Minivan at 12

There is talk of replacing the minivan. I don't like such talk, not at all, not now. You would think I'd be eager to see it go. I drove this green minivan to the church on the night I was attacked in the parking lot. I made the mistake of getting out, ignoring the alarm bells in my head, the gut feeling that screamed, "Danger! This isn't right, something doesn't look right." In fact, not trusting my instincts at many points through that long dangerous summer and fall was in itself a cause for anguish and guilt, and self-blame afterward. "If only...." I didn't drive the van for a long time after that night. Can you blame me? In fact, I couldn't drive at all for months, not for more than a year. And it's only this summer that I've really enjoyed driving the green minivan again, as it's back to its role as a mom-mobile. Ten years ago today I loaded up the forest green Voyager with Talbots and Marshall Field's hanging bags holding new suits -- professional clothes -- clergy shirts with new linen collars, and go-to-meeting shoes. We left Naperville at dawn and made it to North Platte just as the night-flying miller moths were flocking to the hotel light. I had packed suitcases with brand-new clothes for both daughters, then 6 and 11, clothes they hated, clothes they would wear to meet-the-Call Committee events over the coming weekend. They had walkmans and tapes and books and games and nestled into their spots in the middle and back seats, pillows and blankets and beany babies at hand. I gave them 'trip presents,' to ward off boredom and to sweeten the deal. Kaia was a goner, hooked on the first Harry Potter book the day it came out. We had a cooler filled with apples and juices and veggies and a couple of Snickers. I had bottled water and a thermos of steaming hot coffee. A sleek leather notebook with notes for my interviews was open next to me on the other front seat, as if by osmosis, while driving, I could continue to focus on the challenges ahead. My mom-book, spiral bound, was checked twice, and then once more, before we left, lists of shoes, socks, jackets, frisbees, Barbies, soccer ball, Mr. Popper's Penguins, Frog and Toad for Annika, and Maroon Five for Kaia. Ready, set, off! We sang along to the Backstreet Boys, Shania Twain, Disney and Bewitched. I kept my promise: I got the girls to the hotel in time to swim. We hit the pool and then slept like fiends. I was up before dawn and we hit the road as the sun came up, racing it west all morning long until we pulled into the parking lot at Denver International Airport just as Dave's plane was landing. Spilled grape Juicy Juice and Capri Sun stained the car floor and leftover carrots were getting soggy but we made it. I remember so clearly that the radio just happened to play my favorite song, Dan Fogelberg's Netherlands, as we made the turnoff. Radio stations never played that song, ever. I took it as a sign: this was the right place, the right time, the right move. Dave had critical meetings on Thursday in Chicago so he flew out to meet us; we picked him up and found our hotel. I switched from mom-mode into pastor-gear, high gear, overdrive to tell the truth. I put on my starched and pressed formal clergy clothes, wrapping a stiff white color around my neck as the rest of my family set out in my brother's Jeep to enjoy an afternoon at Garden of the Gods. I drove the minivan to the church for job interviews. It was the end of something, that afternoon. And, a beginning. This same Voyager was the van I had driven through Naperville to soccer practice and piano lessons and tennis lessons and drama camp and Bible School, to Nadia's house for Battle of the Books and to Julia's house for afternoons of dress-up. This was the same van that made daily trips to Mill Street School and took children to Naper Nuts & Sweets and to Dairy Queen after early evening softball games. This van carried giggling girls to Centennial Beach and to Fun City and Navy Pier. This Voyager knew the carpool routes and could find its own way to Target. It carried bikes and trikes, Big Wheels and Barbie's Magical Motor Home. It sometimes had the sweet smell of grape juice and more often, that sweaty stink of six girls' played-in soccer cleats. Soon after we moved from downtown Chicago to Naperville -- once voted the most kid-friendly town in America -- we pulled into the school parking lot. Minivans lined up as far as the eye could see. A hundred? More? Could there be that many minivans in all the world? Before long we understood the draw and got one for our very own. It carried kids to birthday parties and Girl Scout camp. It brought Christmas trees home from the forest. It hauled skis and skates and sleds. There are milky white stains on the middle seat from the spilling-over, soupy scalloped potatoes that dripped all the way from our house to Urban Peak, the teen homeless shelter in Denver, where we prepared and served the Christmas Eve 2003 dinner. There are taco sauce and barbeque sauce stains on seats and floors and dirt ground in from forsythia and flats of flowers, but, overall, the thing is in very good condition. The floormats are worn out but, heck, those can be replaced. Easy. The '97 Voyager took us from Washington D.C. to San Diego, and back and forth from Chicago to Colorado more times than I can tell. One summer I drove it from here to St. Louis on I-70. A week later, across I-90 and back, from Denver to Duluth. And finally, from our new home here back to visit in Chicago on I-80. The poor thing has been up Trail Ridge Road many times and to the top of Mount Evans, at 14,264 feet, and below sea level through the Salton Sea. It brought our two beloved English Springer Spaniels home to join our family and it ferried my elderly parents to endless doctor appointments. It's been rear-ended and broadsided and totaled and resurrected, twice. We go way back, this van and me. We have seen glorious seasons and poignant times together, and it delivered me daily, for three years, into the very bowels of hell. Three transmissions, two-hundred thousand miles, and a hell of a lot of trauma later, we're still a team. Or rather, we are a team again. We are surivors. I avoided driving this van for the last six years. Too many terrible memories in Littleton attached. But, now, in a new season (it seems to be Fall already here this year!), I'm ready to reclaim my mom-mobile. My own kids don't much need me to drive them around anymore. But Kaia has students who need to get picked up at noon every day at schools from one end of Denver to the other. Maleek and Charlene and Josefyna and Lynea, Jocalo and Brenda need a ride to Breakthrough (more of this soon). The radio is set for hip-hop and I learn about their adventures and lives here and before, in Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Somalia and Mexico. It couldn't be better. So. The van is back in business. As a bus. And we are going to keep it. To fulfill the intention to write about Poland I will just say this, this time. There are very few minivans in Poland. But you can bet that every one of them is used as a bus. Like mine.

Midsummer Springs Eternal

Midsummer. July 22. In a normal year, the hills around us are dry and brown. The fire danger is sky high and we are resigned to scorching, relentless heat. The daily storms brew up in a flash in late afternoon and are gone more quickly than they arrive. The sudden downpour is devoured by the parched earth and makes no measurable difference. We must water the grass daily, even if it is against the rules, to keep the lawn green. I’m sorry for tourists who come to Colorado in July. It is not our best month. But this year they are in for a treat. The foothills are still verdant, the land feels lush and full. Flowers are flourishing everywhere and the cattails are thriving. It is still monsoon season, a surprise to most who don’t think that word and Colorado belong in the same sentence. Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific flows in and cooks up spectacular thunder storms every afternoon, as the heat of the day creates the convection that explodes into fifty-thousand foot clouds and the inevitable cloudbursts. Natives know not to make plans for late afternoon picnics, or weddings. By early evening the sky is clear again, a cleansed palate for another breathtaking sunset. And evening baseball at Coors Field where the Rockies continue to hit it out of the park. This last Monday night, the fireworks got a late start. The moisture and a cool front took their sweet time drifting down the Front Range and arrived close to ten p.m. Within minutes, a potboiler of a storm had blown up, creating straight-line winds gusting to 65 miles per hour, unforgettable lightning, deafening thunder and even a tornado only six miles from our house. It was the first time in ten years I had taken a tornado warning seriously. We moved the computers to the basement and were ready to flee ourselves if we heard a roar or rumble heading our way. I heard the roar but it didn’t get louder before it faded away. Daisy the dog, on the other hand, was not persuaded the danger had passed until an hour or so after the last clap of thunder. She spent the duration of the storm on my bed, burrowed into pillows and trembling without ceasing, even as I wrapped my arms around her and tried to cover her ears. Colorado must be a difficult place to be a dog. This is the thing I don’t like about July in Colorado. Humidity. We don’t feel it hanging heavy, clammy and suffocating the air, as it is in the Midwest. What we do feel, we tend to appreciate. A welcome break from the lip-cracking dryness. Our humidity is often in the single digits. No, what I don’t like about our humidity is the way it hides the mountains. They are obscured for most of the day behind a shroud of moisture. The clouds that will become violent later in the day linger as dewy film, a gauzy curtain that keeps us from seeing anything more than a vague outline of the hills and valleys and high peaks a few miles away. It is not a clear day and I cannot see forever. And I don’t like it. I’m used to one hundred mile views. From Long’s Peak in the north to Pike’s Peak in the south, and, in fact, beyond in both directions. It is a distance of more than a hundred miles. In between are the Indian Peaks, the massive mountains that surround Mount Evans, and scores of undulating hills that come in and out of focus, depending upon the angle of the sun. I can see forever. It is a world that inspires big visions, big dreams, a wide-angle perspective on life. On days like this, I’m on my own. I have to envision far more than I can see. I have to see farther than I can, to imagine contours and landscapes that are fuzzy and hidden. On days like today, there is no far horizon to beckon one on, to lure one into a far country. On days like today, I have to trust, to imagine, to believe. On days like this, it is all about faith.

Battle It Out

Poland is a part of Europe. But, of course, you say. Look at the map. And, by the way, haven’t we covered this already? There’s more. Poland is a part of Europe. You would think this is too obvious to mention. But you would be wrong. Poland has been forgotten, ignored, neglected, wiped off the map, and left out of the European self-consciousness time after time after time. For much of its long life, from the 10th century onward, Poland has ended up on the wrong sides of rivers and geo-political divides. From 1945 until 1989, Poland was locked behind an iron curtain, a satellite in orbit around a behemoth that required it to forsake, for the most part, its European identity. It might have been smack dab in the middle of Europe but it surely didn’t seem so. Poland felt more like a back-water, isolated and stagnating while the rest of the world moved on. Even within other European countries, one might hear, “Poland isn’t part of Europe.” Poland has been Europe’s favorite lost-in-plain-sight battlefield for centuries. Conveniently stuck right in the middle, with unimpeded access from east and west, Poland is the place where Europeans have come to fight since forever. Mongols, Tartars, and Turks. Teutonic Knights and Germanic tribesmen. Slavs from other lands, and even the now-taciturn Swedes conquered and ravaged Poland over the ages. More Turks, Austrians, Hungarians, Germans, Russians. The French marched through without stopping to take over, earning them the Poles’ vote for “Most Friendly.” The Russians attacked again. The Germans invaded again. Then the Russians one last (dare we hope) time. Who hasn’t invaded Poland? And they are coming again. Europe is coming back to fight on Polish soil. But, of course. Poland’s flat, fertile fields and its rich mineral resources have been contested for eons. Anyone who knew of this fecund land and its coal, ore and salt deposits, set in the center of the European heartland, invaded it, or tried to, or allied itself to a nation that did. They all took Poland, or, at the very least, thought about it. And why not? What a temptation. Polish geography, its wide open plains, invited incursions. Without defensible natural borders and a long, vulnerable Baltic coastline, Poland was the natural battle field for Europe and an unimpeded pipeline for the flow of armies east to west, west to east, north to south, and, inevitably, back again. The Poles got it coming and going, and it was even worse when they all came and tried to stay. You may be surprised then to find that the Poles are eager for all of Europe to come back to do battle on Polish soil. Portugal and Spain, Greece and Slovakia will be there. The Swedes and Norwegians are counting on it. Croats and Albanians, and of course, the French and the British will be there. Even the Germans and the Russians will be welcomed back (more or less). Europe is coming to fight in Poland in, as they have done for centuries. But this time will be different. This time they will be fighting on the lush green turf, not for it. This time, the trophy will not be the land itself. Poland and Ukraine will host the United European Football Association (UEFA) championships in 2012. The coveted UEFA Cup is at stake, not Poland’s independence. It is even reasonable to expect that the country will be left in better condition – especially economically – after everyone has gone home. For a change. And what a great lot of change that will be. It is high time that Poland be back in the middle of things, in the very heart of Europe where it belongs. And it is about time for Poland to host a friendly, even lucrative invasion where the battles will be civilized, if not always civil, and the trophy will not be the battleground itself.

This is the story

“I came to Poland because nobody here wants to kill me.” I tossed the comment across the table at Kasia but it came back at me with a resonant power that took my breath away. I meant to pop off with a comment so outrageous that my old friend would laugh and I could move our conversation back to safer ground. I intended to toss off something light and edgy, shading toward the provocative, exaggerated. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t a sarcastic pop. It was the truth. Truth has been known to sneak out without warning, to escape the lips without permission. When it does there is nothing to do but shut up and pay attention. I shivered in the glare of mid-morning sun, once, twice. Truth shivers, I call them. Kasia bit back a tease, “Nobody? Nobody here wants to kill you? You sure about that?” She knew me well enough to expect an irreverent response to her first question, “What are you doing here? Why did you show up all of a sudden?” But this was not my usual deflection. Kasia looked away, unnerved by the raw words I’d spoken, seeing the glistening in my eyes, knowing the truth of it, not wanting to intrude on a confession so primal, so intimate. “My god,” I whispered, after a silence that stretched out beyond oceans and continents and across months, years, pushing against settled assumptions, closed accounts. I was dazed and exhausted. “I had no idea.” “Escape,” I say, words seeping out again, unexpected. I am alone this time, later that afternoon, the usual diet Coke with ice and lemon chilling on the table next to my notebook. The women sitting at the next table next stop speaking, take sidelong glances at my silver pony tail, the gauzy pink scarf wound tight around my neck, my tailored white shirt and blue skirt. Who wants to be anywhere near to a woman who talks to herself! They scooted their chairs ever-so-slightly, an inch or two farther away. Sometimes I too wonder if I’m crazy. “Escape,” I whisper again, unable to stop the word from coming out. That is what I’m doing. Running from the danger, the nightmares, the trauma that waits for me on every street back home. Yes, I’ve come to Warsaw because nobody here wants to kill me. I shiver again, several times. It is the truth. Kasia and I have been friends ever since 1980, my year of post-graduate study in Warsaw, the same year Poland was carried away on a rising tide of hope. We rode a train all the way to Gdansk to stand with a lively group of protesters at the famous shipyard , chanting “Solidarnosc! Solidarnosc!” into the night. We became close friends very quickly, recognizing a kindred spirit, a common quirky sense of humor, similar hopes and dreams, and the same odd ability to care equally about world peace and the latest fashion in shoes. Okay, we cared more about world peace. But still, we were odd ducks in our respective worlds, her’s Polish, mine American, being geeky and studious, serious and sober yet, at the same time, silly and ridiculous. We were the only two women we knew – in any country – who could get derailed on the way to a peace rally by the display window of a shoe store. Or vice versa. What’s more, we laughed at ourselves and at the world around us, a reverent, respectful laughter but laughter all the same. Over years of friendship and even across iron curtains, Kasia and I had seen each other through heartaches and break-ups, professional crises and personal victories. We had been through miscarriages and violent illnesses, we had consoled one another through the dying and death of parents and rejoiced at the birth of children. We whined and complained about said children and about our husbands, we crowed and bragged about those very same souls, and we shared the ups and downs of our careers as they developed, veered off course, and wandered back onto a new path. Before the days of easy phone calls and uncensored mail, we persevered with the sorts of code that good friends figure out, for saying what’s important without flagging extra attention. After Al Gore invented the internet, we used that for regular chats and kept in close touch. Which is why Kasia was puzzled, then concerned when I suddenly dropped from radar in October, 2002. Her emails went unanswered. No one answered my phone. Nobody returned her calls or responded to her voice mail messages. “Where are you?” she wrote me. “What happened?” I finally wrote back. A brief and apparently fractured note that said simply, “I’m sick. I’ve been hurt. I’ll write again soon.” But I didn’t. Over the next few years I sent rambling emails that were alternately chipper and chatty or short and somber. I didn’t want my Polish friends to worry, and anyway, my problems seemed small in comparison to all the Poles have been through. Finally, in a burst of energy, I landed in Warsaw, unannounced, on a sunny day in 2007. I didn’t call anyone for more than a week, just padded around the tiny apartment I’d rented and wandered the streets in search of something, I didn’t know what. Kasia insisted on meeting for coffee the very afternoon I called her to say, “here I am, surprise!” And so we sat down at the round marble tables at the ancient and fabled Blikle Café, me situated so my back was to the granite wall, my face forward to see everything that passed on the street. As she sipped espresso, she asked, “what is going on? Why are you here so suddenly?” I thought for only a second before launching my response. “I came to Poland because nobody here wants to kill me.”

Scones for Everybody!

Annika's cell phone went in to the pool last night. No wonder she didn't text me back. Annika, with phone in jeans pocket, got pushed into the pool at the fireworks party. Can you even imagine -- 16 year old Annika with no phone? Annika, who sends and receives 400 text messages a day? Never mind North Korean missiles, with Annika phoneless, will the world end? We take this communication so much for granted. Back and forth, across town, across oceans. When Kaia was in South Africa for four months, we were never out of touch save for a period when she was living in 'maphandleni' -- the rural areas, with a family, beyond reach of cell or any other phones. When I'm in Poland, we text and chat and Skype as if we were merely a few miles away, or across the room. Now, Annika's phone is dead. How on earth will I know what she's thinking this very minute? Kaia and I were joking yesterday about our goofy failure to comprehend that Breakfast at Wimbledon is only breakfast in the States! It is 3 p.m. in Warsaw, two in the afternoon when the play begins in London. The boys are practicing their serve. It is high time for tennis. It's time for a Corona with lime. In Littleton, the fam is covered in crumbs from freshly baked scones, the sofas basically a mess. Strawberries are being dipped in cream. Dave is sitting in the chair wondering if he should go to church. Kaia is flipping back and forth between tennis and the Tour de France, making everyone crazy. Annika is holding a memorial service for her phone. Daisy dog is crowding Kaia, curled up on one end of the short sofa, snoring but not, the girls can tell you, as loud as me. She's got her head plumped up on the oversize arm cushion, curly ears flopped over the edge. She's given up on any hope of stealing a bite, especially if I am not home to sneak one to her. The coffee is strong, the conversation is sparse, with only the occasional groan or exclamation, depending upon whom you're cheering for. We can chat online in real time. "Did you see that shot?" And they split sets. One all. "Look at Rod Laver's hat! Isn't it cute!" We could speak those words across the coffee table. Or send them through cyberspace. "Andy!" we exclaim, "if you're going to dink a little poof ball across the net, don't hit it right to him." It goes on. Dave is still sitting in the chair, wondering if he should go to church. Annika has moved through the denial stage of grief and is on to bartering. "Maybe it can be fixed; the smart chip still works." Kaia has given up on cycling for the day and Daisy dog has sprawled out on the floor. Roger won the third set. But Andy broke him early in the fourth. Another Corona. Pita with pesto is as close as it gets to scones in the Champions Bar on Jeruzolimskie Street in Warsaw. But the tennis is the same. As is the chit-chat with the fam.

Is it the 4th of July?

Celebrating the 4th of July in Warsaw is a little bit like celebrating Christmas in Tokyo. Not much holiday action going on around you. No bunting, no mylar stars and glittering flags in storefront displays. The American Ambassador has a gathering. Other expat groups have picnics or parties. And, if you're lucky, you get invited to a genuine backyard barbeque. I've celebrated a lot of holidays in Poland but this one is the weirdest. You walk out the door in the morning and life is going on just like it does every other day. Horns honking, taxis weaving in and out of rush hour traffic. The metro is full, the bus isn't running a holiday schedule. All of my friends are going to work. Offices are going full tilt and meetings have been scheduled. Just another day. "Um, that day isn't good for me," I explained to Tad, who works for PriceWaterhouse, which has a significant Polish presence. He doesn't get it at first, when I tell him I have holiday plans. No disrespect, mind you. But the American Independence Day just doesn't register on the European radar. There will be no fireworks tonight. Granted, it is much different now than in the 1982 when, as I remember, there were anti-American goings on that day. It's hard to believe there was a time when our two countries were not allies, not even officially on speaking terms. Which is not to say the Poles haven't always felt friendly toward Americans, especially given that so many of them emigrated to the States. But it was also true that the U.S. was viewed with a good deal of wariness and suspicion, even outright anger, given the historical memory of the Yalta decision to give Stalin control over Poland after World War II. Why celebrate American independence when we had, in their view, given theirs away. There were no fireworks in 1982 either. The expats now living in Konstancin, a lovely suburb of Warsaw, have big homes with big backyards, patios and barbeque grills. There will be brats and burgers, homemade potato salad, corn on the cob, cherry pie and ice cream this afternoon. Lemonade and beer. A friendly game of croquet on the lawn, maybe some badminton, and softball over at the International School field. Rumors of sparklers and Roman candles circulate. But no big parade. My hometown in Colorado is so famous for its big 4th of July Parade it was a featured event in the American Bicentennial Celebration in 1976. I spent every single Independence Day of my childhood sitting on the curb with my cousins, chasing after Tootsie Rolls and bubble gum tossed by rodeo queens and clowns, admiring the serpentine drills performed by skilled horseback clubs and screwing up my nose at the abundance of 'souvenirs,' as my aunts called them, left by the hundreds of horses and cattle. Even today, a herd of longhorns led the parade and old friends sat on blankets they set out days ago, some sleeping out overnight saving favorite spots in the shade. I miss that. In fact, over the years, we've never really developed another tradition. If I can't do that, what else is there? My aunts are all gone, and my mom, makers of the world's best fried chicken and baked beans, potato salad, cole slaw and red jello. My dad's signature contribution, black cherry lemonade, is long gone. My cousins are all grown and we've scattered from coast to coast, and beyond. We won't be sneaking over to plant cherry bombs on the grammar school playground in the afternoon or taking naps before spreading out yet another blanket to watch the fireworks from Mumper Hill. Every year I get a burst of enthusiasm in late May and decide that this will be the year I invite the Anderson clan over for a reunion picnic on the 4th of July. And every year, I don't follow through. Some traditions belong to memory. It seems fitting to celebrate Independence Day in a place where independence is new again and cherished. What a difference! In that sense, barbeques aside, every day is independence day.