Happy belated fourth

Eloi's American passport and "consular report of birth abroad" (his American birth certificate) came in the mail today. This is remarkable because we only applied for it one week ago. Two days after we filed the application I got an email saying it was ready. And we didn't have to pay any expediting fees.

This is why I love America. And this: 

The morning of our big excursion to Brussels to the embassy, I realized that the paperwork for birth certificate, passport, and social security number involved a little bit more than I had thought. I needed, among other things, a non-standard-size passport photo, proof that I had lived in the US for more than five years (transcripts, tax statements, etc.), a translation of the Belgian birth certificate, a list of everywhere I had ever lived in my whole life, an affadavit about Eloi's last name not matching the Belgian birth certificate (the Belgians had to follow the Spanish naming standard using both parents' last names but we want him to just have M's), and an envelope with a registered mail stamp. 

The proof of US residency was required because only one of the parents is a US citizen, so they need you to show that you haven't been living abroad your whole life. My mom had brought a bunch of documents with her but when I looked through them that morning it turned out only my college transcript would work as part of the proof, covering three years (not including junior year abroad). So at the last minute I emailed M. at work and had him print my (unofficial) grad school transcript. 

I google-translated the Belgian birth certificate and sent it to M. to print along with a list of (slightly fudged) residency dates (they wanted day and month I moved to every city I've ever lived in!) and the name affadavit, ran to the post office and bought exorbitantly priced envelopes and stamps and then promptly put the stamps on the wrong corner of the envelope, caught the train to Brussels, and rushed through the city to the one photo processing place listed on the embassy website that would make US-standard passport photos and that was in the neighborhood of the embassy. Our appointment was in a half hour.

The photo place was closed. As in, out of business, an empty storefront.

I already had made passport photos of Eloi, propping him up in a photo booth, at two weeks old (even caught his eyes open!) and now hoped they would work even though the instructions emphasized how Belgian photos would not be accepted. 

Thus sweaty, stressed, and leaking milk, with Eloi nestled in his wrap against my chest, I met M. at the embassy and we went through the security check. We had to leave all our bags behind. I was sure we would have to do this all again after they told us the photos and/or proof of residency and/or something else wasn't in order.

Yet, once our number was called, the lady behind the desk couldn't have been nicer. "Oh, I just love Mondays!" she gushed. Monday is the day they schedule the babies. She took our paperwork and barely glanced at it. Didn't bat an eyelash when I gave her the Belgian-sized photos. Told us that passports are usually ready in two weeks, probably less (we're traveling in mid-July so needed it asap!). 

We then waited for the formal interview, where the proof of residency would be examined. Once we entered the little room, the official started joking around and asking us all about our studies. He had my transcripts in front of him, and made comments about a bunch of the courses I had taken, and about M's training, and talked with us about European history and made a joke about Belgians. Completely jocund. Of course, this was an interview (probably a more effective one than a "formal" approach) but it didn't seem like one. He took our incorrectly-stamped envelope and said, "Oh, we'll figure something out!" (When it came today I saw that they had coaxed off the stamps and taped them to the right corner.) He held the passport photo, trimmed to specification, in his hand, and gave us the rest of them back. That was it! Everything was completely fine! No problem!

And that's why America is awesome. Even if the bureaucracy is complicated on paper, in person nine times out of ten people are friendly and can-do and help you out and want to make it happen. In some other countries that shall remain nameless, the instructions would look simple and then the official behind the desk would study the papers, looking for problems and finding them, never looking at you or starting a conversation, then deny your application and tell you to come back with additional, more complicated forms or papers. 

So. Happy belated fourth of July! There are many reasons I'm happy to be an American, and this is one of them. And now, so is little Eloi! I didn't get a passport until I was 19, so he's way ahead of me in cosmopolitanism. 

The Cape

Two days ago we made the trip back over the Atlantic to join my family at that lovely curving hook of land jutting out of New England, Cape Cod. We did the trip without a stroller for the first time ever, so my back is a tad sore from lugging baby G. around, but it was also fun to see him proudly stomping around in his little red sneakers and holding both of our hands tightly as he navigated the airport. It was one of our smoothest trips ever, since we were traveling so lightly, and had oodles of time.

With a four-hour layover in London, we enjoyed a nice meal of fish and chips, then hung out in our little secret Heathrow Terminal 3 corner, the wheelchair waiting room, which provides an enclosed, relatively quiet space with comfortable chairs that gets us away from the shopping center chaos that is the terminal at large. As is Murphy's law, the trip on which we had extra time and little luggage was the one where we encountered short lines and few problems. Still, even a smooth and easy 6-hour flight with a toddler on your lap is neither exactly smooth nor exactly easy--it's six hours with an active toddler on your lap.

But oh, it was so worth it. Summertime heat, for real. Beautiful beaches, sand. Cape Cod hydrangeas and weathered shingles. Cousins romping around the house in their matching t-shirts. Little tow heads and dimples. Time for reading, iPad and iPhone games, photo sessions. Walks. Board games and card games with siblings and parents. Seafood. Bundling a happy, sea-salty shivering kid in a towel and holding him in my arms as the evening sun warmed us. And we've only been at the rental for a day!

I brought the book Cod by Mark Kurlansky, and I'm already in the middle of Moby Dick on my iPad. Perfect reading for Cape Cod (isn't it good geeky fun to match books and location?!). I also have David Mitchell's new novel, which I was half way through when I had to leave it in Boston two months ago (and um, really doesn’t match our location since it’s set in a Dutch trading outpost in Japan), plus a pile of other books on the iPad. I can't wait to devour them all.

Eve of a New Semester

The syllabi are printed out, the shiny new instructor's copy books are in a neat pile on the coffee table (I am still kind of dizzy about the fact that they will send me novels for free and all I have to do is ask! well, that and teach the novels in the course, i.e. get 25 students to buy them), and I've already decided what I'll wear tomorrow. At 7 am I'll wake up with nervous stomach, but when the students walk in the classroom door I'll simply be eager to begin. It will probably be the only day of the semester when I will be totally alert and with it for our 8 am class.

I'm teaching literature for the first time, and am ridiculously happy about it. I'm hoping my students won't dash my hopes to the ground and stomp them to smithereens, just as I'm hoping that I will come out of the course still loving the novels that we'll be reading together.

The Mister and I spent much of the weekend in his office, the baby asleep in his stroller or playing on the floor, while we polished off our syllabi and prepared for the courses. He is teaching three and I'm only teaching one, and we are trading off child care which means that I'll be racing back from class in order for him to get to his on time. Should be...fun!

Sorry I've been AWOL again on this blog; we had even more adventures, like a week in the Canary Islands! and a weekend in Vermont! an overseas flight during which they lost our stroller! two days in the car with a six-month-old baby! baby's first teeth! baby's first solid foods (he LOVES peaches)!

But we're here now, and it's lovely to be back. And I always, ridiculously, love the beginning of the school year. I love collecting my pens and my books and the buzz of campus in the fall. I love that someone's paying me (not much, but still) to talk about books with other people. And I love that my little family is along for the ride: caught up in the spirit of the school year, I bought Gabriel a couple of new books today, too. He mostly chewed on them, but it's the thought that counts. Books ahoy!

Departures

It seems like every half a year or so we pack up one household in a crazy rushed effort to stash our belongings somewhere, all in order to go to another household. That's what we did last weekend. We have subletters living in our apartment this summer, so we had to find unobtrusive corners of our place to stick things and then move boxes and suitcases to M's office and the home of our longsuffering friends, leaving the apartment scrubbed of too-personal items.

And then we will get to the other place (which has been similarly sublet), and face the task of unpacking the same kind of too-personal items that we stored at M's grandmother's house and in our pint-sized second bedroom. (Pint-sized is the right size for a baby! And we have one of those! But it's full to the ceiling of random crap that a closetless apartment is bound to accumulate, plus all that stored clothing, PLUS a ton of stuff from our previous Brussels-Barcelona move.)

So. After packing up, which was accomplished in due time, we drove for twelve hours with an eleven-week-old baby. This went much more smoothly than I had feared, with the crying jags limited to easily-fixable episodes: hungry! wet! So we would: stop car at nearest rest area/ gas station (ideally coinciding with our need to eat, pee, or fuel up, but not always), feed and/or change the baby, get back on the road. He is now marginally distractable with jangly toys, so M. jangled some toys in front of him every once in a while and that helped.

And now we're in our nation's capital! Happy to be at my parents' apartment, although I think M. will be happier when grading is finished. We spend a week here, then a week in Boston (which means, yes, another long car ride), and then off to Barcelona.

In the midst of all of this, Gabriel has decided that sleeping through the night agrees with him. We went from waking up every. two. hours. like clockwork to sleeping for five hours at a time, say, from 10 to 3 and from 3 to 8 (no transition nights of three or four hour stretches, which is strange). It's like he's growing up or something! It's like I have a new non-fogged brain!

We went to the national zoo yesterday. Zoos always make me a little sad for the animals in their enclosures and cages, but also fascinated by these gorgeous creatures that I would never otherwise see so up close. Gabriel slept through the whole thing, pretty much, and when he was awake, his hands were way more interesting to him than lions or pandas. He's just discovered that there are these objects stuck on the end of his appendages that he can move back and forth and this requires intense scrutiny. I'm sure he'll have a detailed report on my desk in the morning.

And speaking of tomorrow morning: I turn 32! Which is basically the same as 31, so it's not too big of a deal. But then again, it's so not the same, because now I have a baby, and if that doesn't blow my mind... Convenient that it's Mother's Day one day later. It took me several weeks of seeing Mother's Day advertisements and store displays and thinking about my own mom before I realized that Oh! This applies to me now! I'm a mom. Wow.

Begin again

I didn't mean to leave a cliffhanger of a post up for nearly three month. Will the heroine and her Mister stay in Barcelona? Will they move to Bloomington?

But I did. And one of the reasons that I did is a little six-inch person currently doing somersaults in my belly.

Yes, the Mister and I are expecting a baby!

In fact, that last post, the one that's been sitting on this page for eons, was written just a couple of weeks after we found out I was pregnant, before we had even told all of our immediate family. When I said that I missed the Mister, I *really* meant it: I had never imagined that I would tell my husband the big news over Skype! When I said that I was tired, I *really* meant it: I was both travel weary and first trimester weary.

I had only just begun to experience the bizarreness of pregnancy, that sensation of being taken over by something other than myself. Although I had only a couple of days of true nausea, by the time I got to Washington, DC I was continually hungry yet uninterested in foods that normally are my favorites. I would have moments of bone-crushing exhaustion and painful episodes of indigestion, interspersed with periods of general malaise and achiness that made me glad that at least there was a good reason for it all. And that made me glad that my mom was taking care of me. Through all of this, the Mister and I (over skype!) were trying to make major life decisions about where we would live for the upcoming year, and where we would (gulp!) have our first child. Barcelona meant living in our own home, being close to family, and access to guaranteed medical care. It also meant staying where neither of us had a job. Indiana meant a job, for me at least, but beyond that all I saw were insurmountable hurdles.

By the time I had hitched a ride with my brother and sister-in-law up to Boston, collected the Mister from the airport at long last, and driven to Vermont, we were surprising ourselves by leaning towards an Indiana baby and had begun to search for a university visa for him and housing for the fall. Plus, as I turned the corner from first trimester to second, I began to feel much more like myself again, and we made the most of our week alone before the rest of the family arrived, working as much as we could but also enjoying the jaw-dropping gloriousness that is a Vermont summer.

That next week with my parents, siblings and nephews was a delight: we climbed Mount Mansfield, ate outside with views of the same, splashed around in wading pools, made trips to Burlington and Stowe and poked around in the meadowed corners of the state. This all happened with special intensity this year, because it was our last vacation of that sort for a long time, as my parents have rented out their house and moved to Washington, DC. In fact, as much as I spent time outside, I spent an equal amount of time in the basement, sorting through the boxes that represent my entire life from childhood through graduate school, as well as the bulk of my personal library. The fact that I consolidated the boxes from 30 to 22 does not sound as impressive as it should, given the hours of organization and the ruthless culling and the aching back bent over endless piles of paper and books.

By the time we flew to Barcelona, we had solidified most of the details of our move to Indiana, not that the prospect was any less frightening. We spent two weeks at home, furiously cleaning out our apartment for a renter to move in--a friend, thank goodness, meaning we only had to truly move our things out of the bedroom and the bathroom, although we did undergo a thorough cleaning and reorganizing process for the rest of it. We enjoyed a few precious days at the seaside, had our first ultrasound glimpse of baby, saw as many friends and family members as we could to say goodbye, then *poof* once again we were on our way back to Boston. The next morning, we began our drive out to Indiana with my parents' car--they've generously loaned it to us for the year-- stuffed full of our suitcases and miscellaneous donated items from my family, me a bundle of nerves the whole way.

And so here we are: I've settled back into the rhythm of teaching, which I suddenly remember that I truly enjoy (except the grading part, harrumph). We've outfitted our little rental with donations from friends, craigslist purchases and yard sale finds, and are enjoying the gorgeous, still summery fall weather. There's the farmer's market to look forward to every weekend, the walks to campus, the forgotten perks of a quiet small town existence.

The Mister is currently in Europe, because he had to finish up the visa application process (we were sort of late to the game, you see) and attend a couple of conferences. It's been surprisingly hard to be away from him, given how accustomed we are to long separations. But we had just settled into a lovely rhythm of life here, and I can't wait for him to see how his baby's tiny knobby knees can already poke hard enough to feel from the outside.

More wanderings

My midwestern sojourn has come to an end, and what an end it was! Saturday night I attended the wedding of two beloved friends, and although I had planned to leave early (because of my four-thirty-am wake up the next morning), it was impossible to tear myself away. So: three hours of sleep, a bleary-eyed shuttle ride to the airport, two cramped flights, and a drive home, only to throw on my dress again and attend the wedding reception of another friend (my flight arrived too late for the ceremony). I was ever so glad to be able to be at both weddings, but I did a zombie swan dive into bed when I got home from the second one.

Another reason it was hard to leave Saturday's party: Over the course of those two weeks, including a fantastic bachelorette party in a swanky Chicago condo overlooking the lake, and the pre-wedding preparations, I had gotten to know some of my friend's friends. And--as is logical, since we are all friends with the same awesome person--I was really enjoying their company. But when it was all over, it was farewell for good--when would we see each other again?

Oh, and the Indiana wedding was my first Jewish wedding ever! And it was so much fun. I do believe I shed tears during the hora, when the inner circle of family members widened and intertwined and spun and linked arms. So darn...sob...symbolic!

Anyway, the two weeks flew by in a good way. The first week I stayed with the soon-to-be-marrieds, and the second week I housesat for some people from my old church, which was a good deal given that I got to use their car and only was required to water a few plants. We cooked lots of yummy food, including my first batch of homemade gnocchi and the best paella I've personally ever made (which isn't saying much, but it was delicious). I spent a lot of time holed up in the library and had a series of meetings about teaching in the fall and about my thesis with the department chair and my committee people, which all went swimmingly. And speaking of swimming, there were bits of Bloomington summer fun in the sweltering heat: the outdoor pool (the night swim was possibly the most peaceful swim I've ever taken), the always delightful farmer's market, porch swings and strolls to the ice cream stand and fireflies and flowers. And there were wedding projects! Buying plants and jars and potting terraria for the wedding centerpieces, cutting out and inscribing seed-packet name cards...

I was reminded of what I like about Bloomington, and all the reasons it might be fun to live there during the school year. That said, there is still some debate as to whether I will actually be there in the fall. If I am, though, the Mister will be tagging along, and that, my friends, is a good thing. (Boy do I miss that boy!)

Now we're off to Boston, for just a quick stay and a celebration of my nephew's fourth birthday, and then down to Washington, where I'll be staying with my parents for a couple of weeks, until the Mister flies in and it's time to head back up to Boston and Vermont. It is a wandering kind of summer, that's for sure.

Squish

This has happened before. I leave home to embark on a long American sojourn, and I abandon this little blog, which languishes while I galavant.

I guess the reason is partly because I am seeing the actual people who form my primary blog audience, and partly because I'm, well, on the road. And come to think of it, not much more time has gone by than the usual too-long gap between blog posts; the difference is that I've been more places in the meantime and family life landmarks overbrim the mere record of them.

But just to keep track, I'll enumerate my recent whereabouts. Basically, it's been a tour of the Northeast Corridor. Two weeks ago today (only two weeks?), I flew to Philadelphia, and so did the Mister, although not on the same airline. Boo. Then we drove (er, were driven) to Bucks County to attend my brother's wedding, and sing in it, and in general be happy that I have one more sister-in-law to add to my collection of Awesome Sisters-In-Law. They had a exquisite day, the ceremony was delightful, and the bride and groom were beautiful. Our nephew ever so studiously and carefully carried the little pillow, and forlornly asked at the end of the day, "Am I still a ring bearer?" There was a moment of panic before the ceremony when my dad noticed that one of the rings was missing from the pillow, but did not realize that they were aluminum stand-ins.

The post-wedding day was one of intense Hanging Out with all the lovely friends and relatives who were present. (As the Mister noted, the English phrase "to hang out" is a great catch-all that doesn't actually mean much. Case in point: one can "hang out by [one]self.") The kind of thing where breakfast turns into a four-hour gabfest with all the people who are coming and going in the hotel breakfast nook, plus snatches of the Sunday New York Times. A whirlwind Philadelphia visit ended the weekend. I hadn't been there since my childhood, so it was fun to revisit the Liberty Bell, take a carriage ride and be impressed by good ol' Ben Franklin all over again. I never did get a water ice, though.

After the wedding weekend a bunch of the immediate family caravaned down to DC, where my Dad has new digs for his temporary job. We spent the week eating and museuming and yes, hanging out, and I got some solid time to research at the Library of Congress (getting a library card is always a thrill, but this one was special) and the Mister had meetings where he gave talks and debates and so forth.

We made a trip to the Natural History Museum, too: after my nephew and I gazed at the record-length squid for a good while, he rushed over to my sister and said breathlessly, "Mom! I just saw a giant SQUISH!"

The Mister flew back home last Friday, and I spent Saturday in the back of a minivan with a lot of luggage and two adorable squirts as we drove up to Boston's North Shore. We had a lovely time together for a few days, and managed to get together with the newlyweds, tanned and honeymoon-glowy. Then down to Boston for a couple of days at my brother's with the littlest nephew, and now on Saturday it's off to the great midwest for the next chapter of this summer marathon!

It's a bare-bones record, but it's the last few weeks in a nutshell. Still, there are times when lists of places visited do not suffice; so much joy and even sorrow is squished into such a fragile frame. The unsaid will have to remain so, the lists a reminder of the lived.

There but not there

I called my husband and dad on skype yesterday, eager to hear how the inauguration had gone... And it turns out, they didn't even make it inside! They stood in line starting at 8 am, and the line simply didn't move. There were no signs, no authorities, a sea of bodies as far as they could see, and the crush of people made it impossible to go anywhere. Other ticket holders started to protest, it was a chaotic scene, evidently, people clambering over walls, even some arrests after a while, and although they did everything as they were supposed to, they, along with hundreds of other people holding tickets, never got through the gates into the Mall. How disappointing! I'm glad I wasn't along, because I would have been just devastated. My husband, much more able to take these things in stride, was laughing about it already. He flew thousands of miles to attend the biggest event in recent history, only to stand in the cold for a few hours, unable to see or hear any of it! He was interviewed by a reporter and is already in the news, if that's perhaps some consolation. Sigh. He'll just have to watch the inauguration on the internet, like the rest of us poor overseas saps.

O happy day

Last night, well past midnight, saw me swaying onstage with a crowd of all the evening's performers as the credits rolled, singing "O Happy Day."

I thought it was an auspicious beginning to what is surely a great day in history. Today, Barack Obama will become our president.

During Christmas vacation, the Mister was finishing up an article, and our little nephew came up to ask him to play. M. told him that he just had a few more sentences to write, and then he would come down.

The three-year-old stood there for a moment, and then solemnly said, "Barack Obama is our president."

So when I say today that Barack Obama is our president, it is the little guy's innocent voice I hear, and I think this perfectly fitting. His voice is the voice of the country's future.

Another reason today is a happy day is that this is my 300th blog post! I can't think of a better day to write it, a better reason to celebrate.

This new year

Today is January 7. Tomorrow the children of Spain return to school. The Kings have come and gone, leaving presents in their wake. If the children have been naughty this year (as most have), they also left coal--sometimes made of sugar, but sometimes the real thing. (Our niece, in a fit of contrariness, insisted that she wanted to eat lumps of real charcoal brisket out of the hefty bag that she so eagerly unwrapped.)

But there's no room for more sweets anyway. Everyone's bellies are stuffed with turró (nougat and custard bars eaten throughout the holiday season) and polvoró (soft, crumbly round sweets) and tortell (the marzipan-filled and fruit-topped ring cake hiding a fava bean and a king figure, eaten on Epiphany), not to mention the stews and soups and meat and fish of the traditional neverending meals.

Barcelona has hit a cold spell, and we even saw snowfall last night. We ran out into the street and tried to catch clumps of the big, wet flakes. There was no driving to be attempted, since a little bit of snow snarls everything. So I spent one more night at my in-laws'. The Mister, meanwhile, was already on a plane to Brussels.

Which, I suppose, means that the holidays really are over. We had such a lovely week in Vermont. It was so hard to say goodbye to everyone again, especially the littlest. No sooner had we landed in Barcelona than it was time to ring in the new year, which once again we did at the Mister's grandmother's. This year, though, our nieces spent the night at our house, which was a fun treat for us and them. Then a big all-family meal on New Year's Day. Then a busy couple of days of shopping and wrapping presents and visiting with dear friends, and then Kings', which is like Christmas all over again. But it had to end sometime.

Today I trundled big bags of new goodies up to our cold apartment, and am now trying to warm it via space heaters. I am still wearing my coat, however, and making good use of my new fingerless gloves with clever mitten flaps, a gift from my sister-in-law. They come in handy for typing when one's hands are blocks of ice.

I feel a bit melancholy, as I always do after the bustle and cheer of the holidays. I feel daunted by the weight of what I want to accomplish this year, the changes I hope to see--from the very small to the impossibly huge--and the lurking fear of not being up to the challenge. Last night I had a hard time falling asleep, thinking of all the things that I want to do, all of the ways that I want to be better, all of wishes I have for our future. My project this evening will be to write them all down, little to big, practical to fanciful, and try to express some of the bigger ones in clear goals and prayers that can be my focus during this year, 2009.

Wow. 2009.

And... home

The first--more lengthy--portion of our journey yesterday was a dream. Somehow there were no lines in Barcelona, and we were upgraded to Business class for the long-haul flight. An early Christmas present!

In New York, we got through customs and security with only a minor snafu--the confiscation of our Spanish sausages (as a vegetarian, I never realized that no one would let me take cured meats through US borders...), and with plenty of time to spare until our connection.

That connection, however, was delayed for two hours, and those two hours of waiting took place in an exasperating scrum of travelers whose flights were also delayed, with announcements barely audible and patience wearing thin. All told, however, a smooth flight, no lost bags, and the result at the end was a perfectly snow-covered Vermont, a roaring fire under a long string of stockings, homemade cookies, a tree overflowing with familiar ornaments and shiny gifts, and warm family embraces. What could be better?

Perhaps... the arrival, this morning, of heart-burstingly adorable nephews. To whom I am now going to go devote all of my auntly attentions.

What's home?

(Am still in England. This post was written ahead of time. Look at me, all prepared and whatnot.)

After the election, I was so proud that all of my "home" states pulled for Obama (not all of them givens, either):

Iowa, where I was born.
Pennsylvania, where I spent my childhood.
Vermont, where I spent my high school years and where my parents live.
Massachusetts, where I went to college and where my siblings live.
Indiana, where I studied for grad school.

Just as I was thinking about that, Astrid wrote a great post about what it takes to feel "at home" in a place, especially for expats. How the feeling of belongingness can come and go so easily.

And I wondered, where's home for me?

As the above list should indicate, when people ask me "where I'm from," it's not so simple to answer. The first answer is "the US," but after that it gets more complicated. I usually say Vermont, which is, of all those states, where I identify most as "home," both because it's the place I go back to for holidays, and because I'm proud of it and fiercely attached to it as a (beautiful) place.

Although those who ask that question clearly identify me as a foreigner, another answer is that I'm also "from" here. This is where I live. This is what I have chosen. Through my husband and our house and his family and the Catalan language, I am making a thousand new little rootlets to create "home" every day.

But feeling at home is another story. One minute everything makes sense, I'm grooving with the language, I feel like an adopted Catalan, I get cultural references, jokes, and place names, I belong in my neighborhood, I know what's what and can steer my way around the city like a local. The next minute--boom!--I'm so darn foreign, all gangly and blond and my words get tangled up and I don't have my ID yet and I don't get the joke and the explanation doesn't make sense and this is so not home. Sigh.

Ultimately, I would define home as the place where my loved ones are. Thus I can simultaneously talk about "going home" for Christmas, and "coming back home" when Christmas is over.

Mostly, home is where the Mister is. It's in his arms.

L'americana

Last night was my first "real" concert with the new choir. We sang "Cançó d'amor i de guerra" (Song of Love and War), a rollicking zarzuela, full of triumphalist full-throated choruses that end with happy emphatic crashes of cymbals. Which fit my mood rather well after the election.

In fact, the best part of arriving at the auditorium dressing room last night was that one by one, many of my fellow singers (many of whom I still don't know) came up to me and solemnly, admiringly, shook my hand or kissed me on the cheek. There was a deep contentedness in those sturdy handshakes. It caught me by surprise at first, but of course: I was likely the only American they had seen that day. I felt like a celebrity, just by virtue of being l'americana, and believe me, this is the first time while in Europe I have ever felt so... admired for being American. I told them all I was so proud of my country.

Take a look at these reactions from around the world. It captures a bit of that good feeling.

And now for a couple of tangents, one a gush and one a dash of realism:

Isn't Michelle Obama just fabulous? I have a feeling that she is going to rock as first lady.

Also, Obama's election is a huge huge huge step for a country whose legacy is one of systemic racial hatred, violence, and discrimination. It really is an American dream come true. But some commentators are acting as though all of the sudden racism has been defeated for good. Sadly, that's not the case. I'm worried that having a black president could serve as an excuse for the more naive segments of society to say, "See? No racism here. Obama's in the White House. Case closed." And then shut their eyes to their own behavior or injustices around them. Obama might be kind of like the Cliff Huxtable of today, the friendly black guy who makes white people think they're "totally fine" with black people and that his success story is proof that racism doesn't exist.

(Yet: I am thankful things are changing.)

Yes

I tried to stay awake long enough to see some conclusive election results. I baked and did laundry until 2 am to keep myself occupied while the Catalan television speculated and the CNN election map slowly filled in with bright red and blue. I made it until 4 am, but although things were looking good, nothing was really certain. I fell asleep curled around my laptop.

So when I woke up all I had to do was hit refresh, and I saw the news. And then watched Obama's acceptance speech, and was moved to tears. The man is a brilliant orator, and I hope that the feeling I get when I listen to him, the feeling that here is a leader who I can trust and is telling the truth, will be borne out by his actions in office. I know that no one is perfect, and that an Obama presidency in and of itself does not solve the nation's--much less the world's--problems, but I hope that he will follow through on the good words of his speech.

Because what I heard is this:

I will always be honest with you

I will listen to you

it cannot happen without you

a new spirit

of service and responsibility

looking after not only ourselves, but each other

a measure of humility

to promote the cause of peace

America can change

while we breathe, we hope

yes we can

(today I am thankful for the promise of America)

Historic

Every election is an "historic election," in the sense that history is made whenever a new president moves into the White House. However, this time around the outcome will be especially noteworthy, and the issues at stake seem especially crucial, what with the ugly economic panorama, interminable war-waging, the dire state of the world's ecosystems, good health care out of reach for millions, and a lingering legacy of racism, poverty, and social injustice. I turned to the Mister the other day, when news of the financial crisis was starting to hit, and wondered aloud if we would look back on the whole of our pre-2008 lives as a kind of golden age.

And yet: whatever happens, I feel energized and excited just by the fact of being alive on this memorable day, and proud of the changes that already seem to be taking place.

Some reasons the election is especially historic:

* Barack Obama would be the nation's first African American president.

* John McCain would be the oldest person to be sworn in as a new president.

* Sarah Palin would be the nation's first female vice president.

* This is the first time in history that the two main candidates for president are both sitting senators.

* This is the first time in more than 50 years that neither the sitting president nor the sitting vice president is a candidate on his party's ticket in the new presidential election.

* This has been the most expensive election campaign in history.

* This has been the longest election campaign in history.

* This is the largest-ever age gap between the two presidential candidates.

* Obama's campaign has raised a record-setting amount of money from small contributions.

* New voter registration and early voting have broken records, and voter turnout may do the same.

* For the first time in history, both candidates were born outside of the continental US.

* The two candidates are the first from their home states, Arizona and Hawaii.

* The candidates have made unprecedented use of new technology like Facebook, text messaging, YouTube, and online advertising.

(Most of this I pulled from my buzzing head after nonstop election reading, but this article covers all of these assertions, I think.)

Vote

On the eve of...

Unless you are living under a rock, you know that tomorrow is the Big Day. The rest of the globe is voting for Obama. What will America vote? Everyone here is holding their breath, and there is extensive US election coverage in the news. Every day I have conversations with people who are puzzled as to why McCain even has a fighting chance, and I find myself (inadequately) trying to explain the whole American political panorama. It ends up being about the ideals of individualism and freedom, and competing definitions of those ideals when applied to various social needs. Isn't every political system (with further shadings among parties) just a different balance of what and how an individual gets to decide vs. what and how the government gets to decide? Meanwhile, I am getting nibble-on-fingers nervous.

As Obama's half-sister, who lives in Kenya, said of him, "He can be trusted to be in dialogue with the world." Boy, do we need a president who will rely on dialogue. And a president who is trustworthy.

The quote comes from an editorial I enjoyed because it suggests that literature and politics have a whole lot in common: they're both all about narrative. Stories matter, because stories are how we understand ourselves and where we come from, and how we understand our leaders and where they come from.

Anyway, the important thing is: vote!

(Scroll down a bit to see my election-themed Etsy sidebar...)

Back to BCN

Thanks to everyone who commented or emailed about my grandfather. The trip went remarkably well (despite having to turn around mid-ocean and go back to Amsterdam and switch planes because there was something wrong with the controls) and the whole 7-adults-in-a-minivan-for-9-hours thing was actually kind of fun. Like when we were little and we all piled in the back of the station wagon to sleep through the night in our jammies with our blankies ("stacked like a cord of wood," my uncle said as we looked through some photos from the 1980s). Now, though, we took turns driving and everyone challenged each other to best their high scores on one of the several ipods and iphones and laptops floating around the car.

The funeral was sad, but simple and lovely. Grandpa would have liked it. It was great to see my cousins--all the grandkids made it--and aunts and uncles so soon again after this summer, and to be there for Grandma, because this is a very tough time for her, facing loss and a new kind of life after more than 50 years of marriage. Step by step. She told me she is going to learn how to find my blog online so she can keep up with our goings-on. Hi Grandma!

We played cards and watched faded slides of my mom and aunts when they were kids and ate lots of food and then so soon we had to turn around and head back to Chicago, where we had to buy the Mister some sweaters and a scarf and gloves because he was going to the Yukon for a work trip afterwards (because of the funeral he hadn't been able to re-pack his bag between Strasbourg and the Canada trip). For my part, I stuffed my suitcase with canned pumpkin and chocolate chips and almond extract and cranberries.

I came back to a rainy and cool, November-y Barcelona, and discovered that I would need to break out the space heater. And maybe buy a couple more. (We never had the radiators installed in the apartment...this winter will be an experiment to see if we really need to do so.) Today the sun is out again, though. It doesn't stay away for long 'round these parts.

Canyon sunsets

I guess I had some more summer stories in me, after all... I wrote this the other day just after saying that I didn't. (Maybe I did it to prove myself wrong.) The post describes a couple of days in mid-August, after the family gatherings in Iowa and South Dakota.

****

After flying into Las Vegas and spending the night at my uncle's house, the Mister and I threw our suitcases and some borrowed camping equipment into the rental car. Said camping equipment consisted of: a pup tent, two sleeping bags, an air mattress, a flashlight, and a water bottle. (You might say we were betting on good weather and the availability of prepackaged foods.)

We drove merrily to the Grand Canyon, impressed along the way by the Hoover Dam and also slowed down by the traffic at the Hoover Dam. (Only a couple of hours into the nearly 2,500 miles of driving we did was the closest we came to an accident: a pickup behind me, annoyed at the slow pace up the curvy hill, beeping and swerving, decided to pass me on the right just as I decided to let him pass me by pulling off to the right, WITH blinker clearly blinking. Thankfully, with a last-second head-check I saw him zooming by and yanked us back into the lane. And THEN pulled off, to let my pulse get back to normal.)

Hours later, we entered the park and asked the ranger at the booth if there were campsites available. The look she gave us told us we were foolish to arrive at 7 pm during peak season at the GRAND Canyon, for Pete's sake, and expect a campsite, so our hopes were not high as we drove on to the campground. Yet, we were in luck. They still had a spot! Furthermore, in reading the handy park newspaper, we had discovered that sunset was at 7:33. I thought it would be fantastic if our first view of the canyon was during sunset, so campsite secured and tent hurredly set up, we drove as close as we could get, parked, and walked the trail to the edge of the void.

These were my thoughts as we hurried down the quickly-darkening path (it was already 7:45): Isn't it strange that I could drive so close to the edge with no visible sign of... anything? Here I am, walking in a pleasantly flat forest, only meters from one of the natural wonders of the world, and I just can't see it coming. It's not like a mountain, which you can see from miles away, and prepare for. It's a mountain in reverse, it's a gash in the earth, it's...sudden. A drop-off. Why is my heart beating so fast? I am nervous, as though I'm about to pet a wild animal. A very very huge wild animal.

There it was, only dimly visible as vast receding darknesses under the orange border of the dark northern rim. Ungraspable. The crowds of people around us, mostly teenagers, were already dispersing, because they had seen the sunset we had missed. We took a series of pictures in a futile attempt to get the canyon on film (the two days we spent there we were aware of the futility of our picture-taking yet constantly took pictures anyway), gazing at the last glows of sun.


And then we went and had pizza and beer at the dining hall. Among the things I was not prepared to find inside Grand Canyon National Park: a huge grocery store, Amy's organic frozen food, microbrews, pizza (especially not pizza with spinach and goat cheese), fresh baked goods, and delicious coffee.

We spent the next day hiking as much of the rim as we could, and taking many more pictures, because every spot seemed more photogenic than the last. We ate lunch on the trail and dinner at our very own campsite, and then strategically prepared for our second, and last, sunset at the grand canyon.


We wanted a spot that wouldn't be inundated with teenagers, a little more off the beaten track. It had to be nearby, of course, but not right off the Mather campground trail. We decided to drive out to Yaki point, near the second trailhead for descending into the canyon. When we got to the road, however, there was a problem: we couldn't turn onto it; only the shuttle could pass. So we had to drive down the road until we found parking, and then walk back to catch the shuttle. But the shuttle didn't have a stop at the intersection! And time was running out. Calculating hastily, we decided to walk the last stretch out to the point. Waylaid by a cute little deer that wasn't at all disturbed by our camera-snapping (none of those pictures turned out anyway), we ended up half-jogging to get there so we wouldn't miss the sunset again.

We found ourselves completely alone on an outcropping of rock, with spectacular views back over the length of the canyon. The sun descended as if just for us. After a while, a French couple appeared, so we traded photo-ops with them.

Finally, we made ourselves put the camera down, and put our arms around each other instead. Perched on the tiniest portion of the long winding edge of an immense stone basin, we soaked in the last rays of light and that heart-stopping sense of our own human smallness.

Sublime

No one told me just how desolate, just how cliff-hugging, just how hairpin-curvy, or just how beautiful the Big Sur coast road is. I mean, I had read Robinson Jeffers and John Steinbeck, and I knew it was going to be full of sweeping views and water crashing onto craggy stone towers.

But as we drove through the country just north of San Simeon (before the real curves start), I thought: this is what they are talking about! How lovely! No wonder it's famous.

I was getting ahead of myself, because I had no idea what was yet to come.

And we were woefully unprepared. Having no reservation for a campground, we planned to stop "somewhere along the way." I had a quarter tank of gas, which I thought I would be able to replenish, also "somewhere along the way." And it was starting to get dark.

Thus it was that we found ourselves swerving around the tightest of curves, perched upon the highest of cliffs, face-first into the most deliriously blazing of sunsets. I could barely see the road, both because the intense flaming orange filled the windshield and because all I wanted to do was stare down the horizon: undulating cliffs and cascades of clouds falling golden into the sea. But I crept along and hugged the side of the mountain and, alternating with incoherent exclamations about beauty and telling the Mister to take pictures, nervously watched the gas needle plummet as we vainly searched for campground indications.



It occurred to me that this moment would qualify as Sublime, capital S, in the 18th-century, Burkean sense of the word, an experience (usually of the natural world, most particularly the Alps) in which terror and beauty simultaneously overwhelm the beholder. If John Dennis' conception of the sublime was an appreciation of utter beauty "mingled with Horrours, and sometimes almost with despair," well, our drive along the Big Sur coast road sure was sublime.

Because we were starting to despair when at last we reached the little outpost of the outside world called Gorda, and I was grateful--grateful!--to pay $6.25 per gallon of gas. I asked the guy where the next campground was, and he said laconically, "just a ways up the road." We had already stopped at a couple of places that were totally full, and I was past freaking out, already stoically resigning myself to driving those curves in the dark.



"A ways up the road" turned out to be, oh, three miles, but they felt like twenty. We rejoiced at the sight of a sign saying Plaskett Creek campground, but despaired once again when it became quite obvious that most of the first-come, first-served campsites were taken. At last, we spotted a tiny spur off to the side with a postage-stamp campsite, and in the almost pitch dark, we set up our tent. We had to make do with no running water and pit toilets, and for dinner we ate peanut butter sandwiches out the trunk of the car, but we counted ourselves lucky.

Sublime.