In Memoriam

Ruth 

I met Ruth exactly two years ago today

Give or take a few days 

We were in New York before camp

Visiting Aaron’s family.

As a couple, we were still kind of new then - 

Even though we’d been together for a year

Most of it had been long distance - 

Everyone met at Jake and Ruth’s apartment

Pictures of times gone by

Baby Aaron. Baby cousins. Weddings and celebrations and friends and lives lived

Richly.

And then we went out to dinner somewhere uptown 

Most of the family gathered, a few key branches were not in the city

I was excited because the Tony Awards were uptown that year

And we could see the barricades and television trucks setting up from the restaurant 

Ruth was already elderly 

Already in the late stages of alzheimer’s 

But she smiled the whole evening

Seemed happy to see her family gathered 

Jake hardly said a word

But I knew I’d been accepted when, towards the end of the meal

He ate food right off my plate 

And two years later

Aaron and I are married 

And on the way to living in New York 

We’re still new in a way 

But together forever now 

We were on our way to Richmond

When we received the sad news

That Ruth had passed away

We drove to New York

Exhausted from twelve days on the road

And were greeted by the family

My first full family dinner 

With my American family 

The thrill of everyone being together

Tempered by the fact that the 

Matriarch was missing 

A joyful meal in her memory

Lobster and plates upon plates of Chinese dishes from Chinatown 

And today, the funeral

We drove to Dobbs Ferry 

Saw Ruth’s body dressed in a white shroud, 

Resting in a plain wooden coffin 

She looked peaceful, just sleeping. 

Family and friends gathered

Stories shared 

Tears and tissues 

The laughter of shared stories remembered 

A kind and loving matriarch

A teacher who worked professionally before children and marriage 

A wonderful cook 

A beloved friend 

A gutsy socialist who believed in better for all 

The funeral procession up to the cemetery 

The coffin lowered into the earth

The Rabbi (female) leading the kaddish

Religious tradition providing a framework

Comforting custom 

Helping to bury the dead

Ruth's final resting place

Overlooking a valley of trees 

One of the most beautiful I've seen 

In the afternoon

More eating, of course 

I sat next to Jake, who ate right off my plate

The family gathered in celebration of their mom 

And grandmother 

I didn’t get to know Ruth during her life

But today I feel like I have a better sense of who she is 

Who she was 

My place in this as her grandson’s wife

The changing of the guard 

Picking up where she left off 

Carrying on her legacy 

Education and travel and experience 

A love of food, a love of people, a love of life

I grew up a world away

And yet, I feel at home with this family 

Sitting with them in their grief

And memories

And love

It Will Not Break. It Broke.

By Mike Flynn and Shikha Dalmia
From here. Not at all depressing or scary... 

When they say 

The immigration system

Is broken

It needs fixing 

I can tell you

First hand

It is a red hot 

Stinking mess 

Of hell

Like having the privilege 

Of being with my love

Took eleven months

A few thousand dollars 

Endless reams of paper 

That repeated the

Same information

Over and over and 

Over again 

Name. Age. D.O.B. His Name. Age. D.O.B. 

Parent’s names. Parent’s birthdays. Parent’s place of birth. 

Copies of birth certificates, police certificates, medical certificates. 

Every address I have lived at since I was sixteen 

(I am currently residing in my 24th abode in 30 years. I hate that question.) 

And once the system

Decided

In 2013

To make everything virtual 

We had to re-submit

Every single form

From scratch. 

At one point,

There were six different numbers 

Assigned to my case 

Now I am a code. 

I am never asked for my name

Only my number 

Because I am not 

Luisa Lyons, Australian/Spanish citizen 

I am a ten digit code with an 

Alphabetized prefix. 

And once I got to the USA

And arrived at the border

The immigration official

Had to go through every piece of paper

In my packet

Stamp it

And determine it was ok for me to go through

Once we were married

More paperwork

The same information

Over and over and 

Over again 

Name. Age. D.O.B. His Name. Age. D.O.B. 

Parent’s names. Parent’s birthdays. Parent’s place of birth. 

Copies of birth certificates, police certificates, medical certificates

Certified marriage certificate

Every address I have lived at since I was sixteen 

Everything must be submitted in hard copy, most forms are filled in by hand

This is to “Adjust Immigrant Status” 

And apply for “Employment Authorization” 

More exorbitant fees

That ensure

You will never be able to speak to a human

Months of waiting 

And zero communication

With the department

The system is broken 

Because between us

My husband and I 

Hold four university degrees

But my husband has to work his butt off 

To keep us afloat 

Because I’m not allowed to work

Either to contribute to the economy 

Or to our household 

I’m grateful I speak English

I’m proactive 

I volunteer at a local bookshop

Am volunteering with a local theatre company 

Writing my one-woman show 

But 

In a society whose primary currency is 

Cash 

I cannot thrive

I hate not being independent

I hate having to ask for financial help 

When we have worked so damn hard. 

I hate living in a system 

That is so crushed by bureaucracy 

And fear 

That it is not able to function 

The system is broken

And it’s breaking me down 

Every time I have to call the 

“Helpline” 

To ask 

Why haven’t we heard anything?

I’m tired of being a number 

And waiting

The end. 

Getting Married (Part 4)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

I love a good wedding

All my friends will tell you

I’m the first to cry at them

Be there to sing and dance and by merry

And celebrate the legal uniting of 

Two souls

I’ve been to weddings in gardens

On farms 

In churches

I’ve had the privilege of speaking at weddings

And singing in the ceremony

I love watching friends and family

Declare love

To their loved ones 

And for my own wedding

I wanted exactly no part of the circus

I’ve been engaged once before

We started preparing a wedding

Picked a date, went dress shopping, drafted lists, looked at venues

Learnt that the minute you mentioned

“Wedding” instead of “party”

The prices instantly doubled 

I discovered that 

Every. Person. In. The. World.

Has. An. Opinion.

And if you don’t listen to, and follow through, with their 

Sage advice

You will be DOOMED

Or offend, insult, or have yourself struck from the family tree. 

Instead of perusing wedding magazines

And blogs

Or attending fairs and conventions

Or sitting with girlfriends and sisters over coffee

Discussing details

I read about the history of weddings

Trying to understand 

What bought us to this level of crazy

I discovered that, in its earliest days,

The Christian church abhorred marriage

And declared celibacy was the only way to spiritual truth 

That marriages throughout history

Have been about the economic empowerment of men

And a means of controlling women

Their bodies

And reproduction

Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert

Was the most readable 

The traditions didn’t speak to me 

The white dress, the rings, the vows,

Bows on chairs. 

I hate, with a strange passion, chairs covered with white fabric and bows. 

I just wanted to marry my love

And live happily ever after the end. 

I begged my first fiance to elope 

Save the trouble and expense and drama

Instead we broke up. 

Nearly three years later

I nervously told Aaron

I didn’t actually want a wedding

He was thrilled. 

And so after a very long wait
And most of the year apart
We finally became husband and wife.

We got married on a Monday 

Because it was the first day we could

After applying for the marriage license. 

I wore a dress 

I’ve worn a hundred times 

And will hopefully wear a hundred times more 
Aaron wore a collared shirt 

We both wore smiles. 

We drove to the town hall in Aaron’s car

We walked inside the building

And because we live in Colorado

We did not require witnesses

We did not require a ceremony

Just the intention to be legally bound

We signed our names

Sealed it with a kiss, and, 

We were married.

We called our families
Wrote to our friends
And shared a dinner that we cooked together
It was quiet and lovely
And outside, the snow was glistening. 

The end. 

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 

My Local

"Matilda" by Quentin Blake

There is a picture of baby me

Somewhere in a dusty album

Perusing books off the bookshelf

As if I understood the meaning

Of the swirls on the page

I have been a member
Of my local library
Since forever
We visited almost every week
A giant pile of books each
Growing up I read a book a day
It was marvelous preparation
For a degree in English
Though the books at uni
Were denser
And required more analysis
Than the books
I had grown up with

My memberships are a testament
To my moving record
Not counting
Automatic membership
For the four schools

And two universities

I attended
I have been a member of over 15 libraries
On three different continents
In my twenty-eight years

I love to read
I love the quiet of the library
I love the shelves and shelves of books
The order of them
The insurmountable amount of
Knowledge
Contained therein

I feel at home
When I've joined the local library
It's as important as packing tape
And boxes
To have that library card in my wallet
Access to books
And a quiet place
For exploring
The world

The end.

Thank You

Thank you
Mum
For your generosity
And looking after me
Even when you're
Far away

Thank you
Skype
For keeping me connected
With my boy
Even when he's
Far away

Thank you
Raspberry sorbet
And white chocolate shavings
For your deliciousness
And taking my troubles
Far away

The end.

My Funny Valentine

My boyfriend lives over the ocean
My boyfriend lives over the sea
We cannot celebrate Valentine's in person
So I shall resort to blogging

Lame!
My blog
Nor all the inspiration and joy it brings
Is in any way
Comparable to my love

This is a story
It is a love story
Duh. It's Valentine's Day.
Though, to be honest
Even if we were in the same vicinity
We wouldn't be celebrating
Because
Honestly
We tell each other we
Love each other
Every single day
And we don't need no
Day of commercial
Triviality
To say what we feel

But that's not what
I wanted to write about.
I wanted to write about
How crazy it is
That we even found each other
Because statistically
And with all the people in the world
Isn't it crazy
That it is possible
For two people
To even meet
Despite growing up
On opposite sides of the planet
And having completely different upbringings
And living completely different lives
And to have enough in common
And have enough spark
To want to spend large amounts of time together
Yet alone
Be in a long distance relationship

Here's the story
Girl meets boy
They fall in love
And decide
That despite the ocean between them
And despite all promises to themselves
That they would
Remain Single For the Forseeable Future
They'll call each other
Boyfriend and Girlfriend
And then
They call each other
Every single day
And say
Those three magical
Cliche-ridden
When they're true they're overwhelming
The most important
The freest
The most wonderful of words

I love you

And while Cinderella and her prince
Did live happily ever after
The point is, gentlemen,
The lived.

The end.

Love, Actually

There is a couple in the foyer
The wife is crying
The husband lifts the hood of her jacket
Kisses her forehead and laughs

They come up to the kiosk
And the husband says
"I just gave her the tickets,
She didn't know we were
Seeing the show tonight"
He is grinning from ear to ear

The wife is in shock
She is still crying a little
Perhaps the husband has been terrible
And he's making up for it
Perhaps he has been away
And this is a surprise date
Perhaps he has told her
A hundred times
"We're not going to the bloody theatre
It's too expensive"
And all the while has been saving
To buy her a ticket

The husband asks for a program
The wife looks at it like it might bite her
She is not sure what is happening
The husband buys the program
He offers to hold it
"So you won't get it soggy
With your tears
Love"

At the interval
The wife looks more relaxed
She buys a fridge magnet
"Isn't it a wonderful show?"
The husband is still grinning from ear to ear
Secretly proud
His ploy worked

Love, actually
Is everywhere

The end.

At the end of the day

thankfully, not my day. 

It is nice to come home
To cheese and crackers
And homemade hummus
And to chat with your love
And to light a candle
And be still

The end.

Don't Panic

Dear Me-Four-Years-Ago, 

You are about to go back to London for your second visit. It will be covered in snow. The tube will be in total disarray and it will take you four hours to travel from Heathrow to Islington. All the tourist attractions will close early. You will not make it inside St. Paul’s Cathedral despite your best efforts. Don’t worry about the admission to Westminster, it’s totally worth it. Don’t worry that you don’t visit the West End. You will discover that traveling solo is Where. It. Is. At. You will discover that walking through London is magical. You will feel like you belong in Europe no matter what your passport says. When Susan says goodbye to you at Paddington after a week of wandering, sight-seeing, and Londoning, you will cry. You will feel as if you are leaving too early. You make a promise to yourself that you will return, and that you will one day live overseas. 

Dear Me-Four-Years-Ago, you come back. You have a Spanish passport. And yes, you live overseas. You make it inside St Paul’s Cathedral. You climb to the roof and with the rooftops of London as your background, you kiss a wonderful boy who turns out to be even more wonderful than you already think he is. You go to drama school. You get an agent. You are an actor living in London. Truly. 

In fact, one night, nearly four years from now, you will walk from your place of work, a theatre in the West End, to Embankment. You won’t even need a map. And you will easily navigate your way to Angel. And after a lovely dinner, you will travel home on the tube. And the air will smell crisp, and the ground will be gritted in preparation for the promise of snow.  And you will remember this time four years ago, and how you couldn’t even conceive how it could all be possible, and you laugh. 

The end. 

July 4th

My friend Helene and I singing the Swedish frog song.
Photo by Rene Macioce. 

The camp where I work was founded by pacifists, people who had endured the horrors of Nazi Germany. Today our place of work is staffed by people from all over the world Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden... As a result, we don't celebrate Independence Day, we celebrate Diversity Day. In the evening the international staff and international campers share their cultures, their music and stories and tidbits of information that make their cultures different to the American one. But even Diversity Day makes me uncomfortable. I feel anxious around displays of nationalism. And so, I wrote and shared the following. 

Diversity Day. I don’t care where you come from. 

Allow me to explain. I am Australian. I am Spanish. I am descendent from Filipinos, Dutch, and Polish. I have blood relatives in Spain, Switzerland, England, America, Canada, the Philippines, and Australia. I speak un pocito Español. I grew up in Sydney, approximately 10,000 miles from this place. Where I come from we wear thongs instead of flip flops, the forest is called the bush. We eat lollies and not candy, and wear singlets instead of tank tops. We say it is hot outside, and not it is hot out. I call my friends on a mobile not a cell, We don’t walk upside down. Nor do our toilet bowls flush in the opposite direction... I don’t think. I never rode a kangaroo to school. I never owned a pet koala. I never met Steve Irwin. 

I’m rather uncomfortable with declarations of nationalistic pride. I grew up in a country whose national day of pride is Anzac Day, which commemorates the landing of Australian and New Zealander troops on the shores of Galipoli, Turkey, and were subsequently slaughtered in their thousands. Now we’re friends with the Turkish, and we eat their delicious foods and every year thousands more Australians congregate at Galipoli to remember the fallen from nearly a hundred years before. 

I’m a raging pacifist. I don’t get war. I really don’t. Once upon a time the British fought the Americans. Then they decided to stop. Now they are allies. Now they laugh at each other from across the pond. Seventy years ago my country was shooting Turks, and Germans, and Italians. Seventy years later I grew up eating pita bread, pretzels, and pizza. When my grandparents were teenagers they were sheltering from Japanese bombs and fearing death. My grandmother now drives a Japanese car, we all eat sushi, and my class at school almost had more Japanese students than Australian. 

I don’t get displays of nationalistic pride. They make me uncomfortable. I’ve spent the last five years traveling the world. I’ve been to Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Germany, France, Switzerland, England, Wales, and the US of A. Now I may have only begun to scrape the surface of the metaphorical travel iceberg but here’s what I’ve discovered in my travels. No one place is better or worse than any other. America is no more the land of the free than Australia is the land of sunshine. In all those places I’ve seen people going about their daily lives. They wake up, they eat food, they go to the toilet, they spend the day making ends meet, if they’re lucky they’ll have time to play. At the end of the day they gather with their families and then they go to sleep. There are variations on this theme. Yes, many people have less other people. Yes, you have the occasional people that spend their days plotting the demise of other people who aren’t their people. But you know what? Most people just happened upon this here crazy planet, and they’re doing the best that they can.

Diversity Day. I don’t care where you come from. I care that you treat me decently just because. I care that I can be open to cultures and traditions and foods and that aren’t my own. It may be naive. It may be simplistic. But we’ve got to start somewhere. I hope you’ll care less where I come from. At the end of the day, let’s just exist on this planet together. Let’s draw on several thousand years of human history and share the foods that our ancestors ate. Let’s find a way to share life, liberty, and the pursuit of happyness in all its rich diversity. 

The end. 

Friends

Once upon a time I lived in Sydney
And I knew many people there
And I studied in many places
And worked in many places
And played, and sang, and danced, and
Lived a life
That now seems far away and distant

And in this present day life
I am a person I always dreamed of being
Living in the lands of overseas
And traveling
And performing
And meditating
And eating delicious food
And being a grown up
Who makes her own decisions
About how her life is going to be

And today I met up with a friend
Who I hadn't seen in quite a while
And he was still the same lovely person
He was a few years ago
Softly spoken but with a glint in his eye
And he made me remember
All those friends
From that Other Life that once I led

And it's funny how people
Float in and out of our lives
And Amy K.R. once wrote about how
Maybe the word "end" is in the word
Friendships
Because sometimes friendships
Just end in the middle

And I just wanted to say,
To all those people
From a distant time, a distant life,
Whether we're actually still in contact or not
To all those people I've sat under bright blue skies with
And drunk beverages with
And shared meals with
And sat beside ponds and stared at geese with
And laughed in offices with
And trained with
And studied with
And sang with
And danced with
And gardened with
And traversed a bit of time
On this globe
Together with

I'm thinking of you
And wondering how you are
And hoping you're happy and well
Really and truly
Happy. And well.
And sending you love from across the universe.

The end.

This Is

This is me breathing

This is me standing in space

This is me embracing all twenty-seven years of me 

This is me rejecting everything I know and starting again

But embracing everything I know and incorporating it into the starting again

Everything is important

Nothing is important 

Everything matters

Nothing matters

In the words of Alanis

I’m high but I’m grounded

I’m sane but I’m overwhelmed 

I’m delirious

I’m stable

I’m happy 

I’m emotional 

I’m floating on the energy of you

This is me kissing your face

Your hands your lips your ribs your thigh

This is me holding you

This is me crawling into bed to be tangled in you 

This is us lying in bed together

This is the sound of rain on leaves on trees on the world

This is us snuggled under the doona

This is us sharing who we have become today in this moment

There is no time no space

Only what we have constructed determined to be so

There is only this moment

How can we make promises beyond the moment when this moment this breathing this now this second this “this” is all we have all we can be

The power of memory

The power of now

Eckhart speaks to us and we smile and quote movies

Heath and Julia and Joseph and Alison Janney 

And it makes us smile 

It makes us laugh

Makes our energy sparkle radiate pulsate on the same frequency

You said that

We were on the same frequency

And it made me tingle with delight 

This is me falling in love with you

This is me feeling light and wonderful

This is me wanting to rush to rooftops 

And tell everyone about you

This is me smiling

This is me writing 

This is me not being able to find the words to express what I’m feeling

This is me laughing at myself for being like this 

This is me being incredulous that it is at all possible

This is me giving thanks to the universe

To the powers that be

To spirit

To the unnamable thing 

To you

To all the stuff of the last year and a half that has had to be lived 

To experience

To life, to life, lachaim! To Tevye saying why is it so? I don’t know. Because. It is. 

Because it must be so. Because the world is completely unknowable. And yet I know it. I can fathom it. Even if just a little bit. But that’s ok. It’s my little bit that I fathom. 

And here I am fathoming and living and breathing and being frustrated and being delighted and being here on this earth. And my god, it has taken me so long to be okay with the fact that I’m even here! But HERE I AM AND I’M OKAY WITH THAT. 

And then let go of that because that’s not important either. 

Soothsaying for the ego.

All of it is great. All of it is nothing. 

Love. Life. Joy. Bliss. Sadness. The world. 

Here we are.

Here you are.

This is me.

This is us. This is the world. This is everything and nothing. 

These are signifiers for the unnamable unquantifiable unimaginable energy of life of shifting of currents of time of space of the world of everything ever happening to be existence.

Once upon a time there was a big bang

And the world began

And the light was started

And a little while later you and I were lying on the grass (that had grown in the meantime)

And the lights from that beginning were shining down

The very glow of them

And in the moment I offered my thanks to the universe the spark the divine unnamable thing that is the energy of the world

I saw my first shooting star of the summer

And in a ring around the field where we were lying

Were dark clouds, even darker than the dark of the night

And they were flashing bright with lightning

Somehow that night

We were simultaneously star gazing and storm watching

And the air smelt sweet

And you tasted like peppermint 

And there was a fizzle a spark of chemistry an exchange of energy a thrill of joy rush delight 

And then we agreed to say goodbye

This is me breathing

This is me standing in space

This. Is. 

The end. 

It's Raining, It's Pouring

Rain is absolutely falling from the sky. It’s been raining for three days straight. The constant patter of the rain on the roof on the trees on the pavement on all the towels and swimmers hanging on the line and on the umbrella above the porch. Everything is damp. Everything smells of wet. But I’m singin’ in the rain. I’m dancin’ in the rain. I’m laughing at those clouds up above. I am in Connecticut. I’m smack bang in the middle of a grand adventure. I’m Living The Dream of being a world traveler, of living overseas, of being a creative soul. It’s raining, it’s pouring, my heart is absolutely soaring. The grass is green. The trees are green. The pavement is shiny black. It’s okay to fall in love again. It’s wonderful. Of course, it is raining. Soon I’ll be in London, the land of stereotypical quintessential rain. I’ll be standing in the English rain! Nearly all significant events of my life happen in rain. The day I was born. The day I started school. The first time I visited drama school. The first time I traveled overseas. The day my ex-fiance decided to end our relationship. The day I started uni the drought actually broke (for a bit). Dear London. Apologies in advance. It’s probably going to rain a lot between the end of August and early September. The end. 

Choice of Awe

Sometimes life is hard and downright scary

And sometimes we feel like shit 

And the appropriate response seems to be to run away and hide and bemoan the travesties of the world

All the murder, rape, and pillage

We are killing the planet

We are killing each other

All this war

All this killing

All the emotionally unstable sad miserable people in the world

It is terrifying, it is big and huge and out of our control

But I choose to believe that I do have a choice

I choose to smile

I choose to breathe 

I choose to see the light and the lovely

And if that makes you uncomfortable, that’s your issue 

Because I happen to enjoy the light and lovely

In the midst of awful you can find the world is full of awe 

You just have to look

And believe in what may not at first be evident 

And believe that it can all be ok and can even be better 

There is light and love and joy and bliss

And you can choose to see it 

And you can choose to cultivate it

And you can choose to make a difference in your part of the world

To make the awesome and lovely and inspiring more evident 

And perhaps then life won’t be so hard or downright scary

And less full of killing and war and emotionally unstable sad miserable people

Perhaps I’m a crazy left-wing idealist hippy

That’s ok. 

I know which world I choose to live in. 

Moving to London

Left: Abuelo and Abuela in Manilla in the 1950s, Right: Mum and an assortment of (now) uncles and aunts in 1963

Forty-eight years ago you sailed into Sydney and leaned against the railing of the ship 

Thinking of children who weren’t even born yet

All the children with you would one day be grown-ups and married with children of their own

Could you have imagined me, your granddaughter, named after you

Who when she went to Spain for the first time felt strangely at home

Despite the language barrier 

Who longed her whole life to be European, to speak Spanish, who thrilled and delighted at finally getting a Spanish passport 

How would you feel knowing your nieta is not an out and proud Australian

That I cringe at our accents and our inability to speak more than one language 

That I find Australian culture frustrating

That I can’t stand that our national day of pride is a day commemorating a bloody battle thousands of miles away 

That I cannot connect with Australian history because it is so contested 

A few months ago I sailed into Sydney myself

I got up at 5am to watch the lights of Sydney Harbour come into view

And I thought of you leaning against the railing of the Iberia

Could you have imagined as you sailed past Nielsen Park or Point Piper or Taronga Zoo that these would be the sites of my childhood?

Strange to think that the Opera House wasn’t even finished yet 

Could you have imagined me singing in the Opera House?! Or having my year 10 formal at the Zoo overlooking the giraffes looking out to the Harbour? 

Could you have imagined that I would grow up among the eucalyptus and the smell of the Australian bush

And yet never feel at home in it

To feel frustrated every time someone asks “but don’t you feel so lucky?”

In two months, I’m leaving this place

To go to the land where your brothers live

And then to London to seek my own life and put down my own roots

Where I will be in forty-eight years time? 

And what stories will have played out between my arrival at Heathrow and sitting down to reflect on it all?

Abuelo, forty-eight years ago you sailed to Sydney

To a land that for you was entirely sight unseen 

No internet to do your research

No crystal ball to let you know that it was all going to be ok, that you were making the right decision

Our wanderings are not over yet

We are still shifting in time and space 

But wherever we go, there we are

And we have our stories and our ancestors to guide the way