Dr Baker

Last week I went to the dentist for the first time in nearly a decade.
I was terrified.

But Dr. Baker is no ordinary dentist. He spent an hour and a half talking to me about my teeth, my gums, the irreversible damage of my zealous over-brushing, and why using a toothpick is number one on his list of good hygiene. He complimented my professionally-straightened smile and sniffed the white fuzz, aka plaque, coming off my teeth. 'Wow! Not even a scent! You've got the best-smelling bacteria I've ever encountered!' His laugh is reminiscent of an animal's happy snort at meal-time. When I groaned about flossing, he merrily chimed, 'You don't have to floss. We can pull every other tooth, and then, no flossing necessary!'

After this initial appointment, in which he painstakingly explained my X-rays, the anatomy of the tooth, and why ballroom dancing is an act of spiritual worship, I returned two days later for a cleaning. Again, he was impressed. As he began round one (of three) with the tooth scalpel, he marveled at how little tartar had built up over all these years (the perk of my vigorous brushing which, if continued unabated, would eventually wear the enamel down to the nerve). When he came to those sensitive places, he instructed me to let him know if I felt ANY pain whatsoever; he is so concerned about hurting his patients that he takes a half-hour walk after each appointment, to de-stress.

Dr. Baker sees only three people a day. He has no secretary, and answers all phone calls himself. He refuses to hurry. 'You're the most important thing in my life right now,' he says as he gently brushes my teeth, and he means it. He does not accept insurance, charges the lowest prices in the county, and genuinely loves his practice. His office is cluttered with paperwork, photos of him and his 'sweetie,' and a stereo that plays soothing classical music. Even though he is razor-science-sharp, often referring to the periodic table that hangs on the wall, it is his roomy heart that is most impressive.

After I paid him the discounted $40 (for having easy-to-scrape teeth), he congratulated me on my upcoming wedding to M (whose teeth he knows well).

'I've seen the Grand Canyon,' he said, 'and Yosemite Falls when they are roaring. But nothing compares to the beauty of a bride on her wedding day.'

Full Circle

Seven years ago, a 24 year-old girl drove her dusty blue Volvo up through the straw-gold hills of Sonoma County for the first time. Already she loved the reliable sunshine and the fortune-scented air. She knew she could stay awhile.

She'd driven over the Golden Gate Bridge in such a state of awe that she'd immediately exited, turned around, and headed back over it, driving right through the alarming toll stop that demanded five dollars to enter San Francisco. With a Vermont license plate and a giddy invincibility, she soared down to the Marina beach to sift her fingers through the cold sand.

She had directions to take the Rohnert Park/Sebastopol exit, drive a ways down highway 116, turn right not too long after the Hard Core coffee shop. She guessed her new house-mates, a 60-something fading beauty queen and a 20-something Japanese journalist, would be nice. She hoped they'd give her space to unpack and settle immediately into her new room. The only way she knew how to land was with both feet, firmly planted.

Approximately seven minutes after pulling into the driveway of the pink bungalow house, she was on the cordless phone to her mother, her voice tear-shaken. She couldn't pinpoint what she didn't like exactly, but as soon as she walked into her new room, with only one window and a noxious Glade-scented air freshener plugged into the wall, she wanted to walk back out. It would take two months for her to find a studio of her own, high white walls and silver-sleek carpeting and the sunshine forever nosing in.

Those were blissful discovery times. The winding country wine roads smelling of tart cherries and sweet grass. The blazing heat giving way to a dry sun-down coolness she'd never felt before. The creeping night-time fog and nutty thrift store where she found a child's desk painted cream and red. The quiet Sebastopol nights, eating dried squid with Rio, making fun of bossy Gloria. Foxy, her vanilla-scented Volvo, taking her to the coast---saltwater taffy and gloomy chill and yet the Pacific more stunning than the Atlantic any day.

On campus at SSU, the late summer smelled of spice, a steady simmer. She gulped the evening air and got to her classes early. She lingered afterward to chat with her new cohort. Grad school felt like college all grown up, adults who wrote papers in the interim between work and cooking dinner for their kids. She'd stop for tacos on the way home, unlock her door and immediately turn on her new lap-top. Quick bites between mad typing, deleting, daring. The professor read her essay aloud to the class.

She thought maybe she could become a teacher AND a writer.

Silly Bus

A week of hectic nightmarish frantic syllabus-writing/perfecting/copying culminated in my first class yesterday. I told the 27 shiny eager freshman comp students to bring that syllabus to class every day, never lose it, my work of art. They could never understand the painstaking care I put into formatting that eight page monster. The relentless proof-reading and re-wording, not to mention planning out an entire semester's worth of readings, essays, and workshops, when I am used to a more organic blend of vision and spontaneity. Whew.

Thursday morning at 8:00, in a third floor windowed classroom bright with coastal fog, those wide-eyed teenagers could not know that I sat on my living room floor, carefully collating each 8 page packet. That at 10:00 the night before, in the warm inky moonlit, I walked downtown to Kinko's to staple each of them. That at 5:00 that morning, I woke with a heart-thump, remembering the poem that I had, in my syllabus-induced madness, forgotten to photo-copy, and that, according to the syllabus, had to be read by our next class. That I crawled out of bed at 6:52, numb with wakefulness and nerves. That I retrieved my leather teaching bag from the top shelf of the closet, poured my iced coffee into a travel mug, kissed the eye-masked M good-bye, and headed downtown, back to Kinko's. Spent three bucks on 27 copies of the “Wussy Boy Manifesto.”

There are other concerns. Will the textbook arrive by Monday, in time for them to do their first assignment? Will they have looked up the word “manifesto” in the dictionary? Is that guy really using his laptop to assuage his learning disability, or will I catch him on Face-book?

But I can relax now. First class went well. Everyone was on time, or, shockingly, even early. They raised their hands to ask questions. They nodded when I explained the difference between revision and editing. Two of them even stayed after class, to say they are excited about English 101. And, thanks to the syllabus, next week is already planned out. Too easy.

Oh what a fortnight it's been

Home from my travels for two weeks now. Glorious lit-up days, swimming trips to the river, refurbishing old furniture, watching my garden grow. Late afternoon lunches and twilight dessert. Thirty sweaty minutes at the YMCA with a forbidden People magazine. My days spin about on a charmed axis. And yet---that little cretin, anxiety, ever lurking, ever resentful of peace, comes a-trouncing. She whispers to me. Shouldn't you be working on your syllabus? Planning your English classes? Writing brilliant essays about Cuba that The New York Times will trip over themselves to pay you for? Shouldn't you be doing... more?

I wake up in fog and while I wait for the sun to poke through, I lament being home. On the road, I should only ever be doing what I'm doing. I scribble in my dusty journal and I dream large. I let myself sit by a body of water without figuring out how to get across it. I get misty-marveled at the immensity of time, never cowed by its fervent passage.

I travel to escape anxiety, that aggressive little bitch who is never satisfied until she gets a bite out of my heels. She wants me to worry sick over my English 101 class at SSU, teaching college kids, oh my; I want to celebrate with wild dance moves that make my wood floor creak. She wants me to obsess over my syllabus until the letters run together; I want to assign Matt Groening's “School is Hell” and make cookies. She wants me to believe that I'm a pretender; I want to stop pretending.

Yes--- I miss being on the go, carrying everything I need in my back-pack, with all its secrets pockets and zippered pouches. Every last thing, from the extra batteries to the Bubble Yum, nestled in its exact place. I miss wandering into a cafe and hoping for good espresso. But I would be lying if I didn't admit to you (to myself) that I travel, really, so that I can come back home and start anew. Confident in my own powerful rhythm.

Seeds

Strawberries and yogurt!
Fresh greens, home-cooked pasta sauce and garlic salad dressing!
Clean, soft sheets!
Friends! Sweet, loving friends!
A quiet little neighborhood and a cozy house!
Biking in the noon-time sun!

These are just a few reasons why coming home is so lovely.
It's all so... easy.

And inspiring. This I know--- I am most on fire with artistic prowess, most aware of my creative potential, least afraid of failure and humiliation, when I have just returned from my summer travels. After weeks of reading and simmering ideas in the inky juices of my journal, I'm ready to make stuff! I'm relaxed and confident and brimming with ambition.

I spread my treasures out on the kitchen table---shells, feathers, coins, an amber bottle, candles, ticket stubs, currency, maps, newspapers, all the found and collected spoils, the containers of memory and experience. I survey my photos, hundreds of them, on the computer screen.

I have a new set of eyes for an old piece of writing, and in two days I spin the straw into something silkier and submit it to a bad-ass Zine. I paint an old wooden wine container bright blue and pink, the zygote of an altar/shrine that's been on my mind for awhile now.

I (along with M) dig into the garden, plant begonias, gardenias, impatiens, daisies, and flowers whose names are not as stunning as they are. We also plant three new beds of vegetables---kale, chard, onions, beets, arugula, chives, broccoli, parsley, and an intimidating amount of lettuce. We buy a pineapple at Grocery Outlet and remember Cuba. Our back-packs spill their crusty clothes onto the living room floor and the recycling bin fills up. Home for just a few days now, I am savoring this interim of play, when a Monday means... practicing chords on the piano, starting some hand-sewn curtains, and letting the sun shine inside.

Travel Song

Sometimes travel is hard.

Sometimes it´s endless waiting in lines, delayed flights, lumpy pillows, weird tropical rashes, lobster that tastes like salty pleather, bored waiters who laugh at you, a squeaky chirp that starts around 6 am. Damn cute-looking bird. Sometimes travel is like the day we arrived at Playa del Estes, hopes high, the great yawning void of the unknown wide open with possibility. Who knows where we´ll stay? How we´ll get there? Who cares?

An hour of walking later, our guidebook´s "diamond-dust sand" acrawl with thousands of vacationing Cubans, the soul-crushing beats of Reggaetone mocking our search for peace and quiet, not a casa in sight, and a loud smack of thunder. M´s backpack is chafing him, my sandals are coming apart beneath my feet, and though the rain feels good, we do not want our money, passports, cameras, and ipods to get soaked. M curses my stubbornness, I curse the hungry mosquitoes, as we huddle under a tree, sweat mixing with hot rain mixing with fear. Less than 24 hours later we are on the standing-room-only public bus headed back to Havana, our tummies aching from the previous night´s UFOs (Unidentifiable Fried Options).

Redemption comes in many forms.

A sunset walk on the Malecon, unbroken ocean to the right, Havana´s balconies and French-shuttered homes aflame in gold and pink to the left.

An unexpected pink-marbled casa with real water pressure.

Pineapple pinwheels, mischief-making involving the CDR (Committee for the Defense of the Revolution) and a poster, the moon from our rooftop.

Handing out cheap plastic whistles to the kids of Cuba, swarms of them with out-stretched hands and loud GRACIAS!, their piercing cries following our retreating footsteps for miles.

A little boy who tosses a bucket of bath-water from his balcony, a naked still-wet precocious giggle, which just misses us.

His surprise as we toss a whistle up to him in return.

And M, the newer traveler, more sensitive to the stony stares and jack-hammer craziness of unplanned budget traveling in high summer: happy to get back to Mexico City, where the air is cooler, the smiles are more plentiful, and the pianos are unlocked. Our first morning back on the mainland he treated the cafe patrons to his beautiful renditions of Summertime, Imagine, and the Darth Vader theme song. They applauded. And then Lacha, a Cuban artist who lives in Mexico, gave M a portrait he´d sketched on the paper placemat, by way of thanks.

Mi Abuela

Grandma always insisted she was from Madrid. She never spoke about her native Cuba, never told stories about growing up on this long crocodile island. Her name was Maria Elena Delgado. She never learned to drive, she washed dishes with scalding hot water, and her wedding ring had long since grown into her finger, never to budge. She had a temper like a firecracker. She used to say, Jessica, don't tell Sara or Courtney, but you're my favorite grand-daughter. Then she'd watch John and I shoot baskets outside in her driveway. Nearly a month here in this sweltering country and she has been on my mind.

I don't even know where she grew up. When I tell people, in my crumbled Spanish, that mi abuela was from Cuba, their eyes grow wide. Si! Si, they say, your smile, your brown skin, you look like a Cubana! And even though they don't say it, I can tell what they are thinking: Why don't you speak Spanish then? How can you not know where she came from? She is family!

Still, I feel her everywhere.

In the fiery woman screaming at her son on the sidewalk (and there's Grandma, shouting at Grandpa, calling him a criminal! for some minor infraction that was over as quickly as it started)

In the great restless waves off the coast of Baracoa, tossing me just hard enough to make my heart quicken without panic (I can't quite recall her story of the sea, but I know it involved her being dragged out and nearly drowned and she never swam again)

In the generosity of the older women whose homes we stay in (many of whom are named Maria Elena). Just yesterday we received free espresso, ice cream (strawberry of course) and cake.

In the way you know people are just telling you what you want to hear, not because they are liars necessarily, but because in Cuba the truth has acrobatic qualities. We've learned the hard way there is no such thing as a reservation here. (and, again, Grandma, serving us her special home-made soup, though the Campbell's can pokes out of the trash)

Aye Dios Mio! Oh My God! she would exclaim, and now I know why. So many reasons, both good and bad, to take that name in vain here:

M and I swimming beneath a rainforest waterfall, so cool and delicious after a grueling hot hike.

We ride in a 1949 Chevrolet (so many old cars, like I've never ever seen) to a 200 year old colonial house where we get to stay for about 25 dollars.

The incessant Where are you from?--- the hustlers who see dollar signs in our eyes and won't take no for an answer.

The rivers of urine on the streets of Carnaval; the sheer beauty of life in the kids screaming from their 1950s rides as they eat cotton candy at Carnaval.