Fickle Spring

A drizzly, grey second day of spring. I've just come from Pilates class, followed by half-an-hour of stationary bike at the gym around the corner (trying to work off my caloric intake over the long weekend). I was the only one at the gym aside from Yolanda, the woman who sits at a desk all day checking in customers while she knits or does crossword puzzles. I watched a Tom Hanks movie with no sound or subtitles while I cycled and tried to ignore the blaring music and ads on the gym radio. Back to city reality.

The days were warmish and pleasant at the coast. It took me a while to quiet my mind and listen to the sound of the waves just below our apartment, a gentle lapping on this large bay. I couldn’t wait to get out! While hubby jogged, I walked along the road bordering the shore to an area with large rocks and crashing breakers. On the other side of the road I was faced with “ocean view” apartment towers built on what were once sloping dunes.

I kept my eyes focused on the ever-moving teal blue sea and foamy breakers, watching for wildlife. A plethora of gliding pelicans (their open beaks reminded me of Edward Scissor-Hands) and raucous seagulls whose chest feathers were the absolute essence of white. Then…I spotted a species of bird I’d never seen before and pulled out my binoculars. It was spectacular. Excited, I waited for hubby to run by to show him, regretting our field guide was back in the city. Only back home did I learn its name: Inca tern.

Along the road, I stopped to photograph an “animita”, a small shrine built in memory of someone who died here. Chilean roadsides are populated by these shrines, bedecked with flowers (plastic and live) and inscriptions. I regretted later that I didn't photograph the stand offering bundles of seaweed for sale, a traditional ingredient for stews.

After at least a year without an ocean visit, I was on a wildlife roll, spotting two sea otters, my first sighting in that populated stretch of coastline. On my return, I walked briskly, on a high, breathing in the sea air as it brushed my face. That was what I had come for.

September in the Air

September is my favorite month here, filled with hope and promises. My camellias, azaleas and freesias are bursting forth, tender leaves budding and Chilean flags blooming. Next week is Independence Week; supermarkets are gaily decorated with red, white and blue buntings, while the catchy rhythms of the cueca have me humming along. The 17^th and the 18^th, the official holidays, fall on Thursday and Friday, making a welcome long weekend. At least half of the city’s inhabitants will head out of town, including hubby and me. We’ve been lent an apartment at the coast, which has me excited as I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the sea here. There’s one big drawback though – everyone else will be headed that way as well. I try not to think about the snaking lines of traffic we’ll face along the narrow coast road.

I look forward to long walks on the cliff bordering the breakers, the tangy sea air and sightings of gliding lines of pelicans. I hope I can convince hubby to brave the traffic to go to Valparaiso, whose narrow lanes lined with bright murals, hilly stairways and creaking funiculars promise surprise and creative inspiration. Maybe we can stop at the Dissidents’ Cemetery where I want to search for Scottish immigrant ancestors.

 After grey winter months spent mostly at the computer, I need a change of scene to stimulate my creative juices. What better place than the ocean and Valparaiso? I’ll take a notebook along.

Boxed In

When I park in an underground parking garage in Chile, I curse the architect. The design is anything but user-friendly. The curving ramps between floors are too narrow to make it in one try, and concrete pillars sneak up on me scraping my car door or giving my side-view mirror a good whack. But when I step up to a window to validate my ticket, my inner rants lose importance.

            From a chill subterranean cubicle, a woman receives my money and hands me the ticket. Is she satisfied with this job, sitting all day in a sterile concrete box with no natural light? Does she get bored or is she just thankful to have an income, pitiful as it may be? Perhaps, I think, she never aspired to anything more. Maybe she’s dreaming of buying a new refrigerator.

A woman in a bright orange uniform and cap, pushing a garbage can on wheels, sweeps the street in front of my house, removing the last of the fall and winter leaves. I smile and nod but feel embarrassed that she is sweeping my street, wondering how she feels cleaning the neighborhoods of the upper echelons in a government make-work job. When she finishes her shift, she’ll wait in line for a bus and arrive to her modest house at dark to wash and clean and prepare dinner for her family.

A few days ago I heard the music of an organ grinder floating down the street. Rather than a monkey like organ grinders of old, he travels with a small green parrot in a rustic wooden cage. His cart sports gaily colored balloons and whirly-gigs. No children came out to see him. Maybe he had more luck at the local park.

            Along our street I often hear the gravelly call of the broom vendor and the distinctive whistle of a knife sharpener. On a nearby corner a man changes the cane on wooden chairs.

            What is the job satisfaction of these people? Or is that a luxury they’ve never considered? If given the choice, I’d be an organ grinder: the promise of contact with children, out-of-doors, flexible hours and freedom to go wherever the road takes me. Deep in the parking garage box, I’d wither and die, a sunflower in a sunless world.

Bullets or Blossoms?

It seemed like just overnight that the first timid white blossoms made their appearance on our old apricot tree. I must remember to look at them every day for their beauty is fleeting. Already the pink cherry tree blossoms are fading. Is their ephemeral nature that makes them so precious?

My attention is drawn away from blossoms to the war scenes on the news. While I’m taking pleasure in the signs of spring, on another continent thousands of refugee families are living in tents on hot, dusty treeless plains; young men are assassinated while I worry about what to serve for dinner; mothers lose sons while I’m just a phone call away from mine. I want to rant in anger at someone, at those responsible. I feel so helpless.

One of our nine-year-old twin granddaughters, while visiting us, happened to see scenes of people huddled in the bombed-out rubble that was once their home. What I remember was her comment asked so innocently: “How can they live like that?” She wanted to know who was fighting and why. Technology brings atrocities into our living rooms and we must find ways to answer children’s questions, answers that we ourselves don’t have.

My husband and I watch the news of racial riots in the States. Since I have not lived in the States for decades, it’s difficult for me to understand the events: fires, shooting, teargas, looting and destruction, some instigated by outsider vandals. “Just like here,” I said to my husband: student protests that begin peacefully and deteriorate into violence at the hands of hooded and masked disfranchised youth.

Anyone up for a giant WORLD MARCH FOR PEACE? 

California Dreamin’

Hints of spring are in the air, though officially it arrives in another six weeks here in the Southern Hemisphere: yellow acacias blooms perfume the air, the cherry trees are donning their pink party dresses and birds are already checking nesting sites. We recently found a plump robin’s nest left from last year. I saved it for a while just for the pleasure of looking at it. Today I was about to toss it into the garbage when I thought: Wait a minute. Maybe the robins would like to recycle these perfectly preserved materials for building this year’s first nest. It would save a lot of scavenging. I placed the nest in the garden. If the robins aren't interested, it will make good compost.

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Jack Frost is still with us though. A few days ago we had a very cold rain. When it cleared, the Andes glowed brilliant in their fresh mantle of snow, and now rooftops in the mornings are white with frost.

At the supermarket, I gave into temptation. Weary of winter fruit, I bought some very pricy and delicious California grapes. Although a firm believer in buying locally, I have difficulty resisting California off-season fruit. Another time, I bought two peaches just for the exceptional pleasure of savoring their sweetness in the middle of winter.

The first bloom just appeared on the one California poppy I have in my garden. They winter over easily here and often bloom through the winter if in a sunny location. I’ll sow more poppy seeds soon, in hopes of having more luck than last year. The introduced poppies do best in wild, neglected terrain rather than a tended garden. Their preferred habitat in Chile is along railroad tracks.

La Llorona

Entertaining my three granddaughters when they come to our house doesn't require much imagination or effort. What we mainly do is Play. Among their favorite past times are drawing, playing house and racing the Matchbox cars that belonged to their dad. We've also invented a few games that they never tire of.

There’s “Monsters and Animals” which involves pushing, shoving and tickling on top of their grandparents’ bed.

            “I’m an alligator with sharp teeth.”

            “I’m a hippo with a huge mouth.”

            “And I’m a lion with sharp claws.”

And we roll and tickle and shove and laugh until grandmother Sue calls time out for a rest.

Another all time favorite is our version of Jack and the Beanstalk. They call the game “Fee-fi-fo-fu.” I, the giant, stomp around the house hunting for them in their hiding places, while I growl, “Fee-fi-fo-fum.” Their giggling usually gives them away, followed by screams when I find them and threaten to take out a bite of a plump arm or leg.

Last week, we played a Latin American version. We had just watched a Mexican movie, “La Llorona,” based on a legend of Maria, whose children had drowned. Destined to haunt the villages at night in a shroud, wailing for her lost children, she kidnaps village children. I learned of the legend years ago in California and heard the song “La Llorona” on Mexican radio stations. But my Chilean husband had never heard of it.

Throwing a large dark blue shawl over my head, I announced to the girls, “Soy la Llorona. I’m the Llorona”. With hysterical screams, they ran off to find hiding places. I wailed throughout the house, discovering their curled up bodies in dark closet corners, behind armchairs and, finally, under their grandfather’s office desk, with him trying to put on an innocent face.

The child in me loves to play and laugh. I wonder, when the girls are grown, if they’ll remember playing La Llorona with their grandmother.

Things to Do on a Rainy Day

A cold, grey, rainy day is best spent indoors. Right? After going to the gym and doing a couple of errands, I closed myself in and settled into the recliner in my study, thinking about all the postponed household chores I could be doing: sorting the piles of papers in my study, cleaning my sweater drawer where a moth nibbled a hole in my favorite green sweater, reducing the old emails in my Inbox, removing rug stains.  But, instead, I snuggled down to continue reading “West with the Night” by Beryl Markham, a book of my mother’s that had gathered a film of dust on my bookshelf. Now I can't put it down. I read with pencil in hand, underlining poetic phrases and metaphors. As a struggling writer, I get discouraged though. She writes so magnificently. Doubts about the quality of my writing haunt me as I prepare to publish my memoir. My consolation is a quote from Ernest Hemingway upon reading Markham’s book: …”she has written so well, and marvelously well, that I was completely ashamed of myself as a writer…. But she can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves as writers.”

            Writers confess to myriads of self-doubts, so maybe what I'm feeling is normal. All I can do is to keep on writing – and reading. I’ll glean what I can from Beryl Markham’s magic with words.