Pennies Everywhere
There are lots of things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. If you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.
~ Annie Dillard ~
passport i
My mother is 21 years old. This is her first passport picture. She is preparing to leave her home, her mother, her family, her language, her culture, her country and basically, life as she knows it to work as a nanny for an unknown Colombian couple living in Washington, D.C. She is going to America, where she can choose her own life. The possibilities thrill her and terrify her. She is going to America in spite of her mother's pleas and her brother's threats. No one can stop her.
She leaves on August 12, 1967.
What she doesn't know is, she will live with a couple who take advantage of her and mistreat her. She will not be prepared for the snow and cold. She will meet a Puerto Rican girl whose family rescues her and takes her in as one of their own. She will meet my father on a blind double date and marry him in San Antonio. They will not understand each other very well. They will drive across the desert to San Diego, where she will meet her new American family. They will begin their life together in an apartment complex in dusty Lancaster, California.
This will be the first year of her life in America. Labels: family
my brother-in-law is a rockstar
I was fifteen when he and my sister were first dating in college. They knew each other back in high school. He claims he was in love with her then. They were voted "Most Artistic" by their senior class. In college, she started taking the train to New York City on certain weekends to explore the city with him. They played and laughed and discovered art together. He made pieces of art for her and hid secret messages in them. Her toes wiggled when she was with him.
When I lived in Italy, he sent me funny letters and drawings and once, a tape of his band's songs. His letters revealed how crazy in love he was with my sister. They broke up towards the end of college. She moved away to Arizona and he to Florida. They lived their separate lives for nearly 8 years. One day he wrote her a letter and when she read it, she called him. They were married within a year.
He is a talented artist, the lead singer in a metal band, and a web designer among other things. He is über playful and has a loud, raucous laugh which he frequently bursts into, often with a mouthful of food. He is generous, funny, considerate, and a badass brother-in-law, as well as husband, son, and father. And today is his 37th birthday. Happy birthday, G!
Labels: family
My mother is 21 years old. This is her first passport picture. She is preparing to leave her home, her mother, her family, her language, her culture, her country and basically, life as she knows it to work as a nanny for an unknown Colombian couple living in Washington, D.C. She is going to America, where she can choose her own life. The possibilities thrill her and terrify her. She is going to America in spite of her mother's pleas and her brother's threats. No one can stop her.
