Saturday, March 30, 2013

Walking in a Wintry Wonderland


When the weather breaks, the snow melts, and my husband has a day off work, there is bound to be a lot of walking in my life. That’s been the case for the past couple days: Thursday Zach had off, so naturally we took a jaunt from the Page Extension bridge to my best friend’s house in University City: a 16-mile hike on the side of Olive Boulevard, on smooth sidewalks and slush-heaped shoulders that led us past restaurants, strip malls, movie theaters, highway exits, a previously-unknown-to-me Chinatown, trashy apartment buildings, and finally to the Sesame-Street-like interior of the city. My friend treated us to Panera’s for dinner and drove us back to our car. That night I was so tired and overstimulated that I felt sick to my stomach. 

The natural solution was this: after seeing off my husband to work the next morning, I walked a couple miles to my parents’ house, had lunch with them, and then took off on a six-mile walk with my brother. After Thursday’s walk, eight miles total it seemed like a breeze, but it made me realize that I have a long way to go in terms of endurance. My leg muscles are still knotted today— and if Zachary and I are to walk 2,663 miles in one go, that’s got to change.

~~~

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Travel Tip Tuesdays: How to Avoid Looking Like an American


“How did you blend in when you were in Europe?”

As I’ve said many times, when it comes to European travel, I’m very much an amateur. I was only there six weeks, and most of that time was spent picking beans and berries in Middle of Nowhere, France and Germany. I can’t tell you how to get a good rate on a hotel, the train system still mostly befuddles me, and I never did figure out how to quickly convert euros to dollars in my head. Still, I did pick up a few travel skills along the way, and one of them that made me proud was this: not appearing to be an American.

Some people don’t see the point of this. My best friend, for instance, said that standing out as a foreigner was one of her favorite things about studying abroad and traveling in England. And of course, showing that you’re a traveler is a great conversation starter or way to find help. However, blending in has a lot of advantages. You’re less of a target for pickpockets, you can experience the culture in a more authentic way, and— best of all— when people discover you’re from the USA, you help dismantle the stereotype that all Americans are loud, rude, and self-centered.

I’ve mentioned this topic briefly before, but here are five practical tips to help you blend in, at least in western Europe:

Amsterdam, the Netherlands
1. Don’t dress like a tourist. If you wear a loud shirt and sunglasses, have a huge camera slung around your neck and a cheap souvenir ball cap with “Paris” written on it, you might as well have a sign on your head that says “Rip me off.” Avoid expressly American dress styles, most notably shorts: most Europeans consider shorts to be beachwear. And don’t chew gum.

2. Wear neutral colors. With army-green cargo pants or jeans, a plain shirt, a plain gray jacket, and a fedora or bucket hat, I blended in well enough that people thought I was German, despite my tennis shoes and huge backpack. 

3. Keep your voice low and quiet. On the train from Amberg to Nürnberg, I shared a car with six stereotypical “loud Americans,” who shouted their conversation to each other, laughed riotously, and whined about how stupid and slow the train was. With deep frowns, the Europeans in the car buried their heads in their newspapers. I felt embarrassed on behalf of my entire country. Europeans are generally much more quiet and reserved than Americans, especially in public. It’s only reasonable to respect that.

4. Perfect your accent on, “Hello,” “Thank you” and “Good-bye.” My hosts in the Netherlands thought it was hilarious when a cashier, upon hearing my initial “Hallo,” spoke to me in Dutch. It was one of my favorite things to do in any of the locations. Even though my tourist status was often quickly given away, I enjoyed making a different first impression.

5. Watch the people around you. If no one is smiling, eating with their fingers, speaking loudly, rocking from foot to foot, or looking people in the eye, it might be a cultural norm that you’re unaware of. If you’re observant of the people around you, you can take your cue from their actions and blend in better than you could otherwise. 

~~~

When I was in Salzburg, I was strolling down the street with my full backpack in tow. A young man with a clipboard hailed me and spouted out some sort of obviously-prepared pitch in German. With an apologetic smile, I replied, “Ich spreche kein Deutsch.” 

The petition-seeker was floored, and asked in an unbelieving voice, “You are American?”

“Ja,” I replied. “Sorry.”

His mouth widened into a smile, and he chuckled. “Okay, have a good day!”

“Danke schön!” I said, and moseyed off into the city, blending in once again with the people of the continent I had come to love.

~~~

Monday, March 25, 2013

San Diego and the Troubles of Living in a Huge Country

I wish that every picture of me looked like this...

My sister, aka my best friend for twenty-one years, lives on the other side of the country. Here I am in the ‘burbs of St. Louis while she pitches her metaphorical tent in a hostel in downtown San Diego. 1,854 driving miles lie between us, separating us with a vast gap of airfare money.

My life consists of telling students how to write persuasively, copy-editing and proofreading, hanging curtains and taking walks with my husband, baking cookies and meal-planning and biking down muddy paths to the grocery store. Her life is packed with hot days and cold nights, 20 hours a week of salsa dancing, drugged-out and drunken roommates, communal meals and bathrooms, and bringing Cookie Monster to life for children at SeaWorld. When she comes to visit, I’m reminded of the vast differences in our lives— and the vast differences in her present life from her past one. My baby sister has grown up, confident and more beautiful than ever. In California, she blossoms, and as far as I can see, to her Missouri is a snowy dream. And if we’re lucky, she’ll revisit that dream for another few days when the autumn leaves are falling.

The United States is a big country. 

Really, really big.

I miss you, Mary.

~~~

Monday, March 18, 2013

A Hiatus for a Sister

Photo by Emily Hedlund

Tonight my sister is coming into town from San Diego. The last time I saw her was when she came to Missouri for my wedding, but I hardly count that because I was so busy before and so washed out afterwards. She’ll be in town until Saturday, and in that time, I plan on doing exactly three things: 1) Making sure I don’t neglect my husband. 2) Barely finishing all my editing for the week. 3) Spending as much time as humanly possible with my sister. Hence, I will probably not be blogging for a week. See you next Monday!

Friday, March 15, 2013

To Write, or To Live?


You may have noticed an absence of blogs the past few days. The 13th stands lonely and unoccupied; Pi Day likewise languishes without my blogging attentions. Even now, I type this between glancing out the window for the arrival of my friend, who I haven’t spent any time with since well before my wedding. Life gets in the way. My head is full of time spent with friends and time spent with students, a constant seesaw of work and play. Yesterday I hopped a bus and a train to St. Louis city with unwashed people of every race and age, and spent nine hours with my best friend in Target-and-Goodwill curtain-seeking girly mania, caught my breath at home for two minutes before rushing out the door for an evening of pizza and movie-watching with three of my favorite guys (my husband and two brothers). Crashed last night, woke up late, couldn’t resist a walk in the sunshine with redheaded woodpeckers and little children running in circles around their yard in a game of tag illustrated with exclamations in Spanish, worked on my papers, wrote the late students, edited the late papers, washed three days’ worth of dishes and swept mud and thrift store tags off the livingroom floor.

Shall I write, or shall I live? Most of the time I do both. But sometimes, in the crazy dance of living life, I think it’s okay to forget— temporarily— about the words.

~~~

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Travel Tip Tuesdays: Travel Advice for Christians


A nomadic Christian is a rare thing. In my travels around the United States, I’ve met countless traveling Buddhists, atheists, gnostics, and nominal Catholics— but Bible-believing Christians are few and far between. This is mostly due to the places I journey, I’m sure: you are not likely to meet many Christians at hostels, couchsurfing situations, and organic farms. No matter where you go, though, travel gets you out and about to places you’ve never been before, and people you would never meet otherwise. It’s a wonderful time to influence people and grow closer to God.

Brothers and sisters, here are seven things I encourage you to do when you’re on the road (well… actually, at any time, but especially when you’re on the road).

Read your Bible. Even if you’re on a relaxing vacation, you shouldn’t be taking a vacation from the one you love most. The new environment and new people you meet stimulate your mind, and may help you to see or understand something that you’d never really thought about before. Also, if you start talking to people about faith, you’re going to have to be on your guard for all sorts of half-baked theology. Reading the Bible helps you become ready to respectfully say that the Bible condemns the love of money, not money itself, or that “your body is a temple” refers to sexual sin, not overeating.

Memorize scripture. Those boring bus, train and plane rides are a great time to crack open your Bible and commit a psalm to memory. This is something that I’ve slacked off on lately, and just writing these words inspires me to start memorizing again. I can’t even begin to explain how comforting it is to have an arsenal of Scripture ready when bad things happen.

Pray. See point #1. Don’t take a vacation from God— first, it won’t work, and second, why would you want to distance yourself from him? Thank him for the amazing time you’re having. Ask him to keep you safe and prepare your heart for the people you’re going to meet. Pray that he’ll open your eyes to everything he wants you to see, and that you will grow and become more holy through the experiences.

Mary and I met Beth at the First Baptist Church of
Bellingham, Washington.  She became
 our grandmother for the week.
Go to church. I’m not a stickler about church attendance, and more than once I’ve backed out of attending a church on the road because I felt my jeans and t-shirt would be offensive to the women wearing the floor-length skirts. However, I encourage you to give it a shot sometime. You get a new perspective on church and feel a connection to your brothers and sisters from somewhere else. It’s also a great chance to learn about other denominations. On the road, I’ve visited worship services hosted by all sorts of churches and groups: Catholic, Baptist, Assembly of God, Greek Orthodox, reformed nondenominational, even anarchist. 

Talk to people. Especially if you’re an introvert, this is the last thing you want to do. But stay in touch with God throughout your day, and don’t shut out a chance to talk to someone just because it makes you uncomfortable. You never know the ways that God will use you to speak into someone’s life.

Evangelize. This expresses itself differently for each person; not everyone is called to be a street preacher. I find that God often leads me to apologize for the way that Christians have hurt the people I meet. Frequently I’d find myself explaining that Christianity is about loving God and doing what he commands because we love him, not following a set of rules because we feel guilty. And most importantly, I try to be an ideal guest, a hard worker, and a loving person— because that is often the best witness of all.

Worship. Travel is full of vivid experiences, and God showers his gifts on you when you’re on the road. Praise him for his creation when you’re hiking the Grand Canyon. Thank him for his provision when you meet a new friend at a hostel. Bask in his presence when you are out somewhere alone, and glorify him by your words when you’re hanging out in a group. No matter where you go, at home or on the road, stay aware of his presence in your life, and marvel at what he has done, what he is doing, and, most importantly, who he is.

~~~

Monday, March 11, 2013

Tolkien Quotes: Goodness and Beauty


As I bustled around my house sprucing things up, hanging artwork, rearranging furniture, and sweeping up clutter, this quote from “On Fairy-Stories” came to mind:

“[In modern times,] goodness is itself bereft of its proper beauty. In Faerie one can indeed conceive of an ogre who possesses a castle hideous as a nightmare (for the evil of the ogre wills it so), but one cannot conceive of a house built with a good purpose—an inn, a hostel for travellers, the hall of a virtuous and noble king—that is yet sickeningly ugly. At the present day it would be rash to hope to see one that was not—unless it was built before our time.”

Making things beautiful should not be a frivilous pursuit. It is a serious task, one to be undertaken with thoughtfulness and joy. In every age, and in every moment, the world has needed beauty more than ever before.


Saturday, March 9, 2013

10 German Doors


No, it’s not a weird band name. It’s just a blog that gives further evidence that the Europeans know how to make their buildings beautiful.











Friday, March 8, 2013

A Discovered Diary


Yesterday, I was sorting through a bunch of folders that had been stuck in a crate since two moves ago. I found maps to the fantasy novels I wrote when I was a teenager, 3x5 cards with story notes on them, postcards from Washington and San Francisco— and, most surprisingly of all, a diary that I had forgotten about. It’s a little notebook my sister gave me right before I left on my first WWOOFing trip in autumn of 2010. While spotty in content, it contains a lot of things I remember writing but hadn’t been able to find in any of my existing diaries. It included an elusive entry I have been searching for, about my first encounter with Portland. 

When I wrote these entries, I had been up since 4am, and just experienced a tumultuous week of bad and good— we had just learned that my dad most likely had cancer, and my brother had proposed to his girlfriend (they got married a couple months after I returned). My writing style reflects my tiredness (you’ll notice the paranoia) and emotional instability. I also like the glimpse into my younger thoughts. For instance, when I say “west,” I mean “Pacific northwest.” Now, “west” encompasses the Flint Hills of Kansas, the Rockies, and the Wyoming desert. My world was smaller at the time.

~~~

September 1st, 2010
Almost noon, western time

I’m riding the light rail to downtown Portland. The train is airy, with a comfortable white noise, unlike the coarse banshee-screaming beats of San Fran. My first impression of Portland was green and gray: green forest, gray sky. Trees, parks and open cultivated land nestle comfortably between manmade structures. The airport is light, with bright turquoise carpeting.

The skies here are cloudy as only western skies can be. Missouri has mastered the art of unbroken dreariness, but in the west, gray skies are never boring. The clouds billow and oil, display a 3D view of layered strata, dance around by the hour and surprise us with glimpses of clear sky. I like it already.

3:42 Western time

Now I’m sitting in a rose garden, perched on a bluff to the west of the city center. The clouds have broken up to reveal a hot September sky. Now that I’ve wandered the Pearl and Northwest districts in search of a Starbucks (where I used three half-used giftcards to buy lunch), I’m in the process of forming an opinion about it. The city has the charming grunge of a river town. It has an average mix of ethnicities [I have no idea what prompted me to say this— Portland is white and Hispanic and basically nothing else]. People are not cold, but they are not friendly, either. More than once I’ve abruptly changed my route to make sure I’m not being followed.

The architecture is a delightful mix of industrial grunge and slick modern styles: one striking example of this was a Presbyterian church with a sharply-slanting steeple, the whole structure weathered and brown, standing in front of a ten-story high rise of blue glass topped with sharp white windmills.

I’m going to head to the hostel now and most likely fall asleep…


~~~

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Housewife Day


I have decreed that every Thursday is “Housewife Day.” I forget about my editing job and my freelancing and spend a day guilt-free doing housework and other homey things. Today I laundered clothes and sheets, hung some pictures, rehung the curtains, swept the house, sorted through a bunch of old papers, and made my first ever pot of chili (it turned out well). However, this is my big accomplishment today, and I’ll hang it in the kitchen once the glue dries:


I get the feeling that Housewife Day is just going to be another excuse for me to express my creativity.

~~~

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Travel Tip Tuesdays: Priorities


There are several different priorities you can have while you’re traveling:
On this trip I worked eight hours a day, slept in a trailer,
and used a compost toilet. I also met some amazing
friends and learned a ton, both about organic
gardening and about myself.

Affordability
Safety
Speed
Comfort 
Experience
Tourism
Cultural immersion
Mindlessness
Thoughtfulness
Activities
Rest

When I travel, I put affordability, safety, experience and cultural immersion at the top of my priority list. That means that many things, such as tourism and comfort, get thrown on the back burner. Like anything in life, you have to give something up to gain the thing you want. What are your priorities when you travel? How would a shift in priorities change the way you think about travel?

~~~
Have a travel question? Leave a comment and I’ll answer next week.

Monday, March 4, 2013

Lisa Shafter


I’ve never posted my last name on this blog. Sure, you’ve seen me sign off countless entries as “Lisa Shafter.” Shafter is not my last name, either maiden or current. It’s a nom de plume I’ve had since I was 14. 

14 was a magical age— it was sometime in that year that I read the book Eragon on a family trip to South Carolina to visit my grandparents. Leaning against the air mattress in the guest bedroom in the heat of the day, I scoffed at the novel’s contrived dialogue and heavily plagiarized plot. I could do better than that, I thought. 

When my mom and I took our daily walk, along a dusty road between tobacco fields and neat rows of pine trees, I told her I was going to write a novel. Ever the pragmatist, she said, “I’ll contact my agent and ask her for advice.”

Mom did, and her agent, Toni, told me to read two books, Stein on Writing and Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. I checked them out of the library and read them as I started pounding out the first few scenes.

After that, I worked patiently and steadily for a year and a half, stringing together a story about the cruelty of castes, the steadfastness of friendship, the fleetingness of romance, the power of an evil emperor, and the arbitrary wonder of magic. I pulled character’s names from Gaelic and Greek and my own head, imagining the scenes as high-budget film scenes in my head. I would listen to the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack while trying to figure out a scene. I’d whisper words of my planned dialogue over the top, and rub away tears as I stirred my own emotion.

As I wrote, I realized that my last name just wouldn’t do. My last name was Barfield. That didn’t sound like a fantasy author’s name to my 14-year-old ears. Fantasy authors had names like Tolkien and LeGuin and Jordan. I asked my oldest brother for advice, and he suggested Shafter. It was a family name from the Louis L’Amour book he was reading. I loved the name. I was certain I would get published under this name, see my book resting on the shelves under this name, and pencil it onto fans’ copies at every book signing. 

The name stuck to me, if only in my own head (and in Kevin’s, who called me by my pen name when I started writing sketches for the worship service he led at our church). To this day, whenever I do something klutzy or stupid, I mutter to myself, “Nice one, Shafter.” And when I’m trying to come up with an answer or stop being distracted, I say to myself, “Think, Shafter, think!”

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my novel dream fell asleep when I bought a laptop. Freed from my TV-sized desktop, I fled to Washington, California, Florida, Colorado. I learned about organic farming and European travel and the fascinating lives of people I had yet to meet. Travel swallowed me up, and my novel along with it.

Somewhere along the way, I began to realizing that publishing a novel would not happen— not now. My life had split off in another direction. I realized I liked exploring the country in search of new experiences and new thoughts. I liked putting those experiences into words and sharing them with people. I started publishing articles as Lisa E. Barfield, and Lisa Shafter quietly retreated until she could be of further use.

Four months ago, I wore a white dress, made a vow, and became Lisa Strader. Shafter and Strader, side by side, my pen name and my new name, blend together at a glance. My 14-year-old’s dreams have changed and grown up, but they are still part of me. 

Somewhere in the back of my head, I see a late middle-aged woman (with silver hair, like my mother’s) typing a novel, fearless and haphazard as a girl named Lisa Shafter.

~~~

Friday, March 1, 2013

Travel Stories: Evil Wi-Fi, Life-Threatening Soap, and Other Cautions from a Hostel Employee


March of 2010 found me sitting on my bunk in Room 3 of the Monterey International Hostel, trying to get the Internet to work. I had been on the road for three and a half weeks now, two of those with my sister, hopping around the coast of California. At that point in my life I was hauling around ample amounts of money and heartbreak, so I traveled as the wind blew me— or, more realistically, where the cheap lodging was. But I decided that after Monterey I was heading up to Sacramento, and catching a flight home from there. A month of exploring was enough for now.

I stared at my laptop and frowned, wondering why it couldn’t connect to the Internet. After a few tries, I folded it up, tucked it under my arm, and strolled through the common room to the front desk.

The same employee who had checked me in the day before stood at the desk, a lanky man in his 50’s, dressed all in black from his beret down to his wingtips. I asked him about the Internet. 

“Oh, sorry, I’ll turn that on for ya,” he said, flipping a switch underneath his desk. “I like to keep it off…” He trailed off as if wanting to say more, but when he didn’t, I thanked him, returned to my room, and booked my flight home.

That night, an international group of music lovers (two French women, three Dutch guys, and me) gathered around the piano for some sing-a-longs. I pounded out a few embarrassing chords before one of the Dutch guys all but shoved me off the bench and the French women handed me a djembe. After a few songs, the hostel receptionist (I’ll just refer to him as Mr. Black from now on) grabbed his acoustic guitar and joined us. He was talented, and soon we were all chorusing songs we half-knew, reading the words out of a fakebook as Mr. Black and the Dutch pianist tried to keep in sync.

‘Cause I’m a picker
I’m a grinner
I’m a lover and I’m a sinner
I play my music in the sun…

We were up until nearly midnight, two hours past the “silence curfew.” But Mr. Black was right there with us, so nobody stopped us.

Apparently Mr. Black took a liking to me that night. Two days later, I stopped by the desk to ask if I could extend my stay. As he worked on getting me a new key, he said, “Here, I have something to show you. I don’t usually tell people, but you seem like a smart kid.”

I raised my eyebrows as he handed me a page with an ominous-looking title.

“The paper talks about how bad wi-fi is for you,” he said. And for the next fifteen minutes, he gave me a quiet but impassioned lecture about the horrors of wireless Internet. It goes through your cells and damages them, especially brain cells. It operates on the same wavelength as your brain waves, causing them to scramble. If you sit in wi-fi for any length of time, you become dull, unoriginal, weak-willed, and open to mind control. “It’s almost like it’s a conspiracy,” he said, although his tone indicated that he already believed it was. 

Somewhere in there he got off on another rant about how Vitamin D cures everything. “That’s why people are always so sick,” he said. “They use soap, and that blocks the Vitamin D from the sun from sinking in their skin.” He found his way back to wi-fi and concluded with, “You seem like you’re creative, and wi-fi will just mess that all up. So stay out of it whenever you can.” 

“Thanks,” I said, although I wasn’t thanking him for the reason he thought I was.

“I can always tell the difference when the wi-fi’s off here,” he said. “Like when we were playing music, it was off, and I felt so creative. Right now, it’s off, and I can just think so much clearer.”

“Cool,” I said. “Well, thanks for letting me know.” 

He smiled, standing a bit taller and looking like a burden had been lifted from his back. He handed me the key and we exchanged good-byes. 

I glanced at my iPod Touch as I headed to the common room, not having the heart to tell Mr. Black that I had used the wi-fi to check email just a second before coming to talk to him.

~~~