Other People’s Thoughts: On the Pecos River

Posted in Other People's Thoughts, Travel, West Texas Interlude on 03/15/2012 03:44 pm by admin

“We crossed the wild Pecos,

We forded the Nueces,

We swum the Guadalupe,

And we followed the Brazos”

from Texas River Song by Townes Van Zandt

Well, on this trip so far we’ve only crossed the wild Pecos and gazed in the distance at the Rio Grande, but this song keeps going through my head. As does this quote I recently read in Three Dollars Per Mile by the Texas Surveyors Association:

“The Pecos is a remarkable stream, narrow and deep, extremely crooked in its course, and rapid in its current. Its waters are turbid and bitter, and carry, in both mechanical mixture and chemical solution, more impurities than perhaps any other river in the south. Its banks are steep, and, in a course of two hundred and forty miles, there are but few places where an animal can approach them for water in safety. Not a tree or bush marks its course; and one may stand on its banks and not know that the stream is near. The only inhabitants of its water are catfish; and the antelope and wolf alone visit its dreary, silent, and desolate shores. It is avoided even by the Indians.” 

— Captain S.G. French’s description of the Pecos River from an 1849 exploratory mission for the U.S. Army

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Fort Davis, Texas

Posted in Travel, West Texas Interlude on 03/14/2012 06:59 pm by admin

The Stone Village Tourist Camp in Fort Davis is to quirky hangouts and people-watching what the Eleven Inn in Balmorhea was to peace and relaxation.

Before Pat made our reservation, she called me to let me know what the sleeping arrangements would be like. She and Randy got a little motel room at this renovated 1935 facility, and I got a “camp room.”

My camp room reminded me of rural guesthouses I’ve stayed at many times in China, with a separate public bathroom a few doors down from where I slept. Well, that’s not an entirely fair assessment — the Stone Village camp rooms are clean and have an aesthetically pleasing decor, so the comparison to a Chinese guesthouse does eventually break down. My room had concrete floors and stone walls, while Pat and Randy’s room (with private bath) had wood floors and finished walls.

The thing that caught me off guard when I first saw my camp room was the entryway. There wasn’t a solid door — the entire front of the room was a screen. One section of the screen opens, and a thick curtain pulls across to give the semblance of privacy. The curtain doesn’t shut all the way, and since my room faced the main driveway leading to the highway, I felt a bit like I was on display the entire time I was in the room. I was also a little concerned at first that I might get cold at night, since the desert sky was mostly clear and the temperature would drop with the sun, but the down comforter on my bed kept me very toasty all night. Overall, I had a comfortable stay and would recommend the camp room if you’re wanting to sleep in a bed instead of a tent, but don’t want to shell out the money for a private bath.

The next morning, I wandered from my bed to the Stone Village Market across the courtyard — a fun little whole foods store where you can sit on the front patio under dried chilies and wildflowers and watch the town wake up. I drank a couple of cups of the West Texas Wildfire roast from Big Bend Coffee Roasters in Marfa (with agave nectar and organic half-and-half added), wrote a few postcards, and savored the lazy morning before getting back in the car for our next destination: Sanderson, Langtry, and the Pecos River Bridge.

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Balmorhea, TX, pop. 435

Posted in Travel, West Texas Interlude on 03/13/2012 09:07 pm by admin

It took me approximately 5 minutes after our arrival at Eleven Inn in Balmorhea to decide I wanted to come back and stay a few more days. We weren’t even planning to stay in Balmorhea when we first marked out our itinerary for this trip for West Texas Interlude, but every hotel in Pecos is currently booked solid by oil companies doing new drilling. Ironic that I’m taking a trip to visit towns once prosperous in the 1950s that have supposedly been in decline for decades because of the end of the West Texas oil boom and the building of I-20 to replace old Highway 80…and we couldn’t find a hotel on I-20 because of a new oil boom.

The boom worked in our favor by sending us to Balmorhea for the night. There are eleven rooms at Eleven Inn, each with its own quirky furniture and chenille bedspread. My room had a fuzzy stool at a wooden desk, two “distressed” nightstands (certainly not distressed to make them appear shabby chic, but distressed naturally over the years), a comfy bed, and a tiny tv perched on the top shelf of the closet. I never turned on the tv, but opted to listen instead to the glorious quiet of a motel courtyard located away from the highway. This morning I heard a rooster and what I think might have been the motel owner singing in the yard.

We made a stop at the state park and the famous pool filled by San Solomon Springs — 1 million gallons of water per hour gurgle out of the spring into the 3.5 million gallon pool, whose overflow heads to Balmorhea Lake and nearby irrigation channels. Tiny fish bumped against our toes when we dangled our feet over the concrete edge into the water that maintains a constant 72-76 degree temperature year-round.

Before leaving this morning for Fort Davis, I checked with the owners of Eleven Inn to see if they would have space for me to come back the following weekend. No worries — spring break will be over by then, and I should be able to come and sit for a while. Pat and Randy will head back to Denton on Sunday, but I think I’ll stay behind and enjoy the quiet, write in the mornings, hike in the Davis Mountains in the afternoons, and stare up at the star-filled sky at night.

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Monahans Sandhills

Posted in Travel, West Texas Interlude on 03/12/2012 07:29 pm by admin

You really should roll down a sandhill if you get a chance. Afterwards, be prepared to find sand in your pockets, in the cuffs of your rolled up jeans, in your ears, in your belly button, in between your teeth, and stuck to the chapstick on your lips — but it’s worth the experience.

photos by Randy Hatcher

We brought along a cardboard box and a couple of lids from plastic containers to use as sleds, but had no luck getting them to slide down the dunes. Everyone else we saw (including a girl in a styrofoam box) had a similar problem: you get going a little ways, and the edge of your sliding device plows into the sand and gets stuck.

The visitor’s center has plastic disks and surfboards available for rental, but they also have a sign posted saying they cannot guarantee disks or boards will slide. I’m just not willing to risk attempting a slide on rented gear without such a guarantee.

(Thank you, Aunt Pat, for playing in the sand with me — and thank you, Randy, for being a wonderful trip photographer.)

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Headed West

Posted in West Texas Interlude on 03/08/2012 05:36 am by admin

It snowed again the week I left Washington, but spring was evident when I arrived in Texas. The backroads of Jack and Wise Counties are lined with wild plum trees in blossom, and at my grandparents’ 0$ Ranch the redbuds, peach trees, daffodils, irises, and lilac bush are blooming.

My grandmother and I spent some time looking through a dresser drawer full of memories and came across a few stray papers of interest. One was the hospital bill from my father’s birth, July 27, 1951 in Pecos, Texas. The other was a receipt for the Pontiac Catalina my grandfather purchased new in 1952. The car cost a little over $3100. My dad cost $123.

This weekend I head out on the big road trip that will be my last hurrah for research on West Texas Interlude, the nonfiction book I’m writing to accompany my grandparents’ photos of life on the road working for Conoco in the 1950s. On the itinerary are Monahans, Pecos, Balmorhea, Fort Davis, Sanderson, Langtry, and Big Bend National Park. My aunt is determined to roll down one of the sandhills at Monahans — I’m still undecided as to whether I’ll join her or stand at the bottom to take her picture. At the end of a long week of driving, we’ll end up at the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend, where I’d wanted to stay in 2010 when my friends and I were diverted to the campground on the Rio Grande instead. This time we have a reservation at the lodge, so hopefully nothing will keep us from a couple of nights in the mountains to end our trip. I can’t think of a nicer place to debrief and write notes on a week’s worth of travel and research — and hopefully sneak in a couple of good hikes while we’re at it.

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A Rope or a Stone

Posted in Everything else on 03/01/2012 05:27 am by admin

Earlier this week I sat down with a Somali lady and her daughter to listen to their story of fleeing their homeland in the early 1990s. After 19 years in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, the two arrived in the Tri-Cities a little over a year ago. The mother was one of my regular ESL students last year, and the daughter is enrolled in the ESL program at our local college. Though I had been around the two ladies on a weekly basis for several months, I’d never been able to talk to them in depth because of our language barrier. I finally was given that opportunity, however, when our local World Relief office asked if I’d be willing to work with the Somali translator to talk to them and help them write their story.

I wish I could sit with every refugee in the Tri-Cities and hear their stories. They each need to be given the chance to tell them. To have someone listen. Hopefully sometime in the near future I’ll be able to post a link to the story I write for World Relief from the interview this week.

As our interview came to an end, the daughter served us a meal of beef curry with potatoes and peas, along with a spongy flat bread called enjera (pardon my spelling, if that’s incorrect) and hot chai with cardamom. Through the translator, the mother and I talked about our ESL class from the previous year — she recited a few of the vocabulary words she remembered I taught her, hand, eyes, nose, head. She was apologetic throughout the interview for not learning any faster than she has, but explained that her memory isn’t the same, nor her ability to speak — she is just different than she was before the war. After hearing her story and all that she went through, all that she lost, I marvel that she is able to speak at all.

The translator took the time during our meal to tell a story to encourage her in her learning, and I will share that story with you here.

Which is stronger, a rope or a stone? It seems obvious that the stone is the stronger of the two. But take a water well as an example. A rope lowers a bucket over a stone into a well to draw out water, day after day after day. Eventually the rope wears a groove in the stone. If you repeat something over and over again, keep trying, keep at it, you will eventually wear down what you’re trying for. In the end, the rope is stronger than a stone.

May we all be encouraged to keep trying, keep learning, keep pressing on in whatever difficult endeavor we face today.

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Book Review: The Virtue of Dialogue

Posted in Books on 02/28/2012 05:37 am by admin

“Conversation has not been a magical solution to bring us to one-mindedness or to solve all our conflicts. Today, we still do not agree on all the questions that we have asked over the years, but we do agree on more things and have a much deeper sense of trust that God is guiding us and will continue to work in our midst.” (p. 13, The Virtue of Dialogue)

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to review a few titles for both the print and online versions of The Englewood Review of Books. Today I’m posting a review here on my own site as part of a blog tour for Englewood’s editor C. Christopher Smith’s new e-book The Virtue of Dialogue (Patheos Press), which is available for purchase for your Kindle or Nook.

A substantial portion of the book is the telling of the story of Englewood Christian Church in Indiana, where Smith and his family are members. I love a good story, and this one is well told. Smith traces the history of the church from its beginnings in the late 19th century to present day, weaving in the ups and downs of the congregation’s past, including how it went from a mega-church to less than 200 in attendance within a few decades. The main focus of the story is how both the church and the Englewood neighborhood itself have begun to flourish again and how the church’s “Sunday Night Conversations” played an important role in the recent neighborhood changes.

From the title of the book, I wasn’t convinced before reading it that this wouldn’t be yet another call for churches to have small groups where people can interact with one another and be participants rather than consumers. An important message, but one I’ve heard many times in recent years. That’s not what this book is about.

Through the story’s narrative, Smith tells how the members of Englewood Christian Church as a whole began meeting every Sunday night to talk to one another about their core beliefs and how healing and growth came as they worked at listening to one another instead of tearing one another down. Those same principles of talking and listening (which is what a dialogue or conversation is, right?) soon transferred to how they interacted with their neighbors, and the church became an active participant and leader in the community to keep gentrification from changing Englewood. And lest you think that all they do at Englewood is sit around and talk, I was excited to read about all the things the church is doing in (or rather, with) their community through business and gardening and sustainable food initiatives and real estate.

The Virtue of Dialogue doesn’t give a program or outline for how your church can have the kinds of conversation that Englewood has. It isn’t a prescriptive method with a list of discussion questions that will guarantee your congregation has productive dialogue both within the walls of its building and with others in its community. Smith makes a point of saying more than once that what works for Englewood won’t necessarily work for every church in the same way and that each congregation needs to go through the messy process of stumbling through the early stages of growing in dialogue. That messy process is part of the whole point. We have to get beyond the mindset of efficiency and productivity and realize that not everything in our lives that is good and beneficial for growth can be measured in charts and graphs. Conversation takes time, it can’t be rushed or defined, it doesn’t always have a tangible outcome at the end of every gathering — and that is OK.

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Snowshoeing in Wenatchee National Forest

Posted in Travel on 02/23/2012 05:24 am by admin

It had been a while since I’d taken a day off work to spend outdoors, so when my friend Laura and her parents invited me to go snowshoeing last Friday, I jumped at the chance to clear my schedule and spend a day away from my computer.

Laura’s parents are friends with a family who go regularly throughout the winter to cross-country ski in the Wenatchee National Forest. They have the key to an old cabin owned by the US Forest Service, which they make their base on weekend skiing excursions. The cabin is three miles off the highway, meaning visitors have to pack in their supplies in the winter when the forest service road and hiking trail are snowed over. For our day out in the woods, there were four of us on snowshoes with smaller packs who were only going for the day, three with large packs on skis, and one chocolate lab who didn’t seem to mind that she was the only one tromping through the snow without something on her feet to keep her from post-holing every step.

This was my first time on snowshoes and my first time to see SO MUCH SNOW. Feet and feet of it. It didn’t occur to me until Laura pointed it out — we were passing snow covered treetops at ankle-level. After I realized that, I kept thinking about being on this trail during the summer and looking up overhead to see where we had been walking in the air on this February afternoon.

When we got out of our cars at the trailhead on the highway, the man who had invited us all along pointed out that “This is not a beginner trail.” Great. My first time on snowshoes and it’s not a beginner trail. I think he mostly meant that in regards to anyone on skis, since as we soon found out the trail was uphill most of the way to the cabin. 1000 feet in elevation gain over the 3 miles. Rather exhausting, and torturous for my poor feet in borrowed snow boots that didn’t fit well at all. But the experience was worth the pain in my toes and my ankles (I might not have said that if I’d been injured that day, but I wasn’t, so it doesn’t matter now). It snowed most of the way up to the cabin, six inches by the time we got back to the car — you can see what had accumulated on my backpack after the first three miles. Our hats were covered with a layer as well.

We passed one privately owned cabin (pictured below) on our way to the much more rustic forest service cabin. With the falling snow and drifts on the roof, I dreamed of spending a weekend in such a cabin, cozy in front of the fire, tucked in the forest away from cell signals and traffic noises.

With daylight ending fast, we stayed at the forest service cabin only long enough to sign the guest book, eat a snack, and dry off for a moment in front of the wood-burning stove. During the summer, there are four steps up from the ground to the cabin door. You can see from the photo below, snow had drifted up around the cabin, and we had to step down from the drifts to get in the door. It was unreal to me to be inside a building with such a view out the window.

After our quick rest, the four of us who weren’t staying the weekend put our gear back on and started back the three miles to the highway, the snow still coming down around us. Not long into the return trip, it became dark enough that we needed to put on headlamps, and we finished out our trip with the odd vista of falling flakes illuminated directly in front of our eyes, the darkness of the forest on a snowy, cloudy night surrounding us from all sides. Aside from the crunching of our snowshoes, the forest was silent. All of the usual night sounds in a forest were covered with feet of snow.

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Other People’s Thoughts: Hope Beyond the Blue

Posted in Other People's Thoughts on 02/21/2012 05:25 am by admin

Sometimes the only way to return is to go

Where the winds will take you,

To let go of all you cannot hold onto

For the hope beyond the blue

- Josh Garrels in “Beyond the Blue” from Love & War & The Sea In Between

My personality and work style tends toward the type that likes to get things done. Identify the problem, figure out the solution, make a list of steps, put my head down and work until the job is finished.

Some things in life don’t resolve themselves in such a methodical way. Some problems can’t be solved by coming to a pragmatic conclusion and putting in the man hours to work it all out. Looking back over the years of my life as an adult, much of my greatest growth as a follower of Jesus has come when I’m in those types of situations, when I have to let go of my control of a situation, let go of my expectations for how things should play out. Even if what I’m expecting or envisioning or praying for doesn’t seem overly selfish, even if it seems like it would be a good thing and could bring a measure of glory to God, ultimately I just don’t know everything in this life — and my deepest joy comes in the moments when I can glimpse beyond the Right Now into that place “where the winds will take you” when I’m completely surrendered to God.

Check out Josh Garrels’s music on his website. You can get a free download of his latest album — powerful, meaningful lyrics.

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On Zumba and Life

Posted in Everything else on 02/16/2012 05:54 am by admin

I am hopelessly uncoordinated. In the past I’ve been accused of exaggerating for effect (and what writer doesn’t at times?), but I am not making it up when I say that I cannot move my arms and legs at the same time. One or the other, take your pick, but both together just isn’t going to happen. This is part of the reason why it was such a big deal for me to discover running as a sport — at long last, something athletic that I could do easily, mostly because running requires me to do very little with my arms, besides wave at my neighbors or click “next” on my iPod.

I am so uncoordinated that I never could learn how to swim. When I was a kid, I learned to tread water, but beyond that, I quit trying. Several years ago a friend challenged me to attempt learning again. She started by giving me a foam kick-board to practice moving my legs. No problem — I could kick my way back and forth across the pool all day long. Then she showed me how to move my arms and coordinate my breathing with the stroke. I suddenly lost all ability to kick. It really is too much to ask for me to have my arms, legs, head, and lungs all doing something different at the same time. I flopped around for a while longer that day, called it quits, and decided I’m more of a lounging-in-the-hot-tub person than a swimming laps person.

Last fall when a friend asked me to join a Zumba class with her for a few weeks, I quickly said yes (loud music and Latin dancing, what’s not to get excited about?) before I realized that this class would require me to move both my arms and my legs. And my hips. In front of other people.

First class, I was on the back row. I get really swept away when there’s loud music and when there’s a crowd, and this classroom was crowded — so I danced my little heart out and had a blast. Second class and third class, I made sure to arrive in the room early enough to get a spot in the middle row so that I could see the instructor better. For the fourth class, attendance was down, and there was a spot wide open on the first row. “You’re all going to need extra energy tonight, to make up for the ones who are missing,” the instructor yelled over the warm-up music. The class was definitely missing its usual vibe, and we were dragging our feet to get started.

I moved up to the spot on the front row. Now, I don’t know about other classes, but at this Zumba class the people on the front row know what they’re doing. They’ve been in the class the longest. They’ve memorized the routines. They have rhythm. They are not like me.

But on that night, our teacher was asking for energy. It’s more or less what she’s asked for in every class — “even if you can’t get all the steps, just keep moving to the beat and have a good time.” I decided that it didn’t matter that my steps aren’t perfect, that my arms tend to flail instead of looking smooth, that my hips just don’t move the same way the teacher’s do. I would get out there and flail my arms and shake my hips and keep doing the steps with enough energy to warrant a place on the front row. I samba-ed like we were at Carnival and mambo-ed like I grew up in Havana.

I was much sorer the day after class than I had been after the previous lessons. Soreness is an indication of how hard you’ve worked. In Zumba and in life, I want to be the kind of person who helps give the group energy by putting my heart into every step, not just mumbling and stumbling through the movements, but dancing all out even when I know I’m not going to be perfect.

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