Stella, my seven-month-old puppy who came into my life when she was seven weeks old is finally old enough to take on long walks. Today, we got all the way to the New Orleans Museum of Art in City Park – a four-mile round trip. The park has always been my cathedral, my place of worship because I am in awe of all things that have roots and fly – and there is plenty of…
Was it Thoreau or Emerson who said the whole world exists in your own backyard? I can’t remember. I was thinking of this when I was sitting on the beach in Andalusia with the hills of Northern Africa not only visible across the ocean, but looking close enough to touch. And yet, some of my Spanish friends have never been. As crazy as that seems, when the 2005 Federal Flood hit New Orleans there were…
It was like this, two summers ago on the beach of Zahara de los Atunes, the winds from Africa picked up and caused the sand to pelt us all in the face and Tin, then three years old cried out to us all, “What happened??!!??” The winds are called Levante, they come from the east, where the sun rises, and are smokey hot and make the beach miserable when they are strong. No way to…
Despite the weather, summer is almost officially over with school starting this coming Monday. And of course, back to work for the adults. But I want to remember all of the summer moments – the slipper towel (as Tin called the towel I put so he wouldn’t slip when he washed off the sand on the terrace), the performances including fab introductions in Spanish and English by him and his two new gal friends who…
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…