January/February 2025. The Tropics. Great place to spend some winter…even if you’re from a too-sunny/warm climate already. Palm trees, blue skies and lots of ocean, mangoes, genocide museums, skyscrapers, lots of rice, chickens in the yard, islands—so many islands, history of American colonization and bombs, ancient temples: blackened by time and quietly accepting a world of visitors into their lush jungle home. At a Big Event. With your Favorite People.
So, there I was. And this post is kinda ‘all about me.’ Sorry. But this way I won’t have to talk about old-age At All next year! So, my two-month sojourn beginning with pageantry and ending with the solemn realization I had weathered some kind of transition to a next stage of life (which, as the saying goes—is better than the alternative).
I’ve already written and offered up several photo albums of the first six weeks of my splendid Asian winter, and am about to add one or two final ones. It’ll be fun…you’ll see.
With these posts, I’m wrapping an April ‘24 – May ‘25 blog-book, as well as, I hope, moving on to a new fine-and-dandy phase of the remaining “golden” years of this life. To be spent in my rapidly metamorphosing-to-fascist country, which promises to be a fascinating finale to life.
The next four paragraphs are about traveling while old—because it influences everything else on the trip…and, indeed, the rest of my life. If old age is not of particular interest to you right now (it wasn’t interesting to me until I was about 75), you may skip the next three paragraphs.
Here goes: I had a major health episode the first week in the Philippines, the week of the absolutely gorgeous wedding festivities. It wasn’t life-threatening; I attended many of the activities, and didn’t embarrass myself or, hopefully, anyone else. It began almost upon arrival and was connected to long-term gastro issues…which had never been quite this debilitating before. While emanating from my mid-section and effecting every part of my body, again, I was never in dire physical danger—mentally, well that’s a different story.
It is where and when I lost confidence in my ability to handle almost any situation that might ever arise. In my numerous homes, jobs, and travels, this may be the first time I absolutely did not know what to do and lost the capacity to figure it out. There are many reasons for that, none really understandable, except that I suddenly believed myself Old and Incapable. A mental health crisis which, had it all ended there, I wouldn’t mention now. I will describe it as transitioning from old to old-old to what use to be called: older-than-sin, older-than-the-hills, older-than-god…in other words ‘about done for’ as my dad would have said.
I have a friend, even older than me, who just gets on with her life as briskly as possible every day; busy, engaged, never whining or even mentioning there’s a problem with this time of life. She is obviously a saint.
For me it is a big challenge, but, with Tasia as my guru, my attitude will surely improve. Starting with reading and reading and reading—which has always been a life-affirming and enriching pastime; blogging (posting-as-therapy among other purposes!); chatting with my docs and going off all medications (not that I had that many) for a while; eating more and better with the hope that good food, gummies, and new plants (almost as important for mental health as a wall of books) will cure what ails me. Oh yeah, to top it all off, back to the gym (harder to do with arthritis and no pain meds though). Most of all, I’m trying to separate the Old-Frail-Me part of this mental slump from the perfectly natural anxiety, dread, and disgust over the United States of America’s present Political Regime.
There, I said it. I debated opening my pretty and final Asian travel posts with a personal whine. Since I intend to travel more and whine more through the remaining “winters of [my] life”—a much more appropriate phrase than “golden years”—I decided to get this story-rant over with now. It’s all uphill from here…. Right? No? Be quiet.
Once upon a time…in a lush island kingdom far far away, a princess married her prince, and with their cheering subjects’ approval and the encouragement of a herd of barking seals, they rode away on prancing white ponies accompanied by a most winsome gang of elves and gnomes and leprechauns and unicorns and dwarfs and mermaids and fairies, and one or two goblins and two trolls. They galloped over land and sea and more land to the benighted kingdom of Austin, Texas where, in spite of the danger, a Democratic mayor kept them safe from all harm. It was a beautiful thing…except for the goblins. (There was also some concern about the trolls, but they were Norwegian, and the feeling was that they would foreswear dirty tricks for one of their own [Norwegian, not troll])
In January 2025, my granddaughter Teresa married her love Jon on a tiny island near a small island (Busuanga) only a short distance off a bigger island in a land called the Philippine Islands. Teresa’s mom is a proud Filipina, and it was an enormous source of pride for her, and joy for both her and Teresa, who has spent many happy times over the years on Busuanga where her mom grew up. Teresa the traveler did like the idea of a destination wedding, but only if the destination had meaning: Busuanga fit the bill.
So, while all the parties, celebratory events, and numerous hang-out-and-have-fun activities occurred in various Busuanga locations, the critical “I pronounce you…” moments took place on a tiny bit of land comprised only of cooling breezes, soft white sand, and swaying palms, surrounded by the bluest of seas.
Eighty of T & J’s family members and friends flew halfway around the world to join the party and witness the big moment. And what a spectacular bunch we were. Handsome middle-agers, stunning young people, a few cute kids…and a token little old lady.
Pictures will mostly replace the hundreds of other adjectives I’m tempted to include. I do feel compelled, however, to attempt a description of what I personally considered the most spectacular moment of all.
Teresa, the beautiful bride arrived on the wedding island by speedboat She was cleverly concealed in a black cloak until she reached the head of the ‘aisle,’ down which she walked to join the groom. It was brilliant…. (I’m sure she has her own story of how this was all planned and orchestrated…but I haven’t heard it, and I want to share my perception anyway.)
I must say, while I’m proud of Teresa for many things, this to me was a unique glimpse of her not always on display; the result of her gentle but slightly wicked sense of humor and her mastery of dramatic understatement, surely fostered by years of the Magic Kingdom, Phantom of the Opera, the Paris Olympics, and, I like to think, nurtured by the various dance/theatre events she’s shared with me over the years. She made the best use of saying her marriage vows on that sandy smidgeon of her island birthright with a mysterious opening, dramatically reintroducing herself to her love, along with the big reveal of her personally designed, demurely and seductively glamorous wedding dress, as his romantically wedded wife.
What loyal and proud families and fine friends flew all the way over the ocean to celebrate Teresa and Jon, how beautiful the faces and outfits and flowers and joy expressed. Jon’s dad offered a speech in his role as officiant that seemed a perfect expression of what a marriage represents—laden with family histories, personal stories about the couple that were real and moving without being overly-sentimental, and just the right amount of wise words, laughter, and a few tears. We were all proud of and honored to know Teresa and Jon…and to be on an island in the sun while our American world still seemed somewhat solid.(You’ve just seen a small sampling of the wedding photos courtesy of Legion Rules Photography/Philippines). The remainder of the photos are mine.
Jaya, Evelyn, Sara, me.
We are the lucky ones.
How often do you hear old people say that?
But hey, it’s all in the timing, isn’t it?
We had the good fortune to live our adult lives, mostly to completion, in a relatively peaceful and prosperous part of the world. Of course, if we were members of the favored race and favored gender in these parts, we were even luckier, but that’s another less positive story.
In my birth year of 1939, WWII officially began. A worldwide catastrophe, devasting a big swath of the globe by the time fighting came to an end in 1945. While the world has always been beset with numerous variations of death and destruction, nothing of that magnitude has happened since. From 1945 to 2025, North America, Western Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and scattered regions elsewhere have offered many of their citizens lives with a goodly measure of security and opportunity.
And, even though all residents of said countries weren’t included, it often seemed that sincere efforts were being made to involve more and more of us in the better times to come as liberal democracies proliferated.
I, an old white woman, have witnessed amazing changes in the past eight decades…changes that enabled me as a single woman to raise two children; have interesting and worthwhile employment for which I was adequately paid; and travel the world. Without financial backing, and only acquiring college degrees as I went along, mine is a small, but inspiring story of what has become commonly possible for women during lifetimes lived between catastrophes.
***
What catastrophes you ask?
I’ve already mentioned my life began the same year WWII (catastrophe #1) was declared.
I believe the somewhat benevolent world in which I’ve lived is approaching its end, and another catastrophe of worldwide apocalyptic proportions looms. A potential cataclysm of murder, plunder, destitution, and disease…with my country leading the charge. Catastrophe #2.
Really? Who said that? Me? Did I just write that?
OMG Marjorie, reading it over, isn’t that statement just a little over the top? Have I become a full-fledged doomsayer? Before the November election, even shortly afterward, that prediction would still have seemed hysterical to me. But, as it became clear that our new leaders are talking pure fascism, generally defined as a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition. And, who among these new leaders even bothers to deny the fascism label?
As November/December 2024 turned to January 2025, like so many of us, I was living in a state of deep anxiety, not quite out and out heart-pounding fear…yet. It was surely the right time to compile a stable of contemporary journalists/truthtellers on which I could rely, but with the inauguration and terrifying blather immediately radiating from Washington, what can only be labeled visceral fear set in, and for lack of any direct action to take, it seemed a good time to revisit world history. I had new questions—to which I had only half-remembered answers—and those not reassuring. Has there ever been another time like right now in the modern world? Why does it seem so very dark and dangerous…apocalyptic even? How did the world, the US come to be this way?
It was logical to take a historical dive into the last time fascists gained full-on elected government power…to see what happened. My initial sources were/are The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s by Piers Brendon and 1938: A People’s History of the Coming of the Second World War by Frederick Taylor. What happened was WWII….
It turns out there are so many similarities between the decades leading up to, and then the actual years of 1938/39 and right now–in the 2020s. Capitalism ever more greed-driven, resulting in inequalities expanding exponentially; institutions increasingly dysfunctional, with good leadership being a rarity; handy scapegoats—those “others” were Jews, anyone not of pure Germanic blood, intellectuals, and of ocurse, truthtellers in the 1930s; now the “others” are apparently anyone not white, religious, and, again, with fascist leanings. One can almost hear Hitler’s words, “…if a people is to become free, it needs pride and will-power, defiance, hate, hate and once again hate.” (p. 34 in Dark Valley) emanating from the oval office today. Hate, always popular. Believe it or not, misinformation was just as popular preceding WWII, as it is now in the 2020s, proving that if the means to communicate wasn’t quite up to today’s speed and breadth, the hate was just as plentiful in both eras.
Germans, in general, were still feeling the effects of their defeat in WWI; there was latent resentment for a demagogue to build upon. While that’s not exactly comparable to the United States today, there’s frustration aplenty for a wannabe dictator to build upon here and now. And throughout history, they always show up. Somebody to the rescue. A Hitler, a Mussolini, a Putin, a Trump.
Hey, ageing friends. We really have been so lucky. Probably, out of the entire human race, there haven’t been so very many millions who have had whole lifetimes of the chance to pursue happiness! We should probably do whatever we can to give our kids a shot at it, right?
***
Several people of consequence are given credit for a variation of the phrase “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” But, still, throughout the land, football coaches are teaching the few remaining history classes, and college freshmen are told to avoid the humanities—no money there. We are so dumb about so much.
Speaking of books. Read. Do what I’m trying to do…tear myself away, at least part of the time, from the plethora of excellent journalism available online…read books. Fiction, history, all of it. Without which, can we really be the kind of informed, smart, educated, wise people that can even begin to get us out of this global mess?
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Thank you, Leonard Cohen…but maybe there are exceptions?
Up until a year ago, I had a real job and big travel plans—a full life, in other words. Now I don’t. What to do with this state of being called retirement? I’ve decided to write a lot and, in my spare time, save the world.
How to go about the ‘saving the world’ thing? I’m in my 80s—too late to earn, fake, or steal the zillions needed to buy myself a government. Too late to find an honest, or even dishonest, way to be elected president. Perhaps too late to take any steps toward avoiding what happened in my birth year, exactly 85 years ago. In case you’ve forgotten or never had a history class, 1939 was the year Hitler marched into Poland and WWII was declared—the last world-wide catastrophe requiring our “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”
I could ‘hope and pray.’ Just look at how effective that praying thing has been among the world’s many religious followers—whether Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists; black, brown, or white—each of whom insists on killing many of the others, which ‘others’ simply depends on where power and greed are strongest at the moment.
So. Is there some other action I could try?
I have spent part of every day since that hell-ordained presidential inauguration of January 20, 2025 thinking about this—and here are my thoughts.
First of all, I must believe that the actions of ordinary everyday citizens can change the world for the better. And if I believe that, then it’s also necessary to believe that one insignificant individual can affect what happens in my world, in my country. And, if that is true, then no matter what my fellow humans do, I am duty-bound to act. Easier said than done…right?
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
…
Everybody knows
Anyway, here are my actions, some further along in their development than others.
- Support responsible journalism. Nothing else will matter if we cannot know the truth of things. Right now, in the midst of so much misinformation, there’s also the truth (and, yes you can find out the difference). But here’s the thing: even if you know who the truth-tellers are, they must be supported, both with attention and with money. Whether an organization, like the Guardian or an individual reporter on Substack or their own site, there must be income. Meaning, you must pay for good journalism, just like you pay for every other single in the effing world.
- Boycott the products and services of bad people. We know who they are, or if not, it’s fairly easy to find out at least some of them. They’re the people who cave to whatever power threatens to take away one of their all-powerful freedoms to make more money… no matter who it hurts.
- Protest the bad people’s actions. They’re also easy to identify these days: they hate people different then them or who disagree with them or who threaten any bit of their power or wealth. By standing up in public and saying ‘I disagree with you’ or ‘you are loathsome creeps’ or ‘you cannot take away my constitutional or human rights,’ and letting them know we’re not fooled nor are we going to let them get away with it, we not only protect ourselves, we protect the vulnerable who are, usually with cause, afraid of them.
I’m not forgetting about voting but the tech bros are controlling ever more of our media, and who knows what magic they can work with actual ballots and voting machines in the future. Never forget what illiberal, money-driven, surprisingly wimpish people they have turned out to be. Between Bezos, Zuckerberg, Muskrat, Pichai, and others, they literally have enough money to privately fund the US military (buy and own, in other words. Crazy idea, yes? Probably. Hopefully.). They also have the resources to force us to communicate solely through the devices they provide. Listen, I know this sounds like the worst kind of conspiracy crap—and honestly, I have never ever been a conspiracy theorist—before. Just in case, don’t count on voting being enough.
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows
MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE NOT?
See You ALL at the next one…
Birthdays can be considered bonus New Year’s Days. The resolutions you didn’t know you needed to make, or that you forgot to launch on January 1st, can instead inaugurate your very own perfectly designed New Year, a bonus new year, a do-over—your very own birth year as the year that matters.
I do this every year; obviously it has made my life flow perfectly to tremendous wealth, high position, and flawless beauty. Or if not quite all of that, it’s an excellent way to alleviate my anxiety about everything that so far hasn’t worked out in this fateful (for the world and likely, all of its inhabitants) year of 2025.
Every year on my birthday, various close comrades, personal pals, friendly acquaintances, people I spent good times with years ago or last year, and random, important for one reason or the other, good humans from here and there in the world, wish me happy birthday. Not so many, but just the right amount to make me feel, well, you know…warm and fuzzy.
And every year, I vow to pay attention to everyone else’s birthdays…and then that doesn’t happen. This year I decided to make up for my neglectful ways by posting many photos of friends from all decades of my life who have been important in some meaningful way…and wishing each and every one a happy birth day. I’ve included mentor, work, political, art and childhood friends and plain old friend-friends forever—the best kind after all.
A few of the pictures are of friends from many years past with whom I’ve lost touch, and a very few are friends who are no longer here in this world. Happily, so many of you fine beings are still in my life: a few streets or cities or countries away; we touch base through FB, a message, a call, and, even a card now and then—or not at all, but your presence lingers.
You will be able to tell that the photos are not in any rigorous order (partially because this book is organized by a computer at the publishers. Also because they are from childhood and every stage between. Since most of my life takes place in Albuquerque, that’s where you’ll find the bulk of my friends: Politics, work buddies, a romance or two, the KiMo years, and immediately after. The last groupings in the post focus on North Fourth Art Center, Global DanceFest, and the Africa Consortium. I’m missing a few persons of importance to me because of lost photos. Fortunately, those numbers are small.
Seventies and eighties: My Albuquerque life begins with the McGovern campaign, political volunteering, various occupational dabbling, and then in the late 70s, a wonderful job with the City of Albuquerque, first as the creator of a street festival called Downtown Saturday Night, and then for a 10-year stint with the KiMo Theater. So many engaging and talented friends…and a happy this year to you all, wherever you are.
In 2000 I moved back to Albuquerque, after a ten year sojourn in Minnesota and California. I was briefly a mental health therapist and consultant at the KiMo Theater, before becoming the director of VSA arts of New Mexico/North Fourth Art Center and creator of Global Dancefest, a twelve year festival of international contemporary dance theater. Altogether, an intense 24 years of arts programs aimed at talented individuals with disabilities and the broader arts community.
And some of the fantastically-talented original and wondrous artists showing their art at North Fourth and performing for Global DanceFest (many connected to Africa Consortium) from 2001 on.
This gathering of memories was most enjoyable…accompanied by a large dose of melancholy…but isn’t everything these days. I realize how proud I am to have had all of you, and/or to still have you, in my life. Thank you.
The happiest of birthdays to you all whenever the day rolls around.
Finally…good luck to us all in this most ominous of times. Boycott, donate, march, voice your thoughts and fears. Persevere.
When I was a kid up in the northwoods, there were two places on our land, I considered my own private hideouts. I was free to go to them anytime, and sometimes in the summer I would take a book and prop myself up against a tree and read for awhile. There was the “island” in the swamp, crossing a small strip of pasture, slogging through a mucky bit of wetland, all mossy and maybe a touch spooky, to reach a high land of popple (aspen) trees and sunny spots. Read Bambi there one summer. My other favorite spot was named by me, the “pretty place,” showing a lack of originality but a sincere appreciation of trees, and was further into the pasture in the other direction. It was a smallish patch of large young, mature, and dying/fallen spruce trees. Again, a darkish, private-feeling space. I once found a fawn there, tucked away while its mom grazed nearby.
Which leads me to my new favorite spot on earth: a mangrove swamp just around a beach curve from Magalong Beach Resort. Scott and I kayaked there down a small river leading in from the coastal mangrove thicket. It was absolutely magical. There was the mystery of those long-ago hideaways, plus more exotic shapes and more water upon which shimmers and shadows played together nicely. I was mesmerized; not sure why it felt so appealing and so unique, probably a combination of literature always casting mangrove swamps as perhaps a little dangerous, as well as the fascinating play of all the twisty trailing turning trunks and branches through the light on the green glisten of water.
Fantasy Island for a month. How does that sound? Especially in January? What follows is a show&tell overview, and you can judge for yourself. Well, actually the pictures are all pure scenic perfectness, only interrupted by human interest views, you know a cow or a crab or some cool kids.
There’s a sweet little restaurant called Miley’s high up a hill; only good bread or butter (of any kind) I’ve had for 31 days! It’s like being in a rehab center for the seriously addicted…and the only people who fully understand my trauma are my Norwegian cousins. (Yes, Arne and Tone?)
Like Norway, Busuanga is so geographically gorgeous, you eventually long for a stretch of brown prairie with a dilapidated gas station as a break in ‘stunning.’ But as with all fantasies, behind the palm orchard or over the green mountain or up around the bend of the deep blue sea, there’s occasionally the tiniest of colorful or serious flaws. (For example: politicians or too much traffic)
About food. I am a bad-eater. Not sure that’s a formal description, but apparently since birth, I’ve been what mom referred to as picky. Loving bread (good) and butter (French, New Zealand, or finest of all, Byglandsfjord) as I do, I nevertheless do not even eat heartily when in Paris. So you might imagine on a fairly remote island in Southeast Asia, I would not exactly thrive. That’s not quite true; I eat plenty of wholesome things to stay at least as healthy as normal, if not more so. As you can see in various food pics, the choices are absolutely fine. In fact, the soup dish, called Sinigang, is one of the things I quite like. It’s comprised of vegetables including green beans, eggplant, okra, tomato, daikon radish and pork, shrimp, or fish. Tamarind gives it a pleasant sharpness that’s unusual to me and most appealing.
There are the little dinner rolls, soft and slightly sweet, called pandesal and adobo, a kind of meat stew, which is rich in garlic, bay leaf, peppercorns, and further flavored with soy sauce and vinegar. And the most luscious of all fruits: mango and papaya. Finally and most fortunately, for bad-eaters like me: spam. Loved throughout the Pacific islands, it’s made of animal parts that probably should be left on the butchery floor, heavily salted, and fried to a crisp to be just right. For me.
So even though I’m not a huge fan of Filipino food, I can exist without too much anguish in a place with spam and mangoes. I am occasionally shunned by the foodies of the family.
January has been quite a month hasn’t it? In my case, a brilliantly staged and fantastically (and I do mean with elements of fantasy) executed destination wedding in the tropical land of the Philippines started off the month/year for me. Life at its best. Soon though, the post-wedding glow was dimmed by an event watched with worldwide trepidation. On January 20th, the inauguration of our very own, home-grown, real life fascist took place. Welcome to 2025, we thinking Americans muttered, wherever we were. But more about that later and later and later…
Now? Well, let me describe my present location in the world…which is the village of Old Busuanga, on the island of Busuanga, situated at the tip of a long skinny island named Palawan in the 7,641-island country of the Philippines. I came here on January 10th for that granddaughter-wedding, and will stay in this part of the world until March.
Is life not overwhelmingly strange? This peaceful tropical island, looking out my bedroom window in Scott’s house through a yard of big and small tropical trees onto an ocean crowded with even smaller islands than this. Couldn’t possibly feel more at ease with life or safer…unless, as a bit of a news junky, I’m reminded of what the US just imposed upon the planet and the future of my grandchildren. Stop it Marjorie. For the length of this post, at least!
Now, promise, I’ll stick to stories about my island adventures with Scott. Next, I’ll try to do the wedding justice in a pretty-picture post, and after that I’ll let the real-world creep back into my line of thought.
As many of you know, son Scott and daughter-in-law Sandra, live in the Philippines for a goodly part of each year. They retired at the earliest possible age so that Sandra could realize her dream of a sculpture garden/spiritual sanctuary with visitor accommodations in her childhood home of Busuanga. Scott’s retirement dream had more to do with diving and cycling, but also included a desire to try his hand at small farming ventures on the property. And they both are inveterate explorers of all of Southeast Asia and beyond. I can report that nearly everything they set out to do has been a success…although chicken farming has taken a humane form for Scott: he obsesses about the care and feeding of his ‘ladies’ (I can’t decide if that sounds unpleasantly paternalistic or not…), appreciates their slick good looks, admirable egg-laying skills, and their determination to clear every foot of land of tasty bugs. He would no more rid one of its head than torture a puppy…so there goes the kind of Sunday dinner my mom used to prepare.
Their family complex, Magalong Beach Resort, on the ocean-front property inherited from her parents, has become the welcoming place of which Sandra dreamed. It’s now a full-fledged resort , modestly-sized but with a truly peaceful and authentic natural charm. It includes a reflective pathway winding among both grand and more intimate sculptures representing the four mysteries of the rosary and stations of the cross. Even though this space, called Holy Land, is based on symbols of the Catholic faith, so deeply ingrained in Philippine culture, it has a most tranquil and hospitable aura. To me, it feels a space where believers and non-believers alike, can stroll among the trees and flowers, and the many finely carved biblical images, and feel the ocean calm and rural quiet with ease and enjoyment. An event hall, visitors’ center, two villas of ten rooms each for guests, a bunkhouse-type building for group stays, and Scott and Sandra’s own home complete the complex.
The grounds are typical of Philippine coastal land with a large and varied assortment of trees, from towering to leafy almost-fern-like coconut palms. There’s little underbrush so it’s a clean view to the ocean, which right here is the calm version, the tide gentled by the numerous small islands between here and open South China Sea.
Many of you, in the chilly north of the world, will find me most fortunate to spend part of the winter walking on the beach with my nice ‘kid’, driving about this small, lightly populated, and seriously-scenic island of Busuanga, and reading a lot, while getting back to normal after a hard transition from Albuquerque to the Philippines. The thirty or so hours of travel; time difference; and objection of my stomach to foods not primarily consisting of bread and butter knocked me down further than expected. As you’ve heard me say once or twice, old is not a convenient stage of life. Now, though, island exploration is underway, and many photos will follow as the next weeks offer up one perfect tropical day after another…
In my own words, not Wikipedia’s: Busuanga Island is 340 square miles of small forested mountains with scattered villages, picturesque beaches, and great diving, especially wreck diving around Japanese ships, bombed and sunk during WW2. It still feels far-distanced from the contemporary world in many ways, even though tourism is growing by leaps and bounds since covid times. The main city of Coron has a population of over 65,000 but doesn’t feel quite like a small city, more like a pleasant, slightly ramshackle collection of somewhat appealing or small unimposing buildings. Magalong Beach Resort is in the village of Old Busuanga (pop. around 1000), near the village of Salvacion (pop. around 3000). Between them, a number of tiny stores and/or market stalls line the streets; there’s a pharmacy or two, and a few small restaurants, churches, and government buildings. There are relatively few of the products we typically pick up at Albertson’s, Walgreen’s, or Costco available on this island. For most items of contemporary life, one travels to Manila, an hour’s plane ride or a long ferry ride away. More about everything of a more personal nature in another post. This is way more than enough words for now.
Maybe more words after all: For me, there seems to be no such thing as being able to separate out the good and bad of the world today. It’s all woven in and out of everything. Which strangely enough, does not mean I’m desperately unhappy. I’m not. In fact my own life still is filled with a kind of gentle happiness…but it feels tainted, even it its best moments. There’s that metallic taste to it, like even good food on your tongue when you’re sick.
It’s 3:11am in the Philippines. My sleeping pattern is always off whether here or at home. Bed early, up often in the middle of the night, feeling fine. Back to bed for another couple of hours early in the morning. All good. Unless I click in to one of my first-call news sources: Guardian, Le Monde, or NYT. This morning it was the NYT…on my way to Wordle. And here is video of Palestine refugees trekking home to Gaza. Dusty roads, pulling carts, hauling luggage, kids, old people, hundreds trudging back to total wreckage intermingled with the buildings, bomb-damaged but standing, which must be made back into homes. Goddamn men and their pompous bullshit and obsessive grasping for land and ownership and their greed and brutality and duplicity and their need to subjugate women and anyone not like them. They come in every color and age and religion. They’re Jordanian and Israeli and American and Russian and Swedish and Nigerian and …everything. They’re deadly. Not all men. But So Many (and damn their equally despicable kowtowing women).
And the waves lap softly against the shore…
Today, January 4, 2025, I declare that memorable year of 2024 over. Fini. Done. Expired. This morning, I’m bravely allowing in the sun, and playing Leonard Cohen as loudly as my state of mind requires. Soon I’ll add bits of sound from other sources. This soundscape thing is going to get me through the coming year. I declare it to be Survival Resource #1.
Next post will fill you in on the goals and plans of 2025. And they’re exciting…if a little on the dark side. But today…right now…Leonard and I putting a big fat period at the end of 2024.
I’m all caught up on blogland except for these last couple of months. Life is just basically continued existence, neither intrinsically good or bad (in which, as a devout existentialist, I am required to play a huge role). But time always moves on, until it doesn’t, even when events such as elections make one wonder for how long.
Basically, 2024 was a good year; I hit an extra impressive age number and handled it somewhat gracefully. Retirement in the spring, twenty years or so after I began my second work-life, was way less painful than I expected. Part-time tropical son Scott came home to spend some time with Albuquerque family, during which he and I also managed some always pleasurable Minnesota days. A fine week was spent by me in Austin with Teresa and Jon as well, before my autumn month with cousins, and then with Teresa in Norway and Paris. Family and friends all busy and healthy. Me occupied and creakily healthy.
Now I would like to say…all’s well, that ends well… But, ALAS, it did not end well, this year of 2024, did it? An ageing and grossly-presenting criminal with tiny hands and an equally tiny sense of morality, as well as a miniscule knowledge of history and the world, shambled center stage in the United States of America. Enough said for now, but we’re (half the world) watching you dt, and, if our mind’s eye peers into the future, it’s not looking pretty…. And then there’s his ‘best boy’ (can’t you almost hear him introducing Musk as that…) until the roles get further and further muddied. I see a duel in their future…with the US attachment to guns, is there any reason we can’t go back to muskets at however many paces?
As I prepare to download a few photos…I realize that this is what I need to finish this year. Why am I so bloody anxious for a wrap…to get it over with. It is January 4th after all, and I’ve launched a new project, new journals…moving on…toward….
Which brings me to the last few weeks. Pleasant enough. A picture album will bring the year to a close, since I’m out of 2024 words. Saving up for 2025…. And a great good luck to us. Every living thing in the whole wide world.
Let’s start with my river and my house: Son Steven and I take a bosque walk with pooch Sunshine. Heartwarming isn’t it? A boy and his dog. And my house, just because I like it a lot. Photos and plants. Add some books and a cookie or two, and life’s good.
And friends to hang with now and then: Bob, John, and Susanna.
Christmas Eve at Grandma Scrooge’s. Lest you think we get awfully carried away with gifts for a bunch of grown-ups, I can assure you they were mostly for the dogs. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but given the pleasure Patricia and Sara find in their creatures, I decided it’s a good thing. Makes my granddaughters happy and gives them reasons to save money for a worthy cause: Luna and Kalia.
And my train for Christmas! You know…sometimes somebody does something for us that just has that touch of seriously special thought. Like they really know you…and even on occasion rather like you. So, son Steve managed to give me one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever received … And it touched upon three of my big preoccupations: travel, trains, and history. He made this fine little model which I gather took quite a lot of labor on his and Patricia’s part. Teeny little sticks and pieces and decals. It’s an earlier version of the train I took across Russia…quite possibly the main adventure of my life. I absolutely love this little moment in time and my life, right here among my books, to greet me as I walk by… Thank you Steven. Just so you know, I changed my will the next day, and the family millions are YOURS. Good job.
I really must leave Paris and move ahead with my life. The thing is…I’ve been, off and on, obsessing about our last evening there and, while I’ve covered that week’s happenings in some detail, apparently, I do not want it to end. But all good things…and all that….
Let me plunge right back into that dark and rainy evening. September 27th it was. Teresa and I had tickets for DANCE ME – MUSIQUE DE LEONARD COHEN at Théâtre du Châtelet to be performed by Ballets Jazz Montréal. I was nervous. A natural reaction to visiting a special friend I hadn’t seen for about 30 years. What if the fascination wasn’t there anymore?
Oh, but it was, Théâtre du Châtelet, still grand and dancey on the Place du Châtelet in Paris, France. The restaurants on the each of the four corners (three?), bustling as always. Too rainy for most of the sidewalk tables, but the interiors were packed with happy theatergoers, scents of coffee and fries (French fries, one imagines) wafting through the noisy air, and the waiters, harried and abrupt, as is expected of French waiters. It could be 1980s. The theatre looked the same, didn’t it? Teresa took pictures of me. I didn’t look the same. The performance was perfect with fine dancers, moody optics for a rainy night in Paris, and Leonard Cohen’s gravelly voice and cynically romantic lyrics filling the imposing space—and my eager eyes and ears and heart.
Then something so strange happened. As the performance went on, I’ll swear I had what is as close to an out-of-body experience as I’ve ever had (except for that time with measles and high fever, but that’s another story). For half an hour or so, both before, during, and after we left the theater, I was another me, a late 80s me who would have been sitting there, watching dance, and then walking back to my nearby hotel in the rain—to nibble on madeleines and ponder the work just witnessed. This much-aged me, standing, right here and now, on the Place du Châtelet on a damp 2024 evening, could not bear to leave that Marj. How could I stay for just a little while longer?
So many events, emotions, memories, things to experience and/or re-experience with not so very much time remaining. I was mourning everything past, and desperate to will it all back somehow. Teresa was thoughtful and quiet, allowing me a little time to return to the present.
And the present was an amazing place to be, that night in that city. With Teresa, dance and talk and … Paris. How astoundingly fortunate I am.
DANCE ME TO the past though…just once in a while, if you please. A bit of rainy romanticism is good for old souls.
In 1984, I discovered Paris. That was when my best friend Sue and I flew off to that glamorous destination for the first time. My first trip to Europe. And it pretty much was love at first sight. I would go regularly for a few years, to venues all over France, but mostly in Paris. I was learning my new profession of “presenting” artists, in my case, mostly contemporary dance and theater.
It was professional, personal, emotional discovery-time. I had been getting to know the American world of contemporary dance gradually, but fairly deeply. Then as my work with the City of Albuquerque and the KiMo Theater grew, my new smart and sophisticated dance friends introduced me to French Contemporary Dance, from which I’ve never recovered. I loved it, finding so much difference from dance back in the States. Full evenings of a single piece. Less fun/more content. Much of it dance-theatre, seeming to incorporate what I was learning about Paris, about France into the work in a more historic and cultural, and diverse way than what usually happened back home, at least that’s the way it appeared to me, a novice in the field. France spent a lot of money on, and took a great deal of pride in, their contemporary arts, and it showed in audience size and enthusiasm.
I remember the performance venues, wherever I was in the country, being excellent, but nothing was quite like Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet to me—because it was a grand building in the center of the city, devoted to dance. Right across the square from théâtre de la ville and smack dab on the River Seine, surrounded by cafes. I usually stayed in a lovely, but fairly basic, hotel nearby. Heaven to the new kid on the block.
So, there I was in a world as different from Northome, Minnesota or, for that matter, Albuquerque, New Mexico as it could be. I really was in love with it all: the fascinating American friends involved, and those brilliantly worldly and wordy and talented French artists, managers, promoters, and aficionados. And, again, that city. OMG, that city. The endless café au lait et vin at sidewalk cafes, the Seine moseying along through the city, so many trees and gardens and museums and theaters and people speaking the language of romance. Paris. You know how it is, all of a sudden, you are part of something that’s bigger and better and smarter and prettier than you imagined—so that must mean you’re all of those things too. Right?
Everyday-me lived in Albuquerque and programmed the KiMo Theater until I didn’t. I traveled some more and eventually began a new dance-life at the North Fourth Art Center, but the French focus and the visits to the Paris of dance ended, as my focus turned toward the continent of Africa. In 2008, granddaughter Teresa and I visited Paris for her high school graduation present. It was lovely, with the magic all being focused on Teresa’s first glimpse of my dream city. In a few years, dance would drift out of my life. I traveled some more. I got old. I traveled some less.
Then September 2024 rolled around and a chance for a week back in Paris with Teresa came along. And, as you’ve seen in previous posts, Paris was still there in all its glory—at least in my eyes.
I’ve tried to accurately share that evening in Paris from a few weeks ago, so like many evenings in Paris in the 80s and early 90s? Rain, yes, rain. Soft jazz in cafes where we enjoy a le vin, before or after another dazzling dance performance. The mood, the younger me, anticipatory—a new dance company. Even more, a different me—it must be the worldly, clever, articulate me that’s never present back in the US! (Okay, okay, so often in Paris, I worried about money; I clumsily participated in meetings, the topic of which I was somewhat ignorant; I was uncomfortable in a bad hotel; but, nevertheless, always in love with Paris.)
Writing this Paris blurb on a melancholy (because of the persistent sun, probably) December day in Albuquerque. Creating a mood to take me back to that Paris evening last month: Curtains almost fully drawn; a thunder and lightning video playing on YouTube (tv) in the living room; a jazz-in-the-rain video playing on my laptop; Leonard Cohen sings his cynical poetry of love from my phone. There’s a cup of instant coffee nearby. I have a black shirt on and a Simone de Beauvior headband. A baguette and French butter (Whole Foods!) for later. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Marjorie (which sounds so much better in French, oh pour l’amour du ciel), get a grip. What happened that evening, that you were so determined to tell us about at the beginning of this post?
Well, for a moment there, I danced me to the past….
