The Everywhereist

Cave paintings at the Kloof.

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In high school, I had to be at school by 7:25. IN THE MORNING.

I know, I know. It sounds positively inhuman, doesn’t it? I’m fairly sure that in most parts of Europe, it would constitute child abuse (like Spain. Seriously, next time you have to get up early, think WWTS -What Would The Spanish Do? I’m pretty sure that after eating dinner at midnight and going to bed at 2am, they would NOT be getting up at 6).

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I never imagined myself to be the sort of person who’d go on safari. It’s just not in my genetics. I don’t really like the sun. Large animals frighten me. And I don’t look all that good in khaki.

Plus, I have very short legs, and I’m not particularly good at running. If things went awry (and if a lifetime of watching situation comedies has taught me anything, it’s that things will go awry), and my entire tour group found themselves running for safety, I can guarantee you that I’d get picked off.

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Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, Cape Town, South Africa.

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I’m not a plant person.

I suppose that’s far better than not being a people person. Or not being a dog person. Or a cat person. (For the record, I am two of the three. I’ll let you guess.)

It’s not that plants and I have a bad relationship (except for blackberry bushes. Those assholes hate me), it’s just that we aren’t compatible. I shouldn’t be around anything that depends on me for nourishment, yet will quietly die without so much as a scream or a whimper.

The only house plant that we have is a poor, limp … you know what? I don’t even know what kind of plant it is. It’s a poor, limp, long-suffering green thing named Nigel.

I did this to him.

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But after a visit to Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, just outside of Cape Town, I started thinking that maybe, maybe I could be a plant lover. Or, at the very least, a plant liker. Or maybe just less of a systematic plant-murderer (for Nigel is the sole survivor in a veritable chlorophyll-tinged bloodbath).

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I have a problem with mixing up beauty and goodness. I am fully aware of how bad this is.

I mean, I’ve seen Snow White, guys. I get that the evil queen can be both hot and, well, evil.

But I still have trouble getting my head around that fact. I just can’t get past the fact that something can look one way, and be totally different. (For the record, the converse is not true for me: I don’t assume that everyone and everything ugly is evil. Even though I’ve had some I’m-wearing-sweatpants-today-and-I’m-in-a-rotten-mood moments that would affirm that idea.)

Sometimes beautiful things belie their horrible true selves. That’s the case with Robben Island. I know that awful things happened there. The relics remain: the narrow cell where Nelson Mandela spent the better part of two decades, the limestone quarry where he and other prisoners slowly went half blind as they worked in the searing sun.

But, in spite of all of that? It’s still incredibly beautiful. And that’s a hard thing to reconcile.

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I have a little bit of psychotic episode every time I go to an aquarium.

Part of me is thinking, “You should not be here. You are in some amazing part of the world that few people get to visit, and you should be out seeing unusual and unique things and not staring, slack-jawed, at the same fish you could see at any aquarium, anywhere.”

But a slightly larger part of me is thinking, “OMG. FISHIES.”

And that part always wins out. It’s why I visit so many damn aquariums. How many? Well, enough that I don’t tell you about all of them. That’s right, kids: I keep some things to myself. Like the fact that I’m an aquarium-loving nut.

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My husband is a non-believer.

I don’t mean to say he isn’t religious. At least, I don’t mean to just say that he isn’t religious. There are lots of things that Rand doesn’t believe in or ascribe to. Here is a short list:

• Tarot cards
• Palm readers
• Any type of healing that involves crystals
• Putting sugar in your tea/coffee/booze
• Using coupons
• Pre-rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher
• PUTTING DIRTY CLOTHES IN THE GODDAMN HAMPER INSTEAD OF LEAVING THEM IN A PILE OF THE GROUND (Ahem.)
• The afterlife
• Taking vitamins
• Holding your breath while driving through tunnels
• The existence of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or any other awesome and totally real creature
• Listening to the nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach
• Obeying the GPS

He’s perfectly respectful of people who do believe in those things. I’ve never heard him ever disparage the views of those who think differently than he (as long as those views aren’t intolerant in and of themselves).

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There are moments of my life that are so perfect, so ridiculously wonderful, that eloquence fails me.

You’d think that those would be the times when words would come most easily. But when you are surrounded by poetry, it is incredibly hard to create more of it. You simply look around, stupefied, and think, “Heh. This … awesome. Life … good. I … happy.”

That’s what happened one night when we were walking along the river in the Milwaukee.

Yes, Milwaukee. (I will kindly ask that you not look so surprised.)

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It’s funny how quickly the bizarre becomes normal.

How things that are strange and weird become familiar and every day. So that after a while, we forget that they’re even all that strange, until someone else points it out to us.

When we first moved back to Seattle from Florida, nearly 20 years ago (good heavens, the years. They are slippery little suckers, are they not?) my mother and I were faced with an odd problem. Our home felt far too empty. My brother had gone off to college, so it was just the two of us, living in far more square footage than we’d ever known.

We dealt with the problem in the usual way: we bought a mannequin.

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