Five Years Gone

To revisit my laundry ranting from the other day, it’s only fair to note that there is a downside to European practicality.  An anecdote, in this case, is worth much more than my own musings.  Saturday morning, we enter the U bahn to head out for the day. We find seats on the train.  An overpowering scent of body odor hangs in the air.  Milo lifts his nose to sniff and then asks, loudly: 

“Hey, what’s that stinky smell in here?”  I look down at my lap trying to suppress my giggles. 

Milo still wants to know.  “What is that smell, Mama?”

I whisper to him:  “Shhh.  I think someone in here needs to take a shower.”

He sticks his nose into Alec’s armpit.  “It’s not Daddy,” he announces to the whole train.  “His hee-hees smell clean and fresh.”

At this point I have dissolved into a puddle of quiet laughter.

“What’s so funny, Mama?” Milo asks, as Alec shushes him again.  Fortunately, our stop is next, and we disembark without further incident.

We’ve found that when we travel for an extended period with the kids—say a week or so—it’s good to give them a complete day of rest.  They love nothing more than to stay in their pajamas all day.  I understand.  Figuring that everything would be closed and that we could use some time to straighten up and pack, we promised them Easter Sunday as the do-nothing day.  But then I saw a sign in the neighborhood for an Easter egg hunt in Viktoria Park, near our apartment, and we gave them the option to go to that.  Of course, they took us up on it.

We made a couple of wrong turns on the way to the park and arrived a bit after the hunt had started.  I had confidence that my New York City-bred, afikomen hunting children would quickly get in the mix and out-hunt the locals, but they were outmatched.  The Germans had shown up with serious baskets, many of which were already full.  C.C. and Milo lacked home park advantage, so after awhile Alec planted some sweets in the bushes for them to find.   There was a nice community vibe—colorful pennants flying, an organ grinder making music (with a stuffed monkey perched atop his grinder thing), and some vendors selling cold drinks and fat pretzels. 

Once the kids’ hunting desires had been sated, we made our way home through the park, which had begun to fill up with Germans baring their milky white skins for the first time after a long, cold winter.  Some of them took the summer-like weather quite seriously; a pair of young women sat topless on their beach towels, for example.  It didn’t take long for a young man with a large video camera and microphone to approach them.  Milo:  “Mama, why does that woman have earrings in her chi-chis?” (Chi-chi is the Mexican slang for “breasts”). 

Once home, Alec fixed our Easter dinner made from market fixings, and we skyped Jody, Matt and Zadie and, later, Lois, Blanca, Leslie and Joe.  It felt good to be connected to home. 

I ran out to try to make a yoga class around the corner, but got there 15 minutes late and was not able talk my way in.  Germans seem to be more strict about these things than the Spanish and, as a chronically punctual person myself, it was interesting to note how comfortable I was showing up late.  I suppose 8 months in Spain has had its effect on my inner clock.

Itching for some exercise, I stopped back home and grabbed by iPod and headphones and headed back to the park for a brisk walk.  I put on the new Adele album I had downloaded and not yet listened to, and when I got to the track To Make You Feel My Love, my eyes welled with tears.  April 24 is the anniversary of my dad’s death four months after his diagnosis with pancreatic cancer, a swift and brutal killer.  It’s been five years and I had been thinking about him more than usual all week.  My dad really liked Norah Jones and Diana Krall, and some of my best memories from the last years of his life were taking him to their concerts.  When I was quite pregnant with C.C., we went to see Norah Jones at the Garden State Arts Center.  My dad insisted that we leave insanely early, as was his custom, and we were among the first to get to the parking lot. We had stopped for sandwiches and other treats at Piancone’s and sat there on a bench eating and talking some, but not much—my dad was not a big talker. He taught his girls to be tough and he impressed upon us the importance of street smarts, so it was nice to have him be so protective of me in my enlarged state.  It was a beautiful night.  He would have loved Adele’s version of this song.  The video is a bit cheesy, but I’m attaching it anyway, along with one of my favorite photos of my dad.  I miss him a lot.