I like women, don’t you?
I’ve always liked women.
I like the way women look, I like the way they feel, and I particularly like the way that women work. I admire and on occasion try to emulate the more fulsome perspective that many women normally will bring to their particular view of the world. The fulsomeness, not the view. I like the ways in which women are smart. These are often, but not only, the very same ways in which we men are smart.
Perhaps you already realize that I’ve never had trouble following a smart leader, whether man or woman, black or brown or white, educated or uneducated–just as long as that person has a good idea and a sound plan and possesses the confidence to allow me to do my own work. And so I found myself inclined to be receptive a couple of years ago when one day a very intelligent uneducated and beautiful brown friend of mine said to me, in Spanish “Bill, it’s been more than two years since Denise died. Are you about ready to meet a good dominican woman?”
Actually, I was not.
But a familiar voice, issuing from somewhere over my shoulder, a voice more quiet than before but as clear as ever whispered “If not now, when?” And so I said that I was receptive to the idea, even if I wasn’t. In fact, a couple of years ago, I was really NOT ready to meet a good woman of any stripe.
But I had (and still have) a full load of respect for this woman, my friend and for her thoughts. My friend is independent, she is strong and resourceful. She has a terrific sense of humor. Like me, she’s a worker. And she knows how to work and how to play. She’s also got all of that beautiful, nurturing, and supportive freight that is often loaded by an American onto the terms “Dominican” and “Woman.” Further, I had been informed that this woman had TEN SISTERS. Surely, I assumed, her sisters and friends must be something like her? And so, with a fair measure of optimism, I said “Yes.” “Fine,” my friend said. “Come for lunch next Sunday. She will be here.”
Now I can tell you that it was Denise’s clearly articulated wish before she died that I find a partner after she was gone. Of course this makes perfect rational sense, and made sense even at the time. But the associated feelings are much more complex. I considered some of these feelings and something of this complexity as I stood in my friend’s kitchen while she waited for my answer.
As I’ve said, I have a great deal of respect for my friend. I value her humor and insight on any number of things. Nevertheless I had only a bit of confidence and a whole lot of hesitation in deciding to follow this particular lead. I suppose that it helped that she and Denise were becoming good friends in the years before Denise’s death.
Inevitably, Sunday arrived and in accordance with dominican custom I materialized at more or less the appointed time only to find no dominicana in evidence. (This is also customary.) So, in Spanish because my friend has no English, I asked where the rumored dominican woman might be. “Patience,” I was counseled. “She is working today, but she will be here. She has to return to work at three.” Of course I thought that was just about perfect, and so settled in to wait.
Not so very long after, I looked up to see a young woman coming down the garden path, walking towards the two of in the kitchen. I mean to say this was a very YOUNG woman. It turns out that this woman was not a contemporary of my friend, nor was she a young sister. This particular young woman was my friend’s daughter.
I’ll pause here for a moment so that we can all reflect and consider just a few of the implications of this turn of events. I’m sure that we can agree that this particular union was fraught with all manner of potential–some good, some bad, but all interesting. You with me on this? Good.
So, in my best Spanish, I introduced myself and thanked the young woman for agreeing to meet with me.
She had obviously gone to considerable effort to prepare for this meeting and accordingly I was quite complimentary. I went on to say that I had some questions for her and that I hoped she had some questions for me, to which she readily agreed. I confessed the obvious: that my Spanish was not very strong and so, with her permission, I proposed to be very direct. To which she also agreed. I asked if she would prefer to take a walk in the garden while we spoke, or if it was OK for me to ask my questions in the kitchen, in the presence of her mother. Again, she agreed.
So I leaned forward and while holding her gaze said in my best and most earnest Spanish “Tell me, exactly how old ARE you?” to which she happily replied “I’m twenty-three.” “Perfect,” I replied. “You’re an adult.” I thought that perhaps my next question might give her pause as I asked her how old she thought I was. But it didn’t. She considered her options carefully but didn’t take too long before responding with a hesitant “Fifty-four,” at which point I briefly but happily considered the possibility of a relationship founded on such an attractive delusion. Mercifully, I quickly came to my senses.
And so we continued: “Are you married? Do you have children? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you want children?” And because I didn’t want our contrived, but mostly pleasant conversation to turn into an utter interrogation–and because she was shy for myriad reasons, I went on to ask a few questions of myself on her behalf: “You may wonder why I do not have a woman in my life at this moment.” “Maybe you wonder where I am from.” “Perhaps you would like to know why I live in Las Galeras,” and so on.
During the course of our conversation I learned that she was employed as the nanny of an acquaintance of mine. It seems that not only was I dating my friend’s daughter, I was dating the baby-sitter.
Ah, the twists and turns that life can take!
Clearly this was an untenable position. But it was also one that I couldn’t unilaterally draw to a close. There was plenty of vulnerability to go around in that kitchen on that Sunday afternoon: Mom, who had optimistically introduced the fruit of her loins, the lovely young woman who had gathered up her hope and courage to put herself forward, and me, who, moving forward, had to live both with myself and with all of my neighbors. I had to find a way for my date to reject me, rather than the reverse–and it had to be a way credible to all and to which we could all agree.
And so my questions continued: “What is important for you in your life? How do you spend your time? Who are your friends? Where do you imagine you will be in ten years? In twenty?” Eventually this went all the way to: “Do you realize that I am old enough to legitimately be your GRANDFATHER? And so we began to laugh. At the same time, I was privately considering the prospect of a consummated relationship twenty years down the road. I think, thankfully, that her thinking may have proceeded along a similar line.
It took the two of us several days, or maybe it was a couple of weeks to gently and finally and with mutual respect lay the whole idea to rest in such a way that our collective and individual reputations were intact, maybe even enhanced a bit. I’m sure, gentle reader, that you can see that this was no easy feat and that it was at the same time a particularly important accomplishment, especially given that we all live in the same small village, one replete with numerous aunts, uncles, cousins and other lifelong friends.
And there, a couple of years ago, my local relationships with women more or less rested for awhile. I was off the metaphorical bench, if not entirely in the literal game: “poco y poco,” as we say in the RD–little by little.
Six months later, the husband of my friend–who was also a friend of mine–unexpectedly died; and a year after I began to keep company with my widowed friend–which is pretty much where I am now in the women department.
But before I introduce Nuris to you–and eventually I will, and it will be worth the wait, I’ll draft and pass along a short and maybe startling accounting the interregnum between daughter and mother. Hint: it entails using the Internets!
Just so you have something to look forward to.
Hi,
I haven’t written one of these little posts in such a very long time that you’ll be forgiven for thinking that I’d lost interest–or perhaps for thinking that some guy named Guido had broken both of my thumbs and they were healing badly. But the real reason I haven’t written is the usual reason for such things: sloth. In this case my sloth has been directed to the keyboard, when perhaps it would have better been pointed over towards the hammock. An idea worth pursuing, I think. But I digress…
After awhile, not writing to you became the new pattern. Rather than drop an occasional note to you, I began to wonder how best to break what had become an inordinate silence. Physicists call this, I believe, inertia. It’s a powerful force. Surely I’m not the first to discover that sloth plus inertia is an unrewarding equation? The “drafts” folder in my email software holds numerous more or less worthy attempts to break this new cycle–and don’t get me started on the drafts folder in my mind.
And then this morning it came to me, and in that most familiar and comfortable of places, the bathroom. Well, actually this particular bathroom isn’t all that comfortable. Don’t get me wrong: it’s clean and spacious and well-lit, but it is also cold and concrete and a bit damp–as might be expected of a bathroom in a campground in Wisconsin in June. It’s the sort of bathroom that one enjoys and then quickly departs unless, for example, one is an amphibian.
So:
Turns Out It’s Actually a Toad…
I think we can all agree that this little guy is lovely, and generally more attractive than the frogs who frequent my bathroom at home. I suppose that a number of you may remember meeting the frog in my bathroom several years ago. (If not, you can relive the experience at www.elotrowa.com.)
For now I’m camping and couch-surfing my way across the US for a couple of months, visiting family and friends and the occasional frog and collecting blue glass bottles along the way (details to be found in the Drafts Folder.) So do keep your eye out for blue bottles and a bug-spattered Honda. As for me, I’m soon to revisit the Drafts Folders; honestly.
Finally, I hope that the surprises in your life since last we’ve been together have been mostly wonderful, as they have in mine (for details of which we must check aforementioned DF.)
I used to think that my wife had an infinite supply of ChapStick. It was seemingly everywhere, the car, the kitchen counter, the knapsack. It was in every room in the house, on many of the shelves and in many of the drawers, even, inevitably, rattling loose in the clothes dryer with all of the tumbled laundry.
I began to think of the stuff as “our ChapStick.”
Mostly the tubes were of the original black variety but, in the years before she died a pink version increasingly appeared, accompanied occasionally by some random third color or the odd competing brand.
Only rarely did I use ChapStick, except second-hand. Never did I buy it. When it was wanted, ChapStick was easy to find in my world. I counted it a successful week when I prevented it from migrating to the clothes dryer or melting to the dashboard. There was no shortage of the stuff in my life.
But now I’m not so sure.
Of late, all of my ChapStick applications are first-hand. Sometimes I have to search to find a tube. Sometimes that search takes a while. It’s been quite some time since a tube of ChapStick turned up in the dryer.
I can foresee the inevitable day when I’m unable to locate a tube of ChapStick–even if I still find it inconceivable that I might at some point actually want to purchase one.
And so one touchstone to my previous life is gradually dissipating.
Those of you who have outlived a partner will know what I’m referring to: the shared bar of soap, that final tube of toothpaste, the eventual demise of an antiquated PC, the departure of the family pet. Some reminders of your co-joined life you couldn’t hang on to even if you wanted to, others don’t bear keeping.
I’m sure that Denise would want for me a measure of healthy and progressive detachment. And I’m equally certain that, were our circumstances reversed she would savor each slipstone of our lives as it melted into memory.
Fortunately, I got a million of those memories. And I hope you do, too.
Hi,
It’s difficult for me to write about the labor movement without coming off like some sort of supercilious asshole. So generally I don’t write about the movement at all.
Too bad.
I suppose that we all realize that every new day presents the opportunity to reshape the world around us and to redefine that which is at the heart of “us.”
In my experience it’s been the exceedingly rare day when it seemed simultaneously possible and desirable, “desirable” being the more constant of the two constructs.
To a greater or lesser degree on any given day I, like you, am an agent of change in this world. At the same time I can conceive of myself as an object with the potential to be changed by circumstances in the world. And, maybe like you, that’s how I’ve lived much of my adult working life: changing the world (generally in fairly small but not entirely insignificant ways) or allowing myself to be changed by that world. On really memorable days, both.
Of course I was distracted in my work by the mundane. Still am in retirement, as I suppose we all must be while living. But the mundane is maybe less intrusive for me in retirement, where I juggle less and have elastic deadlines.
Retirement has allowed me to think more, and to maybe more consciously appreciate the possibilities revealed and limits imposed by my own perspectives.
Moving back and forth between the new town of Las Galeras, RD and the political center of Washington, DC is more than culturally jarring. The bi-annual shift of the entire context of my life seems to sharpen my appreciation of the context or frame from which I focus on the world around me.
The end result is that I in my complacency, whether in Washington DC or in Las Galeras, RD, am shaken up twice a year.
I count this a good thing and I recommend it, particularly to those of you who may be in leadership positions in the American labor movement.
Probably it is intelligence, hard work, and good fortune that brought you to your position in the movement today and that sustains you in your office. But those same admirable qualities may not be what is needed to grow our movement.
Consider: you’ve got an important job with lots of administrative responsibilities. Your focus is on fulfilling your responsibilities. It’s a full-time job. Maybe you are like me to the extent that, somewhere along the temporal arc of your career, the relative emphasis of your work gradually shifted. I suppose that you now spend more of your time advocating for equity and less time agitating for change.
Like it or not, as you’ve moved up in your organization you have taken on additional administrative responsibilities with each advance. You now have responsibilities that constrain you in previously unimaginable ways and, if you’re like me, a strong temptation to define yourself by how well you meet those responsibilities.
Most of the union leaders that I have been priveledged to meet are really pretty good people. Consistently, they are smart; they are generally diligent workers who administer their national offices while maintaining complicated political, business, and financial relationships all in the best interest of their membership. It’s a full-time job and it’s important and it is rewarding but, for many, the job distracts from the possibilities of the position.
Perhaps you’re now less willing to risk failing. In successfully fulfilling your responsibilities perhaps you find an accompanying tendency towards complacency. Perhaps such a combination directs your focus to the mundane; maybe you choose to attend solely to the daily administration of your organization. You take care of business by repeating the things that brought you successfully to your position.
Actually, others should be fulfilling those functions within your organization now. You should move on to lead America.
From the outside, where I stand now, it appears as though you’re entirely unaware of the broad cultural and economic context that frames the lives of workers.
You seem reluctant to embrace the unique and powerful position that you hold within that broad cultural context.
You appear unwilling to engage the unfamiliar, to address the central issues of our society and to engage directly the citizens impacted by policies that can yet be impacted by concerted effort.
You didn’t always behave like that, or you wouldn’t be where you are.
Shake up, wake up, or embrace the risk of sharing the power of your position. It’s really the only way for your organization to survive.
For a kid who grew up in Pittsburgh or in Seattle, or in the “other” Washington for that matter, thatched roofs have seemed somewhat exotic. For me, a thatch roof brought to mind not a musty damp hovel on a rain-swept heath in medieval England–you know: the place with cats and dogs slipping from the sodden twigs and straw above–but shade and sand and palm trees and a warm tropical breeze with maybe a few women wearing grass skirts pleasantly swaying in the background.
Here in the Dominican the realities, as they often are, are somewhat different.
I have thatch, but no falling cats and dogs, only damp frogs leaping to the floor–and no grass-skirted chicas either. I have no sodden twigs or musty smells but I do have a pleasant tropical breeze, which is nearly constant on top of the little hill where I live.
Here, with thatch there are lots of shards of the “cana,” or palm fronds that make up the roof. Also there is no shortage of dragons and geckos and other reptiles and amphibians and the occasional small mammal living in the roof above. That’s living with thatch in the Caribbean. One grows accustomed, or one copes.
Typically, a Dominican housewife sweeps her floors twice a day. This is because the tropical breeze lifts the brittle ends of the cana and showers down just enough of the friable material as to to be untidy. The assiduous housekeeper can be seen, in addition, sweeping the footpath in the garden or the beaten-down earth around the door. Myself, I manage to sweep every other day or so, and just the floors. It’s always surprising how much stuff drifts down from the thatch, and just how much rustling and squawking and scratching is done by the critters who call the cana home.
Thatch also leaks. But usually not right away–the roof on the guest bungalow managed to last for seven years before water began to percolate through in a couple of places. The roof over the large terrace that is my real living area lasted only three years before giving problems. Over time I discovered that the charm of a thatched roof diminishes in direct proportion to the surface area of a wet floor.
As you may know, water leaks are notoriously difficult to track to the source and repair effectively. For a number of years I earned a decent living in the United States doing just that, and so I do know from experience that of which I speak. However leaking cana is a whole different ball of wax. Where does one begin, if not by removing the whole thing and starting over?
In the words of Roberto,the Dominican roofer who last year contrived an entirely ineffective repair: “But I did the best that I could,” or in the words of the Bronx-born Dominican at the local ferreteria: “fuggedaboudit.” And now I have forgotten about it; I have completely dismissed thatch as a potential solution to most of my roofing problems.
Perhaps that’s why you haven’t heard very much from me since I returned to the RD a few months ago: I’ve been a fully engaged roofer, and more. Actually I’m more like a force of nature, now at work in my (thatched!) gazebo in a semi-industrial environment.
Let me explain.
All of those creatures formerly living comfortably in my thatch roofs are now homeless by my action and their abode has been consumed by one of several fierce fires set to dispose of the cana. Some of the creatures have seemingly departed for good, others are circling aimlessly looking for a place to perch and still others are glaring malevolently at me as I work to prepare and replace the roofing before the rainy season begins in earnest. So much for being a force of nature.
As to the industrial part, in these pages I’ve previously observed that much here in the RD in incomplete. For example, many items, purchased new, are missing the last few steps of manufacture. I can attest that this is true in the case of roofing tiles, and doubly so in the instance of roofing tile fasteners.
I mean, this shouldn’t be so difficult. For sure, I’m not the first guy in the Dominican Republic to buy clay tiles with the intention to screw them down to wooden rafters and battens. But I might as well be.
The tiles all have three or five holes, or rather they have three or five indentations suggesting where you might prefer to drill holes, should you decide to actually screw the tiles down. So, OK; I’ve got hundreds of heavy clay tiles and a drill, I’ve got saw horses, a work table and a jig to hold the tiles.
Electricity! Water!! More than one thousand holes! More electricity! More water!! Mud! Wait, wait for it–wait, wait…Zzzztt!! Pow!!! Whooeee!
Voilá, a little third-world industrial workshop.
Fasteners, you say? Well, you seemingly can’t purchase them sized for roof tiles, not in stainless steel or in galvanized metal, and not in brass either. And absolutely never, never in sufficient quantity to put on a couple of good-sized roofs. Drywall screws? Yes; those you can have, in a variety of sizes, goodly quantities too and all nicely rusted–and I have never even seen an actual sheetrock wall in the entire nation! Go figure.
Gasketed fender washers? Fuggedaboudit.
Eventually, and with several trips to a number of big ferreterias located in a couple of major cities in the RD I finally did manage to buy enough of several different kinds of screws to do the work. Screws with three different styles of head, naturally. And a rubber and metal fender washer that can seemingly only be purchased fully assembled with a useless bolt.
Voilá, another little industrial workshop, this one ideal for the mentally challenged. Someone, for example, who might find disassembling and reassembling thousands of fiddly bits of hardware intrinsically rewarding.
Me, I’m driven–consumed by the idea that I only have to do this once; these roofs will last for 25 years, which is probably longer than me and almost certainly longer than I’ll be here in Las Galeras. And so I plod on, removing thatch and diligently collecting the used nails (which have a magical affinity for tires), varnishing the roof framing (really), drilling and drilling and drilling and cutting and fitting materials and turning my home once again into a construction site, meanwhile confident in the knowledge that this will eventually pass.
And today, near to the end of the year and some months since beginning, the end is at last in sight.
The roof of the bungalow is finished and–because opening a building and replacing the roof is messy, the inside and outside have been repainted. Guests have come, been charmed, remained dry, and departed.
The larger but less dangerous roof over the terrace is fully shaded and with only a couple of small leaks left to chase and the gutters and downspouts to run.
The displaced critters have seemingly settled into the new world order, as have I and together we’re looking forward to new projects in the New Year.
I hope you are, too.
