The other
day a friend suggested I write something for this blog. It is fair to say I’ve be thinking of writing
something since the pandemic began, but there is a kind of resistance or
inertia that prevents me from doing so.
Then yesterday one of my sons asked me a couple of questions: What's on your mind these days? What looks
like something worth your attention? Good questions those, but do I answer
them honestly or BS my way through?
I am by
nature a wonderer and yes with an ‘o’ and not an ‘a’ is in wanderer, though if
you look back on my life I’ve done a good bit of wandering, including from
birth to the present relocating over 50 times.
Blessedly since the summer of 2007 we have been in the same house. The second longest stay was seven years in
Vermont. Surely that would make a great
movie title, though not as exotic as Seven Years in Tibet. Ah I digress, one of my favorite pass times
or as a professor once called it-chasing alligators.
Chase actual alligators?? No thank you! I'll cruise the stacks or surf the net.
I wonder
constantly. If I had a nickel for every
time I use those two words I would indeed be wealthy beyond imagining. Well do allow me that one, ahemmmm, slight
exaggeration. Can’t promise others won’t
follow.
So, I
wonder. Indeed I even wonder why I
wonder! But let’s not go there.
My earliest,
clear, indelible memory of wondering goes back to the fifth grade. One afternoon at Travis Elementary in Houston
Texas, I found myself alone in my classroom.
The afternoon sun bathed the room in bright light drenched in dust motes
that danced around my hands as I held them up.
A moment later my focus shifted to my hands--small, short fingers,
smooth skin. I found myself wondering
what they would look like in old age.
Would the veins rise up creating a landscape of blue mountain ridges,
rivers, and creeks? Would the knuckles wrinkle;
the skin dry? Sixty-six years later the
answer to these wonderings is a resounding yes.
Posted to Pinterest by Bethany Roesler
I drive my
long suffering husband nuts on car trips-- I wonder what is growing in that
field. I wonder what the population of
this little town is. Wow, look at that tree I wonder how old it is, how hold
that pueblo is, why people can’t think of others and wear masks during this
pandemic—on and on. Sometimes my husband
tries to respond to my query. But these
are not really questions. They represent unquenchable curiosity about
everything. They are thoughts escaping
my inner universe, finding voice in ‘I wonders’. If my smart phone connected to the internet
on road trips, I could find out (maybe), but then I would miss the next ‘I
wonder’ moment while my head is bent before the oracle of Google.
So what is
worth my attention? I am an equal
opportunity ‘wonderer’. Nothing too
miniscule or anything too immense escapes my voracious appetite. The how’s, how
much’s, how many’s, what’s, why’s, when’s, who’s, which’s—they all fall prey to
my urge to know, to understand.
In my back
yard, I wonder what the birds are saying, why the mole is so afraid to peek out
of his hole, how the ten baby quail wound up in our drainage culvert, how the
chipmunk can move so fast, why the lizard does pushups, what attracted the
snake to our front door, what would I see if the wind were colored, if trees
communicate, do plants really hear me sing, if so, does it scare them or fill
them with joy, why is the tail of one squirrel visitor scraggly and the other
bushy, what’s going on in the rabbit warrens, indeed all the animal warrens,
why the colors of autumn fill me with achingly sweet nostalgia.
On the plaza
of downtown Prescott, Arizona, my wondering changes focus, as the historical
aspects of this mountain town prick my curiosity. As I stand in front of the Bucky O’Neil statue
I wonder what this area looked like two hundred years ago. What early indigenous person walked right
here and why—searching for food, water, enjoying the unfettered view of Thumb
Butte, I wonder what they called Thumb Butte, what were they wearing and most
of all what were they thinking, feeling…The ‘I wonders’ tumble forth and the
busyness of Whiskey Row disappears as my imagination reconstructs the landscape
of the past.
In the near
past, so many of my ‘I wonders’ could be answered by Elisabeth Ruffner who came
to Prescott in 1940 from Ohio. Her
insatiable curiosity and commitment to her new home shaped her into a walking
encyclopedia of all things Prescott. Her passing in the spring of 2019 just
short of her 100th birthday was a great loss. I wonder if in the future we can download a
person’s experience, memories, knowledge.
Perhaps not a good idea. We
humans do manage to warp ideas into something unsavory. Perhaps this notion would just be all to
intimate. I do wonder nevertheless. I do miss her. I do wonder how so vibrant a person can just
cease to be. I miss her, but this is not
an ‘I wonder’ why. I know why.
Elisabeth F. Ruffner
Living five
years respectively in KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and twenty years later in
the UAE (United Arab Emirates) really put my ‘I wonders’ in overdrive. There’s nothing like living in a foreign
country to set the mind afire with questions.
Despite reading AT THE DROP OF A VEIL by Marianne Alireza, a California
woman who lived 12 years in a harem in Saudi Arabia and attending orientation
sessions given by the Arabian American Oil Company’s (ARAMCO)headquarters in Houston, I was really
unprepared for my introduction to a world unlike any I’d ever experienced.
It seemed to
begin in our stopover in Paris. As I
wandered around the city taking in the sites, men kept offering to help me in
some way—water, a seat, sitting next to me at the Eiffel Tower striking up a
conversation.
Off to KSA with Stopover in Paris, July 1977
At the time I was HUGE,
three weeks away from giving birth to my youngest child. I wondered why all the attention. And coincidentally or not all the men were
dark skinned, a rich deep brown. I wondered if they thought I would be a great
breeder as I proved already capable of the task. One even said I was beautiful. But then I wonder if they just thought I
looked about to drop to the ground and give birth, offering their aid out of a
bred in the bone desire to protect the gestational female of the species. I do
wonder.
In KSA a year later an Arab man offered me 3000 riyals for my toddler. I wonder to this day if he was serious. I believe he was as sons are so highly valued
in Arab culture. But pitfalls abound
when trying to communicate in broken English and broken Arabic. Nuances of gesture, facial expressions,
diction, tone were lost on me.
So I was in
a state of constant wondering in the kingdom.
I wonder if I heard him right, I wonder how children recognize their
mothers when all the women are cloaked in black. Yet, unerringly each child always finds his
mother. I learned later that the sway of
the abaya, the length of stride, the shape of the shrouded figure all guide the
little one to the correct black cloaked figure.
I wonder how the women handle the heat of black polyester head to toe in
the blazing Arabian sun made even more unbearable as it shines down through the
heavy humidity hanging over the Arabian Gulf, Persian Gulf if you’re in Iran.
Saudi Women
I
wondered how a society could accept the killing of a young girl by an uncle who
raped her because she brought
dishonor to the family. I wondered how
sand roses formed beneath the grey sabkhas (coastal flat areas),
Sand Rose, KSAhow that man can walk across the searing
sand in thin sandals with no water,
The Empty Quarter, KSA
why women in so many countries including my
own are deemed inferior to men. I wonder
where, why, how and when that initial notion rose up. I wonder when women of KSA will find equal
footing and at what cost.
My years in
the Middle East could give rise to a heavy tome of ‘I wonders’, but those years
especially infused me with a deep interest in religion, political theory,
politics, history, archaeology, psychology.
My wondering leads to reading, watching documentaries, talking to people
especially my historian husband. What I
wish most I suppose is to sit across from someone over coffee and pick their
brains. I’ve had a few experiences like
that, but not nearly enough.
I remember
in the UAE sitting at a Starbucks with a friend. After getting our drinks I said to her, “So
tell me everything, from the moment you got off the plane in Mecca, KSA to your
return to Al Ain, UAE. Palestinian by
birth with very good English she described the Hajj in marvelous detail. As an infidel I would never be welcome
there. It is not a tourist attraction;
it is a communion. Moreover I hate
crowds. But my friend satisfied my ‘I
wonder what the Hajj is like’.
I spend many
of my ‘I wonders’ on people. I wonder
where that wine merchant I met in Nice is now, how is Vijay, my husband’s
assistant in the UAE, is he well, has he returned to India to retire, whatever
happened to that Aussie who played King Phillip in A Lion in Winter which I
directed in KSA, that young man who, near the back
entrance into Camp Pendleton, killed another young man we found in the middle
of the road, where is that Afghan man who helped me up an embankment in an
oasis, my first heart throb in the fifth grade.
Neal Mangham in UAE Oasis circa 2016
And then there is the forward leaning ‘I wonders'. I wonder what my five granddaughters will be
when they grow up, what heartbreak and joys they’ll face, will they remember me
at all and if so how, I wonder what I’m doing right now that will live on in
their memory. I wonder if I will live
long enough to see them all reach at least 18.
That means I have to manage 89, thirteen more years.
The Fab Five Christmas in the UAE 2016
And that
brings me to the more existential and cosmic ‘I wonders’. I wonder why some people from virtually
identical backgrounds thrive and others don’t.
I wonder if there are miracles.
Indeed I wonder what the definition of a miracle is. Perhaps a miracle today is a humdrum part of
daily life in the distant future. I
wonder.
I wonder if
we will ever be able to time travel. I
am forever wondering what some historical figure would think if he or she could
be in my present. Recently I find myself
wondering what Abraham Lincoln would think of the state of our union in
2020. Oh how I wish he could be here,
take a grand tour of the country and then sit down with artists, laborers,
farmers, doctors, soldiers, inventors and perhaps President Obama--and of
course me. I promise not to wonder out
loud.
I wonder
what the word infinite means. I wonder
how a word given sound from the voice box, expressed in letters and symbols can
possibly describe the notion of something without end, without borders. Every time I imagine an infinite universe and
travel in my imagination further and further out beyond the solar system, the
star
systems in our neighborhood, galaxies 
-- I find myself slamming against a
border implying a delineation of an end at the
border and something beyond, but then can infinity have borders? I do wonder what is out there beyond the
limits of my imagination. And I do
wonder if humanity will survive long enough to probe beyond the last, hmmm
whatever—but can there even be a last whatever?? I do wonder.
Image of a 'Whatever'?
At these
times I must rein myself back in, retreat from infinity, step by step until I
feel anchored once more, back in my skin.
I look at my pores, the tiny sun bleached hairs, and my mind begins to
navigate the ever diminishing size of the components that make up my body. Hydrogen
atoms make up the smallest element, comprising nine percent of body weight. But
is that the smallest? I wonder if there is an infinity to explore here, another
step or two into a universe too miniscule to imagine.
Hydrogen Atom
And I do
wonder about my death—the day, the hour, the place, whether I’m alone or not,
my last words, my last sound, my last vision, my last thought. I wonder where this entity called Gail
disappears to. If my ashes are scattered
in nature, will I give rise to new life, be a part of a bear seeking honey, a
squirrel racing up a tree, a flower, an aspen quaking in the chill of autumn. Could any part of the energy that makes up
this me, could that become part of a new human?
I wonder.
I sometimes
wonder if I’m alright with believing that death is an end, simply an end, no
afterlife, with pearly gates, and a pantheon of gods, goddesses. I think I am.
This life, however accidentally conceived, is a gift. I can wish perhaps that I might have
accomplished more with it. But I am so
grateful for what I’ve been granted whether by chance or design. I do wonder what that infinitely thin border
between being and not being is like.
Will there be a nanosecond of realization that this is it, that it is
time for the next great adventure as my mother-in-law put it before her own
passing? Will there even be a next great
adventure? I do wonder.
The Future Me? My Next Great Adventure?
Matt, I do wonder if this answered your questions.
And Barbara Jacobsen, thank you for the nudge.
Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849)
