tinyvacation

last year i spent a week in the outer banks, nc with my family and on the way up the island towards the lighthouse my sister and i stopped in the native american museum on the side of the road. we paid $5 each across a worn wooden counter to a quiet woman. we wandered through past pelts and baskets and mannequins dressed in traditional clothes and painted a darker skin color. we beat on a drum to make a wish. there were very old things.

as we made it towards the gift shop i heard an old man hollering – not angry – i could already tell that was just the way he communicated. the was in a wheelchair with braces on his wrists. long pony tail and grumpy demeanor. this was uncle carl. we had a little chat about how the tv news is bullshit and people are jerks. he heard a cold in my voice ans called me close to him, he said he had something for it. i was expecting an ancient native american cure, a poultice or salve or something.

he produced a green-mint halls cough drop seemingly out of thin air. ancient yes. i could already tell it had been in a pocket for a while. the wrapper now transparent becoming part of the drop. he explained that the green ones were the remedy to most things that ail you. the only ones worth buying he said. i prefer the sickly-sweet cherry red ones, but didn’t say so. my sister looked in horror as i did my best to remove the wrapper and with a little waxy skin left popped it into my mouth.

this is the point at which uncle carl said i should call him uncle carl and took my nailbitten hands into his stiffened and velcroed ones and told me that i was sick because i bite my nails. he told me if i could stop and grew pretty nails and i sent him a picture he would send me something from the gift shop. he hollered for gracie (the quietish woman who took our money) to bring him some emery boards. she handed them to him over the glass jewelery case of the gift shop. she was closing things up for the night and might have rolled her eyes. he folded my fingers around about 5 or 6 of them and let go of me.

he said keep one in the car, next to the bed, at my desk – because he knows that i bite my nails because they are uneven, because they snag and i try t fix them and it just makes it worse. he knew it wasn’t just out of nervousness. it never was. it took a while, but i did finally give it up. i haven’t taken a picture for uncle carl yet, but think of him often.

and part of the package trip schedule was an hour with a yogi in varanasi. it was pretty disappointing. we were in a hotel conference room. the people in my tour were not really into yoga. truthfully it was not the reason we were there. i’m sure there are many other ways to do yoga in india, maybe sometime i’ll go there with that purpose and it will be more fulfilling. gonna take it off the list though – check.

... making this a goal i went and bought a brand new car. i feel like 5 years of new debt is scary, but manageable. the real goal for me is to deal with debt responsibly and don’t fuck up.