Voilá...it's Christmas

          

          Voilá is Austin’s new word.  If he is painting at his easel, building something with his Magna Tiles, playing with his Hot Wheels racing track and cars or making a crafts project, he announces that we should look with a “ Voilá!”  I am guessing he learned this French word from Jessica who recently revisited her favorite city of Paris. I have to agree with Austin’s ear for language.  There is a great sense of satisfaction in uttering a voilá (with a fanfare, of course) to draw attention.

A crafts project I made with Austin...

            In keeping with the “every other year “ plan for Christmas with Hayden, Austin, and Jessica I had anticipated going to Washington D.C. for months.   (On the “off” years we have Christmas before the actual holiday.) It’s all very democratic as they rightly give equal time to both sets of grandparents.  This year we savored being part of a Christmas Eve get-together at their friends’ Stacy and Jeff’s with lots of excitement amongst the children.  Christmas Eve at home, Jess put out the cookies and milk for Santa Claus before going to bed.  Christmas morning we were awakened by Austin’s curly head peeking into our room and him excitedly reporting that the cookies and milk were gone. He had already been downstairs to check.  Santa had come to his house. We opened piles of gifts on Christmas morning and carried on the “Sampson” tradition of cottage cheese pancakes for brunch with the addition of Jessica’s tasty Strada. The day passed quickly with phone calls from family, occasional long dog walks in the neighborhood  and special meals for lunch and dinner, all carefully planned to make the day more special . Voila!  We even toasted Christmas Day with a bottle of red wine brought back in Jessica’s suitcase from Paris. Austin tested out every one of his new toys and my day was complete with new Christmas books to read to him at bedtime.  Perfect! 

            Now, Christmas is as much about having family to be with as it is about stored memories of holidays past in so many far away places with loved ones no longer here.  I go back to the hot summer Christmases of my childhood in Buenos Aires.  I was telling Austin the story about the small bedraggled pine tree that lived in our backyard for 8 years in a pot of dirt. Shortly before the 25^th every year, we’d drag the pot in the house and decorate the tree with shiny balls, lights, and tinsel.  Christmas morning we’d wake up to presents around the tree.  By noon the little tree would be as wilted as we were from the heat.  Dad would announce,  “Well, kids, Christmas is over.”  He’d take down the few ornaments and drooping tinsel, roll the tree out into the backyard, vacuum the living room, while Mother packed a picnic lunch. My little brothers and I would spend the rest of the day at the Club Náutico swimming in the Tigre River to keep cool. Inevitably as we were going to bed that night a huge pampero, thunderstorm with lightning and thunder would blow up and we’d lie in our beds still excited about Christmas.

            We left Argentina in December 1957 and spent a Christmas at sea on a Delta Line ship. Outside of Montevideo, Uruguay as we traveled north, we encountered a big storm at sea. The ship rolled in the waves as it had not taken on enough cargo yet to keep it balanced. Everyone on the ship was seasick except the Sampson kids.  We woke up to filled stockings at the end of our bunks in our stateroom and a Christmas tree that had keeled over up in the ballroom. Not to be deterred we went to meet Santa Claus who was passing out gifts.  I got a Delta Line cigarette case (I was twelve years old) and Fred, my youngest brother, came away with a girls tea set. He was thoroughly disgusted. 

Christmases in Sao Paulo, when I was in high school, remind me of the tall Christmas tree sitting in “the Winter Garden” (as Mother elegantly named the glass enclosed room off of the living room).  It was a cut pine tree but don’t know where it came from in tropical Brazil.  I remember the twinkling tree lights we could see from the outdoor walled-in garden of our house on Rua Terra Nova. Mother’s Christmas Eve Open House for Embassy staff and American friends was a festive affair. The dining room table was full of platters of cookies and cocktail food accompanied by pitchers of homemade Eggnog laced with rum.  Mother baked for weeks and her specialty was her cookie press cookies decorated with colored sugar. We children liked to help. She confessed years later that the Christmas Eve Open House, which she hosted in every foreign country she lived in, helped her ward off homesickness for the US and her family.

            When I was out of college in my twenties, Christmases varied with going “home” to Bogotá, or Montevideo, or Mexico City where “home” was wherever my parents were living.  (My brothers had long taken off in the 1960’s for California and stayed put for many years.) When I met and married Art I expected to continue to have Christmas like I had had as a child.  Our first December in Santiago, Chile as newlyweds Art told me I could do what I liked about putting up a tree and having gifts on Christmas morning. (We were far away from the Jewish relatives and no one to disapprove.)  I went to the feria, the outdoor weekly market near our apartment in Santiago, and bought a small tree to our fourth-floor, walk up apartment.  I must have made a few ornaments as I had none and Art sat back with curiosity and watched me decorate.  It only took that first Christmas for him to be the passive onlooker.  By the second year he wanted to participate if I needed help in picking out a tree.   He has loved decorating Christmas trees and sending Christmas cards for 43 years ever since.  

            When we moved back to the US from Chile we added lighting the Chanukah candles for Hayden. I learned to make latkes and challah bread and the holidays became even more of a celebration doing both Christmas and Chanukah. My parents always spent Christmas with us.( I decided early in my married life that I had the best of all worlds when it came to holiday celebrations in December as there was no back and forth with Art’s Jewish family. ) Moving to Manila for several years we travelled to take advantage of our long Christmas school breaks. 

          I won’t forget the December 24^thwe arrived in New Delhi, India and had our Christmas lunch on the 25^thin the garden of the Imperial Hotel. There were clowns and a mangy dancing bear on the hotel lawn for the tourists. It was bizarre celebration in a Hindu country. Nor will I forget trekking in the bamboo forests of Northern Thailand during Christmas break from school with Hayden -  sleeping in a Karen village hut, riding elephants, and river rafting so that Christmas was totally forgotten.

            What I will always remember as being our most “authentic” Christmases were the many we celebrated at Hawkcrest  on our mountain in rural Vermont.  They were the “picture postcard” Christmases with snow piling up outdoors and the smell of a fresh  pine tree in the living room.  Those were years when I could listen to Bing Crosby on the radio crooning “I’ll be home for Christmas…”  or “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas…”without feeling a dreadful nostalgia for something I didn’t have.  It was all there… the magical Christmas place was Vermont in December.  

           Hayden was in college at University of Vermont and then he moved abroad to Bulgaria, Serbia, and Uganda.  Megan came often from California and later when she was a graduate student in Minneapolis.  She was part of our family and especially our Christmas.  I’d begin to worry weeks beforehand if wintry weather would make it  difficult to get to the airport in Burlington to meet their flights. One year we booked a motel room in Burlington in order to be there when Hayden’s flight came in late as he was returning for a visit from Uganda.  His flight was cancelled and we spent the night and waited a good part of the next day to finally meet him and drive the 70 miles home. Hayden went right to bed with jet lag when we got him home while we turned around to drive the 50 miles south  to West Lebanon to meet the bus from Boston Airport and bring Megan up to the house. What a relief it was when we got everyone under one roof and we all could finally embrace another Vermont Christmas. One or two years we decided to drive to Montreal with both Hayden and Megan and had memorable times eating, shopping, and enjoying that French city after our Christmas at home. After Megan was married and lived in Boston she brought Cruz to spend a Christmas or two with us.

            Living in Dubai for two years we exchanged the idyllic Vermont scenario for the desert in the U.A.E. and life in an Arab country.  Hayden came from Uganda and we celebrated at a resort outside of Dubai full of expats and Christmas cheer. We went through a buffet line that included turkey and ham! I never got used to the Dubai Malls being so lavishly decorated at the holidays all for the benefit of the expats and never a sign that we might be living in an Arab country.  I only remember the muffled call to prayer that would go out around the city as the Christmas decorations hung brightly everywhere.

            We left our Vermont Christmases forever when we moved to Asheville, N.C. and for the first years I loved being close to Mother in Chapel Hill.  When she moved to Asheville we could bring her to our house for Christmas day, open gifts together, and listen to her reminisce about our many unusual Christmas times around the world.  She still was full of stories to tell.  Sadly she died early in December 2014 just weeks before Megan , Cruz and little Noah along with Hayden and Jess and Austin were coming for a big family Christmas in Asheville.  We bravely got through Christmas day and had her Memorial service on December 26^that the UU Memorial Garden. I now think about how comforting it was to have Hayden and Megan by my side talking about how much their  grandmother had meant to them. She took an interest in their lives always.

            Now, we go back and forth to Washington D.C. to see Christmas through the eyes of Austin and are grateful to be part of his small family.  Perhaps he, too, will remember these times with us as Hayden does his years growing up with his grandparents. 

            Having just returned home from 2018 Christmas I think of Austin and his continual fascination with words. As we walked around the National Zoo on the day after Christmas, I won’t forget Austin telling me about nocturnal animals and how they come to life at night.  I was wondering how many 4 ½ year old boys are familiar with that word.  I remember him questioning a comment I made by asking me teasingly, “are you being sarcastic?”  I love it when he gets professorial, waving his arms and starting a a sentence “basically….”  He likes to tell you things and loves to give directions. 

            But voilá is now the word that will remind me of Christmas 2018 in Washington D.C.

            

Border Crossings

            Traveling makes us speechless but turns us all into storytellers. 
(Ibn Battuta 1325 -54)

I wrote this in my journal during the introductory Road Scholar lecture in Herceg Novi, Montenegro on the night of our arrival.  I know about Ibn Battuta and his adventures from when we lived in Dubai and traveled in the Middle East. I like his quote about why we travel.

At home in Asheville, we had studied the itinerary of our Balkans trip but few place names were familiar….Herceg Novi, Kotor, Dinaric Alps, Mostar,  Novi Sad, Fruska Gora, Plitvice Lakes.  They all looked  unfamiliar nor did we have any idea where they were.  We flew into Dubrovnik  and our tour began in Herceg Novi, Montenegro which is only 45 mins from the Croatian airport.  We came home from Lubljana, another name which now rolls off my tongue easily and I can pinpoint on a map. 

Walking along the boardwalk by the Adriatic Sea our second day in Hercig Novi, I had the strangest sensation of having suddenly shrunk. Many Montenegrins were out strolling in the early evening as is their custom.  I noticed the people passing us along our walk were a head if not two taller than we were - men and women.  That was when I learned that Montenegrins along with Serbians, Bosnians and even Slovenians are among some of the tallest people in the world. 

Adriatic coastline

“Dobro utro” is good morning in Serbian. Hvala means thank you. This is the extent of my Serbian after spending time in Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia and Slovenia. These independent republics once made up Yugoslavia which was held together by President Marshall Tito. When he died in 1980, 128 of 154 UN member countries sent representatives to the largest state funeral in history. Today all the independent republics speak Serbian although there are regional pronunciations of certain words. Language is not a barrier as people cross borders easily with a passport.  We crossed eight borders in 17 days.

This was our first group travel experience with 21 Americans and two Serbian group leaders – Srdjan from Novi Sad and Vladan from Belgrade. Both fluent in English with university degrees in history, they shared their culture, personal experiences and knowledge with us. Srjdan, in his mid-thirties, was self- confident, organized, patient and unintimidated by a group of older Americans, many of whom carried their Americanisms with them despite their many international trips . (I was reminded that traveling the world in a group does not always make one “worldly”.) Vladan, in his fifties was tall and thin with graying hair and a gracious, soft spoken manner. 

When we arrived in Herceg Novi and met the group, Srdjan, who was in charge, gave us the  “punctuality at all times” talk. Everyone must have listened because no one was ever late. (I had worried about travelling in a group and waiting for people along the way.)  We traveled by chartered bus..  The bus stopped at the “exit border” of one country, our passports were collected and we waited. Passports were returned.  Then the bus would move a short distance to a new set of booths where we again gave our passports to officials of the new country we were entering.  In a few instances we got off the bus and walked through immigration to have passports stamped. Another time an official got on the bus to check passports personally. At other borders we were told we could stay on the bus and our passports were returned once they were reviewed. Each kind of “crossing” seemed to be the decision of whoever was on duty. All was taken care of in an orderly way. I noted that crossing all these borders is definitely the way to learn the geography of these small countries and their proximity one to the other. 

Road Scholar charter bus

Vladan, Srdjan, and Boris, the bus driver

 “What kind of money to we need here?” someone would ask Srdjan. If it was Montenegro or Slovenia it was euros, but if it was Bosnia Hercegovina it would be the Convertible Mark, whereas in Serbia we needed Serbian Dinars and in Croatia we needed Kuna. We changed only small amounts of money in each new country. It all became like “Monopoly money” although admittedly we understood each currency and which country it was used in by the end of the trip.

Our Balkans trip was like no other part of the world we have visited except perhaps our two week stay in Bulgaria, nearly 20 years ago, when Hayden was a Peace Corps volunteer.  The geography varied from Mediterranean scenery along the Adriatic Coast to spectacular mountainous regions in the Dinaric Alps. Our boat trip to Kotor on the Adriatic was almost like cruising the fjords of Norway but with warm sunshine and vegetation such as pomegranate, olive and clementine trees and blooming bougainvillea everywhere.  As we headed north away from the coast, the mountains were reminiscent of the Austrian Alps. Our tours and lectures gave us an insight into thousands of years of Roman, Ottoman, and Austro Hungarian domination. 

           We saw firsthand the painful results of World War II and the extermination of Jewish communities and synagogues of which there are practically none today.  The breakup of the Yugoslav republic and the war of the 1990’s is still a sore wound in some places. Only the Dictator Marshall Tito, we were told, was able to keep the different ethnic factions and religions (Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and Muslim) in check. I was surprised that Tito was spoken of almost as a hero. The Tito days for some were “the good times” compared to all that followed. 

Synagogue in Novi Sad now used as an auditorium...

Tito's grave

Marshall Tito

Getting into bed at night at the Hotel Slavija in Split I touched the exposed brick wall next to me that was part of Diocletian’s Palace dating from the 4^thcentury AD. This structure was built more like a fortress on the waterfront for the retirement of the Emperor Diocletian. After the Romans left and abandoned the site, it was empty for some centuries until residents starting making their homes and businesses within the walls of the palace. Today it is a World Heritage Unesco site and makes up the Old City of Split in Croatia. Sleeping within these walls I tried to imagine life in Roman times and vowed I needed review some of my long gone Roman history.

In Split we visited an art gallery in the Old City selling traditional and contemporary oils and watercolors by Croatian artists. We went in and chose an oil painting by Miodrag Lazic who was born in 1953 in Yugoslavia and now lives and works in Split. The painting is of a street scene in the Old Town.  Petra Dosevic, the gallery assistant spoke perfect English and we felt we had made a new friend by the time we negotiated a price, paid for it in three currencies in order to get the “cash discount”, and spent time arranging to have it shipped to Biltmore Lake.  Our painting is on its way to North Carolina right now.

 Petra was a tall attractive young woman in her early twenties who told us she was studying for her Master’s degree in Art History while working at the gallery.  She told us the name of the street where the artist painted our work of art and after saying goodbye we walked to find it and take a photograph.

 Painting by Croatian artist Miodrag Lasic

Papaliceva ulica (street in the Old City of Split)

Visiting Dubrovnik a few days into our trip we watched one cruise ship leave only to be replaced by another Italian liner carrying at least 3,000 passengers within the same hour. Our walk through the old city of Dubrovnik was an exercise in dodging the many tour groups and visitors crowding the narrow streets and open spaces by the historic cathedral.  We learned that Croatia is now limiting cruise ships to two a day instead of the up to 10 a day over recent years. Croatia has become one of the most visited places in the world for Asians and Westerners alike.

 Old City of Dubrovnik

Walking guide in Dubrovnik

Land of the tourists - Dubrovnik, Croatia

An indelible memory is walking down “Sniper Alley” in Sarajevo, Bosnia, 23 years after the end of the 1992-95 war.  It is lined with tall concrete apartment blocks that still have bullet ridden facades. Public park spaces are full of clean white narrow gravestone markers which are piled with memorial flowers and wreaths and visited daily.  So many people died that there was no room nor time to bury them in proper cemeteries. It’s an eerie reminder that the war we witnessed for more than two years on our television screens is still very much part of Serbians’ memories.

Graves in the parks in Sarajevo

Our walking tour guide in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, told us that Maria Theresa, the wife of the Austrian Hungarian Emperor in the mid eighteenth century ordered all schools, hospitals, and public buildings in Zagreb painted a gold yellow color.    (Today some might call it Provence yellow.)  Now, more than three hundred years later that particular yellow is called “Marie Therese yellow”.  Since yellow is my favorite color, I, of course, will remember that fact forever. 

Exploring Zagreb - capital of Croatia

In Zagreb we spent an evening at the impressive Lisinski Auditorium listening to Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass”. We wouldn’t have missed it. The Auditorium with its all-glass modern façade and perfect acoustics filled up quickly with elegantly dressed Croatians.  Men came in dark suits and ties and women in cocktail dresses and some in furs as there was a fall chill in the air.  It reminded me of a long ago time in the 1950’s being taken to the Colon Theater for the ballet in my velveteen party dress and being surrounded by the elegant and sophisticated Argentines.  I thought that world was long gone.  It is still very much alive in Zagreb.  Bernstein’s irreverent “Mass” resonated with a Zagreb audience in a predominantly Roman Catholic Croatia.  The Croatian National Symphony and Choir were magnificent and Jubilant Sykes, an African American guest baritone from New York, was the only dark face in the crowd. He received multiple accolades.

Lisinski Auditorium in Zagreb

I felt a special connection to Serbia when we crossed the border because Hayden had lived and worked in Novi Pazar and Krusevacs in the mid 2000’s.  He had just finished his Master’s degree in International Development at American University and asked our advice as to whether he should accept a job offer in Washington DC with USAID or one with a nongovernmental organization in Serbia. We advised USAID and he went off to Serbia. (Those were the years when he asked our advice and did the opposite…always landing on his feet.) He sent emails about his life in southern Serbia but sometimes wrote longingly wishing he lived in the more cosmopolitan city of Belgrade to the north. As we crossed the border into Serbia and spent time in Belgrade I wondered if it was much changed in the last 15 years since he had been there. 

Spela (Slovenian for Elizabeth), our Slovenian lecturer was asked by someone in our group  how Slovenians view Melania Trump.  She hesitated but accustomed to this question I guessed she had come up with an answer.  “She is all about fashion,” she told us.  Then she added briefly, “She left…”  I now think about the walking tour we had in Lubljana were the Slovenian guide pointed out the building where Melania Trump went to high school in case we were interested. Most of us just kept walking more intrigued by the 17^thand 18^thcentury architecture.
 

Spela added that Melania is from Novo Mesto, outside the capital and that she did not come from an affluent family.  Young Slovenians have tried to capitalize on her fame by selling “Melania wine,” Melania cake”, “Melania cream” and other such items but we learned that she has not come back to Slovenia since becoming First Lady.  It is only for the younger generation that she appears to be a celebrity.  Spela diplomatically implied that there were more important things to work on such as the economy and politics in Slovenia rather than fashion. Quiet and picturesque Slovenia looked most desirable to me during the perfect fall days we were there.  I imagined living there and not ever wanting to leave. Pure fantasy, of course.

Lake Bled - Slovenia

The Dragon Bridge in Lubljana

Sitting on the terminal bus at Chicago O’Hare Airport  Art and I were dazed and tired as we had started the journey home at 4:30 a.m. in Lubljana via Munich.  We still had a third flight to catch to get us home to Asheville. 

I felt Art nudge me as he leaned over to say “That older couple are holding Bosnian passports!” 

Then he looked across at them and caught the man’s eye.  In his most diplomatic way, Art asked  “You are from Bosnia?  We just came from your country.  It is a wonderful place.” 

The man spoke minimal English but smiled warmly as if he was pleased that someone had spoken to him in a friendly manner. He indicated he and his wife were visiting somewhere…perhaps relatives who had emigrated to the US during the war .  We didn’t catch very much of what he said.

The interchange was short but it reminded me if we had not visited this part of the world that Bosnian couple would have been just some foreigners sitting on the terminal bus like us. It was Art’s excitement that made me realize we had added a new part of the world to our lives and soon we would turn into storytellers about our experiences in the Balkan countries. 

Crossing the Dinaric River between Bosnia and Serbia

September Visit in D.C.

            Our plane lands in Baltimore. We are eager to be on our way to Washington DC so we can surprise Austin and pick him up after school.  We haven’t done this since last school year. An Uber car takes us to 15^thStreet N.E. in good time.  We drop our carry-ons at the house and walk across the street to Miner Elementary School. We are directed from the entrance to take a left and a right …We promptly get lost as we wander down the wide, newly painted hallways in the cool air conditioning.  We peek into classrooms where kids are gathered for after school day care.  “These kids look too young to be in Austin’s group,” I say to Art. 

            Then I spot Mrs. Mukendi, Austin’s preschool teacher standing in the hall.  Art is so excited he goes up to her to say hello and asks “Where is Hayden?”  He reminds her that we are his grandparents and she does remember us from last year.  Only I have to interject apologetically, “He means Austin”.  She points down the hall to the cafeteria where kids are seated at round tables having snack.  I look across the large room for a curly blonde head.  “There he is!”  When Austin sees us he grins and reaches out for a small hug and goes back to playing with a little girl sitting next to him.  He’s happy to see us and yet not in a big rush to come home as he was last year.  He’s playing with a new race car he brought in his backpack and tells me “Daddy brought it from Korea.”  He always surprises me because he is so aware of where his parents travel and can tell you the countries where they have been.

            We lure Austin away and he tells us “Tonight is Back to School night…we get to come back.”  But in the meantime we need to walk the dog , so I persuade Austin to get out his scooter and show us some of his expert moves.  He puts on his helmet and we head out. I have to walk fast not to lose sight of him as he flies down the city blocks around the neighborhood that he knows so well. Amazingly he never forgets to stop completely at an intersection. He has been taught since he was very small never to venture into the street.  City living has its advantages and kids do learn to pay attention and be aware of cars, people, and stop signs.

            Now in PreK-4 Austin is so at home in his classroom.  We go back with Mom and Dad in the evening and he shows us where everything is and he’s delighted to see some of his classmates he just left earlier.  Some are there with their parents.  It’s all very friendly and we can hardly drag Austin away when the evening is finished.

            Friday morning, though, Austin decides he’d rather “hang out” with us than go off to school.  We are a big distraction.  Jessica needs to be out the door to catch her bus for work but she calmly takes a moment to sit Austin down on the bottom step of the stairway.  She takes the Miner Elementary School Absentee Policy from the hall table, sits next to him, and reads it out loud.  He listens while we watch in amazement wondering how much he understands.  Then she hugs him, tells him to have a fun day, and goes out the door to work. Austin puts on his shoes without a fuss, grabs his backpack and is ready to be walked across the street to school. Afterwards Art and I both agree that that is “brilliant parenting”.  Would it work for all children?  I don’t know… but because Austin listens and is used to having things explained to him.  It definitely works for him.

            The rain holds off on Saturday which means we get to go to T-Ball practice.  “My Mommy is the coach,” Austin tells us.   Austin puts on his bright blue Capitol Hill Baseball t-shirt  which is on the big side. He has always hated wearing hats but I notice he easily puts on his navy baseball cap.  We pile into the “Mini” car, as Austin calls it, and we are off to the park with equipment and snacks.  Jess puts on her cap and is perfect in her role as coach.  Art and I watch as kids slowly arrive until there are about 10  or 12 four-year-old’s…all boys of all abilities…with parents and even some grandparents.  The park is full of other teams doing the same.  Austin has told me, “we are the Tigers”. 

The Tigers at practice with Coach Jess...

            Jess goes around enthusiastically welcoming each of her players and then starts the warm up and drills.  She is completely tuned in to four-year-old’s as they get down to do what she announces will be 50 pushups.  “One, two, three, four…forty nine and fifty! Nice…” She laughs.  They practice running from marker to marker and then get to do some batting setting the ball on the T and swinging.  Art and I watch fascinated. 

One little boy cries through most of the practice as his parents get him to try and participate but somehow nothing seems to suit him.  Some kids get confused about running to and from the markers, others swing hard but miss the ball entirely.  No one stops to take note and Coach Jess keeps the kids moving.  Austin loves it and runs around like the pro that he is having lived and breathed baseball since he was very young.  Hayden and Jessica are huge baseball fans and he grew up going to Nationals games in DC.  He has the moves and is good at imitating stances as he's seen the real baseball players do.  

The kid with the moves....

            Halfway through practice Coach Jess announces “we are going to play a game now with the Cubs”.  About 10 - 12 kids in red shirts come over from the other side of the park and they play a game. There is lots of help from parents on each base while the coaches supervise the batting.  It’s all very upbeat and kept fun whether mistakes are made or the ball goes nowhere off the T.  When the game is over there are no winners and losers and each team lines up to high five the other players in a show of good sportsmanship.  Jess gathers her little team and they huddle for one last cheer.  “See you guys next week,” she says cheerfully.  Then they run over to pick up their snack sack which one of the parents has prepared.  

Coach Jess with her team...

Austin loves it all and surprisingly he has not gained any special favors nor seemingly suffered resentment from anyone for being the coach’s son.  He blends right in with the other kids. I like that.  It reminds me of Hayden who went to school from K – 12^thgrade where Art was always the principal.   It never bothered him nor did he ever complain of kids giving him a hard time because of it.

While at Austin’s house I look for the things we always enjoy doing together.  We play  games and this visit he seems to have caught on to playing Checkers.  At bedtime he still likes to cuddle up and have me read to him.  We giggle together over the Gerald and Piggy stories by Mo Willems like we always have. Austin gets the humor.  But he also likes to listen to longer stories now. When we go places in the car he announces “ And Grandma  gets to sit next to me,” because I always have… and because I can still crawl into the back seat of the two door Mini which isn’t easy. At my birthday brunch on Sunday morning Austin is glued next to me when the waitress brings a surprise dessert of baklava with a single candle.  He makes the wish and we both blow out the candle.

Learning to play checkers...

Happy Birthday to me...

This visit I notice a new level of self-confidence and independence in Austin.  Jess attributes it to Tony’s summer day camp where she likes to joke that Austin “went off a little boy and came back a man!”  Austin is a “survivor” of Tony’s Capitol Hill camp where campers were taken on a different field trip all over the hot city every day of the week on public transportation. This required a level of stamina beyond what the usual four-year-old  can do but somehow Austin just stood up to it all and loved it though he came home exhausted. He lost his shyness and gave up his long afternoon nap and learned to ride every combination of bus, metro,  and trolley in DC.  Now he is  the “expert” and can tell you where the buses go. Taking him to the children's section of the Indian American Museum or the Children’s Garden in the National Botanical Gardens by the Capitol,  Austin knows where to go because he’s been there...and he remembers.  He is totally at home in his city of Washington D.C.

National Botanical Gardens

      Sunday afternoon comes too quickly. Austin gives me one of his pieces of artwork from his easel that he makes especially for me.  I fold it carefully and promise to display it when I get home.  We have one last hug and kiss and then we are on our way to Baltimore and soon home to Asheville.  When I next see Austin it will be Christmas and he will be almost five.  I know he will have gone in new directions in his growing up,  but he will be the same loving and sweet little boy he's always been.  I like to know that as his grandparents we are a  part of his life, and as important to him as he is to us.

Reflections on another birthday...

            My phone rang early this morning.   It was Hayden calling on his way to Dulles Airport to catch his flight to Dhaka, Bangladesh for a work trip. 

 “Happy Birthday, Mom…what will you do to celebrate today?”

“We’ll go for brunch in downtown Asheville,” I told him feeling lonesome that we would be not together.

As if reading my mind, he said, “we’ll plan to celebrate when you come visit in a few weeks.”  Perfect, I thought.   I was remembering my birthday celebration last year when we went to Washington D.C. to celebrate with Hayden, Jess, and Austin.

Birthday celebration in Washington on Sept. 2, 1017

Today has been a day of being grateful for the many lovely cards with special sentiments written in them that sit on the counter downstairs. I like to read and reread them. On the dining room table is a stunning bouquet of  yellow, purple and white dahlias from my friend Anne’s garden left on my doorstep while we were out. White roses are opening up in a silver vase on the coffee table. A gift from Art who knows I love roses.   Phone calls from my brothers filled the afternoon (we don’t talk so often) as birthdays were always very important in our family.  A phone call came from my niece Megan who was almost born on my birthday but held off till two days later…we are each other’s most loyal birthday supporters. We are  fellow Virgos and very much alike in many ways. Even my "English sister", Jenny never forgets to call from London.  “It’s what we always do on our birthdays…” she reminded me when we talked late yesterday on Skype. My email account is full of loving notes from friends who are far away. My Facebook Timeline has many  good wishes from acquaintances, neighbors, and people I haven’t seen in years because this what Facebook friends do in this age of technology. I do it too, although it feels too easy somehow and doesn’t require much thought.  

At my age, people tend to write things like “where have the years gone?” and other clichés about how quickly our lives pass by. I notice that and wonder if we said that as much when we were younger.  I would rather forget the numbers in my age and simply think about where I am today - recalling rich memories of long ago birthday celebrations and enjoy people in my life who are still there for me.

Every year I am reminded that what I miss most on my birthday is the phone call that always came from my parents no matter where I was living. Until they were both gone, now four years ago.  Each would get on an extension of the landline  while Mom would do most of the talking and Dad listened for a little while and then wandered off. Mother’s call was always followed by a letter where she, who was the memoirist in the family, lovingly remembered the day I was born in Santiago, Chile in 1945.  She was 25 and barely spoke a word of Spanish. She loved to tell me how I was born in a maternity clinic in downtown Santiago and even though she didn’t understand a word of what the nurses said to her she always related that they were “terribly kind”.  The doctor who delivered me was German and knew some English.  She reminded me every year that I was born on VJ Day – Victory Over Japan. It was the day the treaty was signed with Japan that ended the war in the Pacific.  Chileans, on the opposite side of the world from Japan, were celebrating. The staff at the clinic told Mother I must be called Victoria for “victory”. She told me she didn’t follow that suggestion “because I was afraid you’d go through life being a Vicky and not Victoria”.  I think she was right…Victoria is far more regal than plain Vicky.   Instead I became Kristina Ingrid…. Kristina, being a very common South American name was convenient, however not spelled with a K. I went through my childhood introducing myself in perfect Spanish … “me llamo Kristina con k”. My name is Kristina with a k.  (K is not a letter used in Spanish.) 

Like my Mother, I’ve become the memoirist now. Growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina my Mother stayed at home. She was the parent who planned the many creative birthday celebrations for my brothers and me.  One year she had a birthday party for me where we made puppets out of paper sacks.  We then put on a puppet show on the back porch of our house where we often played theater with the neighborhood children and acted out shows we made up. Another year, I invited girlfriends to the Confiteria Paris, a tea restaurant in downtown Buenos Aires with a décor reminiscent of Europe in the late 1800’s.  There were Baroque looking elaborate gold mirrors, white marble floors, and waiters in white jackets and bow ties. Pastries were served on silver tier trays and tea in china cups. I wore my favorite Best & Co. turquoise corduroy princess-style dress with my black patent leather Mary Jane shoes and white lace anklets.  Other birthdays I was taken to the Teatro Colon, the opera house in Buenos Aires to see the ballet.  I would sit on the edge of my velvet seat in my party dress riveted to the ballerinas performing on the stage.  At the end of each act, the enormous red velvet curtains trimmed in heavy gold braid  were pulled shut by stage hands dressed as footmen…white wigs, stockings and all!  

I rarely spent birthdays in the US but when I was 8 we had “home leave” from Argentina and spent an entire summer in Iowa with my grandparents.  Being the eldest grandchild and because my grandmother saw me so infrequently, she wanted to give me a birthday party.  I remember her telling me, “I know your birthday is not until September, and this is July, but would you like to have a party now.”  Of course, I said yes and much to her surprise I went all over her neighborhood in Des Moines inviting any children I saw.  She was somewhat taken aback that I rounded up as many children as I did but I thought it was great having a July birthday!

Birthdays for me growing up in South America always came in the spring and the few days of September were not special in any way. But when I moved back to the U.S. and was grown up my birthday was always in, on, or around Labor Day, one of the biggest holidays of the year.  When I worked in public schools it often fell on the first day of school or on a teacher work day and so it became somewhat forgotten.  Now it doesn’t matter anymore except for wanting to spend it with family.  Last year we were in Washington D.C. to celebrate with Austin.  Having a grandson lends a whole new dimension to birthdays and I hadn’t had quite as much excitement and a real cake and even candles for a long time.  I was reminded that reliving birthdays through the eyes of children can be one of the most fun ways to celebrate.

 Birthday celebration in Washington DC, Sept. 2, 1017

Licking the plate clean with Austin...

My special day is almost behind me and yet in a few weeks we’ll be in Washington for one more celebration. This time I will have my helper, Austin, to lick the icing and help me blow out some candles as he loves to do. Then I will stop celebrating and simply get on with the life and all that is coming my way this next year.