Tying Shoes..

Sweat rolled down his face as he clenched his teeth in vexation. His left knee balanced him, his right foot extended in front as his fingers tangled. "Good enough," he ground out as his laces already began to loosen. "One more time," I said, as though instructing a student one time more through his scales. "Put your foot in the same direction as mine. There you go. Now pull your laces tight. Cross them like this. Now loop the right lace while holding the left tight…" As the laces dissolved once again, my husband got up and stalked off in frustration. 

We are very different people. My husband was born in India, raised in Thailand and educated in America. He grew up with the unconditional love of a mother who would do anything to make his life easier, a woman who, without a murmur of complaint, sacrificed her entire life to the care of her family. My husband’s father worked endlessly to ensure that my husband and his sister could pursue higher education anywhere in the world. And so, my husband found his way to Chicago. He can’t change lightbulbs, he is useless in the kitchen, he is not one for hanging pictures or painting walls, and he has trouble with shoelaces. But if one has a physical injury, he is the man to help.  (though he may later imagine himself to have the same injury..) 

I grew up in a small cornfield town outside of Chicago. My father has yet to tell his other daughters that I exist and my mother believed in the school of hard knocks. So if there was something that I needed or wanted, I had to build it, cook it, create it, imagine it.  I had incredible role models in my foster parents and friends families, but my reality resided in the abilities of my own two hands. 

After four years of marriage, my husband and I realized that we were not partners. We had not combined strengths but rather pulled at each other with weaknesses. I lacked respect for him and his ease of life while he despised my impatience and my inability to bend. We had come together with wildly different expectations of what our marriage was to be. He waited for me to work less, care more for him and the house, and I waited for him to embrace adventure, to occasionally run away with me to foreign lands. He obsessed over saving for retirement while I obsessed over spending less money so that we would have more freedom. Neither of us won and our marriage became merely a passing of days. I went off on adventures alone, while he lamented his longing for a traditional wife.  

We reached a point where we realized that we needed a common goal. He wanted time with me and I wanted to show him the intoxication of this beautiful world. And so, we sat with maps and books and together we chose our path to Santiago. In three days, I begin walking from Irun Spain and he will join me in Oviedo. Together we will refrain from pushing the other off a mountain, or tripping each other up  in streams.  I will warn the other pilgrims in hostels of his freakish snoring and he will warn them of my inherent pissiness. Together we will sweat, swear, swim, eat, wash clothes, taste new wine, and reach the end of the world. Together. 

After drinking an angry glass of water, my husband returned to one knee, his shoe extended, his fingers tangled in the knot of laces. As he looped one lace and wrapped the other, I knew that even as they fell apart, he would try again…

This summer, my husband and I will be walking countless steps on the Camino de Santiago in order to learn how to come together from vastly different backgrounds, to form a partnership. As we walk, we will be raising funds to help enable other young women to learn, to grow, and to revel in their own beautiful power. 

"GirlForward empowers refugee girls because through girls, we can strengthen entire communities. GirlForward serves refugee girls ages 12-21 who have been resettled in Chicago from war-torn countries around the world, and who are now building new lives for themselves and their families in the United States."   http://www.girlforward.org

To help lighten our steps, Donate here!  

https://www.justgive.org/amillionsteps

 

Una Conquistadora

La Placa de Catalunya 2006

“This city is beautiful, so many streets and walkways bending around. I could wander forever, or at least five days more! The sounds are fantastic. I wandered through the Gothic district by the Picasso museum all while a clarinet filled the space, almost mournfully, echoing back and forth between the close old walls.” 

• November 25th 2006

I wanted to see the entire world and just by virtue of cost, Barcelona was my first adventure into a land not expressed in English. I buckled my seat belt with shaky hands and suppressed a tiny wisp of desperate fear as announcements filled the airplane’s cabin with melodic exotic Spanish. And as one thing tends to lead to another; Spain led to Peru, led to France, led to England, led to Mexico, led to Thailand, led back Spain, led to Italy and once again, led to Spain. Every step I have taken has connected me back to that first late night in Barcelona, jet lagged and confused, walking wide-eyed and without direction as ice cream dripped down from it’s cone perch over my knuckles.  

Despite many returns to Spain, I had not yet revisited Barcelona in particular. So as our group of singers descended from our Montserrat adventure, I had wondered if the same magic and artistic fascination, that I had felt years ago, would once again grab my heart and hold me close. After a short stop on a very windy Montjuic, hilltop home of the 1929 World Fair and the 1992 summer Olympics, (and site of countless executions before and during the Spanish Civil War, but we won’t dwell on that..) our bus weary bodies were only too happy to be dropped at the doorstep of our very lovely hotel.   Upon receiving the room key and a reminder of a group dinner in two hours time, I quickly abandoned my bag to an empty hotel room and slipped out into the embrace of a Barcelona evening. 

La Placa de Catalunya 2006

Our hotel, located just steps from La Placa de Catalunya, a square of about 50,000 meters with streets jutting off like the spokes of a bicycle, served as the perfect springboard for tiny unnoticed escapes from the group. As I rushed to meet the night, I savored in the cacophony of languages and footsteps, the scent of wet stones, perfume and sea, the blur of color streaking over a backdrop of the blue young night. I walked La Rambla, the pedestrian path that leads one through the heart of the city to the sea’s edge. The viewfinder of my camera remained within inches of my eye, street performers warred for attention with food and flower stalls. A flower could be had for a Euro, a scarf for 3 Euro, a smile from a human statue for an unknown clink of coins.  

When walking La Rambla towards the Mediterranean, The warm brown and gold facade of Casa Beethoven beckons on the left. In business since 1880 and full of the dusty scent of undisturbed reams of music, Casa Beethoven serendipitously gifted me with the sheet music of Spain’s own Manuel de Falla. Tucking the little package under my arm, I continued on, stopping only when the scent of fresh fruit, chocolate and saffron pulled me aside. Turning to the left again, I entered and wove my way through the tiny stalls of La Boqueria. Tracing it’s lineage to the 12th century, La Boqueria assaults the senses with vibrantly colored and crisply scented, proudly displayed produce, spices, meats, and confections. Packed in with hundreds of excited tourists, I quickly moved past the first few stalls and into the quieter depths of the market. Upon purchasing enough saffron to scent my luggage and elevate my food for a year, I emerged from the market, eager to touch the sea before racing back to our group dinner.  

I passed the 19th century Gran Teatre del Liceu, pausing only briefly to marvel over the current printed opera season, I circled the 200 foot monument to Columbus, winking up at him trapped on his pedestal above and I crossed quickly to the boardwalk, hearing the water gently lap against the wood and rock. I took a breath tasting salt, faced Rome, waved to Saint Peter and then turned around, the promise of food fueling my harried footsteps back to the hotel. 

Some people adore stately Madrid, others are for Valencia’s warmth, and still others are called to the resilience of the Basque Bilbao, But it is Barcelona who writes songs in my heart and presses flowers between the pages of my music. 

Your Mother Was a Hamster

Some of us, who shall remain nameless, make bad choices. (Carlos, Patrick, Murnie, Susan and myself..) Some of us had decided that after a morning spent singing in two of Zaragoza’s most stunning churches, after spending an afternoon wandering the beautiful city, after getting dressed up and actually applying mascara, after rehearsing, eating, singing a concert, and eating again... some of us STILL decided that we needed to go out to celebrate. Some of us forgot that in Spain, the wine is way too delicious for our own good. Some of us dragged our clumsy, inebriated carcasses to bed at an unholy hour. And, if some of us happened to speak nonsense in our sleep or snore forcibly that night..  well, who’s to say?    

Dawn came viciously early.  My eyeballs pulsed from the inside and my mouth was full of cotton as I sloppily packed my things. I raced downstairs towards the continental breakfast and life-saving coffee, vowing to consume at least  32 ounces before our bus showed up. Upon reaching the lobby, I ran into Susan. She looked perfect, not a trace of strain in her eyes, her hair and clothing neat, her ever present congenial smile in place.

I. Hated. Her.

How could the universe smite me so?? I railed at the heavens, I bemoaned the injustice in the world, I cried out for mercy, and then I sat down with my trough of coffee and found my way back to being human. Moments later, we boarded our bus and said goodbye to a beautiful Zaragoza, bathed in the soft caressing glow of an early morning sun.

There really are cures to hangovers though; eggs and hash browns, the aforementioned industrial strength coffee, horse sized tylenol, dark rooms, muzzled children... But what I am sure is NOT a cure... is riding three hours on an oversized bus up the side of a mountain, switch-back after acid reflux inducing switch-back, while warming up and rehearsing for a performance that we were already running late for.  However, despite my compromised condition, I still felt a strong sense of anticipation as our bus climbed closer to the clouds. 

In 880 A.D. a group of shepherd children witnessed a bright light coming down from the heavens as angelic music filled the air. The children ran excitedly home to tell their parents, and unlike the parents of today, who would immediately take their hallucinating children to the psychologist, the 9th century parents actually believed their children. For the proceeding month, the miracle continued and upon following the light, the villagers discovered a grotto containing La Moreneta, or the Black Madonna. Later, a bishop had thought to move the black Madonna, which was rumored to have been carved by Saint Luke, to another site, but Mary had other ideas. The statue became so heavy that she could not be moved, and so within a century, four chapels had been built on the top of the mountain, surrounding her.  By the 11th century, the monastery had been built and due to large numbers of pilgrims showing up, the grand Basilica was consecrated in 1592.

Montserrat, or 'serrated mountain,' located about 25 miles northwest and 4000 ft up from Barcelona, is the birthplace of much lore and many miracles. Not only home to the black Madonna, and a place of inspiration for Saint Ignatius, Montserrat is also rumored to be the home of the Holy Grail, which causes one to begin badly quoting Indiana Jones, or better yet, Monty Python.  'I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!'  

One should consider though, that the Holy Grail is also said to be in Leon Spain, Genoa Italy, Rosslyn Chapel Scotland, Glastonbury England, a hole in the ground in Nova Scotia, Fort Knox Kentucky and my favorite, Accokeek Maryland.  We may never know if we were within a few breaths of the very cup of Christ.

As I mentioned before, we were running late and when that is the case, there is only one guarantee…stairs. Our bus hastily dropped us a couple blocks down as vehicles aren't generally allowed in the Montserrat complex. Many of us raced to the public restrooms (OUR Holy Grail!) as others began the stunning yet tiring climb to the the basilica. While rushing up stairs, our choir members were reminded of our mortality through the complaints of our over taxed knees, raging motion sickness and racing beta blocker laced hearts. We arrived in the basilica, sweaty and harried, but as the voices of Montserrat's Escolonia (boys choir) greeted us, our discomforts melted away. Tracing it's lineage back to the early 1300s, the Escolonia keeps a demanding schedule, singing multiple times a day, six days a week. World renowned, the angelic voices of these boys are surely a convincing echo of the miracle voices that our young shepherds had heard 1100 years before. 

We watched the boys file off to head back to their classes as we prepared to line up on the altar steps. We sang through our selections as our eyes took in the heavy gilding and ostentatious decor of the 16th century basilica. 

Still battling exploding eyeballs and motion sickness, I stepped up to sing the solo in ‘I’m Gonna Sing till the Spirit Moves in my Heart,’ a solo that is meant to come from the very core of one’s being. However, I suspect that my churning woozy core had turned my skin to a shiny pea green shade and my palms clammy. I am not sure what sort of sounds came out of my mouth but I could see that once Patrick sang his part and the choir joined in, the parents, children, teachers, students and pilgrims and tourists who bustled around the stunning church had turned our way, stymied and delighted to hear such different American music in their midst. 

After our mini performance, we stopped to chat with some of the people in the audience, thrilled to discover that one couple had wandered over from Minnesota, connecting well with our director of Fargo origins.  Another couple, a Polish wife and Argentinian husband asked where we would be singing next. They hugged us happily and promised to see us the very next day in Barcelona.

Upon gathering in the courtyard outside of the basilica, our tour guide/warden Cristina told us that we had two hours before meeting the train down the mountain. And with little prompting, our choir members quickly scattered like the seeds of a dandelion. 

I wandered, camera in hand, past the lovely little food stalls full of tiny jars of honey, cheese and baked goods. Rather than sit down to a lunch in a very meat smelling cafeteria with the others, (remember the queasy stomach..) I opted to buy a small bag of nuts and dried fruit. I then proceeded to feed myself and the surrounding birds while snapping photos of the spectacular views and beautiful monastery, the fresh air calming my shaky stomach. 

Slowly we all trickled back to the tiny train station, excited to board our train, eager to  descend from the mountain into the beauty and vitality of a saucy Barcelona.  

 

Photo Credit to Ellen Peirce who caught me luring pigeons with dried fruit..