Evolutionary Telephonics

The best telephone I ever had was the Snoopy phone my parents gave me for Christmas when I was a kid. I long had a thing for Snoopy, Charlie Brown's imaginative, intelligent pet. I collected Snoopy stuffed animals. I had a Snoopy lunchbox. I owned Snoopy folders and posters and stickers and stationery and the only thing missing until that blissful, perfect Christmas was a Snoopy telephone.

I recently tried to count how many telephones I've had since, but it was impossible. I moved around a lot. I lived in something like 33 different places by the time I turned 33, got married, and moved onto a sailboat. Most of those temporary residences came with Princess phones belonging to roommates who'd arrived before me (and stayed on after I left). A mobile phone didn't enter my atmosphere until 2005. I'd barely switched from a wall phone with a tangled cord to the wireless remote contraption that gave one the surprising freedom of walking around the house - even sometimes as far as the porch! (Those years on the sailboat, during which our only oral communication was through a Ham radio or VHF, delayed my telephonic evolution considerably.)

In fact, I still owned - and more astonishingly, was still using - the Snoopy telephone in 1999. It may be hard to picture a 30-something woman talking on a toy, but there you have it. I only sold it at a garage sale because I was moving onto the marital boat. I almost burst into tears when I took the limp five dollar bill from the early bird shopper who scooped Snoop away from me. I still sometimes wonder why I didn't put that old relic in a box to store in my parents' attic, to cling to that piece of my childhood with the same ardor I now associate only with hoarders. But where would I put it today? And furthermore - where is the telephone jack in my house?

Much like the rest of the world, I now have a cellular phone that slips into a pants pocket or purse or slides carelessly down the crack between the car seat and console. It's my fourth since 2005 and my "everything" phone. It's embarrassing to pull out. It seemed so hip and modern when I got it, but it's already obsolete. It's not Smart. It's not 3G. Its camera is pitiful, there's no swipey feature, you can't talk to it and create a text. I try never to pull it out in the company of iPhone users. I doubt I'd be openly ridiculed, but I fear they'd think less of me.

I wonder what Snoopy would think of all this. His cartoon represented something to me, sitting on top of his little red dog house banging away on a manual typewriter. "It was a dark and stormy night..." He was an author whose walls were lined with rejection letters, like me. Snoopy lived in a dream world of his own invention, the same way I do whenever I can get away with it. He didn't even know he was a dog. He was Joe Cool in sunglasses and the Flying Ace in goggles; he was a shortstop, an attorney, a grocer, an Olympic figure skater... the sky was the limit for that little dog.

Sigh. I miss my Snoopy phone. But I'm becoming someone who only looks forward, not back. Eventually, I'll get a Smartphone. Perhaps, in quiet tribute, I'll find a cover for it that bears Snoopy's image, for old time's sake.

Three Wishes

Mt. Helgafell

In western Iceland, near the village of Stykkisholmur, there's a small mountain called Helgafell. Icelanders of the Viking Age worshipped at its altar, believing the god Thor resided inside.

Helgafell features prominently in an Icelandic saga - one of the many historic tales that vividly describe the challenges early settlers faced. This one is the only saga believed to have been written by a woman. It's the kind of murder and vengeance story Shakespeare would have written - had he been Icelandic and lived in the 11th century.

A woman named Gudrun Osvifrsdottir is declared the most beautiful in all of Iceland. She keeps getting married, and the marriages keep ending badly. When Gudrun's on her third husband, Bolli, she persuades him to kill Kjartan, the guy she really wanted. Then she gets Bolli killed by Kjartan's vengeful brothers.  Finally, she marries Porkell, and he drowns.

Somewhere in there, Icelanders convert to Christianity, and the Viking altar turns into a church. Gudrun converts, too, and immediately acquires enough guilt to admit, "To him I was worst whom I loved most." Then she becomes the first nun in Iceland, a recluse when she dies. This, despite all previous mayhem, makes Gudrun a heroine, and they bury her at the foot of Helgafell.

That's 1008 - as in, the year 1008.

Like almost anywhere you go in Iceland, Helgafell is a mystical, magical place. Here, you have the opportunity to stand at Gudrun Osvifrsdottir's grave with a pure heart.  Then you climb Helgafell (which is easy - it's only 73 meters high), but you can't talk, look back, or even turn your gaze side to side. (Think: Orpheus getting the hell out of Hades.) At the top, stand inside the ruins of the Viking altar/Christian church, face east, and make three wishes. After that, talk as much as you want, dance around, turn cartwheels, whatever strikes your fancy. Just don't tell anyone what you wished.

If I'd known Gudrun made what amounted to a deathbed conversion, that that was what made her a heroine, I doubt I would have bothered with the ritual. As it was, blissfully ignorant on my last day in Iceland with my friend Wendy, I urged her to participate with me on our way to the airport. And I thought hard about my wishes as we looked for the grave. I knew exactly what I would've wished when I was 27: May I be a wildly successful author with a bestseller. May I live in Santa Barbara with an ocean view. May I marry Tom Cruise before he converts to Scientology.

Wendy made her wishes outside the altar -
will they still come true?

As I began to climb, I laughed at the younger me, her grandiose and selfish desires. What would I wish for today? I couldn't think of anything I particularly wanted, other than to actually hike for ten minutes without speaking or looking back. I'm infamously voluble and I dwell in the past, so arriving at the ruins both silent and looking forward felt like aspirations already achieved.

Of course, I can't talk about what I actually wished, but I can give three hints. I don't want for anything at this point in my life. I like where I live. And L. Ron Hubbard can have Tom Cruise.

Road Trip Back

Should you ever desire to feel like a kid again, you don't need to have a midlife crisis and bungie jump or skydive or climb all the 14,000 foot mountains in Colorado. You just need to take an 1,800 mile road trip with your parents.

I was 4 days into my 6-day journey across the nation with Mom and Dad before it occurred to me that I wasn't cursing. If you know me, you know I have a potty mouth. I swear like a sailor. I have tried many strategies to break this filthy habit - or at least, cut back to half a pack a day - to no avail. The best I could do was not swear in front of my students, their parents, or the principal at my school.  It's disturbing how significant an accomplishment this is.

My parents are not prudes. They cuss sometimes, they do. I just don't think I've heard either one of them say sh%# or f*+k or a#%*=le. My top three, if the truth be told.

One thousand miles and I hadn't said the f-word in four days. Even when I was behind the wheel. Not only that, my speech was peppered with words like dangit and shoot. I was no longer a crusty old foul-mouthed codger! I was sweet and prim and - dare I say - girlish in my manner!

This is how she looks at me.

Then my mom insisted on paying for everything. It didn't matter that, of the three of us, I'm the only one gainfully employed. "I don't want you to spend your hard-earned money," my sweet mother said every time I whipped out my credit card. I'm pretty sure her money was hard-earned, too. Still. I'll never not be her little girl.

Finally, there's this: I'm pretty sure it's not just my folks who believe, no matter how many years their child has been driving, said child just left the DMV with her learner's permit.  Mine appear to have forgotten that I lived in San Francisco for seven years, where I became an expert parallel parker. Passengers actually admire my work, like an art form.

Never have I felt more vigorously youthful than on Beale Street in Memphis, where I spotted a slightly cozy space in which to squeeze my parents' new Kia Sorento. They both advised me -

I'm the 47-year-old teenager on the right.

simultaneously - how to get into the spot. Since I was unresponsive to their harmonizing (because it took all the will power I had to refrain from cursing), my dad got out of the car to direct me with complicated hand signals.

Thirty-two years shaved off, just that easily. I felt 15 again. Right back where the troublesome fledgling adulthood began. Hmmmm... Does anyone know where I can buy a pack of clove cigarettes and get my hair dyed pink and green? Because I am ready to bust out the curse words and

PAR-Tay!