but usually we need to be walking

in a garden to know it.”

~ Rumi

I like gardens full of color, but bare branches against a blue winter sky (with a few puffy clouds) are pretty, too.   Our backyard maple has been tricked into budding; a few of the purple crocus have peeked through the soil; pink blossoms adorn a tree on the next block.  Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 63 degrees.  Can spring be far behind?

Oh, wait…we’ve still got to get through February!

Hotel Lunata, Playa del Carmen, Mexico; Photo:KFawcett

If I were seeing this photo for the first time, I would guess that it was taken in Mexico.  The boveda ceiling is a huge hint.   Boveda is the Spanish word for arch.  The Spanish language, however, often has many definitions for one word.  Boveda is also used for the “dome of the sky” or the “inside of a bowl” style ceiling above the altar of old churches or the vault that encloses a casket in  the cemetery.  Here it is used in relation to the rows of brick laid in an arch that form the ceilings of many houses, churches, and public buildings in Mexico. 

The success of the boveda ceiling depends on basic rules of physics.  The ancient Romans developed the theory (in building the aqueducts) that an arch (one that is correctly built, that is) becomes stronger under pressure.  Not every mason has the expertise to build boveda ceilings.  In Mexico it’s considered art.  This is one of the many arched ceilings at the lovely Hotel Lunata on 5th Avenue in Playa del Carmen.

Click HERE for more examples and information about the art of boveda.

Sea lions, however, don’t seem to mind the rocky terrain.  They drape their bodies over the stones and each other on the beaches, and the little ones follow their mothers head-first into the sea, an artist’s palette of blues and greens and indigo that changes with the waves and the straight-up, unrelenting sun.  The islands lie smack on the equator, a “god-forsaken place” in some ways, but it’s also quite beautiful.

Have you seen any better camouflage? 

Sea lions at La Loberia, San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands; Photo:KFawcett

San Cristobal is the easternmost island in the chain and one of the oldest.  The principal town, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, is the provincial capital of the Galapagos Islands.  One morning we took a 10-minute bus ride from town to the beach at La Loberia and were greeted by a colony of sea lions that barked and flapped their way along the beach and lined up as if to pose with big, watery eyes and dripping whiskers. 

Puerto Baquerizo Moreno was a penal colony more than 100 years ago, but today it’s a sleepy town that overlooks a pretty harbor and is known for its “relaxed” way of life.  (I like that!)  A favorite past time is sitting in one of the outdoor cafes along the harbor and watching the sea lions vie for the right to sit in the boats anchored just off shore.

Sea lions in the harbor, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands; Photo:MFawcett

For eons these sea lions had no fear of humans and have had few predators.  But life has changed some since our visit to the colony.  Many sea lions have been killed and mutilated, their body parts sold on the Asian market.  Sometimes their mangled bodies have been dumped and left to wash ashore.  Every time I read about this sort of thing happening I grieve for our old friends. 

Vogue’s First Reader was published by Conde Nast in 1942.  It’s a huge tome  at 557 pages with essays by more than 70 authors.  Some famous, others not so much.  There’s Thomas Wolfe and Andre Maurois, Ludwig Bemelmans and Katherine Anne Porter, Carson McCullers and William Saroyan.   Allene Talmey writes about Clare Boothe and Clare Boothe writes about theater in China.  Andre Maurois recalls Christmas in France and Therese Bonney writes about Gertrude Stein in France.  Many of the essays are personal experiences written against the backdrop of war.  

Here are a few personal “windows” I got a chance to look back and peek into…

– Carson McCullers loved Brooklyn.  Her NYC neighborhood was very different from the Georgia of her childhood, but she writes with warmth in “Brooklyn is My Neighborhood” about the people she met, such as the young Italian electrician who whistled operatic arias while he worked and shared a bottle of homemade wine with her the day his first child was born.  She buys her coal from the man who lives next door and befriends an elderly lady who takes in stray dogs and keeps a monkey as a pet.  The thing she loved most about Brooklyn in the 40s?  “Every one is not expected to be exactly like every one else.”

–  Claire Boothe’s “Chungking’s Broadway” is a fascinating look at China during World War 2 and a good example of the old saying, “the show must go on.”  Chungking’s playgoers flocked to the theaters regardless of air raids and fires and Japanese bombers.  They sat on planks when the theaters were bombed and the seats destroyed.  They watched the show by kerosene lamps when the electricity went off.  They did without scenery when the stage lay in rubble.  Boothe writes: “In the capital of wartime China, a city of four hundred thousand, which has had ten times as many tons of bombs dumped on it per square acre as London, there is always a play…”  And all the plays had the same moral (“Defeat the Japanese”) Ms. Boothe was told, although in most plays the war was not even mentioned.   It didn’t have to be, a friend explained.  In every plot this was understood.

–  In “Chile Con Amore” Ludwig Bemelmans relates one funny story after another about his travels in South America.  On his arrival in Valparaiso he asked a taxi to take him to the Hotel Astor as it had been highly recommended by a friend.  The driver refused.  After some debate, the driver called a policeman over to the car.  The policeman also said “no” to the Hotel Astor, but Bemelmans insisted.  He suspected the two were suggesting a different hotel because they must have been in cahoots with the owner.  Finally, the taxi driver agreed to take Bemelmans where he wanted to go.  They took a long drive across town and the taxi stopped in front of a huge excavation site filled with trucks and construction equipment.  He quickly unloaded the trunks and suitcases.  “This, Senor, will be the Hotel Astor about six months from now, or perhaps a year,” he said, and he drove off.  It still pays to listen to the locals.

– While Mary Ellen Chase wrote a serious piece about the war (“Here We Stand”) Virginia Cowles aimed at making readers laugh (“Humour — The Bomb-Proof Kind”).  Chase claims that the predominant emotion after December 7, 1941 was intense relief — “relief from the intolerable strain of indecision.”  She considers politics and economics as vital and necessary, but they also represent superficial and temporal worlds in comparison with the moral and spiritual world in which we “really” live.  On a lighter note, Cowles says that humour “flashes out of misery like the gleam of cat eyes through a black alley.”  Wandering through the ruins of London after the blitz, she discovered the capital had not lost its ability to laugh.  A barber shop with a caved-in roof also had a sign in the window: “Close shave, eh?”  A department store with two floors missing displayed a poster: “You ought to see our Berlin branch.”  And a private home that was mostly in rubble had a message written in chalk on the pavement: “I wouldn’t even wish this on my mother-in-law.”

I love personal experience essays because I always learn something new or will myself to look at life through a different set of eyes.  Sometimes my own impressions and opinions are reinforced; sometimes I change my mind.  It’s a great way to “experience” history, rather than merely reading a book full of facts.

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White Orchids; Photo:KFawcett

Until spring comes, I’m keeping my indoor office bright with birds on the floor and fish on the door…and, perhaps not so bright, with a mess in every corner.

The fake Christmas snowflakes and icicles still need to be put away before the real ones come. 

But my nieces gave me a plaque that makes it’s all good…

Now, I just need to get busy creating something!

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March 18 at 2 pm I’ll be doing a reading from To Come and Go Like Magic at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, along with Teresa Burns Murphy who will be reading from her book, The Secret of Flying.  If you’re in the area, stop by for the reading and the reception and book signing afterward.

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I’m excited to be attending the San Miguel International Writer’s Conference and Literary Festival in February in the beautiful city of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico.  This year’s “Creative Crossroads of the Americas” has some fantastic authors and special events on the schedule. 

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In April it’s back to Bowling Green for the 2012 Southern Kentucky Book Fest to participate in Kentucky’s largest literary festival.  If you’re in that area, stop by and say hello.  The Book Fest is a fundraiser for literary projects in the Bowling Green area. 

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A glimpse of the beach at Great Bay on the road to Cabrita Point, St. Thomas, USVI; Photo:K Fawcett

The bougainvillea is always in bloom; Photo: K Fawcett

The Fishtail Palm had loads of berries, mostly green, but a few had turned red…

Fishtail Palm, St. Thomas, USVI; Photo:K Fawcett

The tree gets its name from the shape of the leaves…

The banana trees were full of fruit…

After a quick rain…

Bird of Paradise; Photo:K Fawcett

Rain on the seagrape; Photo:K Fawcett

I don’t mind rain in the tropics.  In fact, I enjoy listening to the night rains and watching the occasional downpour.  It keeps everything lush and green and fills the cisterns for the people who live on the island.  When it doesn’t rain families have to purchase water from the local water truck.  It’s expensive.  A tank of water costs more than $300. 

And, if it didn’t rain, there would be no rainbows…

A few locals, however, prefer the sun and a place to stretch out amongst the warm rocks.

It’s all good in my book, as long as I can find a quiet spot away from the crowds.

Great Bay, Cabrita Point, St. Thomas, USVI; Photo:K Fawcett

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St. John, US Virgin Islands

I’m thinking sun and sand, blue skies and warm water, where the only ice to be found is the crushed kind that comes in a glass.  Or maybe the mountains of Mexico where it’s still possible to skip back centuries, walk cobblestone streets, and catch a few red and purple sunsets.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

So, with travel on the agenda, I took some New Year’s Resolutions under consideration.

Looking back at my 15 Quirky New Year’s Resolutions for 2011, I realize they are still fun ideas that work for this year as well as last.  Did I do them all?  Well, I didn’t find an old lady in a big hat to befriend, but perhaps I’ll discover her this year sitting on a remote beach somewhere or walking down an ancient cobblestone street.  I’ll know her when I see her. 

Here, then, is the 2012 installment…  

More Quirky New Year’s Resolutions

1)  Experience the unknown.  This has a way of making a person feel new and — strangely — whole.

2)  Whisper.  Drink the night air.  Let the heart fly.  Be enchanted.

3)  Don’t be afraid, once in awhile, to be turned upside down and inside out.

4)  STOP moving long enough to really focus.

5)  Do as Neruda said — “set fire to life” — every now and then.

6)  Look for meaning — in dreams and in waves of loneliness, written on stones and in secret hearts, heard in the chatter of hens or tasted in the honeysuckle flower or glimpsed in a flash of lightning.  Consider it in the cluster of grapes that ripens slowly and in the lilies that bloom for only a day.

7)  Sit in the woods somewhere and lean back against a tree; touch something new, smell something new, but don’t eat the toadstools.

8)  Buy a…different sort of object — silver bells, a hanging lantern fit for a castle, gypsy feathers.  (I’ve had gypsy feathers on my “list” for a long time.  This year I’ll have to figure out what they look like and if they’re good for anything.)

9)  Keep the varmints out of the kudzu and the tigers in their dens.

10) Find my self in that pile of old pictures.

11) Aim to be as peaceful as rainwater on leaves.

12) Make someone else 10 times happy!

So, let’s reflect for a bit…

1)  If you could somehow “jump into” any Christmas carol or song and actually experience what the lyrics say, which song would you choose?

I would go “dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh…”  I’ve carried that image in my head since childhood.

2)  What would be the ideal way for you to spend Christmas Eve?

I like the “traditional” way we spend it, but perhaps a little less hectic during the day.  Christmas Eve candlelight service at church, lighting the luminaries at dusk, a relaxing dinner, opening gifts, and either watching the Muppets’ Christmas Carol or National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. 

3)  What aspect of preparing for Christmas do you like the most?

I like decorating the tree and watching my son set up the North Pole village.  We’ve spent years collecting ornaments from hither and yon and they always bring back fun memories.  Likewise, the “village” began as one elf bunkhouse and there are stories to go along with each one we added.

4)  If you were to open up a cozy little Christmas shop, what Christmas product would be your main draw?

Ornaments, for me.  I would try to collect them from all over the world.  Handmade, simple, and a reflection of the culture of the folks who created them.

5)  If you were creating a movie about toys coming to life, which toy would be your main character?

A monkey.  One of my favorite stuffed animals was Mugsy the monkey who went through life carrying a half-peeled plastic banana.  I love stuffed animals, so I guess mine would have to be a show about Christmas in the jungle.

6)  If you could somehow give one of the following intangible gifts to every person living in the world, which one would you choose — hope, joy, love, or peace?

The only snowflakes we had for the holidays were the glass and plastic ones in the dining room.

Hmmm.  I suppose it would have to be love since, with enough love, all the others could be had as well.

What about YOUR choices?? 

**These questions come from The Christmas Conversation Piece: Creative Questions to Illuminate the Holidays by Bret Nicholaus and Paul Lowrie.  The book was on my coffee table at Christmas, but we are a talkative group and didn’t need conversation starters.  Sometimes we could, however, use a few appropriate conversation enders…:)

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Handel’s “Messiah” is playing as I write, the same record I’ve listened to at Christmas for almost thirty years — the 1982 “Messiah” by The Westminster Choir and the New York Philharmonic.  It’s a tradition; the old record still sounds terrific, scratches and all.

I like traditions.  Sometime back I started collecting creches.  It wasn’t a conscious decision, really.  I happen to enjoy traveling in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the nativity scenes, from the miniscule to the enormous in various mediums, are available everywhere and sold all year long.  They make them in Peru, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Costa Rica….  So, I started picking them up.  Here are some favorites.  Most of these fit in the palm of my hand.  Like the one above and this one.

In Hispanic cultures the meaning of the nativity is learned in early childhood.  Most homes have a creche and some can be very elaborate.  Families start building their nativity scenes at the beginning of the Christmas season and continue to work on them, adding new pieces daily throughout the month. In some cases the baby Jesus is not added until December 24th. 

Creche from Costa Rica

My friend Mirella’s family gives their nativity set a prominent place in the living room for everyone to see.  Theirs is complete with wise men and saints, camels and various other animals, and angels that “fly” above the manger.   Our own regular-sized set (as opposed to the mini ones pictured here) is not nearly as elaborate, but the farm animals come from a toy farm set I received from Santa Claus many years ago.

This one cut from stone is unique in that the “stable” is a set of praying hands.  You can see its mini size compared to the pinecone.

Praying hands creche with pinecone

This is another one carved from stone…

I do love the simple ones with clay figures…

I like the church with the bell tower and doves on the roof, although it’s obviously not a stable…

This one is the tiniest, a bit bigger than a quarter, and it hangs on the tree.  I imagine the artist in a little room somewhere high in the Andes Mountains meticulously carving and painting the tiny figures to fit inside.

Some creches from Latin America are extraordinary works of art, such as those from Mexico’s Formento Cultural Banamex collection and other private collections owned by individuals and universities.  Many of those figures are quite valuable.  Mine are not.  But I like folk art, and I love meeting local crafts people at markets and fairs and plazas when I travel.  Spend some time at the local market in any Latin American country and you can learn a great deal about the soul of a place and its people.

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If you’re in DC and looking to avoid the mall, you may enjoy checking out the exhibit of creches at The Phoenix in Georgetown.  The nativity scenes have been created by crafts people from around the world in a variety of mediums — clay, wood, papier mache, tin, and wool.  Many are one-of-a-kind and they’re all for sale through December 26.