‘‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse….
Late, lazy afternoon day. It’s very warm as I lie on top of the bed. A dog barks. Robins tweet. A strange way to spend this Christmas Eve. I’ve been bed bound for the past 4 weeks as I recover from back surgery. It doesn’t seem that long, but certainly longer than we expected. So I watch the news, read , answer phone calls and check the multiple WhatsApp dinging into my phone.
Based on the volume of my WhatsApps, I picture the entire city whatsapping and texting this Christmas Eve afternoon : digital Christmas cards. Santa and reindeer jokes, photos, video of glittering Fifth Ave. NYC. And digital hugs. I haven’t checked Facebook yet. It might seem like I’m quite busy yet all those activities are interrupted by long, morphine-induced naps and mind explorations. I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed thinking so much. If only I’d have the energy and clarity of thought to jot down those illuminations and pursue those rabbit trails. Oops, I’m dropping off…
This is my first attempt at writing. At least it’s a start. Now, I’ll just sit back and enjoy the view, internal and eternal.🌈🌎
Monday, December 25, 2017
Monday, November 27, 2017
Tradition
“I am so very thankful for
having all our family reunited here today,” I say. We raise our glasses, even 3
½ year-old Beltrán, glasses filled with wine or water or juice. I look at the
faces around our table: Nico and his girlfriend Laura, both recently arrived
from the States; Danny, Ale and their four children: twins Colomba and Manuela,
Pascuala and Beltrán; and my husband, Santiago. Table conversation is a lively mix
of Spanish and English and translations.
What a joy to spend the day in the kitchen preparing the Thanksgiving
fixings with Laura, sharing menu ideas, googling for recipes, a job I'd usually
done alone. She makes a delicious apple pie.
We’d seldom celebrated Thanksgiving here
at home over the years. Not being a holiday in Chile, Santiago was at work and
the boys in classes or studying for year-end tests. When the boys were younger,
we’d gather with other bi-national families for a Thanksgiving pot luck picnic
at Marion and Bob’s farm. That tradition ended when families became too
numerous. But now, with Nico and Laura here, I wanted to do a traditional
Thanksgiving to make Laura feel at home and to impart some of the Thanksgiving
tradition to our grandchildren.
I
pull out all the stops: best blue linen tablecloth and my mother’s china and
silver. Some of the silver is tarnished from little use, so I sit down to polish
a few pieces which brings back memories of family Thanksgivings of my
childhood. The job of polishing silver often fell to me. My mother rose early
to prepare the turkey and stuffing, the mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. I’d
help set the table with a white linen tablecloth and napkins and the same china
and silver we use today.
At
the end of the evening, my heart is full. I am contented and grateful for a traditional
American Thanksgiving with all of our binational family gathered around the
table, complete with spilled juice and Frida, the dog, scouting for crumbs
under the table.
Tuesday, November 7, 2017
Breaking News!
Finally, happy breaking news!
Our son, Nico, is back in Chile after over 6 years in the U.S. with a short stint in Costa Rica. Laura, his partner, arrives next Tuesday. Time to celebrate with a real family Thanksgiving. Another addition to the family is Frida, a Costa Rican rescue dog, who we think may be part terrier, part pincher. She wakes us in the morning jumping on our bed and giving a quick lick to our faces.
It's fun having a son living at home for a while. He is a Mr. Fix-it, offering to make home improvements. I love it!
Our son, Nico, is back in Chile after over 6 years in the U.S. with a short stint in Costa Rica. Laura, his partner, arrives next Tuesday. Time to celebrate with a real family Thanksgiving. Another addition to the family is Frida, a Costa Rican rescue dog, who we think may be part terrier, part pincher. She wakes us in the morning jumping on our bed and giving a quick lick to our faces.
It's fun having a son living at home for a while. He is a Mr. Fix-it, offering to make home improvements. I love it!
Saturday, October 21, 2017
Hometown
The Familiar
Back again in my hometown for my yearly visit, I soak up the rich scents
of vegetation – elm, bay and sequoia trees – and the familiar birdsong as I
stand on the deck overlooking the creek of my adoptive family’s house. They receive
me warmly as in the past and inform me that a coyote family has taken up
residence by the creek. I’ll hear them howling at night.
I take a walk along the main street, San Anselmo Avenue, past the Coffee
Roastery, where I’ll meet with old classmates on Saturday, the firehouse,
Hilda’s Coffee Shop and Booksmith, my favorite bookstore. Sadly, I notice many
empty storefronts in this town that used to draw antique buffs on weekends. I
drive to my old neighborhood, park and walk past the home where I grew up. On
my route I notice new 2 million dollar houses – the gentrification of a once
modest middle class neighborhood. I call old friends and set up dates for coffee or lunch. With a college
classmate we take a nostalgic stroll across the Berkeley campus. On a glorious
sunny day I take the ferry to San Francisco to meet with the editor who’s been
guiding me through my manuscript. My oldest friend, Paula, and I share many
meals, reminiscing on pets, childhood in the barrio, and names of nuns at St. Anselm’s School. Sister Eulalie
Rose, Sister Miriam Josepha, Sister Benigna (a favorite). Nothing can compare
with sharing childhood memories with a dear friend.
The Unexpected
Raging wildfires to the north mark my final week. Heavy smoke, like
thick fog, creeps silently into our world. My adoptive family takes in a family
of four - Santa Rosa evacuees, their four boxers and a sack of twenty ball
pythons. (They have beautiful markings. I actually ask to hold one in my hand.)
Mom and Dad python are left behind, but survive.
The kitchen becomes a busy
place, people and dogs coming and going, cooking for nine and conveying the
latest fire updates. The evacuees stay close to the television, watching the
flames consume entire residential neighborhoods, not knowing for days if their
house is safe.
The Tragic
Another guest in the house is an Iraqi war veteran who suffered brain
damage and PTSD- post traumatic stress disorder. He describes to us how the
vehicle he was driving hit an IED. His halting speech and awkward bearing are the
outward signs of trauma. He attempts to fit into the household routine and participate
in table conversation – to be normal – but in moments of weakness seeks relief
in drugs. My heart goes out to that young man. Those in national positions of
power would think twice before sending men and women off to war if they could
spend time with these young victims.
I mustn’t end on a sad note. Once more I’ve been able to enjoy the
richness of this landscape where I grew up and experience a diverse sampling
of American life: the generous sacrifice of firefighters, the growing presence
of Latinos in the work force, a friend’s struggle to make ends meet, another
friend recovering from cancer surgery, televised baseball playoffs, the
pleasure of old friends and the limitless generosity of my hosts, whom I now
refer to as “my adoptive family.”
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Signs
Just overnight, it
seems, several white blossoms have opened on our old apricot tree, harbingers
of sweet summer fruit and announcing the advent of spring.
Other signs of this season of hope are surfacing in our garden: the first fragrant freesia blooms, fragile California poppy seedlings (I’ve marked off their area with small sticks to protect them from the gardener’s shovel), pink snapdragons and blue forget-me-nots. Birds know it’s almost nesting time. Our resident turtle doves have taken to chasing each other, warming up for mating. Regular as clockwork, the juices of renewal and birth appear. Small miracles. The air is still cold, yet trees, flowers and birds know it’s that time.
Other signs of this season of hope are surfacing in our garden: the first fragrant freesia blooms, fragile California poppy seedlings (I’ve marked off their area with small sticks to protect them from the gardener’s shovel), pink snapdragons and blue forget-me-nots. Birds know it’s almost nesting time. Our resident turtle doves have taken to chasing each other, warming up for mating. Regular as clockwork, the juices of renewal and birth appear. Small miracles. The air is still cold, yet trees, flowers and birds know it’s that time.
All these signs of
spring inject me with energy and hope, a time of looking forward: to the warmth
of the spring sun on my back, more time in the out-of-doors and the upcoming
visit of our youngest son and his girlfriend. Like the birds, my nesting
instinct is activated. I’ve contacted a painter to do some small jobs around
the house. We just bought a new barbeque and can’t wait for warmer days to
invite family and friends to enjoy our backyard and share a meal. I’ve
contracted spring cleaning fever, anxious to clear out accumulations of junk
and papers. I’m giving the paper shredder a workout.
The gardener and
his son (Daniel and Daniel) pruned our avocado tree a month ago. The tree, now
over thirty years old, grew from a pit planted by our son, Nico, as a child.
The pruning allowed us to harvest over 400 avocados. What pleasure to give the
fruits of our harvest to family and friends. Suddenly, they’re all ripening at
once, which has me racing to find takers. Another small miracle in our garden
is an heirloom tomato plant that wintered over and now has its first tomato.
Sunday, August 6, 2017
My Love Affair
I’ve been meaning to buy a new one,
but the old one, split in half with loose pages, does me just fine. I’m not
sure how long I’ve had it, so I open to the first page to check the date.
“Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus” reads the title page. But, what’s
this? My son’s name is written in the top right hand corner and, under his
name, “Berkeley Fall 98.” He must have bought it when he arrived to Berkeley as
an exchange student.
My
Thesaurus and I are inseparable. It has been my faithful wordsmith throughout
my years of crafting Word Prompts for my writing group, blog posts, magazine
articles and essays, multiple edits and re-edits of a memoir and a collection of
narrative essays. This yellowing, battered treasure has been my salvation in my
struggle to extract words from the tangled jungle of my shrinking memory word
bank. I say “shrinking” because in a non-English speaking country, a plethora
of words fall by the linguistic wayside from lack of exposure and use.
Logophile:
a lover of words. I embrace them, their multiple meanings and uses and sounds. Gleeful
gladiolas, riotous revelry. Magnificent metaphors and sly similes, allusions
and delusions, hysterical hyperbole and holy hosannas. A scene of beauty, a
moment of ecstasy, a spark of understanding – on the wings of words all can be revealed.
The incredible silkiness of an owl feather, the trill of a canary, the tingle of
a spicy, hot pepper, a watermelon sunset, the heady scent of spring’s first
acacia blooms.
Some
ask why I don’t use the Thesaurus online. Habit. And there’s the pleasure of
turning its pages, immersing myself its world of words. When I hit a word
block, I gently pull it from the bookshelf and fit together its two halves. I
turn the pages eagerly, hunting for just the word. I then try out the
alternatives until I reach that satisfying aha! moment. Got it. The perfect
word for the occasion. Sesquipedalian.
My dear old Thesaurus Rex.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Coco Fifty Years Later
During our recent trip to Costa Rica, I knew I had to return to Playa
del Coco. Fifty years earlier, while traveling by land back to California after
our two year Peace Corps stint in Colombia, Barbara and I took a local bus to
Playa del Coco in northern Costa Rica. It was a small town and we stayed in a
very minimal cabin facing the beach. I took two photos while I was there. One
of a veranda with a thatched roof and the other of a lone tree on the beach.
When I learned that
this Costa Rica trip would take us near Coco, as the locals call it, I dug
around in a box of old photos until coming across those two possible Coco
photos. I say ‘possible’ because I hadn’t labeled them.
So now our group – my
son, his girlfriend Laura, his Argentine friend Sebastián, my husband and I and
Frida, the rescue dog – piled into the worn pickup truck and bounced the forty
minutes into “town”, Playa del Coco, now a rather shabby but bustling tourist
destination. Nothing looked familiar to me – until we reached the beach. I
looked up and down the curving stretch of white sand, trying to recall the moments
all those years ago when I’d stood in that very place. I showed the group my
two photos and we set off down the beach to find where I’d snapped the tree-on-beach
photo.
“There, those hills bordering the
beach look just like these in the photo.”
“You’re right!”
“Isn’t that your tree?”
“Oh, my gosh! It is!”
I ran up to it and wanted to hug it.
There was no mistaking it’s broad, deep green leaves and its tilt towards the
ocean. It hadn’t grown a lot in fifty years. They snapped several photos of me
under my tree.
I filled with nostalgia for the young woman who’d stood on this
spot five decades earlier, never imagining I’d be there again in later life. I
was moved by something more that has taken me some time to identify. The place
had taken on a special meaning for me. Perhaps it was euphoria or gratitude –
not only for the possibility of returning, but also for a deep sense of
completeness.
I still had the other
photo to identify and needed to locate someone who’d been here in 1967. Walking
along the beachfront, I spotted an elderly ice cream vendor with a friend. Aha!
“Señor, are you from here?”
“SÔ
“Then maybe you can help me. I took
this photo here fifty years ago, but I don’t recognize this place.”
“Oh, that was the Playa del Coco
Casino. It’s no longer there.”
“Muchas gracias! Would you mind if I
took a photo with you to commemorate this fifty years event?”
We posed, smiling, in front of his
ice cream cart, Playa del Coco and the Pacific in the background.
Thursday, June 22, 2017
Intermittent Friendships
A newspaper journalist reported in her column having visited six
countries and boarded ten airplanes in the past few weeks. She made time in her
schedule to visit briefly some dear friends, exercising the style of friendship
that she has accepted as the only one possible: intermittent friendship. The
phrase catches my attention. It seems to
describe many of my friendships as an expat/immigrant. Are these friendships as
superficial as the term sounds?
My first two decades in Chile, I
only managed to travel to the States every two years to visit my parents and,
like the journalist, I got together briefly with a couple of friends. We had no Internet at that time so contact
consisted of Christmas cards with a letter enclosed. Many of my teacher friends
at the International school where I taught eventually moved on. I still keep in
touch with Kristina although we haven’t seen each other in thirty or more years.
What keeps us friends? Perhaps because we
both are readers and writers and have lived the expat life. I cannot say that
we continue to be as close we once were, but we did have that spontaneous connect
at one time, and now keep in touch commenting on each other’s blogs. If we were
to see each other again, I’m certain we’d have plenty to talk about.
Internet has allowed me to reconnect
with former classmates from high school and the university. Though I no longer
have family in my hometown, I return every year to get together with my dear
friends and experience that beloved landscape of my growing years. Those days
when we’re catching up at the Coffee Roasters or doing lunch and visiting the
De Young Museum in San Francisco feel so complete. How much I enjoy these friends. How is it
that we still call each other “friend”, although we’d been out of touch for long
periods of time? I believe it’s because we shared significant periods in our
lives: childhood, high school, university. I’ve known my closest, dearest
friend and soul sister all my life. Our parents were friends. She knows me
better than anyone. Our long phone conversations every week nourish our
friendship.
Yearly visits are wonderful and frustrating.
I want to spend more time with these friends. On my return flights to Chile I
think of them – Paula, Judy, Barb, Melodie, Vreni – on that shrinking landscape below
and regret that those friendships are intermittent and interrupted and only
partially satisfying, leaving me with a sense of loss.
In Chile many of my friends are also
expatriates which immediately gives these relationships a unique character. We
are from different countries or different States; we didn’t go to school
together; we didn’t know each other as children; we are often traveling back
“home.” We lead double lives, no matter how long we’ve been here. Our contacts
are often intermittent in spite of having known each other for years. How solid
are these friendships?
Being expats is precisely the strong
connection that enables us to relate. We’ve had to adjust to a different
culture and language. We know what it feels like to leave family and close friends
behind. It is even possible to overcome the lack of a common background. I’d
never visited Iowa and Wisconsin, but made the trip to spend a week there
because my dear friend Ann, who I’ve known for twenty years here in Chile,
spends her summers there near family and childhood friends. Our two lives –
U.S. childhood and Chile adulthood – came together. I remind her that it’s now
her turn to visit my hometown.
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Living with Jungle Critters
Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. The strange noise wakes and frightens me. Something
has invaded the sleeping area of our large safari tent. A frog? A large beetle?
A snake? All kinds of creatures inhabit this Costa Rican jungle. It could be anything. Kiss-kiss-kiss. My husband
sleeps peacefully beside me, so it’s not him. I sit up in bed and shine my
headlamp over the canvas walls and high ceiling where a large fan revolves.
Nothing. But the noise continues. Finally sleep overcomes my fear.
Costa Rica has between 200,000 and 250,000
species of insects. This doesn’t surprise me. At least a third of them must
dwell in this forest. As I ascend the trail from our tent, perspiration streaming
down my face, the air vibrates with the deafening, incessant buzz of cicadas. Ahead
of me two black beetles with yellow stripes scurry under a log. Tiny insects flutter
past. I stop to observe a moving trail of green triangles, just the
hard-working leaf ants bearing their cargo to their underground nest. Lizards
scamper away as I approach. This air, this soil pulsates with activity.
At breakfast in the main tent, I’m
taking in the panoramic view of the blue-green water of the Pacific when I hear
the kissing noise again.
“Did you hear that?” I say to the
others. “That’s what was in our tent last night.”
“It’s a gecko,” says my son, who,
along with his girlfriend, is managing this eco-lodge.
What relief. I can live with the
tiny salamander-like geckos which creep about on walls and ceilings. They eat
insects. So do some birds, like the flycatcher we spot and the colorful
squirrel cuckoo which dines on cicadas, wasps and caterpillars. The white-nosed
coati that passed by our tent was no doubt foraging for tasty beetles and
spiders. Insects are not even safe at night. Sitting at a small bar lit by a
string of tiny lights along its base, we discover a nocturnal visitor, a large
warty toad whom we name Kermit, or Rana
René, as they say in Costa Rica. I watch his tongue flick out in a
flash to devour bugs drawn to the light. He makes quick work of a very large
grasshopper. Later we meet several of Kermit’s cousins further along the
walkway.
Other jungle inhabitants prefer
hanging out in trees, like the howling monkeys pigging out on the mangoes
dangling over our heads. The ceibo trees are in full brilliant bloom, their red
flowers attracting a multitude of yellow butterflies.
We descend from our hilltop lodgings
to an uninhabited white beach. Well, not exactly uninhabited. Hermit crabs hide
in tiny shells while the larger ghost crabs speed to their burrows or into the
sea as we approach. I follow uniquely patterned prints in the sand to
depressions covering the eggs deposited the night before by two sea turtles. How
many will survive? Then I notice wiggly prints in the sand. “A snake!” I call
to the others. It’s a yellow-bellied sea snake struggling to return to the
water.
My son points out a drama unfolding
in the shallows – hundreds of tiny fish fleeing over the surface in leaps and
bounds to escape a large dark shadow visible just behind them. Fish face danger
from overhead as well, where pelicans glide and frigate birds soar watching for
a catch.
The word to describe this landscape is
intense. Intense heat. Intense rains. Flamboyant oranges, yellows and vibrant
greens. Countless varieties of unique species, all working members of a complex,
wondrous living network. I know that I
have only glimpsed an infinitesimal part of this jungle world.
Labels:
beach,
Costa Rica,
crabs,
eco-lodge,
insects,
safari tent,
toads
Sunday, May 7, 2017
Otoño
My garden reveals its own names for the seasons. Today it tells me that
fall is the time when:
the hummingbirds return to town after their summer get-away
chrysanthemums perfume the air with their pungent scent
bougainvillaea petals among the chrysanthemums |
the leaves on the snowball bush blush in tones of burgundy
yellowing leaves of the apricot tree flutter to the ground
camellia branches bear swelling buds, pregnant with promise
leaves on the tomato plants recoil from the cold
turtle doves and chincoles
discover something interesting in the dry weeds where a lawn once grew
the scent of wet, dry leaves evokes childhood memories
sequoia branches sway in greeting to the wily wind
and sister sun follows a more northern path
street sweeper with Chilean rake |
Saturday, April 15, 2017
The Egg Lady
“Remember going out to Mrs. Bianchi’s?"
Paula laughs. “Yes! The egg lady!”
Paula laughs. “Yes! The egg lady!”
Our long distance, weekly phone
calls replenish our spirits. Together we reminisce driving with
our moms out to the northern California hamlet of Woodacre, a primarily Italian
community of houses, farms, a church and a general store embraced by rolling
hills. We’d turn off the main road to a country lane and pull up in front of
white wooden house set behind a fence. There we’d buy fresh country eggs. Ours
were not big families, yet our mothers felt it was worth the effort to make the
trip. It wasn’t far, but it was out
in the country.
“My mother always gave
me soft boiled eggs for breakfast.” I tell Paula. “I hated that runny gelatinous
slime. It would stand before me turning cold as I tried to gather up the
courage to eat it.”
“Me,too! Awful! Just couldn’t get
them down and would barf all over my St. Anselm’s school uniform!”
“Those early soft-boiled ruined me
for eggs for life!” We howl with laughter at this yet another convergence in
our childhood memories.
I haven’t changed my opinion over
the years. Scrambled and egg salad I’ll accept. Forget poached, fried or eggs
Benedict. I now justify my egg phobia pointing to the mass egg production
process, herding thousands of hens into wire cages with no elbow room and just
food and water. Only free-range go into my shopping cart.
I can no longer picture
Mrs. Bianchi, but I do remember the trip. What a treat sharing those memories
with Paula, recollections only she and I, as lifelong friends, can appreciate. Our
phone conversations ripple with laughter:
“Remember the Russian Dance in
ballet class with those flowered headdresses and streamers we’d wear?”I ask.
“Yes! Yes!”
“Didn’t your mother have an old grey
Plymouth?”
“Yeah. It was a 1939 coupe, dark
grey, had running boards (remember those?) and a rumble seat.”
“Remember our buckeye apple fight
with those mean kids in your neighborhood? I’d walk alone to your house
over hill and dale. No roads or subdivisions between my house and yours.”
“I know.”
“What was the name of that crazy,
untrainable dog you had?”
“Folly.”
“That’s right! Now that Easter is
coming up, I think of the photo of us decked in our Easter dresses and hats
sitting in our front garden.” I say.
“And the gin fizzes that our parents
drank Easter morning.”
“At
your house.”
“No, it was your house!”
“Sometimes we’d go to the Hamilton
House in Fairfax for Easter brunch.”
“I remember that place, right across
the road from where you and I go every year for dinner.”
“Our
restaurant.”
“Let’s have a long distance toast on
Easter.”
“Yes, let’s. Cheers.”
“Love you.”
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Fall Explorations
These golden-brown fall
days spark nostalgia. The scent of wet leaves
underfoot and a wood fire. A campfire. Bright crackling flames in a dome of darkness.
Roasting marshmallows and singing old Girl Scout ditties: Down yonder green valley where streamlets meander....
Fall is bright days punctuated by an
occasional shadowy day, like today. I pull on my Berkeley sweatshirt and take off for a stroll. I am grateful for the growing coolness after the
harsh summer heat and savor the soughing of the paper-dry leaves waving to the
breezes, tapping like strings of wooden beads.
Five months without respite from this city stirs in me a need for a distant, uninterrupted horizon stretching out before me. Forest
and ferns, paths through moist soil, gurgling streams, fresh cool air filling
my lungs. While I wait for an escape to the countryside, I take refuge in a new
book, Robert Moor’s On Trails: An
Exploration. Just what I need. The author, while hiking the Appalachian
Trail, begins to ‘ponder the meaning of this endless scrawl.’ He wonders who
created the trail and why does it exist. Some trails are very old, often starting
as animal paths. Usually, no one person made the trail; it just emerged satisfying a need.
I
wish I’d read this before treading the many paths I’ve covered over the years. Trails
invite me to appreciate and communicate with the natural world, maybe spotting
a kingfisher, a frog, a coyote, or a delicate forest orchid. But did I stop to wonder
how this trail emerged or who were the first to walk it? Native peoples? Deer?
Rabbits? Wild boar? I think we humans share most trails with animals. Though
smaller animals – skunks, rabbits, badgers – have an advantage over us, carving
narrow paths through thickets and prickly grasses where we just do not
comfortably fit.
Chilean kingfisher |
Although a sporadic
hiker, I possess a deep treasury of trail memories which bring me great
pleasure. In case my memory fails, I can turn to my travel journals that
include descriptions of the trails I’ve known. Yet, what gives me the most joy
is recalling sharp visual memories of those landscapes – whether they be
Patagonian glacial moraines or slopes of California’s Sierra Nevada – scenes I
can call up on a moment’s notice.
Mr. Moor explores the deeper
meanings of paths: the roads we choose to follow in life. Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken comes to mind. Many writers and philosophers have pondered
these meanings: Emerson, Wendell Berry, Lord Byron, Bruce Chatwin in Songlines. Rebecca Solnit devotes an
entire book to exploring people’s meanderings in Wanderlust: A History of Walking.
I don’t know which will be my next
trail, but I do know I’ll be pondering its origins. Will I unknowingly leave a
subtle sign here marking my passing? A bent fern frond? A footprint? Will I be changed by having taken this path?
Will it have made all the difference?
Friday, March 24, 2017
Sweater Weather
Three days into fall and our first overcast day. Fog. Having grown up in
the San Francisco Bay Area, I’d know fog anywhere. The deep bass sounds of the
fog horns are rooted in my childhood memories. I can read the sky. The fog will
not clear today. I sit sipping two cups of coffee, alternating my attention
from Wolf Blitzer to the pairs of doves and sparrows poking in the grass for
tidbits.
Silence pervades our
house (aside from the television which I’ve now turned off, totally disgusted
with the repetition and evasion of spokesmen and lawmakers). My husband is away
for five days, off to a southern lakeside home with his running pals. I enjoy
having days home alone. I consider the possibilities of how I’ll spend my time.
My first decision is to eat only salads while he’s gone and cycle at the gym
across the street every day. This is day three and I’ve stuck to my guns.
I’ve watched more television than I’d
like. There’s a TV at the gym and I get caught up in sugary, totally
predictable dramas, even hurrying home to watch the finale. An inner voice
tells me that I’m not spending my time well. I wrote in my last blog post of my
admiration for astrophysicist Neil de Grass Tyson who stated that knowing he’s
going to die someday gives the focus to his life. I feel impelled to do
something productive in my days. Yet…I tell myself that we all need some lightness
and fantasy in our lives. Perhaps watching that silly movie earlier has
loosened my writing tongue.
An overcast day spent in solitude
encourages thoughtfulness. My thoughts are with my son and his girlfriend, who
at this moment are flying from New York City to Costa Rica to a new job and an
adventurous change. My son was feeling melancholy these past days, moving out
of his apartment and leaving friends and the city that was his home for the
past five years. I feel his sadness. New beginnings often start with difficult partings.
So what have I accomplished today?
Aside from Pilates class and cycling? Well, I did plant the two lavenders in
the large pots by the front door. I look out the window to admire them. And I
painted my nails (clear polish) which I seldom make the time to do. I’m overdue
posting something on my blog. I tried to
call my soul sister in California, but no answer. Think I’ll try again. Then I’ll tackle the pile of papers to be shredded. I’m saving the best for last today.
My sister-in-law and I will go downtown to attend a concert by the Orquesta Sinfónica.
Tchaikowsky and Greig. Music for the soul on a foggy day.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Small Joys
My Facebook and emails overwhelm me with multiple petitions to sign –
save the elephants, no to Environmental Protection Agency budget and staff
cuts, investigate Trump’s ties with Russia – and I sign them all. I’d vowed to
cut my addiction to Face book “news” and to CNN, but I haven’t been very
successful. Quite honestly, I haven’t tried. Today I miss Wolf Blitzer only
because I forget that last Saturday the U.S. went on daylight savings time, so
all the programs are an hour later for us in Chile.
Buried amidst the
repetitious posts and emails on the U.S. administration’s latest gaffs and
lies, I discover some gems: a video interview with Neil de Grass Tyson,
astrophysicist, a new acquaintance of mine. He expressed so eloquently the
philosophy of life that I hold to now in my seventieth decade: Knowing that he’ll
die creates the focus that he brings to being alive. He speaks of the urgency
of accomplishments and the need to express love NOW.
Reconfirming and
expanding on these weighty thoughts are quotes from writers I find in Maria
Popova’s Brainpickings newsletter. Two more gems are from Annie Dillard: “How
we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives.” And on a post-it
stuck to my computer screen you will find: “Life consists of what a man is
thinking of all day.” Then there are words from Hermann Hesse praising life’s
small joys. He asserts that the most available and most overlooked of small
joys is our everyday contact with nature. Oh yes.
Brainpickings is addictive. One
article links me to another which connects me to a book or an author. I stop to
look at an illustration by Maurice Sendak in Ruth Krauss’ book Open House for Butterflies of a small
boy sitting by a stream with the caption: “Everybody should be quiet near a
stream and listen.” Something I do whenever I can, but not often enough.
Streams are not readily available to the big city dweller.
Speaking of city dwellers, writer
and photographer Bill Hayes comments on life in New York City, saying he makes
a point of waving or nodding hello whenever he can. “…kindness”, he says, “is
repaid in unexpected ways….”
My city garden offers me many small joys. This summer I’ve been watching
closely the progress of my four potted heirloom tomato plants. I’m learning as
I go. Because they are potted, the plants are not very big. I resort to Google
to find out why their leaves have curled. Too hot? Too much water? One has
several tomatoes, slightly larger than golf balls. We ate the first two to
ripen. Absolutely divine. Definitely worth the effort. And the scent of their
leaves – heavenly.
More garden events: at summer’s end
the apricot leaves are turning lemony yellow and falling to the ground; the abundant
avocados grow steadily; the nasturtium leaves are infested with little green voracious
caterpillars, the result of eggs laid by white butterflies; two azalea bushes
have their first blooms; the camellia is covered with buds, promising winter
color.
Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt. John Muir
Thursday, March 2, 2017
The Way of Water or What to Do with My Anger
My anger seethes. In theory, I know it is not healthy, yet I seek out
what produces it. It’s an addiction. My anger came to a peak after watching the
movie “Welcome to Sarajevo.” Critics claimed it was not accurate and that there
are better movies about the Bosnian War. Still, it brought home to me the
horrifying consequences of war, particularly for children. I immediately
thought of the ongoing suffering of the children of Syria. These tragedies are
happening now, in the present and, yet, the current American President wants to
build up the military and reduce the budget for diplomacy and the environment. There is the root of my anger – a
Presidency that foments anger, hatred and fear and mocks the values of honesty,
tolerance and compassion. I recommend that the current Administration be locked in a room and shown “Welcome to
Sarajevo,” the current documentary “The White Helmets” and Al Gore’s “The
Uncomfortable Truth,” exposing them to the raw truths they choose to deny.
What to do with my anger? I found a positive
answer in the latest blog by writer, Ursula LeGuin. The current political climate
also has her asking the question: What do I do? She says: “I am looking for a
place to stand, or a way to go, where the behavior of those I oppose will not
control my behavior.” In the thoughts of Lau Tzu she finds an answer: the way
of water. Water is a metaphor for nonviolent resistance, for it is adaptable,
changeable, passive, yet unyielding, always going the way it must go. It is a
thirst-quenching glass of clear water; it is the persistence of the ocean
currents; it is a stream wending its way to the sea.
I will be a part of the resistance,
but I must now break my addiction to CNN and Face book if I intend to follow
the way of water,
Friday, February 10, 2017
Tough Lessons
Perspiration streams down my back. The air is ash-laden; another day of
record-breaking high temperatures smothers and oppresses. Is this what an apocalypse feels like? An
apocalypse of global warming.
In my garden I watch honey and bumble bees
darting about, alighting on the lacey fragrant flowers of my ilán-ilán tree, their favorite right
now. I wonder if this heavy air interferes with their orientation and sensitive
sense of smell.
The televised scenes of forests and
fields, farm animals and homes being devoured by raging flames feel unreal,
more like a Hollywood disaster movie – pine trees converted into flaming
torches, unidentifiable carcasses littered on the ground. A farmwoman laments
her losses. “Everything,” she cries. “Everything.” Behind her, a scorched
washing machine perches atop a pile of rubble. Veterinarians treat the wounds of
a horse with a singed forelock. Beekeepers point to their blackened hives and
scorched fields.
Firemen, forest rangers, soldiers and townspeople work together to control the flames with
hoses, shovels, rakes and chain saws. Those without tools attempt to smother
flames with leafy tree branches.
Relief is on the way. The 747Global
Super tanker, thanks to a single donor’s generosity, roars low over the heads
of cheering country people, releasing its cargo of water and repellant onto the
flaming forest. It’s the star of each
night’s newscasts. To my surprise I notice painted on its fuselage the words Spirit of John Muir, the naturalist responsible
for the naming of California’s Yosemite as the first U.S. National Park.
I feel a renewed faith in humankind watching
scenes of hundreds of cars and trucks lining up to take aid to the people of
Santa Olga, a town left in ashes. Television and newspaper advertisements
provide information for making monetary donations. Beekeepers beg for bags of
sugar to make a solution that can keep the bees from starving while their
owners search for safe areas.
I know that my garden bees, like all
of their species, are well-experienced in cooperation, each performing its
assigned task in benefit of the whole hive. Those foragers pollinating our apricot
and avocado tree blossoms guarantee our summer harvest. They will return to
their hives with their pollen-laden baskets, dance their waggle dance or wave
their antennae to inform the others where to find the sweet pollen. I wonder
where they’ve established their hives in this city neighborhood. I’m amazed to learn
that in winter they instinctively know to crowd together tightly, each bee
rotating through the cluster from outside to inside so no bee gets too cold. In
hot weather, they fan their wings. Such efficiency. No carbon footprint.
Yet, against wind-whipped wildfires,
bees have little defense. They depend upon our care, which we must recognize as
a mutually beneficial arrangement. Chilean beekeepers look to move their
healthy hives to new lands temporarily, and I wonder how long it will take for the
native foliage to recover. One year? Two? Ten? Already a winter of little rain
is predicted.
Danger exists that complacency will
set in now that the crisis is past. It is easy to forget lessons learned as
television and newspaper headlines devote more space to political frauds and the
day’s robberies. Yet, the homeless are still homeless; the farmers have no
suitable land to farm, and the bees no fields and trees to visit. When will
they return to their buzzing, bumbling, pollinating and dancing the waggle as only
honey bees know how to do?
This morning I look up to the wonder of an almost true blue firmament. Lightness
fills me after the weeks of a grey, smoke-filled sky. I observe the bees’
velvet touch on the delicate blooms, their patient precision, and feel pleased
they find nourishment in my garden.
Friday, January 27, 2017
Chile in Flames
The devastating scenes on television are heartrending. Forests aflame in
vast regions of central and southern Chile.
They resemble war scenes: people fleeing with the few possessions they
can carry; a pickup truck loaded with a refrigerator; a mattress, a stove; tables,
chairs, sofas clustered in the middle of the road. The pueblo of Santa Olga – homes, stores, schools, the firehouse – all
reduced to ashes.
Firefighters with soot-covered
faces struggle with heavy hoses. Neighbors and volunteers wield shovels and
electric saws removing brush to create a firebreak. But the wind is wily,
changing directions, trapping forestry workers and firemen. Ten deaths reported
thus far.
Rumors abound regarding
the causes. Several fires seem to be man-made. It is clear that the vast
plantations of pine and eucalyptus trees are particularly flammable especially
in drought years with continuous high temperatures. What I hear is that native
vegetation is more resistant to fire but was clear-cut long ago, probably
initially by the Spaniards, in order to plant wheat. But timber was esteemed
more profitable, and now Chile has vast tracks of land planted with non-native
species.
As with the tsunami, once
again the country has been caught unprepared. Help has arrived from Colombia,
Brazil, Peru, Russia. A Chilean woman in the States rented and sent a Global Supertanker
to douse water over broad areas. Television shows images of firemen connecting
hoses and tanks to supply the plane with water. Residents cheer and laugh when
the supertanker flies over their land releasing showers of water.
This disaster is bringing
people together: firemen (who are all volunteers in Chile), soldiers, carabineros, civilians work side by
side. The examples of solidarity are heartening: a fireman feeding water to a
dog from his water bottle, another cradling a fox pup with burnt paw pads, a
newsman comforting a woman who lost everything, neighbors helping neighbors.
I pray that lessons
will be learned from this: the need for preventive measures; the urgent task of
dealing with climate change; the recognition of our responsibility as stewards
of this fragile Earth.
Friday, January 20, 2017
Unexpected House Guests
An email from my friend, Laura, who left Chile with her four children twenty
years ago, announces that she and her daughters are coming here for a funeral
and need a place to stay. We have plenty of room, I tell her. Since her last
visit thirteen years ago, we’ve only been in touch sporadically; our lives
seemingly full and complete with family and work. I remember her girls as children; now they’re
grown women.
We set up dates to meet for dinner,
lunch, coffee with other friends from the past, all Americans married to
Chileans and who figured we’d always be here. It has been a time for
reminiscing the days when our children played together. We wonder, “Whatever
happened to….? Do you keep in touch with…?” We arrived in Chile at a time of
social and economic turmoil. Oil, meat, basic necessities were in short supply.
Protests, terrorist bombs, nighttime curfews were our daily bread. But we were
resilient and prevailed in spite of a coup d’état and eighteen years of military
dictatorship. Laura and I met at a Lamaze class while expecting our first
children forty-three years ago. Doctors and relatives were puzzled by our preference
for natural childbirth.
Expat friendships, formed on foreign
soil, are particularly vulnerable. Some friends returned to the States. Some
divorced or were widowed; others went in search of better economic
opportunities. Some of us are still here decades later, sometimes drifting
apart when children attended different schools or we settled in different
neighborhoods or work left us little time to socialize.
Seated with two of our old gringa group, I am struck by the wonder
of this encounter. “Look at us! Grey-haired grandmothers now! Did we ever
imagine back then that decades later we’d be sitting around remembering the
days when we were young and energetic and hopeful for the future?”
What impresses me is how quickly and
easily we reconnect. The basis for friendship is still there. We feel the
sorrow of a mother for her deceased child and sympathize with another over the
difficulties of dealing long distance with an ailing, aging mother.
“Let’s start up our group
again! Maybe for birthdays?” I suggest.
Another day, four of us meet for
lunch. More laughter and questions. We ask about the children we knew as
toddlers and now want reassurance that they are doing well. We update each
other on our jobs and families and share photos, names and ages of
grandchildren.
Laura is the center of attention.
“I remember the cookies you were
always making!”
“My Nicholas remembers your old
house and the big apricot tree in your backyard.”
“It’s really amazing how we can seem
to pick up the threads from when we were last all together.”
Laura’s eyes turn watery. “It’s
because we lived through some emotional times with each other.”
Laura has gone. The house feels empty. She texts when she arrives in
Texas: the trip went well and her heart is full. Although she came for a funeral,
she received an unexpected gift: the opportunity to reconnect with old friends.
Her visit sheds blessings on me as
well. I’d let some friendships lapse. Yet this is the stage in life when time
is my frequent companion. Writing at the keyboard and cutting dead flowers
don’t completely fulfill me. I resolve to nurture these renewed friendships. A round
from my Girl Scout days comes to mind:
Make new friends, but keep the old;
One is silver, the other gold.
I open my address book and update phone numbers and addresses. Laura and
I are now connected by Whatsapp.
Monday, January 2, 2017
Things I Do When I Don't Know What to Do
December twenty-seventh. The anticipation
and excitement of Christmas and New Years are past. So ephemeral. The Christmas
tree in the living room looks superfluous and lonely. I feel at loose ends. I want
to write but nothing sparks my interest. The only thing that occurs to me is to
write down my thoughts as I wander about in this limbo state.
Tendinitis in my right hip has
hindered my usual activity for several months. I’m frustrated with not being able
to take my frequent walks through the park to the canal and back. This
inactivity drives me to eat, dangerous when Christmas cookies and my Scottish
shortbread call to me from their tins. The combination of little activity and
sweet-gorging is the perfect recipe for an expanding waistline. Each morning I awake
with the intention of this being the first of many no-sugar days. But my willpower flags.
Today I finish the book
my son gave me for Christmas, “The Dark Road,” by Mai Jian. It leaves me
perplexed. There must be some symbolism or underlying metaphoric threads I just
don’t get. The graphic descriptions of how the Chinese suffered under the
country’s One Child Family Planning Policy are deeply disturbing. But why can’t
the author grant his main characters some peace or grace as their story comes
to a close? I turn to a book of short
stories set in Rumania. Again the tale I read leaves me wondering. Not a
glimmer of hope for the two main characters and no hint of resolution - a
maddening technique of many writers.
Determined to find
meaning in this day, I move to my study. Maybe if I sit in front of the computer
and just start writing?
First I reach for the round brass
pen and pencil holder on my desk. On the back of a bill I try out each pen.
Five are dry. This is my feeble start to my resolution for a less cluttered
2017.
Before I write, I’ll call Ann. We
haven’t talked since before Christmas. But her husband says she’s out and won’t
be home until late.
I’ve been tossing around the idea of
writing about New Years. New Year’s Eve and the prospect of a new year don’t excite me. I can’t relate
to the crowds of people cheering, dancing and hugging in the plazas. During
this week of amorphous time, I do reflect upon the past year. I enjoy following
the television news and newspaper reports summing up the year – the good and
the bad. I’ll leaf through my year’s
agenda book to remind my aging memory of events that marked my year: birthdays,
doctor appointments, travels. My year has been a good one and I am grateful. As
for the upcoming year, I will begin each day as I always do with prayers of
thanksgiving and petitions for blessings for my loved ones, along with the
determination to say no to sugar and to clean out at least one drawer. In
urgent need of downsizing is my collection of tee-shirts.
These unstructured days I enjoy
observing bee activity in my garden. Bees have their favorite blooms. The
native Llaupangue was the main
attraction a few weeks ago. Now they harvest the pollen from the deep purple blossoms
of the buddleia or butterfly bush and the dainty white flowers of the ilan-ilan. Such industrious little guys.
I stop to examine my heirloom tomato
plants, poking my nose into the leaves. Such a distinctive, pungent scent that
evokes visions of red, juicy, savory tomatoes at summer’s end, not those wimpy,
tasteless greenhouse specimens we buy at the supermarket.
I welcome birds into our garden;
even sprinkling about Christmas cookie crumbs in the grass. But, now, the
ripening apricots are the source of contention between me and the austral
thrushes. The greedy fellows spear the not-quite-ripe fruits with their pointy
beaks knocking them to the ground. I shouldn’t fret about it; there’s plenty
for all, including for Speedy, our tortoise.
Today I take time to read some of
Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings newsletters that have accumulated in my Inbox.
The rich essays and book reviews overwhelm with their weighty thoughts. So much
to absorb and reflect upon, and I’ll retain very little. But I pick out one
small jewel. Hermann Hesse: trees “are the most penetrating of preachers.”
One end-of-the-year pleasure I look
forward to is opening my new calendar of Molly Hashimoto’s block prints,
portraying peaceful scenes of birds in their natural habitats. I love calendars
and the promise they hold for the next year. Each month a different vibrantly-colored
feathered friend will greet my days.
The doorbell. I see a figure
standing outside our gate and open the door. It’s Ann! We retreat to the back
garden with glasses of cold water and samples of my Christmas baking for her to
try. Naturally, I have some, too.
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