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I was with a man for years who believed the rational mind overshadowed the spirit world (read: the world of no coincidences). It has come to our realization that the first time we were in Zagreb trying to get Tatjana pregnant – she had left the apartment to walk among the giant trees of Maksimir Park overwhelmed with a feeling that a baby would be born to us – the light had changed, the air had shifted – great miracles were being performed, she knew it, I knew it – we all felt it.

But it seemed it was not meant to be.

We came back from Croatia weary from the trials, and approached adoption, twice, and grew weary from the seeming lack of success. And then one day we received a phone call that changed our lives – and now when we connect the dots – we know the miracle that we had perceived was real – because Tin was conceived exactly at the same moment in time when the light changed, and the air shifted – and sometimes the universe is trying to tell you something but it’s so large, and so miraculous, that your rational mind cannot even comprehend it.

When I looked into Tin’s eyes I knew him as my son, from forever, and that can only happen when something larger than the mind can conceive of has given you a gift that was always meant for you.

I was speaking to my friend about Kazuyo Sejima and her building in New York on Bowery Street. I had started staying at the Bowery Hotel the last few times I went to New York on business. I was at the hotel for the first time when Tatjana called that my mother died. I am now wearing the white slippers with a large B written in script that I used at the hotel from that time. I brought them home in a daze, I wear them now with heavy memories, and now I bring them to Spain with me because they are light and great house slippers.

How was it that I was there and missed seeing Sejima’s building – how did I miss her? Have I not been looking at buildings, have I not been seeing the beauty that surrounds me because my head was down thinking of the woes that had beset me with my then current employment, my dying mother?

Time to open your EYES and behold – Rachel.

The Extinct
Imagine I’m the last woman on earth,
the snowiest plover, the loneliest

deep-sea-swimming whale. It’s not my fault, but
it might be. Should I keep changing until

I become something that has an other?
I’ve tried that. What else can I do for love?

Now not even the gray wolves listen to my
long litany of failures. They know I’m just

putting this self-sadness in my mouth—
a polar bear crunching seal bones between

her teeth—to get what little I can from it.
They still won’t let me blame myself:

When I tell them my name isn’t a song
to sing, they call it back to me again and again.

KEETJE KUIPERS
jubilat
Number 21

Ahora es tres semanas que estamos en españa y ahorita empezó a pensar en español y mis sueños también son en español. Llego lista a empezar mi nueva vida y regreso a estar preocupado con pensamientos de la vida – que estoy haciendo, quien soy, quien fue. Por la noche soñé que estaba en la casa de mi hermano y todos sus hijas estaban ahí y yo no podía encontrar ningún lado para ser sola.

Levanto determinado a mirar la vida differente y decidio hacerlo mirando a través de la lente de cuando era feliz. Entonces puso a recordar estos ocasiones y eran veces cuando no estaba haciendo nada – solamente caminando por un parque o mar, hablando con amigo(s), o leyendo una poema.

Entonces hoy voy a ver a la gallería que tiene el exhibición Marimeko, y voy a caminar cerca del mar, y voy a escribir y reír.

Que difîcil es contar historia de un momento de placer.
Reir allegre cuando sientes tu corazón
Un gran dolor.
Que grande es.

….

Do you ever feel guilty because you are choosing a life of non-doing. No, she answered, as she snapped her gum and banged on the keyboard. No, not at all.

Liar.

Read this article.

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day

Emptiness is desirable. Go for it.

This is the last week of school for the students in Cadiz and also, our visitors from Croatia are on a three day excursion. I write this today, a cool breeze blowing through the open windows, the noise from the streets ever present, and I’ve come to the conclusion that if a month is almost up of our visit to Spain, I don’t know anymore than what I started with. You always think you’ll get a little closer to what it is, and it continues to slink under the cracks and crevices mostly unidentifiable.

Tin tried walking on the ceiling.

It was an idea he had and once he did it, he almost seemed bewildered at how easy it actually was to do it.

We stroll and stroll, we sit in cafes, we venture out, we stay in, and little more is known about our existence than what we knew when we rose in the morning.

We eat – it seems at times too much – yesterday’s lunch was tortilla española, cucumber salad, chorizo, and fried potatoes – this is what we made from the only store open here on Sunday that was busy selling empanadas of tuna and meat but we longed for something from our own kitchen.

We make resolutions to not eat so much, to not have so many copas of gin tonics with our friends at night, to get out more and do this or that, to rest more, to be more. And yet, every day I walk in the room and cow stares at me with judgmental eyes. Well? the cows say in his silence. Well? I say back. Here I am.

They say when you are on your death bed you wish you had spent more time with your loved ones, well what if that is as uninspired as wanting a tuna fish sandwich for your last supper? What if upon death, suddenly the light bulb goes off and you say, “Eureka, I have it, I finally understand?” How many have said that on their death bed I wonder.

Last night, we pulled out the mustaches because we wanted to – we wanted to disguises ourselves for a moment, to feel gay and light, and to take a memorable photo.

The disguise worked for a moment – Matko didn’t feel heavy, Rachel didn’t feel bald, Tin didn’t remember it was time for bed, and Tom had a great sense of self. We worked it out in that moment with our disguises. And then soon it was bedtime for everyone and morning once again, our demons ready to pounce on us as soon as we woke from the groggy otherworld of dreams.

We decided to go to the last beach in the city of Cadiz, passed Playa Victoria to an area called Corta Dura on Friday after napping. The beach was packed all the way from Plaza Caleta onward. But we found a place with ease and as we entered the seaweed filled water, we felt a noticeable rise in temp from the other day. Levante is leaving and poniente coming. This morning, a heavy layer of fog has chilled the city.

On Saturday, we took a ferry to Puerto Santa Maria where a native had told us it is lovely to eat fresh fish at the restaurants along the water. A colleague had warned that there is nothing worth mentioning this place. So we weighed the two and decided to go anyway. We took the 30-minute ferry and strolled through the unremarkable town, looking for a place to chill and have one of those ice cold cañas.

Then we strolled some more, coming across an ancient church with a wedding going on. The height of the heels here in Spain is gnarly – not to mention this is on cobblestone streets in most cases. Frightening.

We found the sunny beach after clearing a pine forest and an oasis of palms to give us shade, only you know who would have none of the shade.

We did find a nice restaurant by the water to have fresh fish and ate grilled Dorada, shellfish, crisp lettuce and tomatoes and fried choko (squid). Very nice.

But we returned home weary and although we were thankful for the day, in the end our advice would be to forgo Puerto Santa Maria and just head down to a nice plaza here in Cadiz and enjoy the day.

Boy time

Plaza San Francisco with our summer friends

Lunch of creamed pumpkin soup, grilled eggplant and zucchini, tuna, pimiento, olives and manchego plus tinto de verano

We went to the Baluarte de la Candelaria on the sea front last night to hear Jueves Flamencos (Flamenco on Thursdays), part of a rotating regional talent of Flamenco stars. The shows are put on by Peña Flamenca Gaditana Enrique “El Mellizo” and last night’s billing featured

“¡¡Nostalgia Flamenca!!” con el cante de Antonio Reyes (Chiclana); David Palomar (Cádiz), Macarena de Jerez y Felipe Scapachini (Cádiz); las guitarras de Antonio Higuero (Jerez), Rafael Cabeza (Sevilla) y Adriano Lozano (San Fernando), y el baile de la Compañía de “La Truco” (Madrid).

It was the dancer that blew us away, unnamed here except that she’s part of La Truco, she was possibly the best dancer I’ve ever seen in terms of using her body to make music and move at the same time. The outdoor concert was set against a backdrop of historic facades, trees, stars and thankfully, a wonderful climate.

The cost was 15 euros each, a bargain for what we received – there was the choice to sit at a table or sit in the audience chairs and unsure of which, we first sat in the back in the chairs. Then we quickly moved to the tables where you could order drinks and food (however much you wanted) – of course, we had manchego, jamon and pimientos – the staple of all tapas in Spain. Plus cañas, the ice cold draft they serve in Spain everywhere – it is kept at 2 degrees celsius – and always has a perfect creamy head and is ice cold.