story challenge: letter e! (escape)

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Story Challenge

Tuesday, July 31: Today FrizzText’s Story Challenge is the letter E:  Escape is to break loose from confinement, to get free.

Everybody past a certain age, regardless of how they look on the outside, pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. ~ Doug Coupland

It’s nice to know, based on the quote above, that I’m not the only one who dreams of escape.  And I’m glad to know I’m not the only one “past a certain age,” who does so.  To be honest, I have ALWAYS dreamed of escaping from my mundane life into a life more exciting, more passionate, more adventurous.  Sometimes I am able to escape this commonplace life, but only temporarily.  As soon as I settle in any one place for too long, I find myself again in the midst of the ordinary.

The only way I can see to avoid this is to have constant change bombarding me every day.  I imagine a soldier in a war zone feeling this assault of change, or a travel writer who makes her living by escaping.  I doubt a soldier’s life could ever be mundane, but it must get tiresome just the same.  A travel writer’s life certainly becomes routine as well:  living out of a suitcase day after day, dealing with laundry, transportation and logistics issues, sampling and reviewing hotels, restaurants and tourist sites.  Yes, even that could become a humdrum existence.

the early days of my escape to Oman

So, when I escape, which I have done aplenty in the last several years, the quest is to keep life from becoming mundane.  The problem is that I still must work; that means a routine establishes itself.  I have a bed to make, grocery shopping to do, a commute in my car, a stop at the gas station, dirty dishes in the sink.  More of the ordinary!  How do I REALLY escape?

Maybe Mark Haddon has the answer:  Every life is narrow. Our only escape is not to run away, but to learn to love the people we are and the world in which we find ourselves.

Escape back home to spend time with my daughter Sarah

I am going back to Virginia Thursday morning after spending the last 10 1/2 months in Oman.  When I first arrived here last September, my life in Oman was certainly not mundane.  Or narrow.  But, after 10 1/2 months, it has become commonplace.  Especially now, with the double challenges of heat & Ramadan, it is excruciatingly narrow.  Now, the life I really wanted to escape, my mundane life in Virginia, is beckoning me back.  It looks mighty appealing. I yearn for canopies of shady green trees, rain showers, boats on Deep Creek Lake, walks in the woods, good shopping malls, vegan meals with my sons, medical check-ups, lazy times and laughs with my children.  Time with my husband, my father, friends, my dog Bailey.

Escape to Deep Creek Lake: Adam, me and Alex

I will be in Virginia for nearly a month, and I’m quite certain it will be pretty much the way it has always been.  I’ll feel comfortable in my cozy and beautifully decorated house.  Possibly it will be a mess because it’s been inhabited only by men: my husband and two sons.  I’ll drive the same car, a 1997 Toyota Camry; I’ll go to the same grocery stores, I’ll wash the same dishes, I’ll take a bath in the same bathtub.  It will be mundane.  But, as it’s different from where I’ve been the last 10+ months, it will be an escape.

And after nearly a month in Virginia, I’ll go on a true escape, to Greece, for two adventurous, carefree weeks!  Where I won’t be in one place long enough for anything to become ordinary.

Maybe I should try not to run away again, but to learn to love the person I am and the world in which I find myself.  And when I come back to Oman again, which I will since I renewed my contract for another year, I can learn to love who I am and the life here as well.

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If you’d like to participate, see Story Challenge: Letter E.  FrizzText writes: Do you have to share a story or a short reflection tagged with the letter “E”? For example I’ve written about EGGS and EYES, EAGLES and ELKS, EXISTENTIALISM or Expressionism, about Education and Experiences, Europe and ESCALATORS, ETHIOPIA or Egypt, the EHEC bacterium or ELECTRICITY, about EROTIC as a positive ENERGY or ESCAPE as a strategy, about the EQUAL Pay Day or the EARTH hour, about EMPATHY or EMERGENCY, about ELEPHANTS and EXPOSITIONS, the ELTZ castle in Germany or the “Eilean Donan” Castle in Scotland, about EMMYLOU Harris or ERIC Lafforgue – I’m sure you’ll find an own story or a short reflection tagged with “E”!

story challenge: letter “d” (david)

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Story Challenge

Tuesday, July 24:  It was the summer of 1973, between my junior and senior years in high school.  I was in a beach house our sorority, Sigma Phi Lambda (SPL), had rented for a week; I think it was on 73rd Street in Virginia Beach.  I happened to be in a room shaving my legs, I had one leg propped up on a chair and was bending over it with a razor.  David walked in on me and we both laughed in an awkward moment.  That night, we stayed up all night outdoors on the beach.  We sat up and talked about everything, then fell asleep on a blanket with the waves crashing on the beach and the stars overhead.

David at his high school graduation: 1972

Later we went to a Seals & Crofts concert at Hampton Coliseum. “Summer Breeze,” “Diamond Girl,” “We May Never Pass This Way Again,” “Hummingbird:”  too many songs seemed to sum up our romance. It didn’t take me long to fall in love with him.  He was my first “true” love, whatever that means.  The kind that makes your heart want to jump out of your chest. There’s a lot that happened that fall, mainly a lot of partying and laughter.  He was someone who could make me laugh. He also hurt me, not physically but emotionally.  One time, I went ballistic on him in the middle of Rich’s Grocery Store because I heard a rumor he had been out with a girl named Debbie.  This while we were dating.

On New Year’s Eve of that same year, he said goodbye to me at my doorstep.  He told me he loved me and I said the same.  I never heard from him again.  In those days, a girl didn’t call a boy.  As a matter of fact, I still prescribe to this theory, stated so aptly by Wu Tang: “Do not chase people. Be you and do your own thing and work hard. The right people who belong in your life will come to you, and stay.”

my friend Charlene and her boyfriend, me with David ~ 1973

He must not have been the right person.  He wasn’t.  That’s obvious.  But strangely, as we humans tend to hope against all logic, it took me over 30 years to accept it.  When I saw him at a York High Reunion in 2004, nearly 31 years after we dated, I saw him across a room and my heart went wild again.

Strange thing, love. We don’t choose who we love, or who we don’t love.  Love chooses us, or it leaves us by the wayside.  I loved him in my own secret way for a long time.  But.  He didn’t love me back.  I could only truly accept that, way too late, in 2004.

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FrizzText opens his FrizzText: Story Challenge: Letter “D” this week with a nice set of memory joggers: Do you have to share a story or a short reflection tagged with the letter “D”? For example I’ve (FrizzText that is) written about DANCING or DOLPHINS, about DARWIN or DESIGN, sang some blues about DIAMONDS or DISSATISFIED ladies, wrote about darkness or deserts, death and differences, doors and docks, dogs and dandelions, dolphins, donkeys and Dubrovnik, Disco Queens or Dragon Boat Races, documents and departures, the divided world or design developments, dreams and desires, distant-points-of-view, Dubai or disasters, dialogs and ducks – I’m sure you’ll find an own story or a short reflection tagged with “D”! Feel free to add in the comments the link to your personal interpretation of the letter “D”!!!

story challenge: letter c! (cathy)

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Story Challenge

Tuesday, July 17:  Here is FrizzText’s Story Challenge: Letter C for this week: Do you have a story or a short reflection tagged with the letter “C” to share? For example you can write about CHILDHOOD and CHERNOBYL, CATS and CHATS, CIRCLES and CHALLENGES, CRUISE SHIPS and CAPTAINS, CELEBRATIONS and CUCKOO CLOCKS, CAPPUCCINO or CAPPADOCIA, CRUELTY and CHINA, CENSORSHIP and CAMOUFLAGE, CITIES and CUCUMBERS, CHANGES and CONTACTS, CHRISTIANITY or CARTOONS, COFFINS and COLORS, COCA COLA and CASTLES, CHARACTER or CONCENTRATION, CONTRASTS and CULTURES, CARNIVAL or CARS, CELIBACY or CURIOSITY, CORMORANTS and COURAGE, CINEMAS or CATHEDRALS, COLOGNE or CALCUTTA, CAFÉS and COMMUNITIES – I’m sure you’ll find an own story or a short reflection tagged with “C”!

I love so many of FrizzText’s ideas, especially Cappadocia, cafes, cathedrals, coffee, cultures… there are so many to choose from!! But I’ve written loads already about Cappadocia, which I adore.  It’s actually probably my favorite place in the world.

cappadocia day 1…cave churches, underground cities, & rakı under the stars

cappadocia day 2 ~ imagination valley, fairy chimneys (& hakan takes cathy to the local hamam)

cappadocia day 3 ~ ballooning over a moonscape, a tough hike, and another dreaded overnight bus

And the other topics will have to wait for another time, another challenge.

Because, for some reason, I feel compelled to write about my name: Cathy.

First of all, the name Cathy is just a nickname, coming from Catherine or Katherine.  It comes from the Greek apparently, and means “Pure Maiden!”  That really makes me laugh.  Me, a pure maiden?

My name is spelled with a “C,” and I have to say I never appreciate it when people automatically spell it with a “K,” even though it’s a natural mistake.

So, how did I get a nickname as my legal name?  My mother tells the story that when I first appeared on the scene in Petersburg, Virginia, in all my sudden smallness, she just couldn’t bring herself to give such a big name (Catherine) to such a miniscule baby!!  Hmmm.   Didn’t she think I would ever grow up?

me with my mom: too tiny to be a Catherine!

So now I’m in my 50s and Cathy isn’t too bad yet, I guess, for someone in their 50s.  But what about when I’m in my 60s and 70s and 80s!!?? Wouldn’t it somehow be more dignified, more sophisticated to be a Catherine?  Or even a Kate?  Kate being a nickname for Katherine, but hardly a nickname for the nickname of Cathy!!  Can you even have a nickname for a nickname?

I think I’m not very happy here that my mother gave me the nickname “Cathy” for my real name!

I think of the famous Catherines: Catherine the Great, Katherine Hepburn, Katherine Heigl, Catherine Deneuve, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Catherine de Medici (royalty!).  Just look at all the famous Catherines!!  But when I look up the “famous” Cathys, I don’t recognize a single one.  There is absolutely a list of famous Cathys, but if I’ve never heard of them, how famous can they be?

Oh, wait, but there is the famous cartoonist, Cathy Guisewite.  Her cartoons featured a woman named Cathy who struggled through the “four basic guilt groups” of life — food, love, mom, and work — the strip gently poked fun at the lives and foibles of modern women. Cathy’s characteristics and issues both made fun of and sometimes fed into negative stereotypes about women. The strip debuted on November 22, 1976, and at its peak appeared in over 1,400 newspapers.

When I was born in the mid 1950s, apparently Cathy (or Kathy or Katherine or Catherine) was a very popular name. As a matter of fact, statistics show that this name was at the height of its popularity between 1950 and 1960.  So when I was in elementary school all the way through high school, I had as many as five Cathys in every one of my classes.  Imagine the teachers trying to figure out how to designate which Cathy was which.  I don’t remember now what the solution was, but somehow I think I got to be known by my last name which was Birdsong.  So to many of my friends, I became Birdie, or Birdlegs, or Birdbrain, or even worse.  You can only imagine.

My first husband even engraved on the inside of my wedding band, “Always, Birdie.”

“Always, Birdie” to my first husband Bill

Maybe someday I will fill out some paperwork, go to the government authorities, pay a fee and change my name to Catherine.  I would like that really.  But who would call me that?  Only NEW people I meet, because all the people who have known me my whole life will continue to call me Cathy.  Argh!

One year, my daughter Sarah went to summer camp and she decided she wanted to be “Sal.”  So she told everyone at camp that was her name.  I was surprised when we went to pick her up at camp, and everyone was calling her Sal!

Sarah became “Sal” at summer camp! Why can’t I become someone else?

And Sarah at least has a song named after her.  “Sara” by Fleetwood Mac.  Or “Sarah Smile” by Hall & Oats.  What about Cathy?  Is there any song out there about Cathy?

I guess since I am a nomad and I work and live abroad, wearing new countries like a new skin, I should just tell people when I go to a new place that I am Catherine.  Or Kate.  Or even Isabella.  How about Sophia, Camilla, Gabriella?  I always loved Italian girl names.  I guess I could try anything on for size!

story challenge: letter b (bicycles)

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Story Challenge

Tuesday, July 10:  Now that FrizzText, who used to challenge us with the A-Z archive photo challenge, has gone through the entire alphabet, he is now challenging us to come up with a story or brief reflection about something from each letter of the alphabet.  Last week, for the letter “A,” I linked up to his challenge a story about Andong, South Korea, from my catbird in korea blog: andong and the hotel california.  To join in, see FrizzText’s Story Challenge: Letter B.

This week, I have just a few things to say about bicycles.

I like the old-fashioned kind, the kind with shiny metal fenders, a kickstand and a basket attached to the front handlebars. I have a memory of riding my bicycle with no hands and my eyes closed, trying to be a daredevil, and falling down, of course.  A rock lodged in my knee and, scraped and bloodied, I sat in the bathroom crying as my mother pried the rock out. I still have that scar.

shiny, old-fashioned bicycles at rest in Kyoto

As a child, I loved the feel of the wind in my hair, the recklessness of speeding downhill on my bicycle.

bicycling down the street in Varanasi, India

I rode an old-fashioned bicycle in Kyoto, Japan with a Korean girl baker. These are sturdy old-fashioned bicycles with baskets and no adjustable gears, the kind I rode when I was a girl.  Everyone seems to ride these kinds of bikes in Kyoto. Compact and well-dressed Japanese people pedal around on them, looking unhurried and day-dreamy, creating a simple Japanese-style Norman Rockwell-like ambiance that makes me feel a nostalgic fondness for the days when life was full of straightforward and uncomplicated pleasures.

Me with JiYoung, the Korean bakery girl, getting ready to ride our bicycles in Kyoto

Whenever I see a bicycle parked anywhere, I hesitate, struck by its utility and its romance. In China, there were bicycles aplenty, and I loved them all, as much as you can love something that can’t love you back.

bicycles at Houhai Lake, Beijing, China

And in Oman, I see the lone bicycle, parked alongside a struggling business, the sole means of transport for some poor Pakistani or Indian.

a lone bicycle brings this businessman to work near Nizwa souq

bicycles at Nizwa souq