She s back
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
My sister has been gone for almost a month and now she is back. Tooltime Tim and I watched the people coming down the ramp at the Wichita airport, wondering which mirage would turn out to be Jessica. She always makes an entrance when she's been traveling. She doesn't just arrive!
I remember when she came back from a vacation in South America and she arrived with her hair done up in tiny braids all over her head. The minute we got in the car she said, "I've got to get these things out of my hair — they are giving me a splitting headache." But they made enough impact on me, upon her arrival, that I didn't forget the sight.
When she came back from the Dominican Republic, she stepped off the plane in Sacramento in a huge straw hat and a white linen pantsuit looking relaxed and lovely. I don't know that she's worn the hat since. It was so big that I'm sure it had to be crumpled to fit into the overhead.
Last night, I swear, she must have been the last one off the plane. We were about to despair except that I knew she'd gotten on the plane in Denver — it's the miracle of cell phones, you know.
Finally, here she came in a flowered skirt, pink shawl, and a Balinese mask on her face. "I was a little worried coming down the ramp," she joked nervously, "because I was afraid they might think my mask was some terrorist act."
All the way home, she talked about Bali and her experiences there. It would have been completely mind-boggling had I not been there before myself — so some of it I could understand and some of the places I had also been, but when I was in Bali I spent lots more time in the rice paddies and a lot less time in temples.
She described the rituals that soothed her soul — the grandmas out early in the morning preparing little baskets woven from bamboo with snippets of rice, fruit, and flowers — an offering to their gods of prosperity or health or protection. These gentle, sincere people were asking for a good day in this simple way.
Once you've heard gamelon music, you'll never forget it — I t's a little like a sit down marimba. Early in the morning — and their mornings are always balmy and sweet — you could hear the music and see the gardening staff out dressing the statuary in the gardens and along the streets. Black and white-checked clothes adorned the characters and they put red and yellow hibiscus flowers over their ears and leis around their necks.
Quite a switch to land in Kansas — even looking out through a Balinese mask. However the breeze was gentle last night and even in Wichita you could smell the scent of new-mown hay.
I remember when we used to come visit Ramona and then go back home to California and we'd attempt to tell our friends about what it was like to be in Kansas. We described our neighbors as good and kind and helpful. We told them about miles and miles of wheat fields and blue, blue sky. We described the fireflies on a dark, dark summer night all calling for mates down by the creek. Our friends tried to take it all in — but if they hadn't been here, they couldn't quite understand. Kansas was a far-off country, for them.
Last night when I got home two fireflies were trapped in my house. What magic. I lay on the couch and watched them flashing in the dark — little pinpoints reminding me of the magic all around us, every day. All this, and more, awaits us right here — on another day in the country.
