The Candidate

I am in a cave.

I look out through a telescope and see thousands of people, dressed in white, red and blue. They follow a man holding a microphone. They walk through the mountains, into the desert, down the streets of the city as he shouts, "Change! Hope and change! I'll bring you change - just follow me!"

His pockets and bank coffer overflow with gold and promisory notes, but the followers don't notice; they sing and weep and cheer, their long blond hair, naturals and dreadlocks glistening in the sunshine.
"Change - I'm for change!" he yells, in his gray Armani suit, white linen shirt, sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm, red tie. A woman walks behind him, carrying a black parasol to protect him from the sun. Someone has a battery operated fan, a man holds a pitcher of ice water.
"We want change! That's what we'll tell the guys on K Street, that's what we'll say to the lobbyists!" They march as the sun fades, the sky turns dark blue, the stars peek out.

They break for the evening. The candidate is whisked away in a black limousine to a Five-star hotel: air conditioning, grilled swordfish, chilled white wine. The people sit in a field around a campfire. Six women make vegetable soup, pass it around in paper cups. A young boy brought napkins, his mother a guitar. They sing Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, laying on the cold grass or leaning against each other.

Daylight comes. They walk to a stream, wash, laugh, wish they could shower but 'change is more important than bathing' a man says. They walk in twos and threes, in rythym, to the town where the Candidate waits, today in a beige suit. He looks glossy and well-rested.

They go on.

My Friend Félix

When I am depressed, I call Félix, my best friend. He doesn't listen to my rant or hold my tears; instead he says "Sal, sal a la calle! La vida te espera." which means 'Go outside - Life awaits you!'.

For Félix, everything is an adventure: we decide to hitch-hike one day from Barcelona, where we live, to Madrid. We have a late start, don't get to the highway entrance until 3 p.m. I am worried we'll be stranded in some empty town by nightfall, but Félix is smiling; he draws a happy face on our cardboard sign that says 'Madrid' in blue and red letters, holds it up towards the cars whizzing past, and starts dancing. There is no music, but to my slim dark-haired friend, that doesn't matter. Pretty soon I'm dancing too; I forget all about going to Madrid, we are laughing in the sunshine in the middle of the afternoon. Then a truck stops and we have our first ride.

Felix lives in an old rickety white-washed apartment right on Passeo de Gracia, a noisy street. Trucks and busses roar outside of his window, just a few feet below. But he sleeps through the night, wakes up happy, makes a strong cup of espresso on the old black stove and goes to the round table in the living room to start his day. On a little black typewriter, he translates instruction manuals from English to Spanish: manuals for washing machines, blenders or VCRs. They are all urgent, all need to be sent by courier today to the agency he works for. I translate too, and I'd be going crazy by now. But Felix just smiles and taps away at the black keys; he puts John Coltrane or Archie Shepp on the tape player, gets up once in a while to stretch and look at the traffic on the street below, then sits down gracefully and works some more.

At seven, we meet at the fountain for dinner. Félix gets there first, he comes smiling towards me in his pressed Levi jeans. He wears jeans or khakis and buttoned-down shirts, but walks like he's wearing a black tuxedo. With flip-flops.

We go to our favorite outdoor cafe that makes the best gazpacho. Gazpacho in Spain means fresh tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, garlic, olive oil, soaked day-old bread and a squirt of lemon juice blended at fast speed. They pour it into a clear glass or bowl, sprinkle the top with croutons, give you a spoon to eat it with. It is red heaven.

But we are not eating - we are laughing and I can barely catch my breath. Félix is telling me about the private school he went to, "We had to take naps every day. We learned how to dance, speak French, and peel an orange with a knife and fork." For dessert, he orders an orange, a knife and a fork, and shows me how to do it. He keeps the round fruit completely still and peels the entire thing in a few minutes, using just the utensils.
"My parents always say that sending us to that school was better than leaving us an inheritance. See- now I can mingle with rich people!".
We pay our bill, thank the waiter, and wander into the night.

Telefonema

Before cell phones came to Rio de Janeiro, you had to use a pay phone. They called them 'orelhoes' ( big ears), they swallowed gray metal tokens you could buy at a newstand. If you were lucky - or wealthy - you had a landline. To have one legally, you got on a waiting list. Five years was the average wait. I rented mine from a private owner for 150 reais - about $100 a month. Phone calls were extra.

With cell phones, talking became easier. No more walking the streets, tokens in hand, frantically looking for a pay phone that worked. Then yelling into the phone as four lanes of cars and busses screech down Avenida Copacabana, two feet away.
No more losing your landline to a power failure and still having to pay the 150 reais even though the line is dead. And the phone company says they will send someone out, and they keep saying they will send someone out, and two months have gone by, and you still do not have a dial tone.

No one had ever seen a cell phone, and then, suddenly, everyone had one. Bus drivers, school teachers, nurses, waiters, doormen. They all had a black bullet in their pocket. When we'd go out dancing on Friday nights, my girlfriends warned me never to trust a man who only gave out his cell phone number. Or cell and work phone. "If he doesn't give you his home phone" they said, "it means he's married".

Once I saw a couple in restaurant. sitting at a small wooden table covered with a white paper table cloth. There were brown bottles of beer on the table, a huge plate of white rice, green salad, a platter of steak with thick french fries. The man sitting at one end had his back to his girlfriend, cell phone to his ear, talking loudly, shaking his head. His girlfriend put hers directly on the table and dialed her mother " Hi Mom. Yes we're here in the restaurant. Oh, the food's great, and they're showing the soccer game on TV". My dinner companion was telling me why he hated Americans, and I assumed he meant all other Americans, not me. I couldn't stop looking at this couple, sitting at a tiny table, platters full of un-eaten food, backs to each other, talking on their phones.

My parents came to vist me that year, and I took them to Ipanema, a wealthy neighborhood. Ipanema houses the beautiful people of Rio de Janeiro, has expensive boutiques, cafes that serve espresso, a gorgeous beachfront. We got out of the cab and went to cross the street. At the crosswalk was a middle-aged man. He wore flip-flops and swimming trunks. His stomach spilled over the elastic wasitband. He was talking on a cell phone with his left hand and scratching his crotch with his right hand, waiting for the light to turn green.

That is what my parents remember most about their trip to Brazil.

Sunday Scribblings - Introductions

I am an orange orangatan with black spots.
I am an owl in the trees, watching the world late at night.
I am ripe tomatoes in the garden.
I am the rushing ice blue water at Sahalie Falls .
I am tiny lavender flowers with little green leaves and perfect petals.
I am the white, fluffy Oregon clouds, and the purple and red streaked New Mexico sky at sunset.
I am that woman, standing by the road, cardboard sign in her hand, smiling as big as sunshine, waiting for a ride.

I am the dark one on the train, sitting in the corner, peering out the window late at night.
I am white falling snow, absorbing the screams of television, plunking footsteps and screeching cars, making the world sane again with her silence.
I am the jester who makes you laugh, and the Earth mother who holds you when you cry.
I am a mystery and I only feel at home when I'm traveling....

I am the wind in the trees, a child singing off-key, a girl in pigtails playing the guitar in the park.
I am the artistic, shy six year old sent to her room.
I am the A+ art student drawing in the closet.
I am the sunflower who was never allowed to open
Who had to go to Spain to blossom
France to find her scent
Brazil to enter fully into life.

I am: Queen Sheba, a brown rabbit hiding in the bushes, the Gold Star rising in the West.
I am a Saguaro cactus, arms wide open in the scorching Arizona desert.
I am a world without borders.
I am dancing and coconut
Chocolate and acai
Free jazz and Acid jazz
But not New Wave
Or New Age.

I am the Wonder Woman of my dreams
who can write novels and publish books
make ratatouille and smoke cigars
jump up high and land in the ocean.
I am sea foam and deep green seaweed
I am the aurora.
I am love riding on rainbows.
I am porpoises and sea anemonies.
I am frisky golden retrievers
and blue hummingbirds.

I am dancing, singing, running, playing, dreaming, eating, crying, breathing
I am!
And we are!
Invincible.

Sunday Scribblings - Time Travel

The first time I heard jazz was in Lawrence's tiny attic apartment, white-washed, two-stories high, that overlooked the city of Barcelona.

I had just come back from Greece. It was a sunny September day, the sky was blue, I was happy to see my friends after three days of traveling. I rang the big doorbell, and his landlady opened the window, her gray hair caught back in a black comb, and yelled 'let me go see if he's home". In two minutes I see her face again, "ahora viene" she says, "he's coming'.

Lawrence bounds down the wooden stairs, opens the doors and says "hey chica" with a big smile as he gives me a hug.
"Felix is upstairs, we're making calamares. You're just in time for lunch"
I follow him up the four flights of stairs and on to the big open rooftop where you can see down to the ocean. He opens the little white door to his flat.
I hear a sound.
It is magic.
It fills the room with glitter.
I walk inside, drop my dusty backpack on the floor, stare open-mouthed at the wall.
The sound from the stereo swirls around the room and enters my nostrils, my ears, my head.
There are rainbows.

Felix yells "hola!" from the kitchen, where he stands at the stove, and comes over to greet me.
"Who is this?" I ask him.
"It's John Coltrane" he says, "you've never heard him before?"

Now the music has entered my body, is spiraling down my neck and chest and into my heart out my arms down my fingertips.
I feel like twirling and spinning and flying - but I am too shy.
So I plop onto the old green armchair, close my eyes, lean my head back and breathe.

When the song is over, Lawrence comes into the front room with a bottle of red wine and three glasses. We go outside to the round wooden table on the rooftop. He pours the wine, and we make a toast.
"To traveling!" he says.
"To travel is to live!" Felix chimes in.
But my toast is not for traveling.
It is for John Coltrane.
John Coltrane and 'My Favorite Things'.