Mathias on the windmill
Our mini-hayride
This past summer, Henri, a member of the Tau House community, spent some time with me up in Ohio. He offers his reflections below.
The great thing about vacations is that they give memories meant to last. Since it still feels like summer in New Orleans, I think it's still OK that I offer a blog here about mine.
Billy Edwards invited me up to his family's place called Crystal BrookFarm, near Chagrin Falls, Ohio. It’s some 40 "motorist" minutes outside of Cleveland. I've
never been to Ohio. He invited me and is a gracious host. I needed to just see someplace new, to change my mind and the scenery. It's been a year since the house is repaired and we are back in it. So with those and so many other good reasons, I took the plane up to Ohio.
Is it cloying to say this was all a miracle for me? A different way of seeing my world? The day before I left, I went to visit a friend I met years ago on a Handicap Encounter Christ retreat. The miracle began when it turned out by accident and coincidence that of all the days I chose to see Mike again after 5 years, it was his birthday. I brought him a nice journaling book so my gift was a birthday gift and this was the first time that he, his mom and I all found ourselves in the same place. After she left, he treated me to dinner where we both didn't eat the liver.
I hadn't flown since ’02. and didn't feel like going through the TSA screening, but I was able to bring some of the blueberries for snacking that I had picked and also tea bags of my preference so it wasn't bad.
I landed at Akron/Canton airport some 5 hours later after changing planes in Atlanta. Billy picked me up. There at the farm waited Mathias Verheyen and his sisters Desiree and Sophie who had arrived the day before. All of us at Tau had met Mathias this past Mardi Gras. (Cf. blog entry below “Southern Hospitality”.) Here he was again, this time with his sisters, making a month long tour of the Midwest and Metropolitan corridors. This was a treat for them especially since Mathias had completed his soup kitchen work, Desiree had just graduated from university and Sophie had found a job in her field of counseling. It was also a treat for me to see Mathias again and to be here at Billy's family's farm after all these years knowing him only in New Orleans because of Tau House. I was here for all these good reasons and not out of the drama of the crisis of fleeing for one's own life.
So it was fun to so many different degrees: encouraging Sophie in her English as she encouraged me in my German; going to Chagrin Falls and checking out the waterfalls; shopping at an Amish farm road side stand for some fresh produce for the traditional German meal they would cook for us. Just looking out over lake Erie for the first time and just doing it though we were tired and couldn't decide what else to do. Walking through Cleveland on a beautiful sunny day (without New Orleans' humidity!) with Mathias thinking we could make the long trek on foot from Tower City down to the Museum of Art then but then deciding to take the bus instead. Meeting Billy's parents. Having the calm and silence at the farm interrupted twice by honking Canada Geese arriving to rest on the pond then also departing for their next leg of their journey. Taking a hayride and witnessing the chutzpah of youth as Mathias climbed up a windmill. Just being able to gaze out on a field, a pond and woods, noticing different butterflies and flowering plants that are indigenous to this part of North America. Picking flowers out the field - of which Queen Anne's Lace I had never seen before - for the place setting for the traditional meal of Kartoffelsalat mit Frikadel that Mathias, Desiree and Sophie prepared. And just enjoying this final meal with them on Saturday evening. They would leave early Sunday morning by Greyhound bus for NYC. Waiting with them at the station I was remembering how it was for me when I was that age and traveled around Europe with friends after we had completed our studies abroad...
The Falls at Chagrin Falls, Ohio
I was on my way to Columbus to see a friend who couldn't return to New Orleans because of Katrina and her health. The next miracle for me was that I accepted the complicated circumstances of what I would go through to get to see her, if only for just a couple of hours. I let go of what would be comfortable or the ideal situation for me and in the end I figured it out. I said good-bye to Mathias, Desiree and Sophie at 2:30 a.m. and then waited for my bus to leave at 4:30 a.m.
Henri André Fourroux III
With Billy's Family
