Fly well

I reach out for a book and fall asleep, the book on top of my chest, such a tender sleep. I draw pelicans, the child I was, on the beach, where I am, the pelicans she points at, she sees them with wide open eyes, the dive, the floundering fish it swallows, she sings, she jumbs a dance, the fish is flying, the fish is dying now.

Donkeymen

They were two, a girl and a boy.
One of them caught my eyes just outside the grocery. They didn't wear school uniform or scout uniform. They were in their ordinary saturday afternoon clothes, shorts, t-shirt, flip-flops, but much less tanned than everybody else.
I made no attempt to escape as I often do when I'm addressed by adults with a pile of leaflets in the hand. They usually want to make me a better person, a discipline I prefer to practice under different circumstances.
I stopped.
The girl explained their purpose, a matter of lottery tickets for the benefit of mental ill on the island.
I could barely hear her voice. Donkeyman, so we call him now, had one of his noisy moments. She had to repeat herself.
- Of course, I said and looked for the purse in my bag.
- Will you be on the island at April the 9th, the boy asked.
- The 9th? I think so. Why do you want to know that?
He showed me what I could win. It was like a brunch for four at Admiral's Inn and something called a Mystery Grab Bag.
- You won't be able to benefit from the lottery if you are not in Antigua the 9th.
I gave him the 10 EC$.
- Oh, it's kind of you to mention.
They said Thank You and went on.
We looked after them.
They stopped by the donkey. It was hitched at the other side of the road. I like it better when we meet it up the hill or by the dry canal. Some places the grass is almost green, though you have to look for it.
- What was that about, my son asked.
- Aid for mental ills, I replied.
He looked at the donkey. Sometimes he steals carrots from the fridge to have something to give it.
- If only we could win the donkey, he said. - But it's a good idea to have children sell the lottery tickets. If two mental ill came over and asked, none of the tickets would be sold.

Elizabeth Taylor

It's sad when they close down the cinema where you watched Bambi slipped on the ice. And when they tear down buildings where you slided down the banisters. The walls you fired the football at. My grandmother, my mother, myself and my daughter know of Elizabeth Taylor.

My grandmother saw all her movies and constantly measured beauty with hers.
My mother saw most of her movies and knows how many times she divorced and probably still thinks she and Burton were meant for each other.

I saw some of her movies and stand up for her part as Cleopatra. I've also read she went in and out of rehabs, grew fat and lost weight again. Now it's business as usual, like the number of divorces, but at the time I held it up against the lovely face my grandmother used to talk about and I was confused. I honestly believed that beauty was synonymous with happiness.

Still: a Diva. And to me a Diva like Elizabeth Taylor ranks above iconic models, popstars and botoxpumped siliconistas because she didn't start out like that.

My daughter only knows the bloodshot eyes with too blue and too much eye shadow and a body forced into a glamourous silverdress designed for the red carpet no other place than Hollywood.

All four of us are from Denmark, far away from America. Internet, Google and YouTube globalized the world. But first did Marshall Aid, music, and movies. I can't imagine Coca Cola as anything but a random soft drink - without the movies. That's where it speeded up, the extensive american culture-migration.

That's why we can read obituaries in newspapers probably from Finland to Spain, from Kenya to South Africa, from India to Australia these days dedicated to an actress of all nationalities.
Elizabeth Taylor was American but she is global cultural heritage and it's sad she is gone, with and without two much blue eye shadow, with and without Richard Burton, too many pounds, and an enchanting face.

I recommend

I don't know Gina Frangello, or didn't, now I do a little. She wrote one of the best meditations, I've read for a long time. It's on rape and the way we deal with it as individuals, as culture, as society, as man and woman. Please don't hesitate. I bumped into it on Twitter. Here is the link. You will probably have to copypaste, I can't make it work from my iPad, don't understand why.

http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/gfrangello/2011/03/we-are-complicit-meditations-on-a-28-year-old-gang-rape-and-that-little-girl-from-texas/

No chart but confident

Chapter 15 and I just put out to sea. I know where we are going.

I forgot his face

I have a hat that makes me look like a scarecrow. I bought it in Guadeloupe the evening my son found his most precious shells, two ivory conches, inside they keep their rosa secret. I wore the hat. I felt free and beautiful. I didn't kiss the man but I knew I could. Would I recognize him if I wore the hat tonight.

Differences between glasses and shoes

My favourite lunch bistro, and the best and cheapest in town is called HotHotSpot. Might not sound particularly local nor charming but it is, the name is even very precise. Every decent place in English Harbour has got wifi, some of them even outlets for those who wear the most common suit, desktop under the arm, flip flops on the feet.
At HotHotSpot they play Air by J.S. Bach as well.
An elderly gentleman sat next to us with a newspaper and a soup, he just finished. He did wear shorts like everybody else, but only because of the heat, surely not because he liked shorts.
- Enjoy your lunch.
He was about to leave
- Thank you very much. Enjoy your afternoon, I said and hoped the chicken in my mouth was not too obvious.
A moment later he came back.
- Has anyone seen my shoes?
He bent down and looked under the tables.
- At home it's my glasses I look for. But you won't find any shoes on the table, won't you?
- Most of the time one doesn't need shoes here. I keep forgetting mine too, I said.
He smiled.
- I still prefer to look on your table, not under it.