One is Silver and the Other Gold

Ajijic photo by Susa

Today in Ajijic Mexico, I got mail! All at once and only three weeks after my actual 70th birthday, I received four birthday cards and one real letter!  The friend who wrote the letter is turning 85, and I wanted to continue the conversation so I called her. She had just walked into her house from a drumcircle, and she says my phone call makes me the first arrival at her party next week in North Carolina. In our delightful conversation about many things, I told her I was just now settling into a longterm home. My song sister then sang me a song my situation reminded her of: Stay low to the ground, close to the earth. Don’t stray very far from your soul. It’s simple things show us the reasons we’re here, and it’s simple things keeping us whole.

Today I am enormously grateful for this friend and her song. And for my Mexican friend, Maria, with whom I laughed hard and long this morning in her embroidery shop, as we acted out a soap opera plot about my son’s camisa (a long-sleeved white cotton shirt with hand-embroidered preHispanic designs),  how the measurements got lost, and how they might be found. My gratitude reminds me of a song: Make new friends and keep the old. One is silver and the other gold. And thanks for the birthday cards, sibs Steve, Mary, Annie, and Linda!

America, all of it