Hit the Road, Jack

Time to hit the road again! It's hard to imagine getting my love of road trips from the long journeys of my childhood. A thousand miles from Denver to Los Angelos, a thousand miles from Denver to Chicago. And, when I was ten, a thousand miles to Minneapolis via U.S.Highways that routed us through Pierre, South Dakota at 5 p.m. where the temperature was 110 Fahrenheit and the entire bag of Circus Peanuts I ate did not sit well. For our trip to California in 1967, my mom sewed me a bag for all my trip treats, books, and who knows what else. It was less than twelve inches square with two exterior zippers and a little handle. Whatever was in it, it somehow kept me going across the Arizona desert at night as the regular bumps meant we'd hit another bunny. What a weird trip. Things have become more complicated since the days of a Brownie camera or, maybe, already, a Kodak instamatic. For seven days on the road, I have a computer bag from the Aspen Music Festival, a Colorado Non-Profit Conference bag for books and notebooks, a little Clinique bag from Nordstrom for the camera charger and the phone charger and the computer cords, and an enormous bag from the Santa Fe Market for all the CD's I've collected and made to keep me sassy and singing all the way across South Dakota. My clothes are in a bag from the NCCED -- the National Community Capital something something else. I love driving across this country! Bad for the climate, good for me. I make trade offs to assuage my guilt. No air conditioning in the house, long car trips on the back roads of America. Somebody said that a woman's car is like her giant purse. Nope. It's better. My car is my closet. Several sweaters, multiple pairs of shoes, coats, random books and extra scarves, make-up, and granola bars, blue corn chips, lasagna leftover from Saturday's lunch, a three-hole punch, a two-liter bottle of caffeine free Diet Pepsi, and two tennis balls. Circus peanuts optional. I'll let you know if there's anything interesting out there.

Claim Check

I love my dry cleaners. It offers drive-up service. And, they give you back your clothes even when you lose, forget, let the dog eat, or bake the claim check into the meatloaf. Not that I would ever do that. I don't go often so it's not that they know me on sight. But they know enough to know that when I pull up and give them my phone number, I get my sweater back. Years ago our neighborhood conversations got around to the subject of husband's shirts. "Where do you take them?" It was getting expensive to send them out to be laundered. Where was the cheapest place that did a good job? Several opinions were expressed, criteria clarified, and recommendations made. I was silent, listening with some confusion. Until Linda asked, "Jan, where do you take Dave's shirts?" "Oh. I don't. We don't send them out." "You IRON them?" my neighbors all asked at once. "No," I confessed. "Isn't that what permanent press is for?" The more amusing part of this story came a few days later. Six-year-old Annika was visiting next-door-neighbor and wonder woman, Linda, a quilter, in her sewing room. My daughter was wide eyed as Linda showed her how she pieced together the beautiful fabrics. But then things got weird. A strange appartus was unfolded. A metal object placed upon it. Water poured into a spout. Steam arose from it. Annika, daughter of my heart, and flesh of my flesh, then asked, "what's that?" "An iron," Linda answered. "What's an iron?" Yes, it's true. We don't iron much. Another perk of Colorado living. But every great once in a while, sweaters and silks need to be dry cleaned. And I am always freaked about losing the claim ticket. Never fear. My clothes claim me. All of which has me pondering tonight. What else claims me? What people, relationships, family claim me? Choose me. And expect something of me. What are the claims on my time and attentions? What claims tie up my energies and affections? My emotions, intellectual curiosity? And you? I've decided it's time once more to do a claim check. To make sure I'm being claimed by the things -- people, values, commitments, talents -- that best reflect the person I understand myself to be and the gifts I've been given. It's easy to get distracted and derailed. I dare say, especially in our addled, busy world with multitudes of choices, voices clamoring in our heads, calling us this way and that. To make the inevitable Polish connection, I find myself more easily focused there. And my friends too. Tho' not so much as they used to be, the choices are more stark. It is not so easy to do all of the both/and's that we get away with. You can't have it all. Or come close to pretending. The claims on energy and attention are rigorous and sometimes present a zero-sum option. I like the good discipline I'm forced to accept when I'm in Poland, living in Warsaw as I do from time to time. In Denver, it's easier to wander off course. So it's time again for a claim check. Who gets me? What gets me? And you?