Home-made cough drops

lemon, blueberries, honey

love

heals all

a journey of 4000 weeks

a moment in these 4000 weeks,

a life, my life, next to her life,

just started, so fresh and full of questions

What is that, Opa?  What are those white things up there?

What is in your backpack, Mimi?  How do I peel these eggs?

and such clear direction, I want to go the beach. No, I don't want

to eat lunch now.  Let's go to the waterfall. Carry me.  

each moment for her is unsullied by the past and the future,

a moment in time, valuable and immediately now,

I learn from her, so much further along in my 4000 weeks,

we must learn from the young.

Learning to Swing

When I taught her to swing,

she could not reach the ground, with feet or hands,

suspended in space, I pushed her gently,

ready to cushion any fall.

She says, "Mimi, swing!"

I gingerly place my stomach across the plastic seat,

we push our hands and feet against the soft

playground surface, swinging, swinging.

swinging.

En route

We only have this life, the one on the road

To somewhere, we picked this one,

Although there were many, some as tempting, 

Some only a passing fancy that did not last,

This one was the one I chose, we chose, 

Driving three days past the  XYXZ exit

(Where last time it was 120 F, and now we

Have passed sand and stone hills dusted in snow.

We only have this life and I chose this moment

To write his poem, bypassing a few more paragraphs 

In my book, leaving Opa to watch the washing 

Machine turn with Mira.

This is what I chose, right now.

Dress up for Christmas

it's not really Christmas, but a good day to dress up

and celebrate all that we have, including a black dog named

Bella.

Let's rejoice that a new baby is coming,

that there is food and a warm house

two open books on the table 

 a hike this afternoon with my son and his dog.

it's always a good idea to dress up and be thankful

yet we always forget.

Remembering Owen

The snow blankets the ground, sparkling, 

promising warmth to come, life to come,

I know this,

we know this, Cali and me, even as our paws and

bottom are frosty on the icy bench

we smile at the camera, hopeful, 

the flowers at our side, a small photograph

taped to the bench

(made with love by the grandpa's)

I secretly hope for a girl, a nod to Owen

to make it true, he will always be 

a source of love and hope in my life.

Giving Life

I can smile thinking of a baby in need

her blue tinge turning rosy, my blood coursing

through her veins.

this is what it is to give life

at no cost to your own.

the cheery curtains and comfy chair,

a chatty worker and the palpable 

happiness that comes from stopping your day,

skipping whatever may have been calling,

to do what really counts.

Give Life.

small success

green grass

politely protrudes

through

brown burlap

protected primarily

from frost

killing cold

silent success

beautiful

It's dark outside on Halloween

It's dark outside

yet no goblins knock on the door.

there is candy in a bowl, the light is on

but not a single ghost appears in the doorway

it's dark outside

not a single mother's flashlight bobbing

along the sidewalk

it's quiet outside, no noisy teenagers,

not a single child, or mother or father.

What a lonely Halloween.

Friends in the fall of our lives

we talked of such things, of the number of good years

remaining, of joints and pains, of regrets....

of the extent of free will vs the inevitable.

it was a beautiful fall day; the golden leaves

rustled in the trees, we descended with great care

the steep stairs to the river, where we shared our

peanut butter and apples, bananas and crackers,

now-thawed Swiss cheese, decidely not worse for the wear.

and wine.

and as we climbed from the canyon, we wavered a bit

struck by our slightly-drunken wobble, the wine 

having made the sunshine ever so slightly stronger,

the trail ever so slightly more challenging.

Growing a lawn

for the grandchildren, I want a small patch of lawn.

we roughen the soil,

pull the stubborn weeds that tolerate drought,

finally broadcasting seed through the old metal colander.

I'm teaching her how to garden, this young woman,

to lay burlap over the seed and water it in.

next spring, she will come with her rabbit

and they will sit on the grass, her rabbit

will lounge in the dense green grass.

electric short

first

a black screen, nothing but

miles of road, tire pressure rising

the heat, the sun, 

then

flashing numbers and letters,

"no key" and frightfully cold

the range and trip A confused and blinking

intermittent electrical short

heat and light, sun, the

whirr of tires on the road

finding calm. 

Mon amie, Cecile

I loved the leaves, and I want her panniers

We talked of many things, no words unspoken

of loss and love, of life,

little ones who have grown big,

still annoying.

I love Cecile, I love her bike, 

I want it and her basket up front,

the home made accessories, but mostly I

want to bask in the light of her smile.

what endures

I look like my brother, the one who leads by 3 years

the same grey, wrinkles, the lopsided jowl, the 

nose that tells my age even though I don't know why.

but the eyes!  the eyes are alive!

the crooked smile, the mischievous look!

these will endure as long as we walk 

on this blessed Earth.

Random word #4: Lonely

 

It's the theme of my life, this loneliness that seems to part of my genetic code

passed down from grandmother to mother to me, I see her in her pale blue dress

lying on her back, cigarette smoke slowly curling upward

and

my mother sitting on the backyard with her dissertation materials,

only jumping to attention when Marc hit his head on the concrete pad.

I didn't exist

which is perhaps why lonliness is in my genes, but also in 

my experience.

Random word #3: Sugar

 

Sugar baby, I love you, too, honey, in that

hot and sweet coffee, rich and dark, sugar baby, in my cookies and cakes

sugar baby, the hummingbirds love you they whir around the feeder

while I look on, sugar baby, not the fake stuff, only the sweet granules 

that tell my body I'm sweet, too, sugar baby, I'm sweet too.

Random word #2: Write

 

Write....

Anything, at anytime, anywhere

in your head, on your palm on the 

sole of your shoe

read it again and learn who you are

where you were, what you thought,

or never read it again

Ever.

A random word #1 - sensitive

My index finger landed on "sensitive".

I am that word, should tattoo it across my forehead

for all to see, to consider treading more softly 

allowing me to whisper a few words in the quiet

her skin is sensitive, that of a baby, quick to redden,

and yet I search for other sensitivities,  finding none

I notice my own where are the others

open the eyes and see

Owen Julian McKinnon

 

Owen launched like a rocket into this world a year ago

and left us so few months later

our grief now interwoven into our quotidian lives

I held him four times, count them, only when he was on the "end of life" list

how those words landed will always be remembered

and now what

we keep going, I guess, and we try again

to welcome a baby, a perfect one, who carries in them

Owen's spark.

finding words while hunting mushrooms

 

We walked and gathered mushrooms

I was glad that the words were about mushrooms,

I had so little to say.

Long ago, the nicest young woman at the Saugatauk family camp

asked me why I am so serious

At seven, this was a serious accusation and it hurt me deeply

I remember this now as I reflect on the day, I often do,

that I think many things but do not speak.

Saying good-bye is the hardest thing to do

 

She pulled on her cowgirl boots,  I zipped them up.

We pulled her Joan of Arc shirt over her head and she was ready to go.

I wasn't ready to let her go, this impossibly busy little girl

who pulled her diaper off when she was supposed to be napping,

loved to wear a dozen of my necklaces at a time,  explored the workings

of bike pumps and irrigation systems,  a lover of buttons;

the showers at Scott Carpenter pool, the keypad on the door, keyboards

and calculators, 

this is the girl who loves to walk Bella in the morning, as long as she holds 

the leash, only letting it go so as to run up the hill with Mimi,

touching the fence before singing on her way down.  

We learned to open clothespins and hang laundry in the back yard,

mopped the floor after she spilled a cup of water...

Yes, she may be ready to go, but I am not ready to let her go.

and yet, she did leave and tears came to my eyes.  

Reflections and considerations for future travel

 

I learned alot in Barcelona and finally got to sit down for a nice plate of paella and a LARGE glass of paella on my last night. A month is the right amount of time to be gone...longer is too long.  Shorter is ok, but not too short if the travel is long.  Travel is a good opportunity to enjoy, but also to learn and be exposed to new things.  Traveling with Saliou was an education.  Traveling alone and navigating on my own opened possibilities for me in life.  

I will definitely travel again, alone.  

I will definitely pack much lighter.  Do more homework ahead of time.  Do tours of monuments/etc alone, if possible.  Take the time to purchase the correct tickets.  The phone worked out really well, just buying data with Airalo.  Next time, be sure to purchase for all the countries at once if possible.  I did Spain and France separately, which was dumb.  Remember that train lines can cross each other more than once.  Riding bikes is a great way to go.  Cars move slowly in Paris so it's less dangerous there than here in Colorado.  

 

Go find dinner in the immigrant communities.  It's less expensive and more interesting.

 

Spend time on the Seine.

A few moments in Barcelona and Paris

 

How cool to stumble across a street parade on La Rambla.  

 

Sagrada Familia...go alone next time.  

 

Children  ; )  On the Seine. 

 

Always seek new friends.  Lilliane who I met at the baguette vending machine. We exchanged info and I rode a bike to her miniscule rental apartment on the other side of the Eiffel Tower.  She worked on it and we chatted.  I hope to see her again. 

Reflections on why I am not writing a travel log

It's an odd thing that 

I am not writing a daily blog, photos, thoughts, adventures, practicalities.

At MIT, we'd say the education was like drinking out of a fire hose, too much, too fast.

The pictures don't capture it,  they are sharp and yet, I am in a blur.

Dropped into this little hostel with the two twin beds, a balcony that looks out

over an urban canyon, the ratio of building height to street width unimaginable

in my country.

The blur of packs of tourists, English, French, Catalan, Spanish, Italian,

packs of gay men, naked breasts on the beach, young white men puking,

the waft of marijuana, African street vendors, the Arabs competing.

I don't read other people's travel blogs. I can't write my own anymore.

I can't even write my history, tangled as it is with Devaud sensibilities, 

the traumas, the lonliness, the determination, the mistakes, marriages, divorces,

poverty and success, my way of seeing the world, my generosity mixed with 

naivety, nearly 65, my whole life seems a blur, just as the street outside

is a blur which cannot be captured in any meaningful way by a series of 

photographs.

And so I spend this time with a Senegalese man who lives in his world,

of deprivation, family drama, poverty, endless obstacles, within his society of 

lying to stay alive.

What a disappointment on so many fronts.

How exhausting to be constantly impoverished, spending a day on the street

going hotel to hotel to see if you can get a better deal.

Maybe if you just speak louder in a foreign language, or say, "My friend"

with a too big smile, just to get by.

And so, all of a sudden, I knew that this post would be written without

a crisp photo.

Travel is not crisp.  

Terrified to enthralled in Barcelona, Spain

 I admit that I was WAY out of my comfort zone coming to Barcelona on my own.  I was also kind of embarrassed that I was afraid - aren't I an independent woman?  Saliou had suggested meeting in Barcelona when he was here on business. 

Biking to Chateau de Chenonceau to kayak!

We rented a couple of electric bikes to ride the hour or so to the Chateau and to finally kayak!  So much easier to navigate without heavy panniers!  Beautiful weather, a mix of clouds, sun, a little rain.  

A little headwind, some current, but we steadily approach the castle and pass underneath!

After passing underneath, we stop for lunch and a swim.  

and, of course, we had stopped to wait our turn at the patisserie to get pastries and eau gazeuse.  

Amboise: Leonardo da Vinci

We escaped the cave in the last town and are in Amboise, a more touristy town.  It's hot today...very hot after so much cool weather and I'm very tired.  We rested on the thigh of Leonardo da Vinci and looked across the river to the beautiful chateau on the other bank.  The room is nice and, even more lovely, is the beautiful garden in the back, where we had tapas for dinner.  

We missed our opportunity to rent a kayak - apparently no one answers the phone to take reservations and when you show up, their schedule is already full.  In an unusual feat of organization, we have rented bikes for tomorrow and also reserved a double kayak in a town about an hour ago.  

Ugh - no more sleeping in caves! Azay-le-Rideau

 I thought this would be cool, this hotel room/cave at Azay-le-Rideau but I really disliked it.  There is no getting away from the clammy feeling, and the toilet/shower/did not even have a doorway. The whole cave was basically one whole space.  We also could not have wi-fi (it's a cave, dummy...).  I was glad to leave. So, it was kind of cool, in a clammy, creepy way, but I'm glad I can say "been there, done that".  

A day in Chinon

 The weather has been cool, cloudy and breezy. Thus, don't necessarily believe that it will be warm!

We arrived in Chinon around 4 o'clock, as usual. Our place is a three bedroom apartment on one of the old streets in town.  We have a very nice table where I can spread out with my iPad and various shopping treasures.  The treasures today from the Chateau of Chinon included the book on Chateaux (on the table, describing not only the Chateau of Chinon, but also the Sleeping Beauty Chateau that we will see tomorrow), a Fleur de Lys necklace for Mimi, a book in French on Joan of Arc, various postcards of Joan of Arc, a book of maps of the Middle Ages).  We had sandwiches up at the Chateau from a boulangerie and two tarts, one of a fruit I do not know, but so yummy, and one of pomme with a wine reduction sauce, very yummy.  For dinner I made reservation at La Table de Jeanne. I had coq au vin (not that great, good to know) and Opa had a fish dish, very beautiful and  yummy.  Too much wine, how much is too much? ; )

Our dinners

The diorama of what remains of the Chinon Chateau

Lots of stairs

Taking a break, there was a break in the clouds and I basked in the sun.

A view from the top of the keep.

What the Chateau looked like at its height...the different colors correspond to what was built when.

Walking up to the Chateau

Saumur, a grand chateau, triglodytes, en route to Chinon

 

This is the palace of Saumur. It's enormous, spectacular, unreal.  It's a steep, but short walk, up from our hotel.  The hotel was lovely (except for the courtyard which had a big party of 12 the first night).  We had a delicious breakfast the second day before leaving.  A nice present from Stephanie.  

1

The path has been quite variable:  forest, small towns, river, ....

This was inside the Saumur palace.  An enormous cavern with a hole at the top.

I can't even keep track of all the churches......

Along one of the routes between Saumur and Chinon.

Saumur Palace

Inside the "cave" of a restaurant en route to Chinon.  15C all the time.  Hundreds of bottles of wine.  He and his wife completely restored this trigolyte space.

This was in a square at Saumur.

What we ate in Saumur:  

We had ice cream when we first got there... I had vanilla bourbon.

For dinner, we ate in the large square