Ten Long Years …

Image by StuSeeger via Flickr

Ten years ago began one of the best, if not the most inspiring, years of my life thus far.  2002 still conjures up such a mess of emotions and memory, almost all wonderful.  It began interestingly enough.  A few days into the new year I flew to Cáceres, Spain to begin a semester long study abroad program at la Universidad de Extremadura.  I will always have endless memories of Spain, but things did not start out as planned.

As with any year, I began 2002 cleaning up the mistakes, missteps, and crises of 2001.  At 21, it all involved the men in my life at the time.  It also involved my semester long study abroad program in Quito, Ecuador and the aftermath of September 11, 2001.  What’s important to note here is not the assortment of men in my life or specific details of what happened in my life as a result of 9/11 but the simple fact that I was emotionally drained from another banner year in my life:  2001.

Throughout my first few weeks in Spain, I really didn’t know what to do with myself.  I just needed space to figure out what I wanted out of life.  Ten years later and I am still trying to figure out the details.  Fortunately it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Spain and my classes, especially my class in art history.  I spent every long weekend of the program traveling to new destinations in Spain and eventually Portugal.  I visited Madrid, Sevilla, Málaga and la Costa del Sol, Toledo, Salamanca, Ronda, Granada, Barcelona, and Lisboa.  I’m grateful for the foresight of the professors of the program.  If it hadn’t been for the long weekends, I would not have had the opportunity to truly explore Spain.  It inspired me in countless ways to visit every week the very works we studied in class.  Somewhere along the way I began to truly enjoy myself and flourished.  Little did I know then that the best was yet to come.

One of my last days in Cáceres a package arrived at my front door holding the key to yet more adventure.  It contained the agreement for my position as a co-op with Applied Materials in Austin, Texas.  I had planned the entire experience nearly two years before as an undergraduate business student at Michigan State.  At that time I was determined to land an internship at the end of my sophomore year.  I did.  In fact, I ended up landing an internship with IBM throughout the summer of 2001.  Applied Materials also wanted me as a co-op that year.  By that time I knew that I wanted to spend an entire year abroad.  I simply asked the hiring manager at Applied Materials if I could work as a co-op the following year.  He said yes.  After spending a summer in Rochester, Minnesota working for IBM, completing a semester long study abroad program in Quito, Ecuador, completing another semester in Cáceres, Spain, I was about to spend six months living and working in Austin, Texas.

In fact, I only had a month to prepare for my new job in Austin after arriving home from Spain.  I arrived in Michigan the first week in May and my first day of work in Austin was slated for mid-June.  I couldn’t wait.  As eager as I was to get back to MSU to complete my degree, I knew that working for Applied Materials was an experience I couldn’t pass up.  I’d finally get a true taste of life after college; it would not be just another summer job.  I wouldn’t return to Michigan State until January 2003 after traveling the globe for 18 months.

How do I even begin to describe my six months in Austin, Texas?  I truly fell in love.  I fell in love with the city itself and Texas as a whole.  In fact, I fell in love with the very idea of Texas.  Texas truly is like a whole other country.  In fact, I later drove across a good share of it on my way home from Austin, heartbroken.

The strange thing is that the entire experience didn’t start out well at all.  I loved working for Applied, but wasn’t happy with the apartment I sublet.  After only being in Austin for a month and a half, I found myself in a bad car accident on my way to work, my car totaled and my big toe broken.  At 21, I was lucky to be alive.  As I adjusted to the leg splint and put things back together, something amazing happened.

When I first arrived in Austin I befriended a new coworker who happened to be going through the two week orientation training session with me.  She and I became fast friends.  She became bound and determined to fix me up with one of her old coworkers at Motorola.  Andy.  Over those first weeks in Austin, my friend told me a lot about him, but he never seemed to be home.  In fact, I wouldn’t get to meet him for nearly a month due to his trip to Perú.  I almost forgot about him by the time a blind date was arranged.

Looking back, what a strange set of circumstances under which I met Andy.  We met just as I was literally getting back on my feet after the accident.  Instead of a leg splint that took up half of my leg, I finally had a walking cast.  Andy suggested that we go to Flipnotics to check out a local act.  Here’s the thing about Flipnotics:  it is a two-story building with a trendy shop taking up the entire first floor with a bar taking up the second.  In order for us to check out the band and hang out at the bar, I had to walk up a large flight of stairs in a walking cast.  Andy appeared mortified.  I didn’t care; I was embarrassed myself.  There was no way I was going to let a silly situation ruin my night.

We spent the night drinking beer, talking about all we had in common, which was a lot, and enjoying the act Andy hoped to book on his radio show, ATX Live.  To this day Andy is one of the most interesting men I’ve ever met.  By day an engineer, by night a DJ at a co-op radio station.  At the time he still hosted ATX live; he later became president of the co-op radio station.  It was through him that I began to enjoy myself in Austin.

We never had a romantic relationship, but we did become very good friends.  He soon introduced me to his manager and friend Cheryl.  She became one of the best friends I’ve ever had.  If I saw her today I have no doubt we could just start up again right where we left off.  Not many men can introduce you to a new good friend; Andy did.  That’s the thing about Andy and Cheryl:  they got me.  We spent hours checking out new bands, solo artists, etc.  We attended the very first Austin City Limits festival together.  Cheryl and I were there when Andy’s RK surgery to correct his vision went terribly wrong.  After he recovered his sight, we threw him a “dressed to be seen”/Halloween/late birthday party at his house that became legendary among us.  After all of my years of not fitting in high school and being mostly a loner in a college, I finally had a great group of friends that I truly loved.

After the accident I had to move almost immediately.  It turned out that my sublet was only through the summer.  I panicked.  Fortunately, through Applied Materials internal classifieds system, I found a great place to live.  Karen became another great friend in Austin.  She had just built her home before the stock market plummeted and wanted to test out the idea of a renter.  We became fast friends, bonding over Beatles music.  I loved living in her house.  It felt as though I was living with one of my favorite aunts for three months, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  As my return to Michigan loomed, we hosted a combination goodbye/birthday/Christmas party for me.  I did not want to go home.

I’ll never forget leaving Austin on that foggy morning in mid-December.  I cried.  I had never felt my life come so completely together as it did in Austin.  I wanted to stay, but I felt that I had to go back to MSU to complete my degree.  I always planned to return.  I still miss the people, the music, and the fun.  It didn’t quite work out that way I planned.  Despite my best intention and efforts, I never did get a job in Austin after graduation.

I’m not sure why I am looking back to 2002 now other than to say that it is time to move on.  I loved my life in Austin.  For whatever reason, I haven’t been able to recreate that deep sense of happiness in Bay City.  I need to figure out what I need to be truly happy and go after it.  Life is too damn short to be miserable.  There will always be a part of me that will treasure all of those experiences I had in 2001 and 2002.  There are days when I just look in the mirror and wonder what happened to the girl who risked everything for adventure.

Blake Shelton – Austin

Songwriters:  David Kent, Kirsti Manna

She left without leavin’ a number
Said she needed to clear her mind
He figured she’d gone back to Austin
‘Cause she talked about it all the time
It was almost a year before she called him up
Three rings and an answering machine is what she got

If you’re callin’ ’bout the car I sold it
If this is Tuesday night, I’m bowling
If you’ve got somethin’ to sell
You’re wastin’ your time, I’m not buyin’
If it’s anybody else, wait for the tone, you know what to do
And P.S. if this is Austin, I still love you

The telephone fell to the counter
She heard but she couldn’t believe
What kind of man would hang on that long
What kind of love that must be
She waited three days and then she tried again
She didn’t know what she’d say but she heard three rings and then

If it’s Friday night I’m at the ballgame
And first thing Saturday, if it don’t rain
I’m headed out to the lake
And I’ll be gone all weekend long
But I’ll call you back when I get home on Sunday afternoon
And P.S. if this is Austin, I still love you

Well, this time she left her number
But not another word
Then she waited by the phone on Sunday evenin’
And this is what he heard

If you’re callin’ ’bout my heart
It’s still yours
I should’ve listened to it a little more
Then it wouldn’t have taken me so long to know where I belong
And by the way, boy, this is no machine you’re talkin’ to
Can’t you tell, this is Austin and I still love you

I still love you.

September 11, 2001

Image via Wikipedia

Salute to Juan Armando Ceballos – Project 2,996 | Ramblings of a Misguided Blonde

I’ve tried and failed to write about 9/11 so many times over the years.  Words still fail me.  I can’t believe that it has been ten long years.  Where do I start?

As irrelevant as it may seem all I can do is tell my story of that awful day.  I’d only been in Quito, Ecuador for a couple of weeks.  I spent the fall semester of 2001 studying abroad in Quito, Ecuador at the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito, campus Cumbaya through Michigan State University.  I’d just settled into my classes and life with my wonderful host family, los Caleros.  In fact, I’d spent the previous week on a mini vacation in Atacames on the Pacific coast near Esmeraldas with my host parents.  They simply wanted to get to know me better.  Nothing could have prepared me for the horror of that beautiful Tuesday morning.

I had just woken up and was preparing for the day ahead at USFQ.  As I was getting ready in my bedroom, my host Mom, Adriana, yelled for me to come quick.  She’d been watching TV in her bedroom as she was getting ready for the day.  She watched on TV as the first plane hit the first tower.  I thought that it was a horrible accident as many other people did at that point.

After eating breakfast and catching a bus to the USFQ campus, I headed to class.  It was there that I began to hear rumors of what had happened in New York and Washington, D.C.  I wouldn’t learn the entire story until I had a chance to eat lunch at a small café near the university.  There I sat transfixed to CNN Español.

After making my way back to the university for afternoon classes I couldn’t believe the chaos erupting in the hallway housing the study abroad office.  USFQ hosted several students from the United States that semester.  Unlike me, most were from small liberal arts colleges on the East Coast.  Many knew people who worked in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  They were seeking information and assuming the worst.

We later had a meeting regarding the attacks and someone placed a huge TV in the lobby of the university.  I remember crowds gathering there trying to catch any new piece of information.  As soon as possible I headed back to my host parents’ home.  I needed reassurance.

Watching the news with my host Mom, it became clear just what had happened.  It still doesn’t seem real.  At that point I called my parents in Michigan and spoke to my little brother.  I simply needed to talk to my family.

9/11 faded into the background of that semester, but it was never completely out of mind.  I admit that I thought about what I would do if my plane back to Michigan was hijacked.  I also thought about who I would call.  Traveling back to Michigan on December 22, 2001 was an adventure all its own.

It was then that I fully understood the impact of what had happened.  I saw soldiers in the airports, new security measures were in place, and anxiety was everywhere.  In my adventure home, I somehow missed the fact that the incident with the shoe bomber occurred the very same day.  My parents would tell me that after the fact.  In retrospect, I am glad that I didn’t know.

Early in 2002 I boarded yet another plane.  This time my destination was Caceres, Spain where I was to spend yet another semester studying Spanish through the Office of Study Abroad at Michigan State University.  I tried to come to terms with the changes taking place in the United States and the fact that I felt less safe as an American.  It didn’t work.  Some things I experienced in Spain stay with me to this day.

I travelled as much as possible throughout my semester in Spain.  Naturally I ended up in southern Spain, which Muslims occupied for over 800 years.  In 2002, there were many Pakistani and Afghan immigrants throughout that area of Spain.  It was not hard to imagine Muslims occupying that area of Spain.

Later in the semester an anti-Semitic group posted disturbing fliers all around Caceres, angering our large contingent of MSU students.  I’d never been exposed to anything like it.  I can only imagine what it is like now.  If people expressed such blatant hatred openly, how much hatred lay hidden behind closed doors?

Earlier Writing on 9/11

Breaking News … And Reflections

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Breaking News & My Mixed Feelings | Silly Mom Thoughts

Osama bin Laden‘s death a month ago caused at least a few people to reflect on the last ten years of the War on Terror.  I think Lindsay Maddox at Silly Mom Thoughts got it right (see post above).  Lindsay is approximately my age.  She is right to say that our early adulthood was shaped and overshadowed by 9/11.  It is still hard for me to believe that 9/11 happened nearly 10 years ago.  At the time I was a 20 year-old student at Michigan State University spending a semester studying Spanish in Quito, Ecuador at la Universidad San Francisco de Quito.  I’d only been in Quito for two weeks.  I’ll never forget the feeling of helplessness, disconnect, and uncertainty.

I can only hope that we can finally move on as a country.  There are countless ways in which we haven’t.  The issues that were glaringly apparent that horrible have yet to be addressed.  We all have to admit that we are a little less free.  It is time to move on.

Que Tristeza ~ Ecuador

Image via Wikipedia

Protesting police throw Ecuador into chaos – USATODAY.com

This headline immediately caught my attention.  As a naïve 20 year-old college student, I spent a semester studying Spanish at a small, private university in Quito.  I adored the country and traveled every opportunity I had.

There are not many places in the world where you can visit rain forest, arid plains, the Galápagos Islands, and the Pacific coast all in one semester.  I went whitewater rafting as well.  That semester offered enough adventure for a lifetime.

My host family was incredibly gracious, and quite frankly, I worry about their health and safety.  Most of the Ecuadorians I met were generous people simply trying to get by.  During my stay in 2001, my host mom (Adrianna) told me firsthand horror stories of the banking collapse in 1999.  At the time, she worked as a bank manager.  I can only hope that most Ecuadorians remain unaffected by the current political upheaval.

I love studying the history and culture of Latin America, but more often than not, it is a history of almost constant suffering.

Related Articles

• Ecuador armed forces seize Quito airport, highways (chron.com)
• US offers ‘full support’ for Ecuador’s president amid crisis (alternet.org)
• Airport Seized In Possible Ecuador Coup (businessinsider.com)
• Protesting police, soldiers seize Ecuador airport (dailycaller.com)

September 11 – Where Do We Go From Here?

Expressing Yourself On a Day Like Today

The blog post above inspired me to take another look at what I wrote about 9/11.  On 9/12/2002, I submitted the piece below to the 9/11 Digital Archive.  At the time, I suppose I wanted to preserve my story of 9/11.  I wasn’t there; at the time, I was in Quito, Ecuador studying abroad through Michigan State University.  Adjusting to a completely new culture just as your native country experiences the most devastating terrorist attack in its history is not easy.

As the years go by, there is much more I need to add to the story.  The blog post above gave me some wonderful ideas how I can go about doing just that.  Reading what I wrote eight years ago, the raw nature of my writing surprised me.  It just came spilling out.  I think it is time to revisit and expand on the topic.

I apologize for the silence Friday and yesterday.  Nothing I planned to write seemed appropriate.  In so many ways we have not moved on as a nation.  Sometimes I wonder if we ever will truly grasp exactly what happened on that horrible day nine years ago.

My Story of September 11, 2001

Lindsey