• Tag Archives Riyadh
  • Terminal

    Fall                                            Waxing Autumn Moon

    Dropped Mark off at the Delta terminal at 9:10 this morning.  It was a difficult leave taking, conflicted on both our parts.

    He’s worried about the flight to Riyadh from New York–too long–whether anyone will meet him there at the airport–they will–and remembering not to shake hands with women, as a last minute communication from English Gate Academy advised.

    Leaving him there, with so many worries, left me in a place I imagine parents of troubled kids must inhabit when they launch their child, perhaps again and again, into the world.  I felt uncertain of his footing and have my fingers crossed.

    Kate and I feel we did the best we could do over the time he was here to get him ready for today and I feel good about that.  There is, though, that lingering concern, countered by hope.

    Of course, my analyst, John Desteian, used to say, “Don’t get me started on hope.”

    Anyhow, here’s to Mark, bravely venturing into a troubled region.  He got a good paying job when hundreds of thousands of Americans can’t find work.  He’ll be able to save money, work toward a Master’s degree and put together a good recommendation for future employment.


  • Growing Up

    Lughnasa                                        Waxing Harvest Moon

    Mark’s (my brother) days here will end on September 16th provided the Saudi visa process works and it’s on track, though a track with a terminus very near his flight date.  He flies from Minneapolis to Chicago, Chicago to Amman, Jordan and onto Riyadh.

    He will spend a few days in Riyadh in an orientation program for new teachers at the English Gate Academy after which he reports to his teaching post.  He asked for Hal’in, but his assignment is not yet certain.

    We sat on the couch tonight, after having watched some TV, and did a favorite family thing, trading memories of when we were young, especially memories we did not share.

    I told him of climbing up on a chair to find, to my dismay, a door knob above a shelf I could not see over at age 3 or 4.  It looked like a big eye looking back at me.

    In the basement of the same place, an apartment building where I lived with Mom and Dad, there was a coal chute. (“Coal?” Mark asked, a bit wide eyed at this ancient heat source.) The coal room connected to the big pot-bellied furnace through an augur that would turn on whenever the thermostat called for more heat.  In other words unpredictably.

    When I was down there with Mom while she did the laundry, I would play.  Until the coal augur came to life.  It was loud and came on with surprising swiftness.  The furnace would hiss as the new coal fed the fire.  Made me think of a dragon.

    Mark remembered sleeping in Mom and Dad’s bedroom until he was 5 or so, then moving upstairs in our house on Canal Street.  When I went off to college, he took my corner room, the one with a window facing west and another facing south.  Out that west facing window, at midnight, a Nickle Plate train would rumble down the tracks, and sound its warning signal for the crossing on Monroe Street only two and a half blocks from our house.  Mark remembered the train, too.

    I’m not sure why I recall this and I don’t know if it was true, but I believe the last steam engine in US pulled its train through our town, sounding its steam whistle every midnight.  Right there on Monroe Street.