Lessons from a Road Trip...

Dearest Clara,

This past vacation, we took what we call “The Great American Roadtrip”.  Except, we didn’t take it here in the US, we took it in Europe.  We called it that because we drove for hours and hours through countries and countries to get from the Austrian Alps to the French Coast, and that seems like the kind of thing that one would do here in the US.  If someone tells you that they just drove across ten states, I think you would hardly blink twice.  But in Europe, if you tell people you just traversed ten countries, they’re not quite sure what to make of that.  Like the gentleman who stopped us at the gas station in Switzerland, who just couldn’t believe that our license plates were from Vienna, even though we were only half way on our trip.

But despite the long hours in the car, road travel is still one of our favorite ways to really “see” a country.   The landscape, the people you meet, the dishes you have to try, the improvisation that you have do to, the strange items you can purchase at the gas station – all of that gives you an entirely different sense of place.  It’s a bit like adding salt to food – it’s still the same food you are eating, just with a flavor that becomes more alive (assuming of course, that you’re not adding too much!)

Road trips turn out the best when they’re not overly planned, but still, a few things have become good lessons for us over the kilometers and miles we have traveled, at least for Europe:

• Always have a map and water:  Always.  Whatever fancy gadget your generation will have when you become of driving age might fail you, it might get stolen, it might get forgotten or it might get lost.  In short, nothing replaces a paper map.  Have one just in case.  And have water because you should for a myriad of good reasons, the most important one being because your mother said so.
• Learn how to change your own tires: I’m no pro at this, but if you learn how to drive and you put yourself on the road, you should know how to change a tire.  Don’t think that you can call up Triple A anywhere in the world, and in many areas, the faster you get off the side of the road, the better, and the best way to do that is to know how to do it yourself.
• Make time for the scenic overlooks: There’s a reason why they call those out on signs.  You probably can’t stop for all of them but make time for some – and don’t forget to take your picture in front of them! You’ll develop a fondness for them when you come home.
• Know how to drive manual:  Often times in Europe – or nearly anywhere else in the world – there will be no other option.  You don’t have to like it, but you do have to know how to do it.  Ironically, once you learn how to do it, you’ll probably love it.
• Go with your gut: If it looks like a fun place to stop, stop.  If you had a planned stop and it looks like a bad idea, don’t.  The more you move around, the more you’ll develop a sense for these things, so trust yourself to make those calls.
• Always take advantage of the bathroom: This applies to travel of any kind but if you see a legitimate bathroom, whether porcelain or tree shrub, take advantage, you never know when the next stop will be.

Lots of love,

Mom

Colors of India.

Half the fun is getting there, they say. Certainly, visiting the roads less travelled has always fascinated me and drawn me to new adventures. This is why, for our honeymoon, Dany and I chose India, a country we had never been to before, but somehow seemed to know through our Indian friends’ stories. We travelled from Agra to Cochin, saw crowded cities and remote villages, witnessed congested bazaars and found cows hacking their path through vegetable markets. We spent time with our friends in Delhi, sharing typical spicy dishes with their families. We travelled the rocky roads of Rajasthan on our own, rode camels along the Pakistani border, got soaked under the Mumbai rain, and finally took part to our friends’ wedding in Kerala. Step by step, we realized how legendary stories are attached with every place and how strong our emotions could get.   

What struck us the most was VARANASI, a holy city located on the banks of the river Ganges, a pilgrimage site for hindus. People come here to die and be cremated at the burning ghats along the river. It’s very different from what we had known and seen before. It’s a unique place where you smell joy, hope, life and death. All at once.

Have you read Arundhati Roy's book, The God of Small Things? Some stories draw us in by making us wonder how they will end. This novel begins by telling us how it ends, and has a living, breathing rhythm to it. It’s a very melancholic novel, and it paints a picture most of the people probably wouldn't sympathize with. This is one of those books that left an indelible mark on me---the words dance and merge, and take in the sad memories of a story that is tragic, but hopeful in a way. The hope lies in the possibility of new beginnings.

Writer's Words -  Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

On joy.

“Anything's possible in Human Nature,” Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice. Talking to the darkness now, suddenly insensitive to his little fountain-haired niece. “Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy.” Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinnate Joy sounded the saddest. Perhaps because of the way Chacko said it. Infinnate Joy. With a church sound to it. Like a sad fish with fins all over.

On death.

It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on for so much longer than the memory of the life that it purloined. Over the years, as the memory of Sophie Mol slowly faded, the Loss of Sophie Mol grew robust and alive. It was always there. Like a fruit in season. Every season. As permanent as a government job.

On Small God. 

So Small God laughed a hollow laugh, and skipped away cheerfully. Like a rich boy in shorts. He whistled, kicked stones. The source of his brittle elation was the relative smallness of his misfortune. He climbed into people’s eyes and became an exasperating expression. 

Varanasi As I Saw It. 

 

 

 

Telling a new story

"Roxanne Krystalli is a gender-related development specialist in conflict and post-conflict areas."

What do you do when the first line in your biography no longer fits?

I am between stories at the moment, a process that involves consistently living off the top two layers of my still-packed suitcases, debating the merits of paint swatches, and confronting the reverse culture shock inherent in returning to what used to be a home with the task of sorting out the disorienting dance between the unfamiliar and the too familiar.

And the first line no longer fits. Having worked in conflict and post-conflict areas, I know not to confound conflict and war. Conflict, human pain and strife exist in Boston and Colombia and Guatemala and Jerusalem and I have called all these places home at some point along the journey. Yet, you would hardly call Boston a "conflict or post-conflict area."

You would hardly call me a specialist. I have grown wary of specialists and experts. The longer I have worked with women affected by conflict worldwide, the more I have uncovered the boundaries of my knowledge. The universe of concepts I do not understand and of life I cannot make sense of keeps expanding. It would be out of step for the titles and labels to keep narrowing. "Specialist" and "expert" do not fit. Do not even get me started on "guru."

As I fill out the paperwork for orientation at the graduate program that is anchoring my return to Boston, I notice everyone is grabbing for story. The prompts might as well read "Tell us who you are . . . in 250 words or less. In a paragraph. In 140 characters. In a text message without emoticons. With bells and whistles, without embellishment, with enough intrigue for us to want to be your friends, roommates, or mentors."

Life stories evolve, and so do their 140-character biographies. I am slowly realizing that a bio is not the story of "is", not exclusively the story of here and now. It is a journey between points, a question about the axis on which you are traveling. The story of "has lived and has worked", not of "lives and works." And, perhaps most thankfully, it is the story of beyond "lives and works." On Twitter, in her own blog, in the Admitted Students Handbook, Roxanne Krystalli is - still - a gender-related development specialist who works in conflict and post-conflict areas.

In life, Roxanne Krystalli is in transition, perpetual transition. Her heart is in gender advocacy and conflict management, in the Middle East and Latin America. This is the work that feeds her faith in humanity, a phrase she overuses, right up there with "the universe is winking." Her mind likes to wrap itself around the concepts of remembrance and forgetting, nostalgia and grief, of storytelling as a vehicle of empathy and, shyly, maybe even as a vehicle of peacebuilding. She sees the world, really sees, through the viewfinder of a camera. She loves panda bears, everything that smells like vanilla, and the art of loving in itself---as an art.

This is not the stuff of LinkedIn, of student handbooks, or maybe even not of Twitter. But it is the story of now, the biography of a journey from elsewhere and a past "then" to a future that has yet to be painted.

Inheritance

By Sheila Squillante Something happened tonight that I was totally unprepared for.

Before I describe it, I’ll back up and say that lately, my daughter, Josephine, has been asking a lot of questions about death. In particular, she wants to know, “Did my grandpa die?” My answer is always the truth: Yes, sweetie. He died. Each time the question comes, her inquiry deepens so that we have gone through, “He was your dad? Your dad died?” “How did he die?” “Why did he die?” “Where is my grandpa now?”  and, “Can he come back?”

These questions obliterate me, but I have been able to take a deep breath each time and tell her the age-appropriate truth with maybe a little quaver to my voice, maybe a quick tear, but mostly with composure. I did the same thing for my son when he began to ask these questions.

And I’ve been telling the kids about their grandfather since they were first interested in listening to stories. Josephine has been asking for “Grandpa Stories” before bed for at least a year. She has them memorized and asks for them by name: “The Snapping Turtle,” “The Red Rooster in Brewster,” The Glue Cookies.” Tonight, though, as we were finishing up a book we got from the library, turning off the light and climbing into her bed for our nightly snuggle, she burst into racking, whole-little-body-shaking sobs out of nowhere. I thought, at first, that she had physically hurt herself. I was completely thrown and I asked her what was wrong. She could barely form her mouth around the words,

“I miss my grandpa. I want him to come back.”

Oh, sweetie.

I gathered her up into my arms and held her while she cried, stroking her hair and telling her it was okay to feel sad, that I feel sad sometimes, too. That it’s okay to miss him. But that when I’m sad, I think about The Glue Cookies or The Red Rooster and it helps me feel better, closer to him. I promised her I would tell her Grandpa stories whenever she wanted me to to help her feel better, too. I told her all this while she cried and cried and I buried my face in her hair and cried too. Quietly. Mostly swallowing my grief for fear of indulging it and letting it overwhelm us both.

It’s not that I didn’t expect her to ask hard questions about death or that she would maybe someday feel a void where my father should have been in her life.

But I did not expect it to happen *now*. She is three years old.

I have become so used to my son’s rather cerebral, analytical relationship to my father’s death (the only emotion I’ve seen him express has been around the extrapolation of death-in-general to Death of Parent. Me.), that I forgot about the child whose uncanny empathy has been a primary part of her personality since she was a year old. This should not have surprised me. This is who she is.

As I helped her settle, I realized that this was the first time in more than eighteen years that I’ve had to push my own grief aside to minister to someone else’s. That it was my own daughter’s felt terrifying–I don’t want her to hurt like this–but also, in a sense, wonderfully healing.

I have always said that part of the reason I write about my father is to continue him, to enliven him for my children. Maybe I’ve been able to do that a little, and it feels good; it makes me happy.

But somehow it never occurred to me that, along with my memories, my stories, my kids would also inherit my living, persistent, still vibrant grief.

Header Image: New York Public Library. Photo by Centennial Photographic Co. of sculpture "Grief".

The Kindness of Strangers

I’m never in a hurry to talk to strangers. For example, if I am going into a store, my preference is to dodge the salespeople who aim to greet me on my way in and avoid talking to anyone unless I purchase something. I know people who want to be greeted, but I am not one of those people. If I am greeted, and asked if I would like help, I always say, “no, I’m just looking.”  I respond this way even when I am actually looking for something and I don’t know where to find it. When I worked in retail, I felt like I could spot the people who feel the same as me---the lack of eye contact, the drifting to the side of the store---and I would forego greeting them in a silent show of solidarity. Now that I am a parent, strangers talk to me. Most of it is pretty much okay. Conversations at the playground with other moms hit the same themes (how old? what’s his name? and so on) and are easily ended when one’s child runs too far afield or asks to go on the swings. My son receives a lot of compliments on his general cuteness from strangers, and I know how to gracefully nod and say thank you, or even more cloyingly, tell him to say thank you. Sometimes folks ask questions about him that would be pretty hilarious to ask another adult stranger, but I do my best to give answers that will be found satisfactory while never actually revealing much about us at all.  A woman asks, “does he eat table food?” I answer, “he loves eating!” An older man asks, “Is he a good boy?” and I answer, “look at him!”

I thought about this recently when a friend on Facebook posted a link to the hilarious article “Hello Stranger on the Street, Could You Please Tell Me How To Take Care Of My Baby” by Wendy Molyneux. I read it, chuckled heartily, and took a moment to be grateful that this hadn’t happened to me terribly often in my son’s first year. There was the time when my wife and I were in Target and attempting to adjust his position in the baby carrier on my chest, and a woman stopped and said, “Do you need help, that doesn’t look like it is on right.” I roared to action, as someone who is sleep-deprived and carrying fifteen sweaty pounds on her chest is likely to do, particularly when she feels as though she really does have it under control.  I snapped back that we were fine and, confident in her moral high ground as baby carrier good Samaritan, my foil didn’t back down. The end result was more than a bit of incivility near the denim short display and my having a very frustrated spouse.

But that was nearly a year ago, and as I read the Molyneux piece, I thought about how it hasn’t happened often. I felt grateful to live in the East, where people are generally not overly perky or interested in one another (simply buying milk at the grocery store when I visit my parents in St. Louis makes me feel as though I have walked into another country what with all of the smiles and cheer).

As these stories always go, though, I had become too comfortable.  Too complacent. The three of us went to an art fair along the Hudson River this week. It was a gorgeous day, sunny, and breezy. We had brought our son in his big jogging stroller to be able to navigate over the grass. We lathered him with sunscreen and put on his baseball cap. To enter the fair, we had to go through a little aisle and down a small hill, and I lifted the front wheel of the stroller off of the ground to give myself more maneuverability on the hill.  As we entered the fair, a woman stopped us and said, “Just so you know . . .”

“Just so you know . . .”  It’s pretty rare when someone says “Just so you know . . . that sweater looks awesome on you” or “Just so you know . . . you make the best cole slaw.”  The phrase gave me the perfect amount of pre-processing time. I knew what was coming was going to be infuriating. I stopped the stroller.  I looked at the woman, a little older than my mother, and she said, “as you came down the hill with the stroller tilted, the sun was right in his eyes.”

I wanted to explain that my goal had been for him to never see the sun, never know that the sun existed, live a vampire-like existence of dusk and twilight and now that was ruined, ruined, and I would always think of how she had been the one to bring me the news.

I wanted to explain that we had been planning to spend all afternoon on that small patch of hill (one where everyone was coming and going in a single file all day, and where we were now holding up traffic), but that she was totally right, the angle of the sun made doing that totally impractical.

I wanted to roll my eyes. I wanted to snap back.  I wanted to say, “Are you serious?”

But I didn’t. I smiled and nodded.  I said nothing. She seemed surprised. She looked at me. I looked at her. A moment passed.  She said, “Now though, with the hat, he’s fine.” I nodded again, still smiling. She looked at my son.  She said, “he’s gorgeous.” I smiled, and nodded, and said “thank you.”

We moved on. My wife immediately praised me for keeping my cool. We realized that the power dynamic shifted the second I didn’t say anything in response, forcing her to backtrack to fill the silence. In fact, by the end of the interaction, she seemed embarrassed. In my previous experience of unsolicited parenting advice, I filled all of the potential silence with anger, and ended up feeling terrible. Furthermore, overly engaging with strangers is not something that I do---in anger or in any other situation. Unsurprisingly, being myself worked best, and we walked on, into the shade.

A date with myself at the local library

If you’ve read The Artist’s Way, you know that Julia Cameron considers regular “artist dates” to be one of the two pillars of the creative life (the other is “morning pages”). Whether you consider yourself an artist, or simply wish to live a more creative life, I’d definitely recommend this book for getting unstuck, getting inspired, or getting started. You can find out more about morning pages and artist dates by reading the book, but for the purposes of this post, an “artist date” is simply a little adventure you take on your own—something playful and restorative and separate from work.

One of my favorite artist dates is a trip to the local public library. This, for me, is quite different than a trip to a university library. As a college and graduate student (and as a student library employee), I spent plenty of time working in libraries. Many university libraries are perfectly lovely and contain their own sort of magic and possibility, with their stacks and stacks of scholarly tomes.

But when I really need a little creative restoration, I find it at the local library. Small public libraries do not have everything—every book ever written, every article ever published, all of the newest best-sellers—but sometimes “everything” is a little too overwhelming for an artist date. Instead, when I make a trip to the library, I’m really only looking for two things: a seat by the window and a book I don’t already have at home.

I tend to gravitate toward the nonfiction section, or more specifically, the how-to books and instruction manuals. These books usually don’t try to tell you how to think, but rather, how to do. As a hardcore overthinker, I find the whole doing perspective so refreshing.

Last weekend, I discovered the wedding books section, which was delightfully sandwiched between books on dying and anthologies of fairy tales. I even found a couple of gems like Weddings for Complicated Families and Wedding Planning for Dummies. Then I wandered through the shelves and shelves of biographies and thumbed my way through a few travel guides before snagging a corner window seat.

You can learn a lot about a community through its library, especially if it’s a small one. You can notice which books made the cut for their limited holdings, which books have been donated, and which books have a waitlist twenty people long.

I love finding the particular, and I love finding the universal among those shelves. By skimming along the titles, it’s easy to discover that many of the questions that seem so personal have been asked before, and someone, somewhere has tried to answer them. How do I find my purpose in life? Which dog breed is right for me? How is my religion similar or different from others? How can I live a healthier life? Or, a favorite from last weekend, How do I move to Canada?

Everyday questions jostle for space right next to whole-life questions on those library shelves. I think I’m more interested in the questions than in the answers when I meet myself for a library artist date, which is probably why I end up with stacks of library books that I rarely finish before their due dates. They seem to have more magic in their natural habitat, offering delight simply by their juxtapositions on the shelves.

Mind Games

The carnival ride that was my day started at 4:30 AM.  This seems an unnatural hour for a human to be awake.  And yet I am frequently up at this time attending to domestic or professional responsibilities, or some combination of both.  I am not alone in this, I know.  As I haunted our still apartment, pumping fresh milk for the baby and packing my tools for the flower market, I began preparing mentally for the day ahead.  In the muggy blackness of the morning, I set out for the Manhattan Bridge---the city on the other side, still/already bustling with activity.  Driving over, I fantasized about the delicious coffee beverage I would enjoy before hitting the floral vendors, did a quick survey of all the tasks I had to complete before my 2 PM installation (including pumping two more times) and mustered up an extra helping of confidence and sense of competence.  I thought, “I have a lot going on and I am really doing it!  RIGHT ON, SISTER!”  My primary objective is always to keep that thought (or something just like it) as my ballast.  I aim to stay the course psychologically with something helpful and supportive as my guide, until I am back at home base, checked in for the night.  It is not easy, has never been easy, will never be easy.  Forthwith, a record of my efforts on this particular, not necessarily unusual, day. I came close to totaling the car when the cab in front of me decided to slam on the brakes (appropros of nothing) while crossing an intersection through a green light.  I navigated the interminable construction on Houston (fight or flight response still kicked into high gear) and eventually slid into a parking spot near the coffee place.  I took a minute to regroup---my heart still beating a little too noticeably---and thought to myself, ‘UGH, THIS CITY!’  I knew I would live a full day before most people even crack an eye.  Then, I did a reframe that went something like this, ‘So, that makes me lucky, I’ll get twice the day out of it.’  I let out a sigh (an audible dusting myself off), shoved open the car door and spilled onto the street with my bloated purse (Why always so HEAVY, Sarah?) and clipboard, ready for action.

The process of taking negative thoughts and replacing them with positive thoughts is a very simple component of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).  The basic tenet of CBT is that you can change the way you feel and behave by changing the way you think.  In the above example, my automatic thought was that this city was making me crazy.  If I continued down the path of that negative thinking, I might feel awful about my situation and then engage in self-defeating behavior.  When you interrupt the process of barreling straight from the thought bubble to the emotion to the behavior, it is like pushing the reset button over and over.  You get a fresh start on each experience and eventually, you may find that the maladaptive thinking begins to lessen.  The positive feedback loop is that the sunnier your thoughts, the happier you feel and the more effectively you move through life.  It all sounds so heel-click-y and effortless, right?  Depending upon myriad factors, including temperament, physiology, environment et al, the phrase “easier said than done” may have strong resonance here.

Among my all-time “Aha!” moments in terms of challenging negative thought patterns came years ago from a superb clinical supervisor at an outpatient psychiatric clinic.  During our supervision (a weekly meeting that’s sort of like professional therapy for therapists), we covered many esoteric concepts.  We discussed the theoretical underpinnings of the work I was doing.  We reviewed patient after patient and delved into my private response to each of them, how my past experiences and intimate feelings might impact our sessions.  We discussed psychotropic medications and which of the patients seemed to be benefitting.

One week, I came in fit to be tied about some issue at graduate school over which I was completely powerless.  It was distracting me from my work that day.  My supervisor sat and listened patiently as I described the nature of my snit.  Finally, he said, “Have I ever told you about my commute?”  Incredulous, I thought, ‘This jackass isn’t even LISTENING to me.’  I managed a, ‘No.’ And then he proceeded to tell me that he drives an hour to and from work, every day on the busiest freeway in the city.  He said that both ways, he sits in bumper-to-bumper traffic for an hour, sometimes more.  For various reasons, he did not have an option to change this commute, so he was resigned to this fate.  I flashed on the sense of helplessness and frustration that I was sure must well up inside him while sitting idle on the freeway.  I asked, ‘How INSANE must that make you?’  He replied with this: “It doesn’t make me crazy at all.  I just decide to relax and use the time to think and dream and listen to great music.”  Genius.  I couldn’t believe it---he was explaining to me that there are actually options from which to choose when interpreting your life circumstances.  For whatever reason, no amount of study or my own therapy put as fine a point on it as that miniature sketch.  My mind was officially blown.

Which brings us back to now.  During the course of the day in question, I was confronted with many, many opportunities to lose my shit.  These opportunities ranged from, “Good GRAVY, NO!” moments to “Well, that’s annoying.” interludes.  I experienced a little witching hour---right around 3PM things got dicey and I drifted into approximately 13 solid minutes of self-pity.  I gave myself permission to indulge until I was back at the apartment.  Interestingly, I found I didn’t need all the time I had allotted.

Image: Traffic on the George Washington Bridge, Dan McCoy, 1973

From North Dakota...

Dearest Clara,

You will raise a lot of eyebrows when you tell people where you’re from.  Nineteen months old and you’re already from  everywhere it seems---but I promise you the eyebrows will really pop off when you tell people that your mother grew up in North Dakota . . . Fargo to be precise.  Most people have never met anyone from North Dakota (although with all the news of oil, a lot more people seem to know about it now).  And you’ll hear a lot of jokes about being in the prairie and the wilderness.  But for all that we’ve traveled and seen, I have to say that some of the people and landscapes nearest and dearest to my heart have been from this state.

Here what I learned in my years growing up there:

• Wide open spaces are beautiful: And usually, they are beautiful because they are wide and open.  There is a reason people write songs about them.  The ability to see horizon to horizon is rare as we continue to pack ourselves into this world.  Sometimes, it can feel a bit lonely as you realize how small you are in comparison to the size of what is out there.  But most of the time I find them freeing and inspiring.  You might find yourself small, but you realize how big you can still be.
• Water is unpredictable: You would think that I would learn this lesson at the ocean, but the first time I realized the power of water, and then realized it again and again, was living next to the Red River that ebbs and flows according to what the season brings.  Water brings many gifts, but its power can come quickly and take them all away just as fast.  Don’t feel like you can outsmart water, ever.  You can be prepared though.
• Sweet and salty go together: Long before the salted caramel trend, a little shop in Fargo called Widman’s Candy, where so many close girlfriends worked in my high school years, caught on to the unique flavor that combining sweet and salty brings.  They hand-dipped their potato chips, made from North Dakota potatoes of course, in chocolate just so.  I always stop for a box when I’m home.  I always buy them with the intention of giving them as gifts, but somehow, they find their way onto my dessert plate instead.  Buy extra.
• Be part of a community: Many don’t realize it but North Dakota was once called out in a political science study for its civic engagement, which I learned about in university.  Once I thought about it, I realized it was true.  People belong to things here: bowling teams, churches, book clubs, the PTA, you name it.  And that means that they belong in general.  Be part of things, build things, and participate in your community.  After all, it will be what you make it.
• It's nice to be polite: Sometimes people in Fargo can really kill you with kindness.  They call you by name, they wish you a nice day, they go out of their way to help you at the DMV, they track down that extra set of tickets to the show you wanted to see.  It might seem overwhelming at first, almost as if it’s not genuine.  But it is---that need to be polite comes from the right place. When you are tempted to take the quicker road, take a minute to do the more polite thing.  You’ll make someone’s day, and you’ll feel better yourself.  Double-win.

We just returned from our first trip to North Dakota with you, full of sunshine and wheat fields, but this December we’ll be back for the holidays.  Winter here brings a whole new set of lessons---the first one being to bundle up! I suppose we should already start looking for a coat for you!

All my love,

Mom

Mind the Gap

This is what I know about London:  I’ve been there twice.  The first was a layover, where my dad and I, with 18 hours to spare before hopping on a flight to Prague, stopped into a British pub.  We ate fish and chips.  We drank Guinness; I wrinkled my nose.  We smoked cigarettes and popped into the loo and felt quintessentially, contentedly British.  The pub was near Victoria Station.  The pub was the British experience, packaged neatly for tourists who might wander in to eat fish and chips and smoke cigarettes (“they’re called fags!” I whispered to my father, urgently) and use the loo. I didn’t know this then. This is what I know about London: On my second trip to London, it rained.  It rained until the tube station flooded, leaving me stranded at a cybercafé on the outskirts of the city.  It rained until the steps at the cybercafé flooded, turning into a waterfall that gushed downwards, threateningly, towards the naked computer wires at my feet.  When the tube started working again, I took it to the bus station, where I caught a bus to Amsterdam.  In Amsterdam, it didn’t rain as much, and when it did, I was stranded in not a cybercafé, but a coffee shop of a different variety altogether.

This is what I know about London: when Zack, my boyfriend of four years, decided to apply to graduate school there, it was words on a page.  It was smiling faces on a website and funny accents in a new student video.  The surprise wasn’t that he got in, but that it was a real place that he could say yes to, and we could go.  We could click buttons on Kayak and end up with British Airways flights.  He could send off a check and receive confirmation that, in the year 2014, he would graduate, ostensibly a master of something.

This is what I know about London:  these are the things that are normal there:

1. Taxi cabs that look like chic town cars
2. Eating Cadbury Cream Eggs year round
3. Hopping on a quick flight for a weekend jaunt to Sicily or Santorini
4. Pronouncing things so that they inevitably sound lilting and lovely, even if the topic at hand is the opposite of.  Try making a British person say, “I’ve cheated on you with your sister” or “You have an inoperable tumor” or “They’re expanding the sanitation plant next door” and try not to close your eyes and sigh with content.

This is what I know about London:  the Olympics are there.  Whenever I’ve been near a television, I’ve craned my head, trying to see not the amazing feats of athleticism, but the inspirational filler shots: the London Bridge, the Eye, the wide pan of the city skyline.  In the same way, I perk up when I see pictures of celebrities “caught on the scene” in Notting Hill or Soho, trim brick houses and wrought iron gates peeking out behind them.  “Ah,” I think, as my eyes and brain seek context and recognition, “There it is.”

This is what I know about London:  It terrifies me.  It renders me stumbling and stupid; it is the first place I’ve moved with no detailed level of prior knowledge.  I can’t tell you what neighborhood is the best for shopping, what neighborhood the best bars are in, what neighborhood I might get murdered but probably not.  I have two images in my head: that of the bar, and that of the café.  These two things do not a new life make (although, as a writer, I may be closer than most).

This is what I know about London:  nothing, really, but I’ll know soon enough.  It’s followed readily by---not yet.  Not yet is the part that sounds best, that tastes best as it hangs like a swimmer on a starting block, ready to dive off the tip of my tongue.  For now, I’m content to wait, to float in the tantalizing possibility of expectations.  That’s the best thing about the future, isn’t it?  Nothing’s happened yet, so anything can.

The Streets of Lisbon, The Views of Belem

I haven't been overseas since the beginning of 2012, which feels like the longest lapse between adventures in a decade. But my life in San Francisco is in flux and requires me to stay put. I suppose with various changes in my life, each day at home feels unfamiliar in its own way, so it's *almost* like I'm wandering in a new place, or at least experiencing similar sensations I feel when I roam the streets of a different country. But I feel the itch to explore again. To see colors I'm not used to seeing, like the oranges on the rooftops of the buildings in Lisbon. To smell whiffs of pasteis de nata, a flaky, golden Portuguese pastry I can almost taste right now. To turn a corner, to explore an alleyway, to find a picturesque hilltop miradouro from which to gaze—and dream.

Portugal, I'm thinking of you.

xo, Cheri

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A Second Baby

When I think of being pregnant for the second time I don’t think of the euphoric infant days, of baby lashes and the milky sweet scent of their baby heads. Instead I think of the black hole, the endless abyss I fell into with my son. It began when I was pregnant, and the morning sickness was so severe I spent full days in bed. Unemployed and living with my parents, I felt like I had little to hope for. I stopped writing, I stopped reading. I was bombarded with the reality that my pregnancy might not be like everyone else’s. I read blogs and magazines and saw glowing women rubbing their bellies. I rarely saw photos of them puking in the toilet, screaming at their husbands, and soaking their pillows with tears. The sickness, and how it incapacitated my life led to depression, and that depression lasted for years. Last summer I mentioned to a friend that we were thinking of a second child. She knew how much I had struggled with my first. While I was trying to recover I talked to every friend I had about the depression, the body changes, the hormonal changes. I seemed to be the only one who experienced it quite like that. She looked at me across the table at dinner and said chirpily “Well, maybe the next one will be different because you’ll want it more.” Say what?! It wasn’t as if I WILLED myself to throw up multiple times a day, lose weight, and experience such strong mood fluctuations that I alternately thought about killing myself, or the baby. I really wish those things hadn’t happened, but they did, and they had nothing to do with how much I wanted the baby. If I didn’t want him, he wouldn’t be here. I didn’t have the heart to tell this childless woman all of my struggles, so instead I nodded politely and chalked her up to yet another friend who had no idea what I went through.

I think of the times spent crying on the kitchen floor. The terracotta tile orange and grimy. I cried for my past life, for my present life, for the baby that wouldn’t stop screaming but mostly for me. I was mourning the girl I no longer was. It’s been a few years since that night when I called my husband home and we hugged on the floor and he whispered “We don’t have to have any more.” But when I tiptoe up to the loft, barefoot on the carpet, and wake him with a nudge and a concerned ‘I’m late’, that night isn’t far from my mind.

In the past few months things had been good, and on those good sunny days we thought of more children, but always in the back of my mind was the fear. The fear that it would be the same as the first time. The fear was black ink, spilling into the rational parts of my mind until I had trouble seeing how much things really had changed. I wasn’t 22 anymore, we weren’t living with my parents, we had been married for 3 years (instead of 6 weeks). But the biggest change was our son, we knew him and loved him, and wouldn’t change our story for anything, no matter the numerous twists and turns it took to get us here.

Despite being a week late, I was in denial. I was still in denial after I peed on the stick. One line was bold, strong, the other was faint, wavering, barely existing.

“Well, maybe I’m not then?”

“There’s no such thing as a little bit pregnant," My husband reminded me. So I peed, and peed again, and then a few more times just for good measure. A whole box of  them with the same answer.

“Oh my god, I’m pregnant.” I inhaled sharply, looking at our messy living room, the cracked tile we never fixed, our toddler still in his pajamas jumping on the couch. I proceeded to clean with a fervor and then promptly dropped a pan on my toe.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

There is a house---a camp, really---on a lake in New Hampshire that is owned by my husband's extended family. It houses many generations of strong women; a matriarchal household in every sense of the word. Bought in 1948 by my husband's great uncle and his wife, many of the women who now run the house during the summer and collectively supervise their kids running through the woods and swimming in the lake grew up traipsing through the same woods and swimming in the same waters. It's a family with deep roots and a well-documented tree, but one that is also made of people who have been brought in and enmeshed through skinny dips and grilled hot dogs. Stand in the kitchen long enough, and you'll hear one of the women say "did you hear about the time when..." before the rest of them break out in peals of laughter that carry down to the lake and across the water. The more time you spend here, the more clearly the ghosts materialize and give a sense of tradition to the rhythm of the day that has survived with the minimal necessary evolutions for over 60 years. Claude and Phyllis (the couple who bought camp) skinny dipping early in the morning and serving hot dogs and milkshakes for lunch; the bouncing Jack Russell terrier begging to be let in by appearing in two second intervals in the open top half of the Dutch door on the porch (after chasing a squirrel into its hole and getting his face stuck in its burrow); my mother-in-law first learning to waterski by sitting on the shoulders of her cousin as the boat pulled them both up. In these stories, the men are key players to be sure, but their narratives remain peripheral. The driving characters of the stories of camp are the women. I am weaving myself into the fabric of this family, first as a girlfriend, then a wife---a friend, a mother, an aunt. The Christmas before I married Jordy, the ladies of camp bought me a beach towel with my name embroidered on it. It was to be left here for the winters, awaiting my return each July. I took the gift as a statement: just as there was a place in the hall linen closet for my new towel, there was a place in this family for me. I've come here this week for a family vacation. My in-laws are here, and my husband has a rare break from work. This is more than a vacation, though. By coming here, I get to reconnect with women (and their kids) who I see maybe twice per year, but to whom I feel viscerally connected. They've held me in hard times, called me sister in happy times, and loved me unconditionally through both. For 64 years, the women of camp have gathered by the water, surrounded by bronzed children of various ages to discuss our lives, to discuss current events, to discuss what to make for dinner, to discuss what we're reading. We call ourselves "the ladies of the beach."

It's funny to have such a strong connection to the history of a family that is not biologically mine (in the abbreviation-language of camp, I am an NBR---a Non-Blood Relative). In many ways, I think that spending time with Jordy's family on land that they have shared for so long binds me to his family in a more raw and fundamental way than any other could. I learned to water ski the same way and in the same water that my husband and his entire family learned; my daughter jumps off the same rocks that my mother-in-law jumped off as a little girl, and we all make a daily pilgrimage to the ice cream shop where 2 generations have worked during the summer. The oldest of the third generation will be old enough to continue the tradition next year, and we are all eagerly awaiting her employment (though our waistlines may disagree). Connecting with Jordy's family this way encourages me to love him (and them) even more deeply, and in a sense for more time. Though my time moving forward is limited, I feel like with each summer here, I get time both in the present, and also in the past. It's a richer, augmented experience when you're layering summer on top of summer on top of summer. I recently picked up The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home by George Howe Colt. It's a story of a summer house, like this one, and the family that inhabits it. I just started the book, but I love the way that the house and the land are intertwined with the family and its history. The author's memories of his grandparents are similar to the memories that Jordy has, and likely similar to the memories that Emi will have as she grows up. It was handed to me as soon as I arrived, looking for something to read. I just finished 1Q84, and needed something to thumb through at the beach in-between discussions of the latest article in People or Frank Rich's column that morning. Reading is an integral weft in the social fabric of the ladies at camp. We love books, we love to read, and we love to talk about what we're reading. Here's a sample of what's made an appearance at the beach this week. If some of the reviews seem short, it's because I made people tell me what they were reading as they were running through the house on their way to the beach, the grocery store, or to watch the Olympics (the only time, save for the U.S. Open, that the television is allowed on).

Lulu, 65 The matriarch of this house, Lulu, has made it her business to extend her family. She is the wife of Claude and Phyllis' younger son, John, and is at the center (though some days she would like to be removed from it) of camp life. A fellow only child, Lulu's philosophy is that there are always enough beds, and we can always make dinner stretch to accommodate a few more. Lulu is an honorary grandmother to most of the kids here, and is an honorary mother to all of us. She is the grandmother who waterskis and swears like a sailor and finishes the crossword in the Sunday Times, and she makes it her business to keep alive the history of camp (and with it, her husband's family). When you come to camp, you inevitably hear the stories of this place, and Lulu is often the one telling them. Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichel "I love it. It's a memoir of her childhood with a very crazy mother and how food became so important in her life. She comes from a really crazy family, and she just by happenstance gets connected to a family that loves food, and she discovers that when the world isn't working well, you can make a good meal and all is suddenly right with the world."

Nancy, 70 Nancy's husband, Ricky, was raised with John, Lulu's husband. Both of their fathers were off fighting in WWII, and their mothers, Dot and Phyllis, moved in together. Both nurses, they were best friends, and each had two boys. They got double coupons and worked opposite shifts so that while one worked, the other watched all of the children. They shared jobs---Dot hated darning, so Phyllis did that, but Dot did all of the maintenance. The husbands were in the same medical corps in Italy. Ricky's family used to rent the camp next door when Claude and Phyllis bought this camp, and Nancy first came up to the lake when she and Ricky became engaged.

Nancy, through sheer luck, stayed up here the summer that I brought newly-born Emi to camp. She would rock Emi as Emi screamed and screamed, and she would sit with me through the seemingly never-ending nursing sessions telling me stories of her own family, in and out of which members of our family would dance. Asked about her favorite things about camp, she says, "The thing that always struck me was the intergenerational thing, the cocktail hour with the great grandparents, grandparents, aunts and uncles and kids, sharing stories and sharing time. All of the ages and stages and kids, and everyone just kind of took care of their own kids and other kids---kind of like how it is now. Oh, and coming down to the beach with all of these very professional, intelligent, highly educated women sharing stories from smutty magazines."

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy "It's a book that I never in a million years thought I would read (even though I'm an English teacher), but my book club decided they would do it. I am fully immersed in it. The first 100 or so pages were difficult just because of the many characters and getting the names straight (and feeling intimidated by the fact that it's War and Peace). But once you get over that, Tolstoy is so fluid and so all-encompassing and he understands human nature and the big picture so well, but he includes detail to make it seem here and now. The writing is a narrative, so you read it for a story, but you also get a sense of the history and the philosophical and ethical issues that people thought about at that time in Russia (and even now): the nobility and the peasants; why people go to war. You're also brought back by the everydayness of the characters that he creates, and they become real. It's a great read. We were supposed to read 200 pages and meet and read another 200 pages, but I've almost finished it because I've become so involved with it."

Emily, 37 Emily and I became fast friends when she started dating Jordy's cousin, Evan (Lulu's son). She is one of the funniest people I know. She was married here at the lake, and I was one of her bridesmaids. She returned the favor for me when I married Jordy. Her daughters, 4 1/2 and 2 years old, sandwich Emi in age, and the three of them are quite a sight to behold when they are galavanting together on the beach. Emily now does the Sunday crossword with Lulu, and she's the only person I know who can beat Jordy at Scrabble.

"I just finished Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. I loved it up until the very end, but I couldn't put it down---I was sneaking reads during work. It was a page turner, and you didn't know what was happening. It was a good mystery, and how you felt about the characters changed throughout the book at different points. I read The Art of Racing in the Rain at the beginning of the summer. It's written from the point of view of a dog---[she looks at me raising my eyebrows and goes, "I know, but it's really good."] the dog is this smart being, but because of how he was created (with a floppy tongue, no thumbs)---he's stuck with his thoughts and knowledge of things but no way to express himself. I just started reading Sharp Objects."

Alice and Claudia, 10 I've known Alice and Claudia (sisters, daughters of Jordy's cousin) since they were toddlers, speaking in one-word sentences and eager to investigate my shoes every time I came to their house. Watching them grow has been astonishing; if ever there were two more interesting 10 year olds, I don't know them. Alice is wonderfully imaginative and creative. This week, she made a magic wand for her brother out of a twig that she had stripped the bark off of in a striped pattern, and a vine woven around and anchored with pine sap. Claudia is thoughtful and funny and up for anything. She's also incredibly creative, and her wrists are buried in brightly colored friendship bracelets that she's made. The two sisters, along with their brother and cousins, are delighted to invite Emi to play with them, and are old enough to be able to tell her stories when she's older about her first years here.

Alice The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, Meg Wolitzer "It's about this dude who plays Scrabble, and he has a power in his fingers to read things with his fingertips. They're in a tournament in Florida. I got it for my birthday from Grandma and Grandpa. It was on the Chautauqua reading list."

Claudia The Son of Neptune, Rick Riordan "It's the second in a series the Heros of Olympus, which is the sequel series to the Percy Jackson series. It's about a boy, Percy Jackson, who's memory is taken by Hera/Juno, and he loses 8 months of his life with the wolf Lupa and her pack, learning to fight. Then he leaves the wolves and journeys to the Roman demigod camp and he's originally from the Greek demigod camp. I read the first one in the series and it was about a boy, Jason, who gets the same thing but goes from the Roman camp to the Greek camp, and he has to unite the camps before the prophesy can come true. It's so good, I've read it seven times."

After a bit of questioning, Claudia admits she's read it seven times because she's already read (or can't find) the other books in the top of the boathouse, where the girls sleep. I promise to take her to town tomorrow to get a new book to read at the local bookstore. She'll read it and give it to her sister and cousins---I imagine that it will end up in one of the bookshelves in the house, waiting for Emi to grow into it. As for our trip into town, I can't promise anything, but it will likely include an ice cream cone. I know all too well that in a blink, Claudia will be old enough to drive herself, and in another one old enough for me to take her kids for her while she catches a moment to read on the beach.

Creating Sabbath

When I was growing up, Sundays were church days for my family. We'd get up in the morning—later than on school days, but somehow, it still felt early—and elbow one another out of the way of the bathroom mirror for primping and toothbrushing. Then, we'd pack into the car and head to Sunday school and worship services. Afterwards, we'd grumble about the sermon running long and pile into the car again with hungry bellies. We usually had lunch out at some sort of "family restaurant" (bonus points if they served raspberry iced tea and had a free salad bar) and then went home for naps and homework. At the time, I didn't give much thought to what a Sabbath could be or should be. For us, it included a lot of eating, a little resting and praying, and a good dose of getting in each others' way. Sometimes I wondered what other kids did on Sunday mornings, but mostly I didn't question the shape of my week.

Fast forward through college and graduate school, and my Sabbath doesn't happen on Sundays anymore. After converting to Judaism, I began observing the Jewish Sabbath ("Shabbat"), which takes place from Sundown on Friday to Sundown on Saturday. My Sabbath not only takes place on a different day of the week, but the characteristics of the day itself are a little different too. While there are many different ways to observe Shabbat, mine centers around a festive evening meal on Friday and includes a lot of reading and resting on Saturday.

Perhaps one of the most curious differences between my childhood Sabbath and my current practice is that I no longer use phones, computers, or transportation during the "Sabbath" portion of my weekend. This probably sounds odd. And to be honest, I've never really come up with a satisfying explanation or justification of this practice. There are as many reasons for rituals as there are people who practice them, and perhaps more.

But soon after Shabbat took hold of my Friday nights and Saturdays—at first out of curiosity and then, perhaps, out of inertia—it became a nonnegotiable. It's a strange thing, to commit to doing almost nothing for a whole night and day each week. It's just a bit too long, actually, so that by Saturday evening I'm often a little restless, bored, or uncomfortable, more than ready to return to my regularly scheduled programming.

But at the busiest and most stressful moments during the week, I find that I try to conjure up something of the essence of the most recent Shabbat. It has something to do with quiet and stillness and do-nothing time. Ironically, my do-nothing time is often my most creative thinking time. While I'm not-writing, I can't help but conjure up a million different ideas to write about. Given this extra breathing room, my mind starts to play. Sure enough, I forget most of my "brilliant" ideas by Sunday morning, or as soon as I'm poised at the desk and ready to type my little heart out. But at least I know they're there, somewhere beneath the surface of daily life.

These days, I don't have to wonder what other kids do on Sunday mornings, but I do wonder a lot about how others practice "Sabbath." When and how do you like to rest? What's the shape of your weekend? Whether you've taken a sabbatical year or found ways to incorporate stillness into each day, I'd love to know, what does "Sabbath" mean to you?

Destiny's Child

I have been thinking a lot about destiny lately.  Whenever people hear the story of how my husband and I came to be together, they say something to the effect of, “It’s like you were fated to be married!”  When I describe my 180-degree career shift from social worker to florist, I get, “It was always what you were supposed to do!”  And there is the inevitable, “This was absolutely meant to be!” concerning the subject of my finally becoming a mother.  Having said all that, and acknowledging that my life feels nothing short of wondrous at times, I am not actually sure I believe in destiny.  I think what I mostly believe in is making choices. As a person with some fairly significant control issues, I battle with the notion that things are in any way preordained.  When confronting a particularly challenging set of circumstances, the concept of life unfurling “just as it should,” and according to some magical plan beyond my comprehension, sounds amazing.  I assert there is some truth to this - I have an indistinct sense that everything always “works out in the end.”  But I feel strongly that I have a hand in crafting the result and that, depending on the situation, my influence is anywhere from 85-99% of it.  The remaining 1-15% (author’s note: these numbers are not rooted in any scientific process) I suppose is some amalgamation of karma (at least my white, Jewish, suburban notion of karma) and dumb luck.  I never said it was sexy.

My husband and I have a really good thing going.  For his part, he is lovely, bright, thoughtful, totally friggin’ hilarious and a very involved father.  We share the same life goals, appreciate almost all the same cultural phenomena and have similar values around politics, social justice and generally how we want to function in the world.  How I landed him seems like magic, but the bottom line is I chose him.

We first met at summer camp, as teenagers.  Flash forward 17 years and we ended up married with a ridiculously adorable infant daughter.  This story is so ripe for the “meant to be” trope, it’s virtually impossible to resist.  And as much as I would like to wrap it up in a tidy bow, it feels critically important to appreciate how pro-active we both had to be to get here:

1)   How I knew Michael in the first place: As a child, I chose to participate in a Labor Zionist youth movement that offered a sleep-away summer camp.  Believe me, this is a highly specific choice.

2)   How I was in a position to date him: At age 34, I chose to leave my first marriage, recognizing that I had made a mistake.

3)   How we reconnected: I chose to reach out to him on Facebook, hoping we still might have some things in common.

4)   How the relationship developed: I chose to pursue our connection, despite being separated by 3000 miles.  I then chose to move across the country to give it a real chance.

5)   How we were married: I chose to make a life with someone that I not only loved but who treated me with respect and with whom I was a great match.

Don’t get me wrong: there was and is all manner of getting the vapors and birds chirping and stars trailing across the night sky.  However, the bones of what we have done and what we are doing together are the minute and monumental choices.  The future of our relationship depends entirely on these choices.  Are we going to be kind to one another?  Are we going to listen?  Are we going to stick around when things get tough?  Are we going to share domestic responsibilities . . . some of this is HUGE and some of it seems so piddly, I realize.  I would argue that every little choice piles onto the heap that tips the scales in favor of a partnership.

I was fortunate that someone like Michael was available for my choosing when I was ready.  It was also providence that our timing worked out just right.  But almost everything since has been instrumental and emotional elbow grease.

Chance has also played a role in my career.  I have been “lucky” to have a supportive husband, willing to bear the risk of my starting a business (and doing so smack in the middle of a global financial crisis!).  But I chose to leave a stable, essentially recession-proof career to go out on my own.  And every day I choose not to go back to a more secure position that carries fancy health benefits, so that I might create something more meaningful for myself.

The miniature cherub that lives in our home?  When it comes to her, things get a bit more complicated.  The relevant choice is that I decided to pursue and endure fertility treatments when it became clear that we would not have a child without assistance.  The staggering fortune is that it worked, and we had a healthy child.  Speaking of staggering fortune, we were also lucky to have the resources at our disposal for the procedures.  I will also say that had it not worked, I would have chosen among many other (equally taxing) options to have a child, all of which involve a healthy dose of rolling the dice.  Soon enough, we will be confronted with this crazy fusion of intention and chance if we decide to expand our family again.

The things of which I am most proud in my life — marriage, work, baby — have required a combination giving it up to the fates and making the arduous decisions of a warrior.  It gives me great solace to imagine that I am the author of my own future and that I don’t have to wait for “blessings” to be happy.  The good news is that means we can all change our lives for the better . . . it simply starts with choosing to believe that it’s feasible.

From Cannes, France...

Dearest Clara, August is for going to the beach, isn't it? I didn't necessarily used to think so always, but the older I get, the more I miss the salt water air and carefreeness that comes with hot summer days and cool ocean water.  We were lucky this year - the beach in Cannes called our name.  Maybe if we're lucky next year, it will call again.  Here are a couple of things I've learned from this beautiful coast:

• Rosé goes with everything: Everything.  Remember how I said prosecco goes with everything in Italy? Well here you can’t go wrong with rosé.  Lunch, dinner, aperitif, fish, chicken, anything adn everything . . . when in doubt, go pink.  And you can even throw in an ice cube or two.
• There will prettier girls sometimes: At least, that’s what you’ll think, even though it is not true.  And sometimes there will be thinner girls and ones with more money, a deeper tan, cooler sunglasses . . . This is a place where often people have more, and it’s easy to get caught up in comparisons.  But believe your mother on this one, you are just as beautiful as any person out there and it will be your confidence that makes you so.  Whether your bathing suit costs $20 or $200, the ocean water will be just as refreshing.  And when you come home, you’ll wonder why you did all that silly worrying.
• You can have cheese for dinner:  Really.  Our hosts are such wonderful entertainers and chefs, and evenings around the dinner table featured so many good things that were on endless parade.  Yet, one of my favorite meals is the night we were all tired, and we had “cheese for dinner”.  Of course, there were several different platters of all kinds, and accompanying breads, and baskets of fresh figs and honey.  The milk and the creams that go into French cheeses are so good, and the process still true to what it always has been.  Sometimes, something simple can steal the show – give it space to do so every once in a while.  And don’t forget the rosé.
• Enjoy a quiet night in the garden: Cannes has a way of feeling hectic sometimes, but it’s amazing how many pockets of solitude you can find, and absolutely everything that is beautiful and fragrant seems to grow here.  I guess that’s why so many perfumes are from here.  Enjoy these plants and smells…the lavender…the olive trees…the herbs…it all comes together in such a unique combination.  You’ll come back in the future just for that experience all over again.
• Go to the beach: That’s what you’re there for.  Whether it’s a little cove off the road, or in a full on beach club, go to the beach and get in the water.  Nothing sparkles quite like the ocean in the south of France – this is your chance to be part of it.

And of course, don’t forget your sunscreen.

All my love,

Mom

A Half Moon Land Between Sky and Sea…

Liguria, Italy.

My Memories.

When I was little, my grandparents bought a house in Sestri Levante, a small village located along the Ligurian Riviera, in Italy. Since then, I like to take refuge there every time I can, losing myself in thoughts and simply relaxing. It’s easy for me to reach this half moon of land between sky and sea, as it’s only a two-hour car ride from Milan. Yet, this place seems so far away too, perhaps lost somewhere in my memories. I still remember when I was four or five, and my grandma used to push me around Sestri on my stroller because I was too lazy to walk. Well, she never suspected that I only played lazy, but I actually loved knowing I was the center of her world.

 

Nowadays I like travelling throughout the region with my husband, in search for hidden corners in a salt and sun smelling blooming nature. Liguria is a dream land to me, rich in intimate and unique details which suddenly appear to your side and fascinate you for their beauty---ancient defense towers stretching out towards the sky, small churches, chestnut woods, miles of walks with gorgeous panoramic views on sea and inland. It is the land where I spent my summers as a child and nourished my first innocent hopes and dreams.

Celebrating The Land - A Famous Italian Poet and His Words.

Prose writer, editor and translator who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1975, Eugenio Montale was born in Genoa. He spent his summers at the family villa in a small village nearby the Ligurian Riviera called Monterosso, and later images from its harsh landscape found their way into his poetry.

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A white dove has landed me among headstones, under spires where the sky nests. Dawns and lights in air; I've loved the sun, colors of honey, now I crave the dark, I want the smoldering fire, this tomb that doesn't soar, your stare that dares it to. 

Collected Poems, 1920-1954, translation by Jonathan Galassi.

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To slump at noon thought-sick and pale under the scorching garden wall, to hear a snake scrape past, the blackbirds creak in the dry thorn thicket, the brushwood brake.

Between tufts of vetch, in the cracks of the ground to spy out the ants’ long lines of march; now they reach the top of a crumb-sized mound, the lines break, they stumble into a ditch.

To observe between the leaves the pulse beneath the sea’s scaly skin, while from the dry cliffs the cicada calls like a knife on the grinder’s stone.

And going into the sun’s blaze once more, to feel, with sad surprise how all life and its battles is in this walk alongside a wall topped with sharp bits of glass from broken bottles.

“Meriggiare pallido e assorto”, by Eugenio Montale, translation by Millicent Bell.

Liguria Through My Eyes.

 

 

Eleanor of Aquitaine, The Queen Who Went on Crusade

Last January, I traveled to Lebanon by myself. Even though I tried to hide it, I was terrified. The farthest I’d ever traveled solo before was Victoria, British Columbia, where I was pretty sure I could walk around at midnight with a sign on my back saying “Mug Me” and be alright. Of course, I had a purpose in going there—an academic conference at the American University of Beirut—so it wasn’t an unstructured, completely unaccompanied venture. But still, I wondered if it was wise. Especially being a girl and all.

I was reminded of this when I was reading about the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who basically kicked ass and took names through most of the 12^th century and never really let her gender get in the way. This was a woman of vision and ambition who ignored whatever traditions should have constrained her, and who consequently had more power than most of her male countrymen. It didn’t hurt, of course, that she started out as the daughter of a noble of vast territorial holdings; and then, that she was strategically betrothed to the inheritor to the French throne. I mean, she started out strong from birth. But what she did with what she had was still abnormally ambitious.

Eleanor married the soon-to-be Louis VII at a young age, becoming the queen-consort of France. A highly-educated woman with a forceful personality, she contrasted sharply with her soft-spoken, religiously devout husband. Their marriage wasn’t meant to last. The catalyst to their breakup was her inability to produce a male heir (typical), which she attributed to the rarity of his trips to her bed (also typical). The excuse and the means was their consanguinity (read: they were related; for royals, ALSO typical, but invoked or not invoked as desired). This allowed them to get an annulment from the Church.

But her 15-year marriage to Louis wasn’t totally uneventful. Eleanor accompanied him on the ill-fated Second Crusade, traveling to Constantinople, Jerusalem, and various Crusader states in the Near East. Picturing Eleanor atop her steed, French crown stylishly perched on her head, gallivanting across central and southern Europe to arrive at the Crusader castle of Antioch, aside her husband, who unlike her would rather take a pilgrimage than go to battle—well then, traveling to Lebanon on Middle East Airlines for a five day stay at a comfortable hotel doesn’t seem so brave, after all.

(One thing that my trip and Eleanor's trip had in common: We both went to a Crusader castle. However, hers was probably a lot more intact and functional than the one I went to.)

Eleanor’s ambitious career didn’t end with her French queenship. Shortly after her annulment, she married the heir to the throne of England, the soon-to-be Henry II, who was at least a decade younger than her. (I want to make a joke, but I’ve sworn to never use the word “cougar” to mean anything other than the animal.) With Henry, she had seven children, including future kings Richard the Lionhearted and John Lackland. If you’ve seen Robin Hood: Men in Tights, that’s Patrick Stewart and Richard Lewis, respectively.

Years later, Eleanor was accused of plotting with her sons to overthrow her husband, and so Henry, fearful, locked her up in jail, where she remained for 16 years. When he finally died, favorite son and new king Richard released her; then he trotted off on the Third Crusade for a few years, leaving Eleanor as his regent.

Eleanor remained active in governing and politicking and strategic marriage-arranging until her death at the age of roughly 82—ancient by 12^th-century standards. I imagine she was like one of those really cool old ladies who still runs marathons and knows how to use Facebook. “With it” to the very end.

Her longevity is only another facet of her overall impressiveness, though. Queen of France, queen of England, Crusader, coup conspirator, jailbird, king’s regent—by any standards, what a life!

I think that, every time I’m feeling a little constrained by expectations—whether those be gender-based, or age-based, or anything-else-based—I can look at Eleanor for solid proof that expectations can be defied. True, structures exist in society which circumscribe choices and limit options, but the limits are not unbreakable. For Eleanor, the sheer force of her personality, paired with her own limitless ambition, allowed her to not only become, but redefine what it meant to be a queen in the Middle Ages. Twice. If she can do that—I can certainly go on a trip by myself.

How It Began

When I am growing up, my grandmother often prints out thick packets of stories and legends about women who did things and sends them to me in large manila envelopes. After a while I have history and myth all mixed up, but I know more about Sacagawea and Joan of Arc, Jane Austen and the goddess Athena, than any of my friends in Mrs. Smith’s first grade classroom.

Every summer we make the drive to North Carolina to visit my grandparents. This time, I walk into the room where my sister and I always sleep and instead of the familiar stack of printed-out pages there is a small hardback book sitting on the bedside table. The cover shows a collage of train tickets, magazine photographs of the Eiffel Tower, and plastic figurines of women in traditional southern French dress. I like it right away. I have always judged books by their covers.

Postcards from France is a series of articles written back to her American hometown newspaper from a young woman spending a year living in Valence, a small city in the southeast province of Savoie. I finish the book in one day. I read it again the next year, and again, and again. Inside the back cover, in the careful, blocky handwriting of a child just starting to write, I inscribe, “This is a great book!”

From then on, I am completely obsessed with the idea of spending a year in France---of travelling the entire country, becoming fluent in another language, and making unforgettable friends. I will do this, too. And I do, in my own way.

YWRB: Dare

By Amy Turn Sharp I always pick dare.

Truth or Dare?

I am game. Game on.

Let's do this thing. I will get naked. I will kiss you madly.

I will run through the streets screaming.

Whatever. Why?

I think it is because it is easier than letting you inside of my mind. Inside of all the scary truths I carry like coins.

I think it's important to find your other side of the coin, the people who always pick truth.

They are not weanies. They are powerful totems.

Find them and hold them like lovers.

Teach each other how to be passionately truthful and daring.

Most of us are lacking in one side of the coin.

Truth or Dare.

Hold hands and walk into the future.

Encourage and take a chance.

It's all we've got baby.

The chance of a life well lived.

I dare you.

Conversations with Myself as an Old Woman

By Eliza DeaconKilimanjaro, Tanzania

Gnarled hands that are surprisingly pale, folded in her lap. Capable hands, although she never liked them despite their ability to reach one note over an octave on the piano. She’s always stayed out of the sun, not for vanity, but because she doesn’t like the sun or the heat---funny for someone who has spent the last 60 years of her life in Africa. You can look like leathery old strips of biltong otherwise, the intense heat of mid-day etched deep into crinkles and creases. Nice faces though, lived-in, they look like they belong here.

Here she became the person she never thought she was before---hidden away, in a too-tall lanky body, by insecurities and doubt, never entirely comfortable in the skin she was born with. It wasn’t so simple, but then this continent never is; it tests and challenges, weeds the strong of heart from those who shy from its extremes. It can drive you mad and it’s easy to stumble, the dusty earth is often rock-strewn and rarely flat.

She often used to wonder if this was a place to grow old; she never wanted to feel fear and it’s here sometimes---visits at night with the winds, with shiftas and waizi . . . thieves who come in when the moon is low, skulking around the perimeters in whispers. The dogs bark and the old Maasai askaris keep them at bay, but they’re still out there. And fear is an unwelcome guest, especially when you know your limitations.

She and the man she loves know of nowhere else to go. This place they call home is just that and has claimed them wholly. They have both been spat off the continent before, thrown out of the land they were bound to. For him, because the colour of his skin was deemed wrong, despite having the right passport. For her, because she was told she had just been there too long. But where else to go? Where else do you find the life that offers you the most extraordinary freedom, whilst always with cruel accuracy reminding you that this freedom comes at a price?

At times she wonders at how she can still find the thrill in that particularly African golden light that comes just before dark, that one-hour grace period when everything else is forgotten and the Gods smile down on all. And the moment when walking on the farm, she startles a wild animal and it’s frozen, staring with wide eyes, preserved in that drawn-out moment until neither can bear it any longer and the spell is broken.

She remembers things: bare feet on wet grass, stepping carefully in the darkness, the smell of sweet wild jasmine and night sounds in her soul, feeling giddy with wildness in the shadow of the mountain. And she remembers a dress covered in a thousand sparkling sequins. As they drove down the long farm road towards a moonlit gathering, it filled the inside of the car with colour, like stars that no-one could see but them.She files away all these memories, carries them carefully in a treasure box, revisits them at sunset when, sitting on the veranda with a glass in hand, the world slows down and sinking back into the past is easy and without regret. Old now, but there is so much that is good here. As much as you can ‘belong’, they know that they have been marked, carry the scars as well as the laughter. There is permanence and stability in its indelible stain and it ties them to that dusty African soil, a compass that always points them home.