Elsie's Notes from New England - THEMission edition

Words that pass with ease and grace Would surely clash, spoke face to face And thoughts divergent find a way To coalesce and calmly lay Amid the controversy Sincerest deference can’t deny The adverse arrows, aimed too high For any piercing mortal wound Although, disguisedly festooned They flutter, flags of mercy ‘Til nothing has been said at all Two voices raised, two meanings fall And, graced with manners civilized No sentiment is found revised By erudite assertion What then can forge a change of heart That brings together worlds apart And unifies in mind and passion All that arm of flesh can fashion Into true conversion?

I hope you don't mind if I tell another story about John. It's June, isn't it? All About Father. Sounds good. Yesterday as we walked home from church, we came up the horrible hill that I hate and through Plaza Larga, and down the street past a little restaurant that sits in a corner. We pass this restaurant every day, many times a day. Nearly always, there is a young woman outside the restaurant, handing out flyers to passers-by to advertise for the dinner and flamenco show that goes on there nightly. We've been. It's good. The show is a little short, and there are only two dancers, a singer and a guitar player, as compared to some of the flashier shows that might have as many as eight or ten dancers and musicians performing. The setting, however, is much more intimate than in the bigger shows, and the food is wonderful. The price is also excellent -- 28 euros for a full dinner and the show, as opposed to the same price for just a show in the caves of th...

Marie reminded me of this story, which I realized I haven't ever posted here. It is one of my favorite stories to tell on my sweet husband. It is from our years in Texas, while he was working on his PhD in Spanish Linguistics. When we arrived in Texas, we had two little boys in tow. When we left five years later, our fourth child was a month old. We lived in married student housing and lived off his graduate teaching assistantship, which came to about $700 a month. Even with adjustment for inflation, it wasn't much. And it certainly wasn't enough. We made do, though, mostly by finding fun things we could do that didn't cost anything at all. Gifts . . . well, gifts came mostly from Santa Claus (who at that time still looked an awful lot like my angel mother), or were handmade or otherwise inexpensive . . . well, no . . . free was more like it. We just did without a lot of stuff. John is a romantic guy. He's all about the sports and the jock stuff and ...

I apologize that there are no photos to go with this post . . . yet. I hope to have some soon. Sometimes things that define a culture are the smallest, most simple details. Seemingly insignificant, they manage to represent a far broader reality than their actuality. In our family, we have a running joke about the Spanish Roadblock. This has nothing whatsoever to do with driving in Spain – thank heavens. Having done that a couple of times, I am completely content to walk 10 -12 miles a day and live without a car here. I’ve talked about the tiny, narrow streets. Far more dangerous and frustrating are the constant, unannounced and unexpected changes in direction of the many one way streets, the impossibility of making a left-hand turn, and the constant presence of road construction, changing all the rules that I didn’t understand in the first place. Then there’s the issue of parking. I so prefer walking. The Spanish Roadblock has to do with pedestrian traffic. If the st...

962 steps. Only two stops this time -- at 400 steps and 800 steps. Shady side only, please! Scarf peeled and purse hung over cart after about 600 steps. Warm day. Exito! (Success!)

Appearances are deceiving. They are fleeting, transitory, easily affected and unsubstantiatable (is that a word?). Judging others by their appearance is dangerous and makes us targets to be judged ourselves. Frankly, I think we should cut one another a little slack. Granted, first we all need to stand in a circle and hold hands and repeat solemnly, one after the other, “My name is (insert here), and I judge by appearance.” Admitting is the first step to overcoming. Don’t tell me you don’t do it – it’s not even always a negative thing. Why do we always presume that if we’re judging someone, we’re judging negatively? We see an adorable child, clean and scrubbed, with shining hair and wearing a smart little outfit and we immediately burst into throes of, “Oh, isn’t he/she just the cutest thing?” How is that offensive? Nor is the judgment necessarily correct. That same child might just punch you in the back the minute you turn around. Been there. Done that. Not a nice kid. Truthfully, ...

A gentleman by the name of Ambrose Bierce wrote the "Devil's Dictionary" in 1911, and in it, he defines patience as "A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue." Interesting. I was not born to patience. Some of my earliest memories are of being shushed and told to wait. It wasn’t just my parents, it was everybody - teachers, siblings, strangers on the street . . . everybody. I recall vividly sitting in school and bouncing up and down, hand flailing over my head, ready to explode if the teacher didn’t call on me next. Waiting for Christmas nearly killed me. However, I was born the youngest of seven children. Patience was thrust upon me. My mother said that when I was small enough to sit on her lap during church, I often would ask questions, expecting immediate answers. If she shushed me, she said, I would stiffen up my body and shoot out of her arms, off her lap and onto the floor in an instant. If she would whisper to me that she would answer my...