Blog of a Newly Minted Housewife

County Mayo

It was another Sawdoctors' song that was going through my head the next day. After dropping Tom off at the golf course (where he wanted to play the course in advance of playing a tournament on the same course two weeks later), Aideen and I headed for Croagh Patrick. This is the largest mountain in the area, and a pilgrimage sight, for it is rumored that this is where Saint Patrick ministered.

Oh, the green and red of Mayo, I can see it still,
Its soft and craggy boglands, its tall majestic hills,
Where the ocean kisses Ireland and the waves caress its shore
Oh, the feeling it came over me, stay forever more, forever more.

From its rolling coastal waters, I can see Croagh Patrick's peak
Where one Sunday every summer, the pilgrims climb The Wreak
Where St Patrick in his solitude looked down across Clew Bay
And with the ringing of his bell called the faithful there to pray, there to pray

We drove along the edge of Clew Bay to the parking lot and set out for a short climb. We didn't have time, stamina, or inclination to climb the entirety of Croagh Patrick, but we went to the first shrine, where I stood under the blessing hand of St. Patrick. And a little further along, up a steep rocky slope, to where we got a terrific view of Clew Bay and some of the islands.

After descending, we went to the beach. The empty beach. It was low tide, unfortunately, so in addition to lots of seaweed, there was an unpleasant scent. We stood in the wind for a bit, and then Aideen stole a large rock. When she first said, "I want to get a rock for my garden," I thought she meant a small rock, maybe one just larger than fist sized. But she picked up something much larger, hauled it up the steps and deposited it in the back seat of the car.

We drove then through some very empty country to Linnanne, a very small town. Along the way, we passed a large lake and an inlet (the only "fjord" in Ireland was nearby, though I'm not sure if this was it or not). Along the road, we saw a couple of shrines or monuments to people who died or emigrated during the potato famine. We also saw more sheep. Lots of sheep. There are a lot of sheep in Ireland. And cows, too, though I didn't see anything I recognized as a potato field.

In Linnanne, I picked up the closest thing to I'd found to a souvenir – another silver ring with a Celtic knot design. I'd been resisting lots of silver jewelry to this point, but I couldn't resist this ring – and only 10 euros!

We headed back to the golf course and met Tommy at the clubhouse for lunch, then back "home" for naps. Well, I tried to read, but that just wasn't going to happen between the lingering jet lag, fresh air and exercise!

The three of us ate out at a Thai restaurant that night in "downtown" Castlebar. At least, the sign said it was Thai, but the proprieters were Chinese, and the food tasted more Chinese than Thai. It was good though.

In a pub after dinner, we watched part of Eurovision on the telly. This is a bizarre song competition that has been going on for 50 or more years. Each country chooses a song to represent them, then the top 24 (I think it was) compete on live TV. Once each song has been performed, phone lines in each country open for about 10 minutes. At the end of that time, representatives from each country – usually television presenters – come on and give "points" for their country's top picks – one point for the tenth place within that country, two points for the ninth place and so on, though first place garnered 12 points. The country with the most points at the end of the competition wins. Oh, and a country can not vote for itself. But they can vote for their nearest neighbors, and this is what seemed to be happening – we could almost guess which country would get the most points as each country presented their points.

I can't now remember who won –the Ukraine, I think, or Turkey. I do remember that Ireland only got 7 points, all of them from England. It was a good laugh to watch, anyway, especially some of the Eastern European countries. They have such a different sense of what constitutes "good music" and performance than we do in the States, or even in England and Ireland.

Bars in Ireland are only open to midnight, so it wasn't a very late night. And it was a lazy morning the next morning, as well, drinking tea and reading the newspaper.

We went for a game of "pitch-and-putt" golf, Tom and Aideen and I. This is an 18-hole course, but the longest hole is about 70 meters, and you tee off of a rubber mat, like you'd see at a driving range, and carry only a couple of clubs and a putter with you. It was the first time I'd touched golf gear since late last fall when I played at Moffett Field with Tanya and Darrel. It was also the first time I attempted to golf since hurting my knee in February. Luckily, it seems to have finally healed, and I had no problems with it.

I wish I could say the same about my swing. But Tom and Aideen both gave me some pointers, and I was doing all right by the second half of the course. I think I ended up with the same score as Aideen, and one par. Not too bad, considering what a rank beginner I am. And I had fun, too. I'm looking forward to going golfing again when I get home.

Oona had a proper dinner waiting for us when we got home – roast beef and potatoes and carrots and peas and gravy. It was delicious. We had a last bit of chat with her and with Tom's dad, and then we loaded the car again and headed back for Dublin. Oh, but not before Tom showed me the trophy room, and all the statues and cups and silver platters that have been won by members of his family (most from his dad) over the years, including a few from his own boyhood.

The road back to Dublin was crowded at times with others heading back into the city. We did it mostly in a straight shot, though we did stop at one shop along the way and bought 99s. These are creamy soft-serve ice cream cones, each stuck through with a chocolate Flake stick. Yummy, and filling, and probably very fattening. But I didn't care. I was eating ice cream and dozily floating through the Irish countryside.

To The West

Friday morning, we loaded Aideen's car and headed west, for the coast, for Galway and Mayo. Ireland isn't that big of a country, as anyone who's looked at a map knows, and it was a short drive compared to many I'd taken on this trip, but the roads are narrow and pass through every little town, so it wasn't exactly quick.

That was okay by me, though, as it gave me a chance to take it all in. Small houses, shops and pubs of all kind, and in every little village, a stone church. People were shopping or doing their business, or, like us, going somewhere for the weekend.

Once we'd traversed the country from east to west, we stopped into Galway for a look-see. Galway is a great old town, full of narrow crooked streets, and more of those interesting shops and pubs and restaurants. Once we parked, we wandered across to the main street and away from the harbor. Tom and Aideen wanted to show me the square, but it was all torn up. We turned around wandered back towards the water, looking for a particular shop that Aideen wanted to see.

We finally found Kenny's Books after asking for directions. This is a renowned shop in this part of Ireland, and we had a good gander through the books of Irish history and pop culture and by Irish writers. They had a small art gallery in the back, as well, though there wasn't much of interest there. Aideen didn't find the book she'd been looking for, but I picked up a book on Celtic letterforms, something I'd looked for at the shop next to the Book of Kell's a couple of days before.

Back down one of the main streets, and we found a place where we could sit at a table out front and have our lunch. Tom wandered off to buy a newspaper. I enjoyed people watching – business men and women greeting each other, teenagers having chips across the way, little kids in strollers looking bored.

Back in the car – past a little inlet where swans drifted – we headed out of town. That's when I saw the sign. Tom had told me I would, I knew we'd be taking this road, but it still gave me a little thrill to see it. The Sawdoctors song came into my head:
"Oh I wish I was on that N17
Stone walls and the grass is green
Travelin' with just my thoughts and dreams"
I leaned my head back in the car, looking at stone walls and grassy green fields full of sheep and cows, and small hills fading off into the distance.

This part of the journey went quick, and before long, we were negotiating the roundabouts of Castlebar and pulling up to Tom's parents house. Oona greeted us just inside the door. I had met her before, back in the spring of 1996 when she came to San Jose, and so she told me I looked well and asked after my parents. She looked much the same herself, and we caught up for a bit before Aideen and I went into town.

We were on a mission, looking for socks. Somehow, in repacking my bags in the long-term lot at JFK, I had managed to not bring any more than one pair socks to Ireland with me, aside from those I wore on the plane. We had looked in Galway and not found anything suitable. Anyway, I finally found a three-pack of athletic socks in a sporting goods store, and was happy. We stopped in another shop before heading back for a cold supper of salad and ham. Yum.

And that night, us three "kids" went back to town, to the cinema, to see "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Oh, this was a beautiful film. Strange and bizarre, but wonderful. I would never be able to think of the weird things Charlie Kaufman writes about, but I'm glad someone does.

It was in the bathroom at the cinema that disaster was narrowly averted. I managed to not properly hang my bag, or the hook on the back of the door wasn't screwed in or something, because my bag fell on the floor. And my (new) camera was in there. I didn't dare look that night, but was pleased the next morning that, though dented, it still works perfectly.

Getting Ahead

I do feel as if I will never get ahead in this blog. Time gets away from me. Too many things have been seen and heard and felt and thought about, and I just can't seem to write about it at the moment.

I am in the suburbs of Detroit now, staying with my aunt and uncle, and a broadband connection. And my own space and no real plans, so with any luck, you will soon get to read about my trip to County Mayo, my days in Boston, my drive through New England, and the night I spent in a lighthouse. I have many things I want to put down here, many experiences and thoughts.

But for the moment, you'll have to be patient while I recharge my writing batteries and try to organize my thoughts and all the photos I have taken. I promise - soon you will be deluged with entries! But not right now.

Mountain Climbing

Aideen was still deep in her project, so Tom and I again left her to her work and drove up into the Wicklow Mountains, outside of Dublin. The weather was a little clearer this day, and I was able to see the gentle slopes nearly as soon as we left the house.

Everywhere we went, yellow flowers dominated the landscape. Gorse is a hardy, spiny plant that quickly takes over if left to its own devices, and it burns easily. But it smells wonderful at this time of year, sort of tropical.

We drove over narrow, empty roads along ridge tops and into small hollows. The landscape was dominated by a combination of the gorse and heather, and occasional stands of pine trees. And, of course, lots of sheep. Up there, they run sort of wild, but you can tell they are domesticated by the blue and red markings on the wool. In the US, we use these to mark ewes that have been "covered," or to mark sheep that have been dipped or inoculated. I'm not sure if they are marked for the same reasons in Ireland, or for some other purpose, but there were very few sheep I saw that didn't have the paint (or chalk) marks on them.

We also saw one or two burned out hulls of cars, including one that was still smoking. Tom says these cars are mostly the victims of teenaged joy riders, who drive the cars (until they crash?) and then set them on fire. We saw a burnt-out scooter on another day. Apparently, these kids get no more than a slap on the wrist for this behavior, and some kids hit 18 with a clean record but a history of car theft and destruction.

We came down the far side of the mountains into Glendalough. "Lough," as you probably know, means lake, and you probably also know "glen" means valley. "Da" indicates two, and so Glendalough is "The Valley of Two Lakes." Indeed, there are two lakes in the valley, two lakes which used to be one but were split by silt carried down the creek which fed them. Like Yosemite, this valley was carved by glaciers many millennia ago.

It is also home to a couple of very old churches, now no more than ruins, though not yet rubble. And one of these churches, part of a monestary, was home to St. Kevin. Tom and I hiked around the church ruin closest to the upper lake, and then hiked to the "Site of St. Kevin's Cell," presumably the place where his cell stood, overlooking the lake. I was disappointed to arrive at the top of the trail – a steep trail – to find nothing more than that, a site only, no ruins, no rubble, no sign of exactly where this cell once stood. We found a gentler way down.

We backtracked half a mile or so to another church ruin, this time in the middle of a larger, still used graveyard which also contained a monastic tower. The entrance to this tower – and others of its era – is twenty feet above the ground. Once inside, monks would haul the ladder up after them, thus keeping them safe from attack. We had fun wandering around the graveyard, and especially trying to decipher some of the old gravestones. Some were so worn, they were only legible from certain angles. The oldest we could read was from the 1700's.

Tired muscles call for sustenance, and we went to Johnny Fox's pub, the "highest pub in Ireland!" They have live traditional music there seven nights a week, but we were there at (late) lunchtime, so the only atmosphere we got was attributable to the décor – old Irish signs, copies of the broadside calling for independence (dated to 1916), old tools on the ceiling, sawdust on the slate floor. The food was good, but no Guinness this time.

Back at the house, and time for what became my usual afternoon nap. Jet lag sucks, especially on such a short trip.

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Pond Hopping

Once I'd seen all there was to see in New York (as if!), I drove out to JFK and hopped a plane for Ireland. It was much easier getting there than it might have been, thanks to driving nearly the same way when I went out to the Hamptons a couple of days earlier. Only this time I took the tunnel (paid the toll) instead of the bridge, and got dumped straight to the freeway instead of getting lost.

Parking at JFK was great. The long term is easy to get to from the freeway (if further from it than this California girl expected) and the four miles or so to the terminals go by in a flash on the Air Train. I got dumped right outside the Aer Lingus ticket counter and before I knew it, I had time to kill.

This was a red-eye flight, and I tried to sleep, but couldn't really. I got a couple of hours at the most, so I was fairly fuzzy headed when I walked through immigration and customs. I couldn't have sworn I went to the right line, but somehow made it out to the meet-n-greet area without talking to anyone official. Tommy assured me it was okay; that was just Irish efficiency at work!

We ran a couple of errands on our way around Dublin to the house, where I finally got to see Aideen. I've seen Tommy a few times since he moved back to Ireland from the States, but Aideen and I figured out we haven't see each other since 1999 – fall, I think. I was starting to fade after a fry-up – traditional Irish breakfast of fried eggs, Irish bacon, black pudding (yes, I ate it…then asked what it was made of!), toast, lots of tea.

I'd forgotten how nice it is to have tea at all hours of the day. So soothing! Somewhere in the past five years or so, I drifted from the tea habit I gained in Australia back to the coffee habit I gained at Mom's house. I think I'll have to buy a tea pot when I get back home, and slide back to that side.

I didn't want to waste my first full day in Ireland, though, so I took a shower, and Tom and I went into central Dublin, parking in Temple Bar. We walked around that area, over the O'Connell Bridge, through the Grafton Street shopping district into St. Stephen's Green, and back to Trinity College. Tom left me there, looking at the Book of Kells, while he went to a meeting.

We met back up again just in time to get stuck in "rush hour" traffic on the way back to the house. I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore, despite three cups of coffee, and I slept for a couple of hours. I woke up just in time for supper. Such good timing!

Aideen was on deadline, trying to finish up editing and proofing a textbook, so Tom and I took off to a local pub. I haven't ever liked Guiness very much; I find it too bitter for my tastes. But I'd always heard people say that Guinness in Ireland is different, smoother, creamier, better. Those people were right. I liked Guinness in Ireland! I haven't tried it again since I returned to the States, so I'm reserving judgment on the US version.

Two beers, two naps of less than two hours each…I made it less than two hours in the pub before giving up. I wanted to be well rested for a trip to the Wicklow Mountains the next day, in any case.

Last of NYC

My last couple of days in New York, I did the tourist thing – taking the ferry to Staten Island to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, going up to the observatory at the Empire State Building, walking around Times Square. There isn't a lot to say about those hours, so I'll let the photos do the talking.

This should be worth quite a few thousand words, shouldn't it?

Sleeping with Models

I'd chosen the Gershwin because of a description I'd read. Several descriptions, actually, of the hotel as a fun and funky place, with colorful rooms, art on the walls, and a trendy nightspot on the first floor. That isn't exactly what I found, which might, in part, be my fault.

The Gershwin is odd by hostel standards not simply because of its location and décor, but also because it does not advertise it's dorm facilities. You wouldn't know, looking at the website, that it offers hostel-style accommodations. It bills itself as a "hotel" and offers regular rooms at a discounted (for New York City) rate of $99 a night.

The other odd thing is that it does not even offer gender-segregated dorms. All of the dorms are mixed, and you don't really have a choice in who you get bunked with (well, that isn't at all unusual, but you usually stay in a single-sex room). And this is how I found myself sleeping with a male model.

But I didn't find that out until the second night. The first night, I only knew that there were at least two other people in my room, and from what I could figure out, they were big guys. Or guys with big feet, at any rate. The room was strewn with male detritus – wadded up socks, a pair of blue boxer shorts mixed in with papers, several pairs of large boots in the middle of the floor, and several suitcases.

This made me a little nervous. I'm usually very cool with the oddities of travel, especially of budget travel, and just go with the flow. But this time, I went back down to the front desk to confirm my suspicions. I was the only female in the room. Moving would necessarily have changed the ratio, so I dealt with it in the manner which first came to mind – I hid out at the bar just off the lobby.

Yes, that's right, I hid out in the bar. I figured if I waited long enough, the guys might have come home and gone to sleep before I went back up to the room. Or, if I drank long enough, I'd just pass out and not worry about it.

The bartender was cute, and doing the Sunday New York Times Crossword puzzle. And the bar was mostly empty. I alternated between scribbling in my small paper journal and helping Jason – the bartender was called Jason – with the crossword. We also talked a lot about painting and writing and poetry and acting and museums and movies, as he is an artist-writer-actor type of bartender. Not all that unusual in New York.

From my paper journal:
He has a tattoo on his arm that reads "A failure must proceed." That is what shows beneath his sleeve, anyway. I'm sure there is more that is hidden; at least I hope so, as it doesn't make sense otherwise. I had half a drink left in my glass earlier when I dumped it over. He didn't blink, just mopped it up then poured me a fresh, full drink. Nice guy. He has another tattoo, on his other arm, of a tiger, all in black, but very detailed. The actual bar I'm writing on is lit from below, styled as opaque white tiles, wood grained. Very odd.

In a loungy room next door, camel colored benches sit empty in front of a large screen showing "The Last Samurai." The lights are low and red dots swirls across the walls, screen and couches in disco ball fashion.

I stayed down at the bar until I couldn't keep my eyes open. When I got back to my room, there was a guy asleep on one of the other bunks. I changed in the bathroom and went to sleep myself. And when I heard him stir in the morning, I feigned sleep until he left the room, despite the fact that my bladder was bursting. He came back as I was getting ready to leave the room, collected his things and checked out. But he only took one small bag. That left three suitcases, a neat set, still on one of the bunks, and several bits of clothing – including most of the large boots – strewn about.

The owner of these goods didn't show up until later in the evening, and when he did, boy was I surprised. He was young and gorgeous, with pouty lips and a knit cap and trendy jeans. It was no surprise when he told me he was a model, in line for a contract with Ralph Lauren or somebody, and on his way to Europe for some small jobs.

You might think he was vain or stupid or both, but he wasn't. We actually had a long conversation, while he packed, about how difficult it can be to take a path that other people think of as different. His father doesn't support his choice to try modeling, and gives him no support, financial or otherwise. This is hurtful for him, and I realized once again how lucky I am to have family and friends who support my unconditional choices.

He thanked me, on his way out the door, for the conversation. He doesn't talk much to other people, it seems, aside from his agent and the photographers. I think he was glad to have someone listen to his feelings. I found myself wishing he could stay longer, that we could talk more, but he had a plane to catch.

Lon G'island

I'm close to ten days behind on entries, and I apologize to my loyal readers. I'm going to try and catch up over the next two days. I am in Boston until 22 May, when I finally turn west again, for the long and convoluted journey home.

On my last day with Adria, we drove out to the Hamptons, on Long Island. It was something we had talked about from the moment I told her I was coming to visit. She doesn’t have a car, so getting out of the city can be hard.

We didn't have any plans aside from what I've already said – to drive out to the Hamptons. We ran into my familiar nemesis – getting lost – as soon as we crossed the bridge into Queens, but it wasn't a big deal. It was an adventure!

We chose to stay off the Long Island Expressway, choosing instead to take a smaller throughway along the south side of the island. This took us right through the hometown of a mutual friend. We decided to drive past her brother's house, even though we knew his job had kept him away from there for the past year or two.

We were surprised to see a small trash can on his porch filled with mail. How strange! But it provided some fun photos. We snooped around a bit, peeking into windows, giggling the whole time about what stalkers we were being. I felt the way I did in ninth grade, when I used to ride my bike past Bill's house just to see if I could get a look at him - silly, a little stupid, part of me hoping he'd never find out, but doing it anyway.

When I went back to the car to get notepaper, I noticed his neighbor watching us. I smiled, waved, said "Hi!" and then ignored him. I kind of thought he might call the cops, or at least ask us what we were doing, but he didn't. We left our note, then left the house and the town goodbye.

It took us another 30 to 45 minutes to drive out to the Hamptons, It was much different than I expected, much more spread out, with little in the way of services. I'd thought the area would be full of high-end restaurants, but all we found were some boutiques, names just like those on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, but the shops much smaller and fewer. And finding a restaurant to have lunch? Well, maybe it was just because the season hadn't really kicked off yet, and the weather was dreary, but it was hard to find something suitable. We'd wanted to sit down and have something hot, but we settled on a sandwich shop and some paninis.

We'd seen a lot of traffic headed out of the Hamptons along the road we'd used to come in, so we headed north to Sag Harbor and west through Noyack until we got back to a highway. This time, we took the LIE, as we just wanted to get back to the city.

I dropped Adria off at her building and headed for the Flatiron District, for my hotel, The Gershwin, and my last two days in the Big Apple.

NYC Nightlife

I hadn't planned any huge nights out in New York City, and that was just fine with me. I'm not a person who thrives, particularly, on a rich nightlife - crowds, drinks, dancing, loud music, beautiful people. I'm usually happier to have a nice dinner at a quiet restaurant or sit around someone's house and drinking a nice bottle of wine.

On Friday night, Adria and I went to her friend's apartment for a rooftop barbeque. Steph had everything arranged when we got there - most of the food and drink (beers in a small soft-sided cooler, a tray of veggie kebabs) were already on the roof, ready to go, along with candles, plates and cutlery, etc.

It was interesting, and chilly, to sit up on the roof of a Manhattan apartment building and have a look around. There was a large tower next to us, a new building with tenants just moving in. Steph and her husband weren't very happy about this, as you can imagine. A couple of buildings over, an old wooden water tower took up a corner of rooftop. I'd observed a few of these around, relics, I imagine, from a time before a city-wide water and sewage system.

Steph and her husband have been "fixing up" the roof, adding plants and planters, furniture, the barbeque. It was a nice spot, and I can imagine how nice it must be in the stifling heat of summer to have a retreat like that. The food and company were good as well :-)

After we ate, Adria and I met another friend of hers, Mary, at another apartment building a few streets away, and the three of us grabbed a cross-town bus and then a subway into Tribeca, where a colleague of theirs was having an after-party for her entry into the Tribeca Film Festival. It was not as glamorous as it sounds, just a bunch of people milling about a burrito place, eating chips and drinking margaritas. I was tired by the time the party started, not surprising since we got there at 11:30.

On Saturday night, after wandering around lower Manhattan all day, we met Mary again and went out for her birthday. The plan was to meet up with more people at Sushi Samba, a place as cool as its name, for drinks and maybe some food and then take the night from there. But when we arrived, the place was packed, and we could barely get a place at the bar much less a place to sit.

A group of us - eight total, I think - began wandering around, looking for a suitable spot. Some of us wanted dinner, some only drinks. This place was too crowded and that one too quiet, but we eventually settled on The Cornelia Street Café, a charming, multi-roomed restaurant where the management and staff were friendly, attentive, and welcoming. This was quite a contrast to the staff at Sushi Samba, who seemed to resent that we were trying our best to spend money there.

Imagine walking into a popular restaurant on a Saturday night and trying to get a table for 8. Now imagine doing this in a trendy portion of New York City. Though they were busy, the staff seated us within five minutes of our walking through the door, they brought food quickly for the couple who had to leave, but didn't rush the rest of us. The food was delicious. And the atmosphere...this is a place that has a "cultural menu" on the table in addition to the food menu, where they host poetry nights and readings and music nearly every night of the week, as well as changing art of the walls. The night we were there, they had had a poetry reading, and there were monotone sea-green photos of ocean waves on the wall of the room where we ate. The building is old, brick, and dark in the back but bright up front where there are large windows to the street. In warmer weather, I'm sure it would be a treat to eat at one of the sidewalk tables. This is a place I could imagine myself frequenting if I lived in NYC, or visited often.

It was late by the time we finished up, and so we headed home. And that was it. My big nights out in New York City. Gosh, I'm such a party girl!

Lower Manhattan

There are so many things to see and do in New York that I found it hard to focus my attention on anything in particular. There was no monument, building, or district that I thought missing would make my trip incomplete. I left it up to my tourguide, Adria, to take me to some "must see" places.

We started off Saturday by taking the subway to City Hall and walking over the Brooklyn Bridge. This is the oldest bridge in New York City – I think – and was a feat of engineering when it was completed. It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened in 1883. There are plaques along the pedestrian pathway explaining the design and building techniques, which were semi-interesting. But I liked the view from the bridge better than its history.

This is the bridge that so many people crossed on September 11th, and you can get a good view of lower Manhattan from the span. I can't imagine what it must have been like, crossing that bridge after climbing down from the towers maybe, and looking back to see them gone. It's mind-boggling.

You can also see mid-town, the towering Empire State Building, the shiny height of the Chrysler Building, then up the East River to Roosevelt Island, and across to Queens and, of course, Brooklyn.

I confess I had a very confused idea of New York City geography when I started this trip, and even after I drove into Manhattan. I don't think it's one of those things that is easy to learn from a book. I think you really have to experience it, see it first hand to understand how all the boroughs are situated. Or at least I did.

I stated earlier that we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, but we didn't, really. We turned around and went back into Manhattan before actually stepping foot in Brooklyn. Our stated destination that day was the Tribeca Film Festival's family street fair. We wandered through lower Manhattan first, though, and I didn't realize how close we were to the World Trade Center site until we came across the little church that was the unofficial rescue worker headquarters. Here, the workers were fed and could catch some sleep on donated cots. And here, people left memorials and missing persons posters and flowers and flags and teddy bears. The church was actually closed to parishioners for quite some time after the attacks, though it is open now for both parishioners and tourists.

Inside, several stations are set up, some with samples of the leavings, some with quotes, photos or videos. I had thought I had processed all my feelings from that day, dealt with the shock and the grief. So much has happened in the meantime, both to myself and to my country, to make that day seem distant. But it all came flooding back in that little church when I looked at memorial posters, read tributes from around the world, saw an absolute pile of patches from rescue workers who came from around the country and spotted one from my home county, there at the bottom, half hidden. Tears welled up inside that little church, as I imagine they have for so many, and we didn't stay much longer.

One thing I found interesting was how they mixed the old history of the church with the new history. This is the oldest church in New York. It is where George Washington was first sworn in as President. Inside, the box that was regularly his in the year or so that New York was the capital of the USA was clearly marked, along with a notation that it was used to inspect and treat rescue workers feet. Something they felt fitting considering what the history books say about Washington's troops at Valley Forge, that they went barefoot through the winter.

Once we left the church, it was a quick stroll to "Ground Zero." It doesn’t bear any resemblance to that anymore, though, even though the space is more or less empty, even though they've barely decided on a design to replace what was lost. It is a vast concrete hole, surrounded by a tall galvanized fence, and in "front" (to us, from where we came across the site) is a shiny new entrance to the PATH station below. Building on the edges of the site show damage still. Some are wrapped in construction mesh, and one had cranes in place, I assume to work on repairs. There wasn't much to see there, and the size of the space doesn't jibe, in my head, with the immensity of what was lost. It seems much to small a footprint to have held those huge towers and to have played such a part in a nation's history.

Further along, at Battery City Park, there is a more grave reminder of the disaster. It is there that you can see the damaged sphere that once stood between the towers. I didn't see it that day, but include it here anyway. I have seen pictures of it, huge and whole and seemingly indestructible. But knowing what came down upon it, it seems amazing that it survived as well as it did. I don't know if the plans are to leave it where it now is, or to move it to become part of the planned memorial at the site, but it definitely needs to be somewhere people can see it.

I'd been looking for days for a new coat, something waterproof and stylish, and I finally found it at Century 21, a crazy discount shop across from the WTC site. Then we ate lunch at an out of the way bistro, a place I wouldn't have found without my local guide, and finally wandered up toward the festival. We were tired by this point, though, and didn't stop anywhere, just walked through and looked around. It was a relief to gain the proper subway station and head uptown. It was even more of a relief to get "home," take off my shoes, and lay down for an hour.

New York Walkabout

I spent my first couple of days in New York just wandering around the Upper East Side and Central Park, and a little bit around Rockefeller Center. I loved just being out in the city, people watching, trying not to look like a tourist. I failed miserably at that when I pulled out my camera to take shots of things New Yorkers hardly notice, but most of the time, I imagine I blend in. It doesn't take long before I cross streets against lights, edging out into traffic so that I can cross at the first possible opportunity. The fast walking that bothered my friend in New Orleans helps me keep up with the flow of the pedestrian river that seems to fill every sidewalk. I act nonchalant as I maneuver through the crowd, through the traffic, past shops and grates and cafes and intersections as though I know exactly where I am going.

Adria lives just up the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I spend a lot of time just sitting on the grand steps out front, watching New York go by. Schoolkids – they never seem to go away, only change – old ladies, European and Japanese tourists, society matrons on the town, commuters running for a cab, fashionistas with shopping bags. They all seem to come together at the Met.

From my paper journal: On the steps of the Met, wondering it it's too nice outside to go inside. To the left of me is a group of schoolboys, 10 or 11 years old. One of them just stuffed half a hot dog into his mouth. They are begging their teachers/chaperones – all women in their 40's – to go on to the roof. To the right of me is a foreign couple, French, I think,. When I sat down, the man was alone, leaning against the railing. He is very good-looking and I admit a touch of disappointment when his petite blonde companion came and sat down beside him. Just now, two old ladies came up the steps, probably in their 70's.The one in the pants is fitter than her friend (sister?) and gains the top of the flight first, impatiently turning to wait while the other crossed the second landing fro one handrail to the next, I suppose to be supported on her stronger side. Did she have a stroke somewhere in her past? A hip replacement? Aside from the pant/skirt disparity, they are dressed remarkably alike – tan sensible walking shoes, navy suits, dark pink collared shirts, and tan leather tote bags. I wonder if this is a uniform of some sort. Nuns? Docents? The French couple has gone, as have most of the schoolboys. The sunlight, the pigeons, the taxis remain.

I spend a lot of time inside the Met, too, more time than I thought I would. Partly this is because I get lost, find things I didn't know they had, or didn't know I would like, such as the exhibition of Spanish glass. I stumble into the Arms and Armory hall and remember how much I enjoyed a similar exhibit in Dresden. The medieval art is nice, but I'm not as excited about the display of Byzantine religious artifacts, or the American silver. And I find the deceptively simple rock sculptures in the garden interesting, if only for the imagined complexity of their structure and the stacked wooden "hives" that surround them.

And of course Central Park is just behind the Met. It is wilder, greener, bigger, hillier than I had imagined. I can only manage part of it, the middle part – the Castle, the Ramble, Belvedere Fountain, the Shakespeare Garden, the boat dock. It sounds like a lot, but it isn't, really. I see an egret in one of the lakes. Actually, I see two egrets in two lakes, but I only manage to get photos of one. At Belvedere Fountain, the one used in so many movies but in a much smaller, much closer square than those movies led me to believe, a bride and groom are having their photos taken. As I sit and soak in the ambiance, a little girl on a pink scooter rides straight for me before she realizes it, realizes she has left her parents behind. She stops and waits, smiles at me quickly before turning away at the sound of her mother's voice.

Further on, through the tunnel, I find the band shell, tattered and surrounded by a chain link fence. In front of it, on a raised stage, an orchestra sets up, the girls in dresses with velvet tops and green-flocked skirts, the boys in tuxedos. I think how much better they would look on the band shell, if it weren't grey with pollution and pock marked and surrounded by chain link. People have started to gather in front of the orchestra, some standing, some sitting on benches. Amongst them ride skateboarders, going up a makeshift ramp, seemingly oblivious to how the noise of their shouts and their wheels on the pavement distract from the music.

Heading back through the Ramble, I come across a scene I think of as quintessential Central Park – a couple entwined on the grass, their blanket a scattering of pink petals from the tree which shades them. They notice only each other, despite the chaos of the park. I want to be one of those people, entwined with a loved one on soft petals in the warm sun. Instead I trudge through the humidity, back through the Upper East Side, along 82nd Street to "my" Irish pub for a cool beer to wait out the afternoon.

Shea Stadium

When I decided to go on this trip, back in January, I thought it might be fun to catch the San Francisco Giants on the road someplace. When it came out, the only place their schedule and mine crossed was at Shea Stadium.

I had planned to go by myself, but ended up having the company of my friend Adria, at whose apartment I was staying for a few days. I met her at her work and we took to subway out to Queens, where it actually becomes an elevated train.

The stadium was nothing special, and I found myself wishing the Giants were playing the Yankees instead. Oh, well. Our seats were fine, the game was on the boring side, we left early, and in the end the Giants lost. Not my best day at a baseball game! But it was still fun, still an experience.

One funny thing…we got to our seats after the first inning was underway, and I couldn't tell who was pitching for the Giants. I looked to the older couple next to us, thinking to ask them, then though, "Oh, they don't look American." I asked the woman anyway, and she answered me in a broad English accent that she didn't have a clue. They were from Lincoln, England, and I offered to answer any questions they might have, if I could. Instead, they got up in the middle of the third inning – "we're just going to the restroom" – and never came back. I think they decided they didn't understand it enough to sit in the chill wind.

The one good thing about the game is the Mets actually pitched to Barry Bonds. Not that it did the Giants much good, as he either struck or flied out everytime (here he is going to the dugout after striking out in…the fifth?). Every time he swung the bat, there was a near blinding pop of flashbulbs from all over the stadium. Don't these people know their flash is useless at that distance?

When we left after the seventh – thanks to that chill wind – we realized we could have just taken the subway out and watched the game from the platform. The view wasn't that much worse than from our $36 seats.

Finally, New York

From my paper journal, dated 5 May 2004:

I woke up in New Jersey this morning. Which is a good thing, since it is also where I went to bed last night. I was a scant 90 minute drive from my goal – Manhattan. But I didn't have to be there until 7pm, so I lingered at the hotel, making use of room service, a late check-out, and free wireless in the lobby.

I jumped on the freeway with plans to jump off again somewhere before Newark to have lunch, use the facilities, and study the map again before hitting the craziness of Manhattan traffic. But somehow that didn't happen, and I unexpectedly found myself on the New Jersey Turnpike. I quickly found out there is no getting off the New Jersey Turnpike. It was where I expected to be, just sooner that I expected to be there.

And sooner than I expected to see it, there it was ahead and to the right – New York City. I was overcome by emotion then. Just what emotion or emotions, I couldn't quite tell you, I only know I choked out "New York Fuckin' City!" and had to hold back the tears, struggle for a deep breath.

I suppose it was a release of nerves as much as anything else. For more than any other part of my trip, I was nervous about New York City, and it was the one place I truly longed to have someone with me, preferably someone who's been there before.

And now, long before I was prepared for it – I hadn't even pulled out a map to consult in case I got lost, as I so frequently do – I was paying my toll and driving through the Lincoln Tunnel.

Thank God for Mapquest and good directions and more than a little bit of luck, for I made my way to and around Central Park with very little trouble. Oh, I had to contend with cabs cutting me off, pedestrians crossing against the light, and double-parked trucks. But I gave no quarter, pushed my way into my preferred lane, and, for once on this trip, didn't make a single wrong turn.

I found Adria's apartment building without too much trouble, but finding a parking spot was another deal all together. I circled the block, and then a bigger block, and then a different block. I found out that, with the cartop carrier, my car is too full for the parking garage I'd identified, and I found myself wishing I was driving a Mini. But I finally got lucky, someone pulled out of a spot right in front of me, I parked up and spent a few seconds wondering if it was a legal spot, then deciding I didn't care.

It was 4:00, I still hadn't eaten lunch or peed. I grabbed my purse and my notebook, confirmed that Adria's building was where I thought it was, and found a place to sit a spell, have a snack, relax. Any bets as to the kind of place I found?

It was an Irish pub, of course!

Pennsylvania

I chose to take the long way from D.C. to New York, heading west for a ways to Gettysburg and Pennsylvania Dutch Country. It would be the first time in the entire trip – nearly two months of travel through the South – that I had taken in any Civil War sites.

When I first arrived in Gettysburg, I picked up a map of the area, looking for the battlefield. I guess my Civil War history is rustier than I thought, or maybe I never knew much about this battle aside from the effect it had on the war in general, and the address given at the site by Abraham Lincoln several months afterwards. I searched that map up and down looking for some marked off area labeled "BATTLEFIELD" and became frustrated when I couldn't find it. Until I realized that the town is the battlefield.

I set off to see what I could see first thing in the morning. I thought of "renting" my own battlefield guide ($40 for a two-hour tour with personal narration), but ended up spending more time than I'd thought to allow at the cemetery and museum. The cemetery was a slow-walk kind of tour, looking at the different memorials, monuments, and headstones. It is mind-boggling how many people died in the three-day battle that overtook and surrounded the town. And how quickly the cemetery became a symbol and filled with monuments.

The museum across the street, part of the visitor center, was filled with authentic artifacts – uniforms, tents, mementoes from home, utensils, ammunition, arms. Photos. Letters. Flags. Instruments. Everything a soldier and an army needs to be happy – or at least content – while waging war. And some other things that the soldier probably didn't want to think about, like surgeons instruments, and kitchen tables stained with the blood of the wounded and dying.

I dodged groups of school kids throughout the museum, so it was kind of a relief to get into the quiet of my car and head off down the road. This was something I knew – driving slow down country lanes, seeing what I could see. I had picked up a guide, stopped occaisionally to look at monuments or battlefields.

It is so pretty there, outside of Gettysburg. Green, green fields sprinkled with yellow flowers, a few houses only now encroaching, white church spires in the distance, even the hum of cars muted. I kept running into groups of bicyclists at every stop, and finally figured out they were groups of Marines. I didn't get to hear much, but it was interesting listening to some of the "instructors" – much different information than what is related in the official guides.

I left Gettysburg and the Civil War behind me in the early afternoon, and drove into Pennsylvania Dutch country, home to many sects of "plain people" – Amish, Mennonite, and the like. I mostly just drove, up and down small country lanes, through towns like Gap and Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand. I saw many buggies, and admired the well-kept white building and healthy looking farm animals. Also a lot of quilt shops, shops of wood furniture and knickknacks, signs for harness repair, and people in old-fashioned costume riding scooters, roller blades and bicycles.

And before I knew it, I had crossed the border into New Jersey. I'm not sure I'll ever get the hand of East Coast geography, where you can drive through three states in as many hours. But I was glad to find a nice hotel for the night, a place with a restaurant and wireless service, a place to prepare for what was to come – the Big Apple.

Historic St. Mary's City

Though I had planned on going back into Washington, D.C. at least once, I never worked myself up to take the drive. I felt "done" with that city, at least for this trip. So I spent the remainder of my time in Maryland doing nothing much, a little reading, surfing the Internet, hanging out with Kate, playing with the cats, laundry.

We did go one day to Historic St. Mary's City, sort of a low budget, low-key Williamsburg. Just as at Williamsburg or Mt. Vernon, there are costumed docents sprinkled about, but most of the exhibit is self-guided.

The first exhibit we came across was the Maryland Dove, a replica ship (can't remember what kind now) similar to the one that brought supplies to the original St. Mary's, the first capital of Maryland, in the late 1600's. It is incredible how small this ship is, and I can't imagine sailing it across the Atlantic for months on end. The original Dove carried only supplies – beer, salted meat, grain, cloth. The ship accompanying it – so to speak, since the ships lost each other for most of the journey – carried settlers and other supplies. We were able to go aboard and wander the small vessel, checking out the small bunk spaces, fingering the lines and boards. We weren't able to climb up the mast, though ;-)

There was much less to see in St. Mary's City than I had expected, though there are some archeological sites and rebuilt dwellings and other buildings. Many of the "structures" are ghost houses, frames only showing the approximate size and location of buildings in the 18th century town. At a couple of places, we saw docents and were able to ask questions, but there was a school group trailing us, and the docents had presentations to make.

Maybe I was just burnt on sightseeing, on learning new things, but I found it hard to get excited about this little history exhibit. Parts of it were interesting, but there wasn't enough to hold our interest, and we left after only an hour or two. Still, it was interesting, and I learned something, always a bonus.

Oh, and I got to hang out in the captain's quarters of a sailing vessel ;-)

Annapolis

"You have to go to Annapolis," my friend told me. "All those yummy Navy men!" I don't have any particular penchant for men in uniform, but I also knew Annapolis is an historic town, and it happened to be more on less on my way, so I stopped in for lunch.

I had a delicious meal of salad and scallops and rice – plus a pint of local brew – at a tavern near the wharf. There weren't many people in there, so I talked a bit with the bartender. He turned out to be an avid reader and a casual writer, so we talked for a while about books and authors and genres. He encouraged me to stop in again on my way to New York.

After lunch, I wandered around a bit, looking in shops and people watching. My usual downfall is bookstores, and I did end up in one, looking for a Pennsylvania guide book. I ended up buying Lonely Planet's "Brief Encounters" instead. When I went back out to the street, I stumbled across a store even more dangerous for my wallet than the one I'd just left – a store selling nothing but silver jewelry! I drooled over many of the pieces, but ended up buying only a dramatic necklace to go with a couple of the fancier shirts I'd brought with me.

My parking meter was about to run out, and I didn't see any more interesting shops, so I headed out of town. Unfortunately, I was again without a decent map, and Annapolis is full of diagonal streets and even a couple of traffic circles. I got a lovely if unintended tour of residential neighborhoods before I found the right road.

I saw no Navy men – cadets or instructors – in Annapolis, only grey haired old ladies with Georgia accents, and young families with strollers, and fellow tourists. Mom had the men's and women's rugby teams from the Naval Academy on her flight to California, so she saw far more Navy men than I did that day.

As I headed southeast on the unfamiliar highway, things started to look familiar – the vegetation and signage and even the way people drove. At the end of the peninsula, I entered Solomon's Island, where I had been the week before. I made the drive over the *scary bridge, turned left onto highway 235, and didn't need to consult a map or directions for the rest of the way.

I pulled into my friend's driveway and walked into the house as if I belonged there, which in a way I did. I'd made it just in time for dinner, and it felt just like coming home. Especially when the cats greeted me.

*Scary Bridge – this is the Hwy 4 bridge between the two southern peninsulas of Maryland. Kate had declared it scary before I ever got on it, and I could understand why. Driving the other direction, the bridge goes up and up and up and it is impossible to see anything past the apex. And there are only low concrete barriers on the outside edges of the two lane road. I agreed with her that it is scary. It turns out we both have had nightmares about freeways. In my recurring dreams, I am traveling down a concrete freeway – much like 280 through San Jose – on something like a luge sled or one of those slider things that mechanics use to go under cars. Usually, I am facedown and propelling myself with my hands and then at some point I have to go up, up, up on a high interchange, some of which end up being loop-di-loops. This is usually where I wake up, heart pounding, vowing never to drive the 80-780-980 interchange in Berkley ever again.

New Friends

Because I like my mom, and won't be around her place for Mother's Day, and also because I never turn down a free place to stay, I tagged along with her and her friend Mary when they went to stay with another friend of theirs, Teri, who lives just north of Baltimore. I drove them up, actually, so to say I tagged along is a bit of a misstatement.

It sprinkled on the drive out of D.C. and north to Baltimore, and by the time we parked up, near the Inner Harbor, it was dumping. We were 45 minutes early for our lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, but we were wet and didn't care and got a table anyway. The waitress graciously didn't bother us to order, but kept our drinks full while we waited for Teri.

I had never met Teri before. Mom and Mary know her from a 4-H exchange between our county in California and Teri's county in Maryland. All three were chaperones, and I'm not really sure which was first – Maryland to California or California to Maryland. Teri is friendly and talkative and very involved with her kids and 4-H and sewing, all of which makes it very obvious why she and Mom get along.

We had a long dry lunch before heading back out into the wet to see Teri's daughter, Tracey, at the boat where she works. It is a Living History exhibit, a skipjack, on which they take school kids and teach them things about the Chesapeake Bay. It seemed very cool, and I would have liked to explore the ship more, but as you can see from the photo, we were near drowning. This was the day I discovered my little "rain jacket" wasn't waterproof.

That night, some of the "kids" (now in their early 20's) and chaperones from the exchange came to Teri's for dinner. It is always interesting to me to see how other people relate to and react to my mom. Everyone loves her for her stories and her friendly attitude. And of course these people I'd never met knew little bits about me from Mom, and so I talked extensively about traveling my trip and my books. One of the women who came was concerned that her daughter wanted to go to Africa to help disadvantaged children. I encouraged the woman to let her go, but I'm not sure my point got through, that people need to make their own mistakes in order to figure out who and what they are, that you do your children a disservice by sheltering them too much.

During the course of conversation, I mentioned that I had a paper copy of Book #2 ("the one Mom's not allowed to read – until it gets published!") in the car, and I ended up bringing it into the house. One of the girls read the prologue and declared herself intrigued. Tracey read the first three chapters after everyone else left, and said she would buy it if she saw it in the store. Another boost to my writerly confidence!

The next morning, Mom, Teri, Mary and I rolled out of the house at the crack of dawn for our river cruise to Mt. Vernon, George Washington's estate. It became clear quickly, though, that we were in danger of missing the boat, despite giving ourselves over two hours for the 60-mile drive. There were just too many accidents on the road between Baltimore and D.C. Mom tried to call the company, many times, but didn't get an answer until after the boat had pulled away from the dock, just a couple of minutes before we arrived.

We were disappointed and upset, and got even more so when the company balked at refunding our money. Eventually the manager relented, but then could not find our reservation. It turns out we were never booked on the cruise! And it turns out that we were only 20 minutes or so from Mt. Vernon, by car, so we decided just to drive over.

This is probably the fifth or sixth "historic" house I've seen on this trip, and I still can not get over how small most of them are. They were large for their time – a docent told us the dining room here was bigger than many farmers' houses – but they are dwarfed by what we think of as a mansion today. Nevertheless, Mt. Vernon is beautiful. The house has been well restored, and in the hands of a historical association for over a hundred years. The outbuildings all have displays of some sort, and there is constant upkeep and archeological work going on at the site.

We waited in a long line to walk through the house – no dawdling here, it is a "walk-through" tour – and then walked around the grounds, taking a little time out for a delicious lunch. We saw white painted outbuildings, period furnishings, formal gardens, dusty barns full of dusty implements and equipment, gray sheep, gorgeous flowers, sprouting vegetables, the threshing barn, archeologists who looked as if they should be creating havoc at a sorority party rather than digging in the dirt outside of a barn, and volunteers in period costume doing period chores and taking time out to talk to the gawkers. That would be us, the gawkers.

We lingered over the sheep. Lambing season had just passed, and little balls of fluff came over to the fence to see what we were about, while others lazed in the sun or picked at the sweet grass. I especially like the black lambs, but it was this one who came over to stick his head through the fence for a scratch.

The horse barn was full of saddles and blankets halters and smelled horsy, but there wasn't a horse to be seen. If there had been, I would have lingered there as well.

There were several octagonal "necessaries"(privies, outhouses, dunnies, loos) around – most with three holes in a row, no dividers – and I thought what a terrible job it must have been to empty the drawers and make use of their contents. Though people back then felt different about waste than we do today. In addition to these human waste collection areas, there was a "dung shed" where they composted the animal waste.

Down at the farm area, we were fascinated, as many before us no doubt were, by the threshing barn. This replica was built about five years ago with 18th century tools and methods, except for the trucks that delivered the raw materials. It contains 100,000 feet of board lumber, which is an amazing amount of wood. George built the original (had it built, I'm sure) after watching his slaves run horses over the wheat instead of beating it with sticks, the traditional method. It is an ingenious design, really. It has 16 sides so there are no corners and the horses have no place to stop (a horse can not urinate while it runs, and urine – any liquid – will ruin the crop). The "floor" is actually raised up and made of slats. As the horses trotted round and round the barn, the wheat would fall from the stalk like rain to the area below, where it was gathered into the center. Horses worked 15 or 20 minute "shifts", and the workers knew when the threshing was complete when the "rain" stopped falling. Simply changing to this method of threshing doubled the yield per acre. So why weren't more of these threshing barns built? Someone went and invented the threshing machine, a less costly solution. And today we have the combine, which does everything in one fell swoop.

The more we talked to docents and read signs and perused the bookstore, the more respect I gained for our country's first president. He was innovative, intelligent, humble, self-effacing, a good host, and childless, though he treated his step-children (Martha was a widow when he married her) as his own. Still, he seems a very abstract figure, so far in the past, and it wasn't until I saw his tomb, and his sarcophagus, that he seemed real to me. I looked at the concrete coffin and thought, "George Washington is in there. If I lifted up the lid, I'd see him, see his body." It was a strange thought, and gave me tingles. But I didn't need my friend to tell me I'd get arrested if I did such a thing, so I never did more than think about it, abstractly.

We were tired by the time we drove back north of Baltimore (Mom and Mary both slept in the car on the way, and I might have fallen asleep myself. I'm not sure.) That night, we dined on fresh rockfish (a.k.a. stripped bass, I'm told) caught by Teri's husband Tom. We had seen the huge fish whole the night before. It was delicious.

Mom and Mary flew home the next day, but not before we stopped at Teri's new shore house. Though they have owned it only two weeks, she has already decorated it with white painted furniture, blue accents, oars, and lots of little touches in nearly all of the rooms. The décor was perfect for the setting, with a screened porch out the back, overlooking a little stretch of lawn and a wooden pier.

Soon, it was time for me to go back to Southern Maryland, and I left before the ladies did, happy that I'd found yet another wonderful host on my journey.

March for Women's Lives

The big event of the weekend, the reason I had visitors at all, was the March for Women's Lives. Lisa had suggested originally that she come out that weekend – her birthday weekend – to meet me for the March, and before I knew it, we had seven people coming out. Mom and Lisa got involved with the local Planned Parenthood delegation, so we were well hooked up to be active participants.

Sunday started out early with a California delegation breakfast at a hotel on the other side of the Mall. After some much appreciated croissants and coffee, several California politicians got up to speak. Many of them gave reasons for their pro-choice stance, but the most touching story of the day came from this man, California's Secretary of State, Kevin Shelley. I wish I had a tape recorder with me so that I could recount what he said exactly, but I will do my best to paraphrase. In 1942, a young woman moved out to San Francisco and fell in love with a man of standing. They weren't married when she found herself pregnant and, ashamed, she decided to have an abortion. Literally, she chose a back alley, coat hanger abortion over the shame of telling anyone she was pregnant. The procedure left her with a perforated uterus, and she lay for six days, alone, in a pool of her own blood, too ashamed to call anyone for help. She survived, and she married that man, but he never knew what had happened to her. She told no one until after his death in 1974. And when my mother told me her story, I knew I didn't want that to happen to anyone again. That is when I became a pro-choice advocate. Mr. Shelley is a very powerful speaker, and the gasps were audible around the room as he told this tale. And I saw many people wiping their eyes.

This, to me, is one of the most powerful reasons to be pro-choice. There are many others, of course. Senator Barbara Boxer spoke for several minutes about the erosion of rights since the passage of Roe vs. Wade, about how difficult it can be for poor women to have an abortion, because often the woman must pay for the procedure herself (it is not covered under Medicaid, except in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk). She told us that if a woman in the military becomes pregnant as a result of a rape, she must pay for an abortion herself. She told us that the so-called "partial-birth abortion ban" makes no allowances for the life of the pregnant woman. She told us about the "global gag rule," which restricts any family planning organization receiving federal funding from even mentioning abortion, no matter where in the world they operate and even if such abortion counseling is funded with their own money (not federal money). House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke, as did State Assembly(wo)man Rebecca Cohn, and others whose names I can't remember (guess I should have taken notes!)

After breakfast was over and the speakers were done, we trooped en masse to the Mall and our designated assembly spot. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited. On a stage in front of the Washington Monument, politicians (including Hilary Clinton), celebrities (including Lynda "Wonder Woman" Carter), and no names spoke or performed. We could see them on the Jumbo-tron, though we couldn't always hear them. There was some sort of delay in the March itself, I never did figure out why. But it meant that when the crowd was rarin' to go, after a few high-powered speakers, we still sat. During one particularly graphic spoken word piece (including a description of "cunt tastings" which I really could have done without) the crowd around us began chanting "MARCH! MARCH! MARCH!" It was another 45 minutes before we began moving.

While we waited, I admired the variety of signs and slogans around us. Many people carried pre-printed signs from Planned Parenthood or NARAL or NOW!, which were available in piles around the Mall. Others carried hand-painted signs, like the one Lisa found on the ground after we began moving. Some of the signs, especially those protesting the male-heavy anti-choice movement, were great. But there were others I found disturbing or offensive. One of the worst of these read, "Barbara made the wrong choice." I don't care how much you disagree with someone's politics, I just think it's wrong to want them to have never existed in the first place.

We also talked about what it was like being part of such a crowd. We knew it was huge, though not how huge until later in the afternoon. It was the first time for such a protest for me, Lisa, Mom, Maria. But not for Mom's friend Mary. She told us she had been to a demonstration on the Mall before – in 1963, for Civil Rights, when Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream Speech." Wow.

And that was one of my main beefs with the March. It was supposed to be this bi-partisan, unifying event, something to show the government how broad-based the pro-choice movement is, how there are so many other issues than just abortion, how important it is that women have a say in their own health care, including the right to decide whether or not to carry a child. Affordable health care, family planning, abortion rights. These were the topics of the day. But there were many stringent anti-Bush people in the crowd, and at times the chants moved from pro-choice to pro-Democrat, and many unrepeatable anti-Bush-and-Cheney shouts were heard. In my mind, these sentiments diluted the issue, and took the focus away from where it was meant to be. They held the potential to alienate pro-choice Republicans.

I put those thoughts out of my mind, mostly, once we began to actually march. Or stroll, really. Once the crowd got moving, and the million or so people that were there tried to merge together onto Constitution Ave., it really turned into the "Crawl for Women's Lives," with much jostling, starting and stopping. In short order, Lisa and I lost the rest of our group in the crowd, and struggled to stay together. The route took us past the Washington Monument up Constitution Avenue, a right turn onto 17th, then another right across the middle of the Ellipse, as close as we could come to marching in front of the White House. This part of the March, about half a mile, took us nearly two hours. Once past White House, we took a left turn at the other side of the ellipse, a right onto Pennsylvania Avenue headed toward the Capitol Building and another right onto 7th and back to the Mall.

The ~1 mile round-trip took us about three hours total. We did run into some anti-choice (a phrase I prefer – as did many others – to "anti-abortion") protesters, some of whom displayed graphic images of supposedly aborted fetuses. I found it interesting that there were only two, or maybe three, different images these people chose to display. Even more interesting that the man supplying the images had his name and address on the bottom of every one! "That's where we need to go," I said to no one in particular, pointing at the prominently displayed name and address. "We need to go protest outside of this guy's house, and shut down his little operation!" No one listened to me, of course, but I still think it isn't a bad idea to target this guy for disseminating disturbing and inaccurate images and information. Most of these protesters had their rhetoric drowned out by shouts of "CHOICE! CHOICE! CHOICE!" and their displays blocked by marchers' signs.

Once back on the Mall, we found that the speeches had begun again, this time from a stage in front of the Capitol building. It became boring after a while, quite frankly. The same thing said over and over again to people who are on your side of the argument. Truly "preaching to the choir," as my mom pointed out. I wasn't sorry to have missed some of the speeches, and Lisa and I hung around only long enough to catch back up with Maria, Laura and Sheryl.

I wish we'd been able to stick with that group. Laura and Sheryl are both pregnant, and carried a sign reading "Pregnant and Pro-Choice". They received a lot of attention on the March. Actually, I was surprised that Lisa and I made it back to the Mall before anyone else in our group. I thought more of them were ahead of us, but we must have managed the crowd better than they did.

It was with sore and weary feet, but light hearts, that we went back to the hotel for some food. The march wasn't technically over, they'd had their permit extended, but it was time to go. And we got to see the very end of the speeches, and Ani DiFranco's performance, on C-SPAN from the comfort of our room.

Or at least I did. Lisa and Maria had to grab their bags and the shuttle and head for the airport. They had to work the next day, but Mom and her friend Mary were staying, and I would have their companionship for another couple of days.

It was energizing to be part of history, to be a part of something that was so talked about in the days following. I was glad to be further educated on the issues, to find out the true obstacles in the path of women and reproductive rights. I'm not much of a political person, and despite the awe of being a part of such a demonstration, I'm not sure I will do this again. However, I will continue to assert my beliefs in the voting booth, the place where it counts the most.

For more information on the March and the issues, please visit the official site.