All by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde’s journey to sell her Santa Fe home took an unexpected turn when her friend Judie suggested sending a wish to another dimension—just as they had done 14 years ago at Cahokia Mounds to sell their St. Louis house. Through creative wish-making, from a Santa Fe river to a return visit to Cahokia, Laurie’s journey proves that faith, change, and a touch of magic can bring surprising results.
Not every trip goes as planned, especially during a pandemic. But if the success of travel can be measured by human kindness or a newly acquired bit of local lexicon, then Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde’s brief attempt at travel during COVID-19 was a win.
Only weeks after her mother’s passing, Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde traveled to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, on a previously scheduled vacation. San Miguel was also the place where twenty-four years earlier her mother had sought refuge from grief and Laurie finds memories of her mother everywhere.
When long lines and growling stomachs force Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde and her husband to abandon their plans to eat at a famous Naples pizzeria, serendipity delivers something even better.
by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
“I want to take my kids on a trip. We have to have ocean view rooms; it has to be all-inclusive; and it has to be a non-stop flight.” This was what my Mom wanted for her upcoming 90th birthday celebration which would be in the dead of winter. I’m not a person who does cruises or beach vacations. I like to explore, meet people, visit museums and cultural sites. But how could I refuse my Mom’s wishes, much less turn down an all-expenses-paid trip to a tropical island!
The irony of the whole plan was that my Mom is no beach bunny. “I really don’t like sand,” she says. She also shuns the sun, the result of 48 years of nagging from my dear father. But she’d lived in Florida and had spent time on the Jersey shore where she’d passed many an hour gazing at the waves and soaking up the ocean breezes. She was determined to see the ocean again.
Sunrise in Punta Cana.
When my Mom, her four children and our spouses all boarded the charter flight to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, I hailed it as a minor miracle. Mom had managed to get all of us, now in our 50’s and 60’s, to drop everything and take off together for a full week. Together - - this was more family togetherness than we kids had had since we were twelve years old.
by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
“Hi, son, do you need any pots?” I asked my son on the phone. I was standing on a hillside in the beautiful St. Croix River Valley. Dark clouds dropped cold, almost icy, droplets on us one minute; the sun shone the next. We were bundled up against the cold spring weather we had not anticipated when we headed up to the Minneapolis area for the annual St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour over Mothers’ Day weekend. Wooden planks which spanned sawhorses were the simple palette for a varied display of handmade ceramic pots.
Pottery for sale on the hillside outside Guillermo Cuellar's studio overlooking the St. Croix Valley.
My son replied quickly to my inquiry. “No, Mom, I don’t need any pots…And you don’t either!” He was probably right, but he was talking to a confirmed pot head. My husband Michael and I love ceramics, and it had taken us years to get to the pottery tour. We’d known about the Minnesota potters for a long time. Warren Mackenzie, American pioneer studio potter, taught at the University of Minnesota for a long time and inspired many students with his simple, functional, affordable pieces. We’d admired his work, read books about him and had managed to acquire a few of his pieces over the years.
Was it necessary for us to buy another pot by Warren MacKenzie or any other accomplished potter? To tell the truth, necessity hasn’t entered into our pursuit of fine handmade pottery since back in the late sixties when we bought our first pieces at the Ann Arbor Artist Guild sales. In more than forty years of marriage, pottery has been a passion for both of us.
by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
She was so vivacious and charismatic that I went up and introduced myself after the talk she gave. When I told her I was from St. Louis, she immediately asked, “Have you ever been to Cahokia Mounds?” “Well, my kids went on school trips... I’ve been meaning to go since they built the new visitor’s center...,” I muttered my reply. “You have to go,” she urged. “It’s one of the most wonderful, inspiring Native American sites in all of North America. Promise me you’ll go.” “Sure,” I said.
I met Judie in October 2009 when she spoke at a retreat for the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College at the lovely Tamaya Resort north of Albuquerque. Judie and I had an instant rapport, and, when we met for lunch in Santa Fe a week or so later, she again pressed us to go to Cahokia Mounds. Again we promised. But life intervenes, and by the time we returned to Santa Fe the following summer and called Judie to get together, we still hadn’t gone.
words + photos by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
“Maybe I will go to the car and get my tripod,” I said to my husband. We were at the edge of a mostly frozen pond, standing on snowpack, bundled up against the 19 degree cold in the pre-dawn dark. A glimmer of light was starting to show in the sky. We had staked out a spot in the line of tripod-wielding photographers with their mega-humongous lenses We were all waiting for the awakening snow geese and sandhill cranes to perform their morning “fly out.” We were at Bosque del Apache, a National Wildlife Refuge near San Antonio, New Mexico about an hour south of Albuquerque. It’s a place known to many serious bird watchers who throng to the area in the winter to watch thousands and thousands -- and thousands of snow geese and sandhill cranes come and go.
We are not avid birders, nor am I a zealous photographer. How could I be? I love taking pictures and dabble in PhotoShop, but I tote a point-and-shoot camera. It’s top of the line and somewhat flexible, but it’s still a point-and-shoot, and the SLR crowd look at me with some disdain. Much as I would love to use a digital SLR and be able to change lenses, my body just can’t schlepp that much weight. And my husband, despite my batting my eyelids at him, has turned me down flat. It was hard not to be intimidated by the very serious looking phalanx of expensive equipment lined up on tripods waiting for “the moment.”
Our home is now in Santa Fe, so we made the easy two plus hour drive to the Bosque (means “forest” in Spanish) the night before, aiming to get there in late afternoon in hopes of seeing the “fly in.” This is the time during the golden hour before the sun sets and the moments after sunset when tens of thousands of snow geese and sandhill cranes fly in. A foot of snow had closed the refuge a couple of days before, but the plows had sort of cleared the roads. The observation decks were still snow covered. The big problem was that there were limited areas of open, unfrozen water in the ponds, and the birds want to land on open water where they are safer from predators. The helpful folks at the visitors’ center can tell you where the birds landed the night before, but the birds don’t file a flight plan, so we can only guess where they might land tonight.
by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
We were walking in the Japanese Garden in the Missouri Botanical Garden on this brisk February afternoon. As we approached the wooden Flat Bridge -- which is a bridge over a narrow part of the lake where, in warmer weather, adults and children gather to feed the hungry koi who climb all over each other to catch the feed pellets – he ambled up to us. Since it was quite chilly, there were very few visitors and no children at all; just the three of us. The little guy seemed determined. He made it very clear that he was hungry and wanted Michael to give him some food. He kept a respectable distance but stayed at Michael’s side until he was sure his needs would be met.
photo by steffe via flickr (common license)His green cap shimmered in the late afternoon sun. His yellow beak never let out a squawk, but his body language and his movements were easy to decipher. The male mallard duck had waddled out of the lake with his mate and another pair of mallards, but, not finding food, they went right back into the water. The little guy was on a solo mission and he would not be deterred. He was serious about scoring food from his perceived benefactors, and he had no intention of sharing. He was in this all for himself!
With a few insistent pecks at Michael’s shoe, the duck herded him to the feed dispensing machine where a quarter bought a handful of little brown pellets of fish food. The ducks usually hang around to scarf up whatever the fish miss during their feeding frenzy, so the pellets worked as duck food too. Today, because of the cold, the koi were sluggish and not very interested in food. But this hungry mallard sure was.
Michael dropped the pellets on the path for our ravenous little friend, and even though they scattered, the duck found every little morsel and devoured them greedily. Figuring the other ducks might be hungry too, Michael ventured to the other end of the bridge to throw them a few pellets. Our friend wasn’t happy; he followed closely at Michael’s heels, impatiently waiting his turn for more pellets.
Why is it that the image of colorful clothes hanging on a line and fluttering in the breeze in a foreign country is so appealing and picturesque? I often grab my camera to snap a photo when I see it, but, somehow, when I have to do my own laundry in the same country, I consider it a chore. Dirty laundry. They say you shouldn’t air your dirty laundry, but when you’re traveling for more than a week or so, you have to get it clean somehow.
Maybe the ideal trip is 7-10 days. It’s possible to bring enough clothes for that amount of time. You come back with a suitcase full of dirty laundry and toss it in the washing machine. That’s the ideal trip length for some folks, perhaps, but it’s way too short for me! I prefer packing enough clothes for a few days in a small suitcase and taking my chances about getting them clean while on the road.
I’m always willing to have someone else do my laundry if the price is right. Laundry by the kilo at a lavanderia in the Galapagos was so easy! Drop off in the morning; pick up the same night. It comes back all neatly folded and wrinkle-free. It worked in the rest of Ecuador too. When we stayed in a place for a couple of days, we managed to find a lavanderia in the neighborhood. It was always much cheaper to schlep our clothes to the lavanderia instead of handing them over to the hotel desk. So, for about $10 or $12, we had clean clothes for our travels.
words + photos by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
This is a story about two walls. They are both in Israel. One is holy; the other I found to be horrible. In the short span of 24 hours I had an intimate experience with each of these walls.
The horrible wall is grey, massive and foreboding. It snakes over the hills and valleys, reminiscent of many photos I’ve seen of the Great Wall of China. But this is not a “great” wall. Its purpose is the same, however: to keep others out, to make a separation barrier between us and them. To enter Bethlehem we had to pass through the wall by first entering a large concrete building. A colorful sign outside said “Peace Be With You” in English, Hebrew and Arabic and was signed by the Israel Ministry of Tourism. I didn’t really feel like a welcomed tourist as we wound our way through chutes, past large turnstiles with lights that said “green” for “go” and “red” for “stop.” A flash of our American passports and we were waved on. We exited through a simple doorway to the other side of the wall, to a different world.
The wall towered above us, probably 20 feet. No longer just grey, the wall was covered with graffiti. The graffiti wasn’t just words, but artful angry pictures, one of a lion devouring what appeared to be a white dove with the English words “Stop the Wall” and “hypocrisy.” Instead of the field of ancient olive trees we’d seen on the other side of the wall, we were right in the midst of a neighborhood. A woman, her head covered, called to her daughter below from the balcony of her house just 40 feet or so from the wall. Children played in the street. We spent time with friends of our son Josh, Palestinians who work for peace but who are trapped on the island that is Bethlehem. We had coffee in Josh’s friend’s home where his mother served us cookies and proudly picked mint and lemon balm from her rooftop garden so we could savor the scent.
