1) First week sick with a virus – visit to clinic – antibiotics, pain meds. 2) Second week it’s Levante, which means the winds are from the east and cause the sand on the beach to pelt you with what feels like tiny pieces of glass; it is so hot you can’t move and there is no a/c; and there is a pressure system that makes you feel like you are carrying around a ball…
Ingredients: No sleep Forgotten thyroid pill one pot of full strength (Spanish) coffee to cope with 4 year old two ice cold beers to calm down Directions: walk up and down hot streets throw up #travelingisnotglamorous
A man walked by while I was sitting in a cafe in Madrid. His tee shirt said YATCH CLUB. I giggled so hard I almost peed my pants. Oh could I have some fun over there with the English language.
I was driven to the airport by a friend who had come back to the U.S. suddenly in crisis – she had sublet her apartment, gone out of the country to be with her boyfriend and secured a number of gigs while there. Then it blew up. I arrived in Spain to learn that my dear friend was leaving her partner after twenty years as he wrestled with whether there was love left. I arrived…
I went for a three months check up and the doctor said the following: 1) you’ve gained 10 pounds since your last visit. 2) after this much time it is highly unlikely your hair would grow back. 3) I think you are depressed. 4) you most likely need more medication. And? I asked. That’s all.
Tikkun olam is a Hebrew phrase for “healing the world” – I’m reading Rodger Kamenetz’s The Jew in The Lotus in order to take a break from tome after tome about racism in this country. Tikkun olam gives me hope that any work done dismantling racism is worthwhile because it is a belief that the world can actually heal. Yesterday, I had a lunch date set up with a newly met colleague from Chicago who was…
I learned a few minutes ago that new friends of mine lost their son in a tragic swimming accident on Saturday. You end the week on Friday and wake on Saturday to learn the world has changed, shifted, morphed into a sadness from which there is no return. The better part of my weekend was spent filtering out the gnawing feeling of tentativeness – in other words, my sanity. I’m faced with the harsh reality…
I was invited over to someone’s house the other day and when I arrived, I noticed first thing that sitting by the end table in the living room were two books – Eckhart Tolle’s The Power Of Now and A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Then I was led downstairs into an enchanting garden complete with tadpoles and koi. Both men had been through something – I knew this before I arrived because…