There! It has begun! And the miracle, I simply must write even if only a paragraph. The sky bright blue, a sun that has been washed and re-washed by weeks of rain has burst through. Everything glows and glitters, and the air tastes like a popsicle upon entering the throat: so clean, so clear. Unbelievable! Yes! At what time of the night or early dawn did the clouds race away and hide behind the distant hills, or should I be Shakespearian and say “yonder hills”?

My bakery was open this morning for a short time so I rushed out with Salomé to buy my usual Sunday croissants and then home again for coffee because all the Cafés were closed. That way I could warm the croissants up in the little toaster oven in my kitchen which is as bright as a tropical bird.   My way home was accompanied by bird song as if some feathered choir had set out to tweet and pi-you and caw and chirp in honor of the long missed sun. Once again I could wax Shakespearian: “But soft! What light in yonder window breaks? It is the East and Juliet is the sun!” Or rather: “It is the sun at long last breaking in the East!”

In case anyone is wondering why I have suddenly gone poetic, it is all the fault of my daughter’s second son, Fernando. He is fifteen and applying to an art and theater school in Los Angeles for which he must audition with a Shakespearian monologue. He chose Romeo’s speech as the foot of Juliet’s balcony and I helped him to practice, thus learning parts of it myself. What play of words! What marvelous images! What incredible rhythm! I must take up reading Shakespeare this year so that I might once more fall absolutely in love with the English language.

In a while, I will meet Kiwi-san for lunch at Salies’ best restaurant, worthy of a Bib Michelin this year… oops: last year.  In the meantime, I have trimmed the dead flowers and leaves from the overly-soaked window boxes and poured off the surplus rain water and finally hung up the birdfeeder in hopes that wayward tits and robins will come to feed.

And speaking of feeding, Salomé sits patiently at my feet looking up, hoping that soon I will finish this piece and get her lunch. So that is it for this first Beginning.