Femme

There’s a scene in 2 Days in Paris where the male lead, played by a hilarious, hypochondriac Adam Goldberg, walks into his girlfriend’s aged Paris pied-a-terre and gasps at the mold growing on the shower walls due to a leak that possibly dates to the French Revolution.  He asks, “What the fuck is that?  Is that black mold?  The deadliest fungus known to man?”

His girlfriend is played by the brilliant and talented Julie Delpy.  She defends the mold and says something like, “It’s not black, it’s green.  Look at it, it’s green, like blue cheese.  It’s probably good for you even.” 

This is the beginning of a film (ruckusly vying to be my favorite) where throughout, Delpy deftly articulates a French female persona that is outspoken and witty, making her seem carefree and sexy, where in fact she’s intelligent and deep as Sartre and de Beauvoir after midnight.

She expresses her depth and social consciousness via heated political arguments with cab drivers, public outbursts of blame to former boyfriends, and guilt-laden confessions of using toilet paper when there are so many other needs in this world.

Delpy wrote, directed, starred-in, and co-produced the original score for the movie.  I adore her for this.  ADORE.

Watching the movie by myself is pleasure enough, but 2 Days in Paris is also the funniest movie I’ve watched with Robin.  Not that he’s ever had a problem accepting my family, but the movie softly illuminates, like a streetlamp along the steps to Montmartre, why I’m the way I am and that my mom is really quite normal.  (In another laugh-out-loud scene, the French mother walks in on Delpy and Goldberg having sex and asks if they have any laundry she can do for them.  Yep, this happened to us, except my mom saw more, so had to back out of the bedroom and ask about the laundry when we emerged later that morning.)

Since I was born in the US, along with all the American freedoms I’m fortunate to have, I also have the freedom to choose which parts of my heritage I adopt and which I eschew. 

Home:
I promise my shower is clean.  Like a proper American mother, I have bleach spray and Clorox wipes and stain remover and I use them with abandon.  My house is organized, vacuumed, wiped down and mostly decluttered.

However, I refuse to feel unreasonably pressured to make my home perfect, as in properly accessorized and decorated, and in keeping up with people who are good at those things.  I do love a beautiful house, with coordinated throw pillows, shiny wood floors, crisp-white trims and kitchen counter space for more than one cook.  But even if I had the money, it’s just not a priority.  That part of my brain (the French part) isn’t wired to care that much.  I’d rather read or write or watch a movie or see a friend or think. 

Food:
The non-fat, fake food, fad diet, obsessive way of eating is entirely unappealing.  Over the years I thankfully and deliciously assumed the French Girl’s diet.  To me it’s defined by real food, add butter, hold the sugar.  Unprocessed, unpackaged, seasonal variety, add extra fat to everything, and only eat the highest quality desserts or none at all.  Yes, one can be snotty about dessert, and one gets used to it quickly. 

Clothes:
Shopping for clothes bores me to tears.  I’m disappointed by what’s out there and I don’t have time anyway.  I want to give it up.  So recently I embarked on a Wardrobe Simplification Project (WSP).  I’ve narrowed my clothes to a few simple pieces that essentially all look the same, but fit like bespoke basics.  I accessorize these simple pieces with scarves, yoga and attempted wit (the scarves being the only consistent and successful part).

Parisian women have always been known for their style, fashion, elegance, or an effortless combination of the three.  But I think the modern French woman prefers simplicity above all.  Because to think clearly about what’s important to her, or to think in any higher degree at all, she must simplify wherever she can.  Of course she wants to look nice and be desired, but she knows that what she wears is a miniscule part of who she is.

I wish I could adopt other ways of the French woman, like being more outspoken, more confident, less timid, and less worried about the imperfections of myself and my life.  I’d love to more naturally embrace an uninhibited joie de vivre that for now takes 3 glasses of Bordeaux to achieve.  Maybe it's just a matter of time.

Which takes me to my favorite Frenchy philosophy to adopt:  The idea that women get better as they age and become more of what I describe above.  That a woman’s 20’s and 30’s were just practice for her 40’s and 50’s.  That her lifetime peaks, gently rising and falling more like rolling hills than snow-capped Pyrenees, get brighter, smarter and more sensual as she ages.  Whether this philosophy is true or not, I’m grasping on and running with it, like I’m stealing baguettes from the Boulangerie.  

I’ll read and write, meet and discuss, watch and learn, and allow each new wrinkle to add a depth of character that is impossible to attain without the passing of another year.  And maybe even some day, when the gray in my hair rivals the grayest January day, I will aspire to having mold in my shower.  It’ll be good for me even.

Sensorially

I woke up this morning from a vivid, detailed dream.  I laid in bed with my mind racing the way it does at night.  The dream made me realize how sharp my thought processes were and how revved up my energy was yesterday.  Which means they had not been that way the day before.  Or the week before that.

I knew I'd been walking around in an emotional fog, but I must have been cloudy mentally and sensorially (not a word, but whatevs) as well.  It's not how I like to live.  It feels lazy and gloomy.

I think I'll take pleasure in everything I see, hear, touch, taste, smell, think, write and read for as long as I can.  Possibly two days, probably two hours, but I may as well take advantage.

Here Are the Steeples

The Olympic Mountains were in focus as though carved with a razor.   It was that clear.  Whenever the sky is blue here, to me it’s a blinding New Blue, one I don’t remember having seen before.  On this Saturday morning, the bright New Blue above the Olympics was muted by the deep smoky blue of the Puget Sound.

It was my first time experiencing this view from the downtown Sculpture Park.  Why I never made it here since it was completed four years ago, I don’t know.  We had supported its development, but have yet to find our family name etched in the donor railing along the water.

It was still before the downtown weekend bustle, so there was only the occasional ship horn and faint hum of scant traffic.  Against the silence, with no distraction from the other senses, the view was made even more majestic.

I walked the wide zig-zag path for twenty minutes while waiting for my yoga partners.  We were trying out the summer yoga at the Park, and I had come early to find parking and take a walk.

I had company on my stroll.  A few people looked like regulars – headphone walkers and park bench readers.  An addict, coming down from something that morning, followed me with huge glazed eyes as I walked by.  I may have been worried had I thought I looked to him like anything more than an apparition.  He lumbered and weaved around the trees with the weight of the night and his condition, then eventually disappeared from the park.

Up ahead I tried inconspicuously to watch as a man dabbed a woman’s mouth with a handkerchief.  She was in a wheelchair, gazing out at the view with a face that was presumably and sadly subdued by a stroke.  The man was about her age, so I assumed it was her husband that lovingly brought her to feel the sun on her skin and take in this beautiful day.  I imagined their many years of marriage, years when she could smile at her children and had boundless energy to care for everyone but herself.

Of course this made me cry, but I made it past them before I did.  I heard the slow crunching of the white gravel as the wheelchair was pushed up the hill behind me.  How quickly and profoundly one’s perspective and emotion can change.

When I got to the sunny amphitheater where the class was to take place, the instructor had arrived and helpers were setting up the speakers for her microphone.  I chose a spot and stood imposingly so that my small frame made it known that me and my three places were not to be messed with.

A steady trickle of lithe bodies found their way to the open spaces on the broad grassy steps of the amphitheater.  Soon every spot was filled to form a colorful cascade of limber students.  Our river of poses flowed evenly and in perfect unison.  The instructor likened us to a field of flowers because of the bright yoga outfits.  And how could we not bloom under so many sun salutations?

There was something liberating about doing yoga in a location so public and abundantly bright, yet within the protection of a hundred yoga siblings.  It’s a different experience than the one in a private, low-lit studio.  More exciting maybe, in a way that raises your heart rate without raising your insecurity.

Near the end of the class, we could choose our own inversion or final pose.  I relished these last few minutes in a shoulder stand.

With my legs extended straight into the air, I looked up to see my lacquered toes against the New Blue.  Like ten steeples painted pink, they reached skyward while I prayed in the church below.  As I do in every yoga class, I expressed gratitude for the things I have, but also for just being there at all.

On this particular morning, in the warm open air, next to my good friend, having taken the walk I had, felt the things I’d felt, I was especially grateful.  A pretty view is nice, but having the time and ability to envision what you’re thankful for is magnificent.

If memoir serves me well

Due to family circumstances, my dad is temporarily living on his own, far from home.  He brought with him some projects, including his collection of sunrise oil paintings that he hopes to sell and a few books he hopes to finish.  One of his goals is to start his memoir.

I can see his broad shoulders hunched, most likely in the middle of the night, over a few leafs of aged paper, writing with a thick pencil that was sharpened using a blunt knife.  One would think that age 72 is a fine time to write your memoir.  You’re still alive, that’s one good reason.  You may die any day, that’s another.

My dad was born abroad.  He was an actor and artist in his youth.  He met my mom in Paris.  They came to the States to get married and have children.  He traveled with the movies as a set painter.  And he has philosophies.  Is that enough to write about?

When we were younger, Robin and I mused that to live a full life, your life should be worth writing about.  Saying it was meaningless then.  What did we know about living a full life?  We worked and we went out.  Our only desire for the future was that it be interesting.

So what kind of life is worth writing about?  Or worth reading about, if we dare go so far?  How interesting or inspiring does it need to be?  How much material do you need to begin?

I’ve only suggested to two people that they write about their life.  Both endure pain and tragedy.  Does this mean one needs tragedy to begin a memoir?   Is that why my dad finally decided to write his?

If I think of the biographies I’ve read, they were usually about writers or artists, or people related to writers or artists.  Vincent Van Gogh, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Christopher Hitchens, Sarah and Gerald Murphy.  They all lived lives worth writing about, but with the exception of Hitchens’, I wouldn’t choose to live any of them.   Could be I prefer contentment and sanity over a life worth writing about?

But surely there are reasonably happy people with modestly exciting lives who’ve written their memoirs anyway.   Perhaps in a thousand closets, above the winter coats, behind the boxes of old photographs, under the stamp collections that will never be worth anything, there are memoirs.

They won’t be published, but maybe they’ll be read.   And the people reading them might laugh or cry, or do both at the same time.  They might raise their brows at the secrets revealed.  Then they’ll reflect on the life they read about and reflect on their own life in contrast.  And if those memoirs are read by even one person who cares, isn’t that something?

If I look at my own life so far, there’s not much material.  Nothing particularly exciting or inspiring. And would I want it to be?  Would I ever want a reason to start writing a memoir?  Of course I want to live an interesting life filled with fascinating people.  But a life worth writing about?  Not sure anymore.

Of course, I AM writing about my life in this blog.  But it’s not often about the day-to-day details of what I do. It’s more the day-to-day of what I think. And thinking about your life is at least half of it, no?

But I think though a blog may be more accurate because the memory is fresher (unlike a memoir that’s written at the end of your life when you need to force your pruney brain to remember details) it may possibly be more dishonest in terms of actual feeling because it’s current and there’s a level of caution and social prudence guiding what ends up on the internet.  Or maybe not exactly dishonest, but not entirely inclusive.  If I were at the end of my life, I might possibly divulge more, or about more private things.

What I must be coming to suggest is that everyone should keep a journal or post in their blog or write their memoirs or any combination.  For their own personal reasons, but also because we have very few true witnesses to our lives.  We have witnesses for the things we do publicly or with friends or with family.  But not as many witnesses for how and what we think.  And even less with whom we feel comfortable sharing with, and lesser still who understand us.

But sharing what we think or how we feel through words, I think, has the capacity to invite our friends and family closer to us in our current lives, hopefully enriching readers and writers alike.  And at the end of our lives, our words can give meaning to the person who finds the memoir hidden in the coat closet.  The kind of meaning that they wouldn’t have found by simply hearing stories about that person or even living alongside them.  I guess what I'm trying to say, is maybe you don’t need to live a life worth writing about for your life or your writing to have meaning.

Postcard from Paradise (and my grandmother's tiny apartment)

One would think that, when placed on a tropical island with few distractions, one would find the motivation to write for later remembrance of the holiday.  A few paragraphs here and there, coaxed to the surface with the nudge of Absolut POG, or whatever the day’s imbibery might be.

But one only needs a few hours below the Tropic of Cancer to feel how effectively the sun kills brain cells.  Not quickly perhaps, but with lethal determination, like a boy with his magnifying glass, vaporizing ants on a midday August sidewalk.  Pffzz…poof!  Pffzz…poof!

So it’s with mixed irritation and relief that I’m forced indoors due to my unfortunate allergy to the sun.  Meet my skin: no fragrance, no chemicals, no hair products, no sunscreen, no wool, no perspiration and, no blinding fiery orbs.

What keeps me outside the edge of depression about this is:

1.     Knowing that in two weeks my freshly-plucked chicken skin will return to a smoothness as good as can be expected for a nearing-40 woman who’s had two children but takes vitamins and fish oil.

2.     Knowing that I already live in the most perfect location for my condition – the gray side of the Emerald City.

I wasn’t always like this.  From toddler to high school, I would bronze in a way that could call into question my ethnicity.  And until eight years ago, I could sunburn at 2pm and be caramel by 6pm.  But as I’ve said before, having children changes everything, including the chemical make-up of your body.  Thusly, childbirth has left me with skin that’s allergic to everything, but sex that ripples like the Pacific between the Hawaiian Islands.  Deal.

The grass and trees outside our Kauai condo have a look, scent and feel that take me exactly back to my grandmother’s apartment complex in Santa Monica thirty-two years ago.  There was a short walk from the street-parking to her door, and within that distance was an expanse of grass and tiny white flowers that beckoned a (tan) little girl to run and pick with abandon. 

I’d collect dozens of miniature daisies, and my grandmother would sweetly put them in make-shift vases short enough so the flowers wouldn’t topple out the top, but instead sit pure and bright so I could proudly show my bounty.

Then we’d sit in the small apartment, with its scattered carpet remnants placed for comfort over the thinner, unpadded carpet, until lunch was served.  Every Sunday her lunch would relieve our craving for her cooking, which was comfort food not because of its nutrition and satiation, but because she created it and she loved us more than anyone ever would again.  It’s at the top of my very short list of Things I Miss From Childhood.  Brown skin might be number two.

Why, when I’m on a wonderful, beautiful, relaxing vacation, do I think of my grandmother?  Isn’t this one of the most important times to “focus on the moment”?  Another being when you’re with your kids?  (which I have learned in parenthood can be as challenging as the opposite mental task of distracting yourself from having a splinter removed from under your toenail.)

So in an effort to focus on the moment, here’s a short combined example of Being Present With The Kids and Being One With My Vacation:

“Mommy?” Gigi asked in her tiny Marilyn voice, her spiral curls trembling under the ceiling fan and shining with the color and glossiness of a sliced banana. "Do you want to go to the pool?"

It's a most pleasant 45-second walk from the condo to the pool.  On one side of the chlorinated lagoon is a rock waterfall and shallow pond.  On the opposite side is another waterfall that empties into a frothy, shaded hot tub.  You half expect a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model to emerge from the bubbles and rinse her hair in the falling water.  In slow motion.

Atop and around this rock mountain are impeccably kempt, lush flora in varied shades of chlorophyll that have the power to forever convert your favorite color to green. 

I know my time in the sun is limited, so I make the most of it.  Since being in a pool together creates a special kind of intimacy, and kids are generally ecstatic to be swimming at all, this is easy to do.  We swim.  We play.  They love Mommy in the pool.  I love them in the pool. 

And there it is.  One of the simpler points of vacation with kids.   Realizing, recognizing and appreciating that you can have a genuinely fantastic time together. 

Since I can’t come home with a tan, I’m bottling these moments to bring back with me.   I can bask in them as long as I want and the feeling takes longer to peel away than a tan anyway.

Son

It’s true.  I love you most when you’re asleep.  As you’re doing next to me now.  But that most is not much more than when you’re awake.  I’m just more tired when you’re awake.

I know you understand because when I sigh, you know exactly which sigh it is. 

It may be the Good God Can You Just Do What I’ve Asked 10 Times Already Sigh.  Or the I Can’t Possibly Do Another Dish Sigh.  Followed by the Dammit We’re Late AGAIN Sigh.

And sometimes the sigh is not even directed at you at all, but you notice and ask.  It’s the sigh that worries you most because you were so sure you’d been doing everything right. 

And I tell you it wasn’t for you, and that makes you happy.  And I forget what I was sighing for in the first place.

The other truth is, you amaze me.

When you were 3 days old, I laid you down on the playmat, the one with the red, black and white contrasting patterns meant to be visible to newborns.  Above your head swung the rings, just out of reach, not yet meant to test you, just for you to lay and watch.

But you wanted to be tested, so you reached for the rings.  You reached up like an old, trembling, dying man reaching for the light he’d waited all his life to grasp.  Determined as though it were his last and most important task.  You earnestly reached as if your soul had waited a hundred years to test its humanity.  And you got it.

It was at that moment that I understood how some men and women could be great.  How some had the inborn perseverance to reach the rings.  How they created their own inspiration.

You do this – reach for the ring – every now and then when people let you, when you’re allowed the freedom to pick your own challenge.  You’ll invent and create and play and answer and joke and feel. 

When I watched your first race yesterday, I was optimistically unconcerned with your stroke technique or your speed.  Instead I saw your future and what could be.  I saw you start to reach for that ring that I know you’ll get on your own.

The truthiest of truths is that I believe in you.  In your fiery passion.  Your deep empathy.  Your honest remorse.  Your intense strength.  Your encircling love. 

And your goodness, which is not blatantly apparent, but which I know you have.  You’ve inherited it from your dad, and that’s how I know it will be there forever.

So my son, though I take so much of you for granted, and I sigh more than praise, and I seem to get in the way sometimes, please know that above all, I believe in you.

Darling?  Wake up, darling.  Happy birthday.

Booty Call

On one of our rare sunny evenings, I was driving along a side street in my neighborhood.  It being May, the opened pink tree blossoms were especially cheerful, giggling and bouncing in the sunlight.  Perhaps it was sparked by a sunray, but I suddenly felt a surge.

It was an overwhelming full-body buzz that made me feel young and floaty.  It was familiar, yet far away, and it took me a minute to recognize the feeling as being in love.  As during those early weeks where everything reminds you of him.  When your belly smiles at the sight of his name.

But it wasn’t a man I was thinking of.  It was blogging.  (I know.  What can I say.  I’m trying to make this blog honest.)

Then I thought of how perfect it was to be in love with it.  It’s there when you need it.  It’s yours alone.  It can’t reject you.  You can tell it stories for hours on end and it will listen.  You don’t need to say to your husband, “I can explain!” when you’re caught in bed with your laptop. 

And unless you have many readers (I thank both of you), there’s little pressure to commit.  Just the occasional booty call when you’re in the mood.

Kind

One Thursday morning as I walked from Gigi’s classroom after dropping her off, one of her teachers came out of the room and stopped me in the hall.  She wanted to compliment Gigi on knowing some Japanese words and point out how nice she’s been towards her classmates. 

The teacher is Japanese, about 60, and because she smiles and gives a little bow every time I see her, she lends an air of pleasant politeness.

I thanked her and we talked about the ways in which Harrison and Gigi are different (Harrison being nice in more boyish ways).  She said, sort of under her breath, that she thought it was somehow better when the brother was older than the sister, and not the other way around.  (Her children are older-brother/younger-sister, as are me and my older brother, as are Robin and his younger sister). 

It didn’t matter if there was any truth to the opinion.  We shared a moment of nodding connection that felt good.  Not just because of what she said, but because of the effort she took to start the conversation.

We bowed our goodbyes and I walked away with my hand on my heart and my face making that I Can’t Believe Someone Was So Nice face. 

I had recently finished The Happiness Project (post forthcoming), thanks to my friend Amy.  In it the author experiments with Extreme Nice.  This is being as nice as you possibly can for a set period of time.  Including being nice to your kids and husband the entire time.

Through her experiment she recognizes that though doing this is challenging, it does make her happier.  By making others feel good, she brings herself joy.  Not a new concept by any means, but the way in which she experimented – by being nice no matter what and for a set amount of time - was a new approach to me.  One I have yet to be in a good enough mood to try. 

Since that Thursday morning, and after reading The Happiness Project, I’ve thought more about Nice.  What is being nice?   Who are the nicest people I know?  Do I thank them enough?  Am I nice enough?  What is my contribution to Nice?

Often I see Nice in teachers, who by the very nature of their jobs can’t help but be nice.  I don’t think you become a teacher for the pay or notoriety.   Or in a friend who’s recognized our possible connection.  Or in a mother who’s simply made it a habit to be nice because of so many years trying to be nice in raising her children.  But it’s also often in someone I only sort of know, who radiates goodness, generosity and effort in more than they need to. 

When I think of Nice, I also have to think about my own mom and mother-in-law.  When they’re around, they sprinkle Nice in their wake and I follow close behind to inhale it, hoping my high lasts after they’re gone.  I don’t know where they learned it or what keeps them going.  I know with my mom, she has few reasons to be happy or nice, and yet there she is. 

I asked Robin what his thoughts were on Nice.  He didn’t have to think about it.  He said he doesn’t believe in being nice. 

Wha?  Doesn’t believe in being NICE?

He said anyone can be nice.  The most insincere person can be nice.

Ah, I see.

He believes in being kind.  Because kindness shows empathy and is more honest.  When you’re kind, it shows you’ve put thought into what you can do to make other people happy. 

Yes, of course.  He’s right.  It’s kindness that’s meaningful.  Kindness that I mean.

So I’m going to try to be kinder.  To the kids.  To Robin.  To strangers.   To the someones I only sort of know.  And especially to the people who already make an effort to be kind.  To me, they’re people who help others.  Who volunteer.  Who say kind things and do kind deeds.  Who look out for other people’s happiness (and encourage them to read The Happiness Project!).  Who look out for other people’s kids.  Who ask how you are and care to know the truth. 

Though they never demand it, shouldn’t kind people be rewarded?  With spa treatments at the good places and gift cards that let you buy whole outfits and dinners that include wine, appetizers and dessert?  But if money’s tight, I bet they’d be okay with a sincere thank you.  And when you’re ready, and in your own time, you can give your thanks again, in kind.

Super Moment

What constitutes the happiest moment of your life? When you discovered you were pregnant? The first time you held your baby? The moment he proposed?

If today I was forced to choose what it was for me, I believe I might have an answer.

It was the night of the Super Moon and started with a simple meal, just the four of us. It’s so rare we all eat together in our little kitchen nook. But when we do, we have a tradition. First dinner, then out for ice cream, then a Drive-Out.

When I was a girl in Southern California, on cool nights my dad used to tell us to grab our winter coats so we could go “skiing.” On a long stretch of road somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, we’d open all our windows, pick up speed, and lean just inches into the outside to feel the cold rush of wind on our faces. This was thrilling and it didn’t matter that we didn’t have the money to actually go skiing.

Our new tradition reminds me of those nights.

The deal is, with our ice cream cones, we drive through the nicer parts of our neighborhood with our car stereo bumping as loud as we dare. We each have our own favorite song that we hear at least once. Everyone sings, uninhibitively, mint chocolate chip soothing the vocal cords.

But on this night, our Drive-Out was just the prelude.

After Gigi’s “I Love Rock n Roll”, Harrison’s “Dynamite”, my “Born This Way” And Daddy’s, um, whatever it is Daddy listens to, it was time to go home, brush teeth and get jammies on. We had somewhere else to go.

We’d heard about the Super Moon throughout the day and vaguely knew the time of night when we could see it. Twenty minutes before that time, we set out to watch the spectacle along Lake Washington at Magnuson Park.

We parked the car near the other cars who, presumably, were waiting for the same show.

Five minutes.

Ten minutes.

Did we misread the news? Was that Central time? Was it last night?

At about eleven minutes the sky above Kirkland, already glowing from city lights, became ever so slightly more illuminated.

I had no grand expectations. It would be a silver moon, probably looking bigger because of its proximity to the horizon. But it was a rare one, so we had to watch. When you become a parent, missing these things causes not only wondering disappointment, but irrevocable guilt. It’s difficult to make up for things that only come around once every twenty years.

Then with almost imperceptively slow celestial magic, the moon’s red color emerged just above the city. It continued its majestic rise until it was a full sphere, its reflection duplicated on the smooth lake. The crowd by the lake was thin. Maybe a dozen people where we were. This made the moment quietly intimate.

I stood there watching the moon, holding my daughter, shaking with my love for her. I nestled into her hair as though this was it. This was all there was.

It was the closest I’ve felt to ecstasy. Drinking in the heavens with my eyes. Holding them ethereally with my arms.

I don’t think we can define our happiness with the quantity of happy moments we experience through life, though that’s nice too. I think rather we should include in that definition our ability to wholly feel these most rare moments as intensely as we’re able to do. They may only come around once every twenty years.

Blog Housekeeping

Went through and deleted about 30 old posts (which inadvertently re-published a few other ones, so sorry if they show up in anyone's RSS feed).

I had forgotten how often I blogged. Brought back memories of my years at home (as if they were 20 years ago). I wouldn't go back there, but I am glad I wrote some of it down. I would surely have forgotten everything. Funny how a blog can serve as a witness to your life.

Now onwards.