uncertain journey

i think i will try to make my life more unified.

it's an exercise in being honest about my whole person, an attempt to create a whole me in this "new" land.

i'm going to stop posting here.  it just seems silly, keeping two blogs when i could just do one....because really, my artist person should Not be separate from my adventure person, my journey person, my married life person.  but these blogs are making me feel a bit disjointed these days.  so, if you want to keep seein what i am up to, don't worry.  i'll still be putting my random thoughts and news out into the www world.  it'll just all be in one place.  that one place is

www.artwords.typepad.com

see, now, wasn't that easy?

my love to all of you who have followed along on this uncertain journey, and cared,

h.

this one was juuuust right.

i'm driving into grand rapids, michigan, and the story of goldilocks and the three bears comes to mind.  my niece was "reading" it to me just the day before, and in her version the beds goes like this:

"she tried the baby bear's bed, and it was too wittle.

she tried the momma bear's bed, and it was tooo squishy.

then she tried the poppa bear's bed, and it was juuuust wight."

i realized that we all have our bearbed that fits us just right.  we instantly felt comfortable here.  massi mentioned it nearly right away.  we both relaxed.  we slept, for the first time since stepping off the plane over a week ago, all through the night.  after being away and coming back to g.r. several times now, i realize some places are too small, some too big, some too squishy.   maybe they would fit others, but they don't fit me.  too big, too little, to conservative, too liberal, too mediterranean, too this or that.  every place has its fit. 

and for me, grand rapids is just wight.

they don't eat olives here.

my husband has gone out with the men rabbit hunting.  we made his warm potato salad to go along with the sandwiches for lunch, and our neice abigail insisted that olives were yucky.  i asked her if she had ever had an olive, and she said no, because they are yucky.  i tried to explain to her that you have to let something touch your tongue, because your tongue is what tells you if something is sweet, or salty, or ....yucky. 

she wasn't buying it. 

i imagine she picked that up from my brother, whose comment on the olives in the salad was "i thought these were just for decoration, you know, to swirl around your martini and stuff."  my.  we are in the midwest, this is evident. 

meanwhile we are thoroughly enjoying the peaceful woods overlooking the lake, and just trying to believe that it's really real that we are back in the united states.  it seems like a dream.....

it's a good dream; we're just fine dreaming for a while.

reverse culture shock

it's an interesting adjustment.  i have yet to brave the american coffee, but my husband seems to have done just fine in that department.  we do have our figs and dates, albeit in the form of fig newtons and date bread, to keep our mediterranean jonesing to a minimum.  however, i must admit so far we are just diggin on having american food....massi is trying so many new things.  and he is very excited about the beef.  we gotta get him to an outback steakhouse or something...

yesterday was a bit of culture overload for me, as my mother and i went to a longaberger basket party and i knew i was in iowa...stopped at a fareway grocery store, where i lamented the selection of quality fruit, and beans (no garbanzos whatsoever, is that possible?) and stood in awe of the cereal and boxed meal aisles.  then we went back home, out in the country in the woods along the lake, and got rides on the back of dad's new toy, a 4-wheeler (i believe the kids these days call them atv's).  i had to let out a yeehaw in spite of myself. 

we saw terminal last night, which made us both relate to the bureaucracy, and the way some officials seem to get joy out of the legalities that are messing up your life.  but we also were so grateful, i mean, we didn't have to make a bed out of airport seating.  so glad to be here.  sooo glad.  so far, all i miss from spain is the food.  and like i said, we've got our little things to get us the fix when we need it.....

home.

we are home.

still very tired, still very much not able to sleep because of all the excitement (that makes 6 days for me of not getting much sleep, i woke up before 7 a.m. this morning, a huge anomoly for this night owl).

the flight went well, customs went well, we were met at our last landing by my parents and an uncle and two aunts, waving little american flags and all!  very crazy, very cheesy, but i must confess i was eating it up.  i was also eating up that massi's first meal in a restaurant was in.....perkins.  shameful, i know.  but we wanted american breakfasts, and it was the afternoon in des moines, iowa so perkins it was.  massi likes american bacon.  likes american coffee.  likes cottage cheese.  does Not like american fat-free yogurt (good boy.)  seems he is adjusting better than i am.  it will be an interesting next few weeks.  not to mention year.

today we went into town, my hometown, and i showed off the place i grew up, my grade and high school, the road we used to go car surfing on, the home we "broke into" when the neighbors of a friend was on vacation to use their swimming pool and fly into the pool with bikes and skateboards (that makes me sound all bad girl, i so was just the opposite)....my parents found it interesting to see how i gave the driving tour of my memories of my hometown, massi thought every little american house was beautiful, and we happily drove through small-town iowa eating dutch pastries and feeling our shoulders un-tense in noticable increments as we decompress after all this stress.

so we are here.  the "uncertain journey" of going off to spain has ended.  i am not sure whether to keep this blog going, or make my life a little more together and just have one....just not sure....because though the journey in a foreign land for Me has ended, it's just beginning (again) for my husband.....

these last days

you know you are ready to leave when you just kind of amble slowly through the last days you have in a place, no anxiousness to get in some more important experiences before you leave....that's me.  soooo ready to leave, that i'm pretty much cool calm and collected as we round out our last few days in spain.

friday, i must admit we had a fabulous day.  we took a train out of the city with our dear friends ron and rachael, to a little town called colonia guell that was ever so peaceful and quiet....we had a picnic in a park that actually was Green, with flowering cherry trees all around.  we wandered by the chapel built by gaudi that gives this little town its fame, though not much tourism makes its way there.  it was a gorgeous day, and we wandered slowly, stopping every so often for me to take pictures.  that night we went to a little gathering with some friends here, and they made me red velvet cake as a going-away surprise.  such a nice thoughtful touch.

saturday, massi went off to visit friends in tortossa, a town near the roman tarragona, where he used to live.  i was left alone with the whole day and nothing exciting to do other than clean the house and repack suitcases.  (neither of which got done).  instead i wandered around the gothic neighborhood, taking more pictures, and enjoying the street performers playing things like harps and violins. other than this highlight, i have to admit i was pretty bored without the Man by my side.  too in love with that man, one day apart is too long for me.

and so it goes...slowly getting things done and seeing things for the last time.  though i must admit, if i just stayed home and didn't see anything one last time it would be ok.  it is a good thing we got such a fast flight back home; i can't imagine having weeks before being able to leave.  i am just kind of waiting for time to pass, for it to be tuesday morning so we can load our luggage in the taxi and leave this life.

these past few months have been hard.  the only way we survived was knowing, both by words and amazing generous actions, that we have a big wide community out there that cares about us.  we keep getting random gifts of money, in various forms, right up to yesterday when i heard that some friends back in grand rapids had pooled the money they usually use to give christmas gifts to each other and had instead sent it to massi and i....i am just shocked at how generous all of you are, especially since i know you are not rich and are doing this instead of other things.......

so i got this email and told my mom, with whom i was im'ing, about my amazing girlfriends in g.r.  then i went home and said "you won't believe this" and told the story to my husband.

this morning, we're having coffee, getting ourselves out of the morning fuzz, and it dawned on me again.  massi must think i am crazy how i start in the middle of a conversation in my head and decide to start right in the middle to make it out loud.

"and they gave up christmas to send us money!"

i miss my girls greatly. 

it's interesting how being away for a while, and not knowing when you can go back, can really put into perspective the people who are important to you....

and how very important they really are.

oh, massi did respond to my random statement, after he sat for a minute silent (either from awe or just trying to figure out what the heck i was talking about....)

"you have some really amazing friends."

i do.

thanks.

WOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

and i am sure you know what that means..... if you live state-side, we'll see you soon! i'd say more but i am so in shock. perhaps i'll be able to form a comprehendible explanation tomorrow. or i may be too busy re-packing our suitcases....

dear God,

i am no longer angry. 

i am too tired to be anything but patient, waiting for you to move and blindly trusting that you will take care of us while we are in the middle of non-movement.  i give up.  you win. 

do what you want.

zarzuela, the dance and the meal

"i must have shown my apprehension, because the waiter said an extraordinary thing: 

'my friend, if you trust in the goodness of God, take the zarzuela.'

such advice i could not ignore, so i nodded, fearing the worst.  instead i got the best:  a ramekin containing olive oil, a judicious amount of garlic, some baked potatoes, chopped onions, pimientos, tomatoes, and a heavenly assortment of shrimp, crayfish, squid, octopus, hake, and filet of sole, all done to a golden brown and served with croutons and an efferevescent white wine.  it was a savory introduction and i hda to agree with the waiter that sometimes the goodness of God must be trusted."

- james michener, iberia.

i'm on the trusting point, not the discovering the goodness point.  but i am still trusting.  sometimes (ok most of the time) impatiently, and often angrily, but still trusting.  it's blind, and it's illogical, and it really makes no sense at all.  but it's all i have to hold on to in order to not break down entirely.  i can find a calm in the middle of the storm, only when i trust that what looks illogical to me might have some purpose in the chaos, and trusting as well that in the meantime, God will provide.  so far, in the form of several family and friends, we are receiving that provision always right when we need it.  so thank you to everyone who is being the hands of God these days.  we are endebted to you immeasurably.

and back to spanish cooking, zarzuelas and such, yesterday i learned how to make rabbit stew and fried olives thanks to this man.  and laugh at me if you will, but it made my day.  the one thing i am certain i will miss is the spanish food culture.  not much else, i think many days.  but the food culture, its flavors it attitudes, its healthiness, yes that i will miss.