Homesick...

“Mark, you’ve got a piece of mail here,” I was told by one of my fellow volunteers. “It’s from Chicago.”

“What’s the name on the envelope?” I asked.

“Can’t make it out, the post office writing has it all mashed up. But it’s got a fancy gold seal on the back from DePaul University.”

Turns out a very good friend of mine, Mark, sent me an invitation to his upcoming graduation from a Master’s program; a degree he has been working towards for almost three years. I remember him asking for my Jamaican mailing address before I left but wasn’t quite sure why he wanted it. Now I know and receiving this invite has become the latest chuckle from the beast called Homesick.

In the summer of 1993 I traded Connecticut for Milwaukee and spent the following five years at Marquette University. Upon arriving I didn’t have much time to be homesick as I was adjusting to an entirely different life and environment. But once I settled in and the season changed from summer to fall, the onslaught began. Phone calls home occurred regularly on Sundays to sooth my need for those voices which, until that time, had been in my life everyday for eighteen years. And on those rare occasions when I found myself in the library, I would stop by the reference section which contained large world atlases and would look at various maps of New England as I longed to be where the autumn colors were, and still are, the very best in the world.

Slowly (or quickly, depending on whom you ask) my condition lessened and Marquette became a home of sorts. I would leave at any given opportunity and head back to Connecticut or to exotic locations like Denver, Chicago or Germantown. But at the end of these short excursions was a return to the gritty streets of Brewtown. My phone calls home became increasingly spread out and my parents adopted the mantra, “If he doesn’t call, it must mean that everything is alright.” My social network was in place, my schedule packed with things, stuff, and the occasional class. I had survived moving away from home and with the exception of the summer between my first and second years of college, I never went back to New England to live. In fact, since arriving in the Central Time Zone 14 years ago, I have never left for more than three or four weeks.

As I was packing up to leave last year I felt sadness around my leaving; I even wrote about it in one of my first posts after my departure. It was obvious that Chicago had now become home after eight years of residence and that some of my anxiety around leaving had to do with how comfortable I had become there. And while I grasped all of that on a mental level and expected to miss Chicago, I didn't anticipate that similar feelings of homesickness as those described above would come home to roost, nor did I anticipate the city being the setting for so many dreams. I honestly have had three dreams in the last ten days which took place in Chicago.

In the early scenes of the movie “Fight Club,” before we are introduced to his character, Brad Pitt is digitally inserted a frame of the film. This happens two or three times before you start to wonder, “What the heck do I keep seeing?” It’s very strange how it happens but your mind processes an image of something it knows it has seen and just as quickly as it appears, it disappears and there is that split-second moment of “What the…?” Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about and some of you don’t. Regardless, what I have just described is an example of what I’ve been experiencing lately: small, instantaneous blips of an image which leaves me wondering, "What the....?"

Two days ago, after breakfast, I was washing the dishes before heading off to help with reading program started by the same volunteer who had alerted me to my piece of mail. In an almost automated fashion I dipped dirty dishes into a sink full of soap water, washed them with a sponge, dipped them into a sink of clean water and then put them in the drying board, all the while thinking about the daily schedule which lay before me. Strictly routine. And then in a fraction of a second, an image of an intersection in Chicago, Broadway and Lawrence to be exact, flashed before my mind’s eye. It completely caught me off guard and I closed my eyes and shook my head like someone who has just experienced a violent sneeze. This was probably the tenth time in as many days that an image of something Chicago-related has peppered my day and I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. On a strictly factual and scientific level I equate it to the fact that we, as a species, only use ten percent of our brains and that in order for my brain to store the latest memory of Jamaica in one of its remote corners, it had to make room by expunging an existing memory and gave me one last glimpse before replacing the old with the new. So, for instance, before I could fully commit to memory the latest fight I had to break up at the school, the Belmont El stop randomly came to mind. Weird.

And maybe it's a biological knowing that things are amiss for me right now; a deeper awareness that I'm missing Spring in Chicago. Many of you have been writing and in your e-mails you mention how the weather has been getting warmer and I know how much of a welcome change that can be after a dormant winter. There is something special about this time of year, despite how well or poorly the Cubs are doing. It may not be the warmest of times during March, April or May but people walk around with a certain smirk on their faces; a smirk that knows street festivals, art fairs, movies in the park and beer gardens are just around the corner. People become braver as they head to work with a jacket considerably thinner than the parka they've been sporting since November. There is a slight swagger as people head to small patches of green space to eat their lunches and begin those important hours of a base tan.

The only thing that could further exacerbate my being homesick is the fact that my parents arrive tomorrow, but they are only staying for the weekend. They'll be gone just as soon as appear; just like the image of the Irving Park exit off of Lake Shore Drive came and went as I have been typing. The reason for such a short visit: they're preparing to pack up and move cross country for the third time in their marriage. In my lifetime, my mom and dad have moved from New England to Southern California and back and now, with a job change my dad took within his company, they are off to Seattle. My immediate family's 26 year presence on the Atlantic is coming to a close, and maybe that has a little to do with the whole stirring of the memory stew. I have yet to have flashes of the Family Bowl in Waterford or the drive on Rt. 2A to get to Mohegan Sun catch me off guard, but I think that has more to do with having been away from the Constitution State for almost half my life than a lack of love for it.

Of course, it could just be that the sun is finally getting to me here. The temperature topped out at 91 the other day and I've actually started using sunscreen; a sign of the apocalypse, to be sure. Whatever it the reasons, I have been constantly reminded of things back home and I miss it all sincerely. I love what I'm doing here and I don't want it to come to such a quick end and at the same time, I can't wait to get home and take my dogs to the dog park and watch them run like spazzes.

One and one is two, six and two is eight.

C'mon baby, don't ya make me late.

Hidey hey...

Baby don't you wanna go?

Back to that same old place...

Social Butterfly...

And now for something completely different: a social life. In the last week or so I have made it past the confines of St. Elizabeth; the Jamaican parish in which I have been spending the majority of my time since my arrival. It is not often that I get to travel to the distant capitol of Kingston so when an opportunity presented itself at 2:30 in the afternoon last week to attend a cocktail party at the house of one of the country's most prominent artists, I snatched it up.

The artist, Susan Alexander, is a friend of the priests of the Mission Society. Exactly how these distinctively different paths crossed I have no idea. The fathers tried to explain it to me and I followed the story right up to the part where "a miracle happened," and I lost it after that. Regardless, this party was planned by our hostess and after it was discovered that Fr. Sam was returning from a family vacation in Europe around the same time as one of the guests was planning to visit Jamaica, it was decided the party would be moved to coincide with everyone being in Kingston on the same night and just like that, everything fell into place.

It was a lovely night punctuated with live performances by some of the most preeminent musicians in the country, not to mention a few numbers by the priests of the Mission Society. We even had a vocal performance from the wife of a former Prime Minister. Bottom line: an enjoyable evening with some very lively and generous people. It was definitely a unique accent on my time here.

And on the following day, the social pendulum went the other way.

In the not-to-distant past I have come to know and spend a good amount of time with a Peace Corps volunteer named Claire who lends her time and talents as a civil engineer to the Diocese of Mandeville. Being plugged into the social outreach of the island she had let me know about a "fun day" sponsored by Food for the Poor wherein children from various orphanages around the island all descend on a beachfront complex for a day of, well, fun. Music, food, games, beach time, dance contests - you name it, they had it. And I was lucky enough to be one of a large group who volunteered to help with the nuts and bolts of the day. I can't remember everything we did but I distinctly remember being part of the crew that photographed each child as the buses arrived. Their photograph would be sent, along with a letter, to their sponsor and once all of that was out of the way, the kids were let loose at a place aptly named, "Fun Citi."

For eight hours 300 kids either played on the beach, took part in whatever organized activity was going on at the moment or attempted to make use of the run down roller rink on the premises. This rather dilapidated concrete rink had large trees growing in the middle of it (by design, of course) and tied to them were the "egg crate" mattress covers easily found at a store like Bed Bath & Beyond. The selection of Rollerblades was measly and in many cases, kids only had one skate on and were pushing with a bare foot and having the time of their lives as they tried not to completely wipe out. I was reminded once again of how kids can easily take whatever is right in front of them and have a blast with it despite any circumstances which might otherwise be deemed "less than" or "imperfect." I was also acutely aware that in a twelve hour span I had gone from socializing with some of the good and great of Jamaica to socializing with a group who hardly ever has more than the clothes on their back. Neither one is better than the other, more preferable or insert-whatever-label-you-want-here. They were just drastically different and a great reminder that at the end of the day we, as humans, have not been hard wired to be isolated or solitary. We are meant to interact with others, to be in community, and be involved in each others lives and that joy can be found in the exquisite playing of a violin as well as in the exhaustive jumping in an inflatable air castle.

Three days later, while still kicking these experiences around in my head, I found myself on the road to Kingston once more. I was headed there at the invitation of the daughter and boyfriend of one of the guests from the cocktail party. He, Jeffrey, plays in a band and seeing as how Wednesday of this week is Jamaica's Labor Day, and thereby a national holiday, (and since the remainder of the week is the school's mid-term break) I could not pass up their kind invitation to take in some live reggae and some of the island's social life.

For those of you familiar with it, the place reminded me of the rooftop setup at the Rock Bottom Brewery at State & Grand in Chicago. The biggest difference was that this place was more expansive with a bit of roofing to cover the actual bar. Aside from that, though, it was your typical watering hole jammed packed with young adults all looking fashionable with drinks in hand. It had been so long since I had been in such a setting that I almost didn't know what to do.

Then I saw the bottle of Jameson behind the bar and it all came back to me.

The two bands which played were great and sounded exactly how you would expect live reggae to sound. For some reason I carried the idea that it would get old quickly but it never really did and when the whole thing came to an end at 1:30am, I was disappointed that it was over but that disappointment was brought to a quick halt when I was able to satisfy a midnight craving for a burger and fries.

Incidental Plug: The band Jeffrey is a part of is Roots Underground. Check them out. They currently have one of the top singles on MTV Tempo and have a great future ahead of them. What's more, Jeffrey is just a really cool cat with an easy going attitude.

So let's recap: Cocktails and performances with some lovely and talented adults. A day of fun with 300 kids surviving via the generosity of many. A night out with people who, like me, are caught somewhere in the middle. It's very easy to fall into the trap of either wanting to have the luxury of the first or feeling sorry for the second. I have to wonder if it's just as much of a trap to believe that it's somehow the job of the third group to try and bridge the gap between the two extremes.

In The Meantime...

It's not really for a lack of having anything to write about that my bouts of radio silence exist. I think it has more to do with really getting into a routine which ultimately exposes gaps of free time which are quickly claimed by various projects. The latest one to come my way is the coordinating of the school's very first science fair; an event which will be pulled together in just over a month. More on that in a bit.

And just as things can become routine around here, there are certain things which come along and make me cock my head to the side in a "Well I'll be damned," kind of way. The other night I was completely taken aback when we here at the compound were delivered a bottle of de-worming medicine. Apparently that is a hazard for those who walk around barefoot. And to think that just this morning as I got out of bed and stared at the tan lines on my feet I thought to myself, "Hmm. I wonder why I don't walk around barefoot more often." Now I have legit reason not to.

The actual taking of the medicine was nothing to write home about. It was like downing a tablespoon of cough syrup, only slightly bitterer and highly punctuated by the knowledge that this was being done solely to fight worms. Over the last few weeks we've been treating an injury to the paws of one of the dogs and the first thing we had to deal with was the worms which were initially forming in the wound. The dog, Pablito is fine, and now I somehow felt a little closer to him after this. And for those of you who are quick to rib me for being on the skinny side, take comfort that maybe what I've had all along is a tapeworm and that soon I will start to wear the effects of eating frozen pizza.

Yeah, I doubt it too.

Also standing out as a banner day around here was the recent appearance of a well published Jamaican poet named Lorna Goodison. Ms. Goodison has enjoyed a very successful career as a poet and is a professor of the subject at a college in Michigan. Our students study some of her poems in preparation for the CXC exams and when the opportunity to have her speak to our students appeared, Fr. Anthony acted quickly to make it happen. She was here visiting family and generously spent a day with us, educating us around poetry and answering questions from students and teachers alike.

Side note: I borrowed one of my previous post titles from one of Lorna's poems.

A very warm and perceptive woman, Lorna has an infectious smile that lets you know that she enjoys her life. She has seen a lot, done a lot and has been lucky enough to find and develop one of her greatest gifts: poetry. And from what I gathered, she did not set out to be a poet. It was something which found her quite by accident as she worked in the world of advertising. Her co-workers knew she wrote poetry and as fate would have it, the right people were in the right place at the right time and she began entering her work in small but public forums and it was not long before she became more widely known.

Between all manner of questions Lorna dropped quite a bit of knowledge about poetry, how one comes to express themselves through poetry and the importance of discovering natural gifts and developing them fully. "The corollary to having a gift," she said, "is the pride of knowing you used it as best you could." That, as well as a certain definition of poetry, (The insides of one person speaking to the inside of someone else) have stayed with me the most since that day.

Now for the science fair. Two days ago I was approached by our science teacher, Ms. McIntosh, a monumental event in and of itself because until that time, she had barely said more than three words to me and they were all the same word: "Fine." She usually said it in response to me asking, "How are you today?" To say that she is quiet and keeps to herself would be like saying Bill Gates has a few dollars to spend so you can imagine my surprise when she came up to me the other day with a terrorized look on her face and asked the questions, "Do you have a scientific mind?"

"Well, kind of." I began quizzically, "I have a degree in Electrical Engineering if that counts."

"Good." she said curtly. "You can help me organize the science fair."

I'm still not entirely sure why she picked me for this. I can't imagine there is a nasty rumor circulating that I have a ton of time on my hands. Regardless, it's a great project to take on because the school has never had a science fair and this is the kind of event the Fathers I trying to bring to the school as they improve the curriculum so I'm happy that it came my way. Logistics and long term planning are my bread and butter – you had better believe I have already started a spreadsheet to track all the details. And as I continue to work on this, I keep having flash backs to the science fairs I took part in and how daunting it felt to have to design a poster board and write a report explaining my project. I'm not sure if this latest affiliation with science fairs is some form of cosmic justice or God's twisted sense of humor. Maybe it’s a little of both.