Category Archives: addiction

Elsee Anne

I have always taken the summer off from blogging, but somehow this summer blurred into fall, and now we’ve had our first snowstorm in Minnesota, with nine inches of the white stuff.

Normally I would be consoling myself by planning a trip. Not this year. My pal Lynn invited me to join her and some other friends in Crete this past May, and that was cancelled thanks to Covid. She’s rebooked it for next May but I can’t work up the enthusiasm to start thinking about it. I did search airfares to Scotland for New Year’s—or Hogmanay as they call it. Fares are about the same as ever but a pop-up informed me that the UK “may impose restrictions on travelers from the US.” Yeah. Forget it.

On the home front, I continue to do contract work for several nongovernmental organizations. Every morning I scan for potential funding opportunities. Here are my Top 9 favorite funding opportunities:

Development of Solomon Islands National Saltwater Crocodile (Crocodylus Porosus) Management Plan and Harvest/Monitoring
Arkansas Feral Swine Eradication and Control Pilot Program
U.S. Mission to Turkmenistan: Developing Potential of the Women Entrepreneurs in Fashion Design
Addressing Sorcery Related Violence in Papua New Guinea
Magnetic Levitation Technology Deployment Program
Consultancy for Construction Supervision of Fecal Sludge in Ethiopia
Provision of Civil Works for Fixing a Tarpaulin
Department of Defense, Science of Atomic Vapors for New Technologies (SAVaNT)
Provision of Services for Collaborative Computational Deep Phenotyping of Irritability

I want to know what the US National Institute on Drug Abuse learns about that last one. I think we could all use some insights into the origins of irritability.

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I am also working a couple short shifts a week at the YMCA in the childcare center. The staffing and shifts have already been cut back since re-opening because, who wants to go to a gym and potentially expose themselves and their children to Covid? Actually, it’s so dead there that I don’t worry about catching Covid but I do worry about the YMCA going under and hundreds more people losing their jobs.

My “Friday Fundays” with my two step granddaughters has come to an end with the cold weather. They began calling it Friday Funday without any prompting, so I must be fun! I sure don’t feel fun most of the time. I’m so glad I got to spend the quality time with them outdoors, before Covid began to spike again.

Because …. The big news is that my son Vince and his wife Amanda had a baby girl a week ago! Now I will subject my readers to even more cute kid pictures. Vince turned 42 two days later. Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while, or who have read our book, will know how significant this is for him to go from prison to parenthood.

It’s even more of a big deal for me than for most new grandparents. I have two biological grandchildren I have never met and will likely never meet. I have two step grandchildren—I hate that term—and now I have a bio grandchild who is in my life but … Covid.

—Imagine, being totally oblivious to all the ills of the world. No regrets, no bills, no chores. No Covid, no global warming, no Trump.

—

Maybe because I have had so many losses in my life, my brain generates worst-case-scenarios. They come unbidden when I least expect them, and now they involve Elsee. They are deeply distressing, so I am working on multiple fronts to stave them off. I am writing out my feelings and thoughts using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. This 10-day Lovingkindness meditation challenge was very helpful. Jewish Family Service got Covid funding to provide three free mental health counseling sessions and I am taking advantage of that. You don’t have to be Jewish to tap into this resource, if you need a therapy “booster shot.”

For some reason I think “I should be doing better” but why? Logically, I know my brain is generating these scenarios in a misguided effort to cope with Covid and all the other distressing news of the day.

I hope you are doing okay!

Flights and the Next Leg

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I sat perched at the mezzanine-level bar in Starbucks which overlooked Omiya Station’s main concourse, nursing a coffee. Last night Fred had asked, “Do you want to try some sake?” and when I had nodded he was clearly delighted to have a drinking companion. My sister-in-law and her mother cannot drink alcohol—it causes an allergic reaction.

I had already ordered a beer. I know I probably sound like an alcoholic. I have come home from some trips undecided where I should check myself in first—to Hazelden or a fat farm. But really, drinks are just props to my writing, like in the movies where people are constantly walking to the drinks cart, pouring drinks, and using the drinks in their hands as part of their stage gestures.

I have so many addicts in my family that I’ve always closely monitored myself for signs I am crossing over from social to compulsive drinker.

Fred and I split four glasses of a sake flight. Each selection was from a different region. The first one was amazing—fruity but, because sake, not sweet. The others were okay and it was fun to taste the differences.

Charlie had been playing Pokémon Go on Fred’s phone from the moment we met at the station. His parents impose an almost-total ban on screens, including TV, movies, video games, and internet. This has caused a boomerang effect where he has become obsessed with all things electronic. I was kind of grateful that I could tell him, in honesty, that my phone was on the wane so he couldn’t use it to watch YouTube videos or play games.

Occasionally Fred or Hiromi would ask Charlie a question and I loved that he responded unselfconsciously in Japanese. He had been working hard in Japanese school, in Minnesota, and here, in immersion. He deserved some mindless Pokémon Go off leash time.

Fred and Hiromi and I talked about language learning. Charlie would start French classes once school resumed, on top of Japanese school on Saturdays, and he would be switching from piano lessons to cello. Part of me wished I had had these opportunities and part was relieved that my mother’s approach to parenting had been totally laissez faire. We ran wild, with no geographic boundaries or curfews. I wonder if this is why three out of the four of us are creative types.

I gave Hiromi the tofu souvenir from Koyasan and she seemed to like it. I asked Fred if he liked tofu. He nodded and gave me a short talk on all things tofu, which varies by region. Maybe this is why Japanese people don’t get sick of tofu—it comes in so many different textures and is used in so many different ways.

That night I sat on the side of my bed trying to make sense of the next day’s itinerary. I was so utterly exhausted from the days’ travels. I started to cry because I couldn’t understand something about getting from Point B to Point C. I set the itinerary aside and fell back on the bed. Hopefully it would all be clear tomorrow, as it unfolded.

I finished the horrifying novel about WWII and fell asleep for about an hour, until my Restless Legs jerked me awake. I got out of bed, ran in place for 10 minutes, then fell back to sleep. That repeated six or seven times until my alarm went off. In other words, a normal night.

—

So here I was at Starbucks watching bursts of humans emerge, converge, and then stream off to their respective exits as trains came and went.

Fully 90% of them wore black pants and white tops. You could say this was Japanese conformity, but in London two years ago I had observed a similar “uniform” of blue suits with white shirts. I spotted two American flag shirts. Out of the thousands of travelers, there were about five black people, two Indians, a half dozen middle easterners, and two women wearing headscarves. Zero anyone who appeared Latino. There were three disabled people in wheelchairs.

And two elders. I jumped up and ran down to meet Fred, Hiromi, and Charlie.

Sights and Rites

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It had been a full day in Nikko. After wolfing down a late lunch of ramen I walked back toward the inn and just noticed little sights that aren’t in any tourist guide.

Was this a public art installation, or just a manhole access point?

In addition to the public gardens all over Japan, there were many individuals who kept stunning gardens I caught glimpses of them here and there.

Even front doorways were miniature botanical compositions.

These were growing wild. If I tried to grow them on purpose I bet they wouldn’t take.

There were tiny shrines, too. This one was dedicated to local laborers, I think.

I followed a sign into the woods and found a memorial dedicated to electrical plant workers. It was too dark in the woods to take a photo, and it was not very exciting.

I didn’t know whether to think this sign, “Buddist Only,” (sic) was rude or within their rights. How would they know if someone wasn’t buddhist, anyway? Some tourist must have done something really obnoxious for them to have posted this.

There were signs around Nikko about a Frenchwoman who had disappeared in the area some months ago. I learned later that she had epilepsy. I wondered if she had wandered into some of the dark deserted places I’d been, and had a seizure. I was glad I hadn’t stumbled upon her body at the memorial to electrical plant workers.

I had dinner in a Chinese restaurant that had come highly recommended by the hostess at the Turtle Inn. Japan is like anywhere else. It has its native foods and then a zillion restaurants featuring other nations’ fare that is enjoyed by the natives. The Japanese seem to like Chinese, Korean, Italian, and French food. In fact according to my sister-in-law, many Japanese like to fly over to Korea for weekends to eat “tasty Korean food.”

I have only tried Korean food a few times, and I was not a fan. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like every time I order Chinese, it consists of gristly meat sprinkled with a few anemic vegetables and smothered in a gooey sauce. A lot of people are obsessed with Chinese dumplings. I also just don’t think they’re very exciting. And they usually contain pork, which I don’t eat.

I walked to where the restaurant was supposed to be, and noticed—not for the first time—how hard it was to tell know if a building was a restaurant. The place appeared shut. There were curtains over the door, which I had seen in Japanese restaurants in the US.

It was impossible to see what was behind them without crouching down on my knees or creepily staring through them, so I walked in and—it was indeed a restaurant. I ordered a chicken dish which seemed to contain every part of the chicken except meat—raw skin, yellow fat, white tendons, maybe a sphincter—all ground up together. Maybe this was a delicacy to some people. I picked at it, then smiled and bowed and paid and left. I had not come to Japan to eat Chinese food, so next time I would not feel obligated to follow the recommendation.

Back at the inn, I spent some hours catching up on work and personal business and sat in the onsen twice. My Restless Legs was now off the charts; maybe soaking in hot water would help? Nope. It was as if the RLS demons had caught up with me and were tormenting me for trying to flee.

But hey, I can sleep when I’m dead. I wasn’t going to let stupefying exhaustion stop me from getting out there.

The next morning I would go to Lake Chuzenji by bus—a trip within a trip within a trip.

—

My son got married on Sunday! There was a stunning venue, perfect weather, and a beautiful couple. The officiant had his power invested in him by Ho Chunk Casino. There was a memorial to Vince’s friend who died a few weeks ago. I walked Vince down the aisle then said quietly, “That could have been you.”

“I know,” he replied.

Word of the Day: Death

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I got up this morning to find that one of three kittens I am fostering for the Humane Society was dead. It’s not uncommon for foster kittens to die. The mother cats are stray, barely adults themselves, emaciated and hungry, and/or diseased. It’s a cruel world.

Later today I will attend a funeral where Vince will give the eulogy for his best friend from prison. I don’t know how he died. He was only 34.

For those of you who are new to the blog, I began writing it with my son when he was in prison. As he transitioned from prison and addiction to a healthy, sober life, I was freed to write about fun things like travel.

I still try to contribute to efforts at reforming our US system of mass incarceration. This week I attended a meeting with the new Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

We were there to demand a moratorium on a practice called crimeless revocations. In Minnesota, out of the 10,000 men and women in prison, 24% are not there for committing a crime. That’s right; they are in prison because, after serving their sentence and being released, they missed a meeting with their parole agent or—most commonly—they relapsed and used drugs or alcohol.

So we lock them up, where they sit in prison for four to eight months. They do not receive drug or alcohol treatment or any other services because they are short-termers. They lose their jobs, their housing, and whatever fragile relationships they have started to rebuild on the outside.

The commissioner agreed that this practice is a waste of time, money, and lives. But he said he couldn’t stop doing it until he gets buy-in from all his people. We’ll meet with him again in a month.

Vince wasn’t sent back to prison, but he had all his privileges revoked because he didn’t answer when his parole agent called. He was doing community service work in a noisy warehouse at the time and didn’t hear his phone ring. For a month, he was not allowed to leave the house for anything but work. No AA, no socializing with family or his sober friends. No gym, no runs. None of the things that were going to keep him on an upward trajectory. It was his darkest month.

The prison system is designed to punish, not rehabilitate. One of the worst forms of punishment is to mess with people by setting unclear expectations, catching them on some minor infraction, and coming down on them like a sledgehammer.

—

In Japan, as I’ve described already, I stood to one side and observed as worshipers approached the inner sanctum of a temple or shrine. In Tokyo, Nikko, Kyoto, Nara, and Koyasan, they bowed, clapped, threw coins into a donation box, and lighted incense or candles.

I’m not a believer, but I felt something, at times. Perhaps it was because I was mystified by what was taking place. Maybe I was moved by the sincerity of the worshipers, or the atmosphere.

Especially since my aunt died, and now that Vince’s friend has died, I would like to think there is the possibility of some lingering connection between the living and the dead.

Maybe I should turn the French curio cabinet I inherited from my aunt into a household shrine, complete with photos of ancestors and incense burners.

—

Day Two in Tokyo. My sister-in-law’s father, Fred, is retired from a big Japanese company. He has been painting with a group of fellow retirees for years. If I understood correctly, companies support their retirees to participate in hobbies together. Fred is also in an essay-writing group. Today I managed to find the building in which his painting group was holding an exhibition; these are his works. He’s very talented.

I stopped first to get some pastries because that’s what people do in Japanese novels.

I’ve had eight hairstyles since I last saw Fred and Hiromi five years ago. But of course I’m white. He picked me out in the crowded building lobby, hugged me, and said, “Welcome, Anne-san!”

Happy Days

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I have some good news. Last week my son proposed to his girlfriend, and she said yes. Not that there was any doubt. It’s just the latest positive development in his life.

The reason I ever launched this blog was because, five years ago, he was in prison. In addition to the predictable emotions like despair, I felt relief that I now would know where his was, and deep shame. Counterintuitively, it made sense for me to write about it for all the world to read.

He entered prison a drug addled, bloated, overweight, broke, middle-aged chronic alcoholic. This was just the latest in a 20-year string of bouts with unemployment, homelessness, crime, and broken relationships.

It would have been easy for him to use drugs and alcohol inside, but Vince chose to be sober in prison. He also started writing alternate posts for this blog. They were heart breaking, hilarious, and articulate.

He made it through an intensive “boot camp” program, where he worked on self-discipline, attitudes, and thinking processes. He also started running, something he hated but continues to this day.

He came home a little over four years ago and moved in with me. That was rough. He dated a woman but it didn’t work out. He got a job in a laminating factory and moved in with a couple guys who were also trying—some successfully and some not—to stay sober. He started his own blog. He bought my beloved old Mini Cooper from me. He dated another woman but it didn’t work out.

Two years ago, he was offered a cook job at a country club on Lake Minnetonka. That’s where he laid eyes on Amanda for the first time, and it was love at first sight. He moved in with Amanda and her two young daughters. From the start, he has been all-in on parenting. He can now put “expert in potty training” on his resume.

One year ago he bought a house in the tiny town of Silver Lake. He traded the Mini for a minivan. He worked with me to publish the first year of this blog as a book. He applied for better jobs, and in the end was offered a great promotion at the country club.

The girls’ father is under a two-year no-contact order. Vince has supported Amanda as she has courageously fought to finalize her divorce, custody, and child support arrangements. Last month Vince and Amanda were awarded full custody. The three-year-old calls him daddy.

In court, Vince made a statement to the girls’ father—that if and when he gets his act together, Vince and Amanda will work with him to welcome him back into the girls’ lives. The guy thanked him. I was very proud of Vince. A lot of men wouldn’t have done that.

Here they are, at the country club where Amanda works, after the big proposal.

In June he’ll mark his five-year sobriety anniversary. They’ll be hitched in August.

All of this is to say that very few situations are ever hopeless. Similar to my own story, it didn’t happen overnight and it took a combination of working hard as hell and letting go. Vince has plugged away, working his program, trying new things, taking risks, sometimes failing, but mostly moving forward.

—

In three weeks I’ll be in Japan. I still feel way behind on the planning. I created a Google docs spreadsheet to try to keep track of it all and it looks a mess. I’ve got six out of eight accommodations booked. I’ve got my JR Rail Pass in hand. I’m finally able to retain some place names from one day to the next.

Progress, not perfection. One of the AA slogans that is good to keep in mind whether one is an addict or not.

Last night as I was reading about Japanese baths again (I worry about the baths and the shared bathrooms), I was struck by how many iconic cultural traditions Japan has given to the world: origami, sumo, haiku, sushi, manga, anime, samurai, geisha, bonsai, and Zen. There are probably more. Is there another country that has created or adapted so many traditions that are recognized worldwide?

Thank You

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In real time, Happy Thanksgiving, if you are American. Happy Thursday, if you are not. I have some news items to share at the end of this post.

—

Day four in Australia. Day four?! It felt like I’d been here forever, in a good way.

We alighted from our bus for sunset viewing of Ularu. I walked around snapping photos of other tourist vehicles. I have spent many hours in these heavy-duty Toyotas in Kenya and Ethiopia.

There was this crazy sardine-mobile, some kind of motel on wheels. I’m all for budget accommodations, but this beat even the bunkhouse for the claustrophobia factor.

There was this dusty, Mad Max BMW motorcycle.

A group of barefoot Aboriginal women sat on the pavement selling paintings. I felt a sharp, uncomfortable contrast as Meg poured sparkling wine.

But then I was distracted by food. “This is kangaroo jerky,” she indicated, “this one’s emu pâté and this here’s croc dip.”

“The kangaroo is delicious!” I commented. “It’s like venison.”

Heidi didn’t touch it. “I can’t eat it. The kangaroo and the emu—they’re our national animals.”

“They’re animals that can only go forward,” explained Heidi. “Like our country, I reckon is the idea?”

“I guess I wouldn’t want to eat a bald eagle,” I replied. Well, all the more emu and kangaroo for me!

The members of our group began introducing ourselves. Trevor and Gwen had immigrated to Australia from Nottingham, England, 20 years ago. They were here with their 14-year-old daughter, Tiffany. Kris and Melanie, a young Swiss couple, never spoke unless spoken to, so I didn’t get to know them at all. Brenden and Stefanie were another young couple, from Canada. Johannes and Sandra were a middle-aged German couple who took elaborate tripod-assisted selfies of themselves jumping for joy in front of every landmark. Mia and Nora were also German; both were around 22 and they were student teachers in a German school in Melbourne. There was a Chinese couple—father and daughter? Lovers? They stood apart and avoided all eye contact. Another couple, Darren and Kylie, were also a May-December pair. They said their names and that they were from Melbourne, then also kept to themselves.

I spoke with James, a 30-something Korean guy who spoke confident but almost-impossible-to-understand English. He was an out-of-work cook from Adelaide, blowing all his savings on a last hurrah in Australia before going home to an uncertain future. He reminded me of Vince. Because he was a cook, but mostly because there was a soulfulness about him.

—

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because it doesn’t involve decorating the house inside and out, buying presents, or any Christmas/Hanuka dilemmas. You just eat a lot with your family or friends, then fall asleep in front of the TV watching The Hobbit for the millionth time.

Thanksgiving is about—as the name implies—giving thanks, and I have a lot to be grateful for this year. As I sit here at my writing desk and look out the window at the grey sky and freezing drizzle, I am grateful for a warm home. I am healthy. I have friends and family. I got to spend a month in Australia! I wish I was there now.

And, some big news: I quit my job last week. More on that later, but I already feel 10 years younger.

And another big development: Vince and I started this blog together four years ago. We just published the first year of the blog as an e-book. It chronicles his time in prison, his recovery, and my ride along with him.

Besides providing insight into why people turn out the way they are, we’ve been told by many readers that it’s just a good read, a page turner. So if you’re looking for something to binge read over the weekend, or holidays, consider buying a copy. Only $3.99!

Breaking Free: A Mother And Son Journey From Addiction, To Prison, To Redemption https://www.amazon.com/…/B…/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_AbI9Bb9K1SXQM

Please feel free to share this on social media, and thanks for reading—we know it can be difficult stuff but addiction and all its consequences, including imprisonment, are a reality for hundreds of thousands of people every day.

Broken, now Free

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I thought it might be difficult to not write. After nearly 600 posts since September 2014—and many streaks of every-other-day posts, I pledged to (mostly) take the summer off from writing.

And it’s been great. I have no problem sleeping in instead of leaping out of bed at 5:30am to knock out 700 words.

But yesterday was a big milestone, something worth writing about. The reason I ever started this blog in the first place—my son going to prison—is gone. Yesterday, after spending half his time in prison and half on supervised release, my son’s sentence is over. Over! He wrote a post about it on his own blog, if you’d like to read it. I liked this line:

“I am free to roam about the country or world as I please. I am free to register to vote, and I will. I am free to drink alcohol, and I won’t. I am still not allowed to own a gun, and I don’t care.”

For me, the low point was the day I was ejected from Moose Lake prison without seeing Vince because I was wearing a “low-cut shirt.” Then I went off to the Middle East for work, where I got to hear stories of people being tortured in prison. When I came home, there was a letter waiting for me, informing me I was banned from stepping foot on any correctional facility property in Minnesota for six months.

Corrections employees have nearly complete discretion, and impunity, to do whatever they want. And so they do whatever they want.

I feel like I am walking out into the sunlight after several years under a cloud. I transitioned the blog to writing mostly about travel a while back, but I’ll still write about prison once in a while because … there are still 10s of thousands of people in prisons. I don’t just care about my son; I care about my whole community, my state, my country.

Sigh, my poor country. What a mess we are. It’s like a nightmare where we are all living on the Jerry Springer Show.

—

I had never given a thought to prison, prisoners, or people whose loved ones are in prison. Why would I? Prisons are far away. You can’t go inside them without permission. Only bad people are in them, so why would you want to go inside, anyway? And if a single mom is on her own because her man is in prison, then she and her kids are probably better off, right?

Boy, has it been an eye opener. There are some bad people in prison, for sure. But mostly they’re regular people who messed up. Have you ever messed up? Of course you have. You just didn’t do something illegal, or you didn’t get caught.

I am grateful to my son for doing the hard work it took to change his life. He had been under arrest before. He had been homeless. I suspected he would die early due to liver failure or a car accident or a drug deal gone wrong.

Ironically, it was prison that set him free. He always says he needed to go to prison. So for all my idealistic fellow campaigners on prison reform, keep that in mind when you propose repurposing prisons into artists’ retreats or organic garden centers.

—

I have made little progress planning for Australia, except to decide that I will limit myself to Australia and not attempt to also visit New Zealand, Fiji, Borneo, or Papua New Guinea.

Heidi and I spoke for over an hour yesterday on What’s App, and we agreed it’s crunch time. Time to figure out how we’ll get from Sydney to Melbourne, time to book flights to Tasmania and maybe a train ride to Alice Springs. Time to book accommodations in the Red Centre. The pressure is on.

And yet it is summer, and it’s Sunday. I think I’ll go sit in the garden and read the paper.

Horrid Little Men

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We returned to the coffee shop we’d been to the previous day and people watched.

Lynn commented, not for the first time, that the Botero statue of the fat man with a little dick dressed as a gladiator reminded her of a certain president. “Such a horrid little man,” she said.

This was the second time this day she had used the phrase “horrid little man.” Over lunch we’d had a long conversation about the Me Too movement and our different experiences.

Lynn’s mum had made it clear to her three daughters that they should put up with no nonsense from anyone. “Remember, you’re a Rutter!” her mother would admonish them. Rutter is Lynn’s last name, no relation to the famous composer.

“We didn’t even know what that meant,” Lynn said, “But it had its effect. When Jan and I were traveling around Europe …” (Jan is her older sister) “… when I was 17, we slept on a hillside in Italy with a bunch of other broke young people who were sleeping rough.

“I woke up in the middle of the night to find a bloke unzipping my sleeping bag.”

“Did you know him? What did you do?” I asked.

“No, I didn’t know him! I yelled at him—‘Get away from me, you horrid little man!’ It just came out of my mouth. I don’t think any bloke wants to be called ‘little.’”

“What did he do?”

“He scurried away. I went back to sleep. No one bothered me again.”

“And no one ever hit on you at work, ever?”

“I don’t think so,” Lynn replied thoughtfully. “If they did, I didn’t realize it.”

“Well if you had had any of the experiences I’ve had, there would be no doubt about what was going on,” I replied drily.

I wrote a post last November detailing some of the incidents where men have stalked, groped, exposed themselves, or otherwise sexually harassed me, including at work.

I think, due to my early childhood experiences, I had a big V for “vulnerable” or “victim” stamped on my forehead until just a few years ago. My mother never told me, “Don’t forget—you’re a Maertz!” But then, she had been an abused woman herself.

—

As I write this, a month after this trip, Colombia is in the news because its peace process is in danger of falling apart. The US is trying to extradite one of the FARC leaders to face cocaine trafficking charges. The 2016 peace deal promised immunity to FARC leaders, all of whom were wanted in the US, if they quit the drug trade. The US says that Seuxis Hernandez-Solarte (great name!) has continued in the coke biz. FARC claims the US and Colombia are in cahoots to frame him.

Sigh. More fat men playing at gladiators. And why was the drug trade so lucrative? What was the economic incentive? It was the US demand for drugs. And rather than get people into drug treatment which would have dried up demand, we tried to arrest and incarcerate our way out of the problem. My son is Exhibit A. What a waste of lives, money, and time, in both countries.

—

We had a last supper with Roxana and Ricardo and Gaby at the same restaurant we’d enjoyed the previous night.

The next day we would fly to Santa Marta, on the northern coast. We would have to make a connection in Bogota. Someone would pick us up in Santa Marta and drive us to Tayrona National Park. It became unclear from that point out, but somehow we would then spend an hour traveling on foot or by horse into this park. It was going to be a long day.

The driver didn’t arrive at the agreed time, 7:30am. He hadn’t showed by 7:45, so I What’s App’d Responsible Travel. It was an hour-long drive to the Medellin airport, there was only one route, and we had seen miles of backed up traffic going in the other direction on our way in. If we didn’t get to the airport it would set off a cascade of missed connections and we didn’t want to know where that would land us tonight.

Some Cold Truths

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When I mention I’ve been to Colombia, I get two reactions.

One: “Cool! That’s the hot new destination!”

Two: “Isn’t there a drug war there?”

Number one is true, while number two used to be true. As usual, I had intended to brush up on my destination’s history but never did it justice. I read an article here and there about the peace process and upcoming elections. A former coworker had just moved to Bogota, where her husband is teaching at one of the universities on a Fulbright Fellowship. She was sending me photos and updates, including that her husband had been tear gassed twice.

Tear gassed. Her take on it was that Colombians, despite no longer living under a state of war for the first time in decades, still have plenty to protest. Below is a cut and paste directly from Wikipedia.

“The Colombian conflict began in the mid-1960s and is a low-intensity asymmetric war between Colombian governments, paramilitary groups, crime syndicates, and far-left guerrillas such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and the National Liberation Army (ELN), fighting each other to increase their influence in Colombian territory. Two of the most important international actors that have contributed to the Colombian conflict are multinational companies and the United States.

“It is historically rooted in the conflict known as La Violencia, which was triggered by the 1948 assassination of populist political leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, and in the aftermath of United States-backed strong anti-communist repression in rural Colombia in the 1960s that led liberal and communist militants to re-organize into FARC.

“The reasons for fighting vary from group to group. The FARC and other guerrilla movements claim to be fighting for the rights of the poor in Colombia to protect them from government violence and to provide social justice through communism. The Colombian government claims to be fighting for order and stability, and seeking to protect the rights and interests of its citizens. The paramilitary groups claim to be reacting to perceived threats by guerrilla movements. Both guerrilla and paramilitary groups have been accused of engaging in drug trafficking and terrorism. All of the parties engaged in the conflict have been criticized for numerous human rights violations.

According to a study by Colombia’s National Centre for Historical Memory, 220,000 people have died in the conflict between 1958 and 2013, most of them civilians (177,307 civilians and 40,787 fighters) and more than five million civilians were forced from their homes between, generating the world’s second largest population of internally displaced persons. Seventeen percent of the population has been a direct victim of the war. 2.3 million children have been displaced from their homes, and 45,000 children killed, according to national figures cited by Unicef.”

The drug “lords” have been portrayed in recent Netflix series like Drug Lords and Narcos. I intend to watch to see if they are glorified, and what mention is made of the US demand for cocaine which drove their business.

—

Michael recounted how his grandmother, as a child, had hidden in a trunk while her parents were murdered by some faction or other in the war. He teared up. He described in detail an incident in which he clearly felt his life, and the lives of his fellow activists, were in danger. Again, he got emotional and wiped away tears.

“You’re traumatized,” I exclaimed, and gave him a gentle hug. “You’ve got to get help and take care of yourself. Traumatized people do risky things.”

“You’re different from most tourists,” he said. “You’ve heard about the war and you know about the disappearances.”

I told him I work for a torture rehabilitation center and gave him my card. Lynn mentioned she works for Oxfam, but he had never heard of it, despite it being one of the largest NGOs in the world.

This was when Lynn and I decided to friend him on Facebook. He is surely being monitored by adversaries, and if they see he’s got XX “friends” in other countries it could be protective. I don’t know. I felt powerless.

Next was a memorial to Jorge Gaitán, believed to have been assassinated by the CIA in broad daylight on a crowded street.

Last Hurrahs

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It had cooled down, with highs in the low 70s (low 20s Celsius). I checked the weather in Scotland daily and that gave me impetus to get outside as much as possible.

This was late July, for the town in Scotland I was destined for shortly. Fifty-five Fahrenheit is 12 Celsius.

There were signs advertising something called a Brocas Fun Fair all over Eton. One afternoon after editing a proposal which described torture and the use of mass rape as a weapon of war, I thought, “Now is the time to visit a Fun Fair.”

I was still experiencing vertigo and my Restless Legs Syndrome was getting worse. Poor sleep combined with vertigo added up to a continuous feeling of physical disorientation, which may have enhanced my Fun Fair experience.

It was a Thursday afternoon, so the place wasn’t doing much business and many of the stalls were closed. A couple of 10 year olds who were probably skipping school climbed onto a ride and a carnie yelled at them to bugger off, instead of directing them to the ticket booth and inviting them to come back.

In case you thought Americans were the only ones obsessed with guns, there were three booths with shooting themes.

Another depicted what someone must have imagined was a “real American road scene,” complete with truckers and maybe a Harley rider, with skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty thrown in for good measure. Then there’s the toy-like boat in the foreground … I’m sure this would all feel magical to a five year old.

I was surprised the political-correctness police hadn’t demanded that this be redesigned—whatever it was.

Wandering back slowly through Eton—the college—I got a laugh from more finger-wagging signs.

I could just hear the Pink Floyd song The Wall playing in my head.

Wrong, Do it again!
If you don’t eat yer meat, you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat yer meat?
You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddy!

I read this one three times, then gave up understanding it and walked on.

—

I spent a day shopping with Julie in Windsor. She especially enjoyed the grocery stores. We went to an upscale one, Waitrose, and a tiny local one called Budgeons. At first glance, a grocery store in the UK looks the same as one in the US. But if you look closely; if you pay attention to every item individually as though it is a meditative exercise, you will see many things that make you go hmm ….

Or in my case, shudder at the words, “With Jelly.”

For all I know, my local grocery may sell tubs of pork drippings with jelly. However when I shop at home it is like a military strike—hurry in, grab the same items I buy every time, get out as fast as possible.

We had lunch at the Waterman’s Arms. Fish and chips for Julie, lamb and mash and a half pint of cloudy local cider for me.

We visited a card shop near the flat.

Part of my new-employee orientation at Oxfam had been to read the communications style manual, which included a directive to “avoid creeping Americanisms.” By contrast, we have many, many “creeping Britishisms” in America and we love and embrace them. I could write a whole post about this.

There was a series of cards that mimic illustrations from beloved children’s books combined with adult themes:

Other cards in the series include “The Acid Trip,” “The 12 Step Programme,” “The Halfway House,” and “Bouncing Back.”

I took Julie to Daniel, the department store. Here she is in the toy section.

—

I went in to London one last time, dropping in to the Victoria and Albert Museum only long enough to buy my son a tote bag and other Pink Floyd-branded items. The line for the exhibit itself was a mile long.

I searched Hamley’s, the gigantic toy store on Oxford Street, for Sylvanian families badger figures for my nephews. I was distressed that, like Daniel, they were out of badgers so I had to settle for a pizza-delivering hedgehog and a mouse dentist.