To Lola* C., on your 86th...

Le Barroux, Aix-en-Provence

Birthdays are like beginnings, you said. Last year I was with you on that hilltop off Mulholland drive where you marked the restarting of your life, under a vista of staggered stars.

You told me that evening reminded you of another one long ago, on that same spot. It was your first birthday far from home, in a new country, and you felt a trepidation that came from having to start over so late in your life. You drove through the poorly-lit bends on that narrow strip of road, unmindful of the steep drop on one side because up there the night looked more luminous, the moon and the stars more vibrant in their usual configurations (or did it seem that way because you were with the one you loved best?). You lingered until dawn, when the sun lazily opened its orange-red eye, and watched as the first sunrays splayed out across the sky in a riot of soft pale hues. As you reveled in the peace and stillness of a new day, your companion, who was not particularly devout, broke through his usual reserve to say," It's like being in the palm of God."


Nobody else I've known can tell a story like you. You are so generous with the details, for each one is deeply rooted in the landscape of your heart. Sometimes you would get so immersed in the recollection of a story that it scares me that you would disappear into it completely.

I told stories of my own that night. They came out as an avalanche of disordered thoughts and feelings, the kind that make people shake their heads and look at you funny should you have the misfortune to almost cry while telling them. These were the things that wallowed in silence for so long that when they finally found expression they were reduced to hackneyed bits of sentiment. And you listened anyway. It's as if you decided, at that moment, to indulge me like it's 1983 and I was a little girl in pigtails running up to you, grieved over my latest offense: I had scrawled my big and ungainly loops on almost all the pages of Lolo V.'s first edition Dillard with a thick-nibbed marker. I cried for days after he told me, rather morosely, that while he appreciated my artwork he'd have a bit of trouble reading his favorite book. Yeah, I miss him too.

I told you about my decision to move across the sea to the continent. What I considered a necessary passage at this stage of my life was looked at by many as an inexpedient attempt at displacement. I couldn't really explain why I felt that way, except that I wasn't ready to stop changing. You didn't immediately reply to that, but just gazed down at the expanse of city lights below. And when you finally did answer you told me that to willingly disconnect myself from the familiar is a tenuous freedom, fraught with a lot of uncertainties, a lot of risks. "But in the end it may be the only way to get you to that place of contentment within yourself. And there is no better time to go than when you feel that pull the strongest. The journey won't change you as much as you'd want it to if you even delayed another day. Besides," - and you looked at me as you said this -"you can't die knowing that you haven't even begun to live."


Some weeks back I was at Provence for my birthday. As soon as I arrived I was greeted by the phenomenon called the Mistral. A dry, violent wind from the northern regions, it is renowned among the residents as le vent qui rend fou or the wind that drives people mad. And indeed, it did not leave me alone, gusting heartily beside me on the street on my way to dinner, then took to rattling and bullying the doors, locks and rafters around the inn when I retired for the evening. I spent the night sitting in a corner with my head on my knees, hands clapped to my ears, thinking what a way to celebrate, and even then I couldn't hear myself think for all the howling outside as Le Mistral bent and twisted everything to its will. Finally in a fit of exasperation, I threw open the shutters. The wind whipped past with its usual ferocity, but when I looked up what I saw was nothing short of wonderful: a sea of blue-black cracking into tendrils of peach and rose that stretched towards the shell of the sky. It's as if the wind blew so hard it drove the twilight to relinquish its darkness and coaxed the dawn into being. As I looked on this confluence of elements refashioning creation I understood how you had felt a year ago on that peak over Mulholland. I experienced an ineffable sense of renewal, and to some degree, hope. I witnessed my beginning.


Happy birthday. May you be blessed with many more years. Many more beginnings. I love you very much. I miss you.

Card's in the mail :)


P.S. I'm sorry I can't be there to play your favorite songs on the upright, but I do have something for you. Happy listening :)

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*Lola is the Filipino term for "grandmother"