Sense of Smell

There's a half-empty bottle of amber perfume that sits in a jumble of jewelry and trinkets on my dresser. I've had it for a couple of years now and don't use it very often; the scent is a bit stronger than I usually like. I only wore it on a daily basis for one month, while touring with Collegium during the summer of 2003. But I keep it around because the bottle is tall and narrow and travels well without much risk of breakage, and every now and then when I'm in too much of a hurry to unbox and unstopper my more-preferred scents, I'll throw on a spritz or two from the half-empty bottle. Despite - or maybe because of - this limited use, the perfume calls to mind the strongest scent memory I have ever experienced. As I walk through a cloud of fragrance toward my bedroom door, the carpet beneath my feet disappears and the room goes wide and dim, and for a breath I'm in the girls' dormitory of a hostel in Rome.

It doesn't remind me of Paris, where I'm sure I wore it as we trooped out the side door of Notre Dame to sing Jason's German music on the street.

It doesn't remind me of Salamanca, where I'm sure I wore it during the infamous kiss-counting contest between Alex and Jonah.

It doesn't even remind me of touring Rome-and-environs: the Vatican; the Spanish Steps; the hole-in-the-wall T.S. Eliot museum I stumbled upon, where a glass case surprised me with a letter from a long-ago Lowther.

A spray from this bottle reminds me of a single hostel room, with bunk beds and a window facing the pay phone from which I called my sister on her birthday. It reminds me of climbing up two stairs to reach the shower, of frittering away precious minutes online catching up on tour gossip, of watching two anonymous roommates bristle at Meg's suggestion that perhaps it was a bit too hot outside for their long-sleeved attire of choice. It reminds me of walking through an amber cloud in a poorly-lit room before going to dinner and placing bets on how Kemp and Abi would fare as traveling companions.

And for a moment I can inhale that summer, good and bad bound together in split-second recollection. Then the air clears, and fragrance and memory alike fade, and I am left looking blankly at a half-empty bottle of amber perfume.

For the Record

My brother and I just held an impromptu three-minute hip hop dance party to the music that played as the credits of Coach Carter rolled.

It was super cool.

Word.

What's a Nice Guy/Gal Like You Doing in a Place Like This?

Why hello there, my readership (chokes on own laughter at pretension of assuming to have a readership)! Fancy meeting you here!

It's gotten a wee bit cobwebby 'round these parts in the last... uh... almost two weeks. This is due to unusual things such as vacation and a departing friend (Annie headed off to St. Lucia via Miami for a two-year stint in the Peace Corps) and a visiting foreign exchange student (that's right - Florian, who stayed with my family during the 2003-04 school year, is back for a two-week visit. Since last we met, he has grown at least three inches, which means that I now consider him tall. Bear in mind that on my scale of measurement, though, there are only two distinctions: taller-than-me, and short. Flo is now taller-than-me. Koo, for one, is short. Hi Caroline.) It is also due to mundane things such as play practice and the ever-necessary nightly watching of at least two episodes of Alias with Ian, Tom, and Dan. But mostly it is due to work. Because I write for work, and if I start to write for fun I end up with all sorts of fun ideas that shove the work ideas out of the way unceremoniously and with a little unnecessary violence, and we all know that ideas lead to trouble. Especially these violent little buggers.

So if you would be so kind, please pardon the dust, and give me a day or so to vacuum and clean the windows and finish writing my latest piece of work for work. Once those housekeeping details are out of the way, I'll have plenty of time for meditations on all or some of the following:

-my vacation in the northcountry
-another instance of passive-aggressive road rage
-my brother's favorite TV show - Laguna Beach
-the day that it felt like it was one hundred twenty-five degrees
-my recent bouts of exhibitionism

I know - the suspense is so painful. No wait, those are the fun ideas stomping on my feet with their little bony toes...

"You mean like on vacay?"

The house is in a muddle, suitcases and duffel bags and enormous backpacks littering the floor. It's vacation season, and Ian has been looking forward to this day all summer. He was in charge of selecting food, and he scoured the aisles at Gander Mountain for the most delectable of freeze-dried concoctions: pasta primavera, lasagna with meat sauce, eggs and bacon. He wanted to get five pounds of beef jerkey at the Sausage Shop in New Ulm, but was satisfied with two upon discovering its cost: $16.99 a pound. He spent the entire afternoon packing and repacking his bag, trying to get ziplock-wrapped toilitries to nestle comfortably against a collapsed tent. He was so excited, he nearly forgot to bring socks. And I'm sure socks will be necessary, what with those hiking boots and all. The destination? Wind River Peak, in the mountains of Wyoming. Four days and five nights in the wilderness, away from civilization, with only nature and an iPod for company. It'll be great.

For Ian, of course. And for Pat, and Tom and Dan and their father Jim, and Chris and his dad Jay. I, of course, would never last on such a venture! Freeze-dried eggs? Tents? A LACK OF BATHROOM FACILITIES? You didn't think I was going there, did you?

I'm going to Duluth. Well, actually, to Beaver Bay, about an hour north of Duluth. Michal and I are leaving tonight for Lake City to meet Ali. We'll set out bright and early tomorrow morning for the five hour excursion upwards. Mmm spending the entire day in the van - I can't wait. But the weekend should be lovely, filled with lighthouse touring and berry picking and ferry riding. Four days and three nights in the middle of nowhere, settled in a lodge, with a fireplace and a DVD player for company. It'll be greater.

These Here Folks

SLEEPY EYE: An Owner's Manual
second in an interminable series

Chapter Two: Local Characters, or A Sampling of Individuals With Whom I Have Interacted Over the Past Two Days

1) The Good Samaritan

The Good Samaritan appears in many guises, but the one I met yesterday afternoon was an elderly gentleman - perhaps seventy - clad in blue jeans, a t-shirt of a slightly more faded blue, and a tan cowboy hat (because despite Minnesota's proximity to Canada, a good many people still believe that Iowa is the deep deep south and dress accordingly). I first spotted the Good Samaritan from a distance as I was out running in circles on the track located behind Sleepy Eye Elementary/High School (my thirteen-year haunt). Across the street, he traipsed through Eagles Park with his little black-and-white fluffball of a dog. In the time it took me to run a mile, he made it about three hundred meters, wandering through newly-mown lawn and over hot asphalt and back onto grass just outside the chain-link fence that divides runners and spectators. He meandered toward the school, stopping to look at the landscaping around a sign and to watch a distant softball practice. I thought he was moving rather slowly even for a leisurely fellow, but didn't pay much attention as I was instead focused on distracting myself from the effort physical exertion requires by blasting some Whitney techno remixes over my iPod.

Finishing the runningness, I reached for my water and headed toward school, intent on venturing into the weight room for a bit. As I neared the parking lot, I noticed that my path was going to directly intersect with the Good Samaritan's. Headphones still on, I slowed my pace a bit, hoping to avoid an awkward head-nodding interaction. But the GS was not to be deterred; he halted his fluffball at the gate and looked expectantly in my direction. Because I have not been hardened by five years of "city" living, I of course removed my headphones to enter into conversation with a complete stranger.

"You're really pushing it, huh?" he said.

Now, I hadn't been running for thaaaaat long, so I knew he wasn't referring to my mind-blowing powers of endurance. But the day was sticky, offering neither dry desert heat nor the oppressive humidity of so many recent afternoons. It was more of a claustrophobic warmth, the air temperature matching body temperature so exactly that the two seemed to melt snugly together. So I commented intelligently, "It's a hot one."

"What'd you do, three, four laps?"

"Four, yup." With each statement, I took a stutter step, moving slightly toward the school.

"Don't get heat stroke."

Now, how, in polite conversation, do you reply to such a statement? I offered, "I won't," a bit wary to be tempting fate so. (Would, "You too," have been more appropriate?)

"I guess you know how to watch out." And with that, the Good Samaritan and the Fluffball walked away, having imparted enough unsought advice for one day.

2) The Faceless Woman

The Faceless Woman is, for obvious reasons, difficult to describe. I most often come across her at the office of Dr. B, chiropractor extrordinaire. She is faceless only from my point of view, for whenever we meet I am facedown on an adjustment table, my eyes and nose tucked amongst leather cushions and tissue paper. She is in charge of running ultrasound waves about my spine in order to make it easier for Dr. B to crackle (appetizing, I know).

Interacting with the Faceless Woman is very awkward for a couple of reasons. First of all, I am never sure who she really is. Is she the woman who greeted me at the desk today? Is she the one that pointed me toward the correct exam room? Who's to say! Secondly, it is always unclear as to whether or not we're supposed to make small talk for the ten to fifteen minutes she spends smearing gel over my back with a metal rod. Shall we discuss the weather? Talk about school? Dissect my love life or lack thereof? (A sample question from earlier this summer: "Had any boyfriends in this life?" No, really.) Or shall we sit in complete silence, listening to the melodious stylings of Oldies FM? All in all, I prefer the latter.

3) The Moronic Motorist

I will share with you two varieties of the Moronic Motorist today:

3a) Mr. "I Rule the Highway; What Do You Mean, There Is But One Lane Going In Either Direction?"

Consider, my friends, the plight of the above motorist. Unfamiliar with less-than-urban terrain, he tools about in a deceptively speedy white boat of a car. Upon driving into a small town, he notes the width of the road and determines that there is enough space for two cars to drive abreast. And so, lack of white lines notwithstanding, he pulls into the right-hand "lane" and zips along merrily, slowing at each corner to read the street signs (after all, he is from out of town). The thought that his independently-created lane might, in fact, be intended for parking never occurs to him.

How to handle this type of motorist: drive behind him, not wishing to pass because you can never predict when a parked car will impede his progress.

3b) Ms. "Certainly You Wouldn't Mind Waiting At A Stop Sign Whilst I Check My Messages, Read 'Dear Abby', and Generally Zone Out."

I encountered this woman today on my way to the chiropractor. First Avenue runs through Sleepy Eye north to south without a single stop sign; motorists on it have complete right of way until they reach the highway that bisects town east to west. I guess Ms. "C &c." decided that today was the perfect day to take a nap at the corner of Walnut and First. When I pulled up, I was most perplexed: a red car with its left turn signal on was blockaded by a large black SUV. As far as any onlooker could tell, the SUV intended to go straight, but it was doing nothing in the way of moving, despite the total dearth of oncoming traffic. So there the red car, the black SUV, and I (the grey minivan, as I am a soccer mom) sat, stalemated. Of course, in Sleepy Eye no one actually uses the car horn for anything other than offering congratulations to wedding parties driving around town. I turned on my left blinker, hoping to jar the driver into some sort of action. Didn't work. An eternity later, Ms. "C+" decided that her manicure was dry, and pulled through the intersection.

How to handle this type of motorist: sit and wait, giving her a disapproving head shake when she finally decides to drive on.

Dispatches from the Far Midwest

Here are the latest chronological bits of Sleepy Eye excitement, offered most respectfully for your perusal.

Last night, the Lowther household waited with bated breath for nine p.m. to come about. At the appointed hour, all four of us (Ali is off in LC for work) sat silently in our darkened living room, captivated by... "Mystery" on Public Television. I can understand my enjoyment of the series, since I am a giant dork. Not so sure about why the rest of the fam was equally thrilled about the show; maybe they're little nerds-in-training. The episode, featuring "Inspector Lynley", was most suspenseful - you know, your basic storyline offering baby-trafficking, blackmail, and three murders. I actually think that the series has a murder quota of at least two per episode. This was essentially the highlight of my Sunday as far as excitement goes.

This morning I registered for fall classes at the School of Education at the University of St. Thomas. (My official student status has already been confirmed since I've activated my e-mail address and created a sadly blank facebook profile, but I guess registration is important, too...) I know: signing up for classes without first attending them? Ridiculous!! Worrying that courses will be filled before you can claim a spot? Ridiculous!! I was quite concerned about both of these things, so I planned everything out beforehand: I would wake up at a quarter to nine (oh so early in the world of Emily), sign into the registration system, and just bide my time until course selection opened at nine. Then I would promptly plug in my selected courses, hoping to submit them before others had a chance to access the website. With this morning schedule set, I flitted off to bed, torn between congratulating myself on a most clever plan and agonizing about the number of other students with equally clever plans.

8.45 came, as it tends to do, and I dragged my sorry self from the warm cocoon of my bed downstairs to the folding chair in front of the family computer. Signed in without a hitch; everything was going as it should. The minutes ticked away, the clocks one computer and website synchronized, to my astonishment. At nine, I punched in three course registration numbers, held my breath, and clicked "submit".

A confirmation page appeared without delay: "You are registered for the following courses: Organizations and Administrative Law; Politics in Education; Research Design, Analysis and Critique I."

I was back in bed by 9.10. How anticlimactic.

This interrupted sleep led to a very strange dream wherein my neighbor (in real life, a twenty-three-year-old band teacher; in the dream, a crotchety old woman) called the police on a group of us for walking past her house. This led to a house party at which I was forced to play hostess to the police squad and an assortment of other troublesome characters. The festivities resulted, somehow, inexplicably, in the activation of an alien computer system that attempted to destroy the world. Ensuring its shutdown was very distressing, especially since its MSN-like interface kept disguising the escape link under pictures of celebrities.

(There was also an interlude involving trying to climb up a cliff but being thwarted because all the solid surfaces were actually made of stretchy putty. Does anyone remember when I didn't recall dreaming at all? Sophomore year, junior year maybe? Those were good times...)

This evening promises a host of new excitements: play practice. And play practice. Oh, and, to shake things up, maybe some play practice. I'm supposed to bring my tap shoes with tonight; better make sure that all the metal pieces are still attached since the last time I used them (when I was seventeen). OOOH, speaking of theatre, I have procured two new bruises...!! The first is tiny and inconsequential, located on the inside of my left elbow. I haven't the slightest idea as to how it got there. The second is my pride and joy. It is vaguely rectangular and can be found just above the halfway point on the back of my left thigh. I would say, conservatively, that it is the hugest bruise ever. Okay, so it doesn't quite measure up to that one I had after falling down some stairs a couple of years ago in terms of sheer width, but as far as depth and tone go, this one receives top marks. It started as a splash of light blue, deepened to a black-violet, and is now edged in a healthy-looking pale green. Aren't you happy to have heard about that? I thought as much!

And on that lovely note, off I scamper home for some sustenance. I'll need my strength later, you know, what with all the dancing and bruising and alien-fighting the night is sure to bring. As long as I don't dream about my own wedding again, though, I think I'll be fine.

"Knee High by the Fourth of July"

That's what the farmers say, anyway. In honor of the Fourth of July, Annie, Ian, and I drove over to Lake City to spend the day with Ali, Mal, and Chris. A splendid overnight was had by all: golfing/golf cart driving in the afternoon, grilling splendid steak for supper (I continue to be mystified as to how boys somehow manage to know how to grill meat without necessarily possessing any other culinary skills), watching the fireworks shoot out over Lake Pepin (Tom and Dan made it to town just in time for the show). The houseguests departed the next morning after breakfast at the clubhouse; Ian, Tom, and Dan were bound for Mankato on a shopping excursion (they're going mountain hiking next weekend, and needed gear), while Annie and I intended to travel straight home. Took a slight detour, though... through St. Paul... about forty-five minutes out of the way to the north. Uh... oops?

But that's not where the farmers come in. No, they - well, more specifically, their saying - grabbed my attention within the first fifteen minutes of our drive. The route we take to travel the two-and-a-half hour stretch between Sleepy Eye and Lake City is a rural one, skirting around cities and curving between farm fields. Most of the time, you can see forever, at least on the highway that runs from Sleepy Eye to New Ulm and beyond. Every other year for the summer and fall months, though, walls of green and yellow creep slowly up, obscuring that long view at the curves in the road. "The corn looks pretty low this year," Annie remarked as we rounded a corner on the way to New Ulm.

"Knee high by the Fourth of July," Ian countered. "That looks about knee high to me."

It's nice when progress can be clearly measured, quantified by the height of midsummer cornstalks.

On Thursday, Ali celebrated the twenty-first anniversary of her birth. The festivities started at half past ten with a rousing set of tennis (doubles, wherein the birthday girl and her sister were victorious). Annie and Caitlin planned a scavenger hunt to occupy some of the day, so the four of us traipsed from the tennis courts to various locations about town. (The benefits of living in Sleepy Eye include being able to post huge birthday signs on the tennis court fences without fuss, hide clue envelopes in grocery store aisles and between library books and on the sides of buildings without fear of losing them, and leave gifts with hardware store clerks without alarming security [not that there is security in the hardware store, but you know].) Once two of Ali’s wrapped presents were found in a flowerbed under the Chief Sleepy Eye statue by the Post Office, it was time for lunch and a thrilling round of ecology-minded mini golf at the Putting Green in New Ulm (which prompted me, with my occasional child-of-hippies-in-denial sensibilities, to take this quiz).

The evening wound down with the opening of more gifts and the devouring of a fresh strawberry pie bedecked, for a time (pre-devouring, of course), with candles. It takes a long time to light twenty-one candles, but Ian did it with only two matches, managing to avoid singeing his fingers despite the pressure of numerous outcries: "You're gonna burn your hand off!" The flames brightened the room without the aid of the overhead light, and as the wax started to drip we gathered around the table to sing a spirited and oh-so-harmonious birthday chorus.

"She’s smoking us out here!" I joked, oh so funnily, as Ali exhaled over her pie, extinguishing the light with a single breath.

It's nice when progress can be clearly measured, illuminated by the glow of ever-increasing candles.

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http://www.redefiningprogress.org/

Twenty Years Later

Spent the better portion of the day sunbasking and watching the Live 8 broadcast, alternating between coverage on MTV and VH1. (To be sure, the two channels were showing exactly the same production; as dual event sponsors, they paired up MTV and VH1 on-air personalities to provide commentary and synchronized their broadcasts down to the second. This, I think, is what made the magnitude of the event finally click for me - two direct competitors creating a single broadcast. My channel-surfing, then, was dependent not on the actual coverage of the concerts, but rather on whether I was more tired of seeing Vonage commercials [MTV] or Celebreality commercials [VH1].)

Spent a certain portion of the afternoon trying not to cry during the Live 8 broadcast. I know, I know: it's kind of ridiculous to let hints of weeping interfere with one's viewing of artists like Pink Floyd, U2, Will Smith, The Killers and Keane and Green Day and an endless list of others. But when an event so totally evokes feelings of both empowerment and helplessness, maybe a couple of tears make for an appropriate marker. The idea that eight men have the power to change the future of an entire continent is staggering - as elected officials, they should be honor-bound to represent us, the millions of people pushing for change in Africa; but Bush regularly disregards half of his electorate. The idea that it would only take seventy cents of every one hundred dollars to eradicate poverty is overwhelming - that goal is so concrete, so miniscule, so attainable; but our leaders have not met it yet. The idea that so many people were present today to support this call to action is electrifying - with this much pressure for change, surely some good must come; but other such calls have passed, and destitution remains long after the fanfare has disappeared.

Just before Madonna's set this afternoon, Sir Bob Geldof played a video that was shown at Live Aid in 1985. It was one of those films that takes your breath away and doesn't stop there; it leaves you feeling empty and powerless. It makes you wonder why you ever thought you needed a new mobile phone, or another pair of shoes, or a three-dollar latte. In twenty-year-old images of waif-like children struggling to live, it shows who you might have been, if not for an accident of birth. "We don't clap that," Geldof said as it finished playing. Behind him, a grimace was frozen on a toddler's face, seemingly admonishing the audience; so little has changed in twenty years.

"This child was ten minutes away from starving," Geldof announced. "But because of donations at Live Aid, she survived. She survived to graduate this year with her agricultural degree, and she is here today." And Birham Woldu, a glowing young woman, came onto the stage and beamed at the crowd. Perhaps we can have faith in change after all.

("All right, Emily, that's enough cloying sentimentality for one day, get on with it, will you?")

Spent the rest of the evening watching this movie. It's a truly marvelous film, splendidly overacted by live-theatre-type people, with plenty of late-sixties costumes and pre-women's-lib musical numbers (my personal favorite: "A Secretary is Not a Toy"). I highly recommend watching it, as long you promise not to do so during any groundbreaking television broadcasts. Wouldn't want to deprive you of a dose of idealism, after all...