Americans like Lena want healthcare reform.

Let's make this freakin' thing happen!

I went all Euro and got a little agitated. I’ve set up a new blog called isupporthealthcarereform. Will be taking photos and stories there.

In the meantime, send your photos to yestohealthcarereform@yahoo.com or post to your Facebook profile. Because it’s time to make healthcare affordable and manageable for all. (It’s too expensive not to!)

Europeans do it better: Healthcare.

I’ve had just about enough. I’ve watched the town halls, read the papers, watched in horror as this country has yet again engaged in self-hating warfare. Meanwhile we can’t afford our premiums, our deductibles are sky high, and many of us can’t leave jobs we hate because we’re stuck as the sole healthcare provider in the family. And, people who don’t need to die are dying because they didn’t get preventative care because they couldn’t afford it or had a preexisting condition, or because the healthcare system we have now doesn’t adequately provide basic primary care.

The story of a widow who lost her husband to cancer and painted their story on a mural hit me particularly hard. A story like this just would not happen in France or Germany. Would not happen.

Postcard from Paris

I received my first-ever guest blog. From my dear friend and sista, Lora Ostrow who is spending 10 days in Paris. She couldn’t have captured the spirit of this blog better:

So, i have experienced my first night of live jazz in monmartre. we were told to go to a cafe on Rue Lepic (where we are staying!)  that had a cave. I have never been into a cafe with a cave before and was curious. It turned out to be the most amazing live music venue i’ve ever been to, but probably tres normal for parisians. Not to mention the great jazz, mingling with the Anglophone pianist who asked me for my e-mail and a kiss “for inspiration”, and having some local Frenchies buy me a glass of wine.

saturday morning- at a cafe in monmartre. after all the sightseeing and the eiffel tower, montmartre still inspires the most musings in me.

Poem for the rooftops of Iran

This is the most moving video I have ever seen. I am humbled by its brutal, simple truth and the voice of this young woman, speaking a poem amidst fear and chaos and the sounds of her neighbors calling out from their rooftops.

Before I was who I am now … and emails from afar

I got this text message the other day:

“Debbie bailey from Nesiya? It’s Josh (nesiya 96) I would love to know what you’re up to.”

And so, like that, my old identity caught up with me. But what luck to have Josh, artist, free thinking-wheeling-drumming-theatre geek like me break the spell.

I sent him an email with my updates:

Como vivir sin aire?

 It’s the end of my first week home. It was as hard as it always is. The crude way to describe it is: “Back to reality.” But I hate that construction. Because it inherently means that to travel, to dream, to be free of work and bills that bind is to be “crazy” or that that cannot be reality. While some may have figured out how to do it, like a certain Gwen Bell I recently read about (and both passionately detest and simultaneously admire), I haven’t yet cracked the code on being able to live free, to be paid to write and travel, to live among the pajaros with my man, my most wonderful man who is also trying to find his way, and also far from me this night. 

My trip in 3 minutes

Fiesta de San Isidro

It’s nearly two a.m. and I am bundled up in Flores’ upstairs bedroom attic in bed, my hair smelling of ash and smoke, my fingers trembling and my heart in palpitations…What a night! Flores and I had a drink and some food at the Posada San Jose (she ordered croquettas, little breaded bechamel and jamon that’s fried in oil; I ordered chulettas, one of my favorite dishes here–grilled baby lamb chops). We chatted over wine and dinner, then said goodbye as she headed home and I made my way up the hill past the old castle wall to the San Isidro cemetery. I’d been there earlier today to place a rock on Fernando Zobel’s grave for Ethan, and then when I saw them preparing piles of wood for a bonfire in the courtyard of the cemetery, I realized that tonight was the beloved fiesta de San Isidro.

For years I’d heard from my old students and Flores about this event. I understood it involved a graveyard, fires, and singing, but that was pretty much all I knew. But what a mix! Flores gave me the name of a woman I was to seek out, so that I wouldn’t feel out of place among the groups of families that each belong to a brotherhood within the cemetery. I asked for Hortensia when I arrived, saying Flores had sent me. As usual, saying Flores’ name pretty much gets you Amex Black card treatment. Hortensia introduced me to the others in the brotherhood and then they proceeded to fill me with more food. Hortensia would point to the pork sausage and say, “Devora, where are you, come eat.” When I hesitated at the sight of the black blood sausage (morcilla) a man named Ramon took matters into his hands and, taking the piece of bread I was holding, he smeared it with the black meat before commanding me to eat. Happily it tasted good, though remembering it now I’m a little nauseous. 

In any case, the bonfire and the morcilla were only the beginning. Then, everyone squeezed into the little chapel to listen to the viejos sing. The old guys were good, but then came the younger musicians, with their long, flowing capes, guitars and bravado. I sat at the back of the chapel, boca abierta, absolutely delighted. 

When the bonfires had gone out and I’d said goodbye to Hortensia, I walked back home to Flores’ with smoke from the fires clinging to my coat, and ashes in my hair, their joyous songs lingering in my ears.