Summed Up In One Word

So I haven't posted in my blog for several days and the reason can be summed up in one word: SUNSHINE! Berlin is not like California where everyone keeps their blinds shut and lazily stay in doors on a beautiful day because they know tomorrow will be another beautiful day. In Berlin the sun is not taken for granted. It is here today and likely gone tomorrow so you better enjoy it while you can. When the sun shines, people spill out onto the streets. Here are some photographs of us enjoying the gorgeous weather. Happy Spring!

Winter Walks

I don't know what it is about graveyards. True, there are several gorgeous ones near my house and true they are green, quiet and nice to walk in. Still, I think I have a special fondness for them because of growing up in Tucson. Tucson may be many things, but green is not the first one that comes to mind. I remember driving to church with my family (we lived there until I was 10)and always pointing out the window at some point and saying "Look! There's the tree!" As in THE tree, the only tree we ever really saw that was more than a stick (it must have hit an underground water main or something, because I remember it being tall and very lush.) After church we would sometimes go to the graveyard where they had, you guessed it, trees and grass and other green leafy things. When we went, we always had a picnic. Maybe that explains it: to me, graveyards have the cheerful feeling of a family Sunday eating fried chicken and potato salad....Either way, when the sun was actually shining today, it was the first place I thought to go to.

California

It feels good to be back in California. I've been here since Thursday and each morning after the intial fog has blown off I'm outside, sitting in the sun, like a lizard on a rock. I've been so deprived of sunshine these past Berlin Winter months and now I just can't get enough. The trip is also bitter sweet: my father is very ill with cancer and, since I live a half a world away, this will probably be the last time I will see him alive. So here I am, in a place so aptly called the sunshine state, the warmth of the rays on the skin not always enough to warm my heart....It's great to spend time with my family though and to have baby Mia hang out with them. I swear she now loves my mom more than she loves me! My second child will be here in October and it's so good to know that he/she will have two families, one in the Bay Area and one in Berlin, as baby Mia does. But sad that he/she will never get to know her grandfather. Both of my husband's parents are dead, so this means my children will only have my mom as their single grandparent. But she's great so they have lucked out. Anyway, this entry is a bit personal for this blog, which is more designed to document my creative life. Life is just too busy stirring the creative pot and I am doing nothing creative (though I do plan to get some writing done). Just tanking up on the sun and spending precious moments with my dad....