My Grams

I remember when I was 10 years old listening to another kid say he hated his grandmother. Your grandmother?! How could you hate your Grams? He clearly had a different Grams than I did. I'd always loved mine (both of them, back then), and couldn't imagine it any other way. When my maternal Grams came to visit us in Chicago, I remember sitting in the back seat of the car, racking my brain for things I could tell her. I blurted out, "Grams! Did you notice how the yellow stoplights aren't as long here?" - something I'd heard my Mom say. I was desperate to share what I knew, which wasn't much. (Some things don't change - I'm still desperate to share, which accounts for these newsletters. And I still don't know much.)

 

We didn't see Grams that often back in those days, living in Venezuela for two years, followed by Chicago for another two. But I knew that she'd always be around, and we could count on her famous fudge and divinity at Christmas. I don't think I really started appreciating my Grams until I was in my late 20's or early 30's, for some reason. Back in the days of expensive phone calls ("Hurry up! It's Long Distance!!") I would call Grams when I was going through the L.A. airports. It started a new type of relationship, and became a pattern for us for the next 20 years. I'd say, "Granma, it's your lovely and loving grandson, Dave."  And she'd say, "Well, hello dear!" We didn't say that much, or need to, but I loved those phone calls.

 

In 2000 I sort of spontaneously called both my Mom and my Grams from India and told them that the three of us were going on a cruise to Alaska. They had identical responses: "Oh, that sounds fun. We'll have to think about that!" No, we're not thinking about that - we're doing that. Grams was treated like a queen on the ship, and when our waiter wanted to help her cut her steak, she tried to resist, but not very hard. After forty-some years of Grams doing things for me, it was maybe the only thing I ever did for her. At least, it was the only one that cost money.

 

And I've lost the chance to do anything else for Grams. She died today, at the age of 96. I really love my Grams. This really isn't about me, but who's gonna say "Hello, dear!" to me on the phone now? I'm so happy that she was a part of my life for such a long time. I'm really going to miss her. And I can't adequately express it...

 

Love,

Dave

 

 

Love:

 

 

 

More love:

 

 

(The End)

Fifteen minutes in Bhutan

You may have heard that travel to the tiny monarchy of Bhutan is strictly controlled. It's done in a painful way for cheap bastards like me - it costs $200 per day to visit, whether you're climbing a mountain or watching CNN in your hotel. You can imagine how excited Jennifer and I were when we read in our guidebook that you could get a day pass to the Bhutanese town of Phuntsholing, just over the Indian border. So the same day our 21-hour train arrived in the Darjeeling area, we took a 3-1/2 hour bus ride to the grimy Indian border town of Jaigon. It's next to Bhutan! And after that hot bus ride, you could imagine our disappointment when we found out that the one-day free-permit scheme ended two years ago. So we pleaded our case to the very kind border guard inside, get this, the border of Bhutan! I thought we were doing well, until he said, "If I came to your country, I would need a visa, yes?" Oh, that was a brutal shot across the bow. And an effective one - we slunk away, trying to make the best of our grimy Indian border town, clearly not in Bhutan.

Love,
Dave

There are eight photos below:

A young monk in a monastery.



The security guard at a bank.



I'm afraid a photo doesn't capture this delightful kid's personality. He was a charmer.



Some of the gates in this town literally opened into the Bhutanese town on the other side of the international border. Locals were free to cross back and forth.



Beautiful eyes.



Shy and retiring, Jennifer tries her best to blend in with the locals from the slum. She led the group in a spirited letter-by-letter recitation of the alphabet, which seemed to suit everyone, including the adults in the background.



A self-portrait, but the little rodents insisted on being in MY picture! Jennifer and I had SO much fun with these kids! In spite of moments like these, Jennifer's five months in India had to come to an end and she's back home in the States now.



A lovely young girl at the border town.



(The End)

The Community of You

You think you're alone in that body of yours. Oh, but you're not alone, not by a long shot. You've got company. Not just a few guests, you've got a few BILLION guests. And I'm not talking about the few billion people on the planet - I'm talking about the few billion microscopic life forms that inhabit your very body. Do you feel like an independent, do-it-yourself kind of person? Well you may want to revise that idea as well, because the overwhelming majority of these critters are beneficial to your healthy existence, and many are vital. You are not alone.

 

I was fascinated to read about this in an Indian newspaper. The genesis was a book written in 1969 by Theodor Rosebury, "Life on Man." By the time we reach adulthood we may have an astonishing 50 TRILLION microbes (and 1,000 different species) in and on our body, gleefully inhabiting our darkest and most personal body-bits, where we wouldn't normally consider entertaining a crowd. 

 

You've probably heard of the earth described as Gaia, as a sort of living organism, and not the individual bits and bobs that we typically think of. I always thought that was a stretch, but look at the parallels to our body and its microbes. Your armpit is a Gaia all of its own, whether you include the rest of your body or the rest of the planet. Up to an incredible 90% of the combined cells of this amalgam we call a body are bacteria. Our vision of our cherished self probably doesn't include this bacteria that make life possible. But shouldn't it? Theodor Rosebury put it, "All life is a single community." And gene experts at Genomic Research claim that we are not entirely human, but "truly symbiotic organisms, relying on one another for life itself."

 

Where is this "separate self" that we spend most of our lives defending? If we believe in a self, shouldn't we know where it begins and ends? I ate porridge this morning with a mango cut up in it. As of yesterday, I'd never met this mango before. Now, that mango is not separate from me - it is me. Yesterday it was clearly not me, and today it IS me. How does that work?

 

Too much love,

Dave

 

Below are eight photos:

 

 

Hiding behind her sister, she's not so sure about me.

 

 

 

This kid had a really cute and playful personality.

 

 

Women with woven baskets walking up the trail, along the Pindari Glacier route.

 

 

 

A Hindu priest.

 

 

 

This man had a wicked and cutting sense of humor. He was hilarious, but you'd want to stay on his good side!

 

 

The daughter of two professors from Delhi.

 

 

This guy had been painting a utility tower. All the painters were covered in this silver paint.

 

 

They look like they're playing, but it's work. I tried pumping the water for a few minutes, and it was really hard. There are a tremendous numbers of houses without running water, and before the monsoon gets going, water outages are frequent in some communities.

 

 

(The End)