Category Archives: Memory & Place

Downtown Cathedral

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The cathedral on a street corner downtown Hartford is unassuming on the outside. It’s easy to walk straight past it. It’s easy to walk straight past much in Hartford, a small city with large buildings which tower and preside over it. Financial institutions and insurance companies make their home in Hartford, and their buildings meld into one another. When experienced as a whole, their sheer height and the packed-in feeling of a tiny business district makes for a distinct indistinctness.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I have walked past the cathedral many times on my way to and from my downtown workplace. One day I looked at the place a bit closer. I was trying to find a church I’d heard of—one that owns the house that the poet Wallace Stevens lived in. I found myself at the cathedral, looking at it, and in it, for the first time.

The building is of a dark brown stone built in the gothic revival style some two hundred years ago, with a pointed pitched roof and high, arched doors on three sides. Venture in further and the doors open into the dark sanctuary. The walls are covered with frescoes and stained glass windows. Over the altar are miniature depictions of the symbols of the disciples and the shells of St. John the Baptist. On Sunday mornings the light streams faintly through the colored glass and the air is choked with incense. The curls of it rise up to the ceiling.

On Sundays I sit in my pew with the pew door carefully shut. I say carefully because the old wood has a tendency to bang against the jamb and it makes me want to run away, far and fast. Small talk and casual conversation, and indeed, casualness itself, are not in the fabric here. After the opening hymns and readings, the priest and acolytes process down the aisle for the gospel reading. The thurifer censes the book; clouds and puffs of thick scent waft into the air. And the priest scans the pages through the smoke and begins to read.

The cathedral reminds me of the church I left years ago. The seat of my childhood. That church is a mere sixty years old. It has been thoroughly modernized with proper plumbing and fresh expanses of white paint, and a state-of-the-art sound system for which the new sanctuary was designed. The pull of the cathedral, for me, is that it doesn’t get updated. It does remind me that it and the church I left exist in time. Time and space.

The cathedral seems to be getting smaller as new buildings rise around it. My old church gets bigger and newer, but its popularity waxes and wanes like air inhaled and then expelled from lungs.

One summer afternoon I sat with four other people on folding chairs on the tiny cement patio wedged between the cathedral and the rectory, with the sun shining hotly down on us. We were there for one of the midday concerts sometimes held during the week at the cathedral. That day a saxophone quartet, the artists in residence at the cathedral, played for an hour. The music was fresh and lively—a mix of klezmer and classical pieces transcribed for a sax quartet.

Memory tapped persistently at my mind again, of the kind of music played at the other place. The guitar and drum pieces punctuated in time by a short piece by Handel, played during the offertory. Short because the offertory is a slim, quick task there. At the cathedral it is all Handel, all Bach, all the time. The offertory there may be slimmer.

Time away from the old church has been good. I discovered the cathedral, which has been good. But like incense, once you’ve got it in your nose, you can’t unsmell it. You can’t unremember your memories.

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image1 (3)“Downtown Cathedral” was written by Elena Shekleton. Elena lives and works in Hartford and is moving across country to Colorado over the summer. She has a Masters in Comparative Literature for which she studied fairy tales and folklore and can say she is proudly acquainted with giants, dwarves, witches, clever princes, and enchanted cabbages from many different countries.

Rescuing the Past at a Run-Down Motel

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Two years ago I set off for an early morning walk along the Wildwood, New Jersey boardwalk in search of the most significant landmark from my childhood. It was the point around which my year revolved for a decade for our extended family’s annual vacation.

The sun was already blazing in the sky. The boardwalk narrowed, and then it stopped altogether, giving way to an asphalt walkway behind the dunes that seemed no match for the roaring ocean nearby.

After rounding a massive hotel that looked a bit more run down than I remember from over twenty years ago, I saw the familiar lit up palm trees on the horizon and the snack bar deck peeking out. I thought that the massive rock jetty nearby would tip me off that I was getting close, but the jetty was far smaller than I remembered. In fact, everything seemed smaller now: the beach used to feel like an endless desert, the tiny dunes had once appeared to be immovable barriers, and, most importantly, the Aloha Motel now appeared far less impressive and imposing.

boardwalkThis (apparently) rather small and simple motel was the destination of our family vacations every summer during early July. To my young mind, this motel was a palace of sorts. We set off for the beach each morning, making the “arduous” trek over sand dunes and across “scorching” sand in order to swim in the “freezing” ocean. At the end of the day, we’d return to the Aloha for a dip in the pool and then showers, before setting out for a night on the boardwalk. If our vacation coincided with baseball’s All Star Game, as it often did, my cousins and I would eat a late dinner huddled around the television.

Now, standing on the sea wall as an adult, with the Aloha before and the ocean behind, I imagined my grandfather shuffling along the first floor walkway in order to make our reservations for next year, wearing his large “Quinn” family hat. Pop was not one to be outdone in the planning department.

As I shifted from the magic and wonder of the past to the stark, underwhelming present, I found the magic of my childhood creeping up on me. My own child, back at a different hotel with my wife, was experiencing his first vacation in Wildwood. Just a year old, he couldn’t enjoy any of the rides or games that my cousins and I had experienced with pure joy, but just having a child of my own made my childhood seem more present. Everything was amazing back then.

Back then, every day felt like an eternity of waves, sandcastles, and beach games. Every dinner out for fried seafood or greasy pizza a culinary wonder topped off with Kohr Brothers custard. Every amusement pier promised an exhilarating rush.

That day, 20 or so years later, I could see the run-down Aloha Motel, the kitsch of the boardwalk’s games and rides, and details I don’t remember noticing as a kid, like people hauling coolers full of beer to the beach to get hammered while they tan. Left to my own devices, the present overwhelmed the magic of my memories that had all but washed away. Now that I had my son to consider (these days we have two sons), I couldn’t stop myself from filtering everything through his perspective.

On the one hand seeing the shore through my son’s eyes was a delightful delusion, but on the other, my son gave me a part of myself that could have been lost forever. The memories of the past roared back stronger and with greater clarity because I didn’t just see the pictures in my mind—I felt them.

I already could imagine him one day tearing around in bumper cars, zipping up and down on the airplane ride, or spending hours on a massive sand castle that won’t survive high tide. These weren’t just happy moments—these were the thrills that, in part, defined my childhood. As open as my eyes may have been to the more disappointing elements of the shore during that trip, through the lens of fatherhood I regained a childlike clarity that had once been my own.

Who’s to say which version is the better or truer one?

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EdC200“Rescuing the Past at a Run-Down Motel” is by Ed Cyzewski. Ed writes at www.edcyzewski.com about prayer, writing, and the ways they intersect. He’s the author of Pray, Write, Grow: Cultivating Prayer and Writing Together, First Draft Father, and A Christian Survival Guide. Find him onTwitter or Facebook.

Little Miss Sunshine

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I called my sister last week from a writing workshop.

“What are you writing about?,” she asked, making conversation.

I replied, “Oh….dancing.  And, the beauty pageant from high school.”  There was a heavy sigh in my voice.

With a touch of exasperation in her voice, she responded “It’s time for you to let that go you know…”

“Yah, I know.”

And I do.  But, whenever I think about it, it still stings.

tiaraEven though there wasn’t a pageant that year, my small town was asked to send a representative to the state Junior Miss competition.  Somehow, through the uncertain network of small town decision-making, the ladies called me.  I was the chosen one to represent our community.

Maybe it was a fulfillment of a childhood fantasy or the insistence of my mother or the honor of being chosen by the local powers, whatever the reason, I agreed.

As is possible in a smaller community, I was deeply involved in high school.  I had leadership positions in school clubs and was a dance assistant as a part-time job.  I was active in church and drama and even had a brief stint as a cheerleader for the wrestling team.   My country upbringing—where I was a big fish in a small pond—had not prepared me for what lay ahead.

During our meet and greet luncheon, one of the girls turned to me and asked, “What’s your talent?”  She was modestly dressed in a fashionable skirt that showed off her long legs without revealing too much.

“I’ll be dancing.”  What I meant was that I had borrowed a park bench and long overcoat and I had taken a piece of poster board that I made into a giant “book” entitled, “How to Dance.”   My loosely choreographed number would hit its peak when I ripped off the overcoat to reveal new-found dancing skills.  I had a basic plan, but it was ameteur at best. “And you?” I responded.

“I’ve recorded myself singing an aria and I’ll be dancing ballet on-pointe,” she smiled kindly, her perfectly smooth hair framing her lightly freckled face.  “A piece that I’ve choreographed myself.”  She was outrageously perfect.

The week of activities, rehearsals, and interviews was filled with similar interactions.  With every conversation, my sense of inadequacy grew.  I didn’t have the right clothes or aLittle Miss Sunshinen outgoing temperament.  I wasn’t up on current events or for that matter, pop culture.  I had only been to one foreign country.  I was hippy and full among a gaggle of skinny girls.

“At least I will have the grades,” I told myself. “I must be in the running with that.”  But no, somewhere along the line I realized that even my above-and-beyond GPA wasn’t going to be in the running.

The night of the pageant came. I did my awkward dance.  I stood on stage in my on-sale dress, the same one I wore to prom.  I did my best to hold my ground. I tried to blend in with the perfect girls. But, by the end of the show, I was done.

“You did SUCH a good job, Mary.  We are so proud of you,” my parents gathered around me as I gathered up my things.

In the silence of my teenage mind, I retorted “Then you are a fool.”  But, I smiled and responded, “Thanks. Can we just go home?”

“Absolutely.  Let’s go home!”   We made our way out to the parking lot and crawled into the minivan, covered with the dust of our dirt road.

A few weeks ago, my niece was in her first dance recital.  At three years old, it is evident that she is following her inner drummer—a strong-willed kid who doesn’t like to be told what to do.  She didn’t want to wear the costume, didn’t want to let go of her tattered Bear, and didn’t want to dance on cue.  As her family, we already knew that.

As the number started, it become evident to the entire audience.

She stood with her feet planted.  Not one single tap sounded off her feet.  Instead, she looked around and began to fiddle with the strap of her fish costume.

She didn’t shoulder shimmy or shuffle or shake. The girls beside her were moving around the stage but she stayed put.  Slowly, she slide her little arm from under the strap, letting one arm free from the itchy sequins.

“Oh, sweet baby, no….” my mom whispered under her breath, trying to mentally will her granddaughter into staying clothed.  “Please keep it on.”

The audience giggled a bit as she began to fiddle with the other side.

Before she committed to disrobing, the number ended and the girls lined up to form a choo-choo train and push my darling niece off the stage.

“I hope I didn’t scar her, “ my sister whispered across the line of family.

“Nah,” I whispered back, thinking of my strong niece, “she’ll be okay.”

The Act of Inverting

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I am in a new town, having finally made the first move of my life: 2,500 miles north to a place very different from what I’ve always called home.

On an old, oiled, well-marked wood floor, I practice a different style of yoga with a new teacher (although she has the same first name as my longtime teacher in the south). The studio is on the second story of a downtown office building that originally housed a hardware store. I position my mat in front of a window onto an alley, through which I can see a brick wall with beautiful patterns in it, a sky that is sometimes  blue and cloud-filled, sometimes gray and spitting, and a church spire. Crows remark upon my practice from the opposite gutter.

Today I lie on my back with my legs above me, against the wall. Now the window is on my right. This is the asana (or pose) called Viparita Karani, upside-down seal or “the action of inverting.” It is supposed to help with stress, headaches, and cramped or tired legs or feet, among other things. Today I am not particularly stricken with any of these maladies; I am simply following my teacher. But I have been here before. I close my eyes.

Five years ago: I am lying in legs-up-the-wall pose on the same yoga mat on a different and much newer wood floor, of lighter-colored wood, also on the second story, but in a newer building on a wide, busy street in Houston, Texas. Two walls of the studio are floor-to-ceiling glass, and earlier in summer and later in winter I watch the sun rise from this room at least one morning a week, in angry rain or transcendent color or pale haze. This class is very full; we are all very close to our neighbors. I brush hands with the woman on my left, turn my head in her direction, and smile. We clasp hands. Kristi now lives in Australia, and has a new baby I have not met. I miss her every time I practice yoga.

Three years ago: I am lying on a bed in a mid-rate hotel in Alexandria, Minnesota, with my legs up the wall. I have removed the pillow so that I can get right up against the bedframe, still not as close to the wall as I’d like, but close enough. I am wearing compression socks up to my knees after having just raced 100 miles on hilly gravel roads on my bicycle. It is my first bike race since knee surgery and I’ve done better than expected: it was a scenic ride, with friendly people, and I am blissful, transcendent. Superlatively drained and equally ecstatic, I hum with happy exhaustion. My husband lies to the left of me, in the same position. Our shoulders are touching. Soon we will get up and break down our bikes and pack them in boxes for the flight home, then go out for more food and celebratory beers. I will take a picture of the process, of the bike boxes open on the hotel bed, and comment that we have done this in more cheap hotels across the country than I can easily count.

Today I am in a new place, and I am lonely. I put my legs up the wall.

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DSC_2393“The Act of Inverting” is by Julia Jenkins. Julia is a book reviewer, librarian, beer drinker, dog lover, mountain biker and native Texan now residing in Bellingham, Washington. She thinks a lot about concepts of place and home. Her favorite color is green.

The Creek Less Traveled

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There were many bodies of water to enjoy and explore at my grandparents’ cabin—it was Northern Michigan, after all, where bodies of water are as common as fields of corn where I live now, in Central Illinois.

The small, inland lakes had their appealing features: sandy shores for digging, floating rafts to dive from, and glass-like surfaces that perfectly mirrored the evening sky until the canoe you paddled broke through the stillness.

But of the many tempting bodies of water, it was the creek that enticed me most. The creek had something the lakes didn’t: It had mystery, a destination.

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We called it simply The Creek, but on a detailed-enough map it has a proper name: Canada Creek. It probably winds for miles, but our encounters with the creek took place in the far upper-east corner of Michigan’s lower peninsula—right where the cuticle of your index finger would settle in the mitten-shaped map.

As elementary-aged kids, my older brother and I were allowed to walk together down a curving sand road until it became a one-lane bridge at the creek. The road was rarely traveled, like all the roads in the area—we were somewhere in the midst of 20 square miles of woods and water known as Canada Creek Ranch (only a fourth of which was dotted with a few hundred cabins).

At the creek, my brother and I stood on the bridge for a while, tossing stones into the water to hear them plink and plunk their varying notes. Then we slid and scrambled down the gravely bank to the creek’s shore, where we inevitably ditched our canvas sneakers and sweaty socks to wade in the cold, clear spring water. It was sandy and shallow by the bridge; I liked to stand very still, hoping a dragonfly might land on me, while the tadpoles investigated my toes.

But how long could a kid stand still in a creek? After all, the creek had places to go and things to show us.

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PICT0023I’m guessing that we schemed and planned our first creek walk when I was about seven, sitting around Grandma’s breakfast table, pancakes piled high and studded with wild blueberries we had picked the day before. I’m sure my brother and I were persuasive in our desire to follow the creek. Not only did it beg to be further explored, but the creek held potential for so many stories. The grownups were apparently just as intrigued, because a new summer tradition was born (one that continued into our teen years, as seen in the photo): The Creek Walk.

On Creek Walk day my brother and I set out as adventurers, eager to play the characters in our favorite books—to live out their stories, or more likely a compilation of their stories. Laura Ingalls, Davey Crockett, Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea each took a turn being embodied by us as we forged the stream.

Sometimes we talked through our stories as we walked, staying in character as we navigated over or under a fallen tree. At other moments I broke from character to yelp as I slipped on a rock and nearly went under, or to complain when my brother, leading the way, fooled us with his favorite trick: gradually bending his knees then walking on them until the water was up to his neck, which suggested it would be well over my head. (A few times he wasn’t joking, and it actually was that deep.)

And then there were spells when all of us were quiet, amazed by just how quiet the world could be, save for the swish of our legs displacing the water as we walked, and the song of a Goldfinch from somewhere above. Now that I think of it, I don’t recall ever encountering another person on our many creek walks.

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After three or so hours of pressing on, the heat and deer flies became more bothersome, as did the ache in our legs and the rumble in our stomachs. Grandma began searching for a place to exit the creek—an opening in the tangle of brush where the bank wasn’t too steep and we could make our way from the creek’s winding world into the woods.

How Grandma had any idea where we were, I’ll never know. But she had hiked and skied those acres for years, and could confidently point us in the direction of Little Joe, one of the remote lakes on Canada Creek Ranch. We followed deer paths or forged our own way in the direction she pointed, motivated by what we knew we would find at our destination: Grandpa, firing up the grill for hotdogs. Each year on Creek Walk day he put the cooler Grandma had prepared into the car and drove the two-track roads through the woods to meet us at Little Joe’s lone picnic table.

After our feast, we all packed into Grandpa’s car, soggy and worn, to drive back to the cabin. The hotdogs and the lift home were luxuries Sacajawea never had, but by that point I was ready to be a modern-day little girl again, tucked into bed where more creek adventures could be spun in my dreams.

The sign of windmills

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There’s a curve in the freeway, just where the old Dutch Windmill waves its cheerful arms at passers by. It is nestled on the eastern slopes of Cape Town’s table top mountain, a gentle arc of land once populated by quaggas but now home to students from every corner of the continent. The freeway snakes away from the city, and I knew each twist: hospital bend, the little plateau as the freeway parts into two, the slight rise before the arms of the windmill break into view on the left. Even my muscle memory knew the camber of the road, knowing just when to brake, just how much to nudge the steering wheel to take the corner gradually, before flicking on the indicators to signal my exit.

It happened one day, driving home just six weeks into a fledgling relationship, that I knew I would marry this man. He was not at all my type: quiet where I’d always dated extroverts, cautious where I’d formerly been drawn to confident certainty. Our first weeks of dating had been rocky, too: an old flame was in town and was causing trouble.

And yet, as I drove home from a stolen lunch of perfectly spiraled sushi rolls and contemplated the unlikeliness of it all, it was then I remembered a prayer I had prayed some years earlier: an uncomplicated prayer, that I would find someone who loved me for who I was, who loved God, and with whom I could talk and laugh. I cheekily added a fourth request: Please God, if it wasn’t too much to ask, could he be tall, too?

7307290624_d6aeb0dc08_zI laughed out loud at the memory, just as the windmill came into sight. No, he wasn’t the life of the party or a teller of jokes, but we certainly did laugh together. He wasn’t a reciter of sonnets or the maker of grand gestures, but his quiet patience in the midst of my ex-boyfriend-tornado spoke volumes of his commitment to me. Yes, he loved God, and—Oh God, you remembered!—he stretched six feet and two inches tall. A man to look up to, in every sense of the word.

The windmill bore witness to it all. I flicked on my turning signal, grinning to myself. I’d been slow to realize it, but this was the one with whom I could be silly and cranky, and who could see my fissures and not run. This was the one with whom I could grow old. I felt the winds of change and sensed a deep shift, a milling in my own soul.

I drove home that same route the next day, and the next, smiling each time I drove past that historic landmark, noting its milestone. Six months later I passed by my windmill in the passenger seat, this time dressed in white. I rested my hand on my new husband’s knee. “Do you see that windmill?” I asked. “This was where I first knew we would get married. Driving home. One day after eating sushi with you. And I just knew.”

He smiled and flicked on the indicator as we passed under the windmill’s shade. Ever as always, it signaled home.

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bronwyn lea umbrella“The Sign of Windmills” is by Bronwyn Lea. Bronwyn and her husband married and moved from Cape Town to California, where they now live with their three littles. Bronwyn writes about the holy and hilarious at bronlea.com, as well as other online places like SheLoves, RELEVANT, the Huffington Post and Christianity Today’s Her.meneutics. She is a member of the Redbud Writers Guild. Occasionally, she gets back to South Africa and always makes sure to drive by the windmill (pictured above, photograph by Ian Barbour). Follow Bronwyn on Facebook and Twitter.

90 Miles

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I have the full lips of a good Cuban woman, wide hips that twitch at the sound of a Latin beat. I am red hot passionate, with an eyes-flashing, arms-waving temper. The sea is the only place I feel blood-rushing peace.

Yes, Cuba is inside me, whether I like it or not.

We flew through the skies one late July night. Surrounded by lightning and carried by turbulence, our entire California family landed in Miami well past bedtime. It was a journey of cultural homecoming for some in our group, and a first exposure for the rest of us. There in our two-star motel with its questionable swimming pool and a not-great view of the beach, I first understood just how wide are the borders of Cuban familia. We welcomed a parade of relatives, long ago friends, and friends of friends–categories that might as well cease to exist at the table a Cuban abuelita. Familia is familia. Everyone’s in.

Two weeks of all-day swimsuits and every morning breakfasts at IHOP are a blur in my memory now. I was only nine-years-old and not sure what to make of this place so different than my white-bred, dry-heat California hometown.

One half of a morning stands out in importance and recollection, however. After travelling to Key West, we found ourselves staring into the leaves of the southernmost tree. When a black cat darted from behind a bush, my cousin joked, “There goes the southernmost cat.” Just ahead of us stood a chain-linked fence, with the wide waters of the Atlantic splashing on the rocks below.

Attached near the top of the fence, a sign reads: 90 Miles to Cuba90 Miles

This is what we came to see, and so we stood silent for a moment. My dad slung his arm around his sister’s shoulders and she smiled through her tears. Thirty-ish years back and ninety miles south–that’s how far away their minds traveled in those few minutes. As children and with no notice, they left their island home with their parents, abandoning memories, dear friends, all the treasures of their childhood.

While the grown-ups reminisced in choked-up Espanol, my cousins and I, along with my little brother and sister, ran wild in a game of tag, hopping on and off large rocks that topped the cliff we were gathered on. Laughing and running, we blinked our eyes at the Florida sun with our feet pounding the ground of freedom that has always spread beneath us.

When I was sure no one was looking, I strained my eyes out over the forever expanse of water, searching for a piece of driftwood or the black ridges of a tire, signs of a refugee almost to shore. These were the stories I’d grown up with, stories of desperation and hope. Sometimes they made it. Sometimes they were picked up by the Coast Guard. Sometimes they sank.

Standing at the edge of our country, I felt like I was at the edge of something else, but as I was only a little girl, I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly.  I was overwhelmed. The gratitude I was supposed to feel, the imaginings of a childhood built with the brick and mortar of communism, language barriers so steep I feared I’d never break them apart, the constant volume and prattle of all these people who shared my blood, or at least a piece of my history, it was just too much.

Frankly, these Cubans of mine were too much.

We shared a gene pool, but we didn’t fit together easily. So when my dad walked out the door a few years after our Florida trip, filing for divorce and affirming all the discord I’d sensed, I erased them, mi familia, and Cuba itself from my very identity. 90 miles was too far to go.

But roots pull and roots dig.

All grown up now, I see it all with gentler eyes. As a wife and mother, I look at my babies and my husband and I see the dark eyes of my Abuelita. I wonder at the cost of her sacrifices, I wonder what it does to a woman to leave the way she did, to gather her children and pray that a far away land will be the answer she’s hoping for. I think of my dad’s childhood memories, and then I dream of sugar cane fields and a baseball soaring high above them, the exultant cries of a passel of Cuban boys.

I wince when I think of guns, suitcases, desperation and my dad as a skinny boy with enormous ears standing with his big sister decked in a white dress, helpless. I lose my breath when I think of my freedom-loving Papi in a cell all those times, his dream of a free Cuba still breathing, but losing color.

My heart edges close to what it all means, and sometimes that’s as far as it can go. But every now and then I stand in that place long enough to see the big picture–the mistakes, the desperate shots in the dark, the guts and the fear, the stubborn hope.

I know now that the edge I felt all those years ago was the edge of loss and anger, language barriers and picking sides. It was the sharp shatter of family, connection. It was me, trying to keep hearts safe and the coming realization that I can’t.

As I turn my gentler eyes on this this cast of characters in a complicated and sometimes devastating tale of a fully Cuban, fully American family, it is so clear that we all have scars of place and relationship. These Cubans of mine, and me. And if they are mine, and they indisputably are, then I am theirs and their Cuba lives inside me too. 90 miles is closer than I ever could have imagined.

Maybe in learning to make peace with a memory, I’ve learned to love a place and a people that I can’t escape. And the truth is, I don’t want to escape it or them anymore. What I want is to  step beyond that chain link fence, to slice through the self-imposed invisible line between here and there. I want my heart to cross the Atlantic and finally say, “Estoy aqui y te amo.”

I’m here and I love you.

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profileBio: Sarah Torna Roberts is a writer who lives in California with her husband and four sons. She blogs at www.sarahtornaroberts.com where she digs around her in her memories, records her present, and is constantly holding her faith up to the light. She snacks at 2 AM with great regularity, is highly suspicious of anyone who doesn’t love baseball (Go Giants!), and would happily live in a tent by the sea.

 

90 Miles.jpg is a photo by Kay Gaensler, available for public use.