The View from the Highway

Hib, a fig and spice treat, and a street in Split behind it.

An excerpt from my journal, written on the bus ride from Split to Dubrovnik yesterday:

We take a bus from Split to Dubrovnik, down a long, winding two-lane highway at times perilously close to the ocean. The sea is deep blue, the rocky hillsides dotted with yellow St. John's Wort. To our left, the mountains rise into rocky peaks. Each small ocean village that we pass through has its own church spire near the water. Fig trees heavy with black fruit line the road. Perhaps because of the sea, everything seems to be in season here all at once: cherries, peaches, strawberries, apricots, asparagus, fava beans, carrots, beets, oranges... We have, gloriously, eaten all of these things thus far--especially cherries. The land is abundant, but not too lush for my tastes, desert dweller that I am. The hills are rocky and windswept. The beaches are made not of sand but of small stones. I suppose I appreciate a landscape that has its own conditions for being beautiful.

And it is beautiful here, both because of the natural characteristics of the land and because of the work of the people. On almost every balcony brightly colored geraniums hang. In most backyards a garden grows. The sea stretches on until it meets the islands that run all olong the coastline to the west. Looking south, it meets only sky. Lavender grows everywhere.

We drive through a broad flat valley, full of flat green fields. Each is long and narrow, and seems to be family-owned. The plantings are diverse, consisting of many different kinds of fruits and vegetables. "This seems like a much better version of the Imperial Valley," I comment to Anna Rose, who is sitting beside me.

We drive along a river. I do not know its name, but, in the manner of things here it is broad and blue.

---

I am so enjoying this country. We are currently in Dubrovnik, staying in a beautiful apartment in the Old City, which is walled and paved with white cobble stones. Our apartment is on one of the many small steep alleyways stemming from the main street. In some ways , this city reminds me of Guanajuato in it layout. It rained today, but tomorrow we are all hoping to go to the island of Lokrum, which is supposed to have beautiful beaches and a monastery--and a botanical garden!

In Dubrovknik

Welcome to the Homeland of the Cravat!

News to me--but so claimed a sign outside a shop inside the walls of Diocletian's Palace, in Split, Croatia, where I am with Slavs!

After a long journey from New York through Paris and Zagreb, we arrived yesterday afternoon in Split, a city of about 140,000 on the central Dalmatian coast. It is old, and beautiful.

We are staying here for one more night in an an apartment (there are 15 of us). This morning, a group of us went to an ENORMOUS farmers market a short walk from where we are staying. We got cherries, strawberries, peaches, onion, carrots, beets, honey... I was in hog heaven. Most of the market stalls were manned by old women in headscarves, who were very patient with us as we tried to parse out quantity and price... It is such a joy to visit a place where it seems that buying food at such a market is the norm. It was also delightful to see a large vegetable garden in almost every yard as were were driving into town from the airport yesterday, and cherry and fig trees everywhere.

We have enjoyed wandering the labyrinthine streets of this 1500-year-old part of town, built originally as a retirement home for a Roman emperor. We're going to make a lunch with our market finds, and then spend the afternoon at the beach... Church bells are ringing outside, and the day is warm and pleasant, with soft sea clouds scudding by.

It is, in short, lovely to be on vacations, and lovely to be with Slavs.

[Pictures to follow soon--slow internet connection!]

May

My! Much has happened since last I posted anything. School ended, I went home, and now I am back in New Haven in preparation for Slavs' trip to Croatia! REALLY EXCITED.

May is a beautiful month--certainly my favorite. The end of the school year is fun, though hectic. Trees come into flower. People congregate out-of-doors. The light becomes lovely.

My costume for an Earth Day parade (I'm an anteater!)

An immigration rally in which I took part on May 1st.

I came home on May 5th. Home was warm and WINDY! I spent a lot of time in my kitchen:

Smoothies--my favorite in the summertime.

Coconut-banana dessert pancakes.

And with the irises, which were not as numerous this year as last due to the cold spring weather--but delightful nonetheless.

It was my birthday on the 15th, so to celebrate I went to lunch at Pasqual's, one of my favorite restaurants in Santa Fe, with my mother and Graham. My mother snapped this priceless photo while we were there: me, my teeth, and Graham.

In other news, we got a puppy for Nana for Mother's Day. He is presumably a chipoodle, but he looks terrier-ish to me. He has come to be called El Nino (yes, like the weather pattern). He is ridiculously cute--I am not entirely sure if he is real, in fact.

It was lovely being home, as always. It is strange to be back here, in many ways. I've never been in New Haven when school wasn't happening. It was also strange to leave home after ostensibly settling in for the summer. But I'm looking at this as a vacation, which is what it is, really--Slavs are taking a tour to Croatia for 2 weeks, and we leave on Thursday--I am very much looking forward to it. Meanwhile, the madness of Graduation weekend...!

The Death of the Fruit Tree Blossoms

Apricot Blossoms

From John Nichol's The Milagro Beanfield War:

"The ritual Death of the Fruit Tree Blossoms began toward the end of every March, when, after a long hard winter, warm air coursed lovingly into the Miracle Valley, leading all the fruit trees to believe spring was just around the corner. And, believing this, their sap began running, their buds grew fat, their branches suddenly burst forth into flowers. The air became redolent from apple and pear and plum blossoms, and the locals started wandering around in shirt sleeves, made lazy and soporific and horny by the perfumed air. Farmers greased up their tractors; Nick Rael ordered garden seeds, summer hoses, irrigation boots; and cows groaned and fell down and bore their calves.

Whereupon, inevitably, as certain as death and taxes and the enlargement of Ladd Devine's empire, there ensued a final week of frost and frequently snow that turned into blizzards, and people that had not brought their cows in to calf had those calves frozen to death, and all the fruit tree blossoms were killed, and the subsequent summer came and went without so much as a boo! from a single pear, apple, or plum.

Still, for centuries, because of one masochistic spiritual or genetic flaw or another, Miracle Valley residents had persisted in growing fruit trees, and even in hoping each year that this year a false spring would not set up the trees to be butchered by the little winter that always occurred after the false spring."

(pg. 157, (c) 1994)

This will be an all-to-familiar scenario for anyone who has ever lived in New Mexico. We had been holding our our hopes this year, since the trees all bloomed so late--but apparently not late enough. My mother called this morning to tell me that it got down into the twenties night before last, and all the buds on the apricot tree were black with frost. "The whole valley is in mourning," she said. "I feel like dressing in black today."

I am ever optimistic, however, annual fruit scourge be damned. I know there is some little adobe nook somewhere in northern New Mexico where an apricot tree was sheltered from the cold, and I intend to find it!