Back in the Saddle

[Shhhhh, it is actually May 19, 2010]

Well. What was initially a blog hiatus of a few weeks while Mateo and I made our trans-Atlantic move back to the U.S. became a break of a couple of months while I began my last year of medical school in New York, which then became a bad habit of blog neglect lasting for several seasons and motivated by the general fullness of our days, and so on, until I find myself racing to make my self-imposed deadline of reviving this family journal before letting one full year pass since I last posted. It is remarkable how much change has come about since last May and I hope to render some semblance of justice to it all here in pictures and brief words.

In short: We are now four where once we were three and we wonder how we could have even continued on without the blessed arrival of our littlest one. Our once nascent walker is now a big-brother blur of blond hair, red shoes and laughter as he tears around Central Park wielding stick in hand, an image of pure boyhood joy. Our beloved Papá, who arrived to NYC last summer as a music therapy intern with a freshly printed Masters degree in hand is now the newest faculty member in the Department of Music Therapy at Beth Israel Hospital! (We are so immensely proud of him.) And this Mama tracked through her last year of medical school with Bernardo by her side, Mateo on her hip, and Xulian in her womb and eventually, with the invaluable help of family and dear friends, came out as a fledgling doctor and re-newed mother on the other side. It has been quite a year. I will do my best to capture the broad strokes, as well as some of the more endearing details, in the next few posts.

Unedited History in the Making, Folks

I am not saying that our lives have become any easier or more sedentary since Mateo reached this momentous milestone, but I am sure glad that it happened before we left Spain so that his grandfather and great-grandfather (who have waited so long and patiently) could feel themselves a part of it.  Uncle Robert got to share in the excitement, as well.

Moving with the Music

This face is pure Mateo, and the piano has become an enduring favorite.

Images of May

Our last month in Spain was one of the most colorful:

Straight from la Lechera Asturiana (the local dairy company)

Cute legs!  Thanks for the warmers, Aunt Fitzie.

Sundays in Mieres after noon mass look something like this.

Well, hello!

Heading back to work after the mid-day meal

My "despedida," a farewell meal with my colleagues from the past 2 years: Tati, Belino, Cris and Bea.  (The pressure was on, as I had to make an authentic "American" dinner and dessert for these guys.)

Making breakfast

Happy to be reading while the rest of us eat lunch.  This is one of my favorite pictures.

Mateo with his godfather after Sunday mass.  He is holding the Mateo-sized wooden cane that was made for him by one of the older men from our church who had noticed how much Mateo liked to steal the canes of his elderly neighbors!

Another Sunday, having tapas and drinks after mid-day mass.  Pablo had just returned from playing with the town's bagpipe troupe in the main plaza.

 

with Beatriz

Pablo playing the Asturian bagpipe for a very curious and (not entirely unafraid) Mateo.

Our grandfather Roberto with his co-recipient for Person of the Year, awarded by the local Center for the Elderly with a very nice meal and lively dance. 

 

Roberto, Mateo and B's godmother, Esterina, after the awards presentation (Notice the television reporter in the background.  Big stuff!)

The men of our lives

(Mateo and two of his greatest fans)

Holiday Weekend

Labor Day weekend in Spain afforded our family the opportunity to travel by car for three days through the provinces of Castilla y Leon, just south of Asturias in North-Central Spain.  Our first stop was the Romanesque town of Carrión de los Condes (one of the most important towns of the Christian kingdom during the High Middle Ages), where we slept in the beautiful Benedictine Convent of San Zoilo.

The hallway view of the cloister of San Zoilo.

Chub and sunlight amidst the columns.

The only view this room really ever needed.  (He was such a happy traveler.)

A delicious meal of lamb--a local specialty.  We were draped in the comfort of a warm wooden-beamed ceiling and the many families it nourished that afternoon. 

In the original entrance to the Romanesque Church of San Zoilo, adjacent to the convent.

A smattering of the towns where we stopped along the way:

The "official" destination of our wanderings was a 15-year reunion of about 40 of the hundreds of children/adolescents-turned-adults who spent up to 10 consecutive summers of their youth together at a camp in Santo Domingo de Silos, a tiny town in the province of Burgos.  

Santo Domingo de Silos

The town is home to a monastery which has a cloister considered to be one of the masterpieces of Spanish Romanesque architecture, as well as what is probably the most famous group of Benedictine monks in the world--their recordings of Gregorian Chants are sold worldwide.  Getting to listen to these men sing laudes and vespers in their monastery was a profoundly moving experience, and transmitted a peace that resurfaces with the memory.  

The Romanesque cloister of the Benedictine monastery in Silos

Outside of the monastery, however, it was also a real treat to meet many people who knew and loved Bernardo for so very many years before he and I ever met each other, and to hear all of the stories, jokes and recollections that colored this reunion.  I was touched to see these people who were so close as teenagers reunite for the first time with their spouses and children in tow.  (For full disclosure, this was basically all made possible by the arrival of Facebook to Spain.)  And it is always reassuring and humorous to find out just how adolescence held the same delights and pitfalls and innocence and awkwardness for all of us, no matter where we come from.  I loved to get a real glimpse of Bernardo's experience of it from the people who shared it with him. 

The group.

The center of town and view of the monastery from our hotel window:

The king of all stork nests!  And a duplex, at that!  This one was worth pulling over to the side of the road on our way back up to Asturias on Sunday: