Scarf Adventure

Sophia and her roommate parted amicably with plans of meeting up and possibly living together again in 2024.  She plans on staying in Fort Worth with a friend when I move to Albuquerque.

When Sophia picked me up from the airport in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday, May 27, she had her car all packed up, and Tax Fraud, the cat, was yowling in his carrier on top of the pile in the back of her car. 

We let him out for the short drive to Dickson, Tennessee where we checked into our hotel for the night.  We let him roam the hotel room and headed out.  Barks and yaps came from almost every door down the hall.  When you are driving across the country with a cat, you get to stay in the pet-friendly places.  We had dinner with Mike’s cousin Emily.  After pizza, we went to a little park and sat on a bench and talked late into the evening.  She and I got caught up in everyone’s news both good and bad, predictable, and surprising.  There were so many stories to be told in the snapshot of our lives that week.

Sophia woke up the next morning and ran to the bathroom with a nausea-inducing migraine.  We stopped at a pharmacy for headache medicine and then dug out the bathroom trash can she had in her trunk and put the plastic liner bucket in the back near the cat carrier within reach.  I did most of the driving to start with, but after lunch Sophia wanted a turn.  We were bombing down the interstate at seventy miles an hour when the migraine got worse, and motion sickness pushed her over the edge.

“I need that bucket, Mom.”

“You’re going to throw up?”

“Yes.  Can you reach it?”

On our last car trip home, Sophia threw up while driving on country roads.  It was rather terrifying.

I said, “Pull over.”

“The next exit is in two miles.”

She wasn’t going to last two miles.  There were farmed fields on either side of the freeway. 

I said, “You can pull over right here, right now.”

I reached for the bucket as she swerved to the shoulder and put the bucket in her face as she put the car in park just in time.

At the store she had talked me into some sparkling water packaged in cans that looked like one of those heavily caffeinated death drinks.  I felt like a real rebel, like I was sucking on one of those candy cigarettes, when I drank it.  I like Topo Chico much better, but it was okay.  It was the perfect size for cleaning out the barf bucket.  The fizzy water looked like cleansing bubbles and the lime scent didn’t hurt either.

I drove the rest of the way to Little Rock, Arkansas.  Sophia threw up again in the night.  I let her sleep in the next morning.  I didn’t want to wake her up by turning on a light in the blackened hotel room, so I took a book and went in search of a nook to settle in for an hour or two.

The pair of chairs I found was outside the elevator down the hall.  The laundry room and weight room were down another hallway and people walked back and forth in front of me.  I was absorbed in the book, “Tried & True:  A Primer on Sound Pedagogy” by Daniel Coupland, when I heard, “That’s a nice scarf you are wearing.”

A lady stood in front of me.  She had black hair that fell in large waves down past her shoulder.  She wore a long skirt and a T-shirt and reminded me of myself.

I put the book down and said, “Thank-you.”

“I give you money for it?  It’s my birthday.  You should give it to me.”

“Okay.” I said, “But I need to go change my clothes.  I need my scarf to match my shirt.”

“Okay.” She agreed.

I got up and walked to my hotel room where I changed into my last clean shirt and my lavender scarf.  Then I went back to the chair and waited for my scarf-loving new acquaintance.  I saw another girl who looked like her but had different clothes.  Then my lady walked up and held out her hand.

I gave her the scarf and said, “Feliz cumpleanos.”  I knew she wasn’t Spanish or Mexican but could tell she was foreign and that was the only foreign way I know how to say, “Happy birthday.”

A man walked by.  The other girl walked by.  My girl walked by with my green scarf glittering with golden threads under the fluorescent hall light.  It was a lovely scarf, and it looked great on her.  Seeing her wearing it made me happy.  How often will I run into someone who wants to wear my scarf?  Then the other girl walked by again and stood in front of me.

“That’s a nice scarf you are wearing,” she said.

“Thank-you.”

“Will you give it to me?”

She was missing the charisma of the other one.  Also, I knew that I had no other clean clothes.  I thought I had another scarf, but all my other shirts were soiled and wrinkled.  It’s easy to give out of abundance but much harder when giving requires sacrifice.  It was unpleasant to know this about myself.

 I told her, “I would but I already gave my other scarf to someone else.”

“Oh, I know.  She told me about you.”

We stared at each other for a moment.

Then she asked, “How old are you?”

That made me uncomfortable, even more uncomfortable than being asked for my scarf.  I like people to think that I’m younger than I am.  Usually in America people know not to ask.  Still, I gave her my age and then asked her a question.

“Where are you from?”

“We are from Saudi Arabia.”

I’ve met other women from Saudi Arabia, and they wouldn’t ask a stranger for an article of clothing.  Knowing where she was from only confirmed to me that she was foreign.  She smiled at me as she got on the elevator, and I smiled back  I didn’t see either of them again before Sophia and I went on our way.

Sophia wasn’t sick anymore and even put in an hour of driving when we were in a heavily forested area where she could pull over just in case.

It’s good to be home.  Esther and John Ben were over at our house when we came in the door.  All Sophia’s younger siblings came to say hello too.  I told all the kids to gather in the front room for a picture.  Everyone came but Basil who was trying to drive away, but I told him to get his self back up the driveway.  They were sitting together with smiles for all of five wonderful minutes.

Also accomplished in this past week, turning over my books and keys to the new math teacher, my last tea party, a teenager Twilight party with vampire teeth and red cake pops, a teenager Lord of the Rings marathon, two playdates for Xenia, multiple last minute dance classes, Esther’s Fort Worth bridal shower, a trip to Dallas for the Riverdance show with the big kids from Jonah through John Ben and their friend Nathaniel, my first trip to the airport to pick up my friend Kelly, and manicures and pedicures for Esther, Sophia, Kelly and I.

Tonight, we are having an impromptu beef tenderloin dinner for Esther and John Ben and their seven friends, also Kelly, Ryoko who flew in last night with her two daughters, Mike, and me, and our other five kids…twenty people.

The wedding is Saturday, June 10 and our farewell lunch at church is June 11.  Mike is considering going to Albuquerque next weekend so this may be our last chance to worship as a family in Fort Worth.

It may be a while before I get out my next story, but the weekend wedding will be worth writing about.  Please keep us in your prayers, pray for all who are traveling, and remember Esther and John Ben on their big day.