The Luncheon

For many years now, my friend Diane has made a gracious habit of having me over for lunch. I usually walk to her house, as it is only two streets over uphill, and makes for a nice stroll. Her house is a quiet place in spirit , even when many people are around. Diane exudes peace at all times, and is a great listener. When I spend time with her, I always feel lighter, like she lifted some invisible burden I was not even aware of. She sets a nice table, and always has something interesting prepared. We talk, share, and I always feel I am in the presence of a very spiritual and wholesome person, who makes me want to be better than what I am. Few people have that effect on me, but Diane does. She lives to serve others, in a quiet, modest and self-effacing way. She is a small person, but is imbued with a relentless spirit of devotion and compassion. Children love her, and she has had and continues to have a healing and loving influence on all the children that come through her house. She does not judge people, she sees the best in very one, and you can trust her with your darkest fear or secret, it will stay in her heart. So lunch at Diane's house is a spiritual experience, because she has such a deep respect for every human being she comes in contact with. She is the closest I think I've come to be around a real modern day saint. If I told her that, she would just laugh in disbelief. But I remain convinced she is, for every one's life she touches, is better for it. She spends her whole life helping others, whether they are grateful or not, and I cannot think of any one else I know that has such a peaceful and loving heart, truly seeing all others as brothers and sisters who she will help at a moment's notice. She really lives the ideal of a gentle humankind, never deterred by the odds or challenges.   

Sunflowers

Each year my husband and son plant sunflowers from seed. They put the seeds in little seed pods in our green house, and I water them faithfully, and when they are big and strong enough, Michael and Nicholas transplant them in our vegetable and flower garden next to the greenhouse. It is one of my most favorite flowers of  summer, the sunflower to me symbolizes the height of summer's glory and generosity. As they grow taller and stronger, and surpass my height and then my husband's and then my son's, who is almost five foot six, I fall in love with these gorgeous flowers time and again. Their hunger for the sun's light and warmth, their gracious stalks, their fiery petals and abundant hearts that allow the bees to feast themselves in to a bacchanalian stupor, and their scent. A friend of mine, years ago now, said about sunflowers: " I like the way they smell." Ever since then I go and smell my sunflowers, and they smell like wild honey, a very earthy, sensual scent that always makes me miss my friend. When my husband and I were camping through Europe on our honeymoon in 1987, we passed by a huge field of sunflowers in southern France. It was visually an ocean of tall flowers, swaying in the gentle southern breeze. Beautiful, overwhelmingly so. As the summer wanes, and the other flowers fade, the sunflowers are still going strong, and the bees  swarm them, eager for their sweet blossoms. Then fall comes, and cooler weather, and the majestic sunflowers start to droop their magnificent heads, their petals dry, their leaves turn yellow, the bees too, fade.  The birds come, small and large, and start devouring the brave sunflowers seeds, tearing at what remains of their glory and beauty. By the time the birds are done with them, the sunflowers hearts gape white, and empty, and their stalks start slumping to the earth from which they grew. Winter comes, and we cut heir skeletons down, and now they give a brief warm fire, before all that is left of them is the memory of their glorious height and color intoxicating summer's warmth and joy. And I start longing, as snow covers the backyard, for spring and the planting of the seeds in the greenhouse, and I long to see the tender sunflower seedlings transplanted by my patient husband and son, so I can start watering them, and see them grow, tall, beautiful, strong again, to grace the summer's rich gift of warmth and renewal.

Tuareg

When I was about twelve, I was going through my father's extensive collection of National Geographic Magazine, and I came across a picture that stayed in my mind and memory to this day. The photographs in the magazine are world famous for their impact and quality, and I remember seeing a close-up portrait of a young geisha that mesmerized me for a lifetime. I remember a photograph of a newly wed couple in Kolkata, and to this day, I remember being transfixed by the abundance of 24 karat gold jewelry, the beauty of the bride and groom, and the striking colors of bright white and red in their garments. I also have a vivid memory of a picture of a young Tuareg warrior, in the dark blue turban many of their men are famous for wearing. He had the most amazing eyes, as his face was mostly covered, and I found it fascinating that their women were not required to wear veils, and enjoyed a high status in their nomadic pastoral culture. He was tall, looked strong,and even though I could only see his eyes, I thought he was very handsome. I have always been drawn to the idea of a nomadic life style, close to nature, and free of the trappings of a sedentary life. The geographic area of the majority of the Tuareg people, whose name means " noble and free men", is in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria and Libya. There is also a small community in northern Nigeria. I will always remember the first time I saw a friend of mine who is from Morocco. Before I even was introduced to him via a mutual friend in graduate school, I was struck by his height and features and was taken back to the picture of the Tuareg warrior. I do not know where my friend's family originated, as there are some Tuareg also in Morocco, but my friend struck me by a unique dignity and left an impression long before we even met. This world is such a fascinating place, and I feel fortunate to have had an opportunity to travel and study abroad,and meet people from all over the globe. I was exposed this way to many cultures, and many languages. As an undergraduate, I had a Nigerian roommate for a year, Cordelia O., a bright woman from Lagos who was getting a master's degree in economics. It was fascinating to me to hear her speak her native language when she called home, to learn about her village, her family, to taste some of the food she grew up with. In graduate school I had a Korean roommate, and the following year a Japanese roommate, and a Bolivian and French roommate. It was fun when Yoko would get a call from her boyfriend in Tokyo, and to hear them speak Japanese for sometimes hours on the phone. I was around Hindi through my good friend Raj from Trivandrum in southern India. I was around Arabic  through my friendship with a woman from Nebraska, Lesa P., who was married to an Egyptian man, and through our mutual friendship with a friend from Morocco. Now, I have a hairdresser who is a good friend from Vietnam, and I spend hours hanging around her and her extensive family at their beauty shop, listening to the melodious sounds of the Vietnamese language. I am Flemish, so I was taught French at an early age, and German and English. When I came to Texas for college, I decided to learn Spanish and ended up getting a Master's degree in Spanish and Latin American Literature from the University of Texas in Austin. I love languages, because it is a way to connect directly to another culture, and learn what unites us, rather than what divides us. I remember the gentle sounds of the Mayan language in the villages close to Chitzen Itza in Cozumel, the sounds of Lingala when I was in Kinshasa a few years later. I remember my uncle Frederic Minne, son of Baron Georges Minne, who was married to my aunt Agnes, my mother's older sister. He had spent 10 years near the Kivu Lake before the revolution of 1964 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He spoke fluent Swahili, and would tell entire stories in the language, and then translate. I would listen to him as a twelve year old, transfixed by the exotic sounds. I am learning about the language of the Magreb region of North Africa, Tamazight, and am fascinated to learn it is one of the oldest languages of human kind. I recently was introduced to the Indonesian language through a fascinating 2011 movie, called "The Raid- Redemption". I was intrigued to learn Indonesian, which vaguely sounded to me in part like Portuguese, has a 1,000 words borrowed from Arabic. And there are hundreds of languages out there. My father once quoted a saying that always validated my travel hunger: "The world is a large book, of which those who never stir from home only read a page." I am glad I still have the fever to learn, to travel, to understand, and to continue to be amazed at the variety of cultures and languages on our planet.

The haircut

For a number of years now, my hairdresser has been Yvonne, a very sweet and energetic Vietnamese young woman who together with her parents and sister Yvette, run a nice hair and nail salon on the West side of Olympia. Over the course of the years, I became friends with the family, and always look forward to get my hair done. Yvonne is a wizard with style and color, and it is always fun to see how she changes my hairstyle just a little to keep the experience fun and delightful. She and her family are very close. I was invited to her wedding, went to Yvette's engagement party, just got invited today to Yvette's wedding in September. I love visiting with their mother, a calm and kind woman about my age. Yvonne just had a baby girl, and I know her husband Richard, and also their young son Andrew. When I go there, I feel part of the family, and briefly forget the pain of no longer having a family of my own , other than my husband and son, and a distant few in- laws. I get to hear about the wedding plans, see the latest pictures of Yvonne's baby, get to share some hot tea and fruit and cookies with Yvonne and Yvette's mother, and they make me feel wanted and welcome. For a  couple of hours, I am in a loving home of an extended family who care about each other. I love the musical sounds of the Vietnamese language, the incense by the Buddhist altar up front, the chanting of the Buddhist monks music tape, the paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. It feels like home, because when I am there I feel happy to be included. If I want to go "home", I go get my hair done. Sun Hair and Nail Salon on Cooper Point Road here in West Olympia. Check it out if you pass through town, and need a good haircut, and a feeling like you just stopped by a happy home.

West Nile Virus

Leonardo da Vinci once famously said :  "War is the ultimate madness." Watching the reports on the West Nile crisis in especially Texas, particularly the Dallas- Fort Worth area, feels a bit surreal, because my only surviving sibling, a brother, lives there. We no longer stay in contact, and it is strange to see the images of the planes flying over the area dumping chemicals to kill the deadly virus carrying mosquitoes. I  cannot ask him if he and his children are all right. I cannot ask him what it feels like to deal with something like that. I cannot tell him it worries me to see those images, on top of the horrible drought Texas is also dealing with. I cannot. Because our family had a war that tore everyone apart, like a war would with bombs, our relationships were destroyed, and the bridge that allowed for the free flow of communication was destroyed. Leonardo da Vinci knew about war, he was around it enough. He knew it to be the "ultimate madness". It certainly was for our family, because it is madness that I cannot talk anymore to my brother, even when it is important. War, big or small, distorts everything. What once was normal, natural ,  becomes numb, dumb, cold, twisted, and ultimately, just dies. My brother is 54 now, and maybe, at this rate, I will never see him again. I'll just find out , maybe, that one day, he died. Just like in a war, where people find out sometimes years later, what happened to their family. Family is everything, when you treat each other right. When you don't, it quickly becomes a nightmare, a quicksand of broken dreams and despair. A war zone.

The Raid

There is a wonderful Indonesian movie, released on September 8, 2011, called  "The Raid: Redemption", by Welsh director Gareth Evans that truly deserves the international acclaim it received with the Midnight Madness Award at the Toronto International Film Award in 2011, the Dublin Film Critics Circle Best Film and Audience Award at Jameson Dublin, and the Sp!ts Silver Scream Award at Imagine Film Festival in Amsterdam in 2012. The acting by Iko Uwais, Joe Taslim, Donny Alamsyah, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno, Tegar Setrya and Ray Sahetapy is superb. This martial arts movie is a fine piece of cinematographic art, flawless and stunning in its stark beauty, in spite of the seedy subject of drug violence and police corruption. I had never even heard spoken Indonesian, but was riveted in spite of the initially distracting subtitles. I felt like I vaguely recognized Portuguese in some of the words. It turns out Indonesian is a language that is Malay and borrows heavily from a number of languages, like Sanskrit, Persian, Arabic, Dutch and yes, Portuguese. It was fascinating to be so riveted by a language I had never even heard. The stark setting of a run down apartment building controlled by a local ruthless drug lord, who is being raided by a special forces police team, is brought to full power by the adrenalin fueled Indonesian martial art of pencak silat. I knew I had never seen anything like it in fierceness and deadly effectiveness. It made me vaguely, briefly think of Kung Fu, because of the very close contact and technical finesse and complexity, but I knew this was something very unique. As black belts (Tae Kwon Do), my husband and I had seen a variety and large number of martial arts movies in different styles, but this Indonesian style was the most impressive and interesting I had ever seen. The actors were incredible in their energy and control. I liked the way the camera was so close to the audience at all times, drawing us in, but without judgment, like a witness, a tolerated observer. The story too, of two brothers finding each other again after years of estrangement only to realize they are on opposite sides of the law, is done very convincingly and very soberly. I thought it one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Sure, it is very violent, but it is a movie about drug violence and a vicious drug lord and his ruthless minions, so of course it is violent! If violence in movies is something you have a problem with when it comes to the world of drug trafficking, watch something else. This movie is very graphic, but very convincing in getting the message across of the malevolent nature of big time crime. It is a world of kill or be killed. The energy of this movie is amazing, the stamina, also emotionally, is impressive. Hats off to the director and all the actors for a true piece of film art.

Bandits in the Orchard

I love the ease of summer, as I go out each morning before 7:00 and start watering the plants, flowers, trees and bushes in our 1/2 acre piece of land. The greenhouse was already watered, with its tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries and cilantro. I had finished watering the many patio and deck plants, the petunias, the nicotinia, the pansies, and calla and day lilies, and had put out the seed and water for the 7 or 8 different types of birds that come around from little tit birds to Mourning Doves, to sparrow, finches, and Blue Jay and even crows, and was ready to water our tall sunflowers , pole beans and squash and pumpkins, before moving on to water our Asian pear and hazelnut bushes, when I heard the familiar squawking of the squirrels, and the busy rustling of the foliage in the hazelnut trees. Those little bandits are very crafty and athletic, and they must find me quite daft for smiling at their clever thievery while I am watering the trees they are raiding. In the last years, my husband and I have seen a marked decline in the number of butterflies, dragonflies and bees, and Michael came up with the idea of orchard bees, with some success.Our backyard is wild and abundant,and free, a safe haven for birds, squirrels, snakes, opossum, raccoons, and quite a number of stray dogs and cats. We grow a ton of flowers, and are therefore very popular with bees. It makes me feel good we do what we can for the natural world on our piece of this beautiful green planet we seem so bent on destroying with our indifference and willful ignorance. I love how our free spirit garden brings me to remember on a daily basis, that we are part of a large, beautiful ecosystem, and that to forget this is to lose a large part of the joy and beauty of living on this very special planet that has so much to offer when it comes to the natural world.