Category: Unsolicited Advice

A Chance to Escape

I passed a sign near the Kansas-Oklahoma border that read “Hitchhikers may be escaped inmates.” On a serious note, I appreciate the warning to drivers. But mostly, the sign sounded like a Mad Lib. It got me thinking about all the other possibilities: Hitchhikers may be Olympic pole vaulters. Hitchhikers may be snake charmers. …may be violinists, roller skaters, fluent in Farsi, Trekkies, champion poker players, puppeteers, astronauts- anything. It’s a good exercise to imagine what any of us could be.

Photo: Oklahoma cow

Dancing Trees

I pulled into the parking lot of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve at sundown. Greyish stubble covered the hills. In this otherwise open land, two trees grew right next to each other. From their posture, it looked like they were ballroom dancing, one tree dipping the other. This got me thinking about the secret lives of trees. Maybe trees play baseball, roll down hills, scare bullfrogs, juggle, wade in creeks, and apparently ballroom dance when no one is looking. Then, when people are watching, they freeze. Now, when I notice a tree, I wonder what it was up to just before I arrived.

Photo: Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Strong City, KS

Preservation Hall

If you’ve never been to Preservation Hall in New Orleans, you should go. The venue is about the size of two living rooms. Half of it holds the band and seating, which consists of cushions on the floor plus a few benches. [I was lucky enough to get a seat on a bench when I visited.] The other half is standing room only, with people crowded in like sardines. There are no microphones, no amps, no speakers. The time I went, before the band started playing, the employee who had taken our entrance fee came in to announce, “Everybody, turn off your phones. Put your phones away. Put your cameras away. For the next hour, it’s going to be a roomful of people enjoying great music.” The music is so close and immediate. Nowadays, it’s a rare experience.

Haven’t We Met Before?

I’ve never been out in public, seen another person, and felt like I was looking in the mirror. However, I can’t count the number of times people have said things to me like, “You look so familiar,” “You look just like someone I went to high school with,” “You look like someone I used to work with,” “Are you a professor? You look like a professor I’ve seen” [I’ve never been a professor], “You’re Amber’s older sister, right?” [I don’t have a sister], “Did you used to work out at Gold’s Gym?” [I didn’t used to work out at any gym], and even “How’s the pregnancy going?” [I wasn’t pregnant, and I don’t think I looked pregnant!]

A man staying in the same hostel told me with a heavy accent that there’s a woman in Germany who looks like me. “Her name is Anna.” It’s gone global!  

When a cashier guessed, “Jennifer?” then told me, “Oh, you look like this lady that works at Dollar General,” I was tempted to drive to Dollar General and ask for Jennifer, just to see what she looked like.

I’ve had the same mind-boggling conversation with a few business owners. It goes something like this:
“Weren’t you in here last week?”
“No, I’ve never been here before.”
“Are you sure? You look familiar.”
“This is my first trip to _______ [name of town or state]. I just got in last night.”
After a moment of reflection, they’ll decide, “I’m sure it was you. I recognize you.”
How can I prove that I wasn’t there?

The strangest occurrence happened when I was working in the Registration office of my community college. A woman came to my station and told me right away, “Oh my God! You look just like my sister-in-law, Linda, who died!” What do you say to that? During the transaction, she kept making comments about it. “Oh my god- you look so much like Linda.” Near the end, she whipped out her phone and took a picture of me, then texted it to her daughter with the message, “Who does this look like?” A minute later, she showed me the screen with her daughter’s reply: “Aunt Linda.”   

I got to thinking about my doppelgangers today. They must be decent people. I’ve never had anyone turn angry when they thought they recognized me. In fact, I seem to get asked a lot in public, “Excuse me- will you take our picture?” The other replicas of me out there must not be camera thieves, either. To all the people running around who look just like me: Before you do anything crazy, keep in mind that it isn’t only your reputation on the line- it’s mine, too! And I’ll think of you.   

The WOW in Powwow

My mom used to work at an art center on an Indian reservation. In addition to selling art made by Native Americans, the center offered classes in making birch bark baskets, beaded bracelets, fish decoys, and other traditional crafts. While I was visiting, a young local man came into the shop to browse. A higher than average percentage of people I saw on the rez wore American Eagle Outfitters t-shirts, and he was one of them. It was never a plain AEO shirt with just the brand name or logo; the designs always involved soaring eagles. I wondered if AEO realized the appeal that their shirts might hold to the Native American segment of the market. Anyway, in chatting, the guy told us that he was a fancy dancer [a showy Native American dance]. It was even part of his email address. I wondered how many American white guys would put the word “dancer” in their email address, let alone the word “fancy.” And how many of them would boast to strangers that they danced? 

Nearby, an outdoor arena held weekly powwows all summer. I attended a couple with my mom. The emcee would explain the meaning behind each dance, and then a group of dancers would demonstrate. A couple times each night, the emcee would call out “Intertribal!” which meant that everyone, including the audience, was invited to participate. Those of us who didn’t know what we were doing basically did a stilted version of walking in a circle, but there was an elated feeling of camraderie, being a part of the drumming, the singing, alongside others dressed in colorful regalia: jingle shell dancers, grass dancers, fancy dancers, and butterfly dancers. We were lucky that the community was willing to include us. Going to see a powwow by itself could have been cool- watching the spectacle, learning something, and eating fry bread- but there’s nothing like experiencing an event to make an impact.  

It’s All There in Black and White

There’s something about a flower that makes me want to take its picture. Sometimes I feel like a horrible friend: I’ll visit a person I haven’t seen in years, and I don’t take a single picture of them- or their kids, or their family, or us together, or their pets… Then we stop at a park or botanic garden and out comes the camera.

Don’t you love black and white? Instead of the focus being on a flower head or its vivid color, suddenly everything becomes just a shape. A shadow possesses as much substance as the object beside it. You become the maestro of an abstract composition. Beauty appears in surprising places: the crook of an elbow, a doorjamb, a hairbrush. Literally seeing the world in black and white is a good reminder that beauty is all around us; we just have to notice it.

Photo: a dozen roses

The Chicken Cheats

Several summers ago, I went on getaway weekend to Arcola, Illinois. The biggest attraction there was Rockome Gardens, which was basically a theme park about Amish culture. [Sadly, this attraction closed.] There were the actual gardens, which may have been pleasant except for the photographer parent trying to get a perfectly posed shot of his two-year-old. “Kayla, come over here. No- stand right here. Don’t move. Now look at me. Kayla, look at Daddy. Kayla. Kayla! Look at Daddy. Kaaaaylaaa. Kayla, turn this way. Look at me. Look at Daddy. Kayla, look over here. Look at Daddy. Kayla. Look at Daddy.” There was a museum, a barn with farm animals, a woman who demonstrated weaving on a floor loom (and who let me try it), and a souvenir shop filled with canned green beans, homemade fudge, and other old-fashioned edibles. I paid extra to take a buggy ride with an actual Amish driver. It was here that I played tic tac toe with a chicken. Yes, the chicken won. Twice. I knew it would. But let me tell you something: the chicken cheats.

The game was in a box about the size of a vending machine. Half of it displayed the electronic gameboard and instructions, and the other half housed a live chicken. The poor thing was panting in its little plexiglass enclosure. Part of me didn’t want to participate (and encourage housing chickens in plexiglass boxes during summer). But when would I get another chance to play tic tac toe with a chicken? Novelty won in the end.

I fed my money into the machine. The rules state that the chicken goes first. Once the game started, the chicken hid behind this partition, but I was spying on it to see how it operated. It would peck at this button until a kernel of corn dropped down a chute. The chicken’s move would register on the gameboard. After gobbling up the corn, the chicken would peek its head underneath the partition and stare at me with one eye until I pushed a button to make my selection on the gameboard. Then its head would disappear underneath the partition and the pecking would start again. On the second game, after the chicken made its first move, I put my finger out toward the game board, but I hesitated. As I was deciding which button to press, the chicken took another turn. She probably didn’t cheat intentionally. Oh, well- she would have won anyway. [The strategy of having the chicken go first is orchestated so that the best an opponent can do is tie.] If you ever get the chance to play this game, be warned! Those chickens will try to get away with anything!

Photo: twined rug

Fling the Chicken

My mom lives a five-hour drive from me. Sometimes, on long weekends, we’d meet halfway for an Adventure Weekend. Usually, we’d stay in a cheap motel in some town that’s a tiny dot on the map, surrounded by a lot of space. We’d spend our days exploring the area and visiting other tiny towns nearby.

It was one Memorial Day weekend that we discovered Princeton, Wisconsin’s annual Rubber Chicken Fling. The event takes place in the city park. A goal post is set up, and everyone in attendance is invited to try flinging a rubber chicken through it. Whoever throws it farthest wins.

The emcee kept urging us to join the action. “If you’ve never chucked a chicken, now’s your chance!” The mascot, a man dressed in a bedazzled Elvis jumpsuit and a chicken head rubber mask, mingled with the crowd. We had dozens of chances, and neither of us touched a chicken. Why not?

My regrets are all the same: a long list of things I didn’t do, things I didn’t say.

Months ago, when I began seriously forming the idea of a nation-wide road trip, I thought about what the purpose would be. I didn’t want to just stay in hotels and visit tourist attractions; I wanted to experience a transformation. One day, an answer suddenly came to me: Fling the chicken.

It’s the same advice I’d give my younger self: Get involved. Try everything. Go everywhere. Take every opportunity. Fling that chicken while you’ve got the chance!

The Power of Love

It’s almost February, which means…Valentine’s Day is coming! A lot of people seem to hate Valentine’s Day. I don’t have this issue. I like to buy those packs of cards made for kids to pass out to their classmates, only I give them to coworkers, friends, and family. It doesn’t matter what your relationship status is; love encompasses so much more than romance. Think about the bond between a parent and child, between siblings, between friends, between a mentor and student, and the respect a fan has for a great artist or genius. When I got lice in sixth grade, my mom nitpicked my scalp. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is. Valentine’s Day gives you a chance to acknowledge people for the love they have added to your life, even if your life doesn’t resemble a romance novel. The best part is, I’ve seen V-Day Haters convert to valentine givers after receiving one of these silly valentines. As Huey Lewis said, that’s the power of love.

Music For a Revolution

In college, I wrote a report on a song by opera composer Bellini. In my research, I learned that Bellini was known for creating melody lines that sounded remarkably like speech. That tidbit of information revolutionized my concept of what’s possible. It opened up the idea that a song could begin with lyrics, and the melody could be formed by the natural inflections of the words involved. Without knowing one chord on the guitar or one note on the piano, the world of songwriting is still open to you.

(Note: The inspiration for my report was Filippa Giordano’s rendition of “Casta Diva.”)

Photo: poinsettia