Shadows in the clouds

As I was telling Diego yesterday during our live broadcast on radio global, only in New York I've seen the buildings project shadows into the sky. It's not usual, you need the right combination of fog density, light and tall buildings. I took this picture last summer, one night after Oscar and I left our favorite wine bar in Midtown Manhattan. We haven't been there in a while, as we haven't had our usual long conversations. Things are different now. The year is almost over and I don't have my new year's resolutions. Last year I painted my house, and changed the layout of my room entirely. This year I want to throw things away, I just want to keep the basics and leave room for breathing (and new ideas!). I also want to go back to my old habits of finding beauty on almost everything, like enjoying the sight of the fog covering the buildings.

while you read...

Victor is reading his book about Mexican caudillo and revolutionary Pancho Villa. He laughs, stops reading and mention that he is comparing this book to Sun Tzu's Art of War. I oppose war, but I have to admit that Master Tzu's teachings are amazingly useful. While he reads I play with my iPod shuffle, hoping the variety in music will provide me with enough ideas and inspiration to write. As I do so, Oscar arrives. We take a minute to discuss his day, Argentinean food and good news from Carlos, someone he dated last year. Dating for gay men seems as complicated as it is for heterosexual women. It's not hard to hook-up with someone, but it's hard to keep it going, not to mention to transform dating into a real relationship. My iPod jumps to a Coldcut podcast that uses Black Uhuru's dub as a sample. The last time I heard this track Capuchi and I were driving from San Diego to Tijuana on his family's purple van. This was about four years ago, and the only time I've crossed the US-Mexico border. I was surprised about how you can actually travel to Mexico without getting questioned. By definition, crossing a border on a purple passenger van without showing my passport makes me feel suspicious, and dub, as a perfect soundtrack, reinforced the feeling. Victor continues to laugh to his book, and TV sounds come from Oscar's bedroom. I'm cold, so I'm wearing a colorful Peruvian hat I brought from my last trip to Machu Picchu. I'm 31, and I feel glad that I can still afford to enjoy weekday nights listening to music, drinking Riesling and having a lover/boyfriend without having to look glamourous.

My Mom will meet her grandchildren for the first time today; as a matter of fact she might just be doing so as I write. The story of most families is not linear, nor is it easy to tell. There are so many reasons on why things go wrong and ties are broken, so many words unspoken, pride, fear and love; and suddenly there comes the need to get the pieces back together. Today will become her happiest Christmas story.

For me, this will be a forced New York Christmas vacation. My visa renovation is in process, so it’s not possible to leave the country at this time. Nevertheless, I’m happy as I've never got the chance to enjoy the city as a tourist with Victor. Also, I need some time for myself, to write this year’s recount, and start drafting ideas for the coming one. “2010 will be a great year,” Neil, the building manager told me today as I was stepping in the elevator. In the meantime, it’s just 4:30 pm and already getting dark, and I still got lots of pending tasks before heading home.

Loose ideas

Victor talks to his mom while I listen to an old song from a Mark Farina's album. I remember Lalis doing her free-style dancing to this song, red curls shaking and all, which makes me think that my hair is so boring. I need to have a hair-do that makes a statement; that makes people think about something interesting. Is that even possible? What will be interesting for me? Learning the new mathematical theorems, or how to break historical vicious cycles. I guess my hair could never spark any of these questions in anyone, but there's nothing wrong in trying it. It's very cold outside, and so windy that our window panes are banging. I've been eating kettle corn popcorn while I slowly drink a glass of Shiraz. I'm addicted to salty-sweet flavors, it makes my life easier as I don't have to decide between salty or sweet. Victor is reading out loud the names of Latin American countries in Japanese, " Chile takes only four symbols!". Maybe that's because it's phonetic. As he admires his paper Globe he notices a little island near the South Pole, between Africa and Australia, really south. "Do you think someone lives here?" he asks, "It's so lost in the middle of nowhere." I guess that our planet is just lost in the middle of nowhere. So many questions remain unanswered. As I think this my iPod shuffle moves to French hip-hop, and I wonder what kind of hair-do French-African women are using these days.

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was my grandmother's birthday. She didn't celebrated; she lost all trace of memory a few years ago. I started documenting her life at the same time she started loosing her ability to communicate. I guess it's my way to feel connected.

The office is very cold today; it usually takes a while for the building managment to get the thermostate correct. In the meantime we debate if it's too much to wear a coat indoors. Some days just feel like bad luck days, small bad things that keep accumulating. Today it started with the burned and extremly sweet coffee from the new guy at the coffee stand; not to mention that the bag of chips I bought for lunch exploded as I was trying to open it, leaving small pieces of cheddar and salt all over my black velvet pants. Now at 6:01 pm I got an email from my lawyer saying the US immigration department needs extra documentation to approve my visa. Some days you wished you had stayed home to avoid all kind of small catastrophes. On the flip side, I got an email from Agatha with some good insights about how she sees my future. Promising.

two years ago, before departing

My uncle Yemil, the last full-blooded Lebanese in my family, died last week. I never met my grandfather, but I spent some exceptional time with his brothers when I was a little girl. They migrated from Lebanon to Orizaba, Mexico, where they grew up to become Mexicans that never again pronounced a word in Arabic. We always talk about migration as a larger economic and sociopolitical process, but we rarely think ourselves as a result from it. It might help to read my grandmother's cookbook to tell the story of migration in my family. Some people get surprised that in my house no one cooks mole, not even enchiladas; sad enough, none of us knows how to make them. On the other hand, as a child I learned to prepare stuffed grape leaves, and cook rice with pine nuts. Most of my family's recipes come from Spain, although we eat plantain with almost every meal as my great-grandfather spent years in Cuba on his way to Mexico. Two days ago Javier, a Peruvian friend with Chinese, Italian and Spanish descent, asked me if I felt Lebanese to certain extent. Truth is I don't, as no one in my family tried to preserve that identity. I wish I could drink coffee at a coffee shop in Beirut, but also I'm much more fond to chiles verdes than any of my ancestors.