Maia's Into The Moonlight

2009-09-15T00:55:00.000-07:00

Oil on paper

It has been fun doing the blog. When I started it back in June, almost 4 months ago, I did not know how it worked, what were the steps to make it dance. I did not even, I realized, have a tune for it. And then I started visiting other blogs, meeting some fantastic people, learning from everyone, and I think I found my stride. Actually in the end the blog found its stride, the puppet leading the puppeteer. But now I have to steer away from "routes touristiques", start up another road, and be away for a while. I dont know for how long, but I do know that I will miss you, and want to wish you all the very best.

2009-09-11T02:35:00.000-07:00

A POET

“Late in her life, when we fell in love
I’d take her out from the nursing home
for a chaser and two bourbons. She’d crack
a joke sharp as a tin lid
hot from the teeth of the can-opener,
and cackle her crack-corn laugh…”

Poem by Sharon Olds, Grandmother Love Poem

I prefer prose to poetry, but Sharon Olds puts words into my mouth like foreign foods. I don’t know if it is animal or plant, but I know it is good, it is so perfectly right. Reading her poems is like recognizing the half of me that only I know about. That inner self held tight, held down, held hidden from the surface of proper behavior.

After the Rape in Our Building

“The day after we heard about it,
We made love, in the morning, he entered me
And I thought, It’s not so bad, I could hardly feel anything,
Just something hard going in and out of me
Somewhere far away down my body
Like something seen from a distance, an ocean liner
Going down twenty miles away…”

Olds is strong, she is direct, she “carries the reader through rooms of passion and loss”. A lot has been written about Sharon Olds, that she has a raw language, that she transmits truths about violence, and sexuality, and relationships in families. For me she illuminates places most of us keep comfortably dim or covered, so they seem not to exist.

Sharon Olds’s jolting images heighten my creativity. There is an emotional beauty in her chilling tragedies. She infuses evil and cruelty in the secret corners of her poems. We understand that her childhood was very painful, but what an invincible spirit!

The Eye

“My bad grandfather wouldn’t feed us.
He turned the lights out when we tried to read.
He sat alone in the invisible room
in front of the hearth, and drank. He died
when I was seven, and Grandma had never once
taken anyone’s side against him,
the firelight on his red cold face
reflecting extra on his glass eye.
Today I thought about that glass eye,
and how at night in the big double bed
he slept facing his wife, and how the limp
hole, where his eye had been, was open
towards her on the pillow, and how I am
one-fourth him, a brutal man with a
hole for an eye, and one-fourth her,
a woman who protected no one. I am their
sex, too, their son, their bed, and
under their bed the trap-door to the
cellar, with its barrels of fresh apples, and
somewhere in me too is the path
down to the creek gleaming in the dark, a
way out of there.”

Sharon Olds is a stunning poet who speaks to me. I have all of her books which I read often. And each time her words, coming from a place that is real, and opaque, and dark, give me clarity. She makes me want to paint, because my brushes are what I have. Her words are my colors, her images are my dreams.

Ecstasy

“As we made love for the third day,
cloudy and dark, as we did not stop
but went into it and into it and
did not hesitate and did not hold back we
rose through the air, until we were up above…

…on the crest of the mountains, one huge
cloud with scalloped edges of blazing
evening light, we did not turn back,
we stayed with it, even though we were
far beyond what we knew, we rose
into the grain of the cloud, even though we were
frightened, the air hollow, even though
nothing grew there, even though it is a
place from which no one has ever come back.”

She takes me to that place, then she releases me.

2009-09-08T07:48:00.000-07:00

PAINTING AND “MOONLIGHT”, THE MAKING OF A PRIZE

A doorway in Rome, Italy

Painting has always been my own particular potential. For 30 years, I lived for painting, obsessed with it. When I was not painting I was daydreaming about images, composing them in my head. I painted all the time, alongside cooking the meals, helping the kids with their homework and during our constant moves from one country to another. To sleep among my paintings was beautiful, so I could see them first thing as I woke up.

The porch at my old house in Washington, D.C.

Everything about painting excited me: The smell of turpentine. Forming the shapes on the canvas bit by bit. The triumph of finishing a painting, and hanging it on a wall. Seeing it becoming infused with the life I gave it and then giving it a name.

"Private Pleasures", at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.

I am a realist painter. I paint what interests me. Everyday objects. People. Interiors. Landscapes. Fruits and vegetables. Beautiful things and scary thoughts. Every painting is my composition of photo images from many different places and times, and persistent thoughts that result in a different story for each viewer. I love letting people tell stories to themselves.

Mint tea on a Portuguese verandah.

In the 80’s and 90’s realist painting was unfashionable. If you painted beautiful objects, you were labeled square, conventional and traditional by critics who wanted to see the abstract or the outrageous. The public was told to believe that “art” was only far out and extreme forms – and done by artists that the critics approved. Yes, art, like all culture, is also political. But not everyone follows what critics recommend. Nearly every painting I did was bought almost before it was finished.

Several reflections of my daughter.

It takes me a long time to complete a painting. I have never been able to do more than about 12 large paintings a year. The image of what I want to do usually forms slowly in my mind – often over months or years. But sometimes it bursts out fully developed like Zeus from the head of Athena. When the images are clear, I sketch the thinnest of lines on the canvas, notations only. Color is my guide. The images take shape with paint and color. If there is a central figure, I paint that face first. If I get it right, I know the rest of the painting will fall into place. Weeks later, when I am finishing the last details of the painting and cannot bear to be in front of it any longer, the release of completing it is total. I have been called an aesthete. So be it. I always thought that if I could add a touch of beauty to the world – and still touch on every story -- what was wrong with hat?

A chapel window in Sintra, Portugal.

The above is a reflection on my very first entry when I started blogging in June. Now I’m back in the studio, sorting out my next painting, so I wanted to show you some earlier ones.

An old coach entrance to a building in Madrid.

But the other reason for bringing up painting is that I decided to recognize some of the very talented people I have come across in the three months I have been blogging. I call this recognition “Moonlight”. I have been puzzling about the image and here is the final result of a number of sketches.

MOONLIGHT

Moonlight in this case represents the glorious brain-sharpening, mood-enhancing experience one feels when reading or seeing something inspirational in other blogs. Something that sets the tone for the rest of your day, puts a smile on your face, stimulates your work, or makes you feels awesome about life. It is not often one feels wonderful. But some days, some blogs do just that.

I want to give “moonlights” to all the special blogs I encounter.

There are no obligations attached to the recognition. But if you feel like it, you can pass it on to whoever has also given you that something special, what in Spanish they call “eso”, or “it”. Whatever “it” is that lifts your spirits and helps you to up your mental game.

”Moonlights” go to three talented artists I very much admire.

http://carolinescrayons.blogspot.com/
http://cheryldelosreyescruz.blogspot.com/
http://bowsprite.wordpress.com/

These “moonlights” go to wonderful photographers:

http://infobybvc.blogspot.com/
http://ruthie822.blogspot.com/
http://viagensimagensepensamentos.blogspot.com/

“Moonlights” for wonderful people with a lot of pluck:

http://karin-wiseoldwoman.blogspot.com/
http://accessdenied-livingwithms.blogspot.com/
http://whatlifeisabout-lucy.blogspot.com/

“Moonlights” for blogs that delight me:

http://tonavigatethroughlife.blogspot.com/
http://wescobich.wordpress.com/
http://avagabonde.blogspot.com/
http://meriak.blogspot.com/
http://vickilanemysteries.blogspot.com/
http://athousandclappinghands.blogspot.com/
http://ofscarabs.blogspot.com/
http://lifeinthesecondhalf.blogspot.com/
http://frikosmusings.blogspot.com/
http://a-room-of-one-s-own.blogspot.com/
http://20thcenturywoman.com/

In the future I will be handing out more “moonlights” to other bloggers who inspire me.

2009-09-02T10:29:00.000-07:00

THE PARTY NEVER STOPPED IN THE ALENTEJO

It took us 4 days to reluctantly depart from Nuno’s place in northern Alentejo. For privacy reasons, I did not photograph any of the people invited – except for a fleeting image of Jeanne – or his house. But I had free reign to photograph any detail.

The days were a constant swirl of activity. Nuno pulled out all the stops. The food was earthy, country elegant and wonderful. September is vindima time in the northern Alentejo, and the grapes were being harvested for Nuno’s limited production organic wine. We rode in calèches and took long walks in the country side. There was horseback riding for the aficionados, exciting conversations, music, and last but not the least, all eyes were on Jeanne and Nuno.

Luisa, the pretty maid, seeing us go on another outing.

Our dog Maxi loved the freedom.

The vindima workers.

Forget about cars. Caleches are the way to move around.

The children from Nuno's school watching a puppet show.

Meals were always in different settings. Breakfasts on the terrace, lunches on elegantly set tables among the trees, dinners in the main dining room or on the porch, picnics under the cork oaks, elevenses. We did not stop eating. Guida prepared fantastic meals with vegetables and herbs from the house garden and meat from the farm’s chickens and sheep. We ate Sável from the nearby river. Sinful and divine desserts. The food was typically Portuguese country and finger licking delicious.

Guida's kitchen.

Breakfast on the terrace.

A hearty vegetable soup.

Guida's pasteis de nata, the typical Portuguese cream confection.

Freshly baked chicken empadas.

Fresh Alentejo tomato soup, made with requeijao, a rich cottage cheese.

Veal fricassee.

Chicken in a red wine sauce.

An orange flan

Nuno’s passion, the Lusitanian horses, are magnificent, regal, symbols of the eternal. They are beautifully proportioned, holding their heads high as if to be crowned. I just stared from a distance. I know nothing about horses, but anyone can see that these are superior animals, made to be ridden by the greater gods of Ancient Greece.

Jeanne and Nuno, what can I say? Nuno is completely smitten by her, and I think Jeanne is equally over the moon. In fact she stayed on in the Alentejo, and Nuno will be driving her to the airport when she returns to Paris. Are they going to get together and live happily ever after? I doubt it. Nuno loves his place and is not a moveable beast. Jeanne loves her life and I doubt she is about to give up her profession and freedom. But I think their romance will continue, in the Alentejo, in Paris, or anywhere they arrange to meet.

This visit to Nuno’s farm was a wonderful interlude, an aria in molto allegretto.

2009-08-27T05:32:00.000-07:00

LAST SUMMER DINNER AND A CONVERSATION IN ALLEGRO GRAZIOSO

With dusk creeping a little nearer every day and August coming to an end, we gave a last dinner party before closing up the house and heading back to Madrid. We invited six friends, who met each other for the first time.

Sofia and Duarte, architects in Maputo, on holiday around Europe.
Jeanne, a “musicienne” from Paris, here on holiday.
Patricia, an Argentine yoga and meditation teacher recently moved to Portugal.
Nuno, a land owner in the Alentejo, and an inveterate bachelor.
Miguel, a Portuguese journalist just back from the US who came without his wife.
Us, Celeste and Bob.

With this highly diverse group, the conversation was eclectic:

M- America is seething with change. It’s the only place I have seen where people walk around with assault rifles outside a war zone. The gun situation is a cancer in America’s society. But it is a country with guts. The deep national debate over health care is amazing, both for the health care mess and for the determination to make it work better.
B- It is an exciting time in America. I think Obama will get health care reform, but the vested interests are strong and they are making it as costly as possible for him.
S- And with Fox News and other radical Republicans constantly breathing down Obama’s neck, criticizing, spinning, doing everything to make Obama have a political failure, it takes real steel to prevail.
D- But Obama is doing so much right. Africa is waking up to America again. My God! Bush was so incompetent. It is so important to the rest of the world to have a good American President. His color matters for some things, but when it comes to his intellect he is universal.
J- You are so turned to America and I am so involved with Portugal! Today I visited the Palácio da Fronteira. Il est d’une telle beauté, so beautiful. I was completely taken by its fabulous collection of azulejos.

C- There’ s a book in French, “La Frontière”, with the story of “le bestière”, those bizarre animals from the XVIII century painted on the azulejos.

P- I heard Maria João Pires play Beethoven’s Fourth Piano concert there. I remember being completely taken by the atmosphere in the palace, and this fragile woman at the piano, entranced and precise.
J- I played Schumann’s Piano Quintet with Maria João, inoubliable!, an unforgettable experience for me.
D- That’s what we miss most living in Mozambique, the culture, museums, concerts. For instance, to see Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in a scenario like the Regaleira Palace, in Sintra. It worked so well in the garden at night, the island was real amidst the thick foliage.
C- Prospero doing his magic in the mysterious garden, Miranda appearing on the tower, I can’t think of a better background for that play.

D- Living in Maputo is beautiful, but it doesn’t have the intellectual depth of Europe. Will we ever get there?
C- Don’t knock Lourenço Marques. I am who I am today thanks to growing up there. Granted, I am not the same person I was then, even though I thought then was forever.

J- This is a muqueca de camarão we are eating, isn’t it? I remember having it in Salvador de Bahia.

P- Right now I am in Brazilian heaven. Who was the cook?
C- I did it. Is it too spicy?
B- Actually Celeste climbed the tree for the coconut, cracked it open, drank the water, then straddled the coconut stool and rhythmically shredded the flesh. So sexy.
C- I wish I did….

N- (Whispering) Tell me about Jeanne, she is so interesting, is she married?
C- (Whispering) She was married, but going on tournees all the time took its toll, and they separated. I don’t know if she has anyone now. Why don’t you ask her?
J- Dites nous Nuno, tell us what it’s like living in the Alentejo.
N- Mainly, I breed Lusitanian horses, which are bought by Arabs from the Gulf. But my current passion is restoring a fifth century convent I bought with the economic crisis, and I am opening a school for poor, rural children. The school will teach music appreciation, as well as literature, science, mathematics and languages. It would be wonderful if you could do a concert for the kids while you are here.
S- It does help to have the means to do all one wants. It is a different story when you are limited economically like us.
P- That’s not true. Look, I am 54 and own nothing. I left an easy, familiar life in Argentina and I am starting again in another country. I emigrated only with my expertise -- yoga and meditation classes for executives. It helps increase productivity and alertness. I am signing a contract with the telephone company in September to limber up the suits.
J- How about your family in Argentina?
P- The glue that holds a marriage together, sometimes it’s messy and embarrassing, so I cut entirely with the past. I guess you could put my inner age at 18!
C- Here’s to second chances!
S- To leave one’s country with only a dream, and begin again elsewhere at 54, yes, very daring.
M- We all know that success, power, fame, and especially happiness come with expiration dates.
B- Not necessarily. You have to know when to stop and, like Patricia, re-invent yourself.
D- As they say, think globally, live globally.
C- Patricia, why Portugal, why did you leave Argentina to come here?
P- It is an easy country to settle in, and things are going well for me. I may not be here forever. Let’s see what the future holds.
D- I cannot conceive of living outside Maputo, with all its problems, it is the place that makes the most sense for me.
S- Me too.
C- Bob and I like to move and start again. It is a challenge to learn a different language, make a new home, make new friends, plunge deep into a new culture. It keeps us on our toes. We both have portable professions. As long as I have my easel and books and the dog is happy, that’s where home is.
J- Paris is where I always return to, my center of gravity. But I travel constantly for concerts. Ideally I spend half the year in Paris and half on the road.
M- My wife would love to leave Portugal and go live elsewhere, but my work is here with the paper, I have the job I always wanted. I suppose I could take a year off to write. But not yet, maybe in some years.
N- I am perfectly happy in the Alentejo, I am one of those people who don’t travel well. I am like a tree, my roots go deep. When I am in another country I miss my house and my horses, the special smell of the air in the fields, Guida’s delicious cooking. I only travel for music, Prague’s musical festival, operas at La Scala, for me music is the main reason to travel.
P- When are you having a show, Celeste?
C- I am starting a new art project when I return to Madrid. I will be totally involved with it, won’t have much time for blogging or anything else.
B- She has been blogging all summer.
J- C’ est vraie? But you must give me the link.
N- When do you leave for Spain? Would you like to spend the weekend at my place in northern Alentejo? I think you will enjoy the horses, do you like horseback riding?
B- The weekend would be great, on our way back to Madrid.
M- Perfect, I will count on you for lunch on Saturday. It is near Avis, about an hour and a half from here, I’ll email the map with directions.
B- I’ve always wanted to explore that area more.
C- We have our dog with us, is he also invited?
N- Of course. Jeanne would you like to come with Bob and Celeste? It will be another Portuguese experience for you. And of course Patricia, Miguel, Sofia, Duarte, you are also invited.
S- We leave tomorrow for France, but we would love to come another time we are in Portugal. I am crazy about horses too.
P- I am giving a yoga retreat this weekend, too bad.
M- My wife arrives Saturday, maybe another time?
N- Jeanne? I hope you can come.
J- Avec plaisir, but I don’t ride horses.
N- Madame, I will take you in a calèche to see my vineyards. Would you like that?
J- Bien sur!
P- Celeste, tell us about this art project, please.
C- It is too soon to speak about it. I will tell you more when it is underway.
M- Do give me the recipe for the muqueca, I want to cook it for my wife, she loves everything spicy and exotic.
C- I will post it on the blog.

Muqueca de Camarão (for 8 people)

3 tablespoons Dendê oil (red palm oil, a staple in Brazilian cuisine)
2 medium onions, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 ½ cups coconut milk (bottled or canned)
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
3 large tomatoes peeled seeded and chopped
Salt and fresh red cayenne pepper
2 lbs of peeled shrimp
Bunch of coriander, chopped

Heat the dendê oil, and softly cook the onion and garlic until translucid. Add the salt, lime juice, tomatoes and cayenne. When barely cooked, add the coconut milk. Simmer. After the sauce thickens, add the shrimp for about 3 minutes. Switch off. Let it sit for a while, or better still, cook the muqueca the day before. Then, just before serving, heat it up and add a good amount of chopped coriander. Serve with Basmati rice.

2009-08-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

PATAGONIA ON MY MIND

Argentina's Route 40, like US Route 66, drives deep into your imagination.

Patagonia exists almost more in my mind than as a concrete geographic place. The images from a visit in December and January will not go away. Patagonia is a place to be swallowed up by. It has so many sides to it that you can find your own separate reality and live it out. In my case, I found many realities that I continue to live out mentally. Maybe I will choose one and go back.

But how does one get to that memory, that desire? Even Bruce Chatwin, whose "In Patagonia" is one of the great travel books, in the end resorted to recounting stories of others, fantasizing on encounters with unique people and inventing quests. I dogged Chatwin during my journey in Patagonia and talked with people he talked with, went to the places he went to. It would be easy to say he was a phony, but in the end I understood he had arrived at a deeper truth about Patagonia. I appreciated that Chatwin was striving to express a deeper, mystical, truth about the place: That Patagonia exists more solidly as an idea.

We traveled 10 hours by plane around Patagonia and did 3000 kilometers by car, and still only saw a fraction of this immense expanse. So as one of the proverbial blind men defining an elephant, I will let the images below show the flawed glimpses of what I saw of Patagonia.

In 1901 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Miss Etta Price, settled right here in Cholilla, province of Chubut, Argentina. They lived like gentlemen farmers for about 5 years, inviting the local people and the governor of the province for parties, where the Sundance Kid entertained them playing sambas on his guitar. But Etta Price got impatient with so much gracious living and incited them back to the exciting life of robbing banks. With the American and Argentine police after them, they escaped to Bolivia, where it is believed that they died in a shootout.

Sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, one comes across a lonely rider.

The immense Perito Moreno glacier, covering more territory than Buenos Aires.

Breathtaking Torres del Paine, in Chile.

Puerto Natales is known for its "magellanic" architecture, with colorful houses made of wood and corrugated zinc plates. Abandoned dogs are everywhere in Patagonia, it breaks your heart. We gave them food, but it was like a grain of sand.

Wind. There is wind everywhere in Patagonia, and the further south you go, the more wind there is. In Punta Arenas they put ropes at the intersections so people will not be blown out into traffic.

The emptiness of Patagonia prompts the few people who live there to reach out for very personal forms of spirituality. You come upon lovingly cared for shrines in the most desolate spots. These shrines are mainly dedicated to two very popular “saints” in the local folklore.

Gauchito Gil was a young cowhand murdered by the authorities in an atrocious way because he loved the rich widow who owned the estancia. At the place where he was killed, miracles were recounted – good ones for the poor and bad ones for the rich. His red-painted shrines with his painted or sculpted image are filled with bottles of wine and cigarettes.

Difunta Correa was a young woman who had just given birth and died of thirst while walking through Patagonia’s vastness. When her body was found four days later, her baby was still alive and nursing from the dead woman’s breast. Difunta Correa’s shrines, with the image of the miracle, are piled with mountains of bottles of water.

Patagonia's magnificent fauna -- eagles, guanacos, foxes, ñandús, and many others.

A characteristic sight in the windy vastness of Patagonia are "arboles bandera" - flag trees - bent from the constant wind.

We stayed at the estancia in Viamonte, belonging to the descendants of Lucas Bridges who wrote the must-read book on Tierra del Fuego, "The Uttermost Part Of The Earth".

Traveling south in Tierra del Fuego.

The meeting of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans – the Drake Passage – is one of the very roughest seas in the world, where countless ships have sunk over the centuries. The End of The World Museum in Ushuaia is filled with beautiful figureheads and historical memories rescued from the waters.

Leaving Ushuaia for Antarctica.

2009-08-11T02:54:00.000-07:00

SINTRA MYSTERY RESOLVED - A CONVERSATION WITH ANNA THULIN

Soon after returning from the north, I received a surprising message from Anna Thulin, who I talked about in a previous entry. She thanked me for my note – left at the hospital the day before she was to be discharged – and invited me for tea.

Ms. Thulin greeted me at the door of her lovely home. She is very pretty and young looking. Proper. Lithe as a dancer.

She took me to a room bathed in sunlight, big windows giving onto a garden. I gasped, recognizing a painting of mine on the wall. Anna smiled and told me she loves the painting, and had always wanted to meet me. What a rare and wonderful coincidence for me!

As we sipped tea and ate little hot almond pastries, Anna Thulin talked. I will try to transmit here, in an impressionistic way, the gist of what she told me.

“I have been like a fish that lives in the sunless depths of the ocean….

“I married a year after arriving in Portugal. I was very young. I was staying with a Swedish couple, friends of my parents, and attending art classes. One day I was invited to a party where I met Vasco. I was blown away by his charm and seduced by his extravagant love of life. I was in over my head.

“I guess we go on playing various roles until we find our own….

“I seemed concocted to fulfill Vasco’s fantasies, like an exotic pet one likes to show off to one’s friends. At first I loved it, to be treated like a valuable collector’s item, but with the passing of years I was more and more dissatisfied. I became filled with frustrated artistic visions, daydreams, restlessness, chain-smoking….

“My husband’s schemes and pace were getting wilder, his demands on me more and more difficult. It frightens me to admit I was frightened.

“I suppose I could just have walked away, but it was not so easy. Everything was his, the travel agency, the houses, the cars, all in his name. I was naïve and he was a lawyer.

“My dissatisfaction with myself was the hardest. I have artistic talents, but if they are not expressed and acknowledged they don’t exist.

“And I was being tossed aside like a fading mistress. I felt there was no way out for me.

“I had to do it, get out of my life -- get out of life as I’ve known it for almost 20 years -- and I felt an unfamiliar kind of courage. I started collecting sleeping pills.

“I went to Hotel Central, a place I know well from work. All our clients stay there. I knew the hotel’s routines well. The rest you know. As it took place in a hotel, it became public. Vasco has a total terror of publicity, he has to control everything. Then he was exposed by his wife’s attempted suicide splattered across the paper. You picked it up. Others did too. The police are all over him because of the note I left behind in the room. I am being invited daily for interviews with TV and papers. He is giving me all I want, divorce, this house, in exchange for my silence.

“You know, the world is beginning all over again for me, and I intend to savor the exciting days ahead. I am going to design fabric. It has been my passion since my art school days in Sweden. I came here to learn how to paint azulejos, Portuguese tiles, and now I am starting again.

“Living means change and growth. Sometimes one has to take risks.”

2009-08-07T23:41:00.000-07:00

PEDRO AND INÊS – A Portuguese Medieval Love Story

Shakespeare wishes. On my trip to the north of Portugal I have been criss-crossing with one of the most beautiful love stories of the Middle Ages, which took place 200 years before Shakespeare’s fable of “Romeo and Juliet”. The Pedro and Inês love story is not only true but fully documented.

It started in 1340, when the heir to the throne of Portugal, Prince Pedro, was 20 years old.

His father, King Afonso IV, the 7th King of the newly created nation of Portugal, had secretly arranged by proxy the marriage of his son to Lady Constanza, a Castillian Princess. Pedro had not been consulted or informed of his arranged marriage because there had been an earlier episode of repudiation. When he was 14 and laid eyes on another Castillian Princess his father had planned to marry him to, he revolted and had the Princess returned to Spain. This time Pedro’s father had arranged that Lady Constanza arrive in Portugal as Pedro’s official wife and future Queen. The Prince was enraged with this “fait accompli”.

When Princess Constanza arrived, Pedro was smitten by one of her ladies-in-waiting, Inês de Castro. In the words of his chronicler, Inês was “...beautiful as a flower, blond as the sun, and extremely elegant.” Pedro fell madly, rapturously in love with her and they became inseparable lovers. The resulting scandal was such that the king ordered his son to stop seeing Inês. Pedro ignored his father’s demand and hid Inês in a castle away from the court.

This situation continued with the mounting disapproval of the King’s counselors, who began insinuating that the only solution was to kill Inês. Afonso IV resisted and instead exiled the young woman to Spain. The lovers were separated for two years, but Pedro, who had a deep romantic streak, stayed strongly connected to Inês through countless poems and love letters he wrote for her.

Princess Constanza died in 1345 while giving birth to a son. Poor Constanza, hers was an unhappy lot. Pedro immediately sent for Inês, ensconcing her in the Santa Clara convent in Coimbra, where Pedro thought she would be protected from the King and his counselors. The lovers met secretly at the nearby Quinta das Lágrimas – the Manor of Tears. Pedro insistently asked the King and the Pope for permission to marry Inês, but his requests were always denied.

With Princess Constanza’s death, Afonso IV’s advisors insisted on Inês’s demise so that Pedro would forget his obsession and consent to marry a princess who would ensure a peace treaty with the Kingdom of Castile.

Finally the King and three advisors planned her murder in all secrecy. They traveled to Coimbra, waited in hiding until the lovers, Inês and Pedro, bid farewell at the Fountain of Tears, and Pedro went off hunting. The assassins chopped her head off in the early morning of January 7, 1355.

Fountain of Tears

The death of his beloved Inês brought out Pedro’s dark side. He was profoundly altered by her murder and vowed to take revenge on her assassins. But he waited until he became King in 1357 upon his father’s death. The three murderers meanwhile fled Portugal, because they knew they would not be safe, and disappeared in Spain.

As soon as he became King Pedro I, with his heart black as tar, Pedro had Inês’s killers hunted down in Spain and brought back to Portugal. Two were found, but the third escaped to France. Pedro had the two men brought before him in the presence of his full court and had their hearts ripped out, one from the front, the other from the back. He then called for vinegar and bit into the still beating hot hearts of the assassins to inflict further insult.

The nobles of the court, the Pope and even Spanish Kings urged Pedro to re-marry, but he refused, saying that he needed time to honor Inês’s memory. Pedro had other ideas.

Seven years after Inês’s death, Pedro, claiming that he had married her in secret and that she was the true Queen of Portugal, had her body exhumed and, covered with a veil, sat on the throne next to his. The royal crown was placed on her head and Pedro ordered all the court nobles to kneel and kiss the dead Queen’s hand.

Pedro also had two magnificent stone sarcophagi sculpted, one for Inês and one for himself, and placed in the Monastery of Alcobaça. The tombs, his and Inês’s, were to be placed foot to foot so that when Judgment Day came and all souls would rise up, they would see each other before anything else.

Pedro took an interest in every symbolic message on the sarcophagi – down to the detail of having effigies of her assassins carved to support her sarcophagus, so they would bear the weight of their sin forever. The tombs, which can be seen today in the Monastery of Alcobaça, are wonderful. And to stand between them, looking from foot to foot, you almost wish you could be there on Judgment Day.

The effigy of one Inês’s murderers bearing the weight of his sin.

The Medieval depiction of the judgement of souls at the foot of Inês’s tomb.

The angels are to help Pedro and Inês rise up on Judgment Day.

2009-07-31T02:03:00.000-07:00

SINTRA MYSTERY

Yesterday afternoon I was having a lemonade at a café in Sintra in a square filled with bougainvillea and wisteria.

Sintra is an enchanting UNESCO World Heritage Site about 15 kilometers away. Leafing through a free newspaper from the table next to me, I came upon an unusual article which I loosely translate here:

‘’July 29, 2009. At the Hotel Central in Sintra, Anna Thulin, a Swedish woman well known in Sintra, was taken by ambulance to the Sintra-Amadora Hospital on Tuesday evening, July 27. The manager of the Hotel Central was alerted by one of the hotel’s cleaning staff who had gone to turn down the sheets in the early evening and found Mrs. Thulin unconscious on a bed. Two empty bottles of sleeping pills were found on the table next to the bed. The hotel staff was unable to provide further information about Ms. Thulin’s stay at the hotel, or any explanation for what appeared to be an attempted suicide.
“The Sintra-Amadora Hospital reported that the patient’s condition was stable, that she is now out of the Intensive Care Unit, resting in a private room and receiving no visitors.
“A member of the Sintra police who did not reveal his name since he is not authorized to speak with the press disclosed that the Mrs. Thulin, 39, a former Swedish beauty queen, has been a resident of Sintra for twenty years, and runs a travel agency in the center of town. The police have no idea why she was renting a room at the Hotel Central, when she resides at a manor house with a large garden next door to her travel agency, just a few hundred meters from the hotel. Her expensive imported car is also missing. The officer stated that the police found an extensive note in Mrs. Thulin’s room, which he said could become the subject of further investigation.
“Miss Clara Pereira, an employee at Mrs. Thulin’s travel agency, said that Anna Thulin was admired in the community and ran a profitable excursions business. However, recently Mrs. Thulin was rarely in the office, and she had to do almost all the work of the agency. Miss Pereira said that Mrs. Thulin always attracted a great deal of attention – and even jealousy -- in Sintra. Miss Pereira added that her boss is married to Mr. Vasco de Sousa, a young, notorious, sports lawyer, and that the couple has no children.
“Mr. Vasco de Sousa did not respond to our repeated requests for comment.
“Mrs. Anna Thulin is apparently out of medical danger, but there remain many questions to be answered about this case."

I closed the paper and thought about the darkest part of the dark in this luminescent square. What could cause a beautiful successful young woman to want to take her life in an emblematic hotel in Sintra? And justify it in an extensive note? Perhaps the real story will never see the light of day, but suicide can be a kind of revenge against those who stay behind.

Note: I will be in the north of Portugal as of Saturday, August 1. I hope to have a few opportunities to keep up with all of you during the next 10 days.

2009-07-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

ANTIPASTO

As best as I can recall, this is the conversation that took place while eating the antipasto pictured here. The group was mainly Portuguese writers – who have lived in the US and in various European countries – and one American and one Italian.
RB – Did you catch Obama’s speech on health care last week?
JS – You mean his comments on American racial prejudice. That’s where the feeling was.
LS – The US still hasn’t mentally digested black people in its society, even though American blacks have obviously intermarried with whites over generations.
CM – American blacks have nothing to do with African blacks, who are really black. American blacks are so light.
RB – In Brazil, if you have a drop of white blood, you are considered white. In America, if you have a drop of black blood, you are black. It’s a matter of cultural perspective, but the mixtures usually work out best of all.
JS – Obama was right to call the cop’s actions “stupidity”. It is something he feels. Once he was stopped by a cop because he was driving a brand new car, and now, blindly racist people challenge whether he was actually born in the US. It is hard for some people to accept that a black belongs in the White House.
LS – He is smoothing it over with a beer with the cop and the professor at the White House. Bush could never have done something like that. He was too insecure. What’s in this pâté? It’s good. Can I have more wine, please?
RB – Sure. It’s quail pâté.

JM – Cable news is reacting to the racial incident – and that’s important – but health care is more pressing. Race relations in America are going in the right direction and health care is going wrong. When I had an operation to do while I was working in America, I went to Canada.
LS – And you would be better off having it almost anywhere in Europe. Soon health care will be globalized and we will be touting Indian heart surgery and Chinese blood work, and Slovenian eye corrections.
CM – I still want someone reliable around the corner, wherever I am.
RB – Obama will probably get some kind of health care reform, but he will get bloodied politically in doing it. That’s what I like about him as President. He is going after the big issues, even though they take their toll.
LB – I would like to see Berlusconi suffer from his actions, but I guess that means he would catch a sexually transmitted disease.
JM – Go easy on Berlusconi. We all need clowns. What is this dark stuff?
CM – Well, America has Palin. It’s a duxelles of pleurotes – chopped mushrooms sautéed with garlic, olive oil and butter.

JM – Mmmmm!
JS -- And fortunately America has Tina Fey to tell us all just what we’re seeing.
LM – But the French theater with Sarkozy and Carla Bruni is more complete. Do I put this green sauce on the cheese? What is it?

RB – Yeah, it is just minced oregano, marjoram and thyme, with garlic, salt and olive oil. Can you think how sad a figure Sarkozy would be without Carla Bruni? That woman makes the man.
LM – You see how persistent Italian women can be?
CM – And Michelle Obama, too. Women are becoming more important to political leaders, even when they come into the picture rather artificially, like Carla Bruni. An American President could never do what Sarkozy did.
LS – Well, no one can ever accuse [Portuguese Prime Minister] Socrates of increasing his popularity with a woman companion.
CM – Maybe it’s time to move in for dinner.

2009-07-26T02:01:00.000-07:00

EARLY MORNING RITUAL part II

When it is windy at Guincho beach, I go south along a rugged and wild coast, dotted with lighthouses and old forts, to the nearby sheltered town of Cascais. Formerly a fishing village and a refuge for deposed kings, in recent years it has become a cosmopolitan town that unfortunately gets filled during this time of the year.

However, in the early morning it is still the sleepy place it used to be. We pass several beach coves, palaces and the massive Cascais fort, and set out on foot on the paredão, literally the big wall, or boardwalk. The solid grey granite paredão snakes behind the beaches to the next town, Estoril, and a bit beyond, along the coast to Lisbon. When the sun is just coming over the horizon, we share the paredão with a few joggers and dog walkers and, later, the waiters bringing out umbrellas and tables for breakfast at the beachfront cafés.

The maresia – the tang of sea and mossy rocks -- is intense. Maxi the dog runs ahead smelling the smells that make a dog’s life so interesting. The beaches are still empty except for the occasional fisherman adjusting rods and lines. The few walkers are diligent in their morning exercises, waving arms, stretching legs, bending knees and limbering up. I laugh to myself thinking that we look like ungainly dancers, with the gestures of prehistoric birds.

At the end of the paredão it is time to start back. But then there is the anticipated stop for breakfast. The waiter has our table set, the shade and sea breeze are welcome, it all looks so appetizing. Maxi gets his bowl of water. I bite into my well buttered ham and cheese toast and I am totally in that moment.

2009-07-23T06:20:00.000-07:00

EARLY MORNING –AND LATE AFTERNOON -- RITUALS IN PORTUGAL – part I

I spend summers on a wild part of the Atlantic coast in Portugal, Guincho, just north of Lisbon. It is an untamed place in the dead center of the Sintra Mountains wind channel. The name “Guincho” onomatopoetically in Portuguese imitates the screech of the strong winds that blow constantly. But on the rare times the wind stops, or “flew away” as my 2 year old grandson remarked one day, it is absolutely glorious to go to Guincho Beach first thing in the morning, even before the surfers arrive.

In my early morning ritual at Guincho, I am there at 7 am with Maxi the dog, who is ecstatic. This beach is his idea of heaven. Mine too. Ours are the first footprints on the fresh sand. We share the beach with the seagulls until Maxi can’t resist chasing them, never catching them as the synchronized flock lifts off and he follows them into the sea, wishing he could fly too. Each morning is the world’s first morning.

On totally windless days we go in the evening to another nearby gorgeous wild beach called Adraga for a picnic as the sun goes down. At the moment the sun disappears we offer a libation of the best red wine to the sun and the earth. I can’t think of a better way to end the day.

When the wind transforms Guincho beach into a screeching sand-blasting inferno, I go to another wonderful place for my early morning ritual. I will show you that next time.

2009-07-19T03:58:00.000-07:00

SUMMER FESTIVALS

Summer is not just beaches, sun tanning and red toenails. Summer is also a time to entertain the mind with new sights and sounds and images.

Last week we went to the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon, along with other pale skinned visitors moving through the taut air of the museum. We went to see again Hieronymus Bosch’s XV Century masterpiece, “The Temptation of St. Anthony”. Bosch’s visionary images cover three panels depicting a hostile world full of mysticism. Bosch holds a mirror to the world with his bizarre irony and magical symbolism, sparing no one: the hypocrisy of the clergy, the extravagance of the nobility and the immorality of the people. His images are hallucinatory and fascinating. I can spend hours looking at each one and always discover new things.

Another evening found us in a fairy tale scenario of the square in front of the São Carlos opera theater for the summer festival of opera, ballet, and theatre. The beach crowds mingled with the pale skinned museum-viewers. The buildings around glowed in the indigo evening of summer. Every 20 minutes the tram went by, but we were hardly aware of it. In that magical atmosphere we were neither old nor young, we were outside time.

The first dance was a Cantata with Bach’s concerto for harpsichord, played at the corner of the stage. The one female and three male dancers were dressed in black suits and white shirts. She was fantastic, her youth not mortal yet, her bones as fine as a cat’s. She danced with her three companions in pursuit, dominating, in control, the stage her kingdom.

The second dance was a splash of color and music based on southern Italian folk music, again played live by a quartet of women with their tambourines, drums and accordion, a moonlit choreographed spectacle. The girls flounced their skirts in joy, passion and exuberance. The men pranced and gestured. It was brilliant.

Last night we went to see “Miss Julia”, Strindberg’s play written 120 years ago. The story is of a wild young woman of nobility who sets her sights on her father’s valet. The valet was engaged to the cook, but that does not stop Miss Julia. She enjoys seducing the young man, who is apparently educated but turns out to be an insensitive brute. Strindberg obviously did not believe or approve of feminism. Strindberg’s heroine’s life is ruined once she lowers herself to the servants’ level, by having sex with her father’s employee. Strindberg gives her two choices, either to steal money and leave behind everything she knows for a new life elsewhere, or to kill herself. Strindberg has her choose death. Fortunately we do not have such moral absolutes in the 21st century.

There is still a lot to look forward until the end of August, from José Carreras, to Leonard Cohen, to Marisa Monte, to Gilberto Gil and other great Brazilian singers in the various stages around the bay, and jazz in the dramatic stage of the XV century fort in Cascais. Meanwhile, there are always the fireworks over the bay at midnight.

NB: Sorry the photos are not up to par. Between the darkness and my excitment, the camera got in the way.

2009-07-14T02:39:00.000-07:00

THE BODHI TREE, the oldest tree in the world cared for by man

The most sacred tree for Buddhists is the “ficus religiosa”. It is called “bodhi” in Sanskrit because the Buddha attained enlightenment or bodhi while sitting under it. The Sinhalese call it the Bo Tree.

A sapling of the original tree under which the Buddha sat was brought to Sri Lanka as the result of a royal mission to the Northern Indian state of Bihar in the year 249 BC. Amid great ceremony, it was planted in a monastery in the old capital of Anuradhapura. Throughout history Anuradhapura endured periods of invasion, occupation, plundering, and destruction. Yet no harm was ever done to the Maha Bodhi, the Great Bo Tree.

Like any living organism of an advanced age, the Maha Bodhi now requires some help. Supports have been placed under its huge 2,250 year old spreading branches. The monks have kept a diary of the Maha Bodhi faithfully throughout the centuries, chronicling it originally on dried banana leaves bound loosely into books. Nowadays the tree has its own website, www.srimahabodhi.org

I was there during a full moon – every full moon is a national holiday in Sri Lanka -- when the people of Anuradhapura come to Sri Maha Bodhi carrying bundles of firewood on their heads to light bonfires around it to keep wild elephants from eating the tender leaves.

Even though legend has it that the leaves of the Maha Bodhi never fall to the ground to be trampled, I was able to find a few to bring with me. I gave most of these cherished leaves to my closest friends, but kept one which was the inspiration for an artwork that now hangs in my bedroom. I reproduced the leaf by pen and ink, by colored pencils, and by oil on paper, placing them side by side next to the real leaf. The Bo Tree in its various symbolic phases.

Buddhists believe the Maha Bodhi to be endowed with magical powers. The Buddha found enlightenment after sitting under the tree for a prolonged period, then spent a full week gazing at it with motionless eyes as a mark of his profound gratitude to the tree that sheltered him during his struggle. I find a great inner peace in contemplating the various phases of the leaf of the Maha Bodhi. Perhaps you will, too.

2009-07-09T04:55:00.000-07:00

LUNCH WITH ISABEL

My good friend Isabel came from Washington D.C. for a short holiday in Portugal and I wanted to organize a festive lunch for her. I had not seen Isabel in more than 2 years. It would be just a few women friends.

I needed to be inventive with the menu, knowing that Isabel is not only a vegetarian, but she is also a superb cook and gourmet.

We started with “funghi porcini risotto”. A rich broth made from onion, leek, garlic, carrot, celery, sprigs of parsley, thyme and rosemary, and of course the dried porcini and sliced fresh champignons. Then soften onion with olive oil, add arborio rice, and finally the broth, cup by cup, stirring slowly. Serve it with a sprinkling of fresh chives. The flavor is so delicate no cheese is needed.

We followed with a salad I discovered several years ago in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and has been a favorite ever since. “Arugula, calamari and avocado salad”. Clean and cut the calamari in slices and sauté them in olive oil with a generous amount of chopped garlic. While the calamari are still warm, toss them and the garlic sauce with the arugula and sliced avocado, adding a bit more fresh olive oil, Balsamic vinegar, and salt to taste. It is deceptively simple but truly delicious. The salad was accompanied with a caprese salad, sliced tomatoes with sliced mozzarella and basil leaves. Kamut rolls helped mop up the sauce and wonderful olive oil.

Dessert was fresh papaya with lime juice, and homemade “honey and ginger ice-cream”. In a double boiler beat 3 eggs yolks with 5 tablespoons of honey, until your arm drops and the mixture is thick. Separately (you either use a friend’s arms, or you become Shiva with 6 arms…), beat the egg whites till stiff, and then fold in stiffly whipped cream. Finally add the egg custard with three tablespoons of minced ginger. Place the ice-cream in the freezer for about 4 or 5 hours, removing it to the refrigerator an hour in advance of serving, so it is semi-soft.

Of course there was a lot of catching up, laughter and sharing of stories of children and grandchildren, of aging, and husbands, and work, and books, and life in general. Summer does that, everyone with red toenails, from watermelon red to burgundy to cherry and ruby, and sandals to show off your pretty feet. And lots of bracelets on the wrists like Indian dancers, and beads of every kind adorning crisp dresses and blouses. Ah, summer, we all become Chagall nymphs.

2009-07-05T08:15:00.001-07:00

THE ALENTEJO, A WORLD APART

The Alentejo is far away, a place suspended in time, with life lived at a low pitch, as if the place itself breathes very softly.

Three hours out of Madrid, we crossed into Portugal, with Lynn Arriale’s jazz piano dripping from the CD player, and moved off the highway onto rural roads. The landscape softens into gently sloping hills, patterned with cork oak, olive trees and vineyards, with white towns and magnificent castles, forts and convents.

Storks and storks’ nests everywhere – on electrical pylons, lamp posts, treetops, chimneys – an environmental initiative that has worked.

It was market day in Estremoz, a walled town with a beautiful castle. Fruits, vegetables, cheeses and smoky sausages. Artisans selling clay dolls, wood toys, lambskin slippers, brass and copper tools, useful only for life here. Live animals and garden implements. And antiques. And just plain old things.

The market is happy, bustling and very social, but it was time for lunch. In a shaded courtyard of the castle overlooking the countryside, we ordered a lunch of grilled trout and wild asparagus with an “ensalatta caprese” and a glass of local wine. The Alentejo is best known for its smooth, velvety reds.

There is a place in the middle of the Serra d’Ossa forest, a setting for a grand experience, immersed in peace, beauty, and history. In this convent turned hotel, you sleep in former monks’ cells, beautifully updated, and go down to dinner along grand torchlit hallways lined with 50,000 blue and white tiles, arguably Portugal’s best collection of azulejos. Surrounded by gardens and 600 hectares of forest, this monastery has been a special place of retreat for over 800 years.

When a gorgeous bride graciously posed for a photograph on her way to the private chapel, I remembered my daughter’s wedding at this same spot eight years ago.

About 15 kilometers from Serra d’Ossa is the little town of Redondo. The main church in the castle square has wonderful gilded baroque woodcarvings, testimony to discoverers who left from Redondo for India and Brazil.

The castle, started in the late 13th Century and added to many times over the years, still has a few potters working within the walls, carrying on traditions passed from generation to generation from pre-Roman periods. One of them good-naturedly let us work the clay. His wife hand painted his plates and bowls. We did not want to leave that peaceful artisan’s place.

Bouncing down a bone-jolting road, singing along with Maria Bethania and the Tribalistas, we were on our way to aristocratic and complex Évora, a special delight to architects and art historians. It well deserves its UNESCO World Heritage designation.

Évora has the ruins of a Roman temple. Roman walls and aqueducts, bits of Arab and Visigoth constructions and baroque buildings, with all the layers seamlessly incorporated into a vital, modern city like no other.

Évora is minimalist, at least in its colors – white, ochre-trimmed buildings, red tile roofs, gray granite paving, beige and green touches, the bluest of skies. A red geranium on a windowsill punches you in the eye. Everywhere the view is pleasing.

The streets all have their stories. One of the most curious is the Rua das Amas do Cardial (Cardinal’s Wet-Nurses Street), with its row of neat, small houses. In the late 1500’s, Cardinal Dom Henrique, at the time in his 60’s and Archbishop of Évora, and later Regent of Portugal, had the most exquisite of delicate stomachs and could only drink breast milk. He was reputed to call for his amas, or wet-nurses, at all hours of the day and night.

Ay caramba!!!

I felt I just touched the surface of the mystical, magical, Alentejo, worth delving into much more deeply.

2009-07-01T07:13:00.000-07:00

A HOY AWARD

I received the A Hoy Award from Herrad, a remarkable woman who has an outstanding blog:

http://access-denied-livingwithms.blogspot.com/

Herrad’s blog is about courage, grit, love of life, plants, dogs, beautiful images, imagination, marvelous food, wonderful memories of living in Trinidad, and so much more. She is an inspiration, my heroine, my friend. And I am honored to receive this award from her.

The A Hoy Award is named after Chris Hoy, the exceptional British track cyclist, Olympic medalist, and philanthropist, http://www.chrishoy.com/wp/chris-hoy-biography

The explanations and rules for the prize are at http://www.threegoldsinonetournament.blogspot.com/

Here is a quote from the blog above:

“I'd like to think that receiving A Hoy will be different to most blog awards, because of the stipulation that one makes an onward award to at least two blogs that one has never seen before. It's a psychological thing. Suddenly having somebody turn up, out of the blue, and say 'your blog's cool: have an award,' has significant positive impact. I know this, because when I receive awards, I make a point of searching for blogs I've never seen, which are 'off the beaten track' of stuff that I usually look at, and the responses are worth the extra effort. This is, I would argue, also beneficial to the giver, because it requires them to think of things that they like - and you'd be surprised how few people think in those terms.”

Rules for Making an Award:

1. Pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award.
2. The awarding blogger should choose at least two blogs not on his or her own blogroll.
3. Your five choices must be published in a dedicated post on your own blog. This post must contain the name of the author (which may be their logon name), and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
4. In the same dedicated post, each winner has to show the award and acknowledge the blog that has given him or her the award.
5. Both those awarding and receiving A Hoy must show the link to A Hoy blog, so that everyone will know the origin of this award.”

My immediate impulse was to give one A Hoy Award back to Herrad because her blog certainly deserves every prize there is. But I realize I would not be “spreading” the prize, which is the strength of the A Hoy Award. In that case, Herrad, I give you the “Remarkable” A Hoy Award in spirit.

It is difficult to decide to whom to give the five Awards. I started blogging less than a month ago, and I still find the technology daunting. I graciously blame my 10 year old clunker computer…but that, too, will soon change.

The five winners of the A Hoy Award are all exceptional women and their blogs are inspiring, intelligent, beautiful, witty, sharp, articulate, and I am running out of well deserved praise for them. Two of the blogs I discovered today after researching quite a few, but the two I picked are in my opinion the best. The other three blogs I have been following and learning from since I started my own.

http://slowlymadegoods.blogspot.com/
This blog is created by Pat Spiller. “PatStudio is located on the southern Maine coast. This is where I live and where I am blessed with the gift of time to do work that nourishes my soul.” This blog is intelligent, inspiring and visually gorgeous with photographs of Pat’s work and of the area where she lives.

http://20thcenturywoman.com/

She calls herself the “Old Woman”, but she is young and spirited and bold. “My blog is about the events of my life and my thoughts and ideas. I plan to include some of my mother’s, my father’s and my aunt’s memories as well. I live in an island in Puget Sound and in Manley Hot Springs Alaska.”

http://urban-archeology.blogspot.com/

Maggie is amazing, her blog well worth reading. She lives in Ocean Beach beside the Point and is interested in architecture, architectural history, writing, poetry, fiber arts, rigs, ships, photography, food. “An arts lady living at the beach with a car guy. Imagine, a meeting in the middle.”

And my two new blogs:

http://twentyfouratheart.com/twenty_four_at_heart

Suzanne is lots of fun, brave, and wonderfully articulate. “I began Twenty Four At Heart in April of 2008 without a clue about what I was doing. (note: sounds familiar…) For that matter, I didn’t have a clue about the blogging world in general. In hindsight, that was probably for the best. I live in Orange County, California.”

http://ninaturns40.blogs.com/destinations/2009

Nina’s blog, “Destinations – journeys of a restless mind”, was a great discovery for me. I had a lot of fun reading her entries and learning about her sharp “restless mind”. “I am a middle-aged single mother, a feminist raising a boy, a city girl living in a small town. I have an urge bordering on the obsessive to make art out of the minutiae of my life.”

2009-06-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

FIGS, the sweet taste of summer

It is easy to think of figs as backup singers instead of summer’s superstars. Competing with cherries, plums, peaches, melons, strawberries, figs usually go forgotten. Yet who can deny the pleasure of eating a fig on the point of bursting? Lush mouthfuls of perfumed and unquestionably sensual soft pink flesh?

A fig’s best time is so fleeting, and even so, it must always be handled delicately. Perhaps that is why they don’t figure prominently in today’s fast moving pace. But splitting open and enjoying a fig at that perfect moment is one of the sublime pleasures of summer.

With this plate of figs I am saying goodbye to hot Madrid. I leave at the end of the day on a road trip through the Alentejo. Five days without a computer, a mobile, reservations or plans. Alentejo – literally, beyond the Tagus River - is the province of Portugal that confines with Spain’s Extremadura. It is a mystical place, where the fig and the olive of ancient Roman and Moorish times fit in with a current way of life. In my next entry I will show you Alentejo.

2009-06-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

EARLY MORNING RITUAL

I start my days with a walk with the dog. We always go to the park next to the house, a huge green area in the heart of Madrid.

We go early to have the park to ourselves. Sometimes in the winter months the trees are just beginning to shake off the darkness. It is a beautiful park with tall trees, flowers, fountains, and statues of purposeful men on horses. There is also a huge pond with boats, straight out of a Seurat painting

According to the law, dogs don’t have to be on the leash before 10 a.m. So Maxi is happy, running circles around me, and I am happy walking “unleashed”. We pass our favorite nymph, carried on water by mythological fish. As I stop to admire her flowing hair, my daydreaming is interrupted by a gaggle of emerging children on their way to school.

We proceed toward the “Crystal Palace,” a lovely 19th century glass building where sculpture shows, or installations, are sometimes held. It is a magical building, an apparition, an enchanted palace made of air and light. When I go inside and it is completely empty, I just want to dance madly, dervish like, twirling like a Sufi dancer.

We continue on towards the rose garden. On the way I get startled again, this time by birds loving in a flurry of feathers. We pass a group of people making sketches of a fountain. I am greeted with “buenos dias” and happy smiles. As they resume their sketching I ask if I can photograph them.

On to the Chinese garden with ducks happily grooming themselves. Maxi wants to chase them but I stop him. Here is where I used to practice tai-chi. I vow to do it again when I return from Portugal in September.

And then I smell the roses as we approach the “rosaleda”, or rose garden. There are hundreds of roses, blooming from May until July or so. Roses of every name and origin. Some with a lovely tea scent, others just gorgeous to looks at, spread neatly around water spouting cherubs.

Time to turn around and start my new day.

2009-06-21T04:31:00.000-07:00

HEMOLYTIC ANEMIA

"Doing My Own Thing", oil on canvas, 90X100 cm

In December of 2006 I was in Brazil, but did not feel like dancing the samba. I was staying across the street from Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro, and I did not want to plunge into the waves. I did not even feel like walking along the beach. I was happy just sitting and drinking my favorite drink in the world, coconut water. If not sitting on the beach, I would sit with a book in the hotel room.

Such behavior was highly unusual for me. Normally I enjoy the beach at the earliest hour, without the crowds and the strong sun. Walking, running, swimming. Or else walking in the old part of Rio looking at its wonderful, crumbling, colonial architecture. There I was in Brazil with music bursting from every corner, every open door or window, where walking is difficult because your body just wants to sway to the contagious rhythms, and yet I did not dance.

Something was very wrong.

When we returned to Spain I spoke with Dr. Hamblin. Upon learning how low my hemoglobin was – 8, when it should be 12-16 – we flew to Bournemouth the next day and Dr. Hamblin took blood for a Coombs test to see whether I was suffering from autoimmune hemolytic anemia. The lab results confirmed his diagnosis.

Hemolytic anemia happens when a defective immune system attacks perfectly good red blood cells. The red blood cells, which are crucial oxygen carriers, are killed off faster than they can be replaced by the bone marrow. So the result is anemia, low hemoglobin levels and low hematocrit. If left untreated, autoimmune hemolytic anemia is life threatening.

After discussing possible treatments, Dr. Hamblin recommended I begin treatment immediately with Chlorambucil, Prednisolone and Allopurinol. Clorambucil, until recently, has been the first-line chemotherapy for CLL, and it is considered to be the mildest. The Prednisolone was to treat the hemolytic anemia, and the Allopurinol was to counter-act some of the side effects of the Prednisolone.

I was to take Prednisolone until my hemoglobin rose. Both Prednisolone and Allopurinol are important to the cure, but both have nasty side effects, both immediate and over a longer term.

Some weeks into the treatment I developed a terrible allergy to Allopurinol so it had to be suspended. This was followed by neutropenia, which means not enough neutrophils to fight infections. At one point I was rushed to the hospital with very high fever that kept getting higher. In a separate episode, I had what is called fevers of unknown origin. I also had to have a blood transfusion. I was lucky if during all the time the treatment took place I could sleep more than 3 hours a night. That part was fine with me though, as being insomniac, I enjoy those secret hours of the night when the whole world is asleep and I feel I am the only person awake.

Considering the grave threat posed by hemolytic anemia, the treatment was not too bad. After 5 months Dr. Hamblin had me discontinue medication. I did not get complete remission, but I got cured from the hemolytic anemia, my spleen decreased somewhat in size, and my leukocyte count even normalized. Throughout these months I bombarded Dr. Hamblin with questions and doubts. He was always wonderfully patient, explaining everything over and over and dispelling my fears and doubts. Dr. Hamblin again saved my life.

And I started dancing the samba again.

To be continued.

2009-06-19T02:27:00.000-07:00

MORE COOLING THOUGHTS

From my terrace in Madrid.

What could be better than fresh lemonade?

Or a bowl of cold cherries?

The "lady bug"! Cut loads of watermelon into chunks and freeze them for an hour. Dont even remove the seeds as they are edible. Then put the half-frozen watermelon in a blender and add fresh lime juice (2 tablespoons).

Papaya is so cooling, I could eat it everyday.

2009-06-18T04:01:00.000-07:00

COOLING THOUGHTS

"Veranda", oil on canvas, 117X113 cm

"Guincho Beach", oil on canvas, 100X90 cm

It is hot in Madrid. Hot as in flames. Hot as in burning. Hot as glued to the sheets during sleepless nights. The air outside the window hot as dragon’s breath. Insufferable.

So I am dreaming of the freezing sea in Guincho beach in Portugal, of my walks there at 7 a.m., the beach to myself, the sound of the waves, the cries of the seagulls, my dog chasing them, running after then when they lift off and fly over the sea, brown dog hurtling into the waves, wishing he could fly too.

I am also dreaming of sitting on my veranda with a book, and a bowl of strawberries, gazing at the sea below, the cool breeze, the birds singing, the smell of cooking bread in the bakery next door.

Soon I will be leaving for Portugal to spend July and August. In exactly 10 days and 7 hours from now.

Until then I burn in Madrid.

2009-06-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

WOMEN AND WATER

"Vatura", oil on canvas, 105X110 cm

"Sensuality", oil on canvas, 105X100 cm

I have a series of paintings around the theme of “women and water”. There is something elemental, graceful and beautiful about women in water, be it at sea, in a pool, in a stream, in a bathtub, or in the rain. Water is our medium. It gives a freedom, a looseness, the world in slow motion. Women move within water like dancers, at ease with everything.

I remember my teenage daughter floating on her back one late afternoon at the beach in Sesimbra. It was getting late, the sea glistening in the twilight. So I called her, she did not hear me, and I called again. She turned slowly, like something on the floor of the ocean. I have to yet paint that painting.

I want to try to catch the rapture of entering that liquid world and forgetting feelings of self-consciousness, of being too fat, too old, or too ungainly. For once inside the water all women are mermaids, all women become flowers floating in their slow, rhythmic swinging in the translucent blue.

I have photographed women bathing in India, in Sri Lanka, in Mexico, in Brazil. They all have that same quality, that mixture of prudishness and a secret lack of inhibition.

I remember one woman in particular. She came out of the trees and walked towards the water edge. This was in Mozambique, on the deserted beach of Xai-Xai, north of Lourenço Marques. No one was around. She was wrapped in a colorful “capulana”, those bright African cloths. As she was going to remove it she looked around one more time, to make sure she was alone. And she spotted me and my camera. So she did not enter the water naked as she had intended. But once immersed in the Indian Ocean she forgot about me, she forgot about her human form. She turned into a magnificent sea creature.

Note: “Vatura” means water in Sinhala.

2009-06-11T23:52:00.000-07:00

SOROLLA 1863 - 1923

"Boys on the Beach", Joaquin Sorolla - 1909

"Strolling Along the Seashore", Joaquin Sorolla - 1909

“Sorolla was Spain’s most celebrated and prestigious artist of his time”, says the leaflet of this magnificent art show at the Prado Museum in Madrid. The show opened May 26 and will stay open until September 6.

I was like a kid going to a birthday party. Sorolla always takes my breath away with his dazzling paintings of the sea and fishing and the beach scenes in Valencia. There are 102 paintings assembled for this exhibition, but my favorites are always the outdoor scenes, every corner breezed with noise and sunlight.

Paintings like “Strolling along the Seashore”, or “Coming out of the Water” are the epitome of joie de vivre, exuberance, elegance, and freedom. A feast of light and whites suffused with pinks and purples and greens reflecting the sky and the sea. His figures move in slow cadence along the beach. An unhurried life under their white parasols, and white mousseline robes.

“Boys on the Beach” is a delight in the physical. Naked boys, full of gaping life, rollicking on sand and sea, their bodies glistening in the sun. The wet sand around them is painted with very loose brush strokes of purples and oranges and blues, some of these hues clinging to the boys’ skin. This painting is like an extravagant gift, its impact always remembered longer than the gift itself.

Ah, a show that gives me pleasure like this is rare. This celebration of the lost culture of life lived leisurely. I will go back to the Prado to see it one more time and be knocked for a loop again.

2009-06-10T00:33:00.000-07:00

LIVING WITH CLL - Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
"Evasion", oil on canvas, 110X120 cm

Living with CLL is like living with a Siamese twin. Anywhere I go, for a walk, to the movies, for a swim, to a friend’s house for tea, she goes with me. She is intimately with me, even when I sleep. No one sees the Siamese twin, but I carry her weight around, attached to me.

You get used to it, you can even forget about it for brief periods of time. But any pain, tiredness, cramp, has you wondering whether the CLL progressing. CLL is first located in your blood, in the bone marrow, then it moves into your organs. Your lymph nodes enlarge, so you not only feel them, but they are also visible, popping up on your neck, in your armpits, in your groin.

The doctors’ solutions so far are two: heavy chemo or not so heavy chemo. The main decisions are when to fire the artillery and what type of shells to use. A friend of mine -- one of the very few who defeated CLL -- wrote, “…they (doctors) are only experts in the three treatments they offer: slashing, burning and poisoning, also known as surgery, radio therapy and chemotherapy”. Right at the beginning of the CLL diagnosis I asked the hematologist – when told to “wait & watch” – if there was anything I could do to block the natural advance of the disease. Should I avoid certain foods, should I follow a special diet? Should I take vitamin supplements to help with the weakening immune system? His answer was “No” to all the questions, “live your life, eat everything you feel like….”

Yet he told me that if my CLL was the aggressive type I would have 2 years life expectancy. If not the aggressive type, then the average life expectancy was 10 years. “10 years! Wow, that’s an eternity…” I thought then.

CLL is a treacherous landscape. My life changed since that first consultation over 9 years ago. There is a lot going on under the surface of my life. I am stressed with each blood test, fearing the implacable advance of the disease. I attribute any sudden jump in the White Blood Cell count to what I did or did not do, working too long hours, worrying too much, skipping some meals, catching a cold, not sleeping enough, and so on. I have become an expert at adding and subtracting causes and consequences. Too much of this, too little of that.

None of it matters. CLL is totally random, without an identifiable thread of logic. It goes up, it usually goes up, sometimes it comes down, but links to anything you did or did not do remain mysterious.

As you descend the spiral, or CLL takes over your body, and your immune system becomes weaker, you catch infections easily. And so you become an expert on antibiotics. Which ones give you the strongest reactions, the worst after effects. These after effects then have to be treated, on and on in a vicious circle.

Another peculiarity of CLL is that doctors – since they do not know what causes CLL and how to cure it - hardly ever coincide in their diagnosis and recommendations. I was devastated when my White Blood Cell count reached 50K – normal is 5K -- and the hematologist wanted me to start massive chemo. I looked at the world around me and I was no longer part of its normalcy. So with a preservation instinct that has saved me several times, I started researching and learned about Dr. Hamblin and his new genetic tests for identifying different types of CLL. I flew to the UK, and after a number of tests, he told me that my genetic make-up indicated it would be wrong to start chemo, that I had a benign and slow moving form of CLL and that I probably had a few years before chemotherapy would be needed. In fact, chemotherapy could cause the genes to mutate to the more aggressive form of CLL. He saved my life.

However, there were new chapters to be written in my life with CLL.
To be continued.

2009-06-08T02:16:00.001-07:00

2009-06-08T02:16:00.000-07:00

2009-06-08T01:46:00.000-07:00

THE THIEF OF SOULS

“Serpentine”, oil on canvas, 118X113 cm

“The Sikh’s Sister”, oil on canvas, 81X116 cm

“Meditation”, oil on canvas, 73X92 cm

I love to travel. Bob and I travel as much as possible and our favorite places are always very different to what is around us. Last December/January we spent 6 weeks driving 3,000 kms in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Then we went to Antarctica.

I use photographs in my work, because I only paint what I see. And I cannot bring with me from my travels the landscapes and the people that appealed to me. When you think of it everyone used photography. Vermeer with his “camera obscura”. Victorian and Pre-Raphaelites and Impressionists used photographs. Even the old masters copied from plaster casts, and from each other.

So in my travels I love to take photographs of the people I find interesting. I always ask if I may photograph them, some let me and many don’t. Then I pretend I am photographing next to those who don’t. I am the thief of souls, aware like a thief of my own deviousness.

I will then compose a painting by bringing together people I saw in very different places. They usually look defiant in my paintings, even if in the actual photographs they lowered their eyes, or turned their faces away. An old friend of mine, another Portuguese painter, Dordil, told me once that “art has no mercy”, and he is so right.

Even though most of the people I have photographed end up in my work, I am really painting a mirror of my own reflection. These paintings also preserve sound. I always listen to music while I paint. Sometimes I will listen to the same music over and over and over, day after day. There was a time when Mozart’s Requiem was my obsession, making me soar as I painted. Many years later one of my collectors asked me to repair a painting that suffered damage in a fire. I brought my paints and brushes to his new house and while I was retouching the painting I started “hearing” the music I had listened to over and over while painting it originally.

Note: “Meditation” is the painting that got damaged in a fire and bled music as I restored it several years later.

2009-06-05T00:46:00.001-07:00

2009-06-05T00:36:00.000-07:00

"The Never Ending Play", oil on canvas, 95X105 cm

THOUGHTS AND CLL

As we grow old do our thoughts age with us, or do they stay young?

Most often my thoughts are fresh, breezy, effervescent, contrary to my body as I see it reflected in the shop windows I walk by. Who is that person, I ask myself, that unrecognizable old person?

I live in my head. I have a lively dialogue with everything that happens around me, or that I am planning, or imagining, or looking at, or reading about.

Nine years ago I learned that something shocking and terrifying inhabited me. Cancer.

I went to the doctor because of a cough that was not going away and came out with a diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, or CLL. With breathtaking speed death started living at the center of my thoughts.

CLL is incurable. That is, medical researchers have not found all the causes and no sure-fire cures. But it can be treated, the problem is to find out which treatment and when. After the diagnosis, when the waves of panic subsided, I started reading every book I could find on people who defeated cancer. They all had something in common: they became active participants in their medical care, they laughed, they followed a good healthy diet, and they never gave up.

I had always had a healthy Mediterranean diet, but I improved on it, reading many books on the subject, the best for me being “Challenge Cancer and WIN!” by Dr. Kim Dalzell. I exercised regularly, swimming, walking, and doing yoga. And I lived as if I had no CLL, to the point of not doing blood tests every four or six months as requested by the hematologist. Each time I went for a test and I saw the rise in my WBC – white cell blood count, or leucocytes – I felt death breathing over my shoulder, which would give me tremendous stress translated into flu’s and colds. So for four years I stopped going to the doctor and doing blood tests. I know, very foolish, “mais je ne regrette rien”, so glad I did it, gave myself four wonderful years without the fear of mortality always hanging over my head.

Nine years have passed and I have had a bumpy road, but I am still here, and so are my thoughts. The disease has not touched them.

Note: the screaming monkey on a Tamil theatre stand is me, how I felt – and still feel – when I learned I had CLL.

2009-06-03T10:02:00.000-07:00

GROWING UP IN MOZAMBIQUE

“Invincible”, oil on canvas, 25 cm X 35 cm

Last night I dreamt with the sound the casuarina trees make when sea breezes blew from the sea at night. This sound was like whispers and sighs all through the night. When I stopped hearing it, early daylight was pouring through the windows.

I was born and grew up in Mozambique, when it was a colony of Portugal. I was born in the north, in Nametil, and we were the only white family in the area. My father helped my mother to give birth, alone in the middle of the bush. I had a 3 year old sister called Carminha. My mother had problems nursing me so my parents asked Luisa, another young mother who had also just given birth, to nurse me. Many years later I painted Luisa as I remember her, lovely smile in her dark smooth face. My baby cot was a wood box with four tall feet, each foot inside a large olive oil can filled with water, so the ants did not get to me attracted by my sweet milk smells. My parents told me that once while they slept, an ant battalion, shaped like a snake made of millions of dark dots, passed through my room and “vacuumed” everything including the talcum powder and the cream. I was saved by four large olive oil cans filled with water…

My parents moved around a lot in the north of Mozambique, after Nametil we went to Nampula, then Nacala, then Mozambique Island, then further south to Inhambane. When I was 6 they moved to the capital, Lourenco Marques, and they settled there.

A skinny kid growing up in Lourenco Marques I had all the space, the freedom, the happiness. I had springs inside me, climbing trees, bicycling, spinning cartwheels on the sand. Everything seemed possible. Africa, its wilderness, the laughter of the people, the huge sky, the mysterious blue line on the horizon, the heavy rains in the afternoon, the warm smell of earth.

“Africa Outside”, oil on canvas, 105 cm X 115 cm

2009-06-03T06:18:00.000-07:00

PAINTING

“Porch”, oil on canvas, 120 cm X 120 cm

Emerson talked about each person having their own particular wonderful thing. For many years I thought painting was my own particular potential. I lived for painting, I was obsessed with it. When I was not painting I was daydreaming about future images, composing them in my head. I would paint all the time, alongside cooking the meals and helping the kids with their homework. To sleep among my paintings was beautiful. Seeing them first thing as I woke up. The smell of turpentine. The colors and shapes forming on the canvas bit by bit. The triumph of finishing a painting, hanging it up on a wall. Seeing it growing a life of its own but still reflecting me. Then giving it a name. Actually Bob gave the paintings their names, he is very good at translating my complex stories into two or three words.

I am a realist painter. I paint the things that interest me. Everyday objects. People. Interiors. Landscapes. Fruits and vegetables. Beautiful things. Then I compose a story with all or some of those elements. I love telling stories.

In the 80s and 90s realist painting was unfashionable, at least in Portugal. One must not paint beautiful objects or you were labeled square, conventional, and the traditional was scorned by the critics. The public was brainwashed to believe that “art” was only far out and extreme forms.

I only paint recognizable images, beautiful ones. I always thought that if I could add a touch of beauty to the world, what was wrong with that?

“2 2 Tango”, oil on canvas, 130 cm X 146 cm