Postcard from a Phoenix Motel

A real ceramic coffee cup brought from home makes motels feel more like home and the generic coffee taste better, and on this five-day trip I brought The Cup That Never Healed, a green Syracuse China coffee cup stamped 19-D, signifying manufacture in the fourth quarter of 1990, one of a six-cup motley crew hand-harvested from the factory-store seconds bin. These six were the originals in my restaurant-china-coffee-cup array, a secret source of comfort and pleasure (I have a cup for every mood) to me and nobody else.

This had been "the playful cup." (The others were "the intellectual cup," an unusual one broken when the kitchen table collapsed from metal fatigue, and I never cease looking for a replica; the "cup d'honneur" used for guests because it was the only one with a matching saucer; the pink-striped "feminine cup," and so on, insanely, or poetically.) After an accident cracked this cup from its foot all the way up alongside the handle, filling it with hot liquids put the drinker at risk so I shelved it up high, hoping it would use its vacation time to heal. Because travel puts any ceramic cup at risk, I packed this one for what has to be its last hurrah, conceding that if it hasn't healed itself by now it isn't going to. I planned to list here reasons why I kept this cup and kept my hope, but a sentimental attachment is made up of reasons that sound goofy to anyone else.

We have lived together long, this cup and I, and I can let it go only because I found on eBay one quite similar, although not a replica. Greetings from Phoenix. Get me outta here.

Reflective Post

Somebody really, really wants drivers to see this wooden post at night, accommodating even the colorblind. I liked it. . .it embodies command, force, desire, communication, concern, compassion in the night.

Two ceremonies 40 days apart at the cemetery--traditional, and my stepfather wanted us there. It's the least I can do for a man who loved my mother for 31 years. For 40 days after death the soul may freely wander the earth and visit places important to it, and on the 40th day (just like Jesus) it ascends to heaven and is really, really not coming back, so the survivors hold a sendoff service at the gravesite with brandy, wine, food and bread, pouring wine into the earth, and then, all ready to faint or vomit because it's 114 degrees, go to an air-conditioned lunch. Then you're supposed to move on with life, except for the six-month observance and the one-year observance. I am eager to move on. Rest in peace, Mom.

Doing my best to move on, I had a new professional portrait taken July 25 and when I saw the photo, which is awesome, I thought, "Mom would love this, I'll send one.  . ." but she's seen it already.

Now I'm Not Complaining, You Understand. . .

. . .but on my mind right now with Missouri wind-chill in the teens and wintry mix predicted soon, is the grapefruit tree in my parents' Arizona backyard, lovingly tended by my stepfather these last 25 years, and there's no pleasure like going outside in one's pajamas and picking one's breakfast grapefruit from the tree as Adam and Eve did, except maybe the pleasure of having one's 95-year-old stepfather pick some and bring them into the kitchen to save me the trouble.

Driving (Me Nuts)

2002 Buick Century

"Stop! There's a stoplight!" "Mom, I see it." "I thought you weren't going to stop." "Mom, I know a red light means stop." "But you weren't slowing down." "Mom, I don't ride the brake. I step on the brake when we get closer to the light." "You scared me. I thought you weren't going to stop." "The state of Missouri thinks I can drive, Mom." "But you don't know this place or where the stoplights are!" "Mom, I have eyes, I can see the stoplights. I am not stupid." "I'm not saying you're stupid, I'm saying you don't know how to drive here." "I've been driving for 40 years, Mom." "Now the light is going to turn green." "Yes,  I know." "And when it turns green, you go." "Yes, Mom, I know that." "I'm just trying to help, I don't want a smash-up." "There won't be any smash-up." "I worry. I don't want to wreck the car" [2002 Buick Century,  44,000 miles]. "I won't wreck the car." "Now turn here; look both ways. No, no, not here; I didn't want to turn here, I meant the next one." [Stony silence from driver.] "Now here comes a car; watch out, there's a car!" (Gasps, clutches car seat.) "Mom, I see the car." "It was coming right at us!" "No, it was in its lane." "I don't want us to get hit!" "Mom, I think (laughing) you might be a control freak." "Oh, you talk so nasty to me. You make me cry. You cut me to the heart" (weeping). "That doesn't work on me anymore, Mom." "You called me a freak (weeping) and you called me something else before."[Thirty seconds of stony silence.] "Now we're at 56th. In two more blocks we'll be at 58th."

It's Divine Tradition

Detail of the dome

As you enter

The faith I was raised in, Serbian Orthodox, you probably call Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox; they were so designated because back in the 11th century the Eastern Orthodox Church decided to use instead of Latin the local language of the people. We like color, brocade, gold, silver, ikons, incense, candles, stained glass, and lots of faces looking in at us from the next world -- that's what ikons are, windows into the spiritual world -- and that's why their artists fast and pray and paint them only when divinely inspired, and never sign their names. For these reasons we don't do mosaics.

St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in Phoenix hired three traditional-style painters from Serbia who worked on the walls and domed ceilings for several weeks at a cost of $130,000 to turn the church into a spiritual experience, and add notes in Cyrillic (and English, where it fit) so you know which of the hundreds of saints you're looking at. The effect is both riotous and harmonious, and the figures, larger-than-life-sized, are detailed down to the toenails; marvelous to see. This is my parents' parish. The liturgy is in Serbian, but the most important prayers and the sermon are repeated in English, for a service lasting two hours, which I spent gazing and marveling at the artwork (see, in the picture at right, the rainbow ring surrounding Jesus). How they made all these scenes and portraits fit, and how they even started to design it, is just about incomprehensible.

Doing Phoenix

I had no idea that the XLIX Super Bowl was scheduled while I was visiting my parents in Phoenix. Millions of eyes fixed on the city, hundreds of thousands mobbing downtown's NFL Superfan Festival and drinking and eating in a giant street party now in its fourth or fifth day, where a ticket scalps for $5000 and up; 110,000 spectators -- 30,000 more than last year -- at the Phoenix Open with Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson; but I sat watching The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy with my parents, who haven't been to downtown Phoenix in a decade and learned only days ago who the Super Bowl teams are (like myself, who had no idea. I'm not proud of that. Never brag about your ignorance). They wonder where all these people are parking. In their back yard grow grapefruits and oranges, and yes, you can pick your breakfast grapefruit from the tree. About a mile away on a desert nature trail I saw long-eared bunnies, cacti in an alphabet of shapes, and headless doves--the work of feral cats. I prefer trees to desert, and no TV to 6 hours a day of TV in a 10x10 wood-paneled den, but I've got only one set of parents.