“Let ‘em Eat Cake”

Or … “I do ballrooms”, said the President of the United States with a big slap across the face of Americans and the rest of the world. It isn’t hard to imagine how King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette lost their heads. Buidling a billion dollar ballroom at the White House while starvation swallows victims across the world and Americans by the millions will soon have no health insurance is as callous and cruel as it gets. Meanwhile, friendly neighbors to the North are retaliating against tariffs by boycotting American products. Without any doubt, the USA has lost its standing here in Canada from where I am writing.

“We are not going to America anymore”, said the tour guide in strong Quebecois style. My grandparents who emigrated long ago to the US were stubborn people. It is the Canadian nature. “Elbows up”!

“We know it is not all Americans, just that ONE person: UN!”, said my French teacher.

The class makeup was mostly younger people from El Salvador, Mexico, Columbia, the Philippines, Japan, Switzerland, and MOI! When the discussion turned toward our respective countries, the descriptions were chilling: “We have many huge jails”, said Erika from San Salvador; “My parents said Canada is a good country to go to”, said the Mexican studying on a visa hoping for permanent residency. Sophia, age 17, from Columbia was not eager to return home, even though she said: “I miss my mother”. The Phillipino woman said angrily: “We had the first Marco dictatorship, now we have his son! Everyone wants to leave”.

My own comments fell in line with their own, and I realized just how close, so very close the US has come to joining the world of dictatorships. Each of the students is looking for a new country to call home. They are prepared to leave their own country that offers little for their futures. I do not look so much to the future, but to the present days for myself, and to the future for my own younger family members. It is the reason that I have applied for second-generation citizenship in Canada.

If approved, I will have dual citizenship with my country of birth and my grandparents’ birth country. My daughter and I visited the small village where they were born and raised in St. Patrice de Beaurivage. There is something about the smells of farmland; the resemblances of the villagers (900) to my aunts greeting one another in the only restaurant for Sunday supper; the fiddle music I heard as a child when my Uncles pulled out their handmade instruments that my grandfather carved, that feels closer to home and to my heart more now than ever.

When Marie Antoinette said: “Let ‘em eat cake” in response to hearing the people were starving and needed bread, they rose up, stormed the Bastille, starting a full-blown revolution. From here in Canada, I am asking myself why Americans have stopped short of storming the White House? I often wondered when I read about the French Resistance if I would have had the courage to join? Today I ask,

what is there to lose?

Not just an ordinary Tuesday!

Thirty-four years ago at exactly 8:58 a.m., on July 8, the world shifted to make room for a very special soul. Until that moment, whether this newborn would be male or female was a secret the doctors and nurses kept to themselves. "Don't tell me", I reminded them each time we met over nine months. I wanted to be surprised. Names were pending until the time when either Sarah or Thomas aka "Sarah/Thom" would make an appearance. Either way, the baby would carry on the grandparent's names, and either way, he/she would be very warmly welcomed.

Sarah Eugenia (both grandmother's names) arrived as barely a six-pounder, with the longest fingers I had seen on any baby's tiny hand. "She'll be a pianist", I said. In fact, as I write today, her five-foot baby-grand piano sits in my living room. On her sixteenth Christmas, I wrapped a small piano ornament in paper and placed it in the bottom of the biggest box I could find. After she dug her way to the bottom, her blueberry eyes were intent on the black and whites before turning them on me: "Wait! . . . Are we getting a piano"? Within a week it arrived like a harp on wheels. When the time came for college, I began piano-sitting. It has been a gift I gave to myself! Just like Sarah has been these past three decades. She has touched more than my life. Sarah has touched my soul with her heart of gold.

Nobody I know is more "true blue" in her relationships. At her high school graduation party in the backyard, where all eighteen birthdays had been celebrated, I said:"If you are here today, you are blessed to be one of Sarah's friends. She will never let you down". True enough. This has been the hallmark of her life. This soon-to-be certified art therapist, has also taken her share of bitter disappointments. Yet, she has not given into the worst inclinations to give up. Instead, she has reached deep down like for something buried at the bottom of a treasure box for yet another gift. Herself. She is true to herself, as well. Seems she came with that built-in feature. It has served her well. So, I think, has our family motto.

One day, her Sunday School teacher asked: "What's your family motto"? The silence must have been deafening amongst the eight-year-olds. "Go home and ask your parents and come back next week to tell us". I remember vividly standing at the kitchen sink looking out over the garden when Sarah sprung the question. My mind might have been blank, but instead it scrambled through catchy phrases as if one was waiting to be plucked like an apple from a plethora of trees in an orchard. "Let me think about it", I said. Think about it, I did! It kind of got under my skin like some itch I couldn't quite reach. But, I knew I had to find an answer for her by Sunday. It mattered. There was a weightiness to claiming a motto as one's own. Something to live up to; to live by; to aspire to; to rely on in times of trouble. And, so it came to me out of the true blue above while driving to church the following Sunday.

"Our family motto is: Rise Above It", I proclaimed. There was power in those three words. It fit every occasion that would befall the three of us as we grew older together.

I had it inscribed in her high school ring. Rise Above It . . .Try it on for size and see how it fits!

Happy Birthday, Sarah! See you in Q.C.!

Bragging Rights!

Family!

Sometimes it feels right to brag on yourself, or your kids or grandkids (all the time), or about a small group of beloved writer friends known as the River Writers! So, here goes.

B.C. (before COVID), I offered a writing spiritual memoir course at Flagler College's Lifelong Learning. Three people signed up. The administration, not seeing any money in it for themselves, called to say the course did not fill and therefore would be cancelled. I asked for the roster. Much to my surprise two men had signed up. Mind you after offering this course in other venues for a decade, I knew that the ratio of two men to one woman was an anomaly. The administrator wasn't as blown away by this, but I knew something different was happening so I went to his office to make my case. He agreed to run the course, this time. Great!

"I will be forever grateful for this", said Roger, one of the two men who faithfully attended the summer program. He said this five years after that summer. By then, the four of us plus one who joined later, had been writing together on a monthly basis.

Our unique combination of would-be authors met at my house to share our works in progress. We were serious about our writing and about our evolving relationship. Hardly a month went by when all of us were not sitting in my living room, or on the screened porch overlooking the San Sebastian River. One evening, a tad late to the meeting, Roger poked his head inside, asking: "Are there any River Writers in here"? The name stuck!

Our stories grew as did the solidarity between us. Our "critiques" were given gently. We knew each other's touch points, and tiptoed toward those rather than around them to offer some help. Care was the watchword by which we wrote and told our deeply personal life stories. We laughed a lot. We made a few out-of-town retreats together. During one such time, Mike had a breakthrough that changed everything going forward in his writing. We honored that moment in silence because everyone knew it was a turning point for the writing and for the soul. The group's bond and total trust allowed for such a moment. We had become a family in the true sense of the word: "the people who support and love you, and the people you can confide in and trust".

These River Writer friends of mine matter more than words on the page, although they were instrumental in helping me to finish my second book, Return from Exile*

Speaking of books!

Congratulations to Mike on the launch of his first: https://www.amazon.com/Afterlifes-Door-Dark-Particle-Saga-ebook/dp/B0FF3MJ6QB?ref_=ast_author_mpb

And, drum roll please:

The second St. Augustine Poet Laureate, is none other than our very own River Writer, Ann Browning Masters! https://annbrowningmasters.com/

"I will be forever grateful", sums it up. The following semesters, the course filled but never again would there be anything like the River Writers! Meet the River Writers here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe5STechJEc&list=PLgEkQClCVY7uyKWLiO-_V1PK2vLaCxx22&index=2

*https://www.amazon.com/Return-Exile-Revelations-Anchoress-Augustine/dp/1666707635#:~:text=A%20true%20story%20of%20two,during%20the%20Black%20Death%20plague.