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I knew today would be a long one so I gave into it instead of fighting it. Tatjana left this morning for her excursion with the students and wont be home until midnight or later. So I met the challenges of Tin and his Señor No attitude with resolve that he was going to be him (a three year old) and I was going to be me (his mother).

We took a route to the beach that our friend had mentioned and at first headed down the street I thought this doesn’t seem like the right route and yet, we found ourselves suddenly in one of those amazing parks by the sea that Cadiz offers and there were giant topiary lining a path and as we had just been talking about topiary, it made for good conversation.

Then we kept walking and stumbled upon a playground crowded with kids Tin’s age and a gaggle of girls came to him and wanted to touch him, speak to him, play with him and they were immensely curious about this boy that is “tan guapo” (handsome) and who couldn’t speak their language. It turned out to be a summer camp of kids that were at the playground on their way to the beach. Note to self: where is this camp and how do I get Tin in?

After much time on the swing, we headed to the beach much to my chagrin at first because the wind was chilly and levante appeared to have arrived at Cadiz because sand was blowing all over at the playground but the beach had such a low tide that the wind was not blowing any sand up at all. We hung out and up came Paula, or rather Paula circled us for a while until finally Tin who kept craning his head to see this pretty little 5 year old prancing began to play sand castle with her.

Paula was there with her dad, who at one point sent her running to the woman pushing around ice cold beer to grab him one. And then she circled back to play with Tin. When we left the beach we stopped at one of the numerous fresh vege marts and got a big beautiful head of cauliflower and lettuce and peppers and tomatoes and cucumbers. I made a big salad and Tin had his pasta pesto and then I steamed the cauliflower and added guindilla (tiny cayenne peppers), honey, lemon, and salt and we had ourselves a feast.

And he napped. Lo and behold, I didn’t think it would happen but he napped for two hours which gave me some time to be.

Then later we went to San Antonio plaza, steps from our house, and played with a balloon till it popped and then he played with little Sarah and her ball – kicking it like a European football like he saw the other kids kicking. The plaza was crowded with kids, parents, elders, you name it, it was a typical European scene – people out, drinking, eating, talking, playing.

Then home where we ate and changed into pajamas. And now, a bottle of Luis Cañas rioja open and candles lit to resume my time to the sounds of kids and adults speaking loudly and motor scooters racing by. At last, some down time and a day that was well spent watching my little boy grow up and me calm down.

Today’s the 4th of July and on the corner the students of flamenco are preparing for their festival tomorrow night – their stomping sounds like firecrackers popping off. Tin and I are invited to come watch and perhaps I will take lessons from her afterwards. Now Tatjana and her students are having a barbecue at the residencia and I’m left here to have an evening to myself as tomorrow is an all day excursion to Jerez de la Frontera with the students – so there will be no break in the action for a 3 year old and his mother who are staying behind.

Tatjana’s lesson tomorrow is Neruda – a poem about the civil war in Spain, a poem Neruda wrote after his friend, the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca was murdered by Franco’s fascists and then made to dig his own grave. Such a haunting poem, and so appropriate on today, Independence Day.

This morning, I was reading about the Buddhist version of femininity and masculinity – the feminine is being, the masculine is doing – and both are embodied in each of us – unlike the Western version of the smothering femininity that the separate masculinity seeks to escape. The West sees incompatibility and the East reconciliation. Meanwhile, Tatjana was preparing for her class – reading about anima and animus – the feminine and masculine of Jungian archetypes that is how the woman accommodates the man and vice versa. Again extremes – genders trying to accommodate the other rather than embracing the other within.

Celebrations of revolutions are extremes – because you only celebrate in peace time what was once war time. The blood, the strife, the horror – now barbecue, flags, and fireworks.

Neruda’s poem – so appropriate for our fourth of July celebration:

Explico Algunas Cosas
(I’m Explaining a Few Things)

por (by) Pablo Neruda

Preguntaréis: Y dónde están las lilas?
Y la metafísica cubierta de amapolas?
Y la lluvia que a menudo golpeaba
sus palabras llenándolas
de agujeros y pájaros?

Os voy a contar todo lo que me pasa.

Yo vivía en un barrio
de Madrid, con campanas,
con relojes, con árboles.

Desde allí se veía
el rostro seco de Castilla
como un océano de cuero.
Mi casa era llamada
la casa de las flores, porque por todas partes
estallaban geranios: era
una bella casa
con perros y chiquillos.
Raúl, te acuerdas?
Te acuerdas, Rafael?
Federico, te acuerdas
debajo de la tierra,
te acuerdas de mi casa con balcones en donde
la luz de junio ahogaba flores en tu boca?
Hermano, hermano!
Todo
eran grandes voces, sal de mercaderías,
aglomeraciones de pan palpitante,
mercados de mi barrio de Argüelles con su estatua
como un tintero pálido entre las merluzas:
el aceite llegaba a las cucharas,
un profundo latido
de pies y manos llenaba las calles,
metros, litros, esencia
aguda de la vida,
pescados hacinados,
contextura de techos con sol frío en el cual
la flecha se fatiga,
delirante marfil fino de las patatas,
tomates repetidos hasta el mar.

Y una mañana todo estaba ardiendo
y una mañana las hogueras
salían de la tierra
devorando seres,
y desde entonces fuego,
pólvora desde entonces,
y desde entonces sangre.
Bandidos con aviones y con moros,
bandidos con sortijas y duquesas,
bandidos con frailes negros bendiciendo
venían por el cielo a matar niños,
y por las calles la sangre de los niños
corría simplemente, como sangre de niños.

Chacales que el chacal rechazaría,
piedras que el cardo seco mordería escupiendo,
víboras que las víboras odiaran!

Frente a vosotros he visto la sangre
de España levantarse
para ahogaros en una sola ola
de orgullo y de cuchillos!

Generales
traidores:
mirad mi casa muerta,
mirad España rota:
pero de cada casa muerta sale metal ardiendo
en vez de flores,
pero de cada hueco de España
sale España,
pero de cada niño muerto sale un fusil con ojos,
pero de cada crimen nacen balas
que os hallarán un día el sitio
del corazón.

Preguntaréis por qué su poesía
no nos habla del sueño, de las hojas,
de los grandes volcanes de su país natal?

Venid a ver la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver
la sangre por las calles,
venid a ver la sangre
por las calles!

TRANSLATION:
You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?

I’ll tell you all the news.

I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.

From there you could look out
over Castille’s dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel?
Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.

And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings —
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children’s blood.

Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!

Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull’s eye of your hearts.

And you’ll ask: why doesn’t his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?

Come and see the blood in the streets,
come and see
the blood in the streets,
come and see the blood
in the streets!

Pablo Neruda [1904-1973], whose real name is Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He wrote this poem in 1936 in Spain where he was a Chilean consul, shortly after the murder of his friend, the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, by Franco’s fascists — known as the Nationalists (they actually forced García Lorca to dig his own grave). Neruda died on September 23, 1973, about two weeks after the “suicide” of Chile’s democratically-elected president, Dr. Salvador Allende, when Pinochet’s fascist thugs, with the covert assistance of the US CIA, overthrew the legitimate Chilean government and brought about a dictatorial regime based on terror and torture. Like Franco, Pinochet was a “nationalist” and a close friend of the US government. Neruda, like García Lorca, was considered a ‘subversive.’ Who do you think History will celebrate, Pinochet or Neruda (horror or beauty)? According to Joan Jara (the wife of Chilean folk singer Victor Jara who was tortured, his hands broken (he played the guitar), and eventually killed by the military at the Estadio de Chile), “As we walked through the back streets towards the cemetery, I heard Neruda’s poetry being recited by one person after another in the crowd, verse after verse, defying the menace of the uniforms surrounding us; I saw the workers on a building site, standing to attention with their yellow helmets in their hands… Neruda’s verses took on an even greater significance as voice after voice took them up, confronting the visible face of fascism.” Dr. Salvador Allende, man of honor, justice, compassion — a people’s man — and Pablo Neruda, a poet who epitomized life and people, did not die in vain. Neither did Victor Jara and countless others. We remember!

When we walked into our apartment in Cadiz there was a tray with elephants on it sitting on the kitchen counter. I knew this was where we were supposed to be as my spirit animal had made its presence known from the get go.

Cadiz is considered the oldest Western city due to its strategic location dividing Europe from Africa. Yesterday, Tin and I went out for a little exploration that started blocks from our apartment in Plaza Fragela – where the great theater Falla and the University of Cadiz are located.

Our destination, if we had one, was to check out the gym that offers pilates and other classes, but it was closed and suddenly we found ourselves at the ocean, that happens to be mere minutes from where we are staying. The sea is everywhere in Cadiz, because it is shaped like a pie and if you go out from center in any direction you find the Atlantic in all its stunning beauty. If you are near the center of the pie, like we are, you find yourself in a maze of streets that don’t always go all the way through.

We were not prepared for the beach, but Tin would have none of it, he demanded to go in – he is a Pisces after all and water is his first love. So off with the clothes and I waded in and let him have a swim – which was refreshing as the Atlantic here is crisply cool and welcome in the summer sun. We heard from our friends in Zahara, just 40 kilometers away that the levante was pretty bad right now (the winds that lift the sand and make it impossible to be on the beach), but here in Cadiz, the Straits of Gibraltar winds were not bothering anybody.

Later, we met a friend’s mother for a stroll – a favorite Spanish pastime, and tapas. She met us at our apartment and we walked to hers moving through plaza after plaza and park after park where everyone, as she noted, was out with their kids escaping the heat of their homes. “Much like Cuba,” she said, as she is Cuban but retired in Cadiz, close to her children who remained in Zahara de los Atunes, a village not too far from here.

And Cadiz reminds me of Cuba, only it is much more pristine. The garbage is collected here every day, the streets are cleaned every day. “This has to stop,” our friend said. What municipality can afford to do this, especially one in a crisis?

Plaza de San Antonio:

Our friend’s apartment building:

I don’t know if it’s because she is Cuban or just because Spain reminds me of Cuba, reminds me of New Orleans, but her place definitely feels as if I am at home. Just steps from her place is the sea; this time not a beach but the cliffs and bordering it a park where humungous trees from the West Indies were planted that are marvelous.

Our friend said her son who is working in Zahara is now thinking of returning to the U.S. because of the crisis. I said, why?, there are no jobs there either. People here mistakenly believe the U.S. still remains this mecca where jobs are plentiful and everyone can make money. But money can’t buy this, I thought, as I walked the clean cobblestone streets, and watched the sun setting into the deep blue sea. In New Orleans, the city can barely muster what it takes to cut the grass in public areas, much less keep our streets from buckling or sinking, not to mention clean.

This is Tin moments before he fell in this beautiful fountain, causing us to return to our friend’s house to get him a towel to wear to dinner.

There is an ocean breeze blowing through the wide open windows (read: no bugs) and Louis Armstrong is on the player, while Tin plays his blue recorder (a birthday gift from his godparents). Tatjana started school this morning – we met all her students last night for a dinner that is still with me (unfortunately – way too much food). She left 30 euros on the kitchen counter (grocery money) and a note to have a relaxing morning. And I did – I meditated, read, had my decaf coffee, and did a little work.

I finished Jean Smith’s Introduction to Buddhism, and am halfway through Mark Epstein’s Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart (a gift from Susie). My take away from this, “When we take loved objects into our egos with the hope or expectation of having them forever, we are deluding ourselves and postponing an inevitable grief. The solution is not to deny attachment but to become less controlling in how we love. From a Buddhist perspective, it is the very tendency to protect ourselves against mourning that is the cause of the greatest dissatisfaction.”

I’d only add it is not just an expectation of having them forever, it is that they not change – because inevitably they will change, we will change and it’s that dynamic that creates conflict. I am certainly not the person I was before who fell in love with X, Y or Z, but I only remember the relationships in terms of who I was then, not who I am now.

Outside of our apartment is a Winnie the Pooh doormat and today Mudd posted on Facebook a Winnie the Pooh quip that is fitting for today:

“What day is it?” asked Pooh.
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.

Read: I’m 53 years old and just arrived or rather in thinking of who I was then and who I am now, and how my relationships to people, lovers, work, home has changed, my other take away from Epstein’s book – quoting Zen master Dogen: “Do not regard time as merely flying away … Do not think flying away is its sole function. For time to fly away there would have to be a separation (between it and things). Because you imagine that time only passes, you do not learn the truth…”

Which is that we are not actually separated from time. Our being and time are not separate, they are one and the same. They are all we have.

We arrived in Cadiz yesterday and so did the World Cup and lots of yelling and people running through the streets with their faces painted in red stripes. Nice beginning to our month long sojourn here.

I brewed up a Yogi tea I had brought from home as I was making Tin’s dinner. Dinner was pasta and peas as Sunday most everything is closed. The tea tag said whatever you do, do it with all your heart.

After a dinner of pasta and peas, the game and the yelling were still going on; Tatjana was at the residencia meeting with the students, Tin and I went out for a walk carrying an blue balloon, (pasta peas and balloons were all I could find at the convenience store).

Two elderly women were striding across the plaza with a Pomeranian on a thin leash. Tin was throwing the balloon in the air and chasing it, and it landed near the Pomeranian who wanted to play as well and we all know where this story went – the Pom jumped on the balloon, popped it, and crying ensued.

Lots of crying.

The good news is Spain won.

Amazon has lost its cloud, parts of the U.S. are still without electricity, and I hear that at home our WiFi is out. Meanwhile, my formatting got changed and I’m trying to get it fixed but in the meantime, please bear with the electronic glitch – perhaps it means that we should all take a step back and focus on sun, sand, and ocean.

On the train from Madrid to Cadiz, we stopped at Jerez de la Frontera. The station is covered in blue and white porcelain tiles and had the feeling of almost having arrived at the coast as the light was changing and the air was sweeter. A crowd was standing on the platform, dressed to the nines, holding balloons and signs and each person wearing an ear to ear grin. We sat in our seats curiously looking at them from the window. Tin was on my lap.

A woman, very Spanish looking, got down from the train holding an Asian toddler tightly in her arms and the crowd erupted in tears and screams and crowded around her, old women kissing the tops of the child’s head, little kids kissing his feet.

An adoption welcoming party.

Both Tatjana and I had tears in our eyes. We asked Tin if he remembered when we adopted him and he came home to a welcoming party – it was the eighth night of Hanukkah and we pulled out all of the menorahs and friends came to kiss the top of his head and his tiny feet.

“Yes,” he said, but aren’t memories at best the stories we have been told or tell ourselves?

My extended family continues to proliferate as if god came down from the mountain and said go forth and procreate. One great niece born a month ago, one great nephew born this week, and one niece midway through her pregnancy.

In the meantime, Mississippi is about to make history for something other than its poor education and poverty – it might become the first state to outlaw abortion all together. What is the opposite of progressive? Well if you look it up in the dictionary I think it says, MISSISSIPPI.

Yesterday, we strolled over to one of the largest gay parades in Spain and possibly the world – they expected two million people – which is nutty but we think we made two million and three. Or at least it felt that way – we arrived as the double decker bus float went by carrying children of gay parents. Nice.

Then later we went to meet with a friends and talk – something that Spaniards know how to do in spades. The good news from home – Obamacare passed – the bad news – by a thin margin. Here in Spain, they are in the worst crisis they have ever had economically but Tatjana said as we stood in Santa Ana Plaza waiting for one of our friends to appear – “does this look like a country in crisis?” – there was not a table to be had in the crowded plaza.

Our friend we are staying with who looks conspicuously like Don Draper now that he has shaved off his beard says that there are 400,000 vacant homes in Spain, a product of overbuilding from the gogo 80s 90s and 00’s. “Who will live there?”

But while Spain was being overbuilt so was much of the world, and guess what men were falling in love with men, and women were getting pregnant with unwanted children. Cycles of poverty and repression repeat themselves and most are getting no closer to a truth.

Our pre-existing condition is that we developed from survival mode and then clung to what we learned despite all of the evidence to the contrary – may all beings be happy and free – if getting there means letting go of preconceived notions, of only taking what we need, of tolerance for others, of the notion that every child deserves a good parent not just a life, then where have we come to at this juncture?

Sorry.