Upside Down Kris

War Vacation A section of June in my cute cat calender on the kitchen wall has been torn out for a collage. (When art calls, it calls whether the month is finished or not!) This is how I found July waving at me as it peeks through from under half June. My eyes are drawn to "WWI begins." I do a double take. What? WWI began in July? The July of fireworks and picnics for a proud Independence day. Of sun and sea or maybe a lakeside. Of catapulting into the water of Grafton Park or maybe exploring the escarpment of the Indian Ladder Trail at Thatcher Park.  The July of my childhood meant no school and summer vacation.  But there was a moment in history–maybe more than one for all I know–in which they actually started a war in summer. No frolicking in the fields in the Alps, no making mud pies after a rain. It was time to make war.  How did  WWI really begin, anyway? I am not a history buff, but I know the tip of the iceberg was the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferd

Style and Magnetisim The man with the bigote was not a bigot but a guy with a handlebar mustache. He touched the curled tips and found they were greasy from ketchup and other condiments from his hotdog. I had always wondered what happened when a beard gets slobbered with sauce or clobbered with crumbs. Can you just brush them out in one, clean stroke? And are there beard brushes? The man with the bigote didn't need any of these devices, however. He simply cleaned the handlebars with his fingertips. He (and the mustache) never stopped being elegant–the grease only served to make its tips curl even more. You see, bigote means mustache in Spanish, although the man in question was Belgian. And he spoke English, as well as French and Spanish. What a curious mix of cultures and languages! And we both met in Gran Canaria to go to a festival of bands. The man was a mix of many things, not the least being his clothes. He wore his hodgepodge of styles well. My first impression of him was the

  Fluxus So, I might as well face it–this fluxus of life into death, death into life. This mix of going and things to come, of ephemeral moments and the permanence of memory, the light sand of the skin blowing into the sea and the heavy tide pulling in again. How the ocean can help hold this idea–the undercurrents of a life wave never to surface agin while the impulse for a new wave gathers strength and sputters out on the top. Also the confusion stretching back and forth, the not knowing which is on its way back to the water and which clings to the sand. So, let's get the going over first: a star of a cousin fallen into the sea. His heart was so big it burst-or tore. He has already guided so many ships with his light and will continue to do so. A few days later, the father of a friend also fell into the sea. May he float away as gently as he can. At the same time, the celebration of the birth of an island–the gaity lasting for days as the drums still sound in my head. And the cele

  50, the new 20 50 is the new 20. I don't know how long it's been since this came about. The shift  probably began in the 1990s when I was 20 in years. It could have been earlier. In any case, I take it for fact in Western society. The other day I stopped dead in my tracks at this realization. My eyes had been following the horizon where the sky met with the sea. The sense of infinity rushed toward me on the tide but everything came to a standstill as an idea balanced like a surfer on a brain wave: "I have a whole life ahead of me." Not my life, not in my lifetime but anyone's lifetime. I mean, think of people in medieval times–they were mature by 20 if they even survived childhood. They were lucky to even reach 50. But now (thank goodness) we cringe at the idea of someone passing in their 70s as being too young (which they are!): "moving on" in their 50s is almost unthinkable.  Wow. I have half of a long life still to live. It's as if life is s

Fluffy "My brain is fluffy," I gasped through my uncontrollable giggles. It felt good to laugh-to let out the tiredness of the past four days of the Balboa festival as well as pure merriment. My brain was pretty sloshy. Its insides jiggled from the right hemisphere to the left and back again so it was hard to get hold of any thought. Have you ever felt like that?  So many happy hormones were floating around my head from dancing and the excitement of talking to new people. I knew I would miss them, although I had this feeling I would see some again. The sudden break would be weird after sharing such an intense experience with the same people for days. I had gotten used to their faces, their movements, their unique expressions... I tried to explain my sensations to the Frenchman who had said "not to keep my arms fluffy" as we were dancing. "Fluffy arms" stuck me as so funny that it was a catalyst to my irruptive laughter. He started chuckling, too, and agre

  Spring Sensations I've always had a soft spot for spring. Maybe it's because I was born toward the end of winter and I imagine my first real memory of the world must have been of breathing in spring. I could have been on a blanket in the park surrounded my daises. One of my first spring memories is the bright, all encompassing yellowness of the field of dandelions down the street. I remember loving being surrounded by so much color and the stems that gave sticky milk once picked. I carry the sensation of spring with me, even if I am far from seasons in this tropical climate. I was born in winter, which represents my reflective side, but surely spring must have been my gate into the world. Barefoot on slippery grass, newness, and green represent my connection to the Earth, to my center, to my lineage of color. And I love to explore this connection, and even more so being part of nature, being one with the beginning–the budding buds and my budding mixed in with all of it. So, b