The Last Three Weeks

The new name is still coming, but it's been a flood of happenings back in the US of A. So many in fact, that I'm going to list the events and write more later.

1. I hung out in a Sports Bar on my first night back and saw some major business stooges.
2. The 25th Annual Maple Syrup Fest at the Indian Creek Nature Center went on. The weather was fantastic and I got to practice my interpretive skills while talking about Pioneer methods for sugaring.
3. I talked at CR's Daybreak Rotary Club. Fun group.
4. Mom, Dad, and I ventured to Cantril, IA, and enjoyed shopping in an Amish general store where you can buy anything under the sun.
5. I caught up with random friends and dogs (who don't have fleas).
6. Dan left for a month long trip to Europe, the Mid-East, and Africa. We liked to say Mom and Dad got one kid back safely only to have another go abroad.
7. I got a new cell phone and it's amazing.
8. Cedar Rapids now sells some New Belgium brews. This is a big step.
   
9. I began the journey west to much emotions about leaving home and heading home.
10. Carly greeted me with open arms in Lincoln, NE. We had fun meeting her grad school friends and I was reminded of how ridiculous grad school is. I was also reminded of how amazing micro brews are.
    
11. I made a marathon trip across the enormous state of Nebraska and arrived in South Dakota.
12. Matt showed me around Rapid City, including the Firehouse restaurant and treated me to some home brews.
13. Jewel Cave had free cave tours so I went spelunking.
    
14. Matt arranged a tour up behind Mount Rushmore's heads. A view few have seen.
15. I unwisely decided to try driving in hopes of clearer roads west. The result: I crashed my car by Sundance, WY. I am fine, however, and the car is in the process of getting fixed.
16. Matt picked me up from Sundance and brought me back to Rapid City.
17. I learned what State Troopers do and how to run the sirens in their cars.
18. I rode in a tow truck and learned what makes a good, high quality tow truck.
19. I found some advantages of only having liability insurance including cheaper tows. That's about it tho.
20. A waitress named Bobby at the Aro in Sundance asked if I was a hitch hiker while the other waiters and waitresses correctly assessed that I had wrecked my car. The funny thing about the waiters and waitresses was all the young ones were emo. How does that happen in a little town?
    
21. I reconnected with Sandi, Dave, and Grandma O. Fox the cat seems to be okay with my presence.
    
22. Matt and I explored downtown Rapid City, SD, including stopping at the Nature Conservancy to visit Bob, getting Matt's haircut at his ridiculously cool salon called the Factory, walking Art Alley, drinking coffee, exploring Prairie Edge, and checking out the random counter culture shops like Ernie November and Global Market.
23. We walked to the Stratobowl and learned how people fly weather balloon-esque balloons there because it's a perfectly protected valley so it's not very windy.
    
24. I had the best St Patrick's Day ever which involved good company, corned beef and cabbage, green beer, car bombs, fooze ball, pool, AND getting jiggy with it.
25. Yellowstone has kindly said that I can start work pretty much a week late since I crashed my car.
26. I'm reflecting about the loss of my capability to put two and two together.
27. Matt and I learned how very white we are. Check it out: Stuff White People Like
    

Welp, that's the short and narrow of it. Probably there will be a few good posts about this in the not so distant future. In the mean time, enjoy contemplating the busy few weeks of America I've been enjoying.

Winter Symbols

There is something in the cold comfort of bare oak trees that will forever nourish me. Throughout my childhood growing up in the bitter cold of Iowa winters, the rasping grey-brown branches of the white oak symbolized life changing. Every season the trees would display some new miracle. In spring time pollen falling in long worm-shaped spirals would sink in rain puddles where I would fish them with Jeffery. Rich green leaves crowned the canopy in the long humid months of summer. In the fall, rust brown leaves would spin from the sky for us to rake into piles and drag into the backyard. Winter exposed the bare branches and coated them in layers of white, billowing snow.

Oak trees are one of the most familiar and homey trees I have experienced. Although I love the trees of Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, nothing, not even the changing tamarack, seems to connect to so much of my life as the oak tree. Growing up on the border between the oak savanna and the tall grass prairie, oak trees older than the Civil War graced the surrounding hills. On windy days, I would play in the yard imagining I was conducting the trees to play the soft whooshing sounds their leaves made when playing with the breeze. Down the street a hillside of oak trees cooled the summer days and created a miniature wilderness in the midst of our neighborhood. The Nature Center brought together the subtle lines of prairie and oak savanna in a picturesque union of golden fields and brown-green limbs on the Cedar River flood plain.

When I landed in New York City to spend Christmas with my family, the first thing that registered with me was seeing in the darkness the naked winter trees of my youth. I knew when I crossed the river to New Jersey the hillsides would be covered with this wintery symbol. I welcomed the trees, the cold, the grey winter sky, and the brown land into my heart even as those winter symbols drew me back home. For, in Guatemala, the resolute tropical atmosphere, humidity, and overly green 5,000 foot hills, always give me the crawls. It just does not feel right that there is a consistency and never-changing environment around me. I need the cold, the sweaters, the winter light, and the hope of coming spring. Here in Central America, I feel decidedly uncomfortable about the climate (although it’s nice to be warm) for its lack of change, never-falling leaves, and constant unfamiliar and overwhelming green.

In Guatemala, the months hardly seem to vary and there is little seasonal change to look forward to as I cross off the days on the calendar. December in Iowa, Idaho, and New Jersey means cold, the longest night of the year, Christmas, and returning light. December in Guatemala seemed to mean constant fireworks, consistent temperature, posadas, and Gallo Christmas trees. I hardly realized Christmas was approaching here without the seasonal traditions of cookie baking, tree scavenging and decorating, and catching up with home. What is Christmas here? I never learned.

Seeing the bare limbs of the deciduous trees and the ice on Cedar Lake, feeling the warmth of family, and enjoying the spirit of the season through Christmas carols, caresses, and compassion, I felt safe and whole again for the first time in six months. What a remedy to months of solitude. The wintery symbols were all I needed to feel complete again.