The song Mr Brightside by the killers is apparently having a renaissance as an anthem for club goers and soccer hooligans everywhere. I think we should use it for the upcoming ection-elay (too soon too soon; can't say the word). Anyway I expect all of you to memorize it pronto; I don't want to bang my head alone.
We are getting alerts that high waves may be breaking at Nazare the week we arrive in Portugal and this is big...tennis rackets and golf clubs may have to go down for a day. Then we fly to Lech on the 18th to a slightly sad diminished group- two of my favorite families won't be there this year, nor will our beloved Frau S. Sigh.
The highlight of last week was going to San Quentin with Cathy BB - who was blown away as people always are when they visit. Hearing the clanging iron gate behind you..mingling with the prisoners, seeing their weird happiness at the program, at the fact you are visiting, at their work; seeing the ominous, barbaric- only in America building that is death row; tasting the tequila I poured when I got home, far away from the hell that is a U.S. prison....all of it leads to sensory overload and a profound sense of both happiness and unease. You all have to come once; it is a tiny life alteration.
The strangest part was the new development director was a woman with whom I had apparently been on a student committee in college. She remembered me when she saw my name as a donor; and she was the one who toured us around. It was wonderful- we loved her. Then she said that she, a woman I did not remember, had a photograph of me and her and another friend in Mexico circa 1987. She later sent it to me; we don't appear to be sober.
I didn't remember her, but I definitely remember the night because it was both the night I was kicked out of Señor Frogs..a place that is raaaather difficult to get kicked out of, (a travesty of justice if I recall) and the night I dove into the shallow end of the pool and almost paralyzed myself. I came away just with a bloody face but it really could have been different.
I look at our fresh little faces and see the unfathomable contrast between us, with our guardian angels hovering above Mexican swimming pools, and the men in SQ. I find it moving that this woman and I were connected in college trying to do some good, and then somehow meet up again 35 years later in a prison parking lot. I don't know what the algorithm is that connects both situations...three parts white girl guilt and a splash of tequila I guess.
xx
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| Just before the swan dive |
