In the square in Caminha, we sat having a beer and a glass of vinho verde at a cafe at dusk and watched people and read. Two girls of around eight were chasing pigeons near the fountain. They looked almost like twins as they both had waterfall ponytails in the top of their head. One picked up a feather and stuck it in her hair and the other followed. Then they marched all around the…
Sitting at a cafe in Ceivera, north of Caminha. I was enjoying a glass of vinho verde made by the owners brought to me in a small glass carafe. It was crisp and delicious the way all wine should be that is young and of the region. All around me were families eating – Portuguese both local and from other parts. They all drank from cans of Lipton Iced Tea.
I left New Orleans after mom had been in ICU for a month because the prognosis was she was going to have to go into a long-term care facility and that was only after she had been on the acute floor, the skilled nursing floor, the whatever floor and I knew that it was going to be a long haul. Wow, I still can’t believe I left, but it was so good I went. For…
I woke in Caminha, at the Ambassador’s house, with the window opened to the misty cool air of the sea and hydrangeas and ginger crowding in the open window. I had a nightmare. A man with a long sword had chopped off my mother’s feet and I ran to attack him, and flung my mother over my shoulder and looked for her bloody feet. She had been dancing in the streets with the peasants, drinking…
Pilgrims everywhere with backpacks, having just arrived at their destination – Santiago de Campostela. I’m sitting in a store looking at the image of Saint James and thinking about how I’ve been flogging myself since I left New Orleans about how harsh a judge I’ve been to my mother. Always there with my arms folded when she misbehaved. I remember the Mercedes she bought and was so proud of just when Steve and I were…
No matter who I spoke with or met, they all asked about Obama. One woman in Spain said to me, “America is number one. This is my country, but what America does is always first. What do you think about Obama?” I asked her later in the conversation what year Franco had died. She didn’t know. But she really loved Obama. In a shop window of an antique store that makes Portuguese tiles, there were…
I remember when I was young, 20 years old, I was dating the first big love of my life, who was 36 years old. We went to eat with friends, his friends and their girlfriends, and I came out of the bathroom stall to see the other women in front of the bathroom mirror reapplying lipstick and I noticed the jiggle in their upper arms. Ha! Then when I was 30 and wanting to go…
I discovered Pessoa while in Portugal even though he has been around for ages. Eu sei que nao sou nada e que talvez nunca tenha tudo. Parte isso, eu tenho em mim todo os sonhes do mondo. “I know I am nothing and that perhaps I never had anything. Aside from that, I have in me all the dreams of the world.”
When I left for Spain two weeks ago, my mind was a jumble, my heart was heavy, my soul was saturated. I went to new places and explored place, food, port, wine, museum, streets, cafes, new beds, other people, two languages, trains, planes and automobiles. I came home yesterday with all of the stuff that was making me a nut replaced and refreshed with very pleasant memories. I saw on garden outside a lovely little…
The thing that has struck me the most about my mom being in the hospital is the inability to pick up the phone and call her which is my daily habit. I remember when my grandmother died my mother said she wanted to be able to call her. Americans can’t live in extended families the way other cultures do, but we are still tied to the umbilical chord via the telephone. Traveling all over, I…