gypsycarol: Green Lake

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Green Lake

December 31, 2010 is a rare and fair, cold and sunny, day. Bare trees lace their arms against the sky and the choppy water of the city lake shivers itself blue. My face and ears are freezing cold and I envy the bearded chaps with puffs of hair on their faces for insulation. Above, a helicopter rotors a distant background rumble as I overhear bits of conversations, "symphony," "ashram," "wrong color," "Keep doing it." To me, Green Lake is the center of the city, the place to go to see the Seattle people, and sometimes you even see your friends.

Everyone, child, adult, pram, and bicycle, passes me by. Dogs in sweaters, hats, outfits, dogs are part of the parade. Runners' shoes thump on the pavement, and the air disturbance shoots a few zippy, trippy endorphins in my direction. Maybe that is what keeps me going, walking as fast as I can.

Nowadays, no one walks with me; I am slow. With increasing neuropathy, I attend to my stride and the ground ahead, doing the best I can. In the past, my sisters, sometimes all three of them, walked with me. Many years ago, we sometimes saw our father, in his eighties, running. For some reason, he wasn't supposed to run, so we hid or pretended we hadn't seen him. Even yet, a ghost of that memory will trot him past the outside corner of my eye.

The sun is out at Green Lake. Next time, I'll bring my ear muffs.
Happy 2011.

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Born in Spokane, Washington, the first decade of my life I lived downtown in the hotel my father managed. There, my friends were retired musicians, artists, dancers, and I even had trendy lessons in elocution. We moved to a tough urban neighborhood and then to a house in the suburbs where there was a swimming pool and places to ride a bicycle. School bored me and my grades were mediocre, until I began at the University of Idaho. At seventeen, I found I loved learning – I had always read – the Friday afternoon beer fests, and joined Alpha Chi Omega. I married, had two children, divorced, and, with a passion to understand people, what they are like, how they behave, and why. I went to graduate school at the University of Washington in anthropology. In Seattle, I met the inimitable Lola and began fieldwork with the Machvaia Roma. An elusive people, they piqued my curiosity. I dove into their world and became the Outsider/Insider. They called me The Djuhli. Recent publications? Lola’s Luck: My Life Among the California Gypsies and the Church of Cheese: Gypsy Ritual in the American Heyday.

Now I live again in Seattle near my family and far from Gypsies. For forty years, studying, living with, writing about the Machvaia Roma was my mission. Although I still feel part Machvanka, nearly all my dearest friends have moved along to the Other Side and, to get the Gypsy news, I must phone their children and grandchildren.

Several mornings a week I do aerobics at the local YMCA, row there on occasion with one sister, visit the Asian Art Museum with another, walk at the nearby zoo, Green Lake, or in the new habitat restoration wetlands at Magnuson Park, drive my at-work son crazy with questions about computer glitches, read The New Yorker cover to cover, shop the Coop every Tuesday for organic produce with my daughter, check out used DVDs for sale at Scarecrow – I like French movies – and work the crosswords in the NY Times.

Machvaia rituals, beliefs, and the cultural supports that kept them together are eroding. After generations in American society they have lost many of their traditions and knowledge of their past. It is my wish to preserve their history and help bridge the gap between the two worlds. They have entrusted me with their friendship, and I honor them the best way that I know how- by telling their stories. I hope those who read my blog will share some of my fascination for the people I studied and gain a modicum of compassionate regard for the Gypsies among us.