Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [23]
We prepared a beautiful ancient meal. Over the fire, using only sticks and their hands, Leila and Shireen roasted meat, corn, and potatoes. Tanya chopped eggs with some cucumbers and tomatoes. I'd brought a watermelon and an angel food cake baked by the Mennonites who sell cakes at the farmers' market. Zeenat helped me lay out plates and cups of lemonade. I served the watermelon, which Meena declared tasty. We ate under the rustling trees. It was one of the finest meals of my life.
At sunset the sun was a great orange ball with a three-quarters moon rising. We sat by the river and watched the sun go down. The river darkened and the bats came out. Shireen sang an ancient Kurdish song. We allowed our senses to feast on the scene. It is one the oldest of human pleasures, sitting by water with friends, watching the sun go down, and feeling the earth cool. Nasreen quoted a Persian poet writing about water and sunsets as "the place where gold and silver waters blend."
Later we gathered around a fire. Shehla and Nasreen had prepared strong tea, chai in Kurdish, in a silver pot. I taught them to roast marshmallows on our shish kebab sticks. They enjoyed the process more than the results.
Leila said that before the Muslim prophet, Mohammed, the Kurds worshiped fire. We talked about all people's love of fire, about what an ancient experience it was to sit with your friends, full and safe, around a fire, looking at the stars and telling stories. There is no happier experience for us humans.
We fell silent watching the fire, each of us deep in our own thoughts, all of us made calm and reflective by the time and place, by the rituals of food and family. One by one we peeled off and headed for our beds.
The next morning I was up first. I made coffee and then watched as a hundred geese lifted off the Platte. They flew across the pale blue sky toward the delicate pastel sunrise. Gradually one sister after another woke up. We fixed tea and shared a simple breakfast of bread and cheese. Meena said the wind, coming through the cottonwoods, scared them in the night. When a train roared through they wondered if it was a tornado. Slowly and reluctantly we packed up. I was glad we had horseback riding to look forward to. Even so, Leila pretended to cry as we left, and Tanya looked like she could cry.
As we drove to the horse camp, everyone was talking and pointing, eager to ride. The wrangler helped the women onto their horses. The sisters looked nervous but thrilled. Shireen took all their pictures. Meena borrowed a cowboy's hat and we all laughed at her Wild West look. We rode on a well-worn trail along the Platte and under old burr oaks. We rode past a flock of wild turkeys and a meadow of sunflowers. At one point Shireen shouted, "Look at me. I am in Iran. Now I am in Turkey. Now I am in Kurdistan."
The others all pretended they were riding their horses through the countries they had lived in. Then they had been hunted victims, afraid for their lives. Now they were in Nebraska with new American jobs, clothes, and dreams. In a different century, they would have been mothers in arranged marriages living nomadic lives. I would have been an Irishwoman digging potatoes and cooking with peat. But this afternoon we were in Nebraska. Today we were free, waving to each other and imagined crowds of well-wishers, riding proudly past sunflowers and prairie grass, riding into a future we would share.
HALLOWEEN
The sisters wanted to see trick-or-treaters and carve pumpkins so we had a party at our house. It was good Halloween weather, windy and crisp, with the leaves blowing and branches hitting the houses in spooky ways. When I picked up the sisters, a storm was brewing in the west. It was snowing in the Sandhills, and Omaha had a tornado warning. Shehla was on the porch watching the sky. She ran toward me, shouting that she and Meena had passed their driving tests. Now three of the sisters could drive.
All the sisters came but Shireen,