A Winter Fog

There is a winter fog hovering over me,
it´s weightlessness a farce as it sets heavy on my shoulders.
I wish to throw it off so I can progress with clarity into this new year
but it eludes my grasp and dances about keeping me under its influence.

There is a list of resolutions beckoning me,
its fresh content and possibilities call me from the other side.
I imagine delving into them and awakening anew

But the leaden shroud of mist hangs on and hinders my advance.

Alone I wish to dissolve it, to reach the other side
however, in company I find myself each day and
this is a challenge I must face in solitude and silence
concentrating on dissipating the veil in order to move forward freely.

Soon the house will be quiet, I will be alone
and the rays of sunny solitude
will burn off the fog.

When was the last time you went out to play?

It was hot on Sunday, I spent a good part of the day doing laundry and cleaning the house. So at about 6pm I put on the bikini and dove into the pool without even testing the water.

I proceeded to "play" in the pool like I did as a kid. I am grateful that at my middle age I can still do front and back summersaults in the water, often two in one breath. I can still reach a balance and hold a handstand for more than 10 seconds,

I can still do several backhandsprings (in the water) in a row, getting dizzy and feeling my body weight differently, just like I used to do when I was 12 or 13. (OK so I was a gymnast in my teens) What fun I had playing in the pool! Diving in, swimming lengths in one breath, kicking as hard as I could to make big waves. My 16 year old daughter and her boyfriend could only smile at me in surprised wonder and then take some pictures. I felt myself smiling the whole time too. And what good exercise it was! When was the last time you went out to play?
Last one in is a rotten egg!

Back to the Barter

With changes abounding in our economics, personal, national and global, we should consider how we can bring back the old fashioned barter system into our lives. Yesterday I gave a friend Reiki and she gave me a massage. Neither can afford to pay for those services, that seem like luxuries, but that are actually essential for our over all well-being and for keeping stress at bay. It was a win-win arrangement. We have set another date in two weeks.

Beat the crisis - go back to the barter system.. what can you offer? what can you receive?

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

I am grateful for a couple of hours of laughter and songs with my 16 yr old and one of her best friends. She took the microphone and small sound system I have outside to practice her songs for the talent show next month. She's a good singer and performer and has participated in the local edition of the X-Factor and past talent shows, and of course as a mother, I LOVE watching and listening to her. So I dropped all my "must dos" to take advantage of the opportunity! She sang some past numbers and "hammed up" Somewhere over the Rainbow (one of her dad's favorites). In her exageration of the emotion of it, she really made it 'hers' and powerful. Then she got her friend into duets and sillyness and we laughed heartily. Wonderful way to spend my afternoon.

Happy Mother's Day to All you Mothers!
Am grateful that I got my relaxed day of paella and beer with husband and girls at the beachside restaurant down the hill from our house, walk on the beach, siesta and a couple hours of reading to finish As I Lay Dying (william Faulkner) for Tuesday's book club I lead.

Now to read "Bodas de Sangre" Blood Wedding by Garcia Lorca to help my daughter with it for her class assignmnet.

One of my New Year's "resolutions" (why do I hate that word? or whole concept for that matter, yet still fall prey to it? Maybe for another blog entry I'll go there) was to keep a "gratitude journal". I didn't find a journal, calendar, or other writing vehicle that I liked for it (read procrastination or hesitation?) so when I finally broke down and opened a Facebook page - for socialogical research I told myself - I decided my regular commentary would be on something I was grateful for. As much for my own good as a possible inspiration to others to remember all the positive things instead of the negative things in their lives.

So here are a few of my recent ones - and since it has been become difficult for me to write longer entries on this blog space, I will include them here as well in the future.

I'm grateful for happy childhood and teen memories, triggered by songs on the "classic hits" stations. The more I know, the more I realize how fortunate I was to have been loved the way I was by my parents.

I'm grateful for the family gathering to celebrate Spanish Mother's Day. Today I cooked and entertained - maybe I'll get paella at the beach next week on US Mother's Day!

I'm grateful for the unconditional love of our 4 legged friends: Jessie the blonde lab, Nico the tabby cat, Lily the black and white cat. Comforting on a low day...joyful always!

I'm grateful for the fact that our teenage girls ask me to fix vegetables and "healthy food" especially after circumstances have had them missing the daily home cooked meal. All that work of insisting they eat some "green" every day pays off!

Personal Reflections on my Semana Santa

Eyes full of suffering fix on mine, guilt gags at the back of my throat, confusion quivers under my skin. Am I some how to blame? But for what? The beat of the drum changes, the trumpet’s wail intensifies, the paso continues its 45º turn and Christ’s eyes lock into someone else’s bewildered soul.
The Nazarenos follow in their white coned hats and black robes, their paschal candles illuminate the night. After all these years in Spain their covered faces are still sinister and anonymous to me like the Ku Klux Klan. The antique silver staff is tapped
three times on the pavement, the music ceases and the procession comes to a temporary rest. Spectators return to conversations, many weave in and out of the scene to get to a better spot, children try to cajole candle drippings from the silent Nazarenos to grow their wax ball like a snowball. Mistrust of these hidden penitents doesn’t exist for them.
I shift from leg to leg, rub my sore back, crane my neck to see if the Virgin is in sight yet. I think about Christ’s imploring eyes and wonder why I’m here. The trumpet thankfully interrupts, the drum beats again, brum brum, brum bum bum. A distant bell rings and the Nazarenos angle their candles towards each other forming a medieval-like arch over the street, they resume their silent shuffle. A slight hint of incense tickles my nose, the steady clanking of the swaying palio, (the canopy suspended over the statue) becomes clearer, flickering flames and the mourning Virgin finally appear in the distance above the white peaks. The second band, accompanying the Virgin, now marks the beat that the procession follows, sometimes slow and sorrowful, other times swift and exultant, but always steady and familiar. The costaleros (the men who carry the throne throughout the streets) sway the paso, gently rock it, inch it along or march it forward according to the music. The more frequently and elaborately they do this, the more the crowd applauds them. It is in hopes of seeing this spectacle that I wait so long for the Virgin to pass this corner I have staked as mine.
She is dressed in burgundy velvet, her black cloak, also velvet, is intricately embroidered in gold all the way to the end of it’s 4 meter train. The palio above her is embroidered to match. Her gilded halo shimmers in the night glow of candles and street lamps. The beautifully sculpted silver base overflows with white flowers: lilies, roses, carnations, freesias, gladiolas. She rests in front of us, I can hear the costaleros sigh in relief. A spontaneous saetero pays her homage, singing the traditional flamenco type song of pain and lament. At its end another admirer cheers Viva la Virgen, the crowd responds with Viva! They repeat this three times and the crowd breaks out in wild applause. The music begins again, the costaleros take their position and repay this homage with their beautiful display of maneuvers. As they progress down the street to the beat of the drum, the crowd’s applause lingers.
We have seen the entire procession, over sixty minutes standing still in the middle of a crowd, my body aches and I need air. I once again wonder why I do this, and why it means so much to me. My husband prods me on to the plaza to sit and have a drink. We watch the locals greet each other with kisses, and warm salutations and can’t help but notice the once-overs the women give each other in their show of new Spring fashions.
I ponder the contrast of the solemnity of Christ’s suffering paraded around town with this display of economic well-being, the full bars and restaurants, the festive atmosphere parading on the street corners.
Semana Santa in Andalucia, it simply magnifies what I have already concluded about the Catholic Church in Spain; it has become an institution of cultural rituals instead of spiritual support and moral guidance. What I find harder to conclude is what it has become for me.

Happy Birthday

Today is my mother's birthday, she would have been 68.
Happy Birthday Mom. I wonder what you would be doing now, be retired? Travelling? Of course you'd be travelling, it was your lifeblood. Still married to DP? Still in Va.? Would we be together today? So many questions on the big What if... What if you hadn't died at 60?
Well, we can't change any of it, but I need to wish you happy birthday, and imagine giving you a hug. Know what happened to me today? I still wear your long pink and white cardigan and I hung it on a hanger on the laundry line to dry today. As I ran my hand down it to see if it was dry I imagined you in it, and gave it a hug, and flung the empty sleeves around my shoulders and tried to imagine you hugging me back. It didn't really work, you weren't really there. No, you are in my heart, in my thoughts, in my soul...today and always. Happy Birthday Mom, I love you.

A Feast For The Eyes!

Sex In The City - the movie. I took my daughters and a couple of their friends to see the movie out of curiosity, to see what would finlly happen with Carrie and Big, looking to be entertained and looking for "cool" entertainment (as in air conditioned on a hot seaside day.) I didn't expect to like it so much, I didn't expect to think about it so much afterwards, and I didn't expect such a FEAST FOR THE EYES! (Nor to be so enchanted by the feast)

The clothes, the shoes..of course..., the way the women were put so perfectly together, their makeup, their hair, the accesories. Of course they had it all. Not to mention the new homes they decorated, the clubs and restaurants they went to: it was all like being at a luxurious buffet table, not sure where to start, and trying to be sure to save room for the desserts....Dante, Smith, even Steve....

I surprised myself at this reaction, as I am no longer the clothes fiend I was in my twenties, and have become quite against spending $500 on shoes or any other accessory for that matter, not to mention $5000 for a purse. My daughters now receive the lion's share of our household fashion budget, and anything over 50 Euros is a rare purchase in this household. I shudder to think what each outfit with all included was worth, and how many starving families in South America that money could feed. But I was enthralled, impressed, and for a short time envious. It was beautiful, and I fantasized about being a part of it. I guess that's part of the great succes of the series and the movie, the fantasies they inspire in us.

Then there's the friendship thing in that foursome that has kept so many of us, of such a wide range of ages, coming back season after season to feel a part of their evolution. When I asked my daughters after the movie why they thought it was so, my 18 year old wisely said "because we see ourselves reflected in them". I wondered in what part an 18 year old just beginning her adult life and sexual acitivity would see herself reflected, but refrained from asking - at that moment.

In which one do I see myself reflected? In only one? No I think there's a part of each of them in all of us, whether real or dreamed about. That's why we keep coming back season after season to cry, to laugh, to celebrate, to criticize with them, as if we too were at that breakfast table every week.

The movie has been floating around in my mind for much longer than most films do, and I keep asking myself why? I think because of the maturing, growing, evolving issues that it manifests. The questions of love and how it affects our lives. Commitment, self sacrifice for another, making changes and adaptions for the good of all, communication, forgiveness and becoming someone else as we mature. Where am I on all these issues, in my 40's like they are? I've been married for 21 years, have made the commitment, sacrifcie and adaptions, become someone different than I expected I'd be at this age, and thus the movie has made me think about it all. Am I happy with who I am and the way I've gotten here? Am I glad I don't need (read because I can't afford?) all those clothes and night clubs and status symbols to be happy and feel like I'm somebody. Would I be able to live as a single woman in New York, or any other major U.S. city for that matter? Would I want to? Maybe, sometimes, no, well perhaps in the future.

And as these questions slowly recede I come back to those peacock and rhinestone Manolo's and imagine what it might feel like to wear $500 high heels. Maybe I could last more than 20 minutes in those....maybe I could be just as gorgeous if I had all that money and time to spend on only me...

I look over my balcony from where I write this at the shimmering blue Med through swaying palms and remember my midnight skinny dip in our pool with my husband last night and think; girl you have a great life, come back from Hollywood fantasy and enjoy it!

Campeones, Campeones!

We can't take our eyes off the screen as tension builds towards the end of the 1-0 match !




Victory at last! Eurpean Champions after forty some years!! Our celebrating takes to the street and lasts for hours! Adults and kids alike....


Campeones, Campeones, Oh eee Oh eee Oh EE!

A long way to my heart

It is a long way to my heart, that phrase has been in my mind when I've thought of my journal writing lately. Why is it a long way to my heart? It seems to me that it is just under the surface, close, always open and reaching out. How can it be a long way to my heart? Is it buried? Buried under what? Under my husband and kids, under my work? Or has it run off to a distant place? Is that place my homeland, my family my roots? That must be it, since as I write these lines emotions rise up in my chest, tears well and would fall if I let them. My homeland; I often criticise it from afar, but secretly I long to know how I might feel, back in its bosom. My roots, my family; I long to see my brother -rekindle our comraderie, to enjoy his wife's optimisim. I miss his children and dream of being a more active presence in their lives. His oldest, 11, so much like him physically, is he personality wise? I don't know, but I think so. His second, 8, so determined in his quests, whatever they have been, may be and may become at each stage of his growing up. And his little girl, 5, so cute, so like my mother in her looks, has she got my mother's soul?

That must be where my heart is, in that faraway place of my homeland, my family, my roots. I soon will go after it and that other part of me, in the United States.

What's on the Menu?

Menu:

Queso y Fruta
Verduras Crudas con “dip” especial
Roscos
Vichysoisse
Ensalada del Mar
Crepes de delicias del bosque con espárragos
Postre de fruta y chocolate
Vino Blanco y Cava

I spend a lot of time thinking about “what’s on the menu.” Out of nowhere I’ll ask my husband what he’d like to eat the next day for our “comida” (our main meal that we eat between 2 and 3pm, as is the Spanish tradition). Or he’ll ask me on a night that we both lay restless in bed what I’m thinking about, and I’ll answer “what I’m going to fix for comida tomorrow.”
“How can you think about food all the time, when you’re not even hungry?”
How do I explain it’s not only the food, but also how to schedule my day in order to fix the food, that I’m planning. It’s all based on the workshops I have, the time a dish takes to prepare, if I need leftovers because I won’t be home for lunch later in the week, and finally any ingredients I might need. Well, and of course, what I feel like eating, since they usually don’t tell me what they’d like to eat when I ask.

When I pick my 15 year old daughter up from school I ask what she has eaten at school (she’s the only one who doesn’t eat at home during the week, because of her school schedule) so that I can pick our supper menu accordingly, filling in the things she missed out on, and not repeating eggs or meat. Our supper is usually like an American lunch: sandwiches, soup, maybe an omelet, a salad, or a pasta dish. Often everyone makes their own, but the proper, healthy ingredients must be there.

I put a lot of my mental and physical energy in this meal planning, and the shopping that goes along with it. This supermarket here for lowest prices, this fresh vegetable shop there where the things are locally grown and, although not guaranteed organic, are more naturally produced and more flavorful. The market with the best fish this week, the butchers with the locally grown meet next week, to stock the freezer. (Luckily all this is affordable and easily available here on the Costa del Sol.) The meals must be healthy, which means no pre-prepared, highly processed ingredients. They must be balanced, which means: at least two kinds of vegetables; not huge amounts of protein; a healthy carbohydrate, and not high in fats. (OK I know many diets say we should eat proteins and carbs separately, but I often serve them together.) And legumes at least once a week. (I learned that from my Spanish mother in law.) I try and get us all to eat at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, not always successfully but at least it’s a conscious objective. My daughters have been hearing since they’ve been little “You have to eat your green today!”

In my planning I must keep in mind what my daughters like, so that they will fill up on this healthy meal I serve, and not the junk food they can get while they’re in town if they’ve only eaten a little because they didn’t like it. I have tried to teach them to eat everything, but…well if you’re a Mom you know how it goes.

I love to use leftovers. My challenge to myself is how to use something leftover to make a completely new and different dish. My record was at a family gathering where I used 7 things from two previous meals to make the most delicious Shepherds Pie that everyone loved.

This is the veggie pasta casserole that I made for comida this week with ground beef and chicken (broken up patties that thawed when my husband generously defrosted the freezer the night before) and sautéed zucchini and red pepper salad left over from two different meals earlier in the week, plus an array of other freshly added veggies herbs, and parmesan cheese. Not bad for making it up when I went to bed the night before trying to figure out how to feed three adults with three thin patties that had just thawed out by mistake.

And this is my version of a Greek salad I served that evening for supper, with leftover steamed green beans and broccoli thrown in that would have turned bad if I didn’t use them up quick. We had more than our 5 servings of fruit and vegetables that day!

So what’s on the menu for tomorrow? Come back and find out, I haven’t looked in the freezer (nor gone to bed) yet!

Letting Go

I have let go of the assumption that my daughters will go to university.
I have let go of pre-determined images of their adult lives.
I have let go of assuming that being intellectual is the key to their happiness and success;
- it is my key, but not everyone's.
I have let go of my desires for more and more material possessions;
- they are acquiring theirs.
I have let go of the notion that I can still "guide" my daughters;
- I can only love them and make myself available to support them when they feel they need it.
I have let go of the assumption that they will live and love like me.
I have let go of the sermons of why living like me, or like I think they should live, should be their living path.

It is a challenging road, this one of letting go.
It has been a gradual realization as we have advanced along our path;
- my values of a different generation and a different culture are not the same values by which they navigate their lives in today's Spain.

I can only hope that the core values of love, respect, integrity, understanding and giving, that we have shown them by our life examples, will have influenced them more than our words of sermons and lecturing have done.

Of all these things, as a mother, I have let go....or so I tell myself.....but have they let go of me?

From my journal dated March 17th 08

The hard, healthy road of January

In my attempt to drop the few kilos I gained with all the Christmas sweets and lack of exercise I stopped eating sweets yesterday, have kept wine in take to one glass per meal since the weekend, and played padel yesterday and today for an hour. My body aches all over, energy level is low, and I’m exhausted…… is this supposed to be healthy living?

Materialism of our times as seen in modern shopping malls

It is the day before Three Kings, the most important gift-giving day in Spain. A shopping madhouse day like Christmas Eve in the U.S. I read the posts by Absolute Vanilla and Baino on materialism and remembered the below piece in my "draft" box since Oct. Note that my described feelings of over-stimulated and bombarded have been at least duplicated in Dec. and Jan. I don't even want to imagine the sales crowds (which begin Jan. 7th here) when my daughters will spend the gift certificates and birthday money they receive over these dates, and ask for my help.
So here is my humble response to the over-materialism of our times as seen in modern shopping malls.

I had to wait 45 minutes until I had agreed to meet someone at a coffee place at a local mall the other day, so I decided to 'go shopping' by myself (i.e. without 2 teenagers dragging me from one hip store to another) to see the new fashion trends for the Fall, maybe look for new bras I desperately needed, but hated the thought of shopping for. After 50 minutes I couldn't wait to get out!

My senses felt bombarded:

• a different electronic music in each shop, (that awful kind they have found makes us purchase more. I think we purchase more because we can't think straight and can't wait to get out so we just decide to buy quickly to find reprieve from the music - I especially find this in the 'hip' stores my daughters drag me to.)
• bright colors of glitzy stuff on top of every surface, especially in these kiosks now placed along the middle of the mall corridor to sell us more stuff we don't need
• over layered, color coordinated outfits in every shop window that remind me of how out of style all my perfectly fine and color coordinated clothes I already own are
• smells of every ethnic kind of food I never thought I'd be hungry for, from the bi-level food court half way down the mall.

Once the coffee was had and business taken care of, it was a reprieve to get in my car. To close out the noise, the materialism, the feel of frenzy. I drove home slowly, admiring the glimpses of the sea I got between new apt. buildings, restaurants and hotels (more materialism I tried to ignore) calming myself with classical music and the thought of home and the new color coordinated outfits I could pull together from the comfort clothes in my closet, acquired from an array of places, the least of which were shopping malls, over the years.(I'd have to wait another two months before I replaced those old bras)

Weekend in Madrid

Madrid was the first city I lived in, in Spain and it is the city I moved back to four times. Now it is the city that I visit when I need to feel sophisticated, urban, in vogue, challenged; perhaps independant and decisive again. I spent the early Dec. long

weekend there with my almost 18 year old daughter, just the two of us. We had planned

on seeing the Prado Friday morning before the shopping district, you know to get at least some culture in before admiring the designer's windows and perhaps buying a thing or two. Then Saturday was to be dedicated to catching up with old friends and family, and Sunday to a photographic session with a cousin for my daughter's modelling book.

All went according to plan except the Prado visit! I haven't seen such lines since....well I think ever! I can't even imagine how long it would have taken, it was 4 or 5 people wide and it ran almost the entire length of the museum and around the corner. Instead we opted to visit the elegant Ritz hotel, take a stroll down memory lane past landmarks that marked my first year in Spain,

pay a visit to the huge nativity scene in the emblematic Cibeles building, have a coffee at Starbucks, which has not yet reached the Costa del Sol (thank goodness!) as we walked our way up to the shopping district.

First stop Mallorca - pastry shop, bakery, delicatassen, caterer - all in one - a gournet's delight...

Second stop Jardin de Serrano elite shopping arcade...I used to aspire to dressing from those

type of boutiques, my times and values have changed - this trip confirmed that - next stops - shops more affordable and attuned to our life style. We acquired a few shopping bags, tired feet, sore backs and a fabulous lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe.

We stayed with long time friends from (our (my husband's and mine) college and early double dating days, who then became our next door neighbors for 4 years in Madrid. It reminded me that some friendships are forever and full of comfort, understanding, comraderie and laughter no matter how much time and distance passes bewteen visits. Our Saturday spent with another friend and her familhy and then my husband's great aunt and cousin continued to fill me with love and laughter and memories of old times and just plain feel good energy.

Sara's (my daughter see above and below) photography session went better than expected by all, I think, and we hope the photos will help her advance her career when she visits the agencies in Madrid in January with her agency rep. from here in Malaga.

Not to mention the great talks that Sara and I shared on the 5 hour drive to and from, in a non aggressive and non-challenging atmosphere and tone. Not always easy to attain in a busy life with two teen agers. I learned things about her, I hope she also learned things about me and life's values too. Those lessons are so hard to communicate but a weekend like this perhaps is a BIG HELP!

So did I feel independant, sophisticated, urban, in vogue, and decisive? To some extent, but in a less invigorating way than I did when I was in my 20's. And I was glad to leave the hustle, bustle, expensive sophistication, noise and cold behind, for my suburban, tranquil, sunny and sometimes indecisive life on the Med.

Fill Your Heart With Thanksgiving

May you count many blessings in your thankfulness today and EVERYDAY.

I found this poem in a book I have been referring to lately for inspiration, meditation and refelction, copyrighted in 1974 that I bought for my Mom around 1998 in a used book store in Reston, Va. It proves that deep truths never get old or go out of fashion. Perhaps we just have to remind ourselves of them more often in this time of harsh media and materialism.

Fill Your Heart With Thanksgiving

Take nothing for granted,
For whatever you do
The joy of enjoying
Is lessened for you –
For we rob our own lives
Much more than we know
When we fail to respond
Or in any way show
Our thanks for the blessings
That daily are ours…
The warmth of the sun,
The fragrance of the flowers,
The beauty of twilight,
The freshness of dawn,
The coolness of dew
On a green velvet lawn,
The kind little deeds
So thoughtfully done,
The favors of friends,
And the love that someone
Unselfishly gives us
In a myriad of ways,
Expecting no payment
And no words of praise-
Oh, great id our loss
When we no longer find
A thankful response
To things of this kind,
For the joy of enjoying
And the fullness of living
Are found in the heart
That is filled with thanks-
Giving.
Helen Steiner Rice

A Stranger in a Strange Land

Maggie Rose from marginalviews posted a piece this week about her countdown to going home, how she misses it and her adult children, and the feelings of being a stranger in a strange land. It opened something in me that I seem to have just needed to express, so I share some of the thoughts and musings it awakened in me.

-------------------------------------------------
As a fellow ex pat I go through what you are going through frequently, but my children are not yet adult, they are born and bred Spanish, so it is my parents, my brother and his kids I long to see. But my parents are in a place I will not get to for a long time yet (I hope) and my brother is not in my home town. So I long to go home to a time, place and feeling of love, family camaraderie and security that does not exist anymore. How the question "is it a past time you long to go back to?" stabbed at my heart.

On being a stranger in a strange land, I am that here, but last evening on an outing to a dance event at the local Casa de Cultura in town I kissed in greeting many of my spanish friends, said hello to another handful of faces I know from one facet or other of community life here. But I am the American outsider. When I visit the US after 20 years away, I do not have a community feeling anywhere (no doubt I would if I lived there for awhile...) and with my changed perspective on the US and its values, I am the American from Europe outsider. So I often feel a stranger in a strange land on both sides of the 'puddle' as they say here. I long not to have to explain myself, or traditions and customs, to not have to be careful to say the wrong thing in the wrong way or the right thing in the wrong way.

But this is my path, and mostly I give thanks for it, for it has shown me happiness and offers abundance of many kinds, but I do cross these areas of shadow from time to time. Perhaps it's the approach of Thanksgiving and Christmas, that brings a bit of darkness to the path this month.

On an enthusiastic note, I must tell you that there are about 7 of us American women married to Spaniards, and we get together every month or two and it is with them that I do not feel a stranger nor do I have to explain myself, because they feel the same. SO for the first time in the 6 years we have been meeting we are doing a joint Thanksgiving next Sat. (Nobody can get Thursday off work here, obviously.) And I am so excited about sharing that day in a warm family, group atmosphere, where the traditions need no explanations, the kids are at the kiddy table off to the side, the men talk about sports and the women are a supportive, chatty group in the kitchen and around the table. We will be 32 in all. Thank goodness another woman is hosting it in her huge house, not yet fully furnished.....Truly I can't wait! It reminds of the anticipation I felt when I was young and we joined with our distant cousins and grandparents, or when I'd come from school for big hugs and gatherings at a bountiful table!

Thank you for provoking this Maggie, it feels better now.

Quilt

I had a quilt, it was blue and pink,
It was a great quilt I used to think.
My grandma Young made it, who knew when,
I only knew I loved it then.

It covered my bed, matching me,
Not the curtains hung so prettily.
It gave me comfort, warmth, minute fame
Wearing it at the weekly baseball game.

You’ll ruin it Mom used to say, but
I didn’t see the damage day to day.
So it accompanied me in my coming of age
Unniversity, first flat, now I’m engaged.

Tattered and frayed in a trunk it came
To give me warmth at home in Spain.
There it stayed until my daughter was born,
Searching for our roots, I found it too worn.

Unable to part with those golden days
In that trunk it still decays.
My Grandma Young made it, who knows when,
I only know I loved it then.

Details For The Living

Sunday Sept. 9th, 2007, marks the 6th anniversary of my mother's death, and Monday Sept. 11th the anniversary of the unthinkable on the morning of her wake. I publish here a piece I wrote when all of that was still raw in Oct. 2001, because I was drawn to pull it out of old files today. Re-reading it made me realize the strength and depth of those infrequent and life-changing emotions.

September 11th 2001

A burning building filled the screen, Live Action; NBC News, remained unmoving in one corner, 10:32am in another.
“What happened I asked?” concern creeping in.
“It’s the Pentagon, a plane crashed into it,” a voice answered.
“What!” I blurted incredulously, eyes frozen on the screen.
“Yea, didn’t you hear about the twin tours?” another voice asked.
At that instant the screen switched to the shocking images of the previous 90 minutes: a twin tower on fire, a plane crashing into another, the first tumbling impossibly to the ground, then horrifyingly, the second following suit. I don’t know how much time elapsed the first time, but in two minutes of repeated footage I was supposed to assimilate the unimaginable. The bizarre series of events were unfolded for us by the news reporters, the others in the room, a local fireman who came in behind us.
My thoughts scrambled to grasp it, “these are special effects, scenes from Hollywood, someone is pulling a macabre joke like the Orson Wells’ radio hoax in 1939 when Martians were supposedly invading the earth, but who would or could? or why would they? This is too unreal to be unreal”.
The momentary isolation I had built around myself disintegrated and I looked at my brother and step father – unable to speak, we exchanged looks of fear and disbelief.
People were coming and going in the receiving room of the funeral parlor, voices were drowning out the news casters: speculation, confusion, who, how, why, what else? The fireman brought news about the Pentagon, the alert status they received, unconfirmed suspicions of more targets: the missile sight 15 miles up the road, AOL headquarters practically around the corner, Dulles Airport 15 minutes away. We were in one of the hubs, the spokes were spinning around us.
The funeral director showed us the chapel where the wake would be held that evening and took the shoes we had brought for him to put on my mother. The casket would be closed, nobody would see her, why bother with shoes? Because she couldn’t go barefoot in the dress she had said she wanted to be buried in. Another detail for the living, one of many I had questioned in the past 24 hours.
As we pushed ourselves to finish funeral tasks at hand the roads became deserted, cell phones were impossible to use, shopping centers closed and planes ceased to fly. The resulting silence was eerie. I felt like I was floating, the ground seemed to drop out from beneath my feet with each step, my stomach tightened, numbness took over. How could any of this be happening? My mother dead. Fear that any number of nearby sights could be attacked before day’s end. It feels like a dream, I wish it were a dream, it’s not a dream. The NPR news on the car radio confirmed that it was true.


Had everyone arrived from California that morning? Could Monica get out of Virginia Beach with the kids? Surely, as Chief Weapons Officer of the Navy’s East Coast Air Wing, her husband wouldn’t be coming now. Call Jennifer, tell her to avoid the beltway, come on the back roads. What about Todd coming by train from New York?
The California family had arrived safely on one of the last flights allowed to land at Dulles Airport. There they were, glued to the television when we walked in the house. Amazing how eight members of our family could be so quiet all in the same room. We all hugged, then pandemonium broke loose, everyone talking at once; “can you believe it, this is absurd, scary, impossible, I can’t fathom it, where were you when you heard? ”. The reason for the unexpected family reunion was temporarily forgotten, all attention was on the unthinkable.
The estimated number of deaths rose on the TV screen and suddenly it all became clear to me. I understood God’s rush to have my mother with Him. He needed her: her generous love, undying faith, great strength and unparalleled organization (as all of us cousins would later joke) to help so many souls in their passage from this life to the next. It comforted me to know that His next calling for her was of such magnitude. No doubt it pleased her too and she would rise to the occasion.
Then, thinking of the family members of those killed that day, I appreciated our good fortune. We had accompanied her until her peaceful end, we had said our good byes, our I love you’s and our thank you’s. We had shared our reminisces, our remember whens, our laughter and our tears with her. We had a body to dress, a casket to choose, a wake to plan, a burial to attend; We had details for the living.