I’m sure you won’t miss my maudlin posts of late, we’re off to Portugal to hear fados sung for us – our catharsis against the summer of our own living fado – a summer that was meant to be about birth and babies and instead has been fraught with sadness and loss. Eudora Welty said Southerners live their narratives and there is no dearth of material floating around here. But don’t cry for me Argentina…
T heard this today on NPR: Patriotism by Ellie Schoenfeld My country is this dirt that gathers under my fingernails when I am in the garden. The quiet bacteria and fungi, all the little insects and bugs are my compatriots. They are idealistic, always working together for the common good. I kneel on the earth and pledge my allegiance to all the dirt of the world, to all of that soil which grows flowers and…
Being raised a Jew I never bought into the turn the other cheek philosophy – I think eye for an eye was at the root of all my conflict resolution until I hit my first divorce and in the separation of property phase, what ensued poisoned my system and I walked away rather than stay and fight. Even though most of what we had was given to us by my father. But I learned then…
A long day’s journey into the night. Finally an update from the doctor that mom is not getting better and not getting worse, but she sees no reason for us not to go on with our plans to leave the country on Thursday. I don’t know whether to say woo hoo or just break down and cry. The adoption book has been expanded by three times the amount of pages and they are all lined…
This was T’s mother’s favorite greeting in America. See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya. This is my horoscope today – how appropriate. August 03, 2009 Taurus (4/20-5/20) Here’s another blessed day off from feeling as if you and you alone are responsible for everything that happens in and around your world. This makes two in a row, so you may begin to feel a bit spoiled, but that doesn’t mean that you should let guilt…
In the midst of trying to decide if we could go on this Portugal trip I told T I’d rather go listen to fados rather than live them. Fado is a form of song from Portugal (or actually Africa as it seems all music must descend from), it literally means fate but the word fado derives from the Portuguese saudade, which has no English translation but most closely resembles pine (pena in Portuguese) – the…
Yesterday, I think I had my 19th nervous breakdown. We had sent family back home, and I had visited my mother late in the afternoon and found her looking frail and not so good. In the meantime, I had learned my sister was on her way here and arriving late Wednesday and so we had decided, selfishly, to go to Portugal on this prepaid trip that we had scheduled back in May. There is a…
Today we brought T’s mom and 14 year old cousin to the airport and it was a day fraught with many complicated emotions. On one hand, so happy to have our house back after seven weeks of having company, on the other so sad to see particularly T’s mom go since she is getting older and we are acutely aware of time these days and how little of it we have. When I was walking…
Yesterday after visiting mom, I came home and sat on the front porch with our Croatian family and our neighbor. We just sat there enjoying the night and trading stories, a New Orleans tradition. My neighbor regaled us with nursing home stories – her parents escaping with one of the elderly who still has keys to her car and an errant karaoke machine they were trying to get jump started at the lawn mower repair…