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For about two weeks I studied abroad in Dubai. It was winter break of the 2009-2010 school year and the trip included environmental, design and journalism students who rang the new year in together on a beach with expatriots from around the world.
Through the whole trip, one image dominated – literally. Even when we couldn’t see the tallest building in the world, we were surrounded by reminders. From the scale Lego model at Dubai World to the gift shop postcards and newspaper headlines, it was everywhere.
We couldn’t wait for the January 4th opening and a chance see the view from the top. We knew it would be spectacular – and we weren’t disappointed. From big lights to big noises, the event had everything. There was even the twist of a last minute name change from Burj Dubai to Burj khalifa.
What I didn’t expect were the little things – the individual voices and faces that made up the crowds pooling in streets and courtyards all over Dubai to gaze upwards together and form something even greater than the fireworks.
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The holidays are always a time to think about family. When I was growing up, the holidays meant travel because we would go to family or family would come to us. And often, after dinner was eaten, dishes washed and presents opened, the downtime would slowly fill with family stories – and sometimes even family photos.
I’m thinking about family connections a lot for another reason too.
I’ve launched myself on a completely overwhelming project: to organize the boxes and albums of family photos in my guardianship as well as my own rolls and rolls of prints – then to scan, tag and upload them so that captions can be added and corrected and prints can be made for anyone who has been looking for a copy of that exact photo since forever.
Flipping through the stacks, I’m flooded with memories, realizing that it hasn’t been just me growing and changing each year but my entire family. The family portraits from the early 1900’s are followed by graduation portraits, wedding photos – and then first Christmases.
Even as I wade deeper and deeper through the boxes, wondering how I convinced myself this was a good idea, I’m grateful for the obsessive labeling habit I got into after helping with tornado clean up in high school and aunts, uncles and cousins who I hope will step in to help me correct and caption many of these images once I get them scanned and posted!
The thing is, this project isn’t just for me, or even for us. There’s a whole new generation of nieces and nephews having their first, second and third Christmases now. Their photo albums may be online instead of on the shelf. But the people, and the meaning, will be the same.
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Since moving to Phoenix, we’ve only been back to Kansas once – a lightening quick holiday tour of four cities where friends and family live, in wicked winter driving conditions and with an international flight out of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor to catch within hours of getting back to Arizona. It was a good but hardly thoughtful trip, a blur of hugs & faces & snow under that familiar big Midwest sky.
This time we flew back (thanks to an unbelievable sale on airfare). Cutting out four days of driving gave us more time, and there were fewer deadlines and less homework to keep track of.
Should it have felt like a trip home?
It didn’t.
As we drove through places so familiar, I felt recognition but not nostalgia. I realized that even as we pulled out in the U-Haul just over two years ago, the house my family owned for 20 years was already becoming past and I had to remind myself to take one last look in the side view mirror, in case I wanted that memory for later, just before we slid around the corner.
Today, I can show what matters most to me about Kansas in a single photo of my cousin’s bookshelf.
This is why, wherever I end up, I’ll be drawn back from time to time, making the drive or taking the flight.
And from now on, this is the time of year I want to visit. The green of summer is at its lushest, the rivers are high and the earliest fields are beginning to boast hay bales instead of faded corn. In a far more modest way than the flashy bright pinks and oranges of the desert sky, the sunsets can be spectacular.
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OK. Maybe there’s a little bit of nostalgia after all.
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| From instagr.am |
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain
Written in April 2010 by my mother, Ellen Kroeker, and shared here with her permission
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| They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. |
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The Ode comes from “For the Fallen,” a poem by the English poet and writer Laurence Binyon and was published in London in The Winnowing Fan: Poems of the Great War in 1914. This verse, which became the “Ode for the Returned and Services League,” has been used in association with commemoration services in Australia since 1921.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
We were at the Dawn Parade for ANZAC day today, a big occasion here. April 25 might be one of the most sacred days in New Zealand. While it is in honor of all service personnel, it is mostly a commemoration of Gallipoli, a devastating battle in Turkey during WWI, and an honoring of those who died there. Our friend (89, former British Royal Navy WWII and son of a man wounded in Gallipoli) wanted us to go with him and we did.
When the white haired men march behind the kilted pipes and drums through the dark autumnal morning, one can feel the ghosts of the slaughtered young men hovering around them. Surrounding them as they stand in a great circle for the service, families hold their babies, teenagers with poppies pinned to them jostle, albeit quietly , and one is aware that these are the descendents of those who served and connected to those who died. About 100,000 New Zealanders served in World War I out of a population of less than a million. The man in front of me, the woman beside me wiped tears throughout the service. The morning was mild and as they all marched away, first the old veterans, then some whose hair was not completely white and finally, bringing up the rear, the snappily dressed young ones, the rosy fingered dawn spread across the sky.
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
Gil, who grew up on Sunday night documentaries that extolled the heroism of those who fought in WWII and listened to his father’s stories from his time in the South Pacific during that war, always wanted to be on the side of the good guys, to fight the kind of people who were responsible for the Holocaust and for Pearl Harbor. These were the myths that he grew up with. There were no other narratives presented.
So the little Gil listened, learned, and when he grew up, he dedicated his life to being one of those good guys. But the enemies were shadowy and some seemed to be in his own government, the men of government who sent young men into the Vietnamese jungles for dubious purposes. It wasn’t a clean or clear war as WWII had seemed to be. Still, he had made a commitment and he had to meet his obligations.
1972 population map of Vietnam from Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
When he was presented with an alternative (if you go back to Vietnam, I’ll divorce you, said his then-wife; if you don’t go to Vietnam, we will court-martial you, said the Navy), he went to Vietnam and, back in the jungle, with hostile fire around him, he got his “Dear John” letter, informing him that the divorce was going ahead.
And when he returned to the States with his discharge papers much later, there were no parades, no heroes’ welcomes. He was no one’s hero. Change out of your uniform, he was advised. Try to travel incognito, as if no one would recognize a military haircut in the days of long-haired hippies. He opened his green footlocker and packed all the medals and citations away.
This week, Laurie, our older friend and the Royal Navy veteran, urged Gil to pull out the medals, pin them to his chest and march in the Dawn Parade. Gil said it wasn’t his military, it wasn’t his occasion. Laurie said, come on and Gil doesn’t easily say no to Laurie, this cheerful man who once introduced Gil to someone as his “other son.” So we got up at 5 am, and while Gil put his ribbons on, they were nearly undetectable under his jacket. Gil was introduced to others at the gathering place as former LT of the US Navy and welcomed as such.
Wellington, New Zealand - credit : Ellen Kroeker
The kilted bagpipers and drummers swung into place, and the white heads, male and female stood to attention under the instructions of a very quavering voice. They turned on command, the drums began, the pipes began a mournful tune, and, with fragmented step, they marched off to the town center and the cenotaph for the Dawn Service. There, among the Brits, the Maoris, the Scots with their family tartan colors, the Irish, marched one American, slightly uncomfortable, slightly at home, as always. Along the side of the marching column walked wives and husbands, children and grandchildren.
On one corner, a small boy was riveted by the parade of heroes.
photo credits : Fleur Phillips & James Pratley
Growing up my birthday always fell over spring break. My parents would take my brother and I to California, where we could see family from both sides – my mom’s sister and brother-in-law, my dad’s siblings and parents – and then there’d be a few days for just the four of us at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium or a funny little motel in Seattle, the city where my parents met and where I was born. As we made our way up the coast, each stop with relatives would mean a few presents and a different cake.
When I was 14, though, my school offered the opportunity to go to Rome for just over a week. I’d been dreaming of going “abroad” for longer than I could remember. There was no way I could say no.
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When we stepped off the last plane, the air was different. There were palm trees and mopeds, arches and pillars, fountains and ruins.
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I was addicted – I had a passport, and my life would never be the same.
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Ohope Beach, New Zealand (December 2010)
Musée Rodin & Louvre, Paris, France (May 2002)
rose garden in Vienna, Austria (June 2006)
chocolate, Lawrence, Kansas (2009)
When it comes to weather, Kansas is a bit unpredictable. I never counted on a white Christmas or even a cold Christmas and always figured I was flexible when it came to how the holidays “should” be. But spending the holiday season in New Zealand this year was confusing.
With the sun out and the beaches full of kids on holiday, there’s no trouble getting into the swing of summer. I can wear sandals, shorts and t-shirts walking to town and eat lunch on my parents’ back patio while the house’s doors and windows are all open to catch the breeze.
On the other hand, I could totally get into the holiday spirit just by reading in the living room next to our family’s tiny Christmas tree with white lace snow flakes, or when the kids the language school where my mom works learned to bake holiday pies.
The problem comes with doing both at the same time. Every time we turn on the radio or tv, there’s advertisements: “Do your holiday shopping during Farmer’s summer blowout sales!” “Get your Kiwi bloke a grill this holiday season!” “Spend your Christmas Eve at AC Baths – swimming, raffles, prizes!” Every time we watch tv, there’s commercials that just do not make sense to me.
I realized just how embedded some of my seasonal patterns are; I get little twinges when things don’t match up, whether it’s tourists who show up in July and complain about the cold or my mother referring to April as “last fall.”
Luckily, this complicated problem has a simple fix : there’s nothing more relaxing or more joyous than a family Christmas picnic at the beach.
Growing up in Kansas, the holiday season was always a time of intensity and stress. Big family gatherings meant lots of arrangements, presents and preparation, plus in our family of mixed religious backgrounds, we always ended up trying to celebrate a little bit of everything – but I never felt like we fully landed on anything.
When I went to college and my parents moved to New Zealand, all of this came to an end. Now the holidays were about the winter break from classes and long distance phone calls – definitely less stressful, but also less celebratory.
Now that the move has become semi-permanent, my parents decided that my brother and I should get one annual visit each and this year we’ve all ended up in the same place for Christmas again, albeit halfway around the world from where we used to be. It’s been odd to listen to Christmas music with the windows open for the breeze, or to walk down the block looking at holiday lights in shorts and sandals.
But there’s huge rewards for if you can make the “difficult” adjustment : it turns out there’s nothing more relaxing or more joyous than a family Christmas picnic at the beach.
This post has been entered into the Grantourismo HomeAway Holiday-Rentals travel blogging competition
The Air is Full of Spices 