hour usually stretched to ninety minutes, but nobody minded as long as my work was done. I would usually go to the cafeteria and grab a quick salad to consume afterwards. It worked well. I knew then that if I waited to exercise after work, I wouldn't do it at all.

Hmmm. After writing all this down, I realize that it's been several decades now that exercise has been part of my daily routine. It was never a conscious decision, really. Wait, I take that back: I remember one day when I was in my thirties that I bought my first pair of running shoes. The moment that I stood in the doorway of my home, looking down at those shoes, I changed the course of my life forever. Although I went through many trials and tribulations on the way, I became able to run races and become fit. I've had several injuries and even some really bad accidents over the years, but I always return to exercise, finding a way to get that endorphin fix.

Although I can't run any more, I can still walk and work out. Transitioning to a full fitness routine after retiring and moving to another part of the country became a goal I've fulfilled. My intellectual life is still active, using the internet and blogging to remain engaged in the world of the mind. I've made friends through this venue that mean as much to me as many family members do. And every day I look to see what is going on in their lives. How did I ever manage to squeeze in a full-time job? I marvel every day at the fullness of my life.

Resting on my laurels

Me in Colorado, 1992

Have you ever wondered about the meaning of the phrase," to rest on one's laurels"? It occurred to me yesterday after having attended the 2012 Safety Day at Skydive Snohomish. I wrote about the day's experience on my other blog here. I wasn't sure I wanted to attend, to drive 75 miles south in the rain to spend the day being reminded about all the safety issues involved in jumping out of airplanes. After all, I have more than 4,100 skydives to my credit.

But I haven't made a skydive since the end of last October, and one cannot rest on one's laurels (i.e., be satisfied with one's past success and consider further effort unnecessary). I was amazed at how much I had forgotten and was particularly reminded of two things: everyone needs to practice safety in many facets of life, and nobody else can do it for you.

As I listened during the segment on skydiving equipment, the instructor asked how many of us are comfortable inspecting our own gear and hooking up the three-ring release system. Most hands raised, but a few young women said they were not at all comfortable and were actually unaware of how it works, relying on others to inspect it for them. They reminded me of myself when I was young in skydiving experience. It was because I became an instructor and had to teach others how to do it that I learned how myself. I was amazed at how simple and elegant the system actually is. It allows the jumper to pull a handle to release the cable behind the loop at the top of the three rings (one on each shoulder) and just like that, the main parachute is released, giving the skydiver clean air to deploy the reserve parachute. Even though it releases quickly, when it is hooked up properly it will stay intact through many times the forces involved. I now feel very comfortable hooking it up and teaching it to others. But I wasn't always that way. I felt intimidated and was more than willing to let others decide for me whether I was safe or not. Becoming an instructor forced me to think about safety, not only my own, but the safety of others as well.

Early during the day, I chatted with Elaine, wife of Tyson and co-owner of the Drop Zone at Snohomish. They emphasize safety above all else and have an impressive record. I have been at Drop Zones, even worked at some, that don't do that. This may seem impossible for you to believe, but corners are cut in order to maximize profit in jump operations. It's up to every single skydiver to decide whether the place they frequent is a good one or not, but many will go to the place that offers the cheapest jump ticket.

Elaine mentioned in our conversation that I had accomplished so very much in the skydiving world, and she seemed sincere in her complimentary remarks. But I wish now that I had asked her what she meant, what she thinks I have done, since none of it seems remarkable to me. I started skydiving at the advanced age of 47 and never stopped. I got my instructor rating at 51 and taught for twelve years. I made as many as 400 jumps in one year, while holding down a full-time job. But was that really all that amazing? I was addicted to skydiving, I simply had no choice, it seemed to me. It's also true that I spent four years on the USPA's Board of Directors, but all that taught me is that politics is not for me, and being on any board seems to be fraught with back-room dealmaking. Not my cup of tea. I was glad to let that go.

As much as I enjoyed teaching, it came time to stop. There is no cutoff date for an instructor to stop teaching skydiving, but there should be, I think. There are no hoops to jump through every year to indicate you are still a good instructor, and that is also a problem. I saw many people who became so indifferent and unconcerned about their students that they were dangerous, but there was no way to remove them from their coveted positions. That is, until something happened, and by that time a hapless student had usually made a grievous error because of poor instruction. Then there would be action.

When I retired from my job and moved to a new part of the country, it seemed like a good time to change my approach to skydiving. I did sit through a First Jump Course at Snohomish, but the system of teaching was so unlike what I had taught that I didn't want to have to learn a new system, so I let all of my ratings go and decided to simply enjoy the experience of playing in the air, with only myself to be responsible for. And it's been good: for the past four years I have jumped seasonally, no longer traveling to faraway places just to skydive, as I did for two decades. Now I am truly back to the simple enjoyment of making easy formations with like-minded friends, no competition, nobody to take care of.

But you cannot rest on your laurels when it comes to safety. That's what I learned yesterday, and it was a lesson I will not soon forget. As much as I love the sport, there will be a day when I will have made my last skydive, and hopefully it will not be forced upon me but will be my own choice. If I pay attention to my intuition, to my body, and practice my emergency procedures faithfully, I'll keep on going up in the air. And I hope the sport of skydiving will someday fall away with only good memories left behind.

A lesson in ethics

Some of the past week's events have got me thinking, so I'll take an opportunity to explore some of my concerns here. If you look up the definition of the word "ethics," it generally means "the moral correctness of specified conduct." Kant was a philosopher who also posited that humans are bound, from a knowledge of their duty as rational beings, to obey the categorical imperative to respect other rational beings. I believe that, too. But it doesn't extend to the natural world, although I think it should, because I want the world to be fair, and it isn't.

There is a salmonella outbreak happening right now in the songbird world, with vulnerable pine siskins being hit especially hard by the disease. Apparently they have little to no resistance to it, and I received a warning in my email from the local birding group to make sure to clean my feeders often with bleach and to keep the area where the birds congregate as clean as possible. I've done that, but still I've found a few birds that have died. They first get lethargic and then begin to look really sick.

Some birders have removed their feeders in order to encourage the birds to disperse, hoping they wouldn't sicken as easily. I called Valeri at the Wild Bird Chalet where I buy bird seed to ask for advice. She said this happens every few years, and that stressing the birds further by removing a known food source is not a good idea and would only make them more vulnerable. So I didn't, and a few days ago I saw a sick bird on the porch. As I was filling the feeders, the bird didn't fly away, didn't move except to shiver. As I watched with pity, it died. The life just left and the eyes closed. Its suffering had come to an end.

I have special birding gloves I use to handle birds, so I gently picked it up (so small!) and carried it out to the area of blackberry bushes where the birds nest at night and laid it down, knowing that it would be returned to the world as food by some foraging animal. Many raccoons and skunks live in there, along with feral cats. I've seen blackbirds catch and eat sick birds, and of course the falcons.

It was only a little bird, but that event keeps coming back to me, remembering the moment when it went from a living being to a dead one, now simply food for predators. I asked Valerie if salmonella would sicken other animals and birds (like hawks) who eat them, and she said no, they have a different digestive system. That made me feel better.

I love the wild birds that come to my porch, and I've watched a few that I know aren't long for this world, one chickadee who had lost a leg, a finch with some sort of disease over its eye, a house sparrow with a broken wing that didn't seem to keep him from flying, although it hung down at an odd angle. My heart goes out to all wild creatures that are part of the natural world, and I wish that somehow I could alleviate a tiny bit of suffering. That's one reason I feed the birds, but I recently learned about cowbirds.

Although they are prevalent in all parts of the United States, cowbirds are what is known as "brood parasites." They don't make a nest and raise their young; they slip an egg into an existing songbird nest (after removing at least one original egg), where the chick hatches and is raised by foster parents. They are bigger and more aggressive and usually cause the other chicks to starve and wear out the parents who struggle to feed the big bird. Cowbirds evolved to follow herds of bison and learned to survive the nomadic life by developing this technique. With urbanization and development of forest lands, the cowbirds have thrived and become prevalent, at the expense of declining populations of songbirds.

Some species of birds eject the cowbird egg from the nest, and others abandon the nest altogether. But many species just raise the bird as if it were their own egg. The cowbird never sees its own kind until it's time to mate, but it somehow knows its own call and manages to carry on the same behavior through the instinctual hard wiring in its brain. It's fascinating, even if a little scary to realize what evolution has wrought through brood parasitism.

All the birds that I've learned about have one thing in common: they do what is necessary to survive; birds of prey are magnificent creatures in so many ways. But I don't like cowbirds, and I find that I have an aversion to their instinctual behavior, and it's this aversion that causes me concern.

Birds are not rational beings like humans are. They follow a different drummer, so why am I so bothered? Why do I expect other creatures to treat each other with respect? Of course they don't, but I want to alleviate suffering in the world, not add to it, and I am confused by my attitude towards the evolutionary adaptation of brood parasitism. I think I want to believe that Nature is pure, not flawed like humanity. I am ashamed of the cruelty that so many humans display toward other species, as if we have the right to cause other creatures (and each other) suffering.

Those people who derive pleasure from watching the suffering of others are, I have always believed, damaged through their environment or some physical mis-wiring in their brains. I think I have found the root cause of my discomfort: that perhaps ethical behavior is not hard wired into our brains, but superimposed upon our mental framework through a desire to find meaning in a world of suffering.

I know I will not find any resolution to these questions, which have been asked and pondered since humanity first began to realize we are sentient beings, along with all the other sentient beings on the planet. But struggling to put these words into a post have helped me to understand my feelings.

Another Sunday rolls around

And this one is Oscar night! I almost always turn the TV onto the channel and watch while I'm doing other things. Tonight will be the same. This year, my friend Judy and I have tried to see all the movies and performances and I've got my own ideas of who SHOULD take home the Oscar, but we all know it has little to do with who deserves it. Like everything else, taking home an Oscar has as much to do with politics as anything. I enjoy all the dresses and jewelry, and I imagine that the past weeks of preparation for tonight's gala have people glad that the time has finally arrived.

It seems such a distant and unreal event to me as I sit here in the dark on this Sunday morning. Having read the news of the world, I sometimes wonder what it would be like to wake to the sunrise over Baghdad, or Tehran, or Homs. As terrible as things get in my part of the world, I simply cannot envision what living in the middle of one of these places would be like. The juxtaposition of the news and the Tinsel Town glitter is almost surreal, like something made up for a novel.

Where am I going with this? I don't usually let myself get too involved in politics of any kind, because it tends to make me depressed. I can't change what is happening in the world, although my laptop brings every little piece of it into my consciousness. Actually, that's not true. It brings that part of the world's happenings that the news media thinks I'll be interested in. There are so many things happening everywhere, and we only glimpse a small little portion of it.

My favorite news channel on TV is KBTC Worldview, part of the PBS offerings here on cable. It gives me news in English from Russia, Hong Kong, France, India, Al Jazeera, and much more. It's very interesting to see the world news through the eyes of other country's newscasts. The local news here in Washington state usually brings me nothing but the latest shootings, traffic accidents, floods, and other local disasters. You could get really depressed if that was the only television you watched.

One of the best things about the digital revolution is the sheer volume of information that is available to me at my fingertips. As I pondered what to write about this morning, as nothing earth-shattering is happening in my own life right now, I visited Google a few times, one to grab that picture of the Oscars, and another to look for a picture of pretty gold-glitter shoes. This week I saw a young girl wearing a pair, and they brought back a memory of some shoes I once owned. It's like falling into a whirlpool when I look at a hundred images of glitter. Not to mention that it makes it difficult for me to focus on writing this post.

I've set it up so that the schedule of writing this on Sunday morning feels like a deadline I must meet. Obviously the world wouldn't come to an end if I didn't post this morning, but my own internal world needs structure, whether imposed from within or from without -- so here I sit, thinking about all the many mornings I've sat with my laptop propped up in bed, partner asleep next to me, going inside the interesting corridors of my mind. Who knows what will emerge? I have spent 120 Sundays doing this, and it may not feel like much of a deadline to anyone else, but to me, it's solid.

This particular blog was begun so that I could write about how I got here, to this place in my life. If you were to go back to the first posts, you would see that I journeyed through my life story in chronological order, discussing my early years, marriages, losses, and when I got to the present time, I gave myself permission to write whatever comes into my mind. A few months ago (I went looking and can't find the post), I wondered out loud if it might be time to end this blog but was encouraged by my commenters to allow myself to roam and wander. I remember Whitney reminded me of the words I put in the "Why This Blog" box, to write for myself. You know, that's all well and good, but I am very aware of the fact that this is a PUBLIC blog, the whole blogosphere could read it if they knew about it and cared. It's public, and that restrains me in several ways, not the least of which is that I don't want to offend anyone or embarrass myself. Therefore, when I write I keep in mind the myriad friends and acquaintances I feel I know well: you know who you are.

The blogging world is an amazing development in my life. I follow around a hundred blogs, and most of the authors are like me: they like to write and share a bit of themselves and their lives. It's created something new in the world: a community of bloggers who care about each other. Some have even made an effort to meet in person, and I've done so too. I've talked on the phone, exchanged personal emails, met a few, and I realize that my life would be so much less full and varied without the daily exchange I have with them. Each blog has its own flavor, and some are guaranteed to make me laugh; others to challenge me to think about life in a different way. It's become an integral part of my social calendar.

I see that the sky is beginning to lighten, and I hear the first birds waking and beginning their morning serenades. And another Sunday morning post is almost finished. I feel content and fulfilled.

Adventurous spirit

Who is this cutie? Well, if you guessed that it's me, you're right. I spent yesterday afternoon looking for pictures that haven't been scanned into digital format, and got to work with the scanner so they can be used in blog posts. I looked and looked at this picture, wondering about the differences between people and what makes us each unique. Certainly the care we receive as infants and children has an impact on who we become, and this little imp obviously felt cherished and happy. As the firstborn I also had my parents' undivided attention for two and a half years, before Norma Jean came along to disrupt my happy role as Queen of the Universe. Fortunately she didn't stay uncommunicative for long and we eventually became inseparable.

From my earliest recollection, there was a distinct difference between us: I was outgoing and willing to take risks, while Norma Jean was shy and diffident, always willing to let me take the lead. As we grew older, it became obvious that we characterize the classic extroverted and introverted personalities. Of course I didn't learn the labels until much later, but as we grew up, I am pretty sure that we continued to make decisions based on our own natural inclinations.  Even though we have been through a full lifetime of experience, we continue to follow entirely different pathways to fulfillment.

It's fascinating to talk with Norma Jean about shared childhood experiences and realize how different our memories of the same event can be. Since Daddy was in the military and we moved around a great deal, I developed a "new girl" persona so that when we moved to a new place, I picked up mannerisms that I would use to cope; I never minded it, but she agonized over leaving her old friends and the necessity to be singled out. I never looked back or missed anybody. Consequently I also never learned to develop long-term relationships and ended up going from one partnership to another until I had the good fortune to meet my life partner at the age of fifty. Norma Jean and Pete were married for almost half a century before he died last year.

Smart Guy and I are coming up on our twentieth anniversary, but we will never see a half century, since we got a rather late start. In some ways I am amazed that we have managed to find such a rich and satisfying life together, since I had to develop some new skills, ones which at first I didn't believe I had the ability to develop. It took many years of effort to find our way, but it happened, and I am now able to write from my favorite Sunday morning spot: in the darkness before the dawn, a cup of hot tea within reach as I struggle with my thoughts. He's still asleep next to me. On some level he must hear the tapping of the keys, but the sound is not unfamiliar and doesn't disturb his rest.

We met as skydivers. If I had never started skydiving, I would never have known him. If the internet had not come into being, we would never have encountered each other. Our spirits were attracted to each other before we ever met in person. (I wrote about it here, if you want to know the details.) My life trajectory has been permanently altered by several events in the past, as all people experience throughout life. But I continually thank my lucky stars for those two: skydiving and my life partner. Without those two incredibly important occurrences, I cannot imagine who I would have become.

That's the way of life, I guess. Things happen to us that cause us to take a fork in the path that lead us to places we can't even imagine. I finished re-reading "Of Human Bondage" yesterday, and I now believe that the reading of that book in my twenties was one of the events that opened my eyes to new ways of perceiving life. It's certainly not life-changing to the Me of today the way it was then, but now that I have read it a half century later, I can understand why it affected me so deeply. I was accustomed to living my life in a rather superficial manner, not delving very deeply into the meaning of life, and Somerset Maugham was able to write this book in such a way that I began to examine my reactions to life events in a much deeper fashion. It deserves its place as one of the best novels of the twentieth century, and as I re-read certain passages, I felt stirrings of my old quest to understand the meaning of life.

Although I still spend a few days every spring and summer with my skydiving friends, it no longer occupies the central place it once did. Everything has its time and place, and as I begin my eighth decade (yes, that's when you turn seventy) on the planet, my adventurous spirit is now looking towards new challenges, new ways to feel excitement without throwing myself out of an airplane. I would never have thought that it would become a familiar feeling, but after more than 66 hours of accumulated freefall time, it has indeed become old hat. These days, I look forward to the intellectual adventures that my spirit still craves. The writing of these Sunday morning posts has become a part of that adventure. Who knows what will emerge?

Revisiting the past

This past week I've been re-reading a book I read long ago, about the time that this young woman was taking care of her newborn baby boy. That's me fifty years ago. Chris is dressed for his christening, with his godparents and the Episcopal priest Fr. Shipps surrounding us. It's a bit overwhelming to realize that I was once that young. My husband Derald was still in Puerto Rico, and I was in Georgia visiting my parents for a short visit when this picture was taken. Fr. Shipps eventually became a Bishop, and the young man Charles on his left became an Episcopal priest as well. I don't even remember the names of the couple, I'm ashamed to say. I think they were active in the church, which I wasn't, and they were probably chosen by someone other than me. Fifty years is a long time.

One of the things I did to pass the time as a young mother was to read books. I would visit the library and choose several to take home and would lose myself in them. It wasn't a particularly happy time in my life, so entering into the world of various authors would lighten my spirit and give me something to think about. I remembered reading "Of Human Bondage" by Somerset Maugham. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was written in 1915 and was considered to be a classic. It's long but easy to read, although I didn't remember much about it, other than that it followed the life of a young man. When I finished the book, I thought about it a lot, and over the years I considered it to have affected me profoundly and that it was one of the best books I had ever read.

I suppose it's true that you can never re-read a book, since the person who read it long ago has changed through life experience enough that the book is being read by an entirely different person. I'm about halfway through the book and find myself quite surprised that it affected me so deeply. Perhaps the protagonist's search to find himself was what the young mother identified with. Life was so different for me in those days, but the struggle to become your own person is one that goes on from one generation to the next. I think I felt trapped into motherhood and an unhappy marriage, and that would have certainly colored anything I was reading. But I remember so well that this book stood out from many others, and I decided to find out why, this me of today.

That Wikipedia link above tells me that the Modern Library ranked this book as one of the best 100 English-language novels of the twentieth century. Well, I guess I wasn't alone in thinking it was good. But I'm curious to know if I will feel that way when I reach the end of it in a few days. The world is not only very different today than it was fifty years ago, but the book was also written a century ago, and the inhabitants of the world of 1915 could hardly imagine what 2012 would look like. Who could have visualized the Internet?

I have probably spent as much time this week on line, reading the news, blogs, commenting, reading emails, as I would have spent at my job during my working years. Several hours every day find me peering at a computer screen, and the connection I feel with people I've never met, will never meet, consumes much of the time I once spent reading hardback books. In fact, I'm reading the aforementioned book on my iPad!

Another event of this past week has me thinking about how much our lives have changed. I finally got to the movies to see Albert Nobbs, where Glenn Close plays a woman who lives her entire life as a man, a butler in 19th-century Ireland. Both Close and another woman who masquerades as a man in the movie, Janet McTeer, have been nominated for Oscars for their performances. Although the movie hasn't been very successful at the box office, seeing the performance of these two makes it entirely worthwhile. I myself thought the movie was very good.

The reason they dressed and lived their lives as men is because in that era, if you were a woman without a husband, means, or the prospects of marriage, your options were extremely limited. When she was fourteen, Albert (the Close character) answered an advertisement for a butler and dressed herself up as one, got the job, and ended up working her entire life as a butler. No one suspected, and if you get a chance to see this movie, you'll see why. Albert found a way to survive in that world.

The young modern women of today have no idea how different the experience of being female in a male-dominated world can be. Of course, it's not the same everywhere in the world, but because of the Internet, because every corner of our world is easily visited on line, we know so much more about virtually anything that interests us, with just the click of a mouse.

Although the woman in Kabul who lives behind the walls of her home, unable to walk on the street alone, has no Internet, I suspect that there are leaks into her life of the wider world. I wonder if she has books to read, like the young woman I was a half-century ago, that spark ideas she wouldn't have otherwise. I wonder.

My little corner of the universe

Unknown women at airport in Skopje

I took a picture of these women while I was waiting to leave Skopje, Macedonia, in April 2009. I didn't ask their permission (I'm sure we didn't speak the same language anyway), and I pretended to be focusing in another direction and snapped it. They enchanted me, just thinking about the focus of their lives, how they spend each day. They must be Muslims, from their head coverings, and matrons, probably mothers or grandmothers. Going from Skopje to somewhere else, obviously friends or relatives, and probably have not traveled much in the world. I was eavesdropping with my camera.

There are so many people in the world, so many different experiences of life, and I've been fortunate to have traveled a fair amount into many different environments. From the mountains of the Andes, to China and Vietnam, I have met people as different from me as one could imagine. And yet, we all have lives that matter to us and our families, with each of us trying to find our own little corner of the universe where we belong.

I was fortunate to have lived in Puerto Rico for several years and learned to speak some Spanish. Although I don't practice it much, when I traveled to Peru I was able to study it again and use it pretty well. When I knew I was going to be traveling to Paris, I took a French class but my Spanish kept clogging up my brain when I tried to learn to speak French. In Paris I was at a tremendous disadvantage being unable to speak the language and was treated as a bothersome tourist, and many servers took advantage of it, charging me more and ignoring me. I felt out of place, and of course I was.

Learning to communicate with other people who don't speak the same language is not difficult in most places, and given enough time, most of us learn the essentials and accommodate each other as best we can. I have had people communicate with me through pantomime and knew exactly what they were telling me. Although most Americans believe that in most places there is at least a little English, I have found that not to be the case. Although in China most people study English in school, they never hear it spoken and consequently have a difficult time communicating in the language. I carried a business card with me when I entered a taxi in China, showing my destination to the driver; otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get around that way.

This past week, I noticed a trio who have been taking the bus at the same time every day, when I am traveling home after going out for my morning coffee and class. An older woman and a younger couple, and they were speaking to each other in a foreign language. I thought I understood it to be Russian, so I asked the man (who was sitting next to me) where he is from. Speaking with a heavy accent, he said, "Russia." When they arrived at the technical college (their destination), I said, "Do svidaniya!" (I learned to say goodbye and thank you while in Russia, and I was pretty sure this was the correct salutation.) The younger woman turned and flashed me the most brilliant smile as they disembarked.

The next day, there they were again, and this time the woman came up to me and said, "You speak Russian?" I explained that I only knew two words, other than Da and Nyet, that is, and she told me how to say hello:  Zdravstvujtye. When I got home, I explained to Smart Guy about my adventure, and he taught me how to say hello in a way I could remember (he took Russian in college). I also got on YouTube and listened to the pronunciation over and over. The next day I greeted Irina with it (I discovered her name that day), and she was so pleased. This time, she sat next to me and we "talked" together. I learned that she and her husband have been in the United States since mid-November and are from Siberia. She told me the name of her town, but I couldn't even begin to remember it. The older woman is another Russian taking the English class, but they are not related.

Before we had arrived at the college, I ascertained that her daughter lives here and has been in Bellingham for six years. Her daughter has an 18-year-old son and an infant daughter, which I assume is the reason that Irina came here, to help with her newest grandchild. Her grandson went to Russia for two years when he was nine and learned quite a bit of Russian but has forgotten most of it. Irina is practicing her limited English with me, and we are now friends. I look forward to our interaction and I know she does, too. Her husband smiles at me, but she is the one who makes a tremendous effort to speak English with me. She told me she is fifty (she doesn't look it at all). She knew no English when she arrived and is learning quickly, but we use pantomime and laughter to bridge the gap when communication breaks down.

I myself have been helped by strangers to navigate a strange country, and it makes me very happy to listen to Irina's first attempts at speaking English. Knowing that there is no substitution for interaction, I am pleased to have made a new friend from Siberia. Irina has her own little corner of her universe, but she has stepped out into the wider world, and hopefully she will be treated well and will have a good impression of my chosen home town. I realize that she must miss her home and her own country. She hasn't even been here three months and she's already taking classes and interacting with strangers on the bus.

When I contemplate the vast number of people in the world and the number of languages we speak, it's amazing that we can communicate with each other so well. Each of us also feels most at home in a place where we can understand the conversations swirling around us and know the names of the streets and towns nearby, but getting out of our comfort zone and traveling the wider world makes us all better people. That's what I think, anyway.

Now that I am older and have most of my foreign travels behind me, I find comfort and reassurance in reaching out to those fellow travelers and realize that I am at home right here, my own little corner of the universe. I've traveled around and chosen my place, rather than having it given to me. Growing up as a child with no home town, since we lived wherever my father was stationed, I chose Boulder for my first home town, and Bellingham as the town for my retirement years. I think I've chosen well.