Humble Beginnings and Human Beings

Learning a city is like learning a language.  If you already know one, it’s easier to learn another.  Where does one even begin, with so many nooks, crannies, and cultural assumptions that go into it?  One person, one building, and one street at a time.

At a Glance

At the glance I’ve had, Austin is everything we could ever want in a city.  The modest bohemian rough and rugged homes roll straight into the downtown of intermingled short and tall buildings, help shed light onto the “Keep Austin Weird” slogan that the city dwellers pride themselves in.  The perfect combination of young business people that don’t need to dress in suits, old and new hippies rocking their tye-dye thing, and the influx of nerdy college students, keep the town feeling full of character, youthful energy, variety, and opportunity.  Just the things we like. Then, there is the Colorado River that slowly meanders directly through the center of the city.  So one moment, we’re looking at downtown classy hotels and shops, and within a couple of blocks we’re standing on the edge of a massive body of water full of paddling devices and lounging fishermen. In another location, a park overlooking the city skyline for a refreshing bit of drop-in soccer for Corey, and with hardly a few paces more, we came upon a natural spring where we can actually SWIM.  And by “SWIM”, I mean, in a place that literally feels like a river in the middle of the woods with crisp and fresh water that reminds us of the Great Lakes in their peak warmth of summer.  The unexpectedness of the place is refreshing…a moment sitting in a glittering leaved gorgeous empty park, and then, a Segway tour comes flying laps around us looking like  22^nd century floating people buzzing like mosquitoes.  It takes some figuring and lots of spare time, but public bus systems paired with a place that gives haircuts discounts on to people that rode their bikes, is absolutely fitting for those who often prefer foot and bike wheels as primary transportation.  Austin is a place that now demands every living space to be within walking distance from a green space/park, which means, I can take breaths in a place with living organisms besides people, due to the influx of 110 people moving to this city, every. day. Yep, every. day. Crazy numbers. The most growth in the US cities actually.  The fact that Corey and I aren’t necessarily looking to spend the rest of our lives here, causes the huge influx of human beings to be an exciting observation on our end, to experience a dramatic transformation of a city, whether for the good or not so good, regardless, it will be a fascinating experience.

Need I say more?

Well, yes actually.  Because with the beautiful and good, unfortunately much of the time, exist the ugly sides too.

There is rough reality to the ugly sides of a place with a lot of people.  Perhaps the downsides are different for everyone, but something about finding a plethora of adds of vulnerable women made into businesses, along with a shameless pornography film festival, turns my stomach sour and my heart sad.  I don’t have the capability of turning a blind eye to the reality that skewed sex might seem like freedom, while it actually causes deep hidden wounds inside a person’s soul.  While viewed as passion and expression, I’ve heard too many people’s stories about the chasm of emptiness that the addiction provokes, to know that it is Truth more than opinion, that says these things are a distortion of something far more beautiful in the context in which it is intended.  And it is that very Truth, that causes me such depths of pain and love for those in these advertisements, wanting to bring them to the very Source of true freedom, Himself.

So somewhere along all of this, is finding our place, where we fit in, and where our personalities cause us new experiences.  And many of those experiences, this past week, have actually been at bus stops.

The People We Meet at Bus Stops

The Genuine Druggies—at first the red flag danger alert flags raise up when seeing suspicious activity get lit or sniffed up in such a public setting…but after keeping our distance and observing, more, we saw people that took a few wrong turns in life and are simply just pretty beat up. The joy that fills their faces when they realize we have an actual baby inside that “backpack”, causes us to see such pure innocence behind the homeless ruggedness.  They quickly run downwind of us to make sure Danforth receives no secondhand smoke, and proceed to wave and coo from their safe distance.  There is beauty in these people, though the safe distance is necessary for the always unknowns when involving drugs, I’ve felt less and less in danger and more and more stirred with compassion.

The Spanish Whisperer—this stone faced woman wears deep lines in her face of age and toughness of life.  Danforth takes a liking to those lines, or eyes, or whatever mystery causes a baby to choose something/someone to stare at…and gives this woman his undivided attention.  Those gazing, sparkling, blue eyes only 3 months open, paired with toothless grin after toothless grin, causes this woman to crack her shell…as she begins discretely grinning back and whispers affections in Spanish until her stop arrives.  The parents of this delightful Danforth, exchange grins, to see their son bring such quiet stirrings of overwhelming happiness.

Gabriel’s Concern—this clean cut personal trainer, couldn’t help but turn his car around after seeing two people with a baby sitting at a bus stop after nightfall. Pulling in, he proves his identity and offers us his vehicle, keys, chauffeur, whatever…if we need it to get to where we’re going.  We insist on our appreciation yet determinedness to continue to learn the bus system, despite the night.  His concern for our safety with the baby reminds us how truly unusual we look in this setting, but our world traveling experiences cause us to listen our instincts, telling us we are safe where we are, but genuinely appreciate the offer and prefer to make an acquaintance out of the opportunity instead.

The Wobbling Olfactory Man—as this man rocks his way down the sidewalk, about 15 feet away he stops to mumble his comments on the new baby smell.  Astounded, we ask for a repeat on his comment, and sure enough, through difficult speech, he comments again on the smell of “that’s a new baby!”  If it be some kind of tailwind, or merely unusual strength in this man’s olfactory senses, regardless, he is one who deserves to be remembered.

The Man with the Borrowed Sign—this man points and waves at every. single. car. saying “hey!” on repeat, and soon follows a slightly maniac laugh on repeat as well.  Something scribbled on his worn blue sharpie sign causes occasional people to throw and hand dollar bills out their car windows. Our long bus wait eventually puts us on the cycle of points and waves, and added to his wild joy when he realizes the baby in our midst. Eventually with the increasing duration of time of our sitting on his ‘wave at them’ list, he can’t help but bring his interactions closer.  Crossing the street to our side, and stating “he means no harm”, with an outstretched hand and a crumpled filthy dollar bill, “can you please take this and buy something or a piece of candy for the baby”.  We sat a bit speechless, and touched…but replied that all Danforth ingests at this point is his mamma’s milk. Undeterred, he insists on giving us his earned dollar.  I said “guess you could count this as your Sunday tithe” as we receive his heartfelt gift.  We all share laughs upon asking what his sign says to his response “I’m not sure, I’m borrowing it, I found it laying over there in the grass.”  A man with a sign, who doesn’t know what it says, yet overwhelmingly touched by the innocence of life.

Sigh, it is in these moments, I wonder how these same interactions would be if I just stared and smiled at anyone and everyone without any preconceptions, fears, or judgments.  What would the world be like?  Though that will never happen, for the world has boundaries and reasons for them, it is an incredible experience to vicariously live through my son, as he touches the world through his own blissful ignorance and innocence. Since he carries within him, my own genetics and likeness…when the world is touched by him, I also feel they have been touched by my own heart.  And when in an extremely foreign place with too many people to grasp, it is an awesome way to feel connected to strangers, even if just for the brief pause and exchange of grins.  Life has wonderful new hues when seen through the sparkle of an infant’s eyes.

Of course, traveling with Danforth has its difficulties as have been expressed in previous blogs.  And this past week was not without them.  There was the unceasing un-resolvable crying episode echoing through the city streets…causing us complete frustration and unneeded added sweat as we zipped through the place on our bikes.  Every time we stopped, and took him out, we were either met with an immediate grin or even louder cries.  At one point, I crumpled in self-blame mode, weeping on the side of the street for the intensity and duration of his cries seemed unending due to something I could not figure out…my face squished into his belly as I let out gut wrenching sobs…only to look up at his ridiculous grin at me.  What a sheer look of pure frustrated exhausted love I must have had. 

Sometimes I wonder if we’re a bit too crazy doing all this with a baby.  It’s the times like when I start washing the diaper liner in a public bathroom sink without even pausing to consider what I’m doing, or go into a bathroom looking for the cleanest spot on the floor to change him on….when I wonder these things.  We haven’t had a routine, or any kind of location consistency in his entire life.  Nor are we frequenting places that have changing tables…which seems to express that we’re a bit off the beaten path for families?   In an evening when we’re escaping to a bar/coffee shop to find a place to chill, is a time when most people would be chilling in their living rooms with the comfort of a changing table and clean floor for their kid to roll around on.  Instead, Danforth is slung in backpack carriers and bike trailers and car seats and passed from one sweaty arm to another.

But then, my wondering brings me to the fact that Danforth is among the wealthiest children on earth.  Because his parents are bumming it in a trailer park living off very meager savings…means that he has both his mommy and daddy’s (almost) undivided attention every day of his life so far.  When my baby shower inundated me with clothes literally almost all the same size, I didn’t realize that would mean being able to dress my son in clean clothes every day, because doing laundry means hauling it several miles away on a bike.  He is incredibly thriving off momma’s milk alone, which means no dishes or cost in our humble and already challenging lifestyle.  Because we don’t have a car to tour the city, it means that he is virtually held in our arms the entire day as we walk or ride everywhere. 

It would be such simpler without him, that’s for sure.  But it would actually be pretty boring, too easy, and too controllable.  This dude is going to forever have this as part of his story, and it’s pretty awesome to be a part of it.

Earlier today, as Corey dressed in his suit and tie for an interview at another company, it wasn’t a matter of pulling it out of the closet, quick iron and getting dressed.  It was a matter of digging through vacuum packed bags on the roof, spraying them down in the breeze all morning trying to get the wrinkles out, and realizing he left his main dress shoes back in Michigan.  He left two hours early because he took several busses to get there.  In total, it was a 6 hour process for an interview 10 miles away.   He walked out of our dusty lot with the broken glass shards in the grass, with the bull horns on the GMC grill…and he kissed us both goodbye.

Now as I think of it, we are living the American dream.  The American dream is sometimes referred to as the 5 bedroom house, two car garage, white fence, retirement savings and such things.   But our American dream, that I feel rings truer to this nation’s history, is the one where we are starting. With almost nothing, roughing it, pioneering forward in faith and hope of starting a new life somewhere just beyond the horizon. 

You may wonder why “Westernization of Wayfarers” is the title of this blog.  Well, there was a time when living abroad, that I lied about my American origins to say I was from elsewhere. There came a point when I realized I was actually proud of my country and to be from it, and to identify myself with it, meant breaking down some of those negative stereotypes attached to the loud disrespectful image of American tourists.  And perhaps, this title is reflective of the time we’re in, as we “westernize” not in the conventional sense of what is stereotypically assumed…but in our wayfaring way.  The wayfaring way is one who travels on foot.  One who not only takes the path less traveled, but makes a new path.  Of course, we aren’t the only people to travel and rough it with a baby in tow, but it feels good to get a sense of identity and confidence when doing something that is certainly not the norm.

And, I’ll just throw it in there. 

No more is sailing sipping cocktails in a bikini, or motorhome life simple with an infant, or is Christianity a country club, cookie cutter image. I hope that in the writing of this blog for 3 years now, I have introduced you to the authentic, imperfect, and adventurous world of each.

M