Nothing but dark blue....

My breath moves in slow, measured increments. I hear every aspect of it. Sound moves 4 times faster through water than air, I've learned. The bubbles from my exhale mask my vision every few seconds; this takes some getting used to, like adjusting to the blur of windshield wipers when learning to drive. I check my air gauge - only 500 psi. So I swim over to my buddy, and motion in scuba sign language: I point at myself, tap my fist over my heart, and move my fingers back and forth between my regulator and theirs. She knows that I've just said, "I am low on air. I need to share air with you." In slow, underwater motion now we arrange to share air, and slowly flap our fins until we break the surface.
Every Tuesday night I spend my time floating, swimming, and breathing underwater for hours on end. That's right, I'm in a scuba diving class. When I'm down there, I feel suspended in the middle of nothingness, and like all the rest of life is suspended with it, in nothingness. All that matters is my breathing, and the small air pocket around my eyes.
Finally, tomorrow, after many hours of practicing drills like the air-share ascent, I will complete my basic course in scuba diving. I will be 22 and scuba certified, looking at nothing but dark blue.

How is a successful rescue defined, anyway?

Last Monday was Labor Day. I labored towards saving a bird that day, a little bird with a broken leg I fondly named Petey. I kept Petey in a box, despite the fact that the campus policeman said we should throw him in the garbage. You just can't throw a living creature in the garbage! I thought. You just can't throw a living creature in the garbage! I said to my roommate. So she let me take Petey home. That night I fed him a variety of foods, since I didn't yet know what he liked to eat best. I gave him some bread crumbs, some rice krispies, and some cantelope. And a little tub of water. That night he didn't seem to eat any of the food, which made me sad. Then the next day Petey died. It was distressing. We put the box on the balcony, so that we didn't have a dead bird in the apartment, and because we weren't quite ready for the funeral yet. A week later, my roommates were not happy that Petey was still in the box, dead, on the balcony; and so to please the crowd I dispensed with the funeral, and placed him gently in the dumpster. That is very different from throwing a living creature in the garbage, I told myself over and over. I told my roommate too, and my friend that carried Petey to the dumpster with me. And yet, somehow, it still felt wrong...

The woman needs to be dusted!

There is, in my museum, a certain mannequin. Pictures of her have been posted by a friend, Beth, on facebook, if anyone cares to look her up. She is a hunched-over old woman, with a small scrunched up face, and hands warped from too much hard labor. She carries with her some sort of farming tool over her shoulder with one hand, and a giant basket that she could probably fit in herself in the other. She is the image of a slave on a rice plantation in the low country (which is in the Carolinas), in an exhibit on the matter. She is shamefully dusty. Across the room from her are two little slave girl mannequins in a fake farmhouse place. They carry on the same recorded dialogue all day long, wherein they discuss their lives as slaves to give our visitors a deeper understanding of it. At the end of their dialogue they sing a song. It is not possible to put into words the feelings this song brings out in me. My headquarters in the museum are inside this exhibit, so every morning on my way in to work I walk past the two girls and the woman. Right outside the door to my headquarters is another door, an emergency door. Now, we all, as sensible people, know what happens when we open emergency doors. An alarm goes off, right? Unfortunately for us in my department, the delivery people don't seem to realize this and nearly every morning they choose to make deliveries through this door, setting off the alarm. So, as a result, every morning on my way in to work, as I draw nearer to my area, I begin to hear the strains of a familiar - and somewhat despicable - medley, wherein the whiney voices of the mannequins singing, "no more auction block for me, no more, no more....many thousands gone" combines with a shrill beeping followed by the automated words, "exit now", and I find that that is all I want to do. Hearing that combination of sounds triggers inside me a strong impulse to exit now and run from the building, or at least set up shop in some other part of it. Why can't the delivery people be taught a different route? Why, I ask? Why? Why? Sometimes we flip a switch and silence the little girls. Their song is just so ingraining and misery-filled. It's just plain depressing to have to hear it so often. Every morning on my way out to straighten the stansions and fill the brochures, I stop by the mannequin of the old woman, whom alone among the things on that morning walk I dearly love, and I vow to her that someday I will make them dust her. "They vacuum the bison," I say, "They swiffer Dumbo. You too have rights and should be dusted!" I feel a connection with that mannequin, and can only hope that one of my other fellow workers, who have often heard my complaints about the dusty woman, will carry on my work now that I have departed.
Yes, indeed, yesterday was my last day of work at the museum. I fly home the day after tomorrow. I have enjoyed working here and I love the people I work with, but I am very excited to go home before heading back off to school for the fall. And to the old dusty woman, who will never read this, I say that she should always remember her rights to be dusted, even if I am not there to daily remind her. One day, I am sure, she will sit at the welcome table. One day, I am sure, she too will be dusted and vacuumed, and given the respect she deserves as an item in the museum equal to the bison, though perhaps still less than Dumbo. One day, I am sure, justice will be achieved, and the old woman shall, at last, be clean.

"What if life were only moments..."

Moment #1: I was in a room with a beautiful hard-wood floor, wooden tables, bookshelves, and piano, lit by a dim but sufficient yellow-light lamp. The gleam of the homey light on the wood, combined with the smell of another delicious home-made dinner, gave the feel of being in a moment trapped in time, transcendent, ever-lasting, yet instantaneous, all at once. It's one of those moments where all you really remember is the feel and the mood of the place, not the events or the words. I was sitting at the piano, accompanying my cousin Evan as he practiced his violin (yet another piece of beautiful wood in the room). It was a simple song, played well, and played better each time. His diligence in practicing, my chance to help out, made it all feel like a home away from home. It was a moment filled with family, and beauty.

Moment #2: An old man, dignified by a masterful white beard, wheels an old woman, still lovely with her well-used smile, to my printing press in a wheel chair, accompanied by two faceless younger people. The woman wears large, dark glasses, but it takes me a minute to realize that she is blind. The man takes a card, I tell him to push down on the lever until it clicks, he pushes, and pulls out a freshly printed card with red ink that says, "I printed this at the Smithsonian!", accompanied by an ink picture of the Smithsonian castle. He smiles, looking at it, and gently leans down to the woman in the wheel chair, and reads the whole thing to her. She looks so at home with just the sound of his voice, so familiar, though she cannot see a thing. He looks back at me and says, "I've been her boyfriend for 63 years!" A prouder man I cannot imagine - she looks up at me and tells me that they have been married for that amount of time. As they wheel away, she reaches her hand out to me and clasps mine; I feel like all the love in her heart and the warmth in her smile travels through her farewell into my heart, my smile, my life. This is one of those encounters that, however brief, sticks with you and changes you. That old woman in the wheelchair with the beautiful smile will always be with me.

Bonus points to anyone who can tell me the source of this post's title.

"The First __________"

At long last, the entire purpose of my summer in D.C. has come to pass. My internship at one of the museums on the National Mall here has begun! I work with the Office of Public Programming (OPP), and have great supervisors and great co-interns. It is a blast so far. One of the best things about my specific duties is how much time I spend on the floor interacting with visitors. Just the other day, in fact, I witnessed an event that brought to my attention an unfortunate misunderstanding of what sorts of things museums hold, which I would like to here correct.
I was in the Star-Spangled Banner exhibition, where the very flag that Francis Scott Key himself saw that inspired the writing of our national anthem is kept. In the exhibit there is a display case of some of the sewing tools from the time that the flag-maker, Mary Pickersgill, would have made the flag. As I was standing by said display case, a little boy came rushing up to it, his eyes alight with excitement and wonder. He stared at the case, gasped, and pointing at the scissors inside turned to his mother and said, "Look, Mom! The first scissors!"
And although it was one of my favorite things anyone has said yet, and although many museums do have original artifacts, and although I too would prefer to believe that those were the very first scissors ever, I must here repudiate the unfortunate misconception that if an item is in a museum, it must be the first of its kind. I would like to think that I could tell my child that when they get excited about seeing the first scissors, or key, or feather-duster, or what-have-you, but when it comes right down to it I will probably respond just as that boy's mother did, with a voice filled with as much awe as theirs, and say, "wow, that really is amazing, isn't it son?" After all, why ruin their childhood sense of wonder? So, I think I for one will adopt a policy of treating the first scissors rather like Santa Clause, and until children are a little older, all they will ever know is that those scissors are indeed the very first. Ever.

Red and Black, Friend of Jack

One of the first things I ever remembering learning in a school-type, formal lesson was snake safety. Ironically, this lesson was not taught at school, but at a class for us kids before kindergarten organized by our parents when I lived in Arizona. The especially ironic thing about it is that this is after I had already started kindergarten and proceeded to get kicked out. And do I remember any lessons from my first time in kindergarten? No. I only remember how excited I was about the time I took broccoli for lunch, and how distressed I was the time my best friend threw up on the bus but everyone thought it was me. But, back to this earliest class-type memory of mine: after talking about how snakes sense movement, the parent teaching us that day told us that as a result, the thing to do when confronted with a rattle snake is to stand perfectly still. She had placed outside in her yard a paper snake somewhere, so we were all supposed to run around until we found it, and then freeze. This we did. As I recall, I was either the first or second to find it (it was on the slide), but that could just be my memory trying to glorify myself. I'm sure I stood very still. I'm usually good at that. =) The next part of my memories relating to snake safety is one that I don't recall the origin of, but I know I know it. The following poem is meant to help me distinguish between two types of snakes (whose names I don't know) that look similar, but one is poisonous and one is not:
Red and Black, Friend of Jack,
Red and Yellow, Kill a Fellow.
Thus, if the red and black stripes are next to each other, the snake is not poisonous, etc. There is one of these types of snakes painted in a giant winding shape on the sidewalk at the San Antonio Zoo, and I always loved to walk on it and decide if it was poisonous or not. Unfortunately, I can't remember if it is or isn't. And although I cannot remember for certain, I doubt that the red and yellow snake is a copper head snake. Which means that despite my extensive training in snake safety, not a whit of it would have helped my roommate (who is really cool, named Sisi, and from China), who recently got bit by a copperhead snake.
That's right. On the foot. What are the odds, anyway? She was hiking on a ranch in Virginia with some of the other interns. I was not there. They convinced her to go to the hospital, so she did, and ended up having to stay two nights there while they gave her some anti-venom stuff. Then she had to be on crutches and not go to work for a whole week! Crazy, eh? And the funny part was, she did not seem to realize what an unusual event this was; I distinctly recall at one point the following conversation as we all huddled around in the emergency room waiting for her to be seen:
Us: "We can't believe you got bit by a poisonous snake. That's so random."
Sisi: "You mean you don't get bit by snakes in America all the time?"
Us: "No, of course not. Is it a common occurrence in China?"
Sisi: "No, not at all. I just thought it was part of the American experience and all."

Unfortunately for her, it has become a part of her American experience. I'm just glad she survived, and that the post-bite infection seems to be going away.
Ironically, her snakebite incident occurred only three days after the removal of my wisdom teeth. The whole general anesthesia thing was really quite an experience; I don't recall every being quite so loopy in my whole life. (Yes, that includes after I wake up from naps.) My Aunt Danita, who lives out here, and four-year-old cousin Lindsey were kind enough to pick me up. I'm not sure Lindsey really remembered me, but I bet I was a lot of fun being all crazy after waking up. That first day sitting at there house was incredibly relaxing - I am so grateful that my aunt was willing to pick me up and take care of me! And now, in case you are wondering, I have pretty much completely healed and can eat anything I want once again. So, despite a few days where my roommate and I both were pretty much out of commission, now I can eat again and she can walk again, and all is right in the world.

Dentistry, and Me

Ned Lunt, DDS. Hardly a second father, but a good man nonetheless. The place he works, however, is one that will forever remain to me a sort of second home at home.
Weird, right? What sort of kid thinks of a dental office as a second home? Especially one who isn't even related to a dentist! Well, that would be me. Not the only thing a little bit odd about me, but people love me for all my little oddities, thankfully. When I was just a wee little thing my dear mother went to work as a receptionist at the dental office. I remember sitting for hours in the back room with my sister, watching movies and playing with our G.I. Joe's (and yes, I do still have them). We would roll our marbles down the back ramp, all three sections, and run around loudly on the weekends when we were there with Mom (for which, I might add, we were definitely reprimanded). Even though I remember getting tired of being there for so long, I also remember always getting excited to go there. All those mysterious posters of teeth on the walls, the noises of dental tools always grinding away, the colorful gloves the hygienists wore; everything about it made it seem just a little larger than life to us little kids.

So, as a tribute to the art of dentistry, my sister says in her simple manner, "Dentristy: bittersweet. I hate the dentistry, but I love the dentist." And I say, "Dentistry, I really like the part where I get control of the water and sucking tools." Together we add, "Thanks to you, dentistry, we loved the dental aspects of Finding Nemo more than most. You give us an appropriate appreciation of modern culture." Thank you dentistry, for all you have done for us.