Amy Boatman

The Longest Two Weeks of My Life

The movers are at my house right now taking away all the boxes and various things that I’ve busted my butt to get ready. My last day at work was September 28 and it’s been nonstop work since then. It is just amazing the amount of stuff you accumulate. I went through everything that first week after quitting my job to decide what to sell. We had already decided to get rid of a lot of stuff. Moving to a new city, new state, may as well start over with new stuff.

So, I started going through the house room by room. I felt like I was back at Kmart having a blue light sale. “Everything must go!!!” Rhonda had used the back bedroom as her office/studio and it was filled with the products of 10 years worth of hobbies. She went down a lot of creative paths before she found her current passion, knitting, so there was a multitude of various items in that room. She had gone through there before we left for Seattle back at the beginning of September. Since she wasn’t coming back, I wanted her to tell me how much everything should cost. Our crafty friends came out the weekend before the sale and bought everything they wanted. We gave them a really good deal.

Part of the process of going through everything was also hauling it up to my parents house where we were having the sale. They have the most amazing house. It’s a giant barn with the house built inside. They spent an entire year during nights and weekends and assorted days off building it mostly themselves. My brother was a huge help too. Rhonda and I just showed up occasionally to ooh and ahh. Anyway, they have an enormous front porch that turned out to be perfect for the sale. My dad has this giant trailer that he brought down to my front door so I could begin loading stuff up. It was a family effort getting it all up there. My mom and dad helped so much and my brother showed up just in time to help move the heavy couch and the bulky armoire.

The area that took the most work was our shed. This was our junk drawer only on a much larger scale. If we didn’t know what else to do with it, we put it in the shed. Now most of this stuff, we had no desire to keep. We just didn’t know what else to do with it. After pulling it all out onto the yard, I soon realized that our keep pile was gonna be tiny. Sure enough. Out of the entire shed, we kept four boxes full of Rhonda’s papers, one set of shelves, a stand for my drum, and two wooden boxes my grandpa had made. Everything else went onto the trailer. It doesn't rain all the much here during the summer but sure enough, as soon as I had everything piled out on the lawn, the storm clouds began to gather. I raced around throwing things onto the trailer desperately hoping to beat the rain because we don’t just have a bit of rain. We have downpours that completely soak everything. Some of the stuff I had painstakingly pulled out of tool shed would ruin if it got wet. I’m sure I was funny to watch, heaving boxes and various items over the side of the trailer. As I got the last thing tossed on, I could see the rain coming. It poured in sheets from the big black clouds bearing down on me.

I hopped into the pickup, hoping I could get the trailer in my parents’ garage before the rain hit. My dad’s farm truck is this old Ford manual transmission. The driver’s door has to be opened a certain way or it gets stuck. I momentarily forgot that in my haste and was left jerking on the useless door handle, cussing a blue streak. And then I remembered, pushed the handle in the right way, and voila it opened easy peasy. Once in the truck, I stalled it three times before I got the right mixture of gas and clutch to make the beast move. The rain was coming up the field behind me as I drove the 500 feet to my parents’ house. Luckily they have a drive through garage so I was able to just pull it straight on in. Not two seconds after the back of the trailer cleared the door, the downpour caught up and within moments, the ground was soaking wet. I had made it!

We started the sale on Friday morning with three and a half trailer loads of stuff. To say the sale was a success would be an understatement. By the time it was all said and done, we had made almost a $1000 and only had about 2/3 of a trailer left. My dad hauled it up to the Crisis Center and we gave it to them. It had been a lot of effort but it had certainly been worth it.

The other really good thing about the sale was that now only stuff I was keeping was still in my house. Well, that turned out to not be entirely true. By the time I’m done today, I’ll have another load to take to the Crisis Center. Another hazard I discovered of living in the house as you’re packing it up was that I kept packing up things I actually needed to use. I packed up all the dishes and then dang if I didn’t leave me anything to eat off of. So, there are a few boxes I have packed and repacked a couple of times. I also had trouble with the things I may need on my trip. I packed up all my clothes and then realized it was colder where I was going than it is here, so I had to unpack and pull out some pants. I also had to realize this stuff won’t be at our house in Seattle for 10-15 days. So what I pack is what I’ll have to wear until the end of October. Hopefully, it’ll be enough. I only have so much room in the car.

Adventure #2 (or whatever) took place yesterday. I took all four critters to the vet. I figured it’d be a trial run for when I take them with me to Seattle. I put Shadow and Sparky in one carrier and R.J. by himself in the other one. Since R.J. and Sparky don’t get along, I figured it was the best way to go. Pachelbel sat up in the front seat. They were surprisingly easy to handle. The only glitch was Shadow throwing up on the way home. Now they all have their shots, Sparky got treated for ear mites, and Pachelbel came up clean for heart worms. They’re all ready to go. The vet told me to give them Benadryl if they got car sick so that definitely goes on the grocery list.

Once the movers get done, I’m going to finish up here in the house and move on to the next task. Pachelbel is in bad need of some grooming if she’s gonna hang out in my car for a week so we’re taking her to Petsmart to get all dolled up. I had wanted to go see my uncle but it’s just not gonna happen. Since I’m leaving on Monday, I’d like to have one day to rest before I go.

I can’t believe it’s this close. It seemed like it would be forever when we first decided to do this. Now I’m only three days away from leaving Texas and starting a new life in Seattle. I miss Rhonda so much and I can’t wait to see her. I think that has been the hardest part. Being away from her for so long. In just a week, I’ll get to see her again. And when the movers arrive, I get to do all this again in reverse. But Rhonda will be helping on that end! I also told her she can’t give me a hard time about not having a job for at least two months. I need a break!

My New Tattoo

My grandparents were very important to me. I was an only grandchild and they doted on me. They both died last year. Since I’m leaving Texas to move to Seattle next week, I wanted to take a little part of them with me. When I was a kid, they had a CB radio. Our handles were Mama Rat, Papa Rat, and Baby Rat. The Rat Pack. My buddy Bart did this tattoo for me in honor of them. The little cowboy outfit was my favorite one and Grandpa was always doing crossword puzzles. It turned out bigger than I thought but I love it. It covers half the outside of my left leg.

The Things We Keep

I have moved several times in my life. Each time, I’ve had varying degrees of stuff. When I first left my parents home, everything I owned fit in my little Ford Pinto station wagon. Over the years, I accumulated more things but it seems that every time I moved, I got rid of a lot. By the time I got married, the two of us had a bunch of stuff. We have furniture, dishes, linens, cookware, pictures, knick knacks. All manner of things. Now since my granny died, I also have a set of china and some crystalware. We plan on getting rid of lots of this stuff but I think we’re still going to end up with more than we think we will.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is that one box we all seem to carry from place to place. Everyone has it. The box (or whatever you use to store it in) that contains those things we don’t really need anymore but just can’t seem to get rid of. Every once in a while, usually when moving, we open up that box and take a walk through memory lane. That’s the real purpose for that box, after all. It’s not that we want to keep these things per se. It’s that we don’t want to forget the times these items represent.

I have decided to get rid of my box. I’m moving to Seattle. Opening a new chapter in my life. Making the biggest move of my life. Now is a good time to leave that box behind. It is an odd assortment of random items collected over the past 39 years.

There’s the Budman. He was the superhero that Budweiser came up with in the late 60s/early 70s. He’s a funny looking man with a jaw bigger than Jay Leno and menacing dark eyes. His Nerf-material body wears painted on red, white, and blue clothes. Around his neck is a stiff plastic red cape. Chunks have been gouged out of his arms and nose from the many years spent bouncing around in this box with the other paraphernalia of my youth. He smells like burnt insulation and crackles when you press too hard. Why have I kept him? When I was born, my father delivered beer for Budweiser. His occupation listed on my birth certificate is Keg Man. So, Budman represents that part of my childhood when my father still brought me gifts. The time before he turned away and found himself a new family. 

There’s a brown intricately carved jewelry box. I think it belonged to my great-grandmother but then again we may have gotten it at a garage sale when I was a kid. I don’t remember. It once had a lock but I lost the key and had to twist it off. Inside are notes passed from the hands of my friends while I was in high school. The majority of them are just “Mrs. Laird is sooo boring” and “Billy is soo cute” type notes. A few of them deal with darker, heavier issues. “My dad got drunk and hit Mom again last night. Can I stay at your house?” “I think I might be pregnant. Will you go to the doctor with me?” There’s also notes from a boy I thought I liked. We were discussing going to some dance. That was when I was trying to fit in and pretend I liked boys instead of admitting the truth: I liked my friends a whole lot more. Why have I kept these notes? Maybe because they represent an innocence I have since lost. They are the musings of children who no longer exist. I’m not the same girl who read those notes secretively under the desk, trying to keep the teacher from seeing. That girl has since been lost or perhaps sloughed off by the emerging adult I became. Maybe that is why I keep the notes. To remind myself of who I once was. 

Down at the bottom of the box is a sticker. It’s red with white and blue lettering. Inside the shape of Texas are the words “Emergency Medical Technician.” I bought this sticker at the cop shop in Austin. The store had a locked security door with a camera mounted at the top. I hit the red call button then held up my ID to the camera. A low buzz indicated I had been chosen to enter. Once inside, the aroma of gun oil was almost over powering. A glass enclosed room contained more rifles and handguns than I had ever seen in one place. Off to the left were racks of clothes, boots, and bullet proof vests. Over to the right were shelves full of leather or vinyl accessories for the well dressed cop. Amongst all these bristling symbols of authority, I found the two sets of shelves I came looking for. Here was the medic gear. Scissors, little flashlights, trauma shears, and Spanish to English translation books filled the shelves. A plastic bin contained the sticker I had coveted for over a year. I pulled out my prize and took three of them to the counter. “I just got my EMT yesterday,” I proudly proclaimed to the heavyset, sweaty man behind the counter. “Well good for you, little lady,” he told me in a big, booming voice. Back outside, I cleaned off the upper right corner of my back windshield and placed my sticker there for all to see. I was so proud, it’s a wonder I didn’t burst. That was 1990. I went on to become a paramedic and work for Austin EMS. It was my dream. Now, the dream having ended in disillusionment and resentment, I’ve decided to get rid of that sticker. It’s a symbol of a world I once believed in but now see doesn’t really exist. Or maybe it’s that my idea of that world wasn’t realistic in the first place. Either way, the sticker has no place in my life anymore. 

Do any of us really need to keep that box? Is it useful to have these reminders of days long gone or is it a weight that keeps us mired in the past? I’d have to say, at least for myself, it’s a little of both. Sometimes I like to be reminded that I once thought who was going to be chosen homecoming queen was important. That I had such small cares at one time. Another part of me wants to cut all that adrift. Let it become one of those amorphous images that occasionally flutters into my conscious. 

I love metaphors and this box is one of the greatest metaphors of my life. This is all the stuff I’ve been carrying around. All the joy and happiness but also all the heartache, longing, hardship, and pain. I think it’s time to empty the box. Everything I need is held inside my heart. Everything else is just excess baggage.

The Stress Has Begun

In just five days, Rhonda will fly out of Texas for the last time as a resident. We are going to Seattle for my Breast Cancer 3 Day walk as we had planned long before we decided to move. I’ll fly back on September 12th but Rhonda will stay up there. She’s starting to get very stressed. So much to do, so little time. Today she sold her car. It was kinda sad. That car was her last physical link to her dad. We made a visit to the cemetery to visit his grave. This weekend, we’ll be packing up everything of hers, especially the boxes I’ll be shipping to her. It’s gonna be a hectic few days but then it’s vacation, vacation, vacation!!!

And the Adventure Begins

In just a little under two weeks, my partner and I went from being content living in Texas to becoming Seattle transplants. I wanted a place to chronicle our journey. Hence, the birth of this blog. Join me as we pick up and move our lives, our three cats and one dog, and move to Seattle. It should be one heck of a ride.

Tribute to my Grandparents

Some years are better than others...

2006 was a hard year for me.

My grandpa died suddenly in June and then my granny died in November.

My grandparents were extremely important to me. I was there only grandchild. They had two sons and only one of them had any children. They loved me wholeheartedly and unconditionally. My grandpa loved me in his own way but he always had such a hard time showing it. He was a bit of an ass up until the last five years. Recently he had mellowed and became easier to be around. I will forever be grateful that we got that time to get closer.

My granny, on the other had, never had any trouble expressing her love. She was my comfort, my rock, and my cheerleader. She was consistenly my favorite person. There was never any of the angst and conflict there was with my mother. There was just love. I don't have any negative memories of her. The last five months after my grandpa died, she became pretty dependent. I got to do for her just like she had done for me my whole life. I got to be the caretaker. The last day of her life, I got to take her to the beauty parlor where she saw all her beauty parlor friends. She got her hair done and felt really good. Then we went to Denny's for breakfast. When I left her, she was sitting on the couch watching TV just like always. That's how I I remember her. I got to have 38 years with her which is longer than most people get with their grandmothers. I will never have any one who loved me like she did. I will miss her my whole life.

I will miss them both.

My Granny

I have been told my whole life about my granny running to put me in my crib when she saw my parents' headlights and then telling them she hadn't been holding me all night. My first memory is of lying on the floor of my bedroom crying hysterically because she and grandpa had just left. For as long as I can remember she has been my favorite person. Being the only girl in the family, she always tried to dress me up in frilly dresses. Hat, gloves, tights, frilly dress, frilly socks, patent leather shoes, the whole bit. I hated wearing that stuff. So, as much as she wanted me to dress like that, she did what I wanted instead. She bought me a pair of red cowboy boots, red jeans, a blue shirt and a red vest. I even had a red hat and cap pistols. I loved that outfit. I have always loved that she never tried to fit me into a mold but just let me be how I wanted to be.

I remember sitting on her lap with my ear against her chest listening to her talk to Meme. I don't know what they were saying but just the sound of her voice made me feel so safe and loved. She loved me more than I even know probably. And she spoiled me rotten too. She could never so no to me. And I did exploit it a little when I was much, much younger.

I was so blessed to get to be there for her these last five months since grandpa died like she was there for me my whole life. As much as they fought when he was alive, she felt his absence immensely. She was never the same after he died. I got to spend Thursday morning with her. She hadn't been able to go to the beauty parlor for a while since she couldn't drive and I worked Monday through Friday. But Thursday I was going to work late so I could come in late. I told her to make an appointment as early as possible on Thursday. I figured 8:30 or 9. It was for 7:30 that morning. Only for her would I have gotten up at 5am. So I got to her house at around 7am. She told me she had seen grandpa walking from the garage into the living room and then into the kitchen just like he always used to do. I think maybe he came for her. Anyway, we got to the beauty parlor and all her old friends were there. She hadn't been able to do her usual Thursday morning appt for over a year so she hadn't seen them for quite a while. They coo cooed over her and told her how sorry they were that Roy had passed. She was the center of attention which she always loved. We went to breakfast at Denny's and she was so happy to have her hair looking pretty. She was always worried about being a burden and said so for the umpteenth time that morning. I told her that everyone who knew me knew she was my favorite person and I was so glad I got to do stuff for her.

I left her that morning sitting on the couch. I never thought it would be the last time I would see her. When she was a young woman, she was gorgeous. She was what you think of when you think of a 40s fashion plate. I keep having this vision of her hopping up off the floor, 20 years old again and running off to be with those she's lost over the years. My life is never going to be the same without her. There will always be this big gaping whole where she used to be. But the measure of my pain is also the measure of my love for her. She was the best grandmother any kid could ever ask for. She always used to tell me how special I was and how I brightened up her day. Well, she was special too and any day I got to talk to my granny was a brighter day for me too. I loved her so much and will miss her everyday.

My Grandpa

Roy Boatman was my grandpa and I loved him very much. I was his only grandchild as well as the only girl in the family. My Granny told me that when he would baby sit me she was always so impressed that he would change my diaper and everything. Turns out he was going to the lady next door and getting her to do it. My first memory of him and my Granny is when I was maybe 3 years old. They had just left me in Dallas with my parents and gone back home to Austin. I was lying on the floor crying hysterically. I mean lying on the floor kicking my feet in a huge fit crying. When my parents divorced, they stayed as close to me and my mom as before. My mom was really happy that they were such a huge part of my life. They would come down to Marble Falls and pick me up most weekends so I could stay with them. Grandpa would sit and play games with me for hours on end. We would play Monopoly and Crazy Eights and a bunch of other games I don't remember now. He seemed perfectly content being with me. He taught me how to whistle and I learned to do it well. He and I would whistle old songs together, he would whistle the first part and I would finish it. All my life people have commented on how well I whistle and I always say with a smile my Grandpa taught me. He was the smartest man I knew even though he didn't have a lot of formal schooling. He read so much and taught himself how to do so many things. He loved to learn.

He was so proud of his military service. He was always showing me his newest newsletter from the ship he had been on, the Wren, or something from a book about it. He told me so many stories over the years about his shipmates and the many pranks they pulled. He told me I don't know how many times about being in Tokyo Bay when the surrender was accepted. He would show me old pictures of that time and was still able to name everyone in the picture. His time in the war was bittersweet for him. It was a horrible experience on one hand but an incredible adventure on the other. It was one of the most important times in his life.

By the time I became a teenager, our relationship went a little sour. We were both so stubborn and we often locked horns. Even though we argued and fought, we never stopped loving each other. In one particular instance, he apologized to me for something and Granny said she thought I was the only one he had ever apologized to. As I got older, our relationship got easier.

I'm not sure where this started but we started calling each other by little names. He would call me a turkey and I would call him a titty baby. When he'd lean over and say turkey and I'd say titty baby, he'd laugh that deep laugh of his. I also liked to call him an old coot and he just loved that. He liked to call me his favorite grandbaby and his least favorite too. He didn't always know how to say he loved you so he expressed it by picking on you sometimes. He liked being funny.

The last time I talked to him was last Thursday. He sounded just as jovial and upbeat as he always did when he talked to me. Sometime on Sunday, he just went to sleep and didn't wake up. He was lying on his side looking like he always did when he slept. I can't think of a better way to go. When we were going through his wallet looking for ID, the only picture in there was of me when I graduated high school. He also saved cards I had sent him over the years and in the bottom of one drawer was my kindergarten class picture. I had no idea he was that sentimental.

He has been a constant in my life since I was born. I can't imagine going to their house and him not being there. I will miss him so much. I'll miss his laugh and even him picking on me. I'll miss him showing me his most recent woodworking creation or telling me another story about his war years. Most of all I'll just miss knowing he's there if I need him. I was blessed to have had him in my life for so long.

Meeting Anne Lamott

All my life, I have wanted to be a writer. I started reading when I was three years old and have loved the written word ever since. Consequently, most of my idols have been writers. I loved Stephen King and V.C. Andrews when I was in grade school. I loved Mark Twain and Roald Dahl when I got a little older. I have been through lots of favored writers over the years. When someone suggested I read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott a few years ago, I went right out and got it. It's a great book about writing and life and lots of other stuff. She has a funny and engaging style that I find refreshing. So, I went out and got several more of her books. She writes about alcoholism and recovery, dysfunctional families, rude neighbors, how her dog died, how she's managed to raise a teenager without killing him and lots of other subjects.

So, when I found out I was going to have the opportunity to meet her, I flipped out. I work at a retreat center and wellness spa. It is a beautiful facility situated on a hill in the central Texas hill country. The main thing I love about working here is that everything stops for the wildlife. We have a squirrel and two twin raccoons who come up to the welcome center every day. When someone spots them, we stop what we're doing and run to go see them. The other day, a roadrunner zipped by and we watched as he snapped up a lizard and had him some dinner. It's like living in National Geographic Texas style.

Anyway, I found out back in late June that CodePink, a women's peace activist group, was coming out here for a weekend retreat. I was excited because I'm a peace activist and have similar beliefs to the women belonging to the group. I had gone to Crawford in August 2005 to sit on the side of a small country road with Cindy Sheehan so we could find out what it was our young people were dying for. I was able to spend three exhilarating, exhausting, painfully hot days before I had to return to work. It was an inspiring experience. While there I had met many of the women coming to my workplace such as Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, Ann Wright, and Diane Wilson. These were women I admired for having the guts to put themselves out in a hostile environment to stand up for their beliefs. Needless to say, I was looking forward to spending the weekend with these powerful women.

As I was looking through the list of attendees, one name caught my eye: Anne Lamott. Could it be THE Anne Lamott I so admired? Sure enough, it was. She was to be one of the Friday night speakers. I am a 38 year old woman and I turned into a 14 year old groupie when I found out she was coming. My 22 year old co-workers thought I was the biggest geek ever. They had never heard of her and couldn't imagine why I was so pumped to meet her. Admiration for writers is just not what it used to be. Now days, it's movie/TV stars, singers, and sports figures. Although now that I think about it, my childhood friends also found it hard to believe I had authors for idols. Hmmm, maybe it's just me then.

The entire month of July, I kept checking her reservation and the CodePink website making sure she was still coming. I talked about how excited I was to everyone who would listen. I was SO looking forward to hearing her talk. The retreat cost $400 and I wasn't sure I could afford it but I thought I would work it out. At the end of July, my partner suddenly needed $3000 worth of dental work and I saw my chances to see Anne Lamott fading away like invisible ink. We looked at our finances but there was just no way we could afford the $400 for me to attend. At first I was weepy and resentful. How could it be that something I wanted so badly just wasn't going to happen? Why couldn't I have what I wanted?

Let me stop here to tell you a bit about myself. I have never been a patient or accepting person. I like to get WHAT I want WHEN I want it. But, I've been in recovery for a few years now and I've learned that if something is meant to be, then somehow it will happen. Of course, this is not something I've learned overnight. And having learned it, that doesn't mean I remember it all the time. My partner and I have been together for 11 years and she sometimes still sees me as the person who would throw a fit at the drop of a hat if things didn't go my way. My friend Joan once told me that we all have biographies of our friends and loved ones. We see someone in a certain way and that is how we think of them all the time. For 7 years, my partner saw me as the out of control insane drug addict I once was. Even though I have been clean for almost 4 years, she occassionally has trouble changing her biography of me. Everyone in my family does. My mom will still brace herself sometimes waiting for the earth shattering fit I'm about to throw only to realize I haven't done that in years. We are all guilty of this at one time or another. My friend Kristi has dated men all the years I've known her. Then, suddenly (at least to me), she began dating women. I did a double take when she first told me because it was not part of my biography of her. So, I had to change the way I think of her.

After Rhonda and I discovered we didn't have the $400, she braced for the fit. Like I said, at first I was weepy and resentful. But I quickly saw that there was no way I could go to this event and take away $400 that we needed to fix her teeth. How could I do that to her? I couldn't. So, I went from weepy and resentful to accepting pretty quickly. She was surprised but I explained to her that if it was meant to be, it would happen. Besides, if nothing else I would at least get to meet Anne.

I had already asked off for the weekend of the event so I could attend. Now, not having the money, I was going to tell my manager that I wanted to work the whole weekend because then I would at least have the opportunity to be around these people. Before I had the chance, though, I ran into Jane who handles our groups. I asked if there was any discount on employees attending the session.

( I am writing this at work and the twin raccoons just went by the door so I had to go watch them. Now back to our story.)

Sometimes we are offered discounted tuition on various workshops. I got to attend a Lynda Barry workshop in March called Writing the Unthinkable for free. If you ever get the chance to take this workshop, I highly recommend it. Lynda is brilliant at helping you draw the stories out of yourself. Anyway, I asked Jane about the discount. She said the CodePink people were allowing employees to attend for free. Free!!!!!! I asked again just to be sure I heard her right. Sometimes what I hear and what people say are two totally different things. Yep, she really did say free. I did my little happy dance that makes Rhonda embarassed to be seen with me. I thanked my Higher Power for once again showing me that things will work out exactly as they are supposed to.

Everything was lining up. I had the time off I wanted for the weekend and I could now go to the workshop for free. At this point, the retreat was two weeks away and I could barely contain my excitement. I am not one who is able to hide my emotions. If I am upset, you will know. If I am angry, you will certainly know (but thanks to my recovery program, I won't throw things at you now). If I am happy, you'll know that too. Every single person I work with knew how happy I was and they were excited for me. I have never worked in such a supportive atmosphere. I was a paramedic for 15 years before coming here and I never felt this supported. I find that odd considering paramedics are supposed to work as a team with the firefighters and police officers but it never felt that way. I always felt as if I had to prove myself and always had to be on guard for any sign of weakness I might let through. No one I worked with in a 300+ people work environment ever really seemed to care about me or my life. They only seemed to care if I was coming to work and filling a slot. The attitude was there were a dozen people lined up to take my job if I didn't want it. I was a number. Where I work now, I feel valued. People are happy to see me when I come in and I them. It feels like a family or at least what I assume a functional family would feel like. I'm not really sure. While my family was fun at times, the ctional part never really came into play.

Every day for the next two weeks, I checked the reservations and the CodePink website to make sure Anne was still coming. I drove everyone at work crazy with my excitement and impatience. The day of arrival just couldn't get here fast enough. But it eventually did.

I got to work that Thursday exuding excitement from my pores. I'm sure my energy level filled the room and backed everyone else against the walls. I was checking everyone in until just before the opening meeting that night. She still had not arrived by the time my shift was over. The property I work on is 35 acres with the various lodges scattered around the land. There is also a 4-bedroom house that is used to house VIPs. It is at the bottom of a very steep driveway and usually we give those staying there a ride down in one of the golf carts. I left strict instructions that if Anne needed a ride, they were to call me on my cell and I would come get her. In other words, I had dibs on her.

I walked over to the main hall where the opening was going to take place. As soon as I walked in, I saw Anne sitting close to the stage. Dang, I thought, she sneaked in without me seeing her. At the end of the meeting, she got a ride down to the Gatehouse with another one of its occupants. I was foiled again.

The next morning, I was working at my desk when one of our newer front desk employees came to ask me for help. She said she had one guest who needed help printing something from her email and one guest who needed something else. I walked around the corner and there she was, Anne Lamott, dreadlocks and all. I have no idea now what it was that other guest needed because I immediately took over helping Anne with her email. Other guest? What other guest?

As it turned out, Anne is not at all computer savvy. She also has a Mac so our PCs were a bit alien to her. I was finally able to get her stuff printed out to her satisfaction and then she asked for a ride down to the Gatehouse. Woooohooooo, I thought. I get to visit with her all the way down the hill. The only thing I remember now from that conversation is that we both dislike snakes. We talked for about 10 minutes and that's all I remember. I can only hope I didn't say anything stupid. I tend to get a little incoherent around people I admire but I think I did okay with Anne. After dropping her off, I told her to be sure and call me when she was ready to come back up. And of course, I was on break when she called and nobody came to get me. Oh well.

At dinner that evening, I was part of some stimulating conversation about Voters 4 Peace. Although, I let slip while speaking to some of those women I admire (remember how I tend to be incoherent?) that I am a gigantic SciFi geek and am part of a group trying to get a sequel to Serenity made. They are working for world peace and I'm working for Joss Whedon's world domination. (He's the creator of Buffy, Angel and Firefly/Serenity, in case you are not a big SciFi geek and have no idea who I'm talking about.) They looked at me like I had a booger on my face. There is a 14 year old boy that lives inside me and he pops his head out at the most inopportune times.

I ran into Anne at dinner and asked if she had everything she needed. I ran into her again as we were all leaving the dining hall and told her to be sure to let me know if she needed anything else. She said she would and then went the opposite direction from me. I like to think she needed to go that way instead of what my friends told me, that she was trying to get away from me. I also like to think I am just a devoted fan. My friends say I sometimes start heading into stalker territory. They're just jealous.

For the Friday night program, Anne was going to be speaking along with Molly Ivins. If you aren't familiar with Molly, Google her. She has been an outspoken observer of Texas politics for a few decades now. I was sitting near the back of the room alongside my supervisor. I shared with her my meetings with Anne earlier in the day and she was excited for me. We were both really looking forward to hearing what Anne and Molly had to say that evening. And then it happened.

Anne had been sitting up near the stage. She got up and began heading for the back where I was sitting. As she neared the back of the room, she looked over at me. The rest of this is in slow motion in my memory now. As she looked at me, I wiggled my eyebrows, gave her a big goofy grin, and wiggled my fingers in a wave. She gave me an uncertain half smile and then quickly moved on past me. My supervisor leaned over and said, “Oh yeah, that was a little over the top.” I was mortified. I couldn't believe I had just done that. When she came back into the room, she came in the side door. I am certain it was to avoid me.

I am terminally uncool. All my life, I wanted to be cool and hip. I not only wanted to fit in, I wanted people to think I was really awesome. Instead, I was an overweight band nerd with bad skin. My family didn't have any money which might have bought me some coolness. No, I was relegated to the ranks filled by most kids. I mean, there can only be so many popular kids. We can't all have that honor or else who would they make fun of? I wasn't a jock, I couldn't sing or act, I wasn't particularly smart. I was good at playing my flute and marching during half time. I was good at writing angst filled stories about how uncool I was that no one would ever read.

As I've gotten older, coolness really doesn't matter to me anymore. My partner thinks I'm cool and that's what really counts. But there is still a part of me (that 14 year old boy no doubt) that wants to be part of the in crowd. That wants people to look at me and go, “She is just so awesome. I would really love to meet her.” That may or may not happen to me in my lifetime, I have no control over it. The things I do wish for, though, are to be able to not make a fool out of myself in front of people I admire and to think of those clever things I want to say at that particular moment instead of four hours later.

Anne gave her talk that night and was brilliant as always. She talked about having a nice revolution. One that is calm, polite and totally inclusive. Some days I like the idea of a polite revolution. Then again, pitchforks and torches seem appropriate some days too. Maybe I'll meet Anne again during that revolution and my inner 14 year old boy will be quiet for a change. More likely, though, he'll probably be all jazzed by the pitchfork idea and I'll just scare the crap out of her.

The Holocaust Museum

The outside of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is rather unassuming. It doesn't look any different than any other museum in this museum laden city. It's made of brick and mortar just like every other museum. By looking at the outside, no one would know that just by walking through the doors, it will change your life forever.

I had been in D.C. in 1993 when the museum was opened but there was a huge waiting list to get inside and I was nowhere near important enough. So, it wasn't until about 6 years later that I actually got to go inside. I, for some unknown reason, have always been drawn to World War II Europe in general and the Holocaust in particular. I am not Jewish. I don't know anyone who was personally touched by the mass genocide during the 1930's and 40's. But for years now, I have read the stories of the survivors, both the victims and the perpetrators. I have studied the history of how Hitler came to power and how the deporting and then killing of millions of Jews, Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, political dissidents, and others began. I guess one thing that fascinates me is the complicity of an entire nation of people. Or maybe it is the horror and disbelief that this really happened. I don't know. Whatever the reason, getting to go into the museum had been something I had wanted to do for years.

Upon entering the building, we came into a small foyer that appeared to have no exit. We were greeted by an older woman, maybe 65, who handed us a pamphlet with a brief history of how the museum had come about and a piece of paper with a name and a life story on it. She told us that this was one of the prisoners of one of the camps. At the end of the exhibition, we would discover if "our" prisoner had lived or not. Mine was a 16 year old girl named Misha who had lived in Poland . She had two younger brothers and one younger sister. They had been taken to Auschwitz along with their mother and father. There was no picture of her on my slip of paper but I got a vision in my mind of a girl with brown hair and serious, brown eyes who dreamed of being a doctor. Being the oldest, she was often responsible for her siblings and I could see her putting a protective arm around a couple of them as they were led away from the cattle car that had brought them to this horrible place. The shouts and guns of the guards shattering the bravado she had attempted to wear.

After handing us the paperwork, the woman led us to an elevator that was hidden from view behind her desk. She told us that the exhibit started on the fifth floor and wound its way down to the first. She pushed the button for us, smiled, and then returned to her seat. We rode the elevator to the top and then exited into 1933.

The exhibit actually began after World War I describing how Germany was left in chaos after the Great War. It explained how Hitler and the Nazi Party came into power and then began their assault on humanity. I was impressed with the amount of paraphernalia the museum had acquired from this time period but was not, as yet, particularly moved. It wasn't until we got into the 1939 and later section that I began to realize this was not to be your ordinary, sterile, history-from-a-distance museum trip.

During the circular downward slope, I came across an actual cattle car that had been used to transport people to one of the concentration camps. I was, at first, hesitant to enter the car because I was getting a dark energy from it. But, it was part of the experience so I walked in. I was immediately bombarded with images, sensations, and sounds. I could see people packed into this car so tight that there was no room to move. I could see the terror and despair etched onto their faces. I could hear the moans of pain and the quiet desperate tears. I could feel the anguish of people separated from loved ones and the fear that they would never see them again. I could smell the stench of fear, dozens of sweaty bodies, blood, feces, and urine. These people had been forced to relieve themselves where they sat because there was no where else to go. I could feel the almost overwhelming sense of claustrophobia they had felt being crammed in so tight they could barely take a breath. This car, even 50+ years later, still carried this horrible time in its wooden beams.

I stumbled out of the cattle car gasping for breath so relieved to find myself in the present I almost cried. We continued downward to see a set of bunks where the prisoners had slept. They were stacked on top of each other so close, the sleepers barely had room to slide in. Sitting up was out of the question. They had been constructed this was so as to get as many people as possible into one dorm. There were pictures of emaciated men, women, and children, no more than walking skeletons, on the walls. Behind a wall about four feet high was a video screen. The wall was put up so small children could not see the video playing. So they could not see some of the worst atrocities the Nazis committed. This was video taken by the Germans of their "medical" experiments. Actual documentation of the soullessness of these men. They were proud of what they had done. They stood next to their "subjects" and smiled at the camera. I was torn between wishing that wall had been six feet tall so I couldn't have seen it and realizing that this must be viewed to be believed and believing was one step closer to seeing that it never happened again.

Next we walked past a display of shoes. Just ordinary, old, leather shoes. They were in a bin with a clear front so you could see how many there were. There were thousands and thousands of pairs of these shoes. It took just a heartbeat to realize that there had been a person inside every pair of those shoes. And these thousands and thousands of shoes represented only a small, minute portion of the people that died during this horrible time. The next display bin was filled with combs and hairbrushes, toothbrushes and mirrors, ordinary personal items. The Nazis had seen fit to keep the things they stole off the prisoners while casting the actual people aside like garbage. It was all too overwhelming but the worst was yet to come.

The next display was a section of what looked like a bathroom wall. There were shower heads at even intervals along the top. Unsuspecting women, men, and children were stripped of all their belongings as well as their clothes. They were made to stand naked outside and wait their turn at the "showers". What they didn't realize was that these were not ordinary showers. In fact there wasn't even any water hooked up to the shower heads. As another group was herded inside and the door barred shut, instead of the water they were expecting they could hear a hissing sound from above. It was the gas the Nazis pumped into the room to kill them. I could feel their desperate realization that these were not showers to get them clean but death chambers where they were to die. I could hear the screams and sobs and final gasps for air. I could smell the acrid stench of the gas and feel my lungs suddenly seize at the toxic fumes. I could feel their terror as their lungs began filling with fluid and they began drowning in their own blood. The gas worked fairly quickly as far as the Germans were concerned but for the thousands who experienced it first hand, it took an eternity to die.

I was so grateful to enter the next downward spiral. We were led onto a walkway with walls that went up higher than we could see and went down into the next level. On every surface of those walls were pictures. Thousands of pictures. Birthday pictures, wedding pictures, family portraits, and candid shots of people living life. Women on horseback, children playing in the dirt, men working in the fields. There were old faces and young faces. Beautiful faces and weathered faces. These pictures represented a village of over 900 people. It was actually a joy to step from all that death into all this life. I was enjoying looking at all those pictures as the walkway spiraled down into the next level. It was there that a plaque told us that all these people, all these souls from this one village, had been exterminated by the Nazi mobile killing units. An entire village that had stood in that spot for hundreds of years, wiped out in just two days. Over 900 people had been systematically taken to the village outskirts, forced to dig their own mass graves, then been shot, covered with lye and buried in giant plots of unmarked earth. All those people in all those photographs were dead. I was beyond overwhelmed. Tears that had been hiding in the corner of my eyes now poured freely down my face. It was all I could do not to sob so loudly they would hear me on the upper levels. Even now, years later, I can't help but sit at my computer screen and cry. I had always known how horrible the holocaust had been but I had known it from distant pictures and academic texts. I had never witnessed it up close and personal like this before.

I still had one more horror coming when I stumbled out of the wall of pictures and into an area with several walls about five feet high. On the wall directly facing me was a list of names. I realized these were the names of the people on the slips of paper we had been given what seemed like days ago. I scanned the list for my girl's name and when I found it, I could no longer contain my sobs. I cried out loud, to hell with anybody hearing me. This young girl, who's only worry before the Nazis came was keeping up with her little brother, had died a horrible brutal death, for what? Because of some insane megalomaniac and a country full of people willing to turn their backs. Make that a world of people willing to turn their backs. Other countries had known what was going on and had done nothing to stop it. Some even profited from it.

My vision obscured by tears, I managed to make it into the last part of the exhibit. It was a small temple, round with altars of candles at each of the four cross points. There was daylight coming from a skylight in the center of the roof illuminating the middle of the circle while the edges remained in candlelit darkness. Along the walls of an inner circle were benches made of stone. The room was void of other people and I made my way to one of the benches because standing was something that was getting steadily more difficulty to do. I sat and cried for what seemed like hours, the image of that lost sixteen year old girl still in my mind's eye. What a waste, what a senseless act of carnage the whole thing had been. How anyone could have been complicit in this immense tragedy was, and still is, beyond me.

After I was completely cried out, I arose off that bench and went to one of the altars of candles. In the flickering light, I picked up one of the long matches, lit it off an already burning candle, and then set aflame the candle next to it. As I watched the wick catch fire, I thought of Misha and her family. I thought of all the families that had been touched by this awful atrocity. I thought of all the potential that had been lost, snuffed out way before its time. Never again, I thought. Never again should something like this be allowed to happen. Never again.

I gathered myself and walked out of the temple into the bathroom. I washed my red, tear-streaked face and then washed my hands because I felt dirty. This trip down the spiral of hell that was the holocaust left me feeling as if I might never again be clean. Some things, once seen and heard, can never be unseen and unheard. I was not the same person I had been when I had strolled into that small foyer just a few hours ago. This experience had forever changed me. I no longer believed that all people were essentially good. I no longer believed that given the choice, most people would choose to do the right thing. I no longer had as much faith in humanity as I did before I came in here.

I exited the bathroom and walked through the small gift shop into the cold overcast day. The sun was hidden behind dark, rain-filled clouds and I thought that very appropriate. I walked down the sidewalk past a newsstand where I stopped to read the headline. There, written in big black letters, was proof that "Never again" didn't really mean never again. In some other remote part of the world, people were killing other people by the thousands. One people were trying to eradicate another people. When would it ever stop? When would we learn that underneath all that makes us different, we are all the same?

I pulled my collar up against the cold and strode off down the street back into my world where people are essential good and nobody kills anybody else. Off I went to stick my head back into the sand because, after all, what could one person do?