Under African Skies

It’s hard to believe it was almost a month ago that we left for “A Walk on the Wild Side: Los 4 Hermanos.” It would be a 300 page book to tell every story in detail (or one blockbuster movie coming to a theater near you in summer 2012.) Over the next couple months, I will share some highlights.

There was one afternoon in Kruger Park that we went on a game drive. Those of us not driving had imbibed just a couple beers. It was Sarah’s birthday. It was unseasonably warm and the sun shone bright. We drove through the Savannah listening to “Graceland.” That album, by the way, is an Opus.

I looked out the window, saw different varieties of antelope leap through the grasses, felt the warm wind whip my hair around, and reveled in the yellow-orange glow of the sun surrounding me. I looked into the car and saw my three best friends all around me. We laughed, talked, and made merry.

I thought to myself, who in the world is luckier than me? Pretty clear that the answer is no one.

Here are a few photos from that extraordinary afternoon.

10 days!

Cultural Weekend

This weekend was the highly anticipated (at least by Andrew and me) Cultural Weekend. Two evenings, two shows, two music fans.

Friday started with a quick dinner at Salut St. Paul before heading to St. Catherine’s to see Dessa and Company. I remember seeing Joan Baez at the O’Shaughnessy Theater in high school. That was where I first heard Dar Williams. It’s an awesome venue, and full of good memories from that concert so many years ago. As everyone who reads this blog already knows, Dessa was one of my closest friends in high school, long before she was Dessa. I own her cds but have not seen her perform live since one of the talent shows at Southwest. (Aside: What the hell were those musical talent shows called?) Well, at the risk of sounding cheesy, her performance was breathtaking. When she took her heels off early in the show, I found myself chortling that she always has preferred to be barefoot and her feet look just like they did in the mid-90s. Yeah, weird, probably, but we spent a lot of time together and I remember her feet. The girl is undeniably talented and I feel so happy for her.

Another highlight of the evening was Alexei’s performance. He was at the O’Shaughnessy as a special guest. It had been a long time since I’d seen him on stage. However, it felt less nostalgic than seeing Dessa since I spend time with Alexei off stage on a fairly regular basis. He performed two pieces, one of which was a beautiful but haunting, and emotionally charged dedication to his mom. I felt myself let go of a breath I didn't know I was holding when it ended. The other was a collaboration with Aby Wolf that was whimsical, funny, and fun. I think it’s called “Boom box.” I couldn’t find it on YouTube but I’m sure it will be up at some point and highly recommend finding it.

The only part of Friday’s night’s show I didn’t love was Black Blondie. Some of it was ok, but didn’t fit with the tone of everything else going on. Some of it was, frankly, terrible. One member of the band is also a Southwest graduate and I’m not trying to be a hater, but to my ears it was a blemish on an otherwise flawless evening of music.

After the concert, we went back to my house, where I made Brianna and Andrew look through the Southwest 1999 yearbook. Don’t worry- I also provided them with booze.

On Saturday night, we went to see Counting Crows, which was a mediocre show. With a band like that, I expected them to play at least half the tracks from “August and Everything After.” Instead, they played a lot of songs I’d never heard and did not put on a particularly inspired performance. I did enjoy the Amaretto I drank during the show. Andrew pointed out that we might have a different perspective on it had we not seen it the night after such an incredible performance by local artists who also are friends of mine. Sarah called me out for bias. The best part of the CC show was this blonde girl in the front row who danced with total uninhibited joy to every single song. I kept looking at her (not in a creepy way, I was all the way in the balcony!) and smiling. It seemed like she must feel about the Counting Crows the way I feel about the Bangles. At least, I hope so. I hope that was the best night of her whole damn life, seeing her favorite band in the front row.

It’s pretty fantastic to go to shows on a regular basis. Next up is likely a Mariachi band at the Cinco de Mayo festival, which will not be reviewed on this blog, but will surely be accompanied by some noteworthy tacos.

*Update: City Pages disagrees with my assessment of Black Blondie.  While it's true the crowd really loved the gospel singer, and he certainly has a great voice, the show stealing belonged to Dessa and Alexei.  No bias whatsoever.

Good Friday

One thing I always think about on Good Friday is how, if you are Christian, that Jesus Christ's conviction and crucifixion is the first recorded wrongful conviction. It would be the first record of an innocent man being put to death; proof of the inherent and unavoidable imperfect administration of the death penalty.

I can't wrap my head around how a person could support the death penalty anyway, but the fact that many of the states that impose the death penalty are full of "Christians" seems to me quite ironic.

Anyway, we are dyeing Easter eggs tonight. And I suppose that creepy bunny might bring Johan some chocolate on Sunday.

Food Blog

My firiend Roisin is one of the best cooks I know and is absolutely the best baker I know. I have great news for all of us. She has started a food blog called Cracking the Egg. Check it out on the side bar..

Cheers and happy eating!

Johanish

The things he says are so funny...I've got to write them down. Some material previously published to fb.
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Me: Johan, why is your window down?

Johan: I was pretending I had a baby and it threw a fit, so I threw it out the window.

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Me: What did you learn in school today?

Johan: If Europe crashed into Earth, that would be a big problem.

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Johan: Mom, what planet does Sarah live on? Still Arizona?

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Uncle David: Johan, do you know anyone named John and Evelyn?

Johan: No.

Uncle David: Maybe some people who live with Bergen?

Johan: Oh, BERGEN! Yes that's right, John and Evelyn live with Bergen.

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Johan: Guess what, mama?

Me: What?

Johan: They have soy milk at school!

Me: Wow.

Johan: Actually, it's not milk. Soy is not a mammal.

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There is no map.

It’s easy to feel solidarity with other people who are getting or have been divorced. The commonness of the experience, as with any common experience, makes people feel close, like they understand one another, and that it must be similar circumstances that brought them to this point. To a certain degree, that’s true. Divorce is the culmination of two people who used to want to be together who no longer are able to be together. That’s about all that’s guaranteed to be the same across all (at least most) divorces.

Sometimes I find myself trying to draw more similarities between myself and my situation and other people’s. I don’t quite know why. Perhaps it is because there is an element of the unknown. I grew up a divorced kid but my situation now is very different than that one. My dad never left me. Ever. There was no long distance parenting. There was house switching and complicated scheduling. I don’t have any of that as a divorced parent. So, I wonder if part of what I’m searching for in trying to find similarities to other situations is to get some kind of a rough guide as to how this can and will work out. It’s like wanting something akin to advice, but more like proof that people in same or similar circumstances can make things work, find new love, be happy, raise well-adjusted, loving, caring children.

I met a woman a few weeks ago who has a 12 year old son. She lives in Florida. Her ex lives in Illinois. The kid has a great relationship with his stepdad and sees his biological dad once in a while. Not exactly the same as my life, but a little bit, maybe. I felt close to her- like we had a bond over this experience. She was thankfully willing to share with me how her life came to be what it is. It wasn’t advice about what I should or should not do, but just reassurance that even non-ideal divorced co-parenting situations can lead to great, empathetic, intelligent, emotionally sound kids.

Other times, trying to find too many similarities is less helpful. I don’t consider my marriage to Eduardo to be a “mistake.” Others might. I don’t really care. 22 year old me loved him and we had a great connection. I was not mature enough to realize that the ways in which we connected were not permanent or long-lasting enough. I was not mature enough to see that the ways where we differed were ways that people need to connect in order to be compatible for the long haul. I changed over the years and so did he. We became incompatible. That doesn’t mean we were wrong or it was a mistake. We were together for 11 years or something, to varying degrees. We had Johan. That’s not a mistake.

Friends of mine who were married for much shorter times have described their marriages as mistakes and lumped mine in with those. There are certainly similarities- finding and marrying partners who lack some key compatibility factors. But there are also differences- ages, time together, length of marriage (maybe that doesn’t matter since, if something was a mistake, it is a mistake from inception and cannot be anything but a mistake), length of time people in marriage were satisfied and/or happy, and of course, the child factor.

I’m not sure what all this is meant to say. Sometimes comparisons are good and comforting; other times they feel forced and inapplicable. I think that one thing that is incredibly common among young divorced women is analyzing their situations. We’re trying to figure out where we went wrong and how to go right this time. That’s probably where all the comparing stems from, and seeking and finding similarities to others who have been down this road is completely ok. At the same time, each life is a unique set of people and events. So, I can’t decide what to do next based on what someone else did. I’ve got to take the information I have from what I’ve learned in the past , what I know about myself now, and what I believe I want my future to look like, and do the best I can with that.