42 things I will like to do before I turn 43

Inspired by the amazing Andrea and her love of lists, I have decided to make my own list.

These are things that I love to do, or that I wish I could do, or that I dream to do. This list is like a sketch of the year to come; it will change, and morphe, and deconstruct itself.

I am screaming my wishes into the wind, and by doing so, I am.


1. Finish "the painting" for Fernando. BTW the picture above is his.
2. Teach Nicolas some YO-YO tricks.
3. Read a Jane Austen book.
4. Send a handmade postcard a month. (If you want to be in the receiving end of this project, leave a comment on this post.)
5. Visit il Giardino dei Tarocchi, the monumental project by artist Niki de Saint Phalle in Tuscany.
6. Bake bread.
7. Surprise Fernando.
8. Handprint some pillow covers -inspired by the fantastic Lena Corwin and her book Printing by Hand.
9. Run a half marathon in Italy.
10. Print my "good" photos, on good paper, frame them and hang them.
11. Frame my friends' artwork, so we can enjoy it.
12. Read an unlikely book.
13. Wordpress my blog!!!
14. Make gnocci from scratch.
15. Go to Morocco.
16. Make another stop motion movie with Nicolas.
17. Plant sunflowers.
18. Write the storyline for a child's book.
19. Sketch daily.
20. Learn how to take pictures ttv.
21. Cook with Nicolas once a week.
22. Use Rosetta Stone to learn french.
23. Take another ceramics class.
24. Cook melcocha with Fernando and Nicolas.
25. Go hiking near Monte Rosa.
26. Cook rabbit.
27. Organize my music library.
28. Cronicle a day in our life with pictures.
29. Organize my art lessons in a notebook.
30. Dance often with my boys.
31. Watch La Dolce Vita
32. Learn how to knit.
33. Go to La Scala.
34. Grow a herb garden.
35. Give Yoga a try, once more.
36. Declutter.
37. Reconnect with friends.
38. Perfect my mojito recipe.
39. Solve the bathroom window "problem."
40. Teach Nicolas about his ancesters.
41. Cook pulpo a la Gallega (Galician octopus.)
42. Visit ROME.

Writing group

I finally managed to make it to a meeting of the local writing group, what a pleasant experience. I met Anne, one of the organizer's, at one of the Benvenutto Varese meetings (the B.V. is a group of mostly expat women, who speak english and help each other settling in and making connections). I was lucky to find out about their group, and I decided I wanted to be part of it.

This is my first attempt to writing fiction:

The first time they met, Sara was younger, much younger. She remembers the strong smell of licorice as the dark background of their encounter, the flavor of anise forever linked to the end of her childhood. Nothing was the same after that. Even today, she can picture the moment her eyes met his, and the way he looked at her without seeing her; she felt invisible but whole. She knew then, that his eyes were the only mirrors worth reflecting into, the only place worth running towards.

Sara saw him again and again. There were times when she could read his lips, if she had wanted she could have sounded the words he said. She knew by memory the inflections of his voice, the slow and rhythmic dance vowels did in his mouth. She knew to listen when he spoke, to listen every time, to listen in silence.

To say that hers was an obsession would diminish the overwhelming feelings bursting inside her inexperienced heart. She stopped playing with dolls and started wearing make-up. Her once blissful skip of a walk became a serious performance of equilibrium on high heels. No room left for jumping and splashing in puddles, no time for running behind colorful balls, no space big enough for the two of them.

Sara kept all of it a secret. She told no one about him. He was hers alone, and the idea of sharing even his name with anybody was like breaking the beautiful mirror her grandmother kept in her room. Such beauty! Sara had spent many an afternoon hiding in the dark corners of grandma’s room looking at her own reflection. It was forbidden for her to get her little hands on the tear shaped mirror, it could break into a million pieces to never be again. She was drawn to it because of its beauty, because of her own beauty when reflected in it, but must of all, because it was prohibited for her to touch it.

The mirror never broke, Sara’s heart did. Today, She takes out the precious heirloom from the lost corners of the unforgettable, she dusts off the layers that time has piled on it and she sees her young self looking back from the past. She reapplies her lipstick and smiles the broad smile of a child. Today, she is going to see him again after many years; she can almost hear her heart skipping a beat.

She is telling no one about this, nor her husband, nor her best friend. She walks firmly with the experience of someone who has been there before. She sits in the middle of the room and carefully unwraps a piece of licorice, the lights go off and his face fills the screen, again.

prompt: In the movie theater

What is your line?

The wonderful Becca has a new site for Write on Wednesday. This is a great place to share ideas about writing, the creative process, and the motivations behind our words. I am very excited about this forum, and I think I will participate often.

Today, there was no Cucina di Nicola, as this week is the last week of school, and I have been playing chauffeur to all the social events leading to the last day of Nicolas' school: TOMORROW! He is graduating from elementary school, and moving into scuola media, a big change for all of us.

In lieu of my usual recipe, I am going to try an answer Becca's questions:

Have you found your line yet? Do you think you have one? How do you go about expressing it?

The answers to these questions lay hidden in a corner of my mind. I have always been creative, and when I was young I would dream of becoming a writer. Back then, I wanted to write children's books, stories full of surprising characters, colors, and made-up universes. I wrote my first short story for a national contest when I was 10. I was very surprised when I did not win!!! -Can you say self-confident?

I kept on writing, sometimes in a diary, sometimes in random pieces of paper, sometimes I did not. I do not claim to be a writer, as I have not the focus, nor the talent; but since I became a blogger, I have become motivated by the creative process again.

So, what is my line? I have started a short story that focuses on a woman my age, facing a mid-life crisis of sorts, looking at her past for answers to her future. The short answer is that I write about me, what I know, what I am, what I would like to be. It might not be worth publishing but it sure is therapeutic! I love to sit at the computer, open my secret file, and just write away. I do not stop to think about my so-called public, as I do not expect these words to see the light of day anytime soon. This is liberating.

I have also written about my country, my hometown, my family. These are all extensions of me. I guess I am still getting to know me, and in doing so, I just write and rewrite my history.

I have found my line, and I am happy about this. I write what I know, I write to know.

Quitting

There is a prelude to it that allows courage to accumulate.
There is no middle ground in quitting. Quitting is not easy, it hurts and liberates, it hurts and it frees, it hurts and it cleans.
Quitting implies leaving behind something that was intrinsically yours, or something to which you had slowly become addicted to.
Quitting is exhilarating, the moment in which rupture is real, when there is a before and an after, this is a moment of excess. One is truer, freer then.
This is not the quitting of giving up. This is the quitting that brings us closer to the idea of us. Quitting that erases the wrongs and opens possibilities.
Quitting opens up room for the things we really want to do.
We should all be quitters.

The future of the planet

There is an old lady I know. She is magnificent in her slow parade, with her white crown and a smile that leaves marks in her face. She is older than I ever imagine myself being. She is beautiful.
When I see her, I imagine the young woman she once was. I imagine her falling in love, having children, keeping track of time in the mirror.
She has thin fingers that struggle to write her own name, yet she plants flowers every day.
She is what is leftover from a life of giving. She gave it all: birth, food, nurture, love, until she was left a shadow of herself.
There is an old lady we all know. She is magnificent. She has given it all.
Would you stop your hurried pace, slow down to look at her, to take care of her, to love her?
Would we recognize ourselves in her gaze?
Would she still be here once we realize how much we love her and need her?

Compose

Images, ideas, colors and stories, they all find room in my mind.
I try to organize the mess, to set piles of the best ones in the open corners, to clear the dust from the old, the good, the unfinished.
I destroy all the empty folders, burn the mistakes and throw away the bad ideas.
Still, when it is time to compose anew, I find the infinite white of the page to much to bear.
I try to go back to the disorganized room, to fetch my last dream, to try and reconstruct the imaginary.
I find myself at a lost... Why is it so difficult to keep a clean house?
The first mark, word, brushstroke finds its way out into reality, and I am successful in my search.
The hard part behind me, I dance into the room and make a newer, better mess.

Fearless

There is a big, ugly monster lurking in the shadows of our minds, its name is fear, and its job is to stop us from trying something new, from breaking the pattern, from tasting the sour along with the sweet.
I learned early in life that living in the moment is all you can do, that I had no control of what happens ahead. I am alive because I was spared. I know what a wonderful gift it is to take chances, to choose the road less traveled, to walk into a dark room, to look down a precipice.
Yet, I sometimes find myself holding my breath, feeling a hole in my stomach, dreading...
Roller-coasters, needles, lightning, roaches, make me feel weak, helpless, little. I cannot help myself, it is a feeling that starts small, almost unnoticeable, and suddenly it has traveled all the way to the top of my head, clouding my judgement, making me afraid.
Fright is primal, it is unavoidable, it is real. It is not easy to get over it, but one must try. I ride roller-coasters and I scream at the top of my lungs all the while. It feels good to face the beast head to head.
It is too beautiful a world to not join in its thrills.

Twenty-five years later

Eighteen seconds. My life changed for ever after eighteen seconds on that Thursday morning. I went to bed a child, and I came out of the ruins of my house an adult.
The presence of absence is still palpable, our broken childhood a latent memory. My brother lost.
The pain is sometimes forgotten, life delivers new horizons, we move on.
The pain is sometimes palpable, life that could have been was not, we remember.
I remember you.

Image: Fernando Botero, "Terremoto en Popayán" 1999

Out of this World

When I was younger, I used to look at the stars and wonder where the great bear was. I wanted to find the giraffe, the archer, the winged horse. I spent many hours with my eyes fixed on the dark sky, tracing imaginary lines between the bright dots. I never saw the bear, but I knew it was there. Then I grew up some, the stars were more than dots on a blackboard, and Carl Sagan's Cosmos opened my eyes to other possibilities: "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." I never saw the bear, but I knew it was there. I grew up some more, and my questions grew with me. The universe a molecule, my world in a grain of sand.


Then what was foreign was no more. I found other worlds without looking at the stars. I am here, now, I know this much. I was there, then, I know this much. I might never see the bear, but I know it is there.

I just don't get it...

Words that hurt, and pry, and lie.

Love that breaks, and falls and parts.

Minds that sleep, and lie, and die.

Hands that close, and hide, and crash.

Eyes that dim, and shut, and cry.

I carry

I carry my name, which sounds different in other latitudes. I carry the first words I learned, their sound and rythm an intrinsic part of my accent. I carry memories of a happy childhood: playing on our tree-house, catching frogs with Ana, picking wild blackberries with my brother, hiking with mom and dad, green, always green, the color of my memories.
I carry my heritage, the roots of my tree, transplanted to a new land. My grandfather, self-taught scholar, business man and politician -when politics was not a bad word. My father, creator of color, maker of dreams, a man ahead of his time. My brother, a young life lost, always present in my memories, always felt in his absence. My mother, the stronger woman I know, beautiful and smart; my north.
I carry the smiles, the faces, the words of so many of my friends. Climbing mountains, hiking trails, acting in plays, traveling north and south, working together, building a dream. I am a sum of my friends, I am one in a chain.
I carry the flavors and smells of Colombia, guayaba, mango, maracuya, mora, lulo, to mention a few. I crave this flavors in my mouth, I close my eyes and taste the idea of them.
I carry others with me, those I met along the way, teachers, friends, students, in another land. I learned about me by learning about them. I embraced my differences by opening my mind to the new, the other. I am one amongst many, we all carry our baggage.
I carry...

Sleep

I had a dream. I was looking at myself trapped inside a glass bubble. I needed, wanted to get out.
I, on the outside, have a hammer. I won’t use it as it would mean hurting me on the inside. I, on the inside, look at me in wonder… Why won’t I let me out?
The two parts of me looking at each other, will breaking free be worth the pain and the scars?
This is all I remember about this dream. I am awake now, looking everywhere for the hammer in my dream.

Sunday Scribblings

Fridge Space

Myself as a fridge. Open the door, there is some resistance, enough to make you think of the fact that whatever is inside needs to be kept safe. This is an unassuming door, plain will describe it best. Sometimes you can find something colorful and pretty on it, usually handmade. No fabulous stainless steel finish, no baroque medley of pictures and magnets. Simple, practical, clean.
Inside, there is room for many, many different things. There are some leftovers, good enough to keep for a little longer, needing to be consumed before they loose all their freshness. There is a lot of the good stuff, a great aged cheese, a fresh, crisp lettuce. Some of my contents seem regular, unassuming, then there is that spicy sauce here and the sweet syrup there. So many possibilities, so many different combinations, it just requires to open the drawers, search the shelves, spend some time with all the findings until something delicious, different and new happens.
Then, there is all the good nurturing stuff, the stapples of a domestic life; all the things that make my family happy. The comforting flavors of life, the true good, the reminders of home.
Behind all this freshness hides the rotten stuff, you know what I am talking about, the things that once were new and appealing and now after being neglected for a while have become horrid. How do I let them get to this stage? I think it is easy to hide the things that I do not like in the dark corners, let them be, avoid them until their stench gets me back to them.
Once in a while I do clean up the inside of me. I come ready for the task, with all the tools at hand, and when the job is done, the trash thrown out, the shelves organized, the stink of it gone, then I feel light, open, bright. It is then when I feel best about myself. I have nothing to hide and a lot to give. The future a mixture of colors and flavors to discover.

Sunday Scribblings

Fellow Traveler

My dad.
I remember our journey together through the most incredible landscapes, those of the imagination.
My dad was everything and then more. He tought me about color and shape, about rhyme and joy. I miss him every single day, but I also know that I am so much like he was.
He is, in the now, with me. He guides my pencil when I draw, my hand when I paint, my fingers when I write, my eyes when I search.
He is, we are, I am.

Sunday Scribblings

Date

You are late.
I wait, I wait, I will wait for you.
The date comes and the date goes.
We wait.
Why won't you come?
I love you, I want to hold you, I want to see you.
And I wonder.
Will you be happy?
Will the future be gentle to you?
Will the sun shine where you are?
Will you look like me, will you look like him?

Questions to my boy before he was born.

Sunday Scribblings

Love is in the air

My mind keeps on going back to the same place, the place where I have stored all my memories of our living in the States. I find moments that are bright and clear like the birth of our son. Others like the purchase of our first home, our move to California, or our graduations, bring a smile to my face; a sense of thinks accomplished, our growth as a family. I know I was happy there.
Today I find myself in Italy, a country coveted by many. I moved here on a whim, looking for something that I didn’t know I had lost. We are here under the best of circumstances, as my husband’s job brought us here. We will stay for three years and then we would head back “home.” We kept our house, left a lot of our things in storage, like an anchor to bring us back to safety. We have one foot here and the other is still back there. We find ourselves mid-step on our way to our future.
We have fallen in love with this country of magical beauty, of incredible history and maddening bureaucracy. We have found a little of our Colombian selves amidst the centuries old buildings and the impossible traffic. We understand Italy, we relate, we are infatuated with it.
Whenever anyone asks us about our new life here, I am always at a loss for the right words. I feel different, but I don’t know how to explain it. I enjoy the change of pace that comes with living a simple life, a quiet life. Is it Italy or is it us? We left behind a way of life, a merry-go-round of sorts, with all its beauty and its joy. We are now walking in silence, with all our senses ready for the next discovery, just the three of us in our little universe, the dog following close behind.