Maria (muh-rye-ah), Maria, now that I can handle

I just finished watching Frida and everything is now back in perspective. Yes, yes, I will learn more about this woman. And Selma Hayek, too. She is on a mission to highlight the women of Mexico in American popular culture, yes?

Our short stay in Lake Maria State Park helped, too. We needed to get out of the city. Friday night I woke in a fright. Seriously. I remembered something I had written in a very important letter. I've been writing so many important letters lately. Letters of recommendation, letters of application. In this one, I don't know even know exactly why I used this particular place name--I really should have used the town name Pazardjik but I was in a rush and couldn't remember it right, so I used Sofia. (Juliloquy, you'll wonder what all this is about. It was a reference to our writing exchange with your Bulgarian and my American students.) So I used Sofia but instead I typed Sophia. And apparently, so did the Washington Post on December 20. I know that because Friday night I leapt out of bed, charged down to the Webster's 3rd International we have open on our credenza, and verified my mistake. It had come up in a dream I was having and in that dream there I saw my spelling error so clearly. Oh Sofia, Sofia! I Wikipedia'd my mistake and saw that the place name is often misspelled--saw even the online Washington Post errata column noting their error, too. Dammit. When I write these important letters I get carried away with my own enthusiasm and then I read the message over and over, forgetting to look over every single letter. It's the message I aim for, not the spellings. I think it's something I've been doing since third grade. One of my elementary teachers wrote on my report card that I was a good student and had a smart way of looking at things but that "Pamela makes careless errors in her work." I am doomed. I trudged back upstairs that midnight eve, not comforted by the fact that I'm not alone in my mistakes. The minute my husband woke the next morning I told him my woes. I hadn't slept well and look, look what I did! He said, "What will they think? Hey, it just shows you're human."

But luckily I was able to move on from Sophia to Maria. We were late pulling in to the park but there was still plenty of daylight when we checked in with the ranger. We forgot that access to the park trails and roads are different in the winter and instead of the quarter-mile hike into our cabin it was a full mile. They quit plowing the access road in winter and instead open it to cross-country skiers. My husband, with his new titanium knee and all, grabbed the plastic sled with our water jug and stove and a few other supplies. I put on the Duluth pack. We ran into a couple who had just stayed two nights in the same cabin and they assured us they had left it very clean and that the hike wasn't too bad, really.

You know how when you go out on an adventure and your traveling companion has something going on--they're afraid of flying or they hate not to be in charge or they suffer from low blood sugar--and you're so aware of this that all you can think of is their handicap or their discomfort and you forget entirely about yourself? It was all I could do to keep my focus on the snowy hill. I was so worried this would be too hard on my husband. Last time we had hiked was in Colorado and he was so cobbled and hitched-up it was a terrible sight to watch. But Sunday he pulled the sled up through the woods and around the bends and we only stopped a few times to catch our breath. I started to see the color come back in his cheeks. We both have been in the house too much lately. We came around the slough and saw the beaver dam and beyond that the simple roofline of the log cabin. When we got there, the wood was stacked neatly against the front landing and inside the cabin the wood floors were gleaming and the cast-iron stove was ready to be lit. We both agreed it hadn't been that long a hike. His knee felt great, he said. I took a deep breath and looked out over the hills. There is something I remember right about Bulgaria. Julie and her students had sent us a care package filled with cassette tapes of themselves and their favorite singers singing Bulgarian folk songs. And postcards of their homeland. And the red-and-white martenitsi: small, decorative pins, made of white and red yarn and worn from March (Marta) 1st until the 22nd of March (or the first time one sees a stork or swallow). The giving of the martenitsi is a Bulgarian tradition for welcoming the upcoming spring. The red and white woven threads are not just decoration, but symbolize the wish for good health, too.

We could have been wearing the martenitsi I kept from that care package. There is nothing like getting away together with an old friend, in the spring. Forget Sophia. Welcome Marta. And Maria, Maria. Now that I can handle.