Leaving on a jet plane; airports and angst

 A stationary mushroom with running cedar

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Where in the world is Singapore? Singapore is in Southeast Asia, approximately nine thousand seven hundred miles from here. If I aimed to breathe Singapore's sultry air, I would have to drive more than an hour to the closest airport, tiptoe through security, find my seat on a plane, then spend nineteen hours on pins and needles, zipping through the air, hoping and praying to land in one piece on the tarmac at Singapore Changi Airport. I cannot imagine undertaking such a feat, especially the part about spending nearly a day cooped up in an airplane, listening to the roar of those engines. The longest flight I have endured at one stretch is about five hours, and that is plenty long enough for being airborne.

    Located on the other side of the world, Singapore is smaller than Rhode Island, and it takes someone like me twenty minutes to find it on the globe, while squinting through a magnifying glass. English is the most spoken language there, and a few more than six million people reside within its borders. Internet sources describe it as clean, efficient, and conducive to a high quality of life. It has a tropical climate and high humidity. Instead of four seasons like we have here, it experiences two main monsoon seasons and two inter-monsoon seasons in a year. 

    But why am I bringing up Singapore? 

Word problems are the hardest to solve

 

Turkey pose

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Nanci Griffith's recording of a song titled Tecumseh Valley tells the story of Caroline, a miner's daughter. Listeners are not told if Caroline is blonde with blue eyes, or if she is a brunette, but we assume loveliness from the line about the sunshine walking beside her, which is my favorite line in the song. 

    Times were hard, Griffith sings, and Caroline's father sends her to the Valley to look for work. With a willing heart for decent labor, she finds few opportunities, so she tends bar at Gypsy Sally's, where she hopes to make enough dollars to take back home to her father. She receives word that he passed away, and after that, she makes a living by turning to the oldest profession.

    The song is written by Townes Van Zandt, and in great contrast to the poignant line about sunshine and Caroline, he inserts an ugly word that begins with a w, a word that describes her profession, and it mars the song. Back in the days when I played Griffith's CD, that word, in an otherwise lovely tune, bothered me. On my sing-a-longs with her rendition, I hummed over the w-word and rushed to the next one. A few days ago, when I heard the first few notes of Tecumseh Valley emanating from my radio, in a voice different from Griffith's, I winced at the unsavory word that would be floating through my kitchen, but my radio pulled a musical fast one.

It would be my quest for nine years

 

A heron embraces the sunshine

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In my senior year of high school, I spent hours in the sitting room next to the guidance counselor's office, nestled in a comfortable chair beside bookshelves filled with glossy college catalogs. Those catalogs were a respite for my mind and a dream for my soul. I studied the same colleges over and over. My favorite ones were Lenoir-Rhyne and Mars Hill, because they were smaller and not as intimidating as big universities. I gazed at photos of students in classroom settings, lounging on manicured, flowery landscapes, and congregating on the steps of magnificent architectures, and I dreamed about attending college. Some of my classmates had already applied and been accepted. They were eager to pack their suitcases for UNC-Wilmington or East Carolina, the party school, and head off to learn interesting things, live in dorms, and make new friends. I was dreaming of the same and reaching for the unreachable. For college, I would need $$$, and because I had none, I kept my aspirations mostly to myself. 

    The guidance counselor would sometimes come out and acknowledge me. Dressed in a straight skirt, nylons and heels, and a beehive hairdo, she smiled and encouraged me in my ambition, but she never asked about my financial situation or volunteered advice on paying tuition or finding a place to sleep at night, and I was too timid to ask. She probably saw me for what I was -- a dreamer; a skinny farm girl fantasizing about a college education. She was right, but skinny farm girls can be determined and never give up.