Faces of Beauty

So if there was a God, I think this is what it would look like, don't you?

More Faces of Haiti

It's hard to synthesize and describe the range of impressions of my experience in Haiti, but I'll try. On one hand were the undeniable challenges: lack of sanitation, dirty water, sketchy food, fear of illness, fear of the mice that crawled into our luggage at night looking for food while we slept on mats on the floor! And the white-knuckled fear as we lurched and bumped down the rocky, rutted, steep, winding mountain road, 11 of us crammed into a Nissan Pathfinder because one of the jeeps had broken down -- again. Flying up and hitting our heads on the roof as Fr. Stan shouted, "Oh, Jesus!," certain we were going off the next cliff and knowing my family would never forgive me for this folly. Joking that having spent 11 hours in church over the previous three days, at least we were all gonna go to heaven, and then the others remembering what an irreverant heathen I am and worrying that instad we were all headed straight to hell.

Then there were the incredible people, eeking out a living in this hostile, hardscrabble place with everything against them. And Pere Leroy, standing on the steps of the new church that seats 3000, built of rocks that each parishioner gathered by hand, and bags of cement that they carried up the three-hour mountain road on their heads, barefooted. At first I wondered if the money wouldn't have been better spent on our clean water project, or supplies for the clinic.

But then I saw the thousands of people gathering for the dedication, dressed in their finest and on a three day holiday from their difficult lives, celebrating 14 weddings in one day -- because getting married in March is good luck and ensures lots of children, which again begs the question, and this is good WHY?? Because many children ensures that if some die, which they surely will, there are others to help with the work, and take care of their parents in old age.

Pere Leroy stood on the steps of the new church, like an early Aristide before he was corrupted, and spoke passionately about how this was the new face of Medor. That even though they were poor and black and the descendants of slaves, this building represented respect and justice and all the good things they deserved. He promised to continue working with them, fighting for them, for clean water, decent health care, and a good education. He was awesome, and he gave them all the gift of pride.

The schools are also amazing -- 730 kids, busting at the seams. In the coming year we hope to help PL build a new secondary school, and expand the kindergarten where 50 kids were turned away this year. In this remote and desperately poor place, where the schools have no windows, no electricity and dirt floors, the 9th graders spoke to us in Creole, French, English and Spanish. Four languages, all proficiently. Truly amazing.

Faces of Haiti

Finally catching up enough to start processing my trip. First of course are the photos of these beautiful, incredible people. Despite the poverty, deforestation, complete lack of government services and horrendous conditions, Haiti is still full of beauty, and its people have a pride and dignity -- not to mention sense of humor, charm and hospitality, that far outshine their circumstances.

Here, in no special order, are a young woman selling vegetables at the market in Medor, located just below the rectory where we stayed. Also, kids on their way home from school in Petit Riviere, the nearest city four hours away -- the girls all wear those cute uniforms and big bows in their hair -- and people along the rocky, bumpy, scary mountain roads we traveled by jeep and on foot. That's me with Fr. Stan, a Nigerian priest who teaches school in Port au Prince and served as our Creole/French/English interpreter, driver and awesome travel guide.

In Haiti, they say there are mountains beyond mountains: solve one problem and there's another right behind it. So you keep fighting the good fight, what else can you do? It also explains a certain easygoing, whatever sort of attitude -- kind people smiling in the face of inevitable adversity.

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty

I got this poem a couple of years ago for my birthday. I think it works for any age, really (ever the optimist), and it made me a new fan-for-life of Ogden Nash.

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then --
How old is Spring, Miranda?

Not Running

So it's 8:45 on Saturday morning, and instead of running through the streets of DC in the National Half Marathon, as I have trained for, fundraised, and planned on for so long now, here I sit at my computer, trying to come to terms. I got back from Haiti Wednesday night and brought a most unwelcome souvenir with me: the plague. I started the trip at a disadvantage, having come down with a violent stomach flu just a few days before. But I was on the mend and hopeful that my usual good health would prevail. Wrong.

Between the bad water, scary food, and sharing a bathroom with seven strangers (with no electricity and only cold, dirty water), I didn't stand a chance. Several people in our group got sick, almost all in fact. But I hung in, was extremely careful about what I ate, and managed to ward off major illness. Until I got home. Within two hours of being in my own house, where I could finally relax, I came down with a variety of unpleasant symptoms that led me to the doctor yesterday. I have a virus, an infection, was dehydrated and other related miseries. I couldn't walk around the block comfortably, never mind run 13 miles.

After fighting the inevitable, sure I would bounce back in time, I finally had to give up yesterday afternoon and tell my running partner Holly I couldn't do it. She was just as stunned as I would have been, wondering how the hell she was gonna go it alone. We've done all our long runs together, become great pals, were counting on each other a lot. Holly has had her own major struggles this week. She has two small boys, one she is still nursing, and her husband had back surgery after months of agony and being unable to help her with the house or kids. I don't know how she's juggled it all, in addition to going to school for her master's in ESL.

Thankfully, Rebecca, a retired marine and team captain with TNT, went over the race map with Holly at the pasta dinner last night and decided she could jump in with her at the water station she'll be manning at mile 5 1/2 and run the last 7 1/2 with her. So Holly will do great and finish strong, I'm sure. I cried all day yesterday and almost cancelled my party today. What was the point? I wouldn't have anything to celebrate. But my friends and dear ones convinced me there was still plenty worth celebrating, and I will live to run another day. Which I know, of course, but am still crushed with disappointment.

Meanwhile, as long as I'm complaining, my husband Pancho got a dog while I was away. Two days after I left, in fact. A very cute black, terrier mix that is very sweet and calm and will not grow much bigger than he already is, which is not too big at all. But the key issue here is: I am the only person in this house who has never wanted a dog! I am starting a home-based business and have been longing to be in my house, all alone, with no one to be responsible for, or to care for. I have dreamed about it and looked forward to it. I have envisioned going out to exercise, coming home and settling in with a cup of coffee to work on my novel. Then showering and working on my new business, all in the peace and quiet of an empty house -- heaven!

And now we have a PUPPY, which is like having a BABY. Pancho is gone at least 11 hours every day. The kids are gone at least 8. So who is going to care for this little creature, walk him in the middle of the day? As I said, he's very cute and sweet and I like him already. But that's not the point. I'm still mulling the point, and I'm not happy about it.

Off to Haiti

Ok, so I'm leaving tomorrow and running around frantically trying to get ready. This because instead of having the two previous days as well, I came down with a vile, nasty bug the likes of which I've never seen before. I'm better now but still am barely eating, am actually a little afraid of food. If you don't know me, I have a very close and almost lustful relationship with food, I devote a not insignificant amount of my time to either thinking about it, planning for it, or enjoying it. It is one of life's great pleasures, IMHO. Not the greatest, mind you, but right up there in the top two or three.

But not today. Yesterday was toast and tea, today I'm tiptoing around foods that seem harmless, and even they lose their appeal after a bite or two. This is so weird! Alors, on to more interesting topics.

I've had some really nice phone conversations today. I always like to talk to special people before I leave on a trip. It makes me happy to hear their voices, touch base one last time, and then go on my way. I think they're a little nicer to me too, just in case, right? -- laughing -- you never know, you don't want to forget to call and then have somebody's plane crash -- yikes. But that's the mom in me, I'm sure...

I just got a call from a friend who got the guy at the local soccer store to donate several uninflated soccer balls to Medor -- exactly what the kids want! Plus I'm bringing a suitcase full of recorders, tin whistles, harmonicas, two keyboards, a drum, and 24 matching blue pleated skirts from another friend's daughter's high school play with 24 matching tops -- school chorus or band, oui? And another suitcase full of gently-used adult size running shoes.

Now all I have to do is fit all my crap, including sheets and a towel, into my backpack and carry-on bag. This will surely be the most challenging aspect of the entire trip!

So no internet and no blogging while I'm gone, alas. Please dear readers, post a comment or two -- something inspirational or funny or whatever you feel like. Surprise me!

Seasons

I didn't sleep well last night, and when my alarm went off at 5:05, I really really really did NOT want to get up and go for my run. Especially because it was 14 degrees, the trails were surely icy, and my kids had a two-hour school delay.

But I'd told Evelyn I'd meet her at our usual place at 5:45, and she was skipping a class she likes to run with me. So I dragged myself out of my nice warm comfy bed, put on my layers of gear, went downstairs and called her, hoping she'd want to blow it off too. But she was also dressed and ready, so after hemming and hawing a bit we decided to just do it.

By the time I got there I was wide awake. It didn't feel as cold as it is, and it was so absolutely peaceful and beautiful I realized yet again the best side bonus about running. You get to see and enjoy nature at its most pristine and lovely, before anyone else. (Well, we did pass a few hardy souls, including one crazy guy riding very slowly down a big icy hill on his bike!) Just after a snowfall it is especially quiet, except for the crunch crunch crunch of our shoes on the trail. Entire fields of dried wildflowers looked like ghostly pompom trees as the sun came up.

We all lead such nonstop busy lives. I know without a doubt that if I didn't get outside several mornings a week at dawn, I'd never even notice the seasons passing by. As it is I can hardly believe it's March -- wasn't new year's day just last week? Running helps me keep track of the time that seems to be flying by. It helps me notice summer change to fall, fall to winter and winter to spring. This feels to me like a big important thing that is otherwise so, so easy to miss. I love that about running.

Why This Blog P.S.

Just remembered another early reason for this blog, which remains relevant but that I tend to take for granted and not mention as much: I was looking for feedback from women of a certain age -- 40-something and beyond -- and how that makes them feel, think, act, want to live. I feel more alive and full of energy and passion than I can ever remember, and I know Gail Sheehy has made a career writing about this subject. So I was also looking for fellow travelers on this road, which is definitely a major theme of my book as well.

Why This Blog?

Just got back from my morning run -- it's cold out there. But I only had to go three miles, and have just one more three-miler this week, one last group run/walk (8 mi.) on Saturday, and a couple of three milers next week, and I'm done! Then I'll hike around Haiti, do a quick two-miler when I get back, and then the race! We did our longest distance last Saturday -- 12 miles, a personal record -- and the weather was so glorious I ran along the Potomac, from Dangerfield Island to Roosevelt Island and back, in a t-shirt. But that party's over, at least for this week.

I'm sitting here icing my shins and thinking about BillieK's excellent question: why did I start this blog? What were and are my goals for it? So brace yourselves: the endorphins are flowing and I'm stuck here for 15 more minutes so this may be a rambler...

I went back and read my first post from last May. I attended a conference on blogging that day along with 500 other people from the media, nonprofits and the corporate world, all wondering like me what to make of this phenomena, and if we could use it in our organizations. The expert panel said the best way to learn about blogs was to create one and see what happens, so that's what I did. I figured since I was just starting my novel, it could be about the writing process and hopefully an outlet for my experiences and those of other writers. I hoped it would provide feedback and inspiration, as my masthead says.

Has it met my goals? Absolutely! I still can't figure out how to create links to the people and groups I mention, and how to post photos and graphics on the left and right sides, instead of in the middle, but a more tech savvy friend has offered to help me with that when I get back from my trip and start working on my new business. I actually hope to create and manage a blog for AHC, my current employer (for just TWO MORE DAYS!) for a monthly fee. I think I could help them get conversations going about their projects with people in the community, and also link it to their fundraising efforts. I'd like to do this for other clients as well. Not many organizations, especially nonprofits, have the staff to create or keep up a blog -- that's a big concern I've heard at subsequent conferences.

As for my writing, I'm definitely enjoying posting and receiving feedback. Not all my posts are about writing; more often than not I go off on a rant about something that bothers me, or something I really like. But I see all of it as more grist for the mill.

So what do you commenters think? Should I focus more on writing itself? Should I ask more questions? Be more specific about my novel?

Along those lines, my assignment this week was to choose a scene in my novel and write about "the moment," a short, specific moment, maybe captured in a photograph or a memory, that you tease and stretch out for several paragraphs, slowing down time. At the end of it the narrator will have a marked change in perception or thought, an epiphany may be reached. I actually used my reaction to the word "fond" for this exercise, which is what prompted that post, or vise versa. (Unknown to you, I sometimes post things on the blog that I've worked on for my class. Multitasking!) I plan to use it at a future point in Liza's relationship with Henry, a colleague she becomes close to while experiencing problems in her marriage. But she's not there yet -- in the novel they've just had lunch for the first time. Now she's off to Rhode Island for the family Christmas, where her husband's newfound sobriety will start to unravel.

Another question: I'm not sure how much to reveal about my novel on the blog. If I tell too much, will no one will want to read it once I've finished?

God and the Poor

I'm reading a book about my latest personal hero, Paul Farmer, a doctor and medical anthropologist from Harvard who -- in his 20's and 30's -- created a very successful health care system, despite insurmountable odds, in Haiti, and has since spread the model to Peru, Russia and other extremely poor countries battling AIDS and multi-drug resistent TB. He was determined to create solutions to the outrageously wrong distribution of wealth in the world, and the fact that the rich, who have good housing, good nutrition and clean water, have access to the best health care, and the poor, who have bad housing, bad nutrition and dirty water, get lousy health care, if any at all. It's completely upside down, an AMC as he calls them: area of moral clarity.

So when I read that a 12-year old homeless boy died in Montgomery County two weeks ago of an infected tooth, because not one single dentist out of 26 contacted would provide him the care he needed for free, I realized that if it can happen in the richest county in one of the richest states in the richest country in the world, what chance do places like Africa and Haiti have?

Then I saw a video of Bono receiving the Chairman's Award from the NAACP this week -- check it out, it's on YouTube -- and he addressed this very issue in the most eloquent way. Here's what he said, and here's an idea of God that I can definitely get behind. Paul Farmer, a lapsed Catholic like me, thinks this way about God too...

"Whatever thoughts you have about God, who he is or even if God exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor. The poor are where God lives.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard box where the poor play house. God is where opportunity is lost and lives shattered. God is with the mother who has infected her child with a virus that will take both their lives. God is under the rubble, in the cries we hear during wartime.

God, my friends, is with the poor and he is with us if we are with them. This is not a burden, this is an adventure. Don't let anyone tell you it cannot be done. We can be the next generation that ends extreme poverty!"

Cool, huh?

All it takes is a commitment to high quality, universal health care for the poor. All it takes is the rich giving what they have to pay for it. All it takes is big fat drug companies giving their drugs to poor countries for free. They make so much money they can easily do that. All it takes in this country is for the rich and big business to give up just a few of their unnecessary tax breaks and put the money into health insurance for all. They'd hardly even notice -- so what's the big deal? How much money do they need anyway? It's disgusting that they fight ideas like this.

I Hate the Word "Fond"

Where have all my commenters gone? Did I offend you with my last post, with the idea that my character may have a scandalous affair with a priest? Come on, statistics show that about 65% of priests are gay, and about 80% do not believe in celibacy. It's not that farfetched. What's farfetched is the church's insistence on pretending these realities don't exist!

Anyway, that's what I love about novel writing -- being able to explore these topics with my characters. But that's not the subject of this post.

Someone told me they were fond of me today. I HATE the word "fond." I would honestly rather have someone tell me they hate my stinking guts -- at least that has passion! Fond is mewey and icky and half-hearted. Fond is how someone feels about their maiden aunt, or how people feel about Melanie Wilkes in Gone With the Wind. You know you should love her because she is so good and so kind and so saintly, but she's just no damn fun. I'll take Scarlett -- ya gotta love her or hate her, or both -- any day. And I would definitely rather hang out with Scarlett; she's funny and strong and always where the action is. She has her moral lapses, but she lives her life with such passion and determination, how can you not admire that?

Fond is like "bless her heart," how polite southern ladies talk about someone they don't really like or feel sorry for, as in: "How's Clarice?" "Oh, she's fine. She's put on that weight again, bless her heart." You don't want your southern friends tacking "bless her heart" on the end of any sentence about you. That's the kiss of death. And that's how "fond" always sounds to me.

Is that weird? Do you agree or disagree? Am I wrong to feel such loathing for the word fond?