Dreaming

I get the feeling that around here a white Christmas is neither anticipated nor dreamed of. Judging from recent events, Oklahomans don’t really care for snow. I saw a plow truck with its hopper filled with sand, but it was very tentative about using the plow or the sand. There I was, a Mainer enjoying a little bit of Maine-like winter and everyone appeared to be…let’s say - put off by it. I don’t think people want any more snow.

I grew up where you measured winter in feet of snow and months of cold. A Christmas without snow was unheard of. If it happened, we felt very uncomfortable, our internal barometers knocked off kilter. We went to school in blizzards in northern Maine, and dressed in so many layers of protection that we always made sure to go to the bathroom before going outside. I remember one year when they closed school early because a snowstorm started while we were there.  By the time the school bus made it out to our house in the country, the driver had to carry my little sister to our door because the snow was too deep for her to push through it. I’m used to snow, especially at Christmas time.

But not to worry. I’ve done this before. We spent four years in New Zealand. Southeast of Australia, New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere and December is in summer there. Not even a chance of snow! Our first Christmas there we went with friends to have a picnic on the beach, complete with mutton sausage and a swim in the Pacific. We spent subsequent Christmas breaks visiting Hot Sands Beach where you can dig down through the sand to hot water springs, making your own little spa; we swam in  Lake Taupo (some of us – it’s an icy volcanic lake); and went to Kareotahi, a beach of sand on the Tasman Sea that is as black as coal. I found that if you’re on a white sand beach and you squint hard enough, it almost looks like snow.

I would show our friends there pictures of our winters in New England, and I swear, in their eyes was kindled a little look of longing. They really wanted to experience that kind of Christmas. However, when my husband traveled in Africa and showed some gentlemen a picture of our house in winter, they were horrified. “You must pray,” they insisted, “that God change your weather.” We humans judge the norm by our own experiences. So I know that my “white Christmas” dreaming is very subjective.

We've been blessed to have such a variety of Christmas experiences. The snowy ones, for me, evoke a sense of nostalgia and rightness, but the beachy ones were other-worldly and great fun. I know now that Christmas will come to pass, whether white or green or golden brown. With the new friends we've made here, and the great love they've shown us, more than ever I realize it’s what Christmas means more than how it looks that’s important. I’m OK with that. I promise not to pray for more snow, but you will forgive me, I hope, if when it happens, you see a little smile on my face.

The Journey

Bouncing along in the cab of a 26 foot U-Haul somewhere in Ohio, I wonder, not for the first time, if we’ll ever get there.  We are accustomed to quick and easy. This journey is neither, relatively speaking.  Just when you think you’re coming to the end of Illinois, there’s more Illinois.  When you can’t bear to see another corn field, there is a slight (very slight) variation (World’s Largest Wind Chimes) followed by more cornfields.

But then I think of the early travelers to Oklahoma and I feel a rush of gratitude for this bouncing cab and air-conditioned comfort.

The first of many land runs to Oklahoma was in 1889 when thousands hoped to stake a claim on a little piece of this earth. But long before that people were crossing the country looking for something different, something better, something good. They came to stay or to pass through, but those early pioneers made a commitment when they set out in their covered wagons.

These were not built for comfort.  No engineers studied the design and extrapolated weight times length of journey divided by conditions of the road.  Purely utilitarian, they were the RVs of their day, carrying the food, medicine and clothing they would need for the journey, while providing dubious shelter from all kinds of weather extremes.

People mostly walked along beside these covered wagons because of the said comfort level.  There were no hotels to check into at night when they were exhausted; no restaurants where they could order a scrumptious hot meal; no protection from the dangers of the road other than their own quick wits, quick draw or God’s mercy. Those dangers could include wild animals, accidents, breakdowns, illness, other people, weather, and losses that led to starvation and death. 

None of these things really cross my mind as we set out from Maine with all the food, medicine and clothing we need for our journey, and to set up housekeeping in a new and different place. I have no fear of attacks from wild animals or wild people. I doubt  we’ll have an accident, and if we suffer a breakdown we ‘re covered.  Protected from the weather, with our box packed with bread, peanut butter and Doritos it is doubtful we will starve.

But as we are making our way across New England, to Niagara Falls, then down along Lake Erie, through Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, reality is getting closer and more…well, real.  Like those who came for a little bit of something to call their own, we are here with a settled purpose.  In this economy, in dire circumstances, you do things you never thought you’d do.  I’m not talking about a life spiraling down into prostitution, or exchanging secrets with foreign governments (although I might have to tell the Governor of Maine about fried pie) but we have pulled up roots again to make a new life in a place far,far away called Oklahoma. Will we be okay?

Nearing the end of our journey, I realize something. Every town, every home - whether on the banks of a swiftly moving river, or perched on the edge of a mountain; whether nestled in amongst the trees of a forest or standing alone in the middle of a vast prairie – is someone’s destination.  Someone can’t wait to get there, and there’s a reason for that.  Our destination is home to so many that love it. I wonder, double-minded person that I am, if I can too.

As we pull into the parking lot to empty our truck, under heat that might dissolve us Northerners, a crew of people meets us.  We are not alone in this daunting, sweaty, exhausting task.  And before we begin, one lady gives me a hug, calls me “Sweetie” and turns to heft my writing desk.  I swallow hard, blink back tears and think to myself, “We’ll be okay in OK.”

Jiminy Cricket

In the Disney movie “Pinocchio”, the character Jiminy Cricket is a friendly, helpful and wise being who aids Pinocchio on his journey to become a real boy.  He is fully clothed, uses a monocle and a cane.  He looks kind of green and has a friendly grin.

I come from Maine, where the crickets are also friendly, kind of furtive creatures who occasionally get into your house and sing a scratchy song.  They’re supposed to be good luck, and you can buy huge brass versions of them if you can’t get them to come in person to shed their luck about.  Sometimes in the cool of the evening, when the sun has slipped below the horizon and the winds have died down, you can hear crickets calling to each other through the twilight.

We have other bugs in Maine: mosquitoes, blackflies, minges, horse and deer flies.  The mosquitoes come in hordes in spring, right after the blackflies have wearied us with their omnipresence.  We know enough to defend ourselves when we go out.  The horse and deer flies stay in the woods, except if you happen to go swimming and then they magically appear over the water and only get discouraged by frantic splashing. We Mainers know how to handle our bugs.  We even celebrate and boast about them with jokes about blackfly festivals and the state bird of Maine being the mosquito.

Now I’ve moved to the Midwest and, Jiminy Cricket, nobody warned me about the bugs! When we went walking in the cool (relatively speaking) of the evening, at first I thought…blessed Lord, no mosquitoes…no blackflies, no minges.  I was free of bug dope, and free of bugs!  Until I heard a humming sound, and saw, far off at first, then very quickly closer, what I thought was a small bird.  A hummingbird to be precise.  But then it landed on my husband’s back and it was a horsefly!!  ARRGGHH!  I almost called 911, but he said “Hit it!” and I did.  When it fell to the ground I pulverized it with my walking stick, disgusted and trembly.

Why do I carry a walking stick?  Because said husband saw a tarantula before I ever got here!! Double arggh!  I’ve been spared that sight so far, (update: have seen one with my own two eyes now - was not happy about that) but between the cringing and flinching whenever I hear a horsefly, and the constant scrutiny for tarantulas on the road, I figured I’m burning twice or thrice the calories on our walks.

But back to the crickets… being new to Oklahoma, we went exploring in a suburb of Tulsa.  Walking outside in a plaza near a movie theatre, we realized there were masses of crickets along the walls of the buildings.  We edged closer to the other side of the sidewalk, the side that’s not protected from the crazy hot sun, because there were so many of them.  These crickets were not fully clothed, green, smiling or friendly.  They were big and black, with long barbed back legs that we knew were strong enough to jump up, perhaps onto a person.  We went to another plaza and, to our dismay, there were even more.  Inside a furniture store we could hear them, signaling to each other.  I almost sat down on a couch when just in time I saw that black cricket, waiting for me, right where my head would have been. Outside again, we saw them crawling up the storefronts, rather like little Zombies attempting to get over the walls of Jerusalem in World War Z.

What is going on?  What do they want from us? One or two crickets squeeze into the house and creep around the room, silent and waiting. I know they don’t bite but frankly I feel a bit menaced by such mysterious and inexplicable behavior.  Give me a buzzing mosquito focused on my blood any day over an inscrutable black cricket who just won’t declare his intentions. 

What Happened to My Sun?

I come from Maine, the first place in the whole country touched by the sun each morning.  In Maine, it’s a friendly, playful sun; warm in the summer, really nothing more than a decoration in the winter.  It does its job, providing enough light to wake up the sap in the spring and carry on the functions of photosynthesis in the plant life.  Gardens grow, the lawns push up like clockwork, berries ripen and the light glitters and dances playfully on the blue water. Sometimes it flares up…a handful of days in the summer when it feels like the Mojave Desert and then dies back down to rest from its work.

I like the sun.  Where would we be without it?  Balanced the perfect distance to keep from burning up or freezing, our home planet relies on it for our very existence.  As teenagers, my sisters and I would slather on baby oil (who knew anything about skin cancer then?), spread out a quilt and lie in its paltry northern Maine rays hoping for an exotic Mediterranean tan.  

In winter, the sun plays hide and seek.  My curtains would be open wide as I eagerly attempted to catch some light and warmth on a little section of my living room floor.  Its light is a balm during the long shadowy days of gray and white, and when it begins to creep back in the spring, prying loose the icy grip of that season…joy!

For four years we lived in New Zealand; a temperate country resting so on the curve of the earth that it escapes the extremes of its neighbor, Australia.  In northern New Zealand, near Auckland, the temperature rarely rises above 80° in summer or below 45 or so in winter.  But the sun there has a dangerous quality, because of the ozone layer, or lack thereof, above the country.  There are more cases of skin cancer in New Zealand per capita than anywhere on earth.  We could feel it…an incandescent quality that wasn’t so much hot as dangerous.  You didn’t realize you were tipping some balance under the surface of your skin because you weren’t broiling from the heat.  It was still a glorious sun, but one that needed minding.

Now I’ve moved to the Midwest and something has happened to the sun. Someone has replaced it with a meaner, hotter cousin.  That glowing orb in the sky is making every effort to commune with the core of the earth, sending spears of white hot light pregnant with some throbbing insistent meaning.  The ground is hot.  The road could be one of those radiant heat floors.  The tile in this house is warm, even without the direct rays of this other sun.  As it rises in the morning, there is no progression from friendly, yellow and slightly warm.  It starts out nuclear strength and it scorches its way in a high, even path along a straight line, just like the roads here.  When it joins forces with the wind that “comes sweeping ‘cross the plains”, all I can think of is sirocco – that hot dusty wind from North Africa.

When the sun sets in the West it is a glowing pink ball; gorgeous and a little frightening.  It seems like the smoldering embers of a very hot fire. I love to watch it slip away, but when it’s gone I have an undeniable sense of relief.  Phew…made it through this day without spontaneously combusting.

I’m new here.  When people meet me they ask how I like the heat, or, to quote… “How do you like our weather?” When I agree that it’s very hot, or that I’m withering or that I can’t believe how hot it still is (it’s September, for goodness sake!), they have a complacent, satisfied look.  It says, we know it and we love it and in some oblique way we’re responsible for it. I’ve probably had that very same look in winter in Maine after a blizzard or three weeks of below 0°.

What it really reveals is that sense of satisfaction that there are things about our lives that we might not like at first, but we live through. We tough it out, we embrace it, and then we brag about it. Okies deserve to look complacent, because while I’m warily getting to know him, they’ve made peace with my sun’s cousin.