Ellen R. Greene

On-line dating as a 60-something is not for the  cowardly. It is incredibly hard on the ego to be judged by how you look at a time in your life when earlier generations were allowed to be “done with all that,” as my mother used to say. The new normal is not looking your age. Don’t’ be surprised if it drives me to a face lift, or at least an eyelid job, I tell my daughter. She’s heard this before and waves me off.

It unnerves me as well that I don’t remember how to kiss. My well-intentioned friends get all misty-eyed and say, “It’s like riding a bike; it’ll come back to you.” Not so far—I lurch forward or pull back, jumpy as a Mexican bean. And I’ve been out of the game for so long, I clutch at the thought of me in bed with some poor unsuspecting guy. What’ll I do then, other than cry? Which I can almost guarantee.

My instincts are shot, and I can keep myself up at night agonizing over what I said or he did. It’s kind of cute, I suppose—a 63-year old, unsure of herself, waiting with a knot in her stomach for a “boyfriend” to call. Note to self: File these feelings for future reference. They might make me  hip and helpful in a few years: When my granddaughters start to date, we can get together to  bitch about boys.

I don’t want to jinx us with this post. So I’ll just leave it at this:  2010 might be our year. After a traumatic 2009 here in San Jose, things are starting to look up.

I haven’t written about family traumas experienced during the past year—loss of a job, six months of unemployment and counting, likely foreclosure on a house and bankruptcy, end of a fifteen-year marriage, two little girls watching their dad move out. It’s not my story to tell, actually. Only in the sense that I’m witnessing it from back aft in the “Grammy flat.” But that’s the thing about parenting; it never stops. Your stomach still knots up, your eyes still fill with tears when all’s not well with your kids, no matter their age.

But it feels as though we’ve turned a corner. Three interviews with a solid company for a job that’s a perfect fit. Meetings with bankers and lawyers to make plans and move ahead. A palpable sense of calm about a future that looks, if not less bleak, at least more manageable.

Some new friends have come into the picture; they help a lot. Two of them have adopted my daughter and me as their new sister and mom.  One makes my daughter laugh especially hard. Another seems as interested in me as I am in him. We’re having some fun, something that was in short supply for a long stretch of last year.  And I feel optimistic enough to write this post.

Two days ago on my birthday, I did the unthinkable and spent the afternoon at a swanky spa, thanks to a generous gift certificate from my son. In 63 years, I’d never had a pedicure or a facial, and I can count on one hand the number of massages I’ve treated myself to. Now, for four hours, a bevy of young Third World  ”aestheticians” would poke at my feet, face, hands, and torso, slathering me with their various potions and lotions. Arriving at the spa, I looked around at the crowd of other clients, most of them less than half my age, and thought, What the hell are they doing here, with their line-less faces and freckle-free hands? Looking at me, they probably thought,  Note to self: Don’t forget the sunscreen.

First up for me that afternoon, the Anti-Aging Rejuvenation Facial. It was divine, especially the neck and scalp massage that came first. Then on to a green papaya slough to strip away dead skin cells and soften the face.

“You know, I mash papaya and coat tough cuts of beef with it,” I said. “It’s a terrific meat tenderizer.”

“Same idea,” said the aesthetician, indicating the vial of goo she’d just applied to my face.

Now properly softened, my face was ready for her energetic removal of impurities. She pinched her way across my “T-zone” of forehead, nose, and chin and described in detail the contents of the pores she’d unclogged.  I vowed to cleanse more vigorously.

The best she saved for last: eyebrow tinting. I’d given mine up for lost but no, there they were, just waiting to be resurrected with some vegetable dye. It was a shock to see them again after so many years. I held up a hand mirror and stared at them.

“Do I look like Grouch Marx, though?” I asked.

“No,” she said, then added, “Who is Groucho Marx?”

My spa experience ended with a simultaneous manicure and pedicure. Regulars might take this drill for granted but for me it was tactile heaven: hands and feet left to soak in warm cucumber water until gently lifted out, one at a time, for brown sugar scrubs, massage, velvety creams. I was so taken with the feel of my new smooth girly feet and hands, I barely cared which color  polish was slapped on their nails.

The pampering felt fabulous but still, I doubt I’ll do it again any time soon. I just don’t think I can rationalize spending that much money on myself. Unless it’s for a special occasion. Or if my spirits need a major lift.  O.K., and maybe the  eyebrow tint every month.

In April, daughter Jennifer had broken the sad news to my granddaughters Lily, 10, and Anna, 8, that there was no Santa, just as they suspected. The kids, their mother, and their grandmother cried  themselves to sleep that night, lamenting the loss of a childhood icon and the end of an era. Christmas just wouldn’t be as delightful from now on, we all thought.

But we were wrong. A new idea, one in the spirit of the season, transformed our holiday into something bigger this year and, I think, something better than a mere mound of gifts left under our tree.  The girls’ Uncle Michael gets the credit.

The day after his arrival from Mexico to spend Christmas with us in California, Michael handed each of his wide-eyed nieces a crisp hundred dollar bill.

“Have you ever touched a ‘Benjamin’ before?” he kidded. They shook their heads.

“Well, here’s what I’d like you to do with this money,” he continued, all seriousness now. “A lot of people are hurting financially this year. I’d like you to think of ways to spend your one hundred dollars on someone else. To spread the love around and make someone’s Christmas a little more merry. What do you say?”

They liked the idea and started to brainstorm. On TV they’d heard  about a food bank trying to fill holiday baskets. Another place took care of families and said they always needed baby diapers. At the mall they’d seen a Christmas tree blanketed with tags from kids asking for simple gifts like tee shirts and soccer balls. How about giving money to the children’s hospital or the Ronald McDonald House? Or stuffing some in the Salvation Army bucket outside of Target? They were excited about all the ways they could spend their “Benjamins.”

The following day we headed for Costco, where Lily randomly selected cans, jars, and cartons of foodstuffs, loading up a cart until it overflowed. At the register, she grinned from ear to ear at us and at the clerk who told her, “Your total comes to $100.78.”

Anna’s turn came next. At the mall, she selected a handful of gift requests from the tag-covered tree, then rode the escalator up to her favorite stores to pick presents for little girls who’d asked for a hoodie, a Dora doll, a backpack, and a toy microscope. Back at the tree, a man took the packages from her outstretched arms and thanked her for her generosity.

“That made me feel really good,” said Anna later, from the backseat of our car. “We should do this every year.”

So Lily and Anna didn’t lose Santa after all. They  replaced him, playing Santa themselves with their own acts of generosity. Acts that befitted the true spirit of the season and, I hope, will become a new family tradition. Well played, Uncle Michael.

It was dark by the time Jennifer, Lily, Anna, and I arrived at Quinta Elena on Nov. 23. But even by moonlight, I could see how the garden had flourished during the past rainy season. “Reina exora” blossoms, in multi-hued pastels and big as my fist, ran up the driveway on bushes that towered over our car.  Lavender “leticia” cups and golden “copas de oro” hid barbed wire, climbed fence posts, and coated slopes that were bare back in August when I was last in San Pancho. Ah, it was good to be home and to have a houseful of company arriving the next day, Tuesday. Thursday would be one of our best Thanksgivings ever, I just knew.

Up early the next morning, I went into the kitchen to make coffee and saw a note on the refrigerator. “It pains me to tell you, Senora Elena,” wrote my housekeeper, Ana, “but the refrigerator, oven, and telephone aren’t working. I called the repair people but no one has come.”

After twelve years of owning a home in the third world, I’ve learned not to panic as a first reaction to these re-entry snafus. My heart did sink, however, when I  slid the coffee carafe under the tap, opened the faucet, and heard the familiar gurgle of an empty line. The house was out of water. Again.

A chagrined Ana arrived half an hour later, and we sprang into action. Ana badgered and begged the appliance repair shop to send someone asap. I called a contact at the phone company who had helped me out many times before and pleaded for internet access. No way could my guests, NYC media types, do without. Manuel, my gardener/handyman, moved water from one storage tank to another while I ordered a truckload to be delivered to Quinta Elena, an address the tanker driver knew well.  And it all happened (well, almost all. An oven part  had to come from Guadalajara.). Broadband restored, water running, frig fixed, the last truck headed down my driveway as my guests’ rental cars headed up.

Over and over I am offered the same choice here. I can sit on the porch of my beautiful house (www.lapuntarealty.com/quintaelena), savoring the exquisite sights inside and out while counting my lucky stars. Or I can allow myself  to see only what needs to be fixed or buffed up, creating self-imposed stress as I turn each visit into an urgent to-do list. Stuff needs maintenance, to be sure. But, I have to tell myself, not to the exclusion of admiring what’s lovely about the place and smelling my own roses.

As for our Thanksgiving, it was grand. Guests loved our little town and the beach at neighboring Sayulita, where Lily and Anna got up on surfboards for the first time. Baja Takeria, Cafe del Mar, and Ola Rica were hit eateries. Everyone joined in the spirit of water conservation, taking “Navy showers” and not leaving faucets open while washing dishes. And for the record, you can turn out a fine Thanksgiving dinner for twenty without an oven if you bake pumpkin, pecan, apple, and key lime pies, plus a coconut flan for good measure, at someone else’s house, dry-brine the turkey and slow-grill it on a Weber, and arbitrarily declare all side dishes as meant to be served at room temperature.

A houseful of family and friends will join me this Thanksgiving in San Pancho: daughter Jennifer, son Michael, granddaughters Lily and Anna, brother Jim and sister-in-law Teri, friends Cheryl and Jeff, Judi and John. Their presence means more to me this year than ever, probably because of my dust-up with cancer.

As usual, I had downplayed its importance to everyone who tried to rally around in my time of need. What need? There’s no need, I said. I told them how small the tumors were, how easy the treatment was compared to the past, how good I felt both physically and mentally. No, I assured them, I feel little or no pain; no fear or misgivings either.

It’s a tactic I use often, this minimizing of my experience, this pushing away the people who love and want to comfort me. As if I’m so tough. As if they have nothing to offer me. It’s so obviously dishonest. Had they not called to express concern, not sent cards and candy, my feelings would have been hurt and I would have held it against them.

Which is what I intend to confess to those gathered at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Then I’ll thank them for ignoring my shows of false bravado and for being there again for me this year. These people who are so dear to me will hear me express my feeling of gratitude that they are in my life. I’ll close by lightening up and going for a laugh: Nevertheless, I’ll say, it might always be true that my tombstone should read, ”Here lies a fine example of what repression can accomplish.”

My Day of the Dead altar , prepared with help from granddaughters Lily, 10, and Anna, 8, is a labor of love. On a small table in the living room, we assemble a foot-high pyramid of boxes and cover it with a hand-painted cloth. We stick to Mexican tradition and adorn the altar with tissue paper cutouts in reds, yellows, and purples, then add bouquets of marigolds and scores of candles, their fragrance and light meant to point the way home to the spirits of our departed.

We add some ritual whimsical touches, too, a la Mexicano—a papier-mache skeleton playing a violin; brightly painted clay skulls the girls made in art class; a bar of soap, a small bowl of water, a towel, and a comb for “tidying up” after the long trip back to the world.

Next we personalize our altar. On it we place reminders from their pasts so our departed family members feel welcome. Photographs of my grandmother as a child in her high-button shoes, my aunt and uncles as teenagers in a somber group portrait, my parents on their wedding day, Marsh barefoot on his sailboat with coffee cup in hand. The gold locket my grandmother bought with her first paycheck. The diamond ring my mother wore for 55 years as a wife and widow. The brass sextant Marsh used to practice the ancient art of celestial navigation.

I’ll spend November 1 in the kitchen, fussing over favorite food and drinks our dearly departed used to enjoy with us. After sunset, our family will gather before our altar, light the candles, and share what I prepared: a batch of Marsh’s stuffed mussels, his signature dish, and my oatmeal cookies that he called “health food”; a plate of the cheeses my mother brought from Wisconsin every Christmas; a bowl of the popcorn my dad made from scratch most Sunday nights.  We’ll sip the Miller beer, Spanish rioja, and Mexican tequila they loved and tell the old familiar stories again. We’ll acknowledge the continued importance in our lives of those who have left us and feel comforted by this remembrance of them.

Glib but true, I went to see a doctor about a shingles shot and came away with breast cancer. Here’s what happened. My new U.S. primary care doc, a striking Chinese-American woman  half my age, all but refused to give me the prescription for the shot until I agreed to tests I hadn’t had in years, including a mammogram. Several  weeks and a biopsy later, my stage one breast cancer was diagnosed.

“If you have to go and catch cancer, this is probably the one you want to catch.” So says step-daughter, Lisa, a nurse-practitioner in Austin’s biggest oncology clinic. The cure rate is so high and a new treatment so fast and easy (more on that  in a minute), I felt almost anxiety-free throughout last month’s many consultations with a slew of specialists. I say “almost” because it did get my attention when each office and institution asked for a copy of my advanced directive. Plus we wouldn’t know for sure how simple and small this cancer was until a lymph node check was done.

Long story short. On Wednesday, another striking Chinese-American woman, this time my surgeon, performed a lumpectomy. On Thursday, a lab reported the good news of no lymph nodes affected. On Friday, the surgeon inserted a catheter balloon in my left breast and I hustled, well, sort of hustled, over to an Indian-American radiology oncologist for the beginning of a treatment called brachytherapy.

Pay attention now, because this treatment is cool. Intuitively it makes so much sense. Instead of the usual treatment of blasting the whole breast with radiation from the outside, seeds of radiation are delivered via  a catheter to the area where the tumor(s) have been removed. This seed-planting is done twice a day for five days, as opposed to six weeks for whole breast external beam radiation. Granted I don’t look too pretty right now with a tube hanging out of my bruised chest. But come Friday the tube will be gone, leaving the likely souvenir of a smallish scar nicely hidden by the inevitable droop of an aging breast.

Then it’s on to a discussion about medication for the next few years to prevent cancer’s recurrence. Whatever I decide, at least I have no worries about paying for the decision. Thanks to a grateful nation, my “military” medical coverage is good and cheap ($230/year; yes, year); $3 co-pay on meds. I think of my plan as a public option, given that it covers military members present and past, alive or dead, along with their beneficiaries  like me.  Would that other Americans were as lucky as I to have such coverage and such peace of mind.

So there you have it—my active observance of breast cancer awareness month. Plus a plug for the public health care option and a nod to  immigration rights.

As a classroom teacher, I used to really crack the whip. Kids in my classes cranked out top notch work and lots of it. My “evil eye” or tapping of a pencil quieted down even the most rowdy. So it surprised me, at the family shelter where I work as a homework tutor, how the kids ran circles around me. They used time-honored lines: “I don’t have any homework.” “I can’t do this.” “I have to go to the bathroom.” “I’m too tired.” They somehow sensed I wouldn’t press, accurate little barometers that kids can be.

Until last week. Last week was the first week of the new school year, and this year would be different. It was time for me to “man up,” as friend Nick likes to say.

I showed up crabby and tired, after a day in doctors’ offices. I felt like the eight-year old who sat next to me looked. Head on her arm, Espy stared at her sheet of arithmetic problems and mumbled that she didn’t know how to add or subtract. I appealed to her pride. “I bet you do, a smart girl like you. So tell me, how much is four plus three?” She didn’t know. I held up  four fingers on one hand and three on the other. “Count them,” I said. She shook her head. I went to a shelf and brought back a bead board. “Look,Espy,” I all but growled, “we’re going to do these problems, every last one of them. We’ll sit right here until we finish, even if it means you can’t go out to play with the others.”

Man, I was mean. Espy eyed me for a few seconds, then picked up her pencil. Slowly we worked our way down the work sheet. It was painful and laborious, pushing colored beads and counting, problem after problem, row after row. But we finished. “You did it,” I said without smiling. “I knew you could. You’re no quitter.” We stood to walk out to the playground. Espy didn’t smile either when she put her arms around me and hugged me before running off to join the others.

Stuffed mussels were Marsh’s signature dish, and he made them often. He dazzled me with a batch on our first serious date. He’d made them ahead, then reheated them in the galley of his sailboat. I’d never set foot on a sailboat before, much less been served fresh seafood prepared especially for me.

Over the years, Marsh and I harvested mussels from rocks up and down the  New England coast. We picked up a mooring ball or dropped anchor, jumped in the dinghy with a couple of big buckets, and headed for  harbor openings, where the pickings were often exceptionally good. We clamored over the slippery rocks and  filled both buckets in a matter of minutes, hands numbed by the cold water, pleased with helping ourselves to the bounty.

But for the dicing, stuffed mussels are easy to throw together. “It’s really all about the butter,” Marsh claimed. And they’re always a hit, even if you scorch the tops a bit, as I am wont to do.

Marsh’s Stuffed Mussels (makes 3 dozen)

Ingredients:

-1 lb. mussels

-1 cup dry white wine

-3 cloves garlic

-1/2 cup onion, minced

-1/4 lb. butter

-1 teaspoon fresh thyme

-2 cups Pepperidge Farm seasoned stuffing mix

Instructions:

1. Put the mussels and white wine in a large pot, bring to a boil, and steam until the shells open.

2. Drain the mussels, dice the meat, and set it aside, along with the shell halves.

3. In a large fry pan, saute the garlic and onion in the butter until golden.  Add the thyme, stuffing mix, and diced mussels.

4. Stuff the shells. Broil until browned (just a few seconds; they burn easily).

Last night  I swept a snake out of my kitchen in San Pancho. Not a big snake—maybe two feet long, fat as a garden hose, brown with black diamonds. But still, I vibrated with fear as I ran for a broom.

I had to act this time. Last year, when a similar snake appeared in the same spot, I panicked. I bolted into another room to consider my options. After working up my nerve, I returned to peer around the kitchen corner but the damn snake was nowhere to be seen. It caused me a long anxious night, cowering in my bedroom, unable to sleep.

I admit, albeit sheepishly, that I feel proud of myself for pushing a garden snake out the back door. Relieved, too, to have dealt with one more experience I always dreaded. It’s the cliched fear of the unknown, isn’t it? Am I up to the task? How will I do? Now I know.

Like my fear of being stung by a scorpion. The first time it happened, I was relieved to learn how my body reacts, i.e. my throat doesn’t constrict, and I don’t die. The second time, I just popped an antihistamine and waited for the nausea and numbness to pass. (In the interest of science, let me point out that this can take days. A better, faster remedy is an intravenous drip. Two hours and $25 at the San Pancho regional hospital)

I just returned from a long walk and a good cry. You’ll think I’m foolish when I tell you why.

A man contacted me, and we corresponded for a few months. He sounded lovely—a writer, formerly worked with disabled kids, about my age. Both of us looked forward to our first meeting in San Francisco for a walk in Golden Gate Park and a bite to eat. Then he read my book.

Last night he wrote that he no longer wanted a relationship with me. Both of us would be comparing him to a saint, he said, and the pedestal the saint occupies was just too high for him to deal with.

I was stunned. Then crushed. More crushed than a couple months of emails with a stranger warranted. Ergo the tears, out on the walking trail. At the moment, back home, what I feel most keenly is disappointment—in this man’s lack of self-confidence; in the realization that other men will think the same.

They will be wrong, however. I didn’t see Marsh as a saint. I saw him as a nice, thoughtful guy, like lots of guys out there. He had his flaws; we had our fights (my children kid me that they will tell all in a sequel to my book). My purpose, with both the Sweet Things List and the book, was not to ignore the negatives but rather to highlight the positives in Marsh and in our life. To show my appreciation for them. This is a good thing. I hope I get the chance to do it again with another nice guy. Marsh would want that for me, too.

After Marsh died, I agonized for two years over my living arrangement. Should I keep my home and guest house in Mexico, even though I didn’t much like living there alone? Should I sell and look for something smaller and easier to maintain? Should I spend more time in California and the “Grammy flat” we’d built behind my daughter’s house in San Jose? How much time, if I expected to find some friends and have a life independent of my daughter and granddaughters?

Thanks to indecision, my natural inclination to act was stifled. I followed conventional wisdom for new widows and did nothing.

Last year, the answers dawned on me: 1. Subdivide my property and sell the bigger piece. 2. With some of the proceeds, rehab the guest house on the smaller piece to suit my needs. 3. Change my mindset and think of California as home, with frequent trips to my “get-away place in Mexico” the new life plan.

Let’s hear it for conventional wisdom. My staying in place and doing nothing helped these three decisions make themselves, it feels to me now. And there’s a bonus. I get to indulge my passion and design another living space. A not-so-big place this time, with a dedicated writing space so I can indulge this newer passion, too.

Sweet. Now all I need is a buyer.

I’m still thinking about the screenplay idea. The two writers who expressed an interest haven’t gotten back to me, and I think I know why. After two weeks in an online screenwriting course, plus reading some recommended books(Steve, you were right—Robert McKee’s STORY is the Bible.), I have doubts about my book as a movie, too.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not just being negative. I’m trying to be realistic. All books don’t translate well into visual story, and mine might be one of them. Marsh and I passed through some exotic geography, that’s true enough. So maybe our life together might make for a nice travelogue. But as protagonists of our story, did either of us change enough to keep an audience interested and awake for two hours? Were we conflicted enough, our story complex enough, to give a screenwriter material to work with? Or, as I suspect, is this a simple little love story with a sad ending, its message best left within the pages of a book?

I’m not giving up; I’m just saying…

My mother’s only sister, Jane, died ten days ago, and this past weekend, her children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews came back to our hometown for her funeral. Gathered in the vestibule of St. Mary’s Church in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, we stared at the slide show of old photos and pored over newspaper clippings arranged on tables. Jane as a kid, the youngest of four, the last of the “Finnerty kids” to go. Jane and Barney as young marrieds, so good-looking, all smiles and optimism. Later, during the hectic years, as parents raising four of their own and as owners of the town’s only cab company. Jane as prize-winner, for bridge at the Elks, for golf at South Hills.

The “Finnerty kids”—Mary, Tom, Owen, and Jane—grew up in Fond du Lac during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Their dad was a flamboyant saloon-keeper who lived in and out of the house until he keeled over in the middle of Main Street, dead at 43 from cirrhosis of the liver. Mary, my mother and the oldest, saw him for the alcoholic he was and never forgave him for the humiliation he caused her. Her siblings loved to tell colorful stories about the saloon and his charms. but Mary never did. She knew too much—she was confidante to her pretty German mother and also her surrogate. From the age of 10, Mary minded her siblings, cooked their meals, and cleaned their clothes while her mother worked two jobs.

“My sister and brothers thought it was fun to stay up past midnight and sneak down the back stairs of our latest walk-up apartment,” she said. “They giggled and whispered to each other as we lugged our bags, bolting on the overdue rent. Afterward, only I got to stay up and watch my mother cry.”

Interesting then that both sisters named a son after their father, and both took excessive pride in calling themselves “Irish,” with no mention of their 50% German blood. Both of them married German-Americans, too, nice guys, quiet responsible family men. Denied the chance to go to college themselves, the sisters pushed their kids hard: Not going to college was never offered as an option; all seven of us went; all of us became accomplished professionals.

We had it easy, compared to our mothers. Here’s to you, Aunt Jane—to your strength, your drive, and your unfailing support for all of us. We’ll miss you.

Any fan letter can make my day. But this one struck deeper than most. Traci wrote, “I checked your book out of my local library and read it in one sitting yesterday…as a young single mother it gives me hope it may not be too late for me to find the kind of relationship you were so fortunate to have with your husband.” 

 I’m glad my book can offer such hope. God knows I needed that hope when I was the single thirty-something, raising my kids alone, aching for someone to step into our life and love us.

 What she said next touched me the most. “(your book) serves as a reminder that I should not settle for anything less than a complete partnership. To do so would not only hurt me but my daughter, and I can’t afford to do that…thank you for reminding me that a good marriage/relationship should involve, at its core, mutual respect and kindness. Without those traits, there really is nothing to build on.”

 My book provoked those thoughts. My book might be helping a young woman do the right thing for herself and her child. It’s humbling, and I feel honored. Thank you for sharing, Traci. Your “Marsh” is out there; best of luck in finding him soon.     

It felt good to be back in Denver last week. I “grew up” in Colorado, arriving at 24 with a husband and two babies, leaving at 36, a divorced single mother of two teens. During those 12 years, I learned to ski and to ride a horse, got myself hired and fired by Governor Dick Lamm, climbed Pikes Peak to cut Christmas trees, and sold my soul to “Mother Mobil” Oil before quitting to follow a man to Massachusetts.

Denver’s revered Tattered Cover book store had been one of my haunts back then. Now, on a balmy spring evening in 2009, I stood behind one of its podiums, listening in semi-disbelief as events coordinator Pat Walsh introduced me and my book. Old friends of mine and my brother, Jim, who’d also lived in Denver years ago, scattered themselves among the crowd (thanks, Mike and Priscilla, Bill and Nancy, for timing your travels to coincide with this book signing. It was dear of you.)  I was nervous, as usual, wanting to do particularly well for them, and it took me awhile to loosen up, as I delivered my short presentation and read a few selections. But by Q & A time, I felt totally at ease.

Book signing came next. I love this part of the event. People share their stories and are generous with their praise, especially big-hearted Westerners. Sometimes I just want to pinch my damn self, to verify that this isn’t a movie scene, that indeed it is wrinkly old me sitting behind a table, Sharpie in hand,  smiling up at someone with my book in her hands and asking her how she spells her name. Really, for someone who calls herself a writer, can it get any better than that?

I leave San Pancho early tomorrow morning, after a month attending to chores and guests. My to-do list grew as the days passed, and I vowed to never again let so much time elapse between stays. 

Still, it’s been a lovely month of daily walks in the jungle, climbing back up my hill, legs coated with dust and feeling self-satisfied. Of long talks with Manuel as we do our annual reconfiguration of the garden,  transplanting and mercilessly pruning, in preparation for the rainy season when the plants will explode with new growth. Of first-time experiences as well—a road trip to my housekeeper Ana’s “ranchito” in the heart of the Jose Cuervo agave fields to meet her family; a Saturday afternoon at the new San Pancho polo field, for a funky little session of  see and be seen.

My feelings are mixed as I leave this time. This is home, yet so is San Jose now. I drift between the two, with no finite plan of how much time to spend in either one. But no need for a plan, either. Just be—that’s the life lesson I keep having to relearn.