Ordinary people hate solitude.
But the Master makes use of it,
embracing his aloneness, realizing
he is one with the whole universe.
(Tao Te Ching, 42)
I know I have always been alone. There is no other way. Before, when I had a husband and two children at home, and living parents I lived alone and it hurt because deep inside of me there was the belief that I shouldn’t feel alone. Continue reading
This is the truth. The more
time I spend without writing an entry for the blog, the harder it gets. Now at
least I have one sentence. What is going on? Continue reading
I have just returned with a handful of wildflowers picked in the field by the vineyard behind the building where I live. I didn’t expect to find so many and so varied flowers that nearby. But spring is that, isn’t it? Continue reading
There are four photographs in my general collection that I treasure above all others: they are of the four generations of women in my family starting from when my mother was two years old. Continue reading
The patter of rain drops on leaves and the song of the thrush in the trees are the only two sounds I hear. Then in the distance, the chiming of church bells… the symphony of Salies through my studio window. Continue reading
There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle. Albert Einstein
There are two things of which I am sure: there are no mistakes and there are no coincidences. That means that everything is just as it should be and everything is a miracle. Nary a doubt. Continue reading
This is what it looks like when writer’s block sets in. In the morning a thought appears: I should write a piece for the blog. And then reality takes over and before I know it, I’ve tried everything to avoid doing it: writing. This has happened every day since I’ve been back and until this moment it had succeeded in making me more barren than sand dunes in the Sahara. Continue reading
Wouldn’t you know it? Today was a beautiful day in Salies. Not a cloud in the sky, brisk chilly air with a slight spring breeze. And of course my first thought was: Why now? Continue reading
It seems as if I have lived here always and yesterday it was barely three months. Three months ago I left my apartment in Madrid for the last time, climbed into a car loaded with everything I thought I would need minus what had already gone with the movers, headed north for my usual drive to Salies in an unusual month, got a speeding ticket upon drawing near to San Sebastian practically at the French border (was I in a hurry to get here?) and finally drew up to the Hotel Parc Casino where I was to spend my first two nights as a resident of Salies. Continue reading
I turned on the news this morning for the first time in years because a friend has a sister New Zealand. I got to see many things waiting for the update: the massacre in Libya, the faces of the mercenaries who –I was informed- are shooting people right and left for 2000 Euros a day, pictures of the landslide in Christchurch under which there is no hope of finding anyone alive, and a report on the continuing slaughter of seals in Canada with graphic pictures of their attempts to escape the bludgeoning. Continue reading
Writing a life 