Tatjana was singing a lullabye to Tin in Croatian. When she translated it I knew why most people over there don’t smile a lot – it starts in childhood with sad lullabyes and then progresses to sad jokes as adults. Zeko i poto?i? (Bunny and the Brook). U jednoj zimskoj no?i tam gdje je visok brijeg smrznuo se poto?i? i pokrio ga snijeg. A jedan mali zeko taj potok traži svud, gdje je kud je…
I saw a friend who just turned 40 and she was upset about the whole passage. I told her I hated turning 40. But 50, now that was a wonderful birthday. As someone said at 50 you know that your youth is irrevocably gone. There is something remarkably freeing about entering the afternoon of your life and entering what Marianne Williamson calls second puberty. Something very freeing indeed. I told my 40 year old friend…
Today Michelle was back at yoga and I was back at yoga. We began our practice by chanting 108 times the Sanskrit, “Lokah samastah sukhino bhavantu” (May all beings everywhere be happy and free) in prayer for the people of Haiti and their hard times ahead. There are people who believe that December 2012 is the end of the Mayan calendar and perhaps the end of life. There are some who believe that destruction and…
Wild Geese You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, ?over the prairies…
We went to see Willie Nelson at the House of Blues last night and had another friend’s daughter come and sit with Tin. Willie is ancient. I guess I expected him to be older but not ancient. But that wasn’t an issue really, because he still played like a pup, but the problem was that we were with this crowd of people who were talking nonstop and that the House of Blues was not showcasing…
A friend sent an email about a couple who provided New Orleans much needed medical relief during the darkest aftermath of Katrina. They are on their way to Haiti right now to do the same for those poor people who have experienced a deadly earthquake. Their organization is International Medical Alliance and their names are Dorothy Davison and Dale Betterton. If you want to help the people in Haiti – this is a good way…
The air is so dry here in New Orleans and we are not used to it. And I’m not used to washing my hands 100 more times than normal because I’m always cleaning up after Tin. So my hands are cracking and bleeding. No lie. It’s painful. Well that and I grabbed a pot directly out of the oven last night. Don’t ask. I had Tin on my back, my Ipod was playing my country…
In France women get 12 months maternity leave. Seriously. Here I get a month. A month that I must say is flying by and not without me thinking about work – it’s January after all, when things are getting launched and ready to go and I feel like I came to the gate and then stopped to foal. Strange. At the same time, Tin and I and Loca have established a walk at 9:30 where…
The roofer finally came to fix the leak that he has been fixing since Katrina. He says it’s fixed. Like I’m supposed to believe him. I felt like saying well the earth is flat, ha. Meanwhile, while he was in the attic, he broke the alarm. So today the alarm guy came to fix that. Tin had just gone down for his nap and boom, alarm guy comes, and we have to wake him up.…
Much of the bible belt is located in the Southern United States but for me, what appeared as the real bible belt was Missouri and Kansas where I saw crosses upon crosses almost everywhere I looked while driving through these states over the years. There is something about a wooden cross that evokes creepiness in me and it could be that it is an overt symbol and I was raised in a more esoteric religion.…