I often envisioned myself as Cleopatra strutting across the great stage of life – and had always gone looking for Antony. But now I have found my Cleopatra – the Cleopatra that Shakespeare describes: Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety : other women cloy The appetites they feed ; but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies : for vilest things Become themselves in her ; that the holy priests Bless…
I was walking Loca this morning through the park and admiring how the grass was cut, the night herons were standing at soldier-like attention on the banks of the lagoon, the paths were newly constructed, and all seemed right with this little world. Up ahead I saw a man with one of those long grabber poles picking up bottles out of the lagoon and trash underneath the shrubs – as I passed I noticed it…
The bright side of New Orleans: Yesterday, I was standing in my neighbors yard with a glass of wine catching up – next door the two young children were playing, the little tow head girl in her dress was climbing the crepe myrtle tree in the front yard and her older brother was shuffling up and down the driveway on his scooter. He said, “Ms. Rachel, I’ve started tennis camp. My dad was a champion…
Woman goes on journey, comes home changed. What do you have to say for yourself? 1. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Most things require compromise. In my zest for “having to be me” I realize I have to consider how being me affects my loved ones. 2. There is no place like home – as great and exciting as it is to travel, this morning as I walked Loca and encountered…
Kay Ryan was named Poet Laureate and takes her post in autumn this year – a woman, a lesbian in a relationship for 30 years, a reluctant poet. I read one of her poems – Things Shouldn’t be so Hard and thought of my girlfriend, who is still in Croatia – she has miles to go before we rest – she’s not back for a month – and I am anxious for her return so…
I was given a ride home by a friendly Croatian who had a pic of the yogi on his dashboard, he said that six months before his death or maybe even a year and a half before, the Maharishi Mahesh yogi had said America would be given a chance and an opportunity. Let’s hope so.
As I was leaving Eastern Europe, Obama was making his way overseas. Croatians asked me what I thought about a black president and my response was “we need him” – America needs hope, and a fresh look at poverty, education, healthcare and most certainly our foreign policy. A while back in Turkey, my friend’s dad had said about Gul’s election – what Turkey does matters only to Turkey, but what America does matters to the…
Coming home in the Zagreb airport, I looked down at a child’s composition book where he had written in large awkward letters “people are people, everyone matters” – it struck me only insofar as I had just had a bit of an awakening just two nights hence when I had been reminded of the homophobia that exists in Croatia – I thought as I got on the plane that I have embraced my love of…
My masseuse in Zagreb tells me that an Indian folk dancer came and danced in the square and said Croatians are like chickens, everyone walks around saying buck buck buck (Bok Bok Bok).
Everyone is curious to know what Croatia is like – well it’s like this: Wild blue seas, white slabs of rocks, green pine forests, cicadas singing full bore, beautiful people, ugly people, cheese, bread, gnocchi, muesli, coffee, chocolate, Eastern with an eye to Western, buses, taxies, ferries, polite, frowns, dirty, clean, agoraphobic, zenophobic, curious, sunny, fish, coasts, accommodating, claustrophobic, pleasurable, impenetrable, laid back, intelligent, nationalistic, homophobic, delicious, starry, timeless, strange and familiar.