All Over the Map

I wasn’t expecting how personal it would feel to watch the documentary  MISSION: JOY – Finding Happiness in Troubled Times   on Netflix.  Watching this film about the friendship between the Dalai Lama and the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, it felt as if two big pieces of my life were coming together.  Like everyone else, I wouldn’t be who I am were it not for my history, my DNA, my having been born and growing up where I did  -- which in my case, was in South Africa during Apartheid.   I wouldn’t be who I am were it not for my mother, who was sick for so much of my childhood, but so passionate about so many things when she was well, like art and reading and making meringue castles for our neighborhood parties. Or my father, who was so funny and generous and brave, yet never quite shook the impacts that growing up poor and fatherless left him with.  Nor would I be who I am if it weren’t for my brother, who was born when I was four yea...

      Birthdays can be fun, joyful celebrations and they can also be reminders of past losses, traumas and disappointments.     The 4 th of July, the birthday of the United States, is no different.        America the Beautiful has been a refuge for millions, a place where shattered lives can begin to heal and find purpose again.       America the Beautiful is also the country that gave White people the right to own Black people, to strip them of their names and heritage. It’s the country that wouldn’t allow Black children to attend the same schools as White children until 1954.  And it’s the country where descendants of those people are still living with prejudice and inequities.      Just as my love for those who are dear to me is sometimes threaded through with hurt and disappointment and confusion, so is my love for America.      When I sing...

It  used to be that the words Memorial Day brought with them a lightness that came with the beginning of summer and the promise of long salty days at the beach. It used to be that the words Gold Star Families meant nothing to me. Now I know they mean your worst fears came true and your family will never be the same again. Over the years, as my involvement in the military community has became more personal, the Memorial Day weekend has become a time to pause and reflect, to acknowledge the losses I have born witness to. It’s 2008 and I’m at the Memorial Day ceremony at Mt. Soledad Veterans Memorial in San Diego. I’m here because Sandra Aceves invited me to be her guest and Sandra is here because she was invited to be part of a ceremony for Gold Star families. The button she has pinned to her blouse shows her Fernando in his crisp white Navy uniform, an impish grin on his face. Fernando was a Navy corpsman, killed in an ambush in Ramadi, Iraq, on April 6, 2004 while trying t...

1969 RIBBONS OF MOONLIGHT      It starts with  The Highwayman .  A poem in Miss Abram’s class, Kings Road Primary School, Sea Point, Cape Town, South Africa.  The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.     I’m ten-years-old and each line in that story of tragedy and doomed love by Alfred Noyes is a whole new taste and I want more.        That same year I’m taking Speech and Drama classes with Auntie Audrey, my best friend’s mother, who lives two houses away.  We’re getting ready to recite our poems at an  Eisteddfod , a day of music and poetry performances.  We’ve practiced for weeks.  My poem is  On a Night of Snow  by Elizabeth Coatsworth.  Auntie A...

     Did you know Maya Angelou wrote a book for children called  My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me ?  It’s about an eight-year-old girl called Thandi -- which means "hope" in her language -- who lives in an Ndebele village in South Africa with her family and a very special chicken who she tells her secrets to.       It’s one of my 19-month-old granddaughter Kelsey’s favorite books, and because she also has such a special relationship with chickens, we often have to skip straight to the parts where Thandi is holding the big, pretty chicken in her arms.     Kelsey has been living in a village of sorts too for the past year. Her parents have been working from home since last March because of the pandemic, and working from home has meant spending big chunks of time at both sets of grandparents’ houses, so Kelsey can be cared for while her parents work.      This Covid Bubble Village has kep...

A few months ago I thought it might be fun to write a blog, so I did a little research on blogging and every source asked me the same question:  what is your focus going to be?  Food?  Poetry? Travel?  I felt an instant zap of irritation at the confinement and limitations of this question. It reminded me of those quizzes on Facebook where you have to choose 2 things out of a list of 15 to keep in your life during the pandemic.  Chocolate? Dogs? Netflix? Books? Pajamas? My phone?  Well, I’m a 61-year-old woman who hasn’t been to the hairdresser in a year and I choose them all.     The world is a sprawly, complicated place and like everyone else, I’m a sprawly, complicated being with multiple facets and interests.  Other people’s stories, my toddler granddaughter, my mother’s death when I was 18, the turkey vulture that I’m watching gliding in the wind as I’m writing this – they are all interesting t...