The sting

It's a strange, sad day. After French class, I went to the train station to buy my ticket to Paris for tomorrow. As I walked into the station, I remembered that the Mister's train to Paris was leaving just about at that very moment (he has a conference there today and tomorrow and so we're meeting up in the morning), and I ran up to the Thalys platform and walked down the wagons until I found his familiar profile.

There we were, saying a surprise good-bye while the train steamed and beeped. But he broke some news that left me sobbing on the platform as the train pulled away, time only for a brief hug.

A close family friend of ours in Vermont, a young guy only 24 years old, died suddenly last night. He had battled leukemia for seven years, had gotten better, and then now, within days of discovering that the cancer had returned, passed away.

It's an incomprehensible loss; he was an only child and my heart mourns deeply for his parents, dear friends who have been fixtures of my life since before I can remember. My dad wrote, "[our friend] understood that his life was in God's hands. But it's so terribly hard to understand why he was taken from us." It is terribly hard to grasp such a thing, where human understanding and comprehension in the face of death fail us.

So no poem today, rather a passage from the Bible that is a lifeline for the shipwrecked, a promise in the face of human despair of death. In one of its beautiful metaphors, death is simply a change of clothes, something as quotidian and comforting as a new garment.

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed--in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory."

"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"

Sardinian wedding

I want to write about last weekend's wedding, but it seems so unreal to me already, like I lived for a short time inside a novel--one that takes place seventy years ago, peopled with archetypal characters and elemental landscapes--but then I woke up, or the story ended. In the novel, I was a character myself; I spoke halting but lilted Italian with a tiny wizened woman who wore all black and a silver bun (the bride's mother), and I listened to the goats bleating and ate cheese made from their milk, and watched the moon rise heavy and orange over the fields while a bright-eyed boy in a black cap crooned Neapolitan songs on his guitar. But I was also reading the novel at the same time, I was the outsider who awkwardly observed, the foreigner drinking it all in, in order to remember as much as she could.

And because I want to remember it all, and since my memory is unpleasantly spotty, I need to at least get some of the key things down on paper (as it were).

One of those key things was the serenata. At nearly ten pm on Friday night, we arrived in little Alghero airport without a clue as to who was picking us up, what this person looked like, or how to contact him or her. To our utter surprise, the groom himself pulls up (on the eve of his wedding!!) in a tiny car and hurredly introduces us to the other passengers, and we zoom off into the Sardinian night. It transpires that we are smooshed in the car with the Neapolitan musician who will be helping the groom to serenade the bride and thus woo her to the altar (the wooing had I assume already taken place, but not the serenading). We drive over an hour, picking up other carloads of friends at several strategic points, until we are a caravan of some twenty five people, and after pulling onto roads that are increasingly narrow and tiny, we end up on a dirt road in the middle of the island, stumbling up the bride's driveway in the pitch dark, everyone laughing and shushing each other and hoping that no one heard the cars or seen the headlights. I am stumbling more than I might have because the stars are an inverted bowl of brilliance and all I want to do is look skyward.

There is a balcony, and when the singing starts, everything is just as you might imagine it would be. Lights go on one by one, the dog starts barking, heads poke out of windows and doors. Eventually the bride, laughing and surprised, appears, and descends to embrace her groom. With liberal kisses for everyone else as well. We all sing along with the last song, and I do too, though I don't know the words.

Everyone is invited inside and even though it is midnight, and no one has prepared for our arrival (the groom assured me it was all a surprise, a tradition from his part of Italy imported to her part of Italy), out of nowhere appear piles of paper-thin crispy bread (pane carasau), homemade salumi, cheese made from the bride's sister's goats, and bottles of wine. And huge heaping platters of tender almond cookies. Everyone lingers by the door, and back in the yard in the dark, the guitarist starts playing again. My husband sings along, and we watch the moonrise. I have never seen a moonrise. For the first few minutes as it quickly moved up over the horizon, it seemed as bright as the sun, but without the sun's brightening effects on the sky. He and I fall asleep on the drive to the hotel, forty minutes back over country roads.

***

The next morning, again to our surprise, the groom appeared at the hotel at the appointed departure hour, this time wearing a blue suit and a shirt with brass bells at the collar. Someone handed him a bouquet of red roses. A long line of cars gathered, and bedecked with ribbons, honking all the way, we drove to the bride's village. This time we rode with professors from Naples, and all of us were puzzled when we passed the town hall, where the wedding was to take place, and continued to the same house we had visited the night before.

It turns out that the groom has to show up to collect the bride Sardinia-style, and receive a blessing from the family--the equivalent, I suppose, of a girl's parents/father walking her down the aisle. The roses were to convince her to be whisked off by the bell-rung boy. While we waited for her to appear, the guests mingled about and enjoyed a lavish spread of more of those delicious cookies and a tableful of others, including cloudy almond meringues, and coffee and moscatel and fizzy Italian aperatifs. When I walked into the house I was surprised to see a row of five elderly figures seated on a couch, every one of them in head-to-toe black clothes: four women with severe buns in their silver hair, and a gentleman with a cane and cap. They reminded me of the pictures I'd seen of the Mister's great-grandmothers (black clothes and black kerchiefs on their heads, every day) or of Italian women in the 1930s. It took me some time to realize that one of these ladies, whom I assumed were grandmothers and great aunts, was in fact the mother of the bride.

When the bride descended the stairs, to thunderous cheering and camera flashes, and accepted the bouquet from her intended, he brought her outside, where her mother waited with a plate of rose petals and rice. As we all watched, she recited a blessing, flinging rice and roses over their heads, and smashed the plate at their feet. (More plate smashing was to occur throughout the day: at the town hall after the wedding, and at the hotel before the reception.)

The wedding itself took place in the town hall, a square unlit box with humidity-warped, faded 1970s travel posters on the walls. But the warmth and joy of all the participants filled the room, and the judge (who wore a red sash) made it clear that this bride was a well-loved daughter of the entire village. She is, in fact, the youngest and prettiest of six children, including five other beautiful sisters and one brother, who has severe mental retardation, but who raced around all weekend embracing everyone and hooting out his excitement. He was a part of the merry hubbub, gently watched over by all.

The main focus of the reception, back at the hotel, was the food: no less than fourteen (fourteen!!) courses, and when we studied the menu on our table, we knew we had to take it easy so that we wouldn't miss out on tasting any one of the regional foods. We ate an abundance of seafood, fried antipasti, two kinds of pasta specialties (one of them was gnocchetti, which despite the name are not like potato gnocchi but are smaller curled shells that look like gnocchi), delectable clams, big plates of raw carrot, celery, and fennel (I was skeptical, but these were surprisingly refreshing in the middle of a long meal)... Now I can barely remember it all (I meant to bring home one of the menus but failed to grab one when we left) but I vividly recall the first of three desserts (not including the piles of cookies everywhere): seadas. These are pastry pockets stuffed with pecorino cheese, fried, and smothered with the local honey. Absolutely amazing.

We ate, and ate, and ate. For over five hours, just eating. And talking, of course. Across the table from us, a woman who works at a national archive seemed nice enough at first, but as the evening wore on, got increasingly too-friendly, woozily telling M. how beautiful I was and liberally dispensing cheek-smoosh kisses to everyone who got near her. While we all crowded around to watched the bride and groom cut the cake, I felt someone grab my tush and thought it was the mister because he was behind me when I turned around. But HE had seen, as he walked towards me, that it was Mrs. Too Friendly. Eeek!

Despite this unfortunate incident, I was charmed to pieces by the other company, especially Stefano the singer who had led the serenata the previous night. He was upset that the DJ wasn't letting him play often enough (although he had already regaled the bride and groom several times), and with his injured air, his guitar and smile, he was the classic picture of the underappreciated artist. He and the Mister got to talking about politics, and it turns out that his views are somewhere in the idealist-Marxist-anarchist range, anti-institutional and pro-equality. Somehow this was entirely of a piece with the music and the self-absorption, and I felt that I had just gotten to know one of the people I read about for my thesis on 1930s Spain: the tragic artist, the anarcho-idealist. Lofty pride and political conviction, softened by the romantic strumming and the twinkle of humor in his eyes.

Hours of eating, one spectacular espresso, and a bit of dancing later, the Mister and I decided to retire to our room, thinking that the party was winding down. After a good two and a half hours, we came down to take a stroll, and the party was still going on, our friend Stefano slumped on a bench and strumming melancholy melodies on his guitar into the night air.

***

I'm going to stop here, but in the next installment, I describe the events of the day after, which in some ways were even more fable-like than the wedding itself. Oh, and I should mention that the pink dress was perfect! I was perhaps even a bit more gussied up than some guests, but as I said last week, overdressed is better than underdressed.

I should be packing

In a last-minute attempt to learn something about the Italian island of Sardinia before landing there without a clue about local culture, I did some surfing. A few helpful New York Times articles and a badly translated poem or two later, I discovered this BBC broadcast about the music of Corsica and Sardinia. The music is haunting and the interviews are fascinating. Both halves are worth a listen, but the second half focuses on Sardinia.

I also discovered that D.H. Lawrence wrote several long essays about the island, collected as Sea and Sardinia, which I would love to bring along (one of the best joys of travel is reading literature about/set in a place while you are there), but I have a slim-to-none chance of finding a copy before my flight tomorrow morning.

I'm especially curious about the town of Alghero, which is still Catalan-speaking, even though the Catalans haven't been in charge around there for centuries. I'd love to hear what it sounds like, if the Italian has influenced it enough to make it odd or even unintelligible to my ears. From what I can tell, the ceremony will take place either in Alghero or not far from there, so hopefully we'll have a chance to find some local Catalan speakers.

And I hope to increase my small Italian vocabulary--it's all about gleaning, picking up what I can, at this point, since I've still not properly studied the language. It's high on the list, though.

Thanks to those who responded about the dress: two out of two votes are for the pink one, which is what I also decided yesterday after trying them all on and confirming my suspicions about what doesn't fit and what's too casual. Pink is cheerful and just right for a May wedding, and it looks great with a vintage beaded necklace I bought at a flea market here in Belgium.

So until next week: ciao, arrivederci, ciao ciao!

Italian wedding

Five days of visitors (who managed to come on the sunniest possible days of the year in Brussels) followed by three days in Barcelona has not done wonders for my productivity. Neither will leaving again on Friday for a wedding in Sardinia.

I am stressing quite a bit about the question of what to wear to said wedding. The last time I went to a wedding in Italy (a very similar circumstance, where I barely know anyone except my date, except that wedding took place in a terrassed villa overlooking the stunning Lago Maggiore) I was distinctly and embarrassingly underdressed.

I had hastily purchased a flowered cotton sundress in Salzburg, where I was living at the time, and stuffed it in my backpack. After an overnight train ride in a hot and crowded cabin, I arrived in Milan on the morning of the wedding and changed into my dress in a filthy restroom at the train station. Upon finding M, who had come by train from Barcelona, we were picked up by some relative of the groom and squeezed in the back of a tiny (also hot) car with several other wedding guests, and driven to the wedding, at least an hour away. I stressed much of the way because we were late (the finding and and squeezing in and leaving had taken some time) and because I hadn't seen M. in ages and he had to make polite conversation with the other folks in the car.

I needn't have worried; evidently weddings, like everything else in Italy, start rather late. When we arrived, almost an hour behind the appointed time, the bride and groom hadn't even shown up yet. However, I was immediately self-conscious because every other guest there was impeccably fabulous in that Italian way of theirs. Not that everyone was dressed formally; I remember seeing women in pants and men without ties. But there was a lot of silk and satin, a host of perfectly draped scarves, exquisite hairdos, fancy heels: everything breathed elegance, expense, and fashion. My cotton sundress suddenly made me feel like I was twelve years old. And it didn't help that I still felt the grime of a long trip and a train station restroom clinging to my skin.

Hence my Italian wedding anxiety syndrome. This time around, I want to feel good about the way I look, even though I really have no idea about fashion and don't own a pair of heels. Just as before, I am completely unsure what the wedding will be like, but I'd rather be overdressed than underdressed. Just as before, we will be picked up by some unknown entity from the Alghero airport, but at least we'll have a night at a hotel before the wedding.

So I need help. What to wear? On Sunday in Barcelona night I was frantically trying to dig out a pair of sandals that would be appropriate for a wedding, quite fruitlessly. (Where, oh where did we put our summer shoes?) I will have to make do with ballet flats, I think.

My options are:
1. A muted hot-pink strapless dress. Simple but fancy because of shape/draping. I could wear with roped pearl necklace and a light blue scarf.
2. A black dress with a white swirly/chain pattern. T-back, fitted waist, draped skirt. Don't know how to accessorize it.
3. Black pants and a pleated green silk top. Shimmery and thin straps. Maybe the most flattering option. Could wear with earrings and necklace given to me by the Mister for my birthday. Too informal?
4. A red matching pants and top outfit with spaghetti straps. Dressier than option 3, but I've worn it to about five weddings already. May not fit me any more.

It's possible that, once again, I will arrive in Italy feeling rather grimy, because our shower has been cold-water only for a week now. Before, at least the bath spigot had hot water, and I could take baths. Yet upon arriving here yesterday, and despite the fact that workmen have been here twice already and have supposedly fixed the problem, things are worse: there is no hot water anywhere in the house. I have to shower at the swimming pool across the street. I'm clinging to the upside though: this weekend, there will be a hotel, where presumably I will be able to shower and dress. An improvement over the train station.

Chocolate and sun (have become ongoing themes, notably because this country has a lot of one and not a lot of the other)

So I'm sure the world is hanging on a thread to find out whether I found cocoa powder and whether the party was a success. Because, of course, the whole world reads this blog and this is all immensely interesting to everybody. (Dripping. With irony. But seriously: to the people who DO read this blog, especially if you're not related to me? I'm actually very surprised and honored.)

Thus you will be immensely gratified to know that--a million and one thanks to Anne--I was able to find the cocoa powder (with the coffee and tea! on the bottom shelf!) and make two ooey gooey chocolate cakes. Everybody loved them. Who wouldn't?

The party turnout was somewhat mediocre, because Friday and Monday are holidays in many European countries, and so people left for the long weekend. But the crowd was a good one, notably because it was a fun mixture of my friends and my co-birthday-girl's friends and very international.

And we have a ton of leftover chips and pizza and cake, and I always appreciate leftovers.

We have friends coming from Barcelona today to visit us for the long weekend--they and the mister took the same flight this morning and they should be here momentarily. Perhaps even walking up the stairs right now. Because they chose the best possible weekend to visit Brussels, weather wise, I'm sure we will be doing lots of traipsing around town in the sun, interspersed with lots of beer drinking in the sun.

Have a great weekend!

All this juice and all this joy

It's time for a spring poem. My favorite is Gerard Manley Hopkins' sonnet "Spring and All." Quite a number of his poems are on the springtime theme, which fits with the fecundity of his language, all of the assonance and alliteration and swinging (he called it "sprung") rhythm.

The line, "When weeds in wheels shoot long and lovely and lush" is one that I whisper to myself when everything is green and bursting around me. I'm not a big memorizer, but somehow Hopkins' poems are ones whose words stick with me, and chime out when I least expect them to.

Spring

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring--
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. --Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Frisky

Click on this link. Go ahead, it's OK! I'll wait.

Now, what did you see? FIVE suns? Five suns without any clouds or raindrops on top of them? That's what I see! Oh yes I do.

For the first time in my (admittedly porous) memory, the Brussels forecast is a sunshine FLUSH. (Forgive me if my poker metaphor is off, because I don't play poker.) A week of suns. A week of warm.

Earlier this evening, I said to the mister, musingly, "Can you believe we've had four straight days of perfect sunny weather?" And then I clicked over to the forecast, and I saw what you just saw, and rejoiced.

(There's a good reason to have a birthday in May, and this is it. Everyone gets frisky.)

Help! Send cocoa powder!

My plan is to make two decadent chocolate cakes for the joint birthday party on Thursday (one of my good friends here was also born on May 8 so we've joined forces). My mom sent me her famous chocolate cake recipe, and that's what I really want to make; I can already almost taste it and my mouth is watering. Besides, it serves like a million people because it's towering and huge.

BUT, that recipe, as well as all of the chocolate cake recipes in my Gourmet cookbook, as well as most from my go-to food websites, call for cocoa powder.

Which is apparently not to be had, in this, the COUNTRY of CHOCOLATE.

Am I missing something? Is there a secret baker's supply store that I am unaware of that would supply all of my missing ingredients? This is not the first time I've run into difficulty over seemingly normal baking needs.

Alas, I shall just have to find a powder-less recipe. Maybe this one?

A room for living

The sofa and coffee table came almost a week early, last Thursday. It was perfect timing, too, because the Mister showed up from his long travels just a few hours later, and it was nice to have both of them get here on the same morning. We are tickled pink just to have an actual sofa to sit on; we keep patting its back it like it's a new, albeit unwieldy, household pet, and marveling to one another, "It's so big! We can both sit on it! And it doesn't sag in the middle!"

I'm thrilled to have it in time for the party (over 50 people on the guest list...it's going to be a humdinger!) and for the friends who are coming to stay next weekend.

So, without further ado, here she is, the lovely Chesterfield:


I did a pretty good job of the advance mockup, right? For comparison:


We decided against the bamboo rug--I kind of like the clean look of the wood floors--but everything else is pretty much how I envisioned it. It's much more welcoming to walk into the room and see the sofa in front of you--arms out, like an embrace--than when it was up against the wall. I guess I've learned something, after all, from those interior design magazines!

Here are a couple of closer views:



I'm already loving my little window workspace, especially today with this incredible weather and the windows flung open to the warm breezes. Of course, that clean desk surface has an evil twin; the other desk, which you can't see in the pictures, is covered in a swamp of papers and doodads. That's my next job.

But for now I think I'm going to pack a little picnic and go to the park for lunch. It's too gorgeous to stay inside.

Spring in a bottle

A surprise came in the mail a few minutes ago: a bottle of the perfume that I've been wanting for ages!

I won it in a contest, believe it or not, and I hadn't even known I'd won, but the mailman rang the bell, and there it was, the perfect surprise for a sunny spring day. Especially because the perfume itself is a green, fresh scent, with lily of the valley (for May day!), jasmine, freesia, citrus, and hyacinth.

Although I almost never enter contests, this one caught my eye because of the prize. Also, since it was from a new expat magazine, I figured probably not a ton of people would enter. I had to take a picture of myself reading the magazine in my favorite spot, and send it in with a short explanation. That's it! I had the Mister take a picture of me reading it at the airport, because most of my magazine reading these days takes place at the airport or on the plane.

I've never won a contest like this before; I can't stop grinning. And since it arrived just a couple of days before my birthday, it's like an early present. How lovely!

(Later: pictures of the new couch!)

Twitterpated

This weekend has been the first this year during which it is possible to leave the house without a coat, scarf, and umbrella. Yes, the first days that really and truly feel like spring, a spring of sandals and sunshine. Today I spent the afternoon at a park, just soaking in the warm sun and marveling at the fact of my green surroundings.

The one drawback? The one really big and yucky drawback?

The mister isn't here. (He's somewhere over the Atlantic right now, on his way to a conference in the states.)

I remember this, from the long years of our relationship's long distance, but recognizing it doesn't make it any more fun. It was always a kind of catch-22: when things were gray and sad and not going very well, I longed for the mister (well, back then he wasn't the mister, but you know...) because everything would be better with him there; I'd be less lonely. But when things were bright and beautiful, or when I was having a great time, I also longed for him; I wished he were with me to experience that particular great time, to make it a memory that we would share.

And that's what this weekend has been like. It's spring and gorgeous and everyone in sight seems lovestruck, lolling about on blankets in the park, holding hands in Brussels' suddenly less-gray streets. I myself have unusual amounts of energy, I've cooked and cleaned and worked and also strolled about happily outside. But about every five seconds I wish that the Mister were here, too.

I guess it's just hitting me kind of hard, this really long trip. We're quite used to being apart for three or four or even five days at a stretch. But this time it'll be ten days (and it was supposed to be even longer than that!), which is seeming rather...excessive. Especially when it's spring and that special springtime elixir is in the air.

Interior design

So I had a little fun playing around with a website called polyvore, which lets you snatch images from the web and edit them into collages and layouts. It seems to focus mostly on fashion--putting outfits together and that sort of thing--but I thought it might be a good way to help me envision a new layout for our living room once the new sofa and coffee table arrive, using photographs of these items snipped from the web.

(Yes, I finally got around to ordering them! It's embarrassing how long we put off getting these rather essential items of furniture, instead living with the truly crappy little white futon. But we have guests coming soon, and I'm planning a big bash for my 30th birthday, and there's actually a bit of money in the bank at the moment, so now was the time.)

Anyway, in order to picture this, you have to take this photo of the apartment, subtract all the really lovely furniture that got taken away from us after we babysat it for a while, and then overlay the following collage into the room. The only things carrying over are the plant and the cheap Ikea bookcase, which I've moved to the right. I want to change the orientation of things, too: the sofa will be perpendicular to the fireplace instead of against the wall, and I'm thinking that I'll tuck my desk right behind the sofa, hidden, to create a study area (i.e., boundaried by the bay window and the sofa back) that I'm more likely to spend time at than my current undefined space.

The lamp somewhat resembles the new one we got over a month ago, and the chair is actually green velvet, a curbside find. The bamboo rug is a darker color than represented here (by a tatami mat, the only thing I could find that would work in the picture). There are of course a few other things in the room, but this would be the basic view looking straight in from the dining room, which is how the earlier picture is oriented, too.


I'm excited about the prospects of moving everything around, and looking forward to having an actual sofa instead of this thing that has probably done unrepairable damage to my posture.

What do you think? Is it missing something? Too bland?

Grocery schizophrenia

Nearly every day I end up carting a bag or a half a bag of groceries up to our apartment. This in itself is not a problem at all, and I rather like making the ongoing small food purchases characteristic of city living.

The problem is, however, that I can never find everything on my list in one grocery store, and this always makes me feel absolutely scattered. Certain staples of my diet--hummus, black beans, cheddar cheese, quinoa, garlic-stuffed olives (yes, don't laugh), for example--can be found in one place only, and never all of them in the same place. The only store with good hummus is a 25-minute walk away. I stop there on my way back from French class, and pick up some nice vegetables, too. No problem.

But then I decide that I want to make Mexican food for dinner, and to get refried beans I have to walk down the hill to the only store that has them, which is NOT the store that has tortillas. The OTHER store, the one that has tortillas and the salsa, does not carry the breakfast cereal that I like. But that's the one that does have the beans. This one has the rosemary crackers, that one has the pretzels. Neither of them have both. This is an endless process, and one that is hard to keep track of. I often enter a store sure that I'll find a certain item and then only remember that it doesn't after walking fruitlessly through the aisles for a while. "Which was the place that carries real vanilla extract?" I will mutter to myself. "Was it X or Y with the cereal?"

The same thing happens with the markets. Only the market in Chatelain has those amazing olives. Only the market at the St. Gilles town hall has those Italian guys with the great pasta. Only the organic market sells quinoa in bulk. As a result, I end up shopping regularly at no less than SIX grocery stores and THREE markets, can you believe it?

It's not that I want everything to be found in one American-style behemoth of a grocery. It's just that it would be nice if I could have reasonable expectations of finding my top frequent purchases mostly in one place. Maybe I just have a really weird diet, by Belgian standards. That's probably it. At any of those places I am guaranteed to find goopy pastel salads, stacks and stacks of cookies that all look like waffles and all have different names, and--the beauty of this one cannot be denied--a truly impressive selection of Belgian beer.

Speaking of markets, I am going nuts--in a good way--over the flowers currently available at the markets. They are so beautiful! And springlike! And reasonably priced! Seriously, twenty gorgeous longstem roses for 7 euros? I even saw one sign offering 80 roses for 15 euros. Last week I saw the most exquisite roses in an antiquey faded pink beige color that I was itching to buy, but didn't since we were going to be gone over the weekend. So this week I made up for it (although, disappointingly, I couldn't find the same ones) and have, over the course of the week, purchased a bouquet of bright yellow tulips, another of white roses, and a bunch of peonies, which didn't come as cheaply but I was so excited to see them. I can't wait to watch their tight round knobs burst into hot pink ruffles. I have a house full of flowers and this makes me inordinately happy.

Oh, and an update on the coffee travel mug. Today I again brought it to French class, and my neighbor, whispering, asked me if that was coffee, and then gave me the strangest look, the kind of skeptical eyebrow uptilted half-smile that you give to someone whose behavior you find odd but whom you don't want to offend. She then whispered something I didn't catch, and when I asked her what she had said, I'm pretty sure when she told me "C'est une bonne idée," it wasn't what she had said the first time around.

A rose and a book

Today is the worldwide Day of the Book, but more specifically in Catalonia, April 23 is the day of Sant Jordi. On this day, lovers present each other with a rose and a book.

Why the rose? Legend has it that Saint George (Sant Jordi), Christian martyr who died on this day, killed a dragon who had menaced the realm for years and who had a princess in his claws. From the dragon's spilled blood grew a perfect red rose, which he, gallant knight that he was, presented to the princess.

Why the book? In Catalonia the book tradition developed in the 1920s to celebrate this day, on which falls the births of Shakespeare and Nabakov, and the deaths of Shakespeare and Cervantes (same day, same year!), as well as Josep Pla and William Wordsworth.

Every year the Generalitat de Catalunya creates a nice Sant Jordi web animation. I recommend checking it out here. There are three different animations, one each for the rose, the book, and Sant Jordi. Click at the top of the page for the English version.

Although I've never been in Barcelona on April 23, I know that the streets fill with book and flower sellers. I'd love to see it, and to rummage around the bookstalls. This year, the Mister and I have to make do with a virtual rose and we'll postpone the books a bit until he returns from his trip.

I bought myself a few books yesterday, though, in honor of the event (well, not that I really ever need an excuse, but still...): a couple of Margaret Atwood novels, a Haruki Murakami novel, and a volume of Auden poems. Rather unusually for me (because I usually read faster than I buy), at the moment I've actually accumulated quite a pile of "for fun" reading, so they'll just have to go on the stack.

In honor of the day of books and roses, I have for you a rose poem. It was hard to choose just one, but ultimately I had to choose Rilke, because the rose was a kind of totem for him throughout his life: his epitaph is two lines composed on the rose, "no one's sleep beneath so many lids," and the leukemia that killed him purportedly first showed its symptoms after he was pricked by a rose.

This poem, in a translation by William Gass, so closely observes the world of roses that you are drawn in on a minute, tender level. It's worth reading slowly, and savoring all of its turns and swirls of imagery. Plus, it was composed on the island of Capri (!), in a little cottage called "The Rose House." I especially love that last stanza before the final line, its whirlwind of world focused down into a handful of rose.

The Bowl of Roses
by Ranier Maria Rilke

You've seen their anger flare, seen two boys
bunch themselves into a ball of animosity
and roll across the ground
like some dumb animal set upon by bees;
you've seen those carny barkers, mile-high liars,
the careening tangle of bolting horses,
their upturned eyes and flashing teeth,
as if the skull were peeled back from the mouth.

But now you know how to forget such things,
for now before you stands the bowl of roses,
unforgettable and wholly filled
with unattainable being and promise,
a gift beyond anyone's giving, a presence
that might be ours and our perfection.

Living in silence, endlessly unfolding,
using space without space being taken
from a space even trinkets diminish;
scarcely the hint there of outline or ground
they are so utterly in, so strangely delicate
and self-lit—to the very edge:
it possible we know anything like this?

And then like this: that a feeling arises
because now and then the petals kiss?
And this: that one should open like an eye,
to show more lids beneath, each closed
in a sleep as deep as ten, to quench
an inner fire of visionary power.
And this above all: that through these petals
light must make its way. Out of one thousand skies
they slowly drain each drop of darkness
so that this concentrated glow
will bestir the stamens till they stand.

And the movement in the roses, look:
gestures which make such minute vibrations
they'd remain invisible if their rays
did not resolutely ripple out into the wide world.

Look at that white one which has blissfully unfolded
to stand amidst its splay of petals
like Venus boldly balanced on her shell;
look too at the bloom that blushes, bends
toward the one with more composure,
and see how the pale one aloofly withdraws;
and how the cold one stands, closed upon itself,
among those open roses, shedding all.
And what they shed: how it can be light or heavy,
a cloak, a burden, a wing, a mask — it just depends —
and how they let it fall: as if disrobing for a lover.

What can't they be? Was that yellow one,
lying there hollow and open, not the rind
of a fruit in which the very same yellow
was its more intense and darkening juice?
And was this other undone by its opening,
since, so exposed, its ineffable pink
has picked up lilac's bitter aftertaste?
And the cambric, is it not a dress
to which a chemise, light and warm as breath,
still clings, though both were abandoned
amid morning shadows near the old woodland pool?
And this of opalescent porcelain
is a shallow fragile china cup
full of tiny shining butterflies —
and there — that one's holding nothing but itself.

And aren't they all that way? just self-containing,
if self-containing means: to transform the world
with its wind and rain and springtime's patience
and guilt and restlessness and obscure fate
and the darkness of evening earth and even
the changing clouds, coming and going,
even the vague intercession of distant stars,
into a handful of inner life.

It now lies free of care in these open roses.

miGo

This morning, for the first time since I've lived in Europe, I carried a travel mug of coffee with my during my morning commute. It was one of the items that claimed a little corner of my suitcase after my visit home; when I saw it nestled in its newspaper packing in a cardboard box in the musty basement, I remembered all the walks to class, especially that horrible semester of teaching at 8 am, when the perfectly shaped, brushed-aluminum travel mug made my mornings a little brighter, and I just couldn't leave it behind.

However, I shouldn't have been surprised that my mug drew outright stares on the metro platform. Stares that clearly said, "Who is this crazy girl and what is in that metal thing?" "Is she drinking out of it?" "Where does she think she is, a giant coffee shop?"

It just hadn't quite dawned on me that NO ONE carries a travel mug. Once in a blue moon I see someone clutching a coffee-to-go paper cup, but they have a furtive look, as if a little guilty for resorting to drinking coffee on the move.

So I can't say that I'll make a habit of carrying the thing around (it's already taken me weeks to use it in the first place), but it sure comes in handy for days, like today, when I just don't have enough time for coffee before leaving the house.

Unrelated to coffee: I'll be internetless again for the weekend, in Barcelona. We're going to have to get plugged in there pretty soon, especially if we spend so much more time there! Anyway, that's where I'll be, and I'll be back here on Monday.

Spa, part deux

(Part one, here.)

This repeat visit to Spa was a different as could be from the first time around: it's one thing to walk around in slippers all day with your husband, another to do so with a gaggle of girls. Both have their charms.

In fact, the weekend was particularly great because I got to know some fantastic and beautiful women, including several who work for the US government here in Brussels, a barrister from London (she has to wear a curly gray wig to work!), and a woman who works for the Japanese embassy here. It was especially nice to be speaking native-tongue English when making friends--almost everybody else I've met while living here is European and either the language is Spanish/Catalan/French, or the English we speak is not the other person's first language, which does hinder the kind of "click" that feels so great when you meet a potential friend (at least for me; I tend to be a slow friend-maker). Oh, plus two of the ladies brought along their oh-so adorable baby girls (the husbands came along too, and kept mostly out of sight, except to make breast-feeding deliveries)!

We started the day with champagne in the hotel room, and rode up the funicular to the spa in our bathrobes and slippers. From there, we enjoyed a day of massages, swimming, and lounging, plus plenty of chit-chat. The highlight for me was swimming in the warm outdoor pool while grey skies plopped fat, cold raindrops onto my face. I did have to hurry inside when it started hailing, though!

Then we got gussied up, had a fun Italian dinner, then headed over to the Casino of Spa, which claims to be the world's oldest casino. I was so relieved that pretty much everyone else was as green as I when it came to casinos. We felt distinctly out of place, and dramatically overdressed, in the small (albeit baroque) salons, compared to the wizened, chain-smoking figures hunched over the machines or the tables.

We each got ten euros worth of tokens, our limit for the evening. Big spenders, right? A bunch of us immediately lost about half of our tokens in the slot machines, although a couple girls made some money. As in, four or five euros, whoo hoo! We then decided to pool all the leftover tokens and play roulette. We started out with 29 euros and ended up with 49, after one of us with the knack won us back a bunch of money. All the winnings went to the bride-to-be!

The next morning, after a late buffet breakfast at the hotel, we all wandered off either up to the spa, into the town, or back to Brussels. The bride and I decided to go fleamarketing in Spa's Sunday market, and it was the best flea market trip I've ever made! She and I snatched up some amazing finds amidst the cast-off electronics, dingy appliances, and piles of moldering books, including gorgeous antique jewelry, an old manual coffee grinder, which I bought for the Mister (he has admired his grandmother's), fun books, and mod vases. She found a solid silver 1970s watch and some fabulous rhinestone jewelry, and I bought an art-deco ring and a lovely pale blue milk-glass bead necklace. We were also endlessly amused by the characters selling the wares, all of whom had an eagerness to talk. One woman, once she found out we were American, had us trapped for a good quarter of an hour, and was most enthused about pictures she had seen of a friend's son's house in--"that country, what's it called?"--New England, where they have "little wild animals who live in the trees and eat hard fruit, what are they called?"--squirrels!

Flush with our purchases, we drove back to Brussels in the rain. The Mister was already back from Barcelona when I arrived, and as always, it was especially nice to see his face again after traveling in opposite directions. Actually, when we sat down to go over the April and May calendar, it was sobering to realize that he'll be away from Brussels for 30 days out of 47. So a lazy Sunday afternoon side-by-side was a storing up of together time, embraces that will have to last us twice as long.

Swirly

I have to write about Madrid last weekend, and let me warn you, it's going to sound like bragging. Because it involves fantastic weather and amazing food and the Mister solemnly promising--under flashing lights and video--to do his new, prestigious job to the best of his ability. His mother got teary-eyed, I fumbled the voice recorder, but kept snapping pictures (it went so fast!), and my dad got lots of good shots of Spanish men in suits doing a lot of shaking of hands until they were all whisked away to sign papers. Oh, and to cap it all off, that evening we toasted champagne glasses in the breathtaking rotunda bar of the Palace Hotel with a well-known NPR correspondent.

In less than three days we managed to visit the Prado, the Reina Sofia (I was happy to have the chance to revisit Picasso's Guernica), and the new Caixa Forum, which features a garden wall--no, I mean a wall of garden, as in, the garden is integrated into a three-story building's facade. Let's see, there were lots of tapas, especially Galician pulpo and empanadas, an attempt to learn a bit of the local lingo both on advanced levels and beginner (um, my dad), and the consensus among our little group that while Barcelona is the superior city, you can't beat Madrileños for friendliness.

Once back in Brussels, our life is already changing. We'll (he'll) be traveling even more than we were, which I imagine could get tiresome but for the moment seems great. We'll have to see how things go between here and Barcelona and whether we'll tend to favor one over the other as "home base."

Another bit of exciting news came in the form of a package that held the page proofs for my book translation. I was most tickled when I saw my translator's introduction all book-like there in the front, being the only thing that I actually wrote, instead of translated, besides a few scattered notes. Still, it's quite something to feel the project coming together so tangibly, a stack of paper that is starting to look like a book!

Tomorrow I am going to revisit the town of Spa, Belgium, with a gaggle of other girls for a bachelorette weekend. (Yes, the same place the Mister and I visited with a wedding gift voucher.) I have never been to a bachelorette party (that I can remember...), much less a whole weekend, so I'm both ridiculously excited about it and a little nervous. My wedding-party attendance has pretty much been limited to prim wedding showers that usually involve tea and lots of pastel. Events this weekend will range from pampering (afternoon at the spa and spending the night at a nice hotel) to gambling (at the town's Casino). The fact that I've never gambled at a casino in my life and I wouldn't know the first thing about how to play the games--not to mention my risk-adverse and penny-pinching nature--will probably limit any craziness that might occur.

Now that I think about it, it works out nicely that the first of many weekends the Mister has to be away for work, I'll be off with the girls for some Spa fun.

New job

So, the exciting news of this week is that the Mister will be inducted into his new position on Monday! We just found out yesterday when it would be, and since it's taking place in Madrid, this entailed a last-minute scramble for tickets. Even more surprising is that my dad is flying to Madrid as well--he couldn't resist seeing his son-in-law's formal installation in his new position. Or rather, couldn't resist being there to take pictures! M's parents will arrive by train, so I'm really looking forward to all of us getting together.

Blogging retroactively

Because I don't have brilliant ideas for blog posts at the moment, and by way of fleshing out the story of my stateside visit (retroactively filling in the gaps of those not very bloggy two weeks, especially for the benefit of my grandparents, who like to know what I'm up to--hi, grandpa and grandma!), I shall make post-trip comments on my pre-trip lists. As you shall see, I did a remarkably good job of accomplishing everything. That is the purpose of lists, and that is why I love them.

This was the to-do list:

Admire some pregnant bellies: We managed to get together with my sister-in-law and a dear high school friend, both named Jen, both pregnant, in a Mexican restaurant (see below--multitasking!) in Boston. Neither knew the other was pregnant, and it was fun for all of us to catch up. Also, regarding this note: upon arrival in Vermont, my dad, eager to detect some baby envy, immediately grilled me as to what exactly I meant by admiring pregnant bellies. Will I be getting pregnant any time soon? Ah, now there's a question.

Cancel a credit card: Even though I had to listen to a series of other possible credit card offers, at least they gave me the (exorbitant!) annual fee back. Also regarding the credit theme: In college I cosigned a loan for a friend who has no family. Hadn't thought anything of it for eight years, having completely lost touch with her. Now I discover that she has not been paying her bills, and that this can affect my own credit, informed thusly by several loan people who kept calling my parents' house. Not terribly fun news. And how on earth can I find her and beg her to pay her loan and not wreck my credit?

Solve the case of the missing Pottery Barn comforter delivery: In the category of best customer service ever, we went to see the people at PB to ask them about a wedding gift (I bought it using gift certificates) that never arrived, almost TWO years ago. According to their records, it had been delivered two days after the order was made, but they STILL reimbursed us for the whole amount. I LOVE American customer service!

Watch one of the nephews walk and listen to the other one talk, shower with as much auntly attention as possible: This was the principle activity whenever they were around. The little guy is walking like crazy, always with this grin of sheer joy on his face, joy at his self-propelled mobility. The older little guy is at such a vividly intense stage right now. We had Spanish lessons, and danced, and I taught the kiddo some cool moves like the crabwalk. One fascinating world-of-the-imagination thing that he has being doing lately is that he has some sheep, but he lost them. So he's always asking people, "Where are my sheep?" "Does mommy have my sheep?" "Do you know where my sheep are?" This is all very serious business, and you have to help him in his mission to find the missing sheep. He's like a little boy bo peep. This of course fit in nicely with the Easter theme, although I hope that it didn't mess with his mind that we had solid chocolate sheep for dessert on Easter and bit off their heads in due course.

Get certified copy of marriage certificate so stupid Spanish consulate will finally be happy with our paperwork and give us a Libro de familia: There are a lot of good reasons to be from a small town, and this is one of them. Instead of long lines and a huge embassy and bored people and red tape, we just waltzed into our little clapboard town hall and asked for a marriage certificate copy. The lady there, the one who does everything, asked me how Brussels was, and if I had gotten my absentee ballot for the primaries, and if I knew so-and-so, who is living in France. Five minutes, ten bucks, and a pleasant conversation later, I had my copy. If only things were this easy on the Spanish end of things.

Eat Mexican food: I ordered burritos and tacos and black bean anything every chance I got, even at not-exactly Mexican places. And we made quesadillas and taco salad, and I was happy.

Eat mom's food: I'll say. She made some of her classic dishes, and we all were super happy. She and I pored over cookbooks and food magazines and more than once, when one of us said, "Ooh, we should make that!", the other one had already bookmarked it in her head.

Drive back and forth between Boston and Vermont a bunch of times, soak in beloved scenery: Besides the trip up to Vermont and back to get to and from the airport, the Mister and I just made one fast trip, and crammed it all into two busy days. But I just love that drive, the views from the highway, the way the mountains welcome you as you travel further north, how the snow goes from nothing to little islands of snow in shady spots below trees, to full blown white coverage.

See some snow: Lots of it! We had some fantastic snow/slushstorms for the driving, which made for slippery roads and slow going, but we made it all in one piece. And it was worth it to see all the snow. And we went sledding! What's winter without a good slide down the hill in a flimsy piece of plastic? Infinitely better if a two-year old is sitting in your lap and you're both screaming and laughing.

Shop: Um, I'll say. Due to the fabulous exchange rate at the moment, the Mister and I were like pigs in slop. I am embarrassed to say that I got FIVE pairs of shoes, effectively doubling my footwear wardrobe. This should last me for at least a year or two. (Remember, I have yet to find a shoe store in Europe that carries shoes in my size, so it was kind of a necessity.) But everything was such a good deal with sales, and then with the exchange rate it was crazy cheap. The Mister bought two beautiful suits at one of those suit warehouse places, lots of dress shirts and ties, and blazers and pants. Clothes-wise I got a few things, including jeans, an adorable velvet blue coat lined in polka-dots, and a dress that hopefully will work for one of the weddings we'll go to this spring and summer.

Rifle through my things in my parents' basement, soak in beloved books (and snatch a few for expatriation): It's always kind of bittersweet to do this because I end up wanting to take all my books back with me. This time, besides a few that I grabbed for thesis purposes, I decided to take Anne Carson's translation of Sappho, If Not, Winter. I love that book and I can't wait to read through it again. Besides that, my parents gave me a bunch of novels to read, and I bought a good pile of books at our favorite Burlington used-book store. When I got back to Brussels, and stacked up all the books I had carried with me, I was amazed I had been able even to lift my suitcases. Oh, and the pile includes a Vermont cookbook, from which I have already made two recipes involving maple syrup and craisins, which I also carried back in my suitcase.

Hang out to the max with family and friends: As should be evident by now, I did lots of this! It was amazing to have the whole family together on Easter weekend, and just as fabulous to have my parents to myself during the week after Easter.

Celebrate Easter: Easter at our little white-steepled New Englandy church is so beautiful, and since I hadn't been to that service for years and years, it was especially nice to be there. My mom directs the choir, and it speaks volumes of her skills that a motley crew of singers from the church, including the requisite warbly old ladies and off-pitch "operatic" tenors, can sound as good as they do. In fact, they sounded fantastic. Plus, as always on Easter, there was a brass quartet, and at the end of the service, anyone can go up and sing the Hallelujah chorus with the choir. I sang with them, and just couldn't stop smiling as I watched my husband take pictures, familiar faces beaming from the pews, and a certain little two-year old who was stretching his mouth as wide as he could in imitation of our oval-mouthed hallelujahs.

Easter week

I just made the mistake of checking Brussels weather, as I start to contemplate returning to it on Thursday. The thought is as unpleasant as the weather there, rainy and gray. At least I'll be returning to the Mister; the only advantage of him leaving three days earlier than me is that I am eager to get back to where he is.

Vermont has treated us well, in all of her late winter glory. Bright snow, brittle cold, frozen ruts in the mud, sap running, the sharp etch of the mountain against blue skies. We've seen some glorious sunsets, one of them peeking out from under the edge of a snowstorm as we drove up I-89, backlighting the snowflakes, and making me wonder if snow-rainbows exist. Another sunset painted the side of Mt. Mansfield a perfect pink.

Last night I walked to the end of the driveway and looked up at the stars. I had forgotten how brilliantly you can see the stars in a dark, clear-sky place. How they press down and around you and seem to speak or sing.

This has been a fabulous trip, and I seem to have lost my willpower to blog when the far more appealing option of hanging out with my nephews or siblings is available. Easter weekend went by so quickly (Happy Easter!) but it was wonderful, and the Easter service was so bubblingly happy and beautiful and Vermonty. Also, watching a two-year-old look for easter eggs is probably the most entertaining thing ever.

He has just learned how to leave phone messages, so we've received some gems this week, including one in which his one-sided conversation goes: "Hi" [pause] "gooood" [pause] "I love you" [pause] "Bye", then, in off-stage innocent consternation, "Why don't they answer?"

Let's see, other than nephew cuteness, there were plenty of card games, a lot of really and truly good food, my (little!) brother's 21st birthday, and a whirlwind trip to Boston during which we got to see some good friends and their babies (or to-be babies), tour my brother and sister-in-law's renovation, visit the MFA, and find some deeply discounted suits to suit the Mister for his new job (starting April 1).

I promise to get back to my regularly scheduled blogging once back in terra belga on Friday. Until then, I'll be soaking up my share of Vermontiness and eating more than my share of my mom's lace cookies.