White Fuzzy Dice

Being a Kansas girl comes with its stereotypes, one of which is the belief that I have always owned a car and know how to drive (cars, trucks, tractors, etc.). There are people in this world (mainly those from Missouri) whom believe that being from Kansas I am a horrible driver, but let me assure you, there are some prize drivers up there in the North East. Yes, it’s true, they all come from New Jersey.

While my boyfriend has a wonderful, much newer car for his adventures, which I should note, he deserves and pays a lot of money for; I have a delightful red truck. I’ve named it Clyde, it’s awesome. It’s three different colors of red and if you floor it and are going down hill, he may even reach sixty miles per hour traveling speed. It’s a great car for me to have while I remind myself how this whole driving thing works. If you saw it you would understand how it matches my personality quite well.

The world through the eyes of a driver is so much different than as a passenger. At least, I notice different things. The first thing I noticed is that I may very possibly own the oldest car the whole area. Granted, I may just be the bravest person in the area to drive an almost twenty year old truck, but I’m just saying, it’s the first thing I noticed. I’ve also come to realize that my biggest issue is this whole parking thing, which is really funny considering a heck of a long time ago I had a part time job issuing parking tickets. I think it may very well be karma biting my butt, so when I do finally get a ticket for being parked outside of the lines I’ll know I had it coming.

Yesterday, my truck and I went on a big adventure, all the way to a Walmart and a job interview. (I know, VERY exciting.) Outside of a driver’s education course I took when I was fourteen, I had never driven on the highway and hate bridges with such a passion that I have always avoided them, especially during weather where the temperature likes to hobble back and forth around freezing, so it’s impossible to know when there’s ice on the bridges. Here in Maine, that’s the only type of weather we know around here, so I was a little worried and scared of driving so I was extra cautious and took routes with slower speed limits, just to be on the safe side.

Now, if you’ve read my previous rant, you would know how I have had a difficult time communicating, much less relating to my new statesmen so at a stoplight in New Hampshire, when I looked over and saw a woman driving a white station wagon, almost as old as my truck, with the fake wood paneling I was so very happy. She even had fuzzy dice hanging from her mirror, from my height in the truck I could see some of the contents of some of her car and could tell she was my kind of person. It was a wonderful moment, she never saw me and since her car wasn’t quite as old as my truck, she sped off and I thought that would be the last I saw of her.

I saw her again, later that afternoon. It was a very chilling, sad sight. I didn’t see her actually; I saw her car, fuzzy dice and all, smashed, along the highway in a very nasty accident. While I was at my interview we heard lots and lots of sirens. It was very troubling, but the relief that comes from not knowing anyone is not to worry when the sirens go off. It’s not like back home where if they were near you then you’d peek out the window, just to make sure the neighbors where safe (and to be nosey). It was one of those back to reality moments for me. Sometimes when I get stressed and busy I ignore what’s going on around me that doesn’t involve me directly just to simply focus on what’s at hand. I’ve pretty much been doing that since I’ve moved to Maine. The sight of the wreck changed all that though and reminded me how little control we sometimes have over what little time we get to spend with people. I didn’t even know her name and yet she changed my whole day so much. Funny how that happens sometimes. It also makes me wonder if I have ever had that much impact on someone.

Mainglish

I have long been fascinated by how people communicate. I imagine that had my life worked out slightly differently, I would have studied linguistics and could speak five languages by now. Instead, English is the only one I really know, and at times I wonder if I really should even make that claim.

When I first arrived here, I noticed the surrounding nature and culture. I would at times get so giddy I would make squeaky noises and dance at the thought of being so close to beaches to ocean gaze, mountains to hike, new food to try, and a foreign country to visit even. Not that Canada is really all that exciting, but just in case I get really bored, it’s an option. The thought never occurred to me that I would have difficulty communicating with people.

It’s not a problem with dialect and if anything, I am the one with an accent. People here sound like the characters you might find on television. They sound like Americans. I’m the oddball for saying yer instead of your. I like to ask people, “What’s yer phone number?” I get lots of looks. I concluded early on that my issue with communicating with the locals was not one of pronunciation. I can understand every word that a Mainer speaks to me; I just don’t understand what they are talking about.

When I can ask someone a simple question like: “What methods of payment do you accept?” or “Do you have any LED lights?” or “What paperwork do I need to bring with me when I get my driver’s license?” I get a response, they use words, they are English words, but all I can do is tilt my head and give a look of confusion. Often, I ask for things in writing, “Do you have a handout explaining that?” Even then, I usually walk out of an office with three more handouts than I need because it wasn’t until they gave me the fourth one that I had my question answered.

Even when my boyfriend and I both are present, it still does no good. We come back home and compare what we heard and still have no idea what was said to us. We’ve even tried negotiation by word order. For example, at the hospital billing window, we tried a line of questioning like: “What amount do I owe you?” “Do I need to pay anything now?” “Would you like for me to pay now?” “What amount would you like for me to pay you?” “Do I owe you any money today?” “Can we get a bill?” “Do you have my mailing address?” “When will you bill me?” The reply to all of the answers was something like this: “You can pay today, if you want, we ask for fifty percent down, but you don’t have to. We will bill you, after the insurance, it looks like they’ll pay more than fifty percent, you can wait, until after they pay, but we would like it if you pay, the fifty percent of course, today, at the hospital, you don’t have to….” After a while, when she took a breath, each time we asked what that amount would be, an estimate even, if we did pay, what amount would I pay here and she cycled right back to “Well, you can pay today, but….” We stood there for quite awhile. Even if my life depended on it, I would not know what to make the check out to, what amount to write or to which person to give it to, not even which department nor did I leave there with an account number to reference if I needed to call back and ask about something. After a couple of weeks I got a letter in the mail with an account number, my name and date that they saw me and a note saying they were going to bill my insurance company at some point in the next thirty to forty-five days. Again, no dollar amount. I still have no idea what that visit cost.

At times I feel I need a notepad and just write things like: Me want this book (draw arrow to left hand holding book) Me pay you. (Hand person a 20 dollar bill) Give me change. I want receipt. Of course, even if I did that they would probably still be confused. I’d get a receipt that would be for a Mocha Frappachino and all of my change in quarters. I have never felt a bigger urge in all of my life to just simply order everything I need online and have it mailed to my house just so I don’t have to deal with people. Sadly, here in Maine I have to pay sales tax and if I drive a couple miles into New Hampshire then I don’t. Unless I get really rich, I’m going to have to keep talking to these people.

For the time being I talk to people using phrasing found in most early twentieth century writing like in the Narnia Chronicles. It seems to have worked. Now people return my phone calls and I have job interviews. I had one today and it went really well. I guess I need to talk like I’m trapped in a novel. I wonder if that’s why people call this place vacationland and say it’s the way life should be. Should we all be trapped in books? I guess so according to New Englanders.

Maybe it's the water

Before moving up north, I had been told by many people that in their opinion I was both non-judgmental and open minded. I had been led to believe I had a fairly decent grasp of how things worked despite never really escaping for college or studying abroad or anything else of that nature. Sadly, that whole image was rocked last week when I woke up with an attack of pain so vicious that had I also woken up back in the caveman era of time, I would have gladly taken some sharp rock and jabbed myself at the painful area of my body and removed organs until I was in less pain.

Luckily, I wasn't home alone. While I rolled up into a little ball on the bathroom floor alternating between hugging a pillow and the toilet, depending on which direction my fever sent me, he made calls. I'm used to being a short drive and a waiting room away from seeing someone. On the off chance that I couldn't, say a large percentage of people came down with the flu or something, then there was always walk-in prompt care clinics and such. Even in the inner Kansas City there was a day clinic. Back home people complained if they had to wait a whole day until they could see someone. With that said, you can imagine my surprise when not only could no doctor in the area see me, but that they weren't accepting patients. That's right, there are so few physicians in the area that they cannot even accept any more patients.

I ended up calling my physician's office back in Lawrence, whom rightly told me to go to the emergency room. It's still very odd to me how the nearest emergency room is in New Hampshire. Back home, Kansans didn't dare go over to Missouri for care and vise-versa. Regardless, it is so noted that I was here a grand total of eight days before learning where the nearest hospital is. Insert jokes here.

Why is it that the smaller the town, the slower the emergency room? Also, doctors and nurses in small town emergency rooms are less impressed with injuries. They don't panic, there's never any reason to. It's very odd since in small towns, the latest bit of gossip will get the pants of all waded up into a bun, but if someone is attacked by a wild, furious squirrel, no one really says anything besides the fact it happened. It's like there's this understanding and acceptance that in life, to a certain degree, these things are bound to happen. It's always the "tough" gang bangers of the inner city whom brag about how many gun shot and knife wounds they have "survived." In small towns it's, remember how stupid Jim Bob was for provoking that squirrel and standing to close to Billie Ray when he was loading his gun? Scars of such nature in small area are a sign of stupidity, not bravery.

I guess it's a good thing that I didn't act all caveman like and went to the emergency room. There is something very odd and twisted in the fact that it took a small town doctor in New Hampshire with a very heavy New England accent to figure out that all of these years I've been dealing with kidney stones. It's also very odd that my follow up appointment with a specialist (not a physician) that should have been just seven days from my ER visit, is actually next month, and that was after the scheduler, rearranged things so that they could fit me in.

I can only imagine how it must be to live in rural Maine up north from where I live. Clearly, I should never live in such a place since my body refuses to operate at some state of efficiency for any period of time. As my sister has pointed out, maybe I should just become the bionic woman and start replacing organs with artificial ones. It may actually be cheaper. Until that happens, I think I'll stay away from the true wilderness and start propaganda quietly teaching people to fear the squirrels.

Goodbye Kansas, Hello Maine.

I have heard many people tell me over the last couple of weeks how difficult it must be, how stressful it must be, and how brave I must be for moving across the country. For one, technically, I didn't move across the country, I was already half way across, residing in Kansas. For another, things are often more easy to do than to think about it. For instance, it's much easier to buy a plane ticket, pack boxes, mail boxes, go to airport, get on plane, get off plane, navigate around an airport, catch next plane and walk off plane into arms of Maine than it is to think about it. In case you were wondering, that's my big secret, for a few days, including the day I did wake up and catch a plane out of Kansas City, I did my best to live in the moment. If you string them together, it creates this story of moments:

Waking up at three thirty in the morning is never the best way to start a day, nor is twisting my ankle while trying to load up the SUV with my luggage in dark a grand way either. However, the drive to the airport, the empty highway, the eerie darkness created an grandeur only a traveler could love. It represented my peaceful transition. I wasn't running away, I was leaving.

It was my grandmother who volunteered to drive me to the airport and she choose to wait with me while they searched my luggage. We commented on how difficult it must be for the security officer to stuff everything back in my lavender suitcase. I, after all, have a reputation of stuffing things in containers finer than any pack rat, and this packaging job was no exception. We made small talk, a few jokes, the content of which I cannot recall. Behind her smile was that of pride, behind mine was that of relief. I felt I was finally, after a long last, getting on with my life.

As I was gracefully lifted off the ground by the aircraft I looked out and could see each individual street lamp, each traffic light, the headlights of each traveling car. I know in time it was a just a few minutes, but that sight, the layers of light, the patchwork of dull colors lasted in my mind for several hours. Through out the day I simply closed my eyes and thought about that moment, followed by the sun rising, the bands of color it created in the atmosphere and recaptured some joy, almost as if I could contain it in a jar.

The landing at Washington Reagan was scary, it seemed at first as if we had landed on water, only to realized it was the furthest runway. My fear left quickly once I realized that from my seat I could see the doom of Congress, the Washington monument, the Jefferson Memorial and the Watergate Hotel as the plane was taxing to it's gate. My lay over was interesting to say the least. It involved two buses. Sadly, due to cloud cover, I could not see the eastern coast as I flew up to Portland. Outside my window was just a sea of white and as the plane descended, I wondered if we were just descending into an abyss. As we lowered beneath the clouds, a cross wind made the plane fished tail the whole way, into the landing. I could tell it was cold rain that was pouring down my window, I could just sense it.

As I walked off the plane and up the ramp there was a sign hanging from the ceiling that read "Welcome Home" with a red lobster off to the side. Since that moment, I have indeed, felt like I was home. It's different somehow, it brings a new kind of peace than my hometown, or my college apartment. It also brings new freedom and opportunity.

Also, as an added bonus, I live less than a hundred yards from this:

Granted, come winter, it won't be as pretty, but for right now, it's quite a sight.