list 100 memories that are meaningful to me (happy or sad and anything outside and in between)

I was 7 or 8 years old, and my uncle JL called my house and told me he was Santa Claus. He said he couldn’t stay on the phone for long (calls from the North Pole to Mexico were expensive), but that he wanted to know what I wanted for Christmas, if I had been good, and to double-check my address to make sure he got it right. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.

29. The different smells of my mom’s hands from my childhood: clorox and softener after she had done the laundry, and Estee Lauder’s Youth Dew when she came to say good-bye on Friday nights before going out with my dad. My mom’s hands.

26. Turning a corner in Florence, and then, unexpectedly, seeing the Ponte Vecchio right in front of us for the very first time. Even if it’s not the most famous sight in Italy, it had become part of our imagination, having seen it so many times on a postcard my mom kept from her travels back in the 70’s. When we saw it in Florence, my sister and I held hands and shrieked like children.

27. My mom holding me after I had spent the better part of three days crying, without even stepping out of the house, and barely even getting out of bed. Finally telling her how incredibly sad and miserable I really felt, and admitting it to myself, as well.

28. The day I made arrangements to take Kelly out of the hospital/nursing home where she had been for months, and going for a ride all day. The simple, pure happiness we both felt as I drove aimlessly, and she rolled down the window, feeling the sun on her face. She asked me to turn up the volume to U2’s Achtung Baby, and both of us started singing at the top of our lungs.

23. The bear hug and the grilled cheese sandwiches from Fernando after I came home crying from a very bad day at work.

24. The yarn, the chocolate, Rita.

25. The wonderful surprise birthday party Rita threw for me on my 29th birthday. All her students and all my students were invited to my classroom. Colorful balloons and homemade cake for everyone.

21. Driving an old convertible, top down, in Austin, Texas as it started to drizzle. After a few minutes, seeing the complete rainbow that illuminated the sky. It only lasted a moment, but I took it as a beautiful parting gift–it was the last day I spent in Texas before moving to Spain.

22. The freshest, most delicious fish I’ve ever tasted at Venta Pineros, a hidden, almost anonymous restaurant favored by locals near Cádiz, Spain.

Mario Benedetti, gifted novelist, essayist, and poet from Uruguay, died yesterday at the age of 88. His books form part of my personal library. Some are here with me in Spain, a few more back (home?) in the United States, and his words in my imagination and in my heart since many, many years ago, beginning with the devotion and impossible love of Martín Santomé for Laura Avellaneda in La Tregua, and more recetly with the world he painted with words in Vivir Adrede.

The words of his friend, Nobel laureate José Saramago, express a personal feeling, and the feeling of many:

“La cabeza nos dice que no hay milagros, pero el corazón insiste en creer que un milagro de vez en cuando, además de no alterar el orden del mundo, vendría bien como compensación por las inevitables tristezas de la vida. En el fondo, queríamos creer que la lectura de los poemas de Benedetti, puesta a correr alrededor del mundo, haría retroceder a la muerte que le amenazaba. Mario perdió la batalla, nosotros, sus amigos, sus lectores, también. Restará la memoria, restarán los libros, pero, en este momento, memoria y libros casi nos parecen poco. El dolor y la tristeza no se aliviarán tan pronto. Estaba Mario Benedetti y dejó de estar.”

José Saramago

Our head tells us that there are no miracles, but the heart insists on believing that a miracle once in a while, would not change the order of the world and, what’s more, it would do well as compensation for the inevitable sorrows of life. Deep down, we wanted to believe that the reading of Benedetti’s poems, set forth to run around the world, would set back the death which threatened him. Mario lost the battle, we, his friends, his readers, too. The memory will remain, the books will remain, but, at this moment, memory and books almost seem like little. The pain and the grief will not be alleviated so soon. Benedetti was and he ceased to be.

José Saramago (translation mine)

Long live, through his legacy, Mr. Benedetti.

16. Taking pictures in Parco Sempione, in Milan, on a perfect fall morning.

17. Listening to fado being sung live for the first time in Lisbon. That warm voice and the impossibly melancholic music gave me chills.

18. The “candy rain” that my uncle JL produced by putting candies on top of the ceiling fan blades and then turning on the fan. Experiencing this as a child, and then seeing my little cousins and nephews faces light up as he continued the tradition with them.

19. The last time my grandmother had a lucid conversation with me, before her mind got lost in the Alzheimer’s labyrinth.

20. The very first time I was able to jog for 45 minutes without stopping. I only realized it when my sister (a marathoner herself) turned to me and said: “Congratulations. You’ve just ran 45 minutes.”

12. Riding the Cyclone and eating Nathan’s hot-dogs in Coney Island with my brother, the summer before moving to Spain.

13. Rossella telling me (in Italian, while driving through the northern countryside of Italy): “Life is like a crochet work. Sometimes it seems like nothing is happening––those times are like the holes in the crochet. But if you wait long enough, you’ll find that after some time, everything is part of the pattern, and that those holes, which seemed empty, are actually part of the final design.”

14. Taking the day off work with my friend Rita to go to the beach in winter. Just contemplating the immenseness and listening to the waves. Her telling me “Isn’t it amazing to think that this sea has been here thousands of years long before us, and that now it’s probably laughing at us; it will be here for thousands of years after we’re gone.” Whenever I think of that moment, it helps puts things into perspective.

15. Getting out of bed and making fresh Caprese salad with Simone, way past after midnight, just because we felt like it.

Menorca.
{{{{sigh}}}}

6. The sound of the sea while falling asleep, during the first year in Barcelona living in a seaside apartment.

7. During my first year as a teacher, the first time I saw the “I get it!” look in a child’s eyes, after he finally caught on to subtraction!

8. Taking my mom to an outdoor Gypsy Kings concert as a surprise gift for Mother’s Day, back in 2001, I think.

9. The first time I jumped into the icy-cold water of Barton Springs, in Austin, Texas. The exhilarating feel of the cold after sunbathing under the sun that summer day.

10. The loud clapping of all the passengers on the flight upon arriving to Paris, the very first time I had flown outside the American continent, at 20 years of age.