I've been working pretty hard, getting ready for school, making steady progress on Blackboard conversion (from one software platform to another, rather like working out of one 20-room mansion for a long time and then suddenly moving all the furniture to a different 20-room mansion -- and one with a different floor plan). But most of this week has been uphill, very slow progress. Until today. I was leaving school in the late afternoon and ran into a student from last year. She had been checking the blog and looking at pictures. Her enthusiasm was contagious, especially since I've been so busy with school that I haven't had a chance to work with pictures or ideas or much of anything other than school. So, Savonarola awaits!

And it's one of those balmy Fall afternoons, temperature about 74 degrees, sunny and deep blue sky, with the leaves turning to that sharp yellow color that almost hurts your eyes to look at. The flowers everywhere are pushing out that last bit of color, as if there were no more chances to blossom in the winter that comes.

So I want to post the poem I wrote in Egypt, and even though I didn't write too many poems, a lot of other work went on. And I'm thinking today that much is possible. Maybe I'm thinking that because I haven't read the daily news yet.

On Visiting Giza

I have stood on the banks of the Nile seeking wisdom,
stared into the eyes of the Sphinx,
wandered between the tumbled small pyramids
of the three queens, and watched the clouds
change the colors of the pyramids of Cheops,
Khafre, and Menkaure.

All they hoped for was the divine sleep
that closed their eyes and kept their souls alive,
each gold-framed jewel, each sarcophogus,
each mural painting, each ritual prayer,
a great preparation.
The ka-soul now wanders lost
without its body, those mummified remains
carted off to any western musuem,
a wordless song of pain.

All tried to buy insurance -- Cheops
with at least four solar boats to ferry
his ka-soul to the next life; Tut with three sarcophogi
to protect his mummified remains,
the innermost one of solid gold.
Oh, how the pyramids at Giza cry out
for respect, the most solemn prayers
warning intruders away,
their size a competition, each pyramid
larger than the last,
their size saying, pick me, pick me.
The grave robbers came almost before the painted seals were dry,
almost before the closing funeral prayers were complete,
and before the queen's tears were dry.

Tourists wander this large complex,
ready with cameras for the Sphinx,
tempted by postcards, table-sized pyramids,
plastic busts of Neferteri or Alexander the Great.
They stand in line to ride the Bedouin camels,
gaily decorated with green, red, and yellow
yarn-twisted tapestries.
More tourist buses pull up with a flurry of dust,
all dwarfed by what we have come to see
-- the pyramids.

I sit on a giant block from Khafre's temple,
the causeway still flat, reaches down to the Sphinx.
The clouds change overhead.
Even my tears dry in the wind.


Beth

We're just two weeks away from the start of a new school year. The last weeks have beeen spent settling back into life in our very green small town, tree-lined streets, lots of bicyclers, trips to the library, and just a little gardening, mixed in with lots of reading of magazines piled up from 8 months away.

I've been going back and forth about continuing the blog. What possible interest could there be in writing about my very average life -- the perspective of a small-town, middle-America, quiet, probably not mainstream, older-than-average female? Part of the answer lies in what's ahead. Writing is a way of thinking on paper about the future and about what's happening now. Some people journal. Maybe some people just blogg and don't worry about it.

This week has been a little hard. Returning home to family and friends never comes without a difference. Some people have died, and I'm remembering them as a presence. Others are facing serious illnesses, recovering from operations, new babies have been born, children are leaving home, times of joy and times of sadness. At work, balanced with the joy of seeing close colleagues is the reality of long meetings where talk seems more important than action. What don't we have time for? My heart wants affirmations of what we can do. Consensus takes a very long time.

The politics of the American election are singularly depressing, each ad nastier than the next on both sides. Although the news this week has focused on Ivan, strategies and spins from both sides attempt to reach the undecided, with most people increasingly entrenched in their own positions, polarized by the real differences between the two candidates, relying on a combination of hope and fear and finally perhaps anger. Cheney, the hatchet man, said that if Kerry is elected, we can expect more terrorism. Later in the week, he corrected this, saying he meant whoever is elected to the White House, we can anticipate more terror. Click!

Yesterday at work, we had a practice drill to prepare for terrorism. This is Albany, Oregon, a small rural town! The loudspeaker, humming white noise, repeatedly interrupted our meeting with, "This is a lockdown. Stay in the building. Lock all doors. Do not enter the halls or courtyard." None of us have keys to any of the classrooms. After the drill was over, several people said once they heard the announcement, all they wanted to do was to run away. If someone with a submachine gun is methodically working through a building, locked doors or not, why wait? And with students? The most memorable film of Columbine High School was the footage showing students climbing out of second-story windows to escape the two young men with guns. That urge to flight saved their lives. Yet the teacher is supposed to guide, direct, protect -- be role models for appropriate action in such a situation. I guess I'm not trained yet.

Writing this today helped me see what I can do -- memos to colleagues that need writing, and a sense of connectedness. Make it a good day!

I'm on the edge of recreating my old life. Coming back to the states and home after 7 months and 10 days away was a little like seeing myself in the mirror suddenly and not recognizing who that woman was -- me! Every day something reminds me of what we saw and thought about on the road in Egypt, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France and Britain.

The first time to the grocery store was a meltdown. An entire aisle dedicated to cereal? So many choices in every department, all brightly colored packaging clamouring for attention. I suppose that is appropriate in a consumer culture, but I'm not used to the messages. My closet was also a shock. With roughly 5 changes of clothes (and many trips to the sink for washing out) over the last months, I wasn't quite ready for so many choices.

The television ramps up from 4-5 channels, often not in English, to hundreds. Our local library, once a haven with tapestry-covered armchairs, has been totally reorganized, fewer tables for sitting and browsing, more stacks and stacks of books. So, does such luxury (for it seems that) just obscure how we use each day? I feel surrounded by clutter and uncertain of what is essential even as it's wonderful to be home, surrounded by beloved green hills, the Willamette Valley, even during August, the dried out month of yellow grassy fields.

And so I begin, first with family and friends, reconnecting with celebrations (a new baby, new jobs) and sadness (two deaths). And reconnecting with work. Aargh. Five classes and four preps. Actually five preps, since one of the double classes is online. And I need to switch over from Cold Fusion to Blackboard, a relatively time-intensive program so far, with its own structures, rather like living online in someone else's house. So that's only about 125 students if I hold the line on adds, but the online registration shows my tech writing classes already full.

I think I want to continue the blog. Maryanne writes about once a week -- her thoughts about living in Egypt. I'd like to figure out how to add a comments link. Being home is its own adventure with the November elections coming up, sparking my paranoia, well nurtured by the Vietnam era. Bush and Kerry both visited Portland on the same day last week -- there's a kind of theater. Kerry headed towards Riverfront Park and tens of thousands of people showed up. Bush stopped at several carefully orchestrated events. Only donors and volunteers were allowed the august presence. Is he afraid of the American people?

And the Olympics are on, a celebration of courage, effort, discipline, and beauty, even if I only watch a few highlights. The war in Iraq is nearly invisible, even as the loss of American life passes 900 and the loss of Iraqi life is measured in tens of thousands. The administrative change this week is that the Iraqis kicked out the press. The only journalists allowed to remain are those embedded with the troops -- the same troops that protect them. Will that affect the news, the ability to see the larger picture, evaluate what's happening overall, or even to get the word out about what's happening?

Today's daily poem by Alicia Ostriker reminds me that the same landscape provokes different perspectives, but the west coast is home. Ah, it is good to be home.

Good morning, everyone. It's warmer in London, up to 85 degrees. We're enjoying the tube, or as some call it, the underground. Think hot, almost airless, and funny crowds of people, trailing kids and suitcases, every nationality using every language, in seemingly hundreds of different directions, up and down escalators and elevators, traffic moving on the left side instead of the right, with recorded messages to "Mind the Gap" on getting off the train. It's a great system with a weekly travel pass. We can go anywhere in the city at any time -- without having to drive, and I will miss it. Of course, we don't need such a system in a small town like Corvallis.

We're truly short-timers now. Only 9 days to lift off at Heathrow Airport. We'll be going up to York on Tuesday morning, and then to Bath, then back to London for an overnight and headed for home on Tuesday morning. Whew! Too much excitement.

Today's our anniversary, so we celebrated 29 years of married bliss by going to a London musical, "Jerry Springer, the Opera!" We were at first shocked, then entranced as profanity gave way to high kicks, and lovely singing and dance numbers, ending up with Jerry Springer hosting the Devil and God, with an engaging Devil trying to get Christ and God to apologize for casting him out. This was not a musical to appeal to the conservative right, but it raised many interesting issues about individual responsibility, tolerance, and forgiveness. But you had to be there to appreciate some of the sarcasm and the critique actually of Springer himself for not taking a stand about the people he hosts, the carnage that results, and the yearning underneath tragedy for a way out of such messes. Sometimes I think we can choose but the reality is probably more complicated, that we make our choices as best we can and then get lucky -- or unlucky. I'd like to believe in karma and healing the world, tikkun olam. Allen would probably tell me I need to be more optimistic. Anyway, it was a wonderful musical and even if it was our anniversary, still a fine gift. Such creativity and energy in the staging, singing, dancing and acting -- it was a spectacle.

Then on Friday, we took a day trip up to Cambridge to see the universities there. Wow! I was incredibly moved by King's College Chapel. We literally walked in and gasped at the beautiful, delicate, stone fan-fold ceiling with stained glass windows on either side reaching up. Equally moving was the music by the King's College Chapel Choir. Apparently each Christmas Eve service, the soloist, a boy about 10, is selected literally seconds before the performance (so he doesn't worry too much about preparing). Another moving ceremony is the investiture of faculty as they put on their robes and march down the nave to the Provost and take an oath swearing to commit themselves to teaching and nurturing the students in their charge. This ceremony is private, in the evening, and only with the faculty and Provost in attendance. But still, we felt a part of this as we looked at the architecture, the stonework, the heavily carved wooden choir -- all from the Tudor era, the 1560s, the earliest of universities. Walking around Cambridge was fun as the town is one that has worked to retain its medieval heritage. Plenty of book stores too, but no stopping as we're too close to going home.

News from home is good. My sister is engaged (hooray!), Rachel and Nick are coming to the airport to get us (hooray!), and we'll soon be back home with family and friends. I'm beginning to think what this trip has meant. I think I may need the rest of my life to figure it all out -- each country has expanded my understanding of culture and history so much as well as raising many questions. Access to good news has been difficult, especially this week as the Democratic Convention has been compressed to 2-3 minute sound bites here, but some might take that as a blessing. The editorials suggest Europe is still very concerned about Bush gaining a second term, but it does sound like Kerry was inspirational. I'm hoping.

Time for lunch. A brie sandwich in Kensington Park. Maybe with peach tea by the rose garden.

Be well. Beth

Just a quick note to say, yes, we found a very nice Internet cafe with incredibly fast upload, so you can check out the new pictures that I've been holding off on -- including some romantic shots of Rach and Nick at Giverney, and our trip to the D-Day beaches.

Yesterday we spent a slow day at the British Library, and it was fabulous to see original manuscripts from so long ago.  It's hard to believe that copies have survived all these years, and I'm talking thousands of years in some cases, well, ok, hundreds.  First sticking in my mind in James Joyce's notebook, intense, penciled scrawls, crossed out, words written in every direction.  Then here is Lewis Carroll's original Alice in Wonderland, carefully printed by hand with delicate ink drawings illustrating the story which continues to entrance.   Surprisingly, we were fascinated by the story behind the Magna Carta, the continuing struggle between the land barons and King John over who had more power, but of course, King John did lose over the long term.  Despite a papal bull issued by Pope Innocent III, which invalidated the Magna Carta in under 10 weeks, the land barons, stubborn to the core, were able to have future kings reaffirm it, the real beginning of constitutional monarchy.  And, we were dazzled (as stamp collectors) to see the sheet of stamps issued under the Stamp Act which led to the American Revolution.  Ha!

My personal favorite is hard to decide.  Who could choose between the Lindesfarne Illuminated Bible and the original Beowulf, written about 1000 AD (only fragments, but still dazzling).   The British Museum has many materials online if you want to go see.  For now, we're off for another walk in the city, trying to  put all this history into perspective.

London weather is maybe 10 degrees cooler than home; the high has been 75 and we've had cooling wind and rain nearly every day -- the British have more words for describing cloudy weather than I think we have!

Good news from Corvallis -- Kara and Poul's baby arrived safely.    I hope all is well in your world.  Three weeks from today and we'll be home.  Yes, I'm definitely counting!

Hugs to all, Beth

Just settling into London. Perhaps the big achievement was getting a library card and library books. Yesterday, we spent 5-1/2 hours at the British Museum, exploring just 4 out of 75 rooms. Today, we move into a small 1 bedroom apartment. This means I have a kitchen again and can cook meals -- breakfast, lunch and dinner. English breakfasts are OK, think lots of bread, tea and breakfast meats, but other meals tend to be quite expensive. We've been mostly eating sandwiches. But with a kitchen, all the possibilities open up again. And we have our own space -- room for books, papers sprawled all over, all the comforts of home.

Yesterday at the British Museum, we took 2 50 minute introductions to special collections, both early medieval stuff. We saw artifacts from burials of the Picts, the Anglo Saxons, and other peoples before the Norman invasion of 1066. Imagine a giant cauldron as the center for feasting. They used these giant meat hooks to serve up chunks of meat -- meat (that is beef, not lamb or pig), was considered the greatest delicacy. Let's not talk about veggies. Bread, beer and meat were the main staples. Warriors were buried with their battle armour. Women too had these short daggers, rings, distaff stuff. Celtic swirls and designs, water birds, ravens, and gemstones, mostly coral and occasionally cloisonne (spelling?) embellished their garments and gear. The very wealthy had gold thread woven in. But they were a hardy people, as tall as we are today, though their lives were short, 45 was considered elderly. Whish, what does that make us? Wine was imported from Italy! This is back in the 300s. Trade routes were established even before the Romans, who pulled out of Britain in 410. Actually the Roman Empire didn't end with a bang, Rome just stopped sending support and withdrew its legions. That was enough for the Anglo-Saxons to move into the power vacuum, intermarry, and the rest is history.

Ah, the French bakery down the street is calling. Hot tea and fresh bread. Later, I may make a chicken pasta to celebrate the kitchen. All the news from home is good. Kara as yet has not had the baby. Rachel and Nick are somewhere on the road, perhaps camping. Pam and Bill are also on the road, long drive to Michigan. Susie and Brian are recovering from graduation parties, and the Scrabble ladies still meet about every other week to hone their skills. I send good wishes to all.

Beth

We had an intense travel day from France to England. Imagine starting at 7 am with a 2 hour trainride from Bayeux to Cherbourg, hiking over to the P&O Ferries to catch their express ferry to Portsmouth (delayed a few hours because of choppy weather), then 3 bumpy hours crossing the channel, then hopping a bus to Southampton, not really feeling as if we were in England yet, except we could read all the signs, another 2 hour wait for the bus to Salisbury, finally arriving at our B&B at 9:00 pm, and falling into bed about five minutes later. That was July 3rd. Actually crossing the Channel was exciting. I could imagine all the different people in history who had this same experience, Lord Byron, the Hugenots fleeing the French revolution, and how about those hardy souls who came over with William the Conqueror in 1066, to say nothing of those American, British and other allies who went the other way on June 6, 1944, for the landing in Normandy as part of the D-Day invasion of German-held France. We just played bridge and Scrabble, nothing very historic.

Our last day in France was spent on a half day tour of the beaches of Normandy -- most notably Omaha Beach where thousands of Americans lost their lives. Allen says that the invasion of France on D Day was perhaps the most historically significant battle since William the Conqueror in 1066, the only other successful military crossing of the Channel because it meant that Europe was not only liberated From Germany, but that communist Russia was held to east Germany and Berlin, and not the whole of Europe at the close of WWII. I've only read a bit about WWII, though, it was heart moving to understand the scope of the preparation, logistics and planning -- as well as the sacrifice of so many young people. We walked through the thousands of graves in the American Cemetary to see headstones (crosses and Jewish stars) for young men in their 20s. The Cemetary overlooks the dreaded Omaha Beach where we walked later, a beautifully sunny day, bright blue sky and water, and wide open stretches of sandy beach uphill to where the German guns were planted. We ended our tour at the Longue du Mer, a high cliff about 100 feet high, scaled by 225 marines who fought for 2 days before reinforcements came. They took the high ground, but only 80 survived.

What does it mean to think of these battles now and to acknowledge the tremendous sacrifice made then, and perhaps to compare this to the war in Iraq? Was one war honorable and this one not? Is the sacrifice being made by American soldiers now any the less? I applaud the willingness of men to serve our country, but I am saddened over and over again by the Bush administration's incompetence that led us to war instead of negotiation, and that now has created layers and layers of bureaucracy, waste, corruption, terrorism, and fear. We live in a very different world because of this pre-emptive war.

So, we're now in London after two beautiful days in Salisbury (pronounced Solsbry). We were able to go to Stonehenge and actually see this prehistoric and mysterious monument that no one can quite figure out what it means, although they have learned quite a bit about how it was built. Wooden fragments have been found, a kind of scaffolding, and the giant stones, some about 50 tons, actually had been worked with a kind of tongue in groove method to hold them in place. The smaller stones, carted from 250 miles away, only weighed 4 tons. We could barely see the slight depression in the land that led down to the Avon River. People used to come down the river, climb the hill and then be at Stonehenge, especially for the solstice.

We also attended on July 4 a choir service at the Salisbury Cathedral made famous by Constable's paintings. Here we actually sat in the choir with the choir as the organ played and the choir sang an evensong service, the music soaring to the Romanesque top of this church built in the 1300s and yet still vividly connected to the present with its brilliant stained glass windows, one entire wall of dazzling blue in memorial of prisoners of conscience. A large placard supporting Amnesty International was present.

The B&B in Salisbury was more than very nice, its decor yellow, blue and white, tea cups, paintings, fresh flowers, cosy bed, lots of pillows and a comforter -- and a tremendous English breakfast -- eggs, OJ, toast, oat cakes, breakfast meats, tea, coffee, home made jams and marmelade. This contrasts quite sharply with our digs in London, a room so small we have but room to turn around, but the bed is comfortable, we have our own bathroom (no trekking down the hall in the middle of the night), and breakfast is included. Not surprisingly, all the channels are in English and we have a TV. BUT MOST IMPORTANT, we now have library cards to the library here in North Kensington, and we have already checked out books -- Allen has a history book called Londinium, about the time of London under Rome, and I have a book on Stonehenge. Tonight we'll plan what's next for our stay of the next four to five weeks, but underneath all is growing excitement about coming home.

I hope these words find you well and well loved.

Beth