Opening a Box from Hawaii

Sometimes life prevents us from getting out and about. Luckily when that happens, there are many “next best things!”

Ok, so they’re distant next best things to being on a tropical white sand beach yourself – but I’m working on the silver lining approach here, so bear with me. (I’m told that simply getting restless and setting off with my passport for parts unknown without warning or building up vacation days is bad for respectability and what not, so this is a necessary compromise.)

Anyway, being grounded myself I talked my mother into sending me treats from her trip which happened to be a first time visit to Hawaii. There was a geological conference that my dad was attending and she decided to join in and go exploring.

So onto the box. Classified ads can give intriguing little peeks at local life, but these newspaper sheets turned out to be primarily paid glossy ads that nobly did their job of protecting sweeter contents so that photo is mostly to build suspense. The main contents turned out to be a mix of Kiwi treats and Hawaii souvenirs.

As I’ve mentioned, my parents live in New Zealand. As they passed through Wellington, she snagged a keychain from Weta Workshop made of LOTR chain mail. This gift is for the the little girl who spent hours listening to her father read the books chapter by chapter and years later dragged him to Matamata because the hobbit village is now totally real. Also from NZ: pineapple lumps and an elusive Black Forest Cadbury bar.

For Hawaii, Mom honored my go-to souvenir or travel gift request which is the keychain (tiny! portable! even useful!) with a cute little ring of charms. She added fresh macadamia nuts and since neither of us can resist fabrics a sarong with bright, rich colors that I’ll take to the pool this spring under the bright Arizona sun. And she’s promised photos, too, when she has a chance to get them off of her camera.

Like guidebooks, travel shows and E.M. Forster’s A Room with A View, it all adds up to a welcome, vicarious taste of a place I hope to see someday through the eyes of someone who taught me to want to explore and to appreciate the details.

Plus, for some reason I can’t think about Hawaii without remembering my Middle East politics professor who taught us to say with the name a “v.”

So it’s a small, sweet box whose actual value lies not in the contents but the thoughts and the memories.

Mom writes that there’re more trips and conferences on the horizon – which I’m hoping will mean more boxes and more stories to share.

palm tree holidays (from NZ to AZ)

holidays then and now

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.

Red Rock Hiking Near Sedona, Arizona: a Thanksgiving Post

I’m grateful for a lot of things, but for this blog entry, I’ll just pick one to show you.

My parents came to visit last weekend – and since they’d already come about halfway around the world, we decided to go just a little further.

And then we headed home.

back to where it all was

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.

OK. Maybe there’s a little bit of nostalgia after all.

On behalf of a father’s daughter

My phone rang tonight with an unfamiliar area code, and from a noisy room, a woman’s voice came through : “I’m calling on behalf of Leonicio Delgado, who spoke to you this summer…”

It took me a few moments to understand.

“About his daughter, about Elizabeth?” I ask.

“Yes, about Elizabeth – he’s calling to see if you’ve heard any news, have you heard anything?”

Laura Elizabeth Delgado went missing over a year ago, in August 2009. She called her family from Nogales, Sonora and told them she would be crossing the border soon with her neighbor, Concepcion Tlatenchi. Concepcion also contacted her family just before they crossed.

No one has heard from either woman since.

I stumbled across this story learning about the border, the risks people will take to cross it – and what happens to their families.

Concepcion’s daughter called agency after agency looking for her mother before she turned to the press. She spent hours on the phone with me and sent me family photos by email before agreeing to let me visit her on the east coast. She also told me about Laura Elizabeth, and gave me Leonicio’s contact information.

I don’t speak Spanish – I say I’m working on it and I am, but it’ll be ages before I have the fluency to talk comfortably or do a thorough interview. But for people with common purpose, there’s always a network.

My phone call was answered by a family friend, whose email I trouble shot in exchange for help translating questions and answers that slid back and forth electronically until Laura Elizabeth’s story and then her photograph appeared on my laptop screen.

I finished the story, and told my editor I wanted the photographs to run as large as possible – they can never run too often or too large for me. If anyone responded with information, I promised the families I’d pass the information on.

I didn’t know what to expect – where the articles would run, who would see, who would care. I didn’t know if anyone knew anything. The desert doesn’t pick up the phone and call in.

And it’s been silent.

With other stories and assignments – and the rest of modern day life – competing to fill the gap, I’ve only thought about the story when people ask what I did this summer or what I’ll do next. It’s been far too easy to think of the project as complete because the edits are finished and the story hasn’t been picked up. It seems to float, motionless, on the site – static. Over.

But for Maria and Leonicio, it’s not. For Maria’s three children, her husband, her brother, her sister and their father, it’s not – just as it’s not over for Leonicio and Laura Elizabeth’s young daughter, who’s two or maybe three by now.

Tonight, Leonicio’s friend called me on his behalf from a noisy restaurant in New York, asking if I had news. Through the upbeat music in the background, I couldn’t help but picture the father who has missed his daughter ever since she didn’t arrive at his door.

I live with someone’s stories for a few hours, a few days, maybe, if I’m lucky, a few months. I won’t forget that you live with your story every day.

Concepcion Tlatenchi with her husband in Mexico

Laura Elizabeth Delgado before leaving Mexico

One day, four states

This year, winter break means two trips. The second I’ll be describing shortly, but the first (the one I’m on at the moment, actually, is about family, and friends (or fronds, as my phone would prefer me to type) and holidays. From start to finish, we’ll be in six states but I bet that our first day drive from Phoenix, AZ to Elk City, OK will be a tough record to beat.

A few short notes from the road:
On a roadtrip long, long ago, my mother mentioned that those blue shipping trucks with the yellow Werner logos remind her of her cousin. Now, whenever I see them I think of family, and they’re everywhere.

Here are the lights of Albuquerque, New Mexico. This was our first goal – we wanted to get at least this far. While it wasn’t that late when we passed through – maybe around 7pm – it had been this dark for at least an hour. Stopping was really, really tempting! But we pushed on…

When on a roadtrip one of the most important things is keeping your car in top gear. In our case we’ve been considering new tires for a little while now, so we’ve Steven’s been keeping a close eye on them. We started day 2 by topping off the air pressure in Elk City after a major breakfast lunch.

And finally, don’t forget to enjoy the stops along the way. While the goal is technically to end up where we began – a full circuit – we wouldn’t be making the trip in the first place if it wasn’t for the people we’ll be seeing along the way. At my aunt and uncle’s house, we frosted a large tray of tiny cookies before my cousins and their kids arrived for dinner. We had a really lovely stay (thank you!) and it was great to see everyone. For our route, see the Google map below, which may need to be zoomed out a bit.

Now we’re in Lawrence, where it was nearly snowing when we pulled in through a wintry haze, and after the dentist on Tuesday afternoon – the 6th state and holidays at Steven’s family. So… until the next entry, I’ll be focused on staying warm – and collecting road trip stories from you! Please hit the comments button and tell me about a road trip you’ve taken – it can be your last one, favorite one, or worst one, as long as you share!

Rosita’s Place

Steven and I discovered Rosita’s by chance when we visited in May. We were going in circles after a long day, not particularly optimistic day of apartment hunting. Something about this place caught our attention, and inside we found a cozy space with bright artwork and a pond complete with fountain and fish. The staff is great, and the food – amazing (but don’t just take my word for it). We vowed not only to come back but also to bring anyone who visits us – we’ve already managed to take two of my classmates, and somehow end up there at least once a month on a date. Favorite places like this are part of what turns a city into a home, and I’m glad I have pictures already. Hopefully there will be more taken at Rosita’s (and in Phoenix overall), and not just from next summer when I plan to take my parents on their visit. (They’ll be long past due – this sort of food food is one of the few things NOT available in Taupo, NZ)

Anyway, in a near-future post, I’ll be back to my informal photo categories with my most flexible imaginary category, “pictures of pictures” or POP. At first, I was going to include one Rosita’s picture in that larger post. Then, as I browsed through the last month’s material for that one good picture of Rosita’s, I found one and then another… and another… and another… And realized Rosita’s probably deserves a post of its own in more ways than one. And now, on to the photos…

From Phoenix (2009)

From Phoenix (2009)

Inheritance

Kaitaia

So wanderlust and itchy feet may not be the only thing I’ve inherited from my family.

Over the weekend, my parents flew from Taupo to Kaitaia – my dad took his friend’s plane up, and then took a Cessna 172 back, at times flying next to the Tecnam Sierra now flown by his friend.  This evening, my mother sent me these pictures, taken September 19-21.  I’ve been teased before about some of the things that always turn up in my photos, but looking at my mother’s, there’s definitely some similar subject matter.

There’s “process pictures” – in this case, pictures of gum collection, which I’m promised more information on later.

There’s “setting pictures” that try to describe the differences between spaces or things which exist everywhere – like houses, rooms, transportation, and restaurants – but vary from place to place.

There are pictures of other pictures, and pictures of things that catch our eye because of a name or number or pattern.

And finally, there are pictures taken out of the window – in this case, out the window of each plane on the way there on the way back.  In the last set, there are good shots of the Tecnam Sierra they flew on the way out.

This week, I’ll post examples of each from my pictures.