I am trying to write about a typical day in this land Georgia and my life here with out sounding like the 1000 page stream of consciousness book Ulysses by James Joyce. He just rambles on and on, covering twenty-four hours of Leopold Bloom’s life. I turned to writing as I had the same affinity to chatter on so and thought writing would sculpt my voice. This place and chapter I live to describe it I would have to write like Joyce. Things are so unformed here in this land. To describe a day would be like noise, noise like the tsunami rains here that belt us from the skies and then poof they stop. Or like the electricity which settles on us like and then just buzzes off again with no catalyst.
My writing all began when I was youngster. First with cranky letters to my mom when I was sent to my room for being naughty, then pleas of apology in efforts for early parole.
I was ironing this morning, on the wooden table in the sleep half of the house. There is no heat in this half of the house. The warmth of the iron and the very simple action of ironing just soothed me the way it soothed away the wrinkles. This very simple ritual gave me a gift. When I was little I begged my mom to teach me to iron and here in this far away land I am pressing my things. Doing the simple things that
Mom showed me, saying my bedtime prayers, having a cup of coffee. The phone rang and it was a volunteer from England. She like me is all sniffy and clogged from the weather, weary from these students who have never been given a protocol for behavior. We laugh about how we try to warm ourselves for sleep and all our seductress fantasies have succumbed to the ever-chilly wetness of autumn in Georgia.
During our training they made it very clear that only the gypsy folk wore mismatched clothes. This belief system seems entrenched in the psyche of Georgian woman as most wear only black. All looks very funereal here.
We speak of pressing garments and how her mother in one of her failed attempts to teach her to iron the clothes properly said, “I was a professional presser”
You see here as all places it is the simplest things that sustain us. We remember our deceased mothers and warm ourselves on memory.
These days here often have no touchstone, no reference. The young volunteers speak often of the randomness of Georgia.
It is random. Life here reminds me of the magical realism of writers like Carlos Castaneda, and Gabriella Garcia Marquez. I could never read them either. The narrative surreal. Like this land where I can never tell where dreams begin and the narrative ceased.
Many days here I wonder if I am in a dream. Am I a modern day tourist who has fallen in to Brigadoon? Are these hazy moors real?
In the last two days there has been much surrender, much wonder.
I am at some place of submission. I am at some moment of redemption.
I have poison ivy from frolicking about in a forest glen. I am relived it is not fleas or bed bugs. I go to the pharmacy, call an acquaintance. He speaks Russian, I speak nothing. (My Georgian is the most bastardized version of a language ever known to the human ear). I leave the pharmacy with a topical cream in hand with lovely little green icons of ivy on the box.
A Georgian man who likes to practice his English is having a birthday. I am his quest. Unlike most Georgians he has little family. his parents and grandparents are deceased. We eat magnificent food, Garmajos (make many toast to all life’s goodness and chapters) He is happy. I am happiest of all, as he will drive me home. No schlepping about on pungent, jarring marshuka mini vans that drag people and their goods about the land. (Very few people here have cars)
I am most blissful that he has taken me shopping to store up on water, which is too heavy for me to bring up the hill on my half-mile walk to the store. Water! We had been warned not to drink local water; as it makes many visitors ill. I feel like it is my birthday, like a metaphorical thirst in me has been quenched.
In these days the rains are ceaseless. Buckets are not a metaphor. From the heavens comes such wetness that the cows moan in complaint. I forever chilled, long for my creature comforts.
I must not complain. I watch my host Maya and all she does. (She is near forty; I am near sixty yet she is the mom.) She chastises me about no socks and urges me to eat green yucky food.
She lives these rains season after season. She adapts. She feeds the cows the corn she has shucked; she gathers the cobs to burn. I bring us bananas. She likes these. But she is hungry and all are eaten. Then she finds the bacon I have bought and tried to tuck away in the very sparse refrigerator. (It is common here to have a lock on the refrigerator. Food is valuable)
I come home from the damp school. The cats cry. Do they wail about the rain? No they smell the cooking of the bacon. Maya has found the bacon! The bacon has been fried with potatoes and onions and served to me on a platter. With the comment “Chama, Chama” (Eat. eat)
There is no lack, but in perception.
I wish I had more time to chat on the phone with this heart mate woman from England who was bold enough to say yes to new love. Yes to a new land. Yes to a new work. Yes to a new friend. In this land where there are ten ways to say yes and only one way to say no she lives the language. I want to tell her more about my mom. My mom was right. She was always right. I was too often wrong.
I was naughty like Goldilocks. Pootooy I would say to anything I was told not to do. I was like these Georgian students. Ebullient and unrestrained. I like Maya was hungry often. I would eat all the bananas and such. One time I wanted chocolates. I lied to my mom about needing school supplies. She searched her own threadbare pockets to find me a dime. She told me as she gave it to me she said, “God always provides”
Perhaps this land is not at all random. Perhaps my perceptions are stymied. Perhaps it is an adventure where I live mom’s admonishments of God’s provisions.
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