Perspective

There’s this mountain.

I’ve loved it most of my life. Massive and solitary, it seems to rise up out of the desert floor, looking like a battleship. I think they should have named it Battleship Mountain or maybe  . . . no, that’d be the perfect name for it. Instead, somebody gave it the moniker Superstition Mountains, or to the fit hikers who traverse its many hidden trails, it’s simply called the Supes.

There are legends surrounding this iconic mountain with its mysterious sounding name, mostly dealing with a gold miner named Jacob Waltz who reportedly found the mother lode back in them thar hills near Apache Junction, Arizona, in the late 1800’s, but never disclosed the location to anyone. After he died in 1891, the hunt was on and, over the years, it’s been reported that many people died under mysterious circumstances in their quest for the gold there. Probably should have stuck to qualifying for the Olympics—it’s safer.

You might recognize this range if you saw it in an Arizona calendar. In some photos, the front of this igneous formation seems to slope up and backward like a ship’s bow, while the rest of the mountain, naturally higher than its bow, leans back like a cruiser powering its way across a dry desert floor—like a ghost ship on the horizon. Every once in a while, when the snow level drops to two thousand feet or less, the entire length of this mountain turns white, and the clouds that hover above it look like white smoke as they roll back away from this rock ship’s stacks. That’s my favorite view of the Supes—when nature goes overboard with the props that enhance its battleship illusion.

How’s that for a solid perspective? But even though I live southwest of this mountain where the profile I see everyday is the one I just described, the Superstitions aren’t one dimensional. They are multi-dimensional. I’ve viewed this wilderness area from the sky, from the north, from its base, and from a few other locations I’m incapable of explaining because I basically have little to no sense of direction. But trust me when I say that my favorite perspective of the Supes is still only one side of them.

There are other sides. And if you were to drive me blindfolded to one of those other sides without telling me where we were headed, then ask me to identify what mountain I now faced, I don’t think I could do it. Because that range is not a battleship. It only looks like one from where I live. Which, as I said, is the side I prefer to admire.

But what if someone lives north of the Supes and never once sees what I see from my perspective? Whose view is the right one? Is there a right one? Or maybe it takes each of us, looking at as many sides as possible, to really discover what makes up this unique mountain.

I can be very passionate about my point of view. I’ll bet you are about yours, too. It can be challenging to put my views on hold long enough to listen well to the perspective of someone else, but it’s worth it. I don’t have to change your point of view. You don’t need to change mine, either. Maybe I’ll drive around and explore the north side of the issue sometime and, if the time is right, I may even find that I like that view better. But even if I don’t, it’s becoming clear to me that there are good reasons we all have our points of view. Right now, I simply live on the south side of the Superstitions, which explains why I think it looks like a battleship. And there are good reasons why someone else may describe it as a cluster of rugged pillars. Or the open mouth of a dinosaur. It all depends on where they’re standing now and where they’ve stood before. There’s no reason for me to feel threatened by another point of view. We’re just telling one another what we see and how we perceive things from that position.

I have friends who are fond of saying that my perspective is a hundred per cent accurate all the time. They also say theirs is accurate a hundred per cent of the time. Which I thought was confusing until I considered this mountain. But now, I think I get it. The point isn’t for me to win you over to my side, or you to win me to yours. The point is for us to listen well, comprehend someone else’s point of view, and above all, respect the place where we each stand.

That’s what I think, anyway. It’s just my perspective from this side of the mountain.

Shock and Awe

Three days. Three women. Two silos. One road trip. No itinerary.

Men hate trips like that. They want to schedule everything. No deviation, no surprises. Just one big plan—drive straight through with no bathroom breaks. Well, we made a plan. It looked like this. “Drive to Waco and . . . dowhateverwewant!”

Plans are for architects. Serendipity is for women. And we serendipitized Waco. Shock and Awe. It was the no-plan plan. I am still in shock.

The truth is, this was my third trip there. My sister Lynette and I first saw the majestic, gleaming twin icons of the Silo District together two years ago. We were so starstruck during that experience, we even asked the college girl behind the counter at Magnolia Market for her autograph. We ate cupcakes at every meal for the whole weekend, hogged the giant grown-up swing in the courtyard for about, oh, forever, and went home with bruises from pinching ourselves so much. “We have to come back to Waco!” we exclaimed when the trip was over.

My husband, who admits to giving up his man card to watch girl TV with me sometimes, enjoys fixer upper shows.  Merely an appetizer before the main course of golf tournaments and zombie movies, still he watches them. He wanted to see Waco, too. So, at the end of a road trip last spring, we stopped by. It was . . . disappointing. Screaming hot the afternoon we arrived, the line at the bakery was a mile long as was the line at the newly opened Magnolia Table restaurant, so we skipped both. The next morning, typical of the Midwest (“if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute”), temperatures fell to forty degrees and rainy, we spent the day freezing to death, and I came home with a cold. “I’m not that impressed by Waco,” my husband said. He’s not really a cupcake kind of guy, so I understood.

I, however, am smitten by this town. The only way to enjoy it, though—forgive me, Baby—is with girlfriends. It’s the truth. Shopping is a sport for women. Just like I don’t enjoy feeding worms to smelly fish for hours on end in case I snag something I don’t even want to eat, men don’t enjoy wandering through a room full of things they never knew they needed. It’s that whole itinerary thing again. I’m not looking for anything in particular, but I’m pretty sure I’ll find it anyway.

Pam—my sister from another mother—and Lynette and I are professional shoppers. When that weary patrolman pulled us over in Alamogordo, Pam explained our rate of speed by telling him, “There’s a shopping crisis in Waco, and we’re the Shopping Crisis Management Team.”

He blinked a couple of times, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay. Drive safe.” I’m pretty sure that guy is a married man.

We hit the ground running our first full day in the District. Ignoring the smell of fresh pastries and caramel corn in the air, we burst onto the busy scene inside Magnolia Market and immediately lost track of Pam.

Engulfed by hundreds of people in the two-story converted cotton gin, it was easy to do. One minute you’re inspecting a bouquet of stems covered in cotton bolls, and the next thing you know your sister has disappeared, too. There’s no point in searching for them, though. All aisles lead to checkout and if there’s one thing I know about women shoppers in Waco, it’s this—you gonna buy somethin’.

We met up with loaded bags, went outside, and immediately realized we were on the verge of starvation. All those food trucks lining the perimeter of the marketplace told us so. We found a picnic table in the shade of the Silos, dumped our treasures, and one by one zoomed in on our lunch options. Alabama Sweet Tea in take-home Mason jars, macaroni and cheese, chicken salad on croissants, and—drum roll, please—CUPCAKES.

I would drive all the way to Waco, Texas, through one thousand miles of cops and desert and dinky, deserted towns just for one chocolate cupcake piled high with white icing. And I did. And I will do it again. Unequivocally, Silos Baking Co. has the best cupcakes I have ever put in my mouth, and sister, I have put some cupcakes in my mouth. If you aren’t an icing lover, you will completely disagree with me, but you will no longer be my friend. Just hand over your cupcake and have a nice life.

My husband knows how much I enjoy shopping with my sister Lynette. He also knows Target and World Market have a picture of Pam and me posted on every store they own in these lower forty-eight. Not because they admire us, but because they fear us. In particular, they fear Pam. In particular, I also fear Pam and my husband Rob knows that. His bank account knows it keenly. 

He warned me to be careful. “You know how she is with shopping carts,” he said. I know only too well. And that’s the reason I had a secret conversation with my sister. “No matter what Pam does, you have my back, right?” The little liar held up her Girl Scout hand and swore she did. It was just an empty promise. She was never a Girl Scout.

Last year, while Pam and I were touring the aisles of World Market, I had a shopping cart and Pam had a shopping cart. That was my first mistake. From now on, I will always put my crap in her cart, and here’s why. When I got home and Pamela was safely on her way back to Tucson, I emptied my bag of goodies on the kitchen island and discovered a four-dollar cookie cutter of a nekkid man that I did not buy. Not on purpose. Immediately I knew who to blame.

Did you put a cookie cutter in my cart? I texted my sticky-fingered friend.
I don’t know what you’re talking about.
You’re lying.
Okay, I did.
You owe me four bucks!
Whatever.

She still owes me four bucks. And every time we go shopping together, by the time I end up at the checkout counter, there are always weird things I’ve never even seen before in my cart. Usually, I catch them before I pay for them. But, I’m getting old. And tired. And Pam is younger than me and works out. I need my own shopping cart. I also need a security guard to keep her from throwing things in my cart while I’m reading the ingredient list on a tube of toothpaste. That’s why I enlisted Lynette to watch my back. She promised. Don’t forget that.

I know, we were the Shopping Crisis Management Team. But Pam has a secret motivation for shopping—she is a peculiar kind of kleptomaniac. I don’t really know what to call her disorder. It’s not that she steals things—she doesn’t. She’s as honest as the day is, well, she has a great smile. And she’s as devoted as they come unless she’s shopping with a friend. Then she’s sneaky. And I’m a slow learner.

While we were in Waco, I needed a couple of things from Target. While Pam parked, I grabbed a cart and ran into the store before she could follow me, leaving her and Lynette to their own devices. But I felt safe. Lynette had my back. I breathed a sigh of relief and leisurely searched out the three or four things I needed. Suddenly my phone lit up.

           Where you is? Pam’s about to page you!
          Don’t let her do that.

Pam has had me paged at least three times over the years, usually calling me Red or Mike over a store’s intercom. I’d refuse to respond but it always cracks me up. I mean, who does that? Once, after we’d been shopping together, we were in separate cars and went through a Starbucks drive-thru on our way to the next store. When I reached the drive-up, the nervous barista shoved my drink out the window, eyeing me suspiciously as I reached for it. “The car in front of you paid for your drink,” she whispered, pointing at Pam’s departing Cadillac. When I met up with Pam later, she said she’d told the girl I have mental problems, that she felt sorry for me, and for the teenager to be careful when she gave me my beverage. I’ve never returned to that Starbucks.

My phone lit up again.

She’s looking for the bathroom! But she’s thrown stuff for you in my basket.
Dump the basket. I’ll bring you another one.
Ok! I don’t actually need one-I only have 2 things.
Just walk away. She’s some twisted kind of claustrophobic.
What? You mean kleptomaniac?
Whatever.
I’m headed to the bathroom now. Pam’s alone and on her own.
Genuflecting as we speak.
But you’re not Catholic!
I am now.
Run!!!

It was too late. Pam found me in cosmetics, and by the time I found what I needed she’d filled my cart with sprinkler heads, cauliflower, a family size pack of toilet paper, and disappearing ink. I scooped it all out and left it on an end cap, but I had to go down one more aisle before I could make a run for the checkout lanes. Lynette showed up just as Pam put one arm on the counter in aisle seventeen and in one swift swoop slid everything on the shelf down into my cart, doing a high five with herself when nothing fell on the floor.

That’s when I gave up. Defeated, I dropped my head and my arms and stood in the middle of the vitamin aisle like a bird-pecked scarecrow, useful to no one, harassed to the point of exhaustion while Lynette held a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter. Pam had won. She quit throwing bandaids in my cart and grinned in victory at my undoing.

I plucked it all out, tossed it randomly on the shelves, and pushed my humiliated cart to the courtesy counter where a wide-eyed pubescent clerk stared at the three of us with our matching renegade baseball caps and asked, “Did you find everything you need?” Pam whipped a bag of plastic Easter eggs out of her back pocket and handed them to the confused kid while I shook my head.

“No,” I told him. “I don’t want those eggs. What I need is a pair of handcuffs to control that lady, but you guys don’t carry those.”

He handed me my receipt, wished me a nice day, and disappeared into a back room. I grabbed my bags and glared at Lynette.

“I thought you had my back.”

She laughed and said, “Well, I can’t be everywhere.”

Later that night as I checked my Target purchases in the hotel room I shared with Lynette, a pair of yellow rubber gloves fell out of one bag. I picked them up and stared at my sister.

“You just stood there while I paid for these?”

“No, I stood there and watched while Pam paid for them and then put them in your bag.”

I went to Pam’s room and threw them on her bed. Three days later when I unpacked my suitcase, the rubber gloves reappeared. I texted my sister.

            You’re fired as my bodyguard.
            Why, did you find the gloves?
          You said you had my back!
            I say a lot of things.
          So, you’re nothing but a double agent!
            If the rubber gloves fit . . .

I haven’t decided if I’ll take either one of them with me the next time I visit Waco. You think you know who your friends are, but in a free-wheeling sport like shopping, you can’t trust anybody. Especially women.

I bet men never lie to their friends like that about fishing.








Thanks to TripAdvisor for the use of the cupcake photo. I was in a feeding frenzy and forgot to photograph my dessert ahead of time.