Small blessings after the storm.

I'm starting to recover from a really rough weekend; it coupled a wonderful annual gig with terrible, almost unbearable old memories. I dreaded this weekend for weeks and was so anxious Friday afternoon I had to take a nap.

By late afternoon today the rough stuff was over; in celebration I spent a happy hour and a half at my favorite Mexican restaurant, eating a late lunch and reading on the patio.

The wind was blowing like crazy, napkins were flying everywhere, but I wasn't cold; I'd had the foresight to - well, not enough foresight to bring a jacket from home, but enough foresight to stop first at Ross's and buy a new sweater - on clearance for $5.46, and it even matched my skirt! I deemed it a harbinger of good fortune.

Soon I was the only patio customer. I felt hardy.

The book I was reading has been on my nightstand, mostly neglected, for about a year: La casa de los espíritus by Isabel Allende. I read it in English, and loved it, many years ago.

When I started it in Spanish last year, I read with the English-language paperback in one hand and Spanish in the other. I proudly realize my Spanish has improved enough that I can now read and enjoy it on its own. I just ignore the sporadic gusts of wonderfully obscure words, promising to look them up later... maybe a lot later...

Anyway, while I was eating and reading and grinning one of the waitresses came over and said, "you're really enjoying your book, aren't you?" So I showed her the book and she said she hadn't read it, another came over and said she'd loved it, and we talked about it a bit (in Spanish)! I used to be terrified and blush beet red when I tried to speak Spanish, and this time I didn't - another harbinger of good fortune.

I have a pink index card in my nightstand, given to me by a psychologist seven or eight years ago when I was trying to get through some awful times. It says:

FORGIVENNESS UNDERSTANDING GRATITUDE TRUST

I hope this mantra helps somebody else; it's helped me at least a little...

On a happier note, I write every morning out on my patio and the birds are putting on a magnificent spring show. Suddenly this year red finches have learned how to jam their nests onto the impossibly narrow ledges at the top of my siding, right under the eaves, and they've stuffed a ridiculous number of nests up there, and they're yakking and flapping all day. I don't have a Carolina Wren in my nail bucket this year, but the hummingbirds are back and at their nasty wars already (they surely expend more calories trying to defend the feeder from each other than they get from actually sipping), and the male bluebird is sitting on top of his house, usually a sign that eggs have hatched.

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