How did you come to write "The Shadow of Silver Birch"?

     My novel is coming out in print and I couldn't be happier.  Yesterday, I was asked where the story came from.  These days with the popularity of memoir and the general belief that all writing is autobiographical in some way, it's not a surprising question.  I like to refer to an interview that Carlos Ruiz Zafon gave in El Pais when he said there were two types of writers- those who lived what they wrote about and those who imagined it.  I'd say the answer lies between the two ideas. 
      Years ago in Barcelona I met a Spanish nun whose mother was from Latvia.  How did her mother end up in Spain?  How was that possible?  I knew no Latvians that could travel in the days of the USSR and after the Second World War it seemed even less probable.  She had some letters from her mother that she had never been able to read since they were in Latvian.  I set about translating  them and my curiosity was piqued. 
    Her mother met a soldier from the Division Azul.  I began reading about the division established by Franco and found more questions than answers.  On one website, children of soldiers began to ask me questions though my knowledge was as limited as theirs.  One interesting fact stood out and that was some soldiers were sent to Russia to fight to avoid prison for their part in the Civil War.  Thus, my soldier, Juan, in the novel, was given a direction, an idealism, and a purpose.
      Though the figure of a nun became a minor character in the novel, I will always be grateful to Eva Ledero for sharing her story and providing inspiration for a large part of my novel.
      The aspect of what one has lived was the experience of growing up as a child of immigrants who never quite fit in- the outsider always looking in the window of a room she can't enter with ease.  It was that very lack of ease (in Spanish the word would be inquietude) which would bring me to writing. 
     So on this eve of the book launch I am grateful for this opportunity to share my work. I hope it can bring some enjoyment and food for thought.

Reunions and mysteries

      Recently I met up with friends from school that I hadn't seen in decades. They are still beautiful, still full of life and stories.  At one point we were talking about how we exchanged high school rings.  My friend repeated my name and I realized how long it's been since someone knew my middle name or could pronounce the "ei" vowels of my last name correctly. 
     I wondered what I may have missed in all this time.  A sense of connection to the person I once was and still am?  A connection to friends who populated my life in my early years? A new nostalgia returns though my teenage years were not my happiest.  I plodded through the illness of my mother, the isolation of a small rural town and emerged safe despite forays into dangerous and not so dangerous places. 


Here's a piece that's in it's earliest form:




The eternal Ibizza like party
of my forebearers
immigrants lost all,


AM bodies fallen
from reveries


A grubby child
 sent to church
to be an angel on
the life raft of God


Who's been saved?
I peek from under
folded arms,
only my hand unraised,
my arm slack. 

Gladiolas in the summer

     In the novel, "Purge" by Sofi Oksanen, one of the characters calls gladiolas the Russian flower.  Since the character is Estonian, that is a disparaging comment on the poor gladiola.  Curious that my father, who was Latvian, planted a circular flower bed with pink  gladiolas every year.  These were the only flowers he ever paid attention to and he watered and weeded the bed with great care. He had grown up in Siberia so there may be some truth to the Russian quality of the flower.
     I never liked them- they either stood straight or flopped over from their own top heavy weight.  Then there was the problem that the parts of the flower never bloomed in unison so part of the flower had dead blooms while another part was fully open. 
     There was something funereal about them.  They were the predominant flower sticking out in almost every flower arrangement around the casket at every funeral I went to.  Typically they were red and imposing, vaguely reminiscent of blood.
     Years later a friend I visited in Lucca, Italy, had a huge vase full of glads dramatically presiding over the entire flat.  They were beautiful and I was impressed.  Back in Barcelona, I tried growing them on my terrace, but the heat always caused them to come up scraggly if they did come up at all.  Here in Atlanta, the glads coming up in the vegetable garden are small and cute.  So here, where it is summer, I can indulge in flower reminiscences. 












And the poem for my father that appears in my second chapbook:

Father’s Day

 

Green spring erupts,

the kittens,

wild, frantic,

tumble

over each other

racing in the barn.

His touch tames.

He presents them

like the  peas he shells and

lines up.

 

The lull never lasts,

wind whips through cracks of

closed windows.

He’s the one I search for

in shapely dark madness.

Mala beads, rosaries, and Anne Bradstreet

Mala bead and rosaries

 

            I was recently given a gift of mala beads- 108 lightly scented sandalwood beads in a silk pouch.  In the center is a larger bead, called the guru bead, which serves as the starting and ending point for mantra recitation.  There are a surprising number of rules involved in using the beads.  The index finger isn’t used and when you reach the center bead (guru bead) you’re not supposed to cross it, but you flip the beads and start again.  There are 108 repetitions of a mantra because 8 are dedicated to god.

            In the Vedic tradition mantra recitations bring magical outcomes like good health, prosperity, and removal of difficult karma.

            But how different are mala beads from the rosaries that filled drawers in my childhood home?  I never got beyond trying them out as necklaces.  Of course, the crucifix at the end, made that impossible.  I never knew what prayers constituted “saying” a rosary. Having grown up with rosaries makes the mala beads far less exotic than they might be to someone from a different tradition.  Since saying the rosary didn’t bring my mother any miraculous benefits (at least, not that I was aware of), I’m skeptical about the great promises the Vedic practitioners claim.  That shouldn’t stop me from using the mala beads as a meditation tool though I’m not sure I have the discipline I need. 

 

I’ve been taking a free online course called 10 Pre-modern poets.  It’s been great fun.  I’ve also found it interesting how so many of the poems can be so relevant to life today not to mention how each reader  brings a personal story and background to each interpretation. 

 

What writer hasn’t felt like this at some point?  She was 38 when this poem was published.

 

The Author To Her Book    1650

BY anne bradstreet

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
The visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth i’ th’ house I find.
In this array ‘mongst vulgars may’st thou roam.
In critic’s hands beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

 

Roses, lions and meaning.

     Asking one of those typical ESL questions designed to generate conversation, I was taken aback by the answers.  The question was- What do you think is the perfect age to be? Silly, I know.  As this was a group of 20 year olds, I expected the answers to be close to their own ages. After all, that's what the media bombards us with- the images of youth and beauty.
     One young woman said, 8.  Ok, I thought- that's the age of reason.  Another student said 12.  Before the heartaches of adolescence perhaps?  The most surprising answer was a young woman who said 3.
     Hadn't they heard of Alice Miller?  Were their childhoods so idyllic they clung to a world of little or no responsibility?  Or was it a fear of what the future will hold?  I suspect it's mostly the latter.  They are living in a world fraught with so many dilemmas that may or not be solvable.  We aim for an idealistic view of the future but what surrounds their tech saturated world is nihilism.  Meaning comes in small devices that are always at hand or in memories of a carefree time.


     My fight for meaning lies in poetry.  Here's a poem I'm working on.


                         The Rose Darkens


The rose darkens,
softened by time,
blood red petals
slide off,
lie on the white table.


The lines unfurl,
in snarled words,
an ancient breath
of sound
in my ears.


I long for the simple,
the tall grasses
where zebras melt
in motion,
A lion poised,
ready to leap.

Women's Day!

                Happy International Women's Day!  Years ago when I was teaching at the University of Barcelona I remember wearing purple in honor of this day.  Do women still do that? In Latvia it's a day for honoring the women in your life with flowers.  It's a national holiday in China and many other countries, but sadly here in the US, I have never seen much evidence of celebration on a wide scale.  In fact, when I google the day, Forbes has a list of articles in honor of women which  include "business wear for women." 


Gender equality?  Still a long way off, I'm afraid.  And the biases are ever present.  http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/12/09/gender_bias_in_student_evaluations_professors_of_online_courses_who_present.html


This article has the title of-"Best Way for Professors to get Good Student Evaluations?  Be male". So there we have it.  Still a long way to go. 


Here's a poem I often open my readings with since there is usually some tragic event involving women around the time of the readings.

Birthright

Past knots and tendons,

 

I look

 

to bone

 

and see,

 

 centuries past.

 

My face shrivels

 

as flames rise higher.

 

The point of a sword

 

slashes my belly.

 

Today, head to toe in black,

 

I barely breathe,

 

walk the requisite

 

steps behind.

 

The open hand

 

of my husband

 

reddens my cheek.

 

In  India and China

 

girls form

 

the Greek chorus,

 

and chant,

 

never born,

 

never born.

This Dear Life

 This dear life....

            When was the last time you heard a “sir” or a “m’am”?  If you haven’t, you aren’t living in the south.  One of the most surprising aspects of my life in the South is the degree of politeness I encounter, even among college students who aren’t known for possessing that quality.  In my present job in a private college, I can’t count the number of times people have held an elevator door open for me or personally shown me to a room I can’t find.  All my NY City and Barcelona training begins to melt away.  There I was the one who always found a seat on a crowded subway.  I was the one who laughed at an American roommate in Barcelona who told me she couldn’t get off a crowded bus.  So here I am, in a sea of politeness, not quite sure what its significance is beyond making day to day reality just a tad more pleasant.

            Of course, not all is flowers and light.  I’m in a right to work state where highways rule and along with the Bhutanese refugees, we’re the only ones who walk anywhere besides to take out a dog.  Little by little, I will try to adapt and find a way through it all to an understanding and acceptance of the idiosyncrasies of life.  And no matter how far I go, I still find the people who are suffering.  Instead of the refugees I worked with in Buffalo, here I teach a young woman whose dreams and life were shattered when her husband fell into a coma and she has to take care of him.  It makes me wonder if I would be capable of the same.   So, like before, my heart is shattered at what life can bring.

 

            So here’s a poem from my second chapbook, written after acupuncture treatments I had for an injured knee.

 

Kun

 

Between the first and second

crease of the finger

is the measurement of me,

to impose

On gristle, fat, and bone

to find where the Chi,

of the Chinese flows.

 

The circles on a tree trunk

mark the years of want,

the distance between yellow and black

of a bumblebee

predicts  the hard winter’s arrival.

 

Measure to measure,

life to life

needle to pain,

past to passion.

This space

ties me to all things

alive and beating.

 

 

Show, Don't Tell

February 1st and I am in a new land, a new life.  No more winter storms (can I admit I miss them a bit), just a forest of pine surrounding.
I was reminded by FB that I haven't posted on my page.  Like a nagging parent, I am controlled by the media around me or is it that I just succumb to easily?  I was doing research on Pinterest for a story I was writing.  Next thing I knew, I had several people following me.  What was I to do?  Post some pictures of course.  One more distraction, this one visual!
     So to obey the media that is cracking down, here' s a poem I reworked.  We are in Mercury retrograde so I can re-do, re-work, and re-write. 

A Mother’s Tale

 

                        Show, don’t tell,
repeat the writer’s mantra.
Tell color, taste, smell the details
like the name of the ship,
General SD Surges,
leaving Bremen Germany

 in deep fog

heading to

                       America, 1949.

No smashed champage send off,

                       no rolls of crepe.

Grey sky, grey sea

melt  into one space.
Salt caked on lips, in hair,

                        the sweet scent of milk,
leaking from your breasts

                        for one lost and one left behind.

Betwixt, Between

      There's an interspace that exists between one experience and another, or one place and another.  You're between two spheres of reality.  I left Spain and am back in Atlanta, but not quite yet.  Decades ago the trip across the Atlantic was long enough so that adjustment to time and space took place over a week or so.  Now you wake up in one country and go to sleep in another.
      Hence, I'm reading a day old Vanguardia newspaper with my head still buzzing with the noise of an airplane engine.  In the days when I lived in Spain and made the trip in reverse, the intensity of the change and the jetlag was even worse.  That's when I discovered the novels of William Gibson (I have to read his latest).  What I was experiencing- a help conscious, half exhausted place was reflected perfectly in the virtual darkness of his novels. 
      In just a short time, my trip will be a memory, fading fast, so for these last hours I can cling to the languages, flashes of places and people I saw.  In the same way we are leaving behind another year that we can't cling to but can  remember with joy. 


Here's a poem from my first chapbook:

 

What I´ve Lost  

                          Leaving Europe                  

 

Paths lead

from town to

medieval town,

cathedral bones

stick out,

bells toll centuries.

The solemnity

of a saint´s day

procession,

We crowd to touch

the body of christ

while drums

pound out

God´s arrival. 

 

Ocean jet buzz

brings me across

to America,

empire of things,

following the white

highway line

into deep deep sleep.

The Anarchy of Spain

The anarchy of Spain

I first observed it en route to Barcelona from the US. Passengers waiting to board the plane were not sitting patiently waiting for their zone to be called but all of them crowded around the gate. I smiled remembering so many trips just like this one.

My first taste of the news left me shocked. Media in the US doesn’t really follow what happens in Spain so unless you... read the news online (and even then) you only know the basic fact that Catalonia is fighting for Independence from Spain. The rest of the news falls by the wayside and it can help you understand why this is happening.

Most important of all the news is the corruption on every level of the political world. No party is exempt. One of the so called heros of Catalan nationalism, Jordi Pujol, was found to have taken millions from the government to fill his private coffers in offshore banks while he was head of a foundation specializing in ethics. He’s not the only one. 51 people were arrested in October including many mayors. The ruling party, the PP faced endless corruption scandels including a large scandel involving Rodrigo Rato who was the former head of the IMF and the bank, Bankia which handed out credit cards to all kinds of officials for their free use. Bankia had to be bailed out. The Socialists ran a scam in the south of Spain taking money destined for government funds for companies to pay laid off workers for their own benefit. Bankers went wild and several banks had to be rescued. Even the royal family (which was once respected because Juan Carlos saved democracy) is under investigation. The husband of one of the princesses is facing a prison term for embezzlement. Juan Carlos abdicated in favor of his son and is now divorced from Sofia. Juan Carlos himself was photographed on a safari after having shot an elephant which did nothing to endear him to the public.

Despite all of the poltical mess, the economy seems to be improving. New political parties like Podemos (which the PP is trying hard to discredit), Ciutadans, UPD and others may provide alternatives. Catalan nationalism is growing despite the scandels of the politicians there. It’s hard to imagine a Catalan nation will be any less corrupt than the Spanish one. One surprise is the Basque country which after years of armed conflict has settled down.

A Saturnian Look at Life

A Saturnian look at life....

How many times have you thought of what it would be like to be old, I mean really old? Let’s say 90, 95, and older. I recently visited my friend’s mother who is 92 and living in a residence. She continually repeats, 92, that’s a lot of years and she’s right. She appears cheerful in her own present Buddhist like reality with no recent past or focus on the future. In her residence, the bedrooms are small and the residents are encouraged to spend their time in common rooms.
In contrast ,I visited a friend’s father in Buffalo who also lives in a residence. His room is large with his own TV and memorabilia around him. He spends most of his time there. I don’t know if the difference between the two is cultural or simply due to aquisitive power.
It could be a portion of us will spend our old age in places like these that are slightly reminiscent of dormitory life. That is, if we are lucky enough to be able to afford even the simplest of these places. What brings one to these places can be a simple fall, a chronic illness, or just the lack of anyone to help with the basic tasks of life.
Youth imagine death in a purely romantic way- that they’ll never get old, that they won’t live past, say 50. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN5zw04WxCc The joke Is on them- we see the old rockers in their 70’s still performing. So like with everyone else, old age creeps up on the youth and they will face the same uncertainties.
Two of the most common questions asked astrologers in India are when will I get married and when will I die. Perhaps that will help. With the notion of a time frame, you could prepare or if it’s off you could breathe in the beauty of another day and appreciate this fragile world even more. See More

The Who - My Generation

Subscribe to The Best Of for more classic music history, videos and playlists: http://bit.ly/WdJ36u "My Generation" appeared on The Who's debut album of the ...

End of semester reflections and a poem, "Stones"

 End of semester reflections and a poem, "Stones"

                I’d often been asked odd questions before- one day a young Korean woman asked me what size shoe I wore and because I didn’t feel like answering, I launched into a talk on taboo questions in America.  Another day, a young Asian woman asked me, “Why do you teach?  It must be so boring- all those mistakes, those corrections.”  My answer was that I liked to learn. 

             I’ve been re-reading “Disgrace” and Coetzee’s main character reflects on that idea. “The irony does not escape him: that the one who comes to teach learns the keenest of lessons, while those who come to learn learn nothing.” I suspect my idea is not so much learning humility but worldliness, meaning cultures of the world and cultural norms outside of my own. That I have certainly found.  On one job interview I responded to a question saying I had probably taught students from most countries around the world.   

            I found a poem I’d written ages ago, perhaps when I was teaching at the University of Barcelona.  So often in those days I resented a poem lost as I stood in front of yet another classroom or a storyline I wanted to write down with so little time to do so.  These days I am softer, more appreciative of this work I chose and I have learned ever so much while enjoying myself.   Perhaps the teaching is what I will remember more.

 

 

                           Stones

Through the camel's eyelid,

one step off

the tree in bloom,

just out of reach

of day to day.

Freed from the cave,

I carry a sack of stones

to the classroom

to impart one by one

to the open mouths.

Outside, the softness

of the new

spring leaves

sustenance.

Snow Clues

     Did fortune shine on me?  I moved back to Buffalo in April 2007, not too long after an October snowstorm cracked trees heavy with leaves and took down power lines.  The storm was still a topic of conversation and the cause of the escape of a friend whose car had been crushed by a fallen tree. Just not tough enough, I thought.
     I moved to Atlanta in August and despite a few glitches have managed to find a job and get somewhat settled in.  Nostalgia for Buffalo still remains yet I have to admit I am relieved I left before this devastating November 2014.snowstorm.  And I know what I'm talking about- I lived through two of the big blizzards- 77 and 86 and they remain in the deepest part of my brain that scans the neighborhood for grocery stores I can walk to wherever I move. 
    This storm makes me sad.  Just when Buffalo was getting positive press for being one of the most bicycle friendly and livable cities, and all importantly, one of the most progressive, the weather strikes a blow.  We're back to stereotypes.  Hope all of you are safe and warm!



     Snow Clues is the title of a poem in my third chapbook, Dance the Truth, and it's the subtitle of a mystery novel I wrote which is waiting for one last edit and a publisher.  Will fortune shine on me?

Snow Clues


Walk the winter white world
our prints merge
with animal indentations.
Who crossed this path first?

Sleighs pass
soundless.

The sparkle white
blinds.
Snow sleep lures
most of all.

Finding my Way Home

This move from Buffalo to Atlanta has my father’s imprint on it.  Odd you might say, considering he’s been dead for decades, yet he’s been appearing in my dreams since before I left for Atlanta in August. Yang energy could be enough of an explanation for making this move.  What does it take to uproot oneself?  An upheaval of sorts, a burning dissatisfaction, or the perpetual longing for something more?  In my case, it wasn’t the upheaval but the sense I had to escape a kind of rust belt poverty and that time was running out for finding a good job. 

Back to the dreams which seemed to be foreshadowing this change. My father appeared in all the standard dreams of home, the childhood home where I lived for the first 17 years of my life and which still is the only place that bears the archetype of home.  In those dreams death is always a factor, usually my mother’s.  She is sick, we call an ambulance, or we weep at what has already occurred.  The house stands in one of its many forms, sometimes bigger or shabbier than I remember but always an important protagonist.  In one dream I came upon vomit in a room- the symbol of which I’m still trying to figure out. 

Then, in one dream, he flat out asked me why didn’t you have children?  My response was, aren’t my stories and poems enough?  Perhaps it’s a genetic question and in that case I have no answer or a million.  Years ago a Peruvian shaman I met told me I had a genetic make-up that was rarely seen and I carried more of my father than my mother.  One thing I know is I inherited his love of wanderlust.

 

Here’s a poem from my first chapbook:

 

Finding My Way Home

 

The Hmong bury placenta,

close to home.

Danger rises in direct proportion

to their distance from it.

 

The Navajo began

the long march home

where each tree,

each stream tells the past.

 

The spot that fixes me

to the ground, floats.

 

Lost in the birches

and pines of the Baltic,

following the storks south,

to nest in the bell towers

of Castillian churches,

I´m finding my way home.

Atlanta 2, me 0 and a flash fiction piece

By the strangest twists of fate (apologies to Bob Dylan), the two times I have spent time in Atlanta I've been in car accidents.  You can ask how that is possible when I don't even drive.  Well, this is a car city like so many "newer" cities in the South and West.  You really can't go many places without a car as I've learned in my carfree innocence.  This is such a car city that I don't even dare to ride my bike except in the depths of the suburbs or on preplanned bike routes. 
     The first accident happened when I first returned from Spain to the US.  My sister and I were going to a poetry reading which of course, we never got to.  It wasn't too bad and we weren't hurt nor was the car but the accident (more of a fender bender) happened in the middle of the domain of Emory University so there were 3 sets of police cars that arrived on the scene along with an ambulance.  My first thought was I had no health insurance but fortunately I didn't need any treatment.
     November 1, which just happens to be my birthday.  Is that a bad omen when a car accident happens on your bday?  Does it set the tone for the year or is all the collective bad energy dispersed?  I need to consult my astro friends on that one.  Anyway, we ( my sister and I again) were entering a highway (of which Atlanta has a multitude, perhaps like LA) when an elderly woman ran a red light and hit the back end of the driver side of the car.  The next thing I knew we were  in the car facing the wrong direction, looking at oncoming traffic.  Fortunately, a police officer was getting off work, saw the whole thing, and stopped traffic.  What I do know is that to avoid getting into a car, I took 2 trains, a bus, and a long walk to get home.
    Food for thought again- am I in the right place? 


I've attached a car story- one I wrote for a prompt exercise.  Hope you enjoy it!

Cars, Today, and Tomorrow

 

Calvin was always complaining about progress and how the US was falling behind. Now he was back on the same jag.  ¨It´s true, Doug.  Look at China.  Cars show how far a society has come.  Progress. Now they´ve got more than us.  That´s an indicator; everything is Chinese; it´s because they´ve got cars now.¨

¨Come on Calvin, what are you nuts?  What´s this poison soup we´re breathing? Carbon m-o-n.-o-x-i-d-e.  Take a deep breath of that shit.  Fill up those lungs.¨

The two men were standing on the overpass of Route 20 A next to the mall waiting for the AAA to pick up Calvin´s car.  Smoke was billowing out from under the hood and the engine looked like it was ready to blow.  Doug couldn´t believe it; even with his car practically on fire, Calvin wouldn´t stop defending cars.  ¨The Chinese are now ahead of us in pollution too.  They got big black clouds there.  You can´t see the light of day in some of those cities.  That´s progress?¨

¨Think of it; the smell of a new car. Picture it a Jag or, let´s say a Porsche.  Soft leather, heated seats in the winter when you get into that baby.  Cream color interior, GPS, a sound system better than you got at home.¨

¨Get out of here, it´s not sex we´re talking about.  And hey, dude, dream on. Where do you see a Jaguar?  What do you call that over there that´s smoking up a storm?¨  Doug pointed to the 20 year old Chevy ten feet away.   ¨You think it could explode?¨  He stepped farther away just in case.

¨Nah, only on TV.  It takes a lot to get one to blow.  You got to cover it in gasoline.  My car is fine.¨

¨What´d you do, forget to put oil in there?  You with your cars.¨

Calvin ignored Doug and continued his reverie.  ¨Power, that ´s what you want.  That feeling under you.  You can take on the world.¨

¨How long did they say?¨ Doug was getting impatient with the triple A.  ¨They´re usually pretty good.¨

¨An hour about.¨

¨That Chevy has seen better days.  Maybe you should get that dream car.¨

¨The Chevy was Dad´s.  Still got some life in it.¨

¨Yeah, if you keep pumping your paycheck into it.¨

¨At least I´m not on some corner waiting for a goddam bus.¨

¨Well, at least, I´m not poisoning anybody.¨

¨You kidding. With those buses.¨

¨They´re ecological now.  They burn natural gas.¨

¨Next you´ll tell me they burn chicken shit.  You luddites are going to set us back a few centuries.  Then you´ll be happy.  You won´t have any cars, no lights, no TV, now that´s ecological.  Get your garden going.  Make your own clothes.  What kind of future is that?¨

Doug laughed, ¨I´ll keep my way.  You stay in that pile of shit.  I´m going to walk to the mall.  That´s where we´re supposed to be right now.  I got to get my daughter´s birthday present.¨

¨See how you get home.¨

¨Hey, I´ll take a bus.¨

¨Remember that´s why we´re in this mess.  There is no bus.¨

Another cancer story?

When I wrote this story I was looking for a way out of the familiar pain of my mother's death from cancer.  It was ever present, even years later and I was tired of feeling my own heavy sorrow which I understood could be nothing like what she had suffered.  The thought occurred to me to write about cancer and all of those emotions from the perspective of a young mother.


When I worked as a reader for a publishing house in Barcelona, the editor would pick up a memoir or a novel and say, "Another cancer story."  It was always said with a particular disdain so it took me a long time to write the story, hoping her viewpoint wasn't one shared by my potential readers.  In fact, "Three Months" has become one of the stories I've written that I'm most proud of. 


As Dylan Thomas wrote, "After the first death, there is no other."  Or is it that each subsequent death only widens the breach in the heart created by the first one?  In any case, I hope you enjoy reading the story published in Grey Sparrow Press.

https://greysparrowpress.sharepoint.com/Pages/Fall2014StoriesPeipins.aspx

Le Joli Mai

 

Now that I’m staying with my sister in a house with cable TV, I’ve had access to TCM (that favorite of everyone over 60 and movie buffs alike).  To my surprise, the other night they showed  the documentary, “Le Joli Mai” which brought back a flood of memories of the time I spent in Paris years ago.

My college graduation gift to myself was a return trip to Paris, where I’d spent a year abroad studying.  The promise of the trip got me through the seminar on war, my study of Russian, and a tutorial on French writers, so by the end of classes I was more than ready to escape.

Before I left Buffalo, I dreamt of the name Lamartine.  Thinking there might be some meaning in the dream, I looked him up and read about his political life in the second republic and a few of his poems which were less than inspiring.

But when I got to Paris, chance would have my finding the Hostal Lamartine and its cast of characters.  The first person I met Josip, followed me as I was going out for the evening, carrying an umbrella and walking me to the metro so I wouldn’t get wet.  Josip was on a special grant from Croatia ( then, Yugoslavia) and his preferred snack was poitrine fume, a kind of fatty bacon.  He also helped me wash my hair in the sink of my tiny room.

Then there was Max, a professor who had been sent to learn French so he could teach it along with the German he was fluent in.  Max had grown up in Indonesia and lived in just about every city in the world.  He made the tourists at Pere Lachese cry when he recited the poems of Heine in German.  The three of us, Max, Josip, and I went on picnics in the various gardens of the city.  Josip claimed my French was better than Max’s though Max had the formal study and I was just hanging out talking to everybody.

The last figure was an elderly man who was a permanent resident of the hostal.  He was one step away from being a clochard (the politically incorrect word would be bum).  Michel would come to my room and spin his tales all the while letting me put my cigarette ashes in the cuffs of his pants.  Michel told me we’d get the patron (not sure who that could be) and his car.  We would drive to Brittany and eat crepes and drink rich thick milk.  When I left to return to the US, Michel had tears in his eyes.

Mo Joe Anthology

John Roche put together a collection of Joe poems.   The Joe phenomenon started with his own collection of poetry but Joe proved so popular, he opened the theme up to other poets and over 100 are published in this collection.  http://beatlick.com/joethepoet.html  This Friday, August 22nd, Buffalo contributers will be reading at Dog Ear's Bookstore at 7pm.   With my recent move from Buffalo to Atlanta, I won't be able to make it, but here is my own Joe poem. 


Joe Does the Grand Tour


Joe steps off the launch.
No cameras flash, no biennale
or Thomas Mann to be found.
Just another stop on the Grand Tour, Venice, this time.
Boats whir, the damn water rises shiny black
the city crumbles and shakes.
Joe visits the church built to protect from medieval fevers,
sees Peggy G's tomb with dogs in the palace yard.
Gondoliers dream of land
and read racing car magazines.

Suicide

Suicide is on everyone’s minds.  The shock of a famous person committing suicide touches us all and the media doesn’t let go yet provides us little solace.  The old Simon and Garfunkel song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwqwAy85CgY “Richard Corey” based on the poem by Edward Arlington Robinson comes to mind.  http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/richard-cory/  This captures the disbelief that someone who apparently has everything would end it all.

 

Is suicide the ultimate freedom providing a way to make physical suffering or mental anguish  stop?  Of course in religion, that is the biggest taboo since you are taking away what “God” does- gives life or takes it away.  Or the other taboo- are you setting a precedent for people who might otherwise find a way out and be helped?

 

In our own lives  we may have experienced the suicide of someone close or not so close to us.  I remember Jose (I changed the name) in Colombia when I was working as an English teacher in a binational center.  My first encounter with him was when he accused me of changing my name.  No, I insisted, Teresa is my name.  Sometimes I use the Latvian form, Terez but Teresa is my name.  He didn’t  believe me so we started off on the wrong foot.  Jose was in charge of materials so he spent a lot of time chasing after teachers who didn’t check off the right number of books they took out of the supply room.

He had a good reputation as a teacher.  I observed his class once and he told the students that he knew they were funny or smart of whatever but in the new language (English) they should stick to what they could communicate. They didn’t need to resort to Spanish.  Jose was also a painter.  He made  prints of the Colombian currency with huge portraits of Simon Bolivar on them in bright colors.

I had little contact with him outside of work until we took a trip to a small town in the interior of the country for a national English conference.  I knew something was wrong because Jose looked disheveled with greasy hair and he stood behind the bus driver all the way from Bogota to Boyaca as if he were controlling the driver.

Once we were at the conference, things didn’t get any better.  I saw him wander in and out of sessions.  All of us from our center (6 of us) were sharing a suite.  Jose wasn’t sleeping at night.  It didn’t help that the other female teacher was trying to get involved with him or that I was sleeping on the sofa in the common space so there was no escaping any of their drama.  One night Jose was talking to the logs in the fireplace in great philosophical detail.  It was obvious all was not right but we were all too young to really think much beyond how weird he was acting.

And we didn’t give it much thought until some months later, he killed himself.  At the funeral, I remember thinking that now he would have some relief from what was tormenting him.

For these difficult days

Here's a poem from my chapbook- "Dance the Truth" which seems appropriate for these days. 

Heritage

 

Buy gold.

Buy it now.

When you flee

the home exploding,

the burnt landscape,

trade it for a loaf of bread.

 

Remember the rhymes

of so many poems

to fill the confined

calendar days

of prison life.