Ariele-Carlos
Well, as expected, the day did include a crime scene with yellow tape, just not at a party in the way I had imagined it (in a previous blog)...
I had the day off and at 11am it was time to pick up my daughter from the bus station. She was returning from Dallas where she went the day before to see a killer concert. I was so glad to know she made it on the bus home safely because she was determined to go alone to Dallas this time, and also no one to meet her when she arrived there and she also planned to attend the concert alone. She was hoping to have a chance to see the person she wanted to talk to while she was in Dallas but it never worked out. She left at 4:30 am to take the bus there, after a six hour bus ride wait all day downtown for the concert to begin after only a couple of hours of sleep, then make it back to the bus station after the concert ended at around 1:00am and get on the next bus home which didn't leave Dallas until 6:30 am. Her cell phone died before she made it back, but she finally made it safely back onto the bus.
I arrived downtown near the Union bus station 40 minutes early. The street from the Greyhound station going west two miles is one of the most dangerous areas of town. Many of the homeless men who are addicts and alcoholics congregate there, drink and sometimes fights break out. This morning there was already a crime scene van, several police cars, the coroner's maroon car and all the usual yellow tape. Just then I got a call on my cell phone from an unknown number. It was my daughter, "Mom, where are you?" I said, "I'm just getting to the bus station, where are you?" She said she was at a corner down the street from the bus station where she had walked to find a phone. It turned out to be the same corner as the crime scene. I said, "What?! Are you okay? did you know there has been a murder there?" She said no, she didn't see any ambulance. I said, "Didn't you see the crime scene van and the coroner's car?" She said, "No, I just saw some policemen with clip boards and I asked them where I could go to use a phone." I said, "Okay, stay there, I'm at the next corner and I'll be there as soon as I turn around. I just passed the corner where you are." She said, "I'll just walk and meet you down at the McDonald's, it'll be easier." (The street from the corner where she was all the way going toward McDonald's is truly one of the worst streets in town and she wanted to walk through just after a murder.) I said, "DO NOT leave that shop until I get there please... I'm right outside." She didn't understand why it was dangerous and yet she just spent a whole day and night alone in Dallas in the same kind of area of town and her cell phone died before she made it back... I think I'll have that birthday drink now.
Ariele was hungry and although tired she wanted to go with me to our favorite restaurant, Tokyo's, and we had a beautiful and triumphant lunch where she told me all about her adventures and the concert in Dallas. I had their famous box lunch with some chilled Pearl Silver sake in a small glass that fits into a masu, which is a little wooden box. They pour the sake to overflow the glass into the box and when the cup is empty, the extra sake is poured from the box into the cup to end it. It is symbolic for good fortune to overflow in your life to have sake in this traditional way, which I didn't know until they told me later. The lunch was beautiful as I sat basking with the warm sun coming in over my shoulder and the presentation of the meal in an artful display which is always half the fun, and of course I enjoyed the company of my daughter too, even though we were both saying "Oh Crap! you/I just wandered through a crime scene!"
Kids are so precious, with usually good intentions and are so innocent to danger, sometimes oblivious. Life can be so beautiful in its innocence and yet sometimes so ugly and frightening too, some make it through and others are not so fortunate. The person who was killed was once someone's child. I felt fortunate that my daughter made it home safely. She is eighteen and she is determined to do things her own way, which can be good and also frightening for a parent. I have determined to believe for the sake of my sanity that the 40 year old "crack addict" lady who lives under the bridge in Dallas, who befriended her on her way back from the concert to the bus station while she was there was really an angel with a few bruises. Ariele bought the lady breakfast at the bus station in Dallas before coming home, she kept saying that Ariele must be an angel, which made my day.
Ariele was too tired to wait for me to finish my sake, and since I had to drive I didn't get to "end it" in the traditional fashion, but that leaves some extra to share a toast with you to good fortune and the future.
One of my questions at lunch: So, how does an eighteen year old pack for a bus trip to Dallas?
A: "A backpack, a cell phone, iPod with earbuds, a fake mustache, super cool shades, a fairy princess toothbrush, brass knuckles, pepper spray, cigarettes, some cash and I.D., deodorant, "Kaddish" by Allen Ginsberg, Rumi's book, "The Glance" a book by H.R. Giger, and a clean change of clothes." (This alone tells me she's growing up. When she was nine we went to Mexico. After packing her bag for the trip, when we got to our first stop in Mexico I found that she had removed all her clean clothes I packed and replaced them with her favorite toys while I was out of the room. I never thought to check it before we left!)
Mom's last tip for the next Greyhound trip: Don't forget the Billy Bob teeth we got in San Antonio on our trip to Mexico, you never know when that might help you out of a jam.
Ariele's response to my advice:
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