Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

-Mary Oliver

......................................


of course
loss is the great lesson.

But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,

when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness

-Mary Oliver


You just never know who/what is going to come through the front door of our flat. And by that I mean our dueños locos. Rifling through phone bills to see who called who on what day and for how long, Lo - como siempre - decided to make me laugh to the point of tears with her witty skype comments and thus receive menacing glares from Chinca, or whatever Mig calls her.

There will be no central theme to this. Just to say that MI VIDA is perhaps the most eclectic mix of nothing you would ever expect and all that sitcom writers are dying to think up. The frenchies never wake up before 2pm and love to ask where the hell I could have found that extraordinary head of lettuce and if I have heard that there is an ESPECTACULAR at the monjuic fountain. Holland gladly shows me the fruits of his shopping trip and crudely overcompensates for not wanting to seem gay, kind of a disappointment I have to admit. And Germany is just cute. Like the little sister I never had.

Today has been the most incredibly fulfilling unproductive day. Two hour naps are like cheesecake. I do not belong in Canada. This happiness is like a kind of holiness.

More to come on what Jesus is teaching me when I'm not drinking Rosa Parks.