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Elizabeth Lara told me how she was struck by a coup de foudre, French for bolt of lighting, when she saw Erasmo, across the room at a party in DC many years ago. Two years later she moved to the Dominican Republic to share his life. Liz had to learn to live a la Dominicana, a straight talking American girl from Illinois.
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Photo by Angele Camp on Unsplash
Please forgive me while I clear my throat…
petulant petals pity party
Are we in purgatory?
I met with my besties on Zoom yesterday. Friends of many years, some living at significant distances. They’re listless, unfocused, cranky. Our world has shrunk again. O M I C R O N. It sounds like the plague.
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The white heron in the old Chinese tapestry.
With winter under way and night creeping in at 4:30 in the afternoon (in New York) I have a lot of inside time at my desk. Sitting. Sitting. Sitting. So I tried this poetry exercise over many weeks.
From my kitchen window I see the hydrangea balls of winter—dry, dusty, brittle, crunchy. They’ve shrunk to little fists.
My old Nike sneakers squeak loudly on the red oak floor under my feet.
On the street we pass an aged pickup truck. The driver holding a loudspeaker to his mouth causes a rhythmic drone: “Scrap metals, chatarras, bronze, cobre, hierro viejo, lavadoras, secadoras, aires acondicionados dañados. Two young men ride in the open back to accommodate the scrap air conditioners, washers, dryers, and miscellany. This is the only music I hear on this visit. These sounds, too, are home.
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Betsy Cordero as Madrina de honor at best friend’s wedding in 1949.
My sister had everything for me. We were only two in our family, and she adored me. She wanted me to be entertained all the time. I arrived in New York on Friday. By Monday I was working as secretary at an electronics company.
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What does it mean to live a large canvas? Betsy Cordero at her 99th birthday celebration last year.
I felt I had a festive start for our conversation. Betsy was wearing a turquoise blouse, turquoise necklace and bracelet. “So what are your favorite colors?” I said. She got me with her surprising answer, “beige and brown.” That night Betsy sat up in bed writing down the names of the famous people who had populated her world in the 1940s through the 1970s.
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Photo by Simon Mumenthaler via Unsplash
I was in Cuba earlier this year, and I don’t see how people can live. They don’t have water, they don’t have funds. There may be some chicken in a store that sells in dollars… el matazón de las colas, those endless lines… I felt that I was living in the Stone Age. Imagine… the chicken was frozen, and the sellers in order to sell the chicken would smash it against the sidewalks, as if they were animals. They broke the archway of a friend’s house built in 1930 with the frozen chicken. No one is thinking. It makes me crazy.
Read moreI’ve been trying to write about this experience (I’d worried I’d be awed and speechless) but I am stuck on the word apricot, which makes my mouth water but conveys something very different than peach. More tart, a little brighter, more perishable.
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I’ve moved to the patio with my laptop hoping I can put together good words for you. A mosquito buzzing near me hasn’t bitten me yet.
I could tell you about a recent MRI experience, because a complicating event offers riches. I am starved for detail,
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How do families try to “solve” the problem? How do we not lose sight of the fullness and wholeness of the person affected by mental illness or trauma?
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