It's Been A Month Since My Last Confession

Travel, travel and more travel. And more to come. We went to the east coast, I saw family, M. saw family and met her godson!!!! And then I went to work in Toronto. I never thought a film festival could actually be fun but I guess that's what happens when you talk to interesting people. My favorite interview was Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro. He is such a sweet, beautiful man that all of sudden, after talking with him, I can see his genius so clearly. It IS harder to see it otherwise. He's scarey. His films are scarey. Anyway, I got back a couple of days ago and am just now recovered. I had a blast and am so happy with my improving shooting skills. I can already tell that I'm writing this post as if my mother was going to read it. She has been very present with me in the last few days. There were a couple of days at the end of the festival when I felt her approaching presence. She was around, but distant. Then when I got home, there she was - all around me. I was cooking chicken stew tonight - her recipe, or what I gleaned of her recipe from smelling and eating it for 30 years - and felt her there with me, looking over my shoulder. Our relationship has changed a bit. She's more at rest, more at peace now, it feels like (or maybe that's me...) than ever before. Hence she was there looking over my shoulder and not kibbitzing. I was throwing this and that into the stew and into the rice as if I'd been doing it as long as she had, and maybe that's right, maybe there's some of her being channeled through me. It would be great if that was true. I certainly feel as though she's moving there through me when I cook, guiding my hand and my thoughts a bit. "A little lemon. Yes, a little lemon would taste good there."


M. had a dream the other night and told me the next day: "I know where we should go. For a trip. Peru." Instantly, my eyes welled-up. "It's going to be really hard for me," I whimpered. "I know," she said, "but I know it's right, and I'll be there with you. I'll take care of you. And we'll go to Machu Piccu." It's been this forever thing in my mind - that I am descended from the Incas. Maybe I am, but what's more important is that I'm the daughter of a woman who was born in Bolivia. My grandmother was Bolivian. I wish I'd known her, or heard her voice on an old recording. Wouldn't that be something? Antonia Guzman. Maybe M. would be okay with naming a daughter Emma Nilda Antonia, for us, for Mom and for Mom's mom, my gradmother. Mi abuela, Antonia. Maybe I could write something, or film something about what she might have been like. Or maybe my Aunt Nelly could remember something my Uncle Walter might have said about her. My mother died when I was 37, his mother died when he was 7.

So, more traveling. Keep the light on.