holiday shopping

holiday shopping -- 

a girl in a red cap watches

a red toy train go 'round

Hurrying into Everybody's grocery store, I'm trying to remember my mental list for holiday meals. Each family member and friend has different tastes that run the gamut from carnivore to gluten-free to vegan. I rush through the entrance, decorated with artificial Christmas trees, Santa and Mrs. Claus, elves, lots of lights and glitter. 
           But as soon as I enter the store proper, I slow down to walk around the three-level electric toy train display. Every year it gets bigger and better. There must be at least a half a dozen trains in different colors zipping past miniature houses, stores, churches, trees. 
          I'm not the only one fascinated by the trains. A little girl with a cherubic face under a knit red cap gazes with rapt attention while her parents go shopping. I can hardly wait until my grandchildren arrive so I, too, can take them to Everybody's to see the wondrous electric trains.

portrait artist sketching

portrait artist sketching

two girls sitting in one chair,

one smiling at me

Two girls sit for their portrait during Artwalk, held every first Friday in and around the town square. The theme for July is Party in the Park. It's a clear, warm evening, so lots of folks turn out.

An entire family sits on one bench to share popcorn and listen to the band.

Teenage boys and girls gather in two groups, close but not yet together.

Two friends chat next to the bench with the statue of a Civil War soldier telling stories to a young boy.

A little boy wears a Frisbee on his head.

A magician amazes a group of children (and their parents) with a rope trick.

A tender moment between mother and son.

A father feeds his baby.

A grandmother holds her granddaughter.

Two boys play with two babies in a stroller.

A girl waits for customers at a concession stand.

A little girl enjoys a drink with two straws.

A toddler in a polka dot dress and shoes holds someone's blue shoe. I wonder whose?

A boy engrossed in playing with a green ball.

Two friends share a cozy moment at Flying Leap Art Gallery on the west side of the square.

unfolding gangly

unfolding gangly

black limbs a spider monkey

stands fully erect

The little black ball of fur in the open enclosure at Xcaret is clearly a monkey. While I watch, he pops something in his mouth with his agile fingers. Then he begins to unfold like origami. First he comes to his hands and feet, his thin arms and legs elongating, and now he does look like a four-legged black spider. Then he starts to stand on two legs, bent over like an old man. Finally he stands fully upright, looking like a gangly teenager, peering over his shoulder. When I look at what he is looking at, a barefoot toddler is walking by. I imagine the spider monkey thinking, "Sure, she can walk on two feet, but can she swing through the trees?"

children of Cozumel

children of Cozumel,

surrounded by turquoise sea,

tourists with cameras

Their mothers sell braided bracelets and belts to tourists who come to the island for diving, shopping, seaside cuisine. The children of Cozumel, surrounded by a sea of turquoise water and tourists, play like children everywhere, exploring their little patch of land, enjoying a cold drink and the gift of a bracelet made from balloons. The balloons may not last longer than the crushed ice, but the moment is innocently sweet.

young face, ancient eyes

young face, ancient eyes,

a girl in a Disney dress 

leans on her father's back

In the lobby of Hotel Alhambra, a man holding a baby on his shoulder chats with the hotel clerk. The lettering on his white shirt reads "Excellence Playa Mujeres Mexico." His daughter, wearing a Disney princess, stands with upraised hand and downcast eyes, as regal as the first ruler of the Maya.

Virginia Creeper vine

Virginia Creeper vine

twining around a fence post,

five fingers reaching

Labor Day, a day to honor those who labor and a day of rest from labor. Tomorrow it's back to school for many children. Today they are riding their bikes, bare backs, bare feet, care free. It's still officially summer but the leaves have already begun to turn red and yellow and fall to the ground. This Virginia Creeper has been laboring for a long time to climb up a fence post. The creeper, with its five-finger leaves, is a prolific climber, reaching heights of 20 to 30 m in the wild. It climbs smooth surfaces using small forked tendrils tipped with small strongly adhesive pads. This particular wild vine, after reaching the top of the fence post, fanned out in all directions, seeking something else to latch onto, something higher to surmount. But what? The sky's the limit.

on the Louden Bridge

on the Louden Bridge

three kids waving at a train,

sound of three long blasts

Labor Day weekend. Saturday, rain all day, the first good long rain in two moons, enough to soften the edges of the deep cracks in the ground. Sunday, clear, cool, windy. Everyone is out. Picnics and Frisbee in the parks, swimming in the lake, walking and biking on the trails. We walk the trail from Chautauqua Park to the Louden Bridge over the railroad tracks. Ceramic insets along the bridge depict equipment produced by the Louden Machinery Company since the late 1800s: hay uploading tools, dairy barn equipment, hog house equipment, litter and feed carriers, sliding barn door hangers "to keep out birds." A trio of children are standing in the exact center of the bridge, clinging to the chain link barrier like blonde bats, their little bikes abandoned as they wait for a train to appear. Their father waits patiently. "This is the third train today," he says. "The first one was a loaded coal train going east. It honked at the kids when they waved. The last one was empty, going west. They go really fast when they're empty." The little girl turns to her father, hair blowing across her face. "When is it going to come?" she asks. "Soon." Now we hear the wail of the horn as a train enters the town from the west. "Who's going to see it first?" I ask. "Me!" they all reply. There it is, the headlight shining as it comes around the curve in the distance. "Where's the coal?" the youngest boys asks. "It's not a coal train," their father answers. "It's carrying other things, covered up to protect them." The kids start waving when the engine gets close enough. The engineer lays on the horn, three long blasts. The little girl grins up at me. "One for each of us!"

girls playing hand games

girls playing hand games,

washing our laundry, simple

actions, deep meaning

A pair of girls are playing a hand game on the bale while Robin and I wash our clothes in a bucket on our porch. As Robin is twisting her wet kamben she says, "A pregnant woman would not do this because it might strangle the baby with its cord." This statement reminds me so much of my superstitious grandmother that I laugh. But as a westerner living and working with the Balinese people, Robin respects their beliefs. She says a lot of them make sense when you understand the Balinese world view. The cosmos is divided into three worlds. The gods and spirits of ancestors reside in the upper world (swah), living humans reside in the middle world (bwah), and demons reside in the lower world (bhur). Geographical locations follow the same system, with mountains being swah, the plains, bwah, and the ocean, bhur. The human body also follows this tripartite division, with the head being swah, the torso, bwah, and the legs and feet, bhur. Robin tells me that Balinese will not walk under a clothesline for fear of underwear touching their heads. Laundry can't be hung in trees, or else the fruit and flowers can never be used for offerings again. Instead, laundry has to be laid on special bushes. A baby's feet are not allowed to touch the earth for the first 210 days (one year in the wuku calendar), until the tedak siten ceremony. I look up at the girls playing on the bale and ask, "Is it okay to pat children on the head?" Robin shakes her head but assures me that any actions done out of ignorance will be expiated by some offerings. Thank goodness for undoing rituals!

water and plastic

water and plastic --

students learn the principles

of fluid dynamics

The heat index is 102 degrees, way too hot for late spring. Creative teachers at MSAE in Fairfield, Iowa, take classroom outside, to a water slide set up on the hill near the school, where the students have great fun learning how fluids, smooth surfaces, slopes, mass, velocity, and gravity all work together.

girl with red balloon

girl with red balloon

in her mouth peeking between

double wooden doors

There is magic in sudden seeing. A moment before, only worn wooden doors set in an unadorned adobe wall. The next moment, one of the doors opens a crack and a little girl, dwarfed by the tall doors, peeks out, holding a red balloon in her mouth. It's like opening an old wooden chest and discovering hidden treasure, a star ruby set in a bracelet of sapphires.

blue doors, azure wall

blue doors, azure wall,

boy in orange jacket and pants,

bushy-tailed orange dog

The blue so often seen on doors in Peru is the same color as the water of Lake Titicaca: ultramarine, sapphire, cobalt, lapis lazuli. The aqua paint on the wall, also a favorite color, is seen in everything from aquamarine plastic bags to electric blue plastic tarps and turquoise plastic pails. On the color wheel orange is opposite blue, and when they are together they not only complement but also compliment each other. The mango orange of the boy's clothes and the burnt sienna of the dog's fur pop out in delightful contrast with the blue doors. This combination of blue and orange reminds me of the intense cerulean of the sky and the persimmon buffalo grass in autumn on our farm in the Flint Hills of Kansas. When we moved into our stone house, built in 1840, I wanted to bring the outside inside, so I painted the walls prairie grass orange and the ceiling sky blue.

inside turquoise doors

inside turquoise doors 

a little boy peers out as

his brother runs to school

Traveling on yet another bus, tired but unwilling to take my eyes off the passing scenery, I keep glimpsing fleeting moments of beauty. I keep my camera turned on and raised to the window. Somewhere between Urubamba and Ollantaytambo, I spot a little boy in a blue school uniform and backpack leaping away from a pair of turquoise doors. When I look at the frozen moment on the view screen, I notice the other little boy peeping from behind the closed door, perhaps wistfully watching his older brother run off to school.