I read somewhere that Margaret Atwood said a divorce is like an amputation, you’re less afterwards. That would make me 4/5th the woman I used to be and still I feel like there is so much more of me now than at any other point in my life. On the way to Spain, I was trying to explain to my son that things had changed. A dear woman had passed from illness and old age,…
Tin’s got a new playmate who is closer to his age than his usual posse here. She lives downstairs and keeps him on his toes especially when her younger cousin is around; Tin absorbs so much Spanish because he is constantly being corralled by these two female chatterboxes (or in the case of the cousin, screamers). I have been taking my afternoon walks on the beach with friends and it’s amazing to drift in and…
Along with my daily rituals that I look forward to – my two cups of pu ehr and a bowl of gluten free granola with goat’s milk yogurt, the beach with Africa looming on the other side of the blue blue water, heavy lunches with multiple glasses of Verdejo – my new favorite white wine – beach walky talkies with friends near dusk, gin tonics at night and all the reading that happens here –…
I’ve had the pleasure of two free late afternoon strolls along the seawall. The park that surrounds Cadiz is lush with tropical size trees and a topiary garden that features gigantic carved cedars. The weather is so cool, I’ve almost had to turn around and get a sweater. I’ve always said I love Granada the most in Spain, but the truth is this year I realized that after five years it is Cadiz I love…
Tin is five and a half and already has two bars in Cadiz where everybody knows his name and has since he was two years old. In the bar by the church, Tin keeps asking how everyone in there knows him so well. There you have it. The woman who owns the great wine shop, Margerit, has opened a stall in the foodie section of the gran market here in Cadiz. This year she introduced…
I got on the airplane with Alain De Botton’s Essays in Love and segued into Greg Iles’ Natchez Burning – a book that held me in its death grip until it ended and I picked up Mo’ Meta Blues from Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, which was a romp through the mind of a music geek like no other. All I wanted to do when I put down his book was pick up my iPod and listen…
I bought online a dozen sky lanterns to bring to Zahara de los Atunes this summer. My plan was to release them on the anniversary of my friend losing her husband and child in a car accident, and in memoriam to my friend who passed this year. But the TSA would not allow the sky lanterns to pass security. Tin was on the beach in Cadiz and he dug a hole and filled it with…
We brought some of the thin books that a friend had given Tin years ago – each one asks a question – Why, When, How, Where, and Why. We were reading about the Nile River, how it is the longest river in the world. Later, I was asking Tin where the Nile is located and he said Australia {and we laughed]. Then I said, think of where your ancestors are from, but he kept saying…
Memory is supposed to take form after four years old, which is why a lot of parents put off life changing travel till their kids are of age. But Tin’s passport already had Tangiers, Spain, Croatia and Gibraltar stamped in it multiple times before we embarked again for Spain this summer. Now that he is five and a half, I thought some parts of travel would take firmer hold in his imagination. However, after sleeping…
Tin and I were going to get up and go to the Prado, but because we were up at 3am watching Frozen on my computer, we actually ended up waking for real at noon and having about an hour to run down the street to eat. We were in room number 7, an omen for a trip that was already going smoother than expected. We stopped into La Fabrica and I had another delicious pot…