"Beat my head against a pole, Try to knock some sense, down 'side my bones"
My incantation: Bah Humbug! Bah Humbug! Bah Humbug! Bah Humbug! I want to evoke the ghost of Christmas past. 1992.
C.M and I spent the last of the five Christmases we shared in Honduras, in a Tawakhan Indian village.
Today, C.M. is C.B. She's married and the mother of three boys. She's lives in Reality, Louisiana, just outside of Hammond.
I don't want to revisit C.M. so much. She's an ex-girlfriend, true. But also true, she's happily married, and I'm happily married.
And as the late Johnny Thunders reminds us "You can't put your arms around a memory—so don't try."
When she was still C.M. and I was Mr. O. and we had each other for one last Christmas Eve, we were both at a cross roads.
Although she still worked in a restaurant, she had taken her first steps down a path by enrolling in some college classes where I was teaching, and telling me point block--"It's been five years. This year we start working on a family or. . . ."
I was suffering decision paralysis.
I was teaching composition and introduction to literature. I was not yet forty, so I still had time to put off trying to choose a path. Granted, not much time, the clock was ticking. I couldn't decide whether or not I should follow C.M. down her road, which was well lit, well mapped out, comfortable, and offered few surprises—marriage, children, a bigger house. A PhD. Faculty parties.
Affairs with students.
She deserved more.
And that was my out. "You deserve more. You deserve better."
Whenever I told her this, she'd flash her sweet, toothy smile and embrace me, assured me that I was all she wanted, assured me that she was in love. She watched a lot of day time TV. I squirmed loose. No, I mean it, I'd say, you deserve better (which was a close as I could get to the truth--I'd been with a few students)
A lack of hugs wasn't my problem--our problem. Our problem was me and how I feared the well worn path she'd started down, confident that I'd follow. Our problem was my fear of the known and my attraction to the unfamiliar, the untested, the heart of darkness river which flowed from the safe bends crowded with cities into forests so thick with overhanging trees and shadowy mountains, that they seemed to flow into the the blackest of nights, into a forbidenned zone where Dali dreams melted clocks and allowed fish to fly like birds.
C.M. obeyed every traffic law, paid her bills, went to her dentist regularly. She called her Mama twice a week. She kept a log book for her car. She bought raffle tickets from kids going door to door trying to raise money for a road trip for their school marching band. If her checking account didn't balance to the penny, she'd be on the calculator and going through her cancelled checks and receipts for as long as it took to resolve the conflict.
If my canceled checks cleared and I still had a positive balance in the bank, that worked for me.
She deserved at least some feller who had these small but not insignificant habits which she used to skillfully balance her unblemished credit record and no-risk car insurance life.
We had settled into a North Shore subdivision (north of New Orleans across the world's longest bridge), only twenty miles as the Caucasians fly from Britney Spears' suburban home village. Her Daddy still lives there, alone, a .357 magnum in one hand and a fifth of Crown Royal in the other, last I heard.
Christmas season, 1992, C.M. and I had a friend who had a friend in Central America who knew a couple of self-starters who wanted to start up an eco-tourism business which would one day include white water rafting and mountain trekking through the Honduran rainforest. Our friend and his friend invited us. Besides the tickets and the food, the self starters didn't ask for much more. They wanted some white faces for the trial run. They would use us to see what worked and what didn't.
So C.M. and I flew "Stay At Home, Stay Alive" airlines; the national carrier for Honduras (SAHSA) and spent Christmas in a rain forest.
Christmas Eve.
After five or six days of rafting, canoeing, climbing, hiking, up the hill down the hill, up the hill, down the hill, Christmas Eve morning began the pre-dawn hours for me when I woke up with a start on the "Ka!" part of an impending projectile vomit. As I awoke, simultaneously, I opened me eyes and twisted my bodyfree from the sleeping bag and managed to shove me head outside the tent flap before the downbeat--the "Boom!" in Ka Boom!"
The roasted jungle rat we'd had for dinner probably needed at least thirty more minutes on the spit.
I sat out most of Christmas Eve day hanging my head over the side of the raft having my faced awashed in brown river water. The raft we were road sat low in the river from the weight of the luggage and the passengers.
We'd started out with a separate luggage raft but the river ate it. I began to feel frisky around sunset and took up an oar to give whoever needed it a rest. The sunset and the Tawakhan village Krautara were just around the bend.
Just as the sun went down and night fell, the sky opened up. Fact of life. You visit a rain forest, and you're going to get wet. The rain turned to a deluge around 9 and the river swells began to wash over us, sinking the raft with each slap! It soon began to move through the river like a submarine. Krautara just around the bend.
Around 10, there was thunder and there was lightning and there was wind blowing from all points on the compass. Our only light guiding us out of the black was a flash light. It got worse before it got better. I could go on, but I want to get to the good part.
Around eleven the showers eased up. Just around the bend. . .the village.
The good part starts--
Just after midnight, C.M and I were dancing cheek to cheek in the one room school house like two drowned rats. One of the local boys had a boom box which played loud, staticky Latin Mambo Jambo. We drank Chi Cha, the local moonshine which smelled like cat piss and tasted like bad lemons mixed with cat piss.
--the good part is over.
A year later, she was seeing someone else. I was in Korea.
I don't want to go there tonight with any regret for not choosing to tag along after her. I chose a different path and that's all there is to it. But it would be nice to dance a little Mambo Jambo and sneak a little chi cha into my hoary visitation from the ghost of Christmas past.
So, Bah Humbug. Bah Humbug. Bah Humbug.
C.M and I spent the last of the five Christmases we shared in Honduras, in a Tawakhan Indian village.
Today, C.M. is C.B. She's married and the mother of three boys. She's lives in Reality, Louisiana, just outside of Hammond.
I don't want to revisit C.M. so much. She's an ex-girlfriend, true. But also true, she's happily married, and I'm happily married.
And as the late Johnny Thunders reminds us "You can't put your arms around a memory—so don't try."
When she was still C.M. and I was Mr. O. and we had each other for one last Christmas Eve, we were both at a cross roads.
Although she still worked in a restaurant, she had taken her first steps down a path by enrolling in some college classes where I was teaching, and telling me point block--"It's been five years. This year we start working on a family or. . . ."
I was suffering decision paralysis.
I was teaching composition and introduction to literature. I was not yet forty, so I still had time to put off trying to choose a path. Granted, not much time, the clock was ticking. I couldn't decide whether or not I should follow C.M. down her road, which was well lit, well mapped out, comfortable, and offered few surprises—marriage, children, a bigger house. A PhD. Faculty parties.
Affairs with students.
She deserved more.
And that was my out. "You deserve more. You deserve better."
Whenever I told her this, she'd flash her sweet, toothy smile and embrace me, assured me that I was all she wanted, assured me that she was in love. She watched a lot of day time TV. I squirmed loose. No, I mean it, I'd say, you deserve better (which was a close as I could get to the truth--I'd been with a few students)
A lack of hugs wasn't my problem--our problem. Our problem was me and how I feared the well worn path she'd started down, confident that I'd follow. Our problem was my fear of the known and my attraction to the unfamiliar, the untested, the heart of darkness river which flowed from the safe bends crowded with cities into forests so thick with overhanging trees and shadowy mountains, that they seemed to flow into the the blackest of nights, into a forbidenned zone where Dali dreams melted clocks and allowed fish to fly like birds.
C.M. obeyed every traffic law, paid her bills, went to her dentist regularly. She called her Mama twice a week. She kept a log book for her car. She bought raffle tickets from kids going door to door trying to raise money for a road trip for their school marching band. If her checking account didn't balance to the penny, she'd be on the calculator and going through her cancelled checks and receipts for as long as it took to resolve the conflict.
If my canceled checks cleared and I still had a positive balance in the bank, that worked for me.
She deserved at least some feller who had these small but not insignificant habits which she used to skillfully balance her unblemished credit record and no-risk car insurance life.
We had settled into a North Shore subdivision (north of New Orleans across the world's longest bridge), only twenty miles as the Caucasians fly from Britney Spears' suburban home village. Her Daddy still lives there, alone, a .357 magnum in one hand and a fifth of Crown Royal in the other, last I heard.
Christmas season, 1992, C.M. and I had a friend who had a friend in Central America who knew a couple of self-starters who wanted to start up an eco-tourism business which would one day include white water rafting and mountain trekking through the Honduran rainforest. Our friend and his friend invited us. Besides the tickets and the food, the self starters didn't ask for much more. They wanted some white faces for the trial run. They would use us to see what worked and what didn't.
So C.M. and I flew "Stay At Home, Stay Alive" airlines; the national carrier for Honduras (SAHSA) and spent Christmas in a rain forest.
Christmas Eve.
After five or six days of rafting, canoeing, climbing, hiking, up the hill down the hill, up the hill, down the hill, Christmas Eve morning began the pre-dawn hours for me when I woke up with a start on the "Ka!" part of an impending projectile vomit. As I awoke, simultaneously, I opened me eyes and twisted my bodyfree from the sleeping bag and managed to shove me head outside the tent flap before the downbeat--the "Boom!" in Ka Boom!"
The roasted jungle rat we'd had for dinner probably needed at least thirty more minutes on the spit.
I sat out most of Christmas Eve day hanging my head over the side of the raft having my faced awashed in brown river water. The raft we were road sat low in the river from the weight of the luggage and the passengers.
We'd started out with a separate luggage raft but the river ate it. I began to feel frisky around sunset and took up an oar to give whoever needed it a rest. The sunset and the Tawakhan village Krautara were just around the bend.
Just as the sun went down and night fell, the sky opened up. Fact of life. You visit a rain forest, and you're going to get wet. The rain turned to a deluge around 9 and the river swells began to wash over us, sinking the raft with each slap! It soon began to move through the river like a submarine. Krautara just around the bend.
Around 10, there was thunder and there was lightning and there was wind blowing from all points on the compass. Our only light guiding us out of the black was a flash light. It got worse before it got better. I could go on, but I want to get to the good part.
Around eleven the showers eased up. Just around the bend. . .the village.
The good part starts--
Just after midnight, C.M and I were dancing cheek to cheek in the one room school house like two drowned rats. One of the local boys had a boom box which played loud, staticky Latin Mambo Jambo. We drank Chi Cha, the local moonshine which smelled like cat piss and tasted like bad lemons mixed with cat piss.
--the good part is over.
A year later, she was seeing someone else. I was in Korea.
I don't want to go there tonight with any regret for not choosing to tag along after her. I chose a different path and that's all there is to it. But it would be nice to dance a little Mambo Jambo and sneak a little chi cha into my hoary visitation from the ghost of Christmas past.
So, Bah Humbug. Bah Humbug. Bah Humbug.
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