Tag: Writing

The Waving Porcupine and The Peculiarity of My Idiosyncrasies

May 14, 2025

A couple of years ago I met this fellow.  

I was talking to my loyal friends, Thiebault and Milly, about the incongruences of life, imagining what other stories I could write for my grandchildren about life in Maine with Aesopian morals to the stories.  A peculiarity of my idiosyncrasies, so to speak.

When I first moved to Maine full time, I had an indescribable urge to write stories for my grandkids -a welcome change from writing government contracts and reports-, describing life by a pond full of frogs and visiting herons, feisty spring lambs, buzzing bees, running bears, suicidal deer, wailing coyotes, hungry goldfish, swooping eagles, and yes, the ubiquitous and shy porcupines that the dogs and I followed too closely. Milly and Thiebault got quite a few quills on their snouts.  I got around 3 on my middle finger.  I later learnt that key to removing the quills was to cut them first so that they would go limp and could easily slide off.  But, oh well.  Suffice it to say I didn’t suffer as much as the dogs!

Sometimes, though, life gets in the way, and I just wrote drafts and more drafts, but failed to produce the finished product.  Nonna of Penobscot, as my grandchildren know me in stories (if they ever read them!), putt-putt-puttered to a halt.  Not because of writer’s block, mind you. 

It took me a while to realize that my problem wasn’t anthropomorphizing, but the reverse: I was projecting adult human traits and behaviors onto my animal characters, which restricted their growth by tainting their noble qualities with the often uglier and truculent aspects of adulthood.  I was dehumanizing them because I was having a hard time finding redeeming qualities among my fellow earthlings!

On Mother’s Day, I stumbled upon this grainy photo that I took a lifetime ago.  Have you ever seen a porcupine wave?  I remember how mesmerized I was by its intense stare and the slow raising of its paw.  And oh, those fingers!  After a wonderful chat with my children, I went back to my darling porcupine.

Before I knew it, I shed the veil or scales clouding my brain.  I already have the draft of the next Nonna of Penobscot fable.  Will it come to fruition?  Who knows.  But I am embracing the peculiarity of my idiosyncrasies:  why not tackle playful or absurd imagery like a spiky creature in a tree delivering a sassy farewell—while delving into serious themes of suffering, yearning, pride, deceit, betrayal, greed, cruelty and redemption. 

Might there be a knack for blending whimsy with a sharp disdain for disloyalty, like imagining a porcupine waving goodbye to backstabbers from a tree. All of a sudden I found myself once again gravitating towards my own concoctions, which may be my own special way of processing emotional boundaries through quirky, symbolic scenarios. If I can quote myself, “I’ll laugh at the absurdity of life, but I’m dead serious about cutting out the deadbeats and the riffraff of life!”

So, I have been jotting things down left and right.  Now, will I finally finish my stories?  Who knows.  But I feel happy!  And all because of a little porcupine that waved my stumbling conundrum away.

Crossing The Line

February 24, 2025

This past week I was greeted by a line.  A vivid pink line.  I marveled at it, thinking it reminded me of something, although “the what” escaped me.  And yet, I kept observing, because I kept thinking of “crossing a line”.  We cross so many lines in our lives, and seldom do we contemplate why.  At least that’s me.

I turned away for a few minutes, and when I returned to keep observing, I was greeted with a different image altogether.  Gone was the line and the pink.  Instead, there was a silvery sun with its silvery reflection.  It is times like these that I wish I were an artist, and could capture the beauty of a sunrise like this one.

Sea, sun, sky and a straight line.  Crossing a line.  I always think about my family and friends and acquaintances who are no longer here.  Someone once said to me that I was “tetric” (meaning gloomy).  Well, it is a common word in Spanish, and we used to use it in school in English, when I was growing up.  It turns out that apparently, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is an obsolete word that has been out of common usage since 1810 or so.  Go figure!  I still use it, so, baloney.  

And then it hit me, my tetrical self.  The crossing of that line:  a meditation on death!  A boat, the sea, the light, the tides, the sand.  And yes, the crossing of the bar.

CROSSING THE BAR
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,
      And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
      When I put out to sea,

   But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
      Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
      Turns again home.

   Twilight and evening bell,
      And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
      When I embark;

   For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
      The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
      When I have crost the bar.

A Renascence

December 4, 2024
Millie having fun with the apples

A lifetime ago, November 30, 2016, it was a bit gloomy in Maine. A few berries still sparkled, Millie was a pup having fun with the apples, and a bunch of snow geese were flocking around a little inlet. Millie is older, and other than the pine tree by the water that has grown taller and taller, not much has changed.

I watched a movie the other night about an old man and his daughter, and someone in it quoted this little poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which came back to mind as I saw the geese, Millie, and the dormition of the landscape, which lacked a lovely light:

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends

—It gives a lovely light!

I realized I had never studied Millay’s poems, and curiosity made me search. I came across one in particular that struck me as providential, and made me think of the magnificence of the rebirth of Notre-Dame de Paris by mere mortals.

Because while it had burnt like a candle, at both ends, I thought how sad it was to see it turn to rubble, or a lonely grave. But just a few years later we are witnessing its majestic “renascence”, a fitting word that the poet reflected on.

All my musings in an hour, all because of a few melancholy and unartistic photos. Go figure. And all because of a little poem!

Flock of snow geese
Growing little pine tree

Three Avian Musings from Days at The Beach

December 3, 2024

One day this summer marked a special series of milestones of mythological proportions in my life: for the first time ever, like this vigilant seagull, I was perched completely on my own, staring at a monumental decision that only affects me…no parents, no spouse, no siblings, no children, no grandchildren, no in-laws, no neighbors, no friends, no teachers, no professors, no dogs, no horses, no lambs, no governments, no embassies, no colleagues, no employers, no contractors, no priests nor priestesses, no nothing!

One of my brothers said, “Wow, go get a gerbil!”

I wonder how many philosophical essays have been written while pondering the uniqueness of making such types of decision? After all, to quote Robert Louis Stevenson,

“Everyone, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.”

You don’t just reap what you sow. You also sow what you reap.

Spending some time in one of the most beautiful beaches around, I came across a colony of seagulls. They didn’t fly away as I walked by. And they gave me food for thought. As I am delving into the Russian authors, I took this photo and thought of Fyodor Dostoevsky:

“Oh, how hard it is to be the only one who knows the truth!”

The more I walked, the more my lovely colony of seagulls made me reflect. Aesop came to mind.

By the way, I didn’t take the shunning personally!!!!!

The next day I remembered the New York Avian melodrama above. She flew the coop. Or did she?

The Road Not Taken? I was Foolishly Duped and Took The Wrong Turn!

November 9, 2024

Reading recently about Robert Frost’s famous poem “The Road Not Taken”, I discovered why he wrote it. (Here is a wonderful description of Frost’s “joke” and an analysis of the poem itself).

I found the story amusing, because I have also spent half a century, like his poet friend, wondering which way to take. Now, at the sunset years of my life, I have come to yet another crossroad, but this time I have decided to take the liberty of amending Frost’s last stanza:

HIS OPUS:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

MY REFRAME:

I am now telling this with a sigh

As it has been ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I was foolishly duped and took the wrong turn,

And stumbled and fell and saw hell,

But now I found the one less traveled by,

And that has made and will make all the difference.

Of Porcupine and Friends

November 3, 2024

Friends.

I have journaled much about the role of friends, especially as it involves those “old old” friends that disappoint to the core. I am learning that the sting of disappointment is like being stuck with porcupine quills.

The barbed tip hurts, and removing by yanking on the quill is painful. However, like everything else in life, you begin to evaluate how to ease the pain of extrication. If I had only known when Milly got these quills what I do now, she would not have suffered so much. Tip: you first have to cut them in half so that they go limp, the fish-hook tip relaxes, and you can pull them out softly and with reduced pain because the quills become flaccid and pliable!

I am spending much time with good friends. Some I have known for a few months. Others, for a couple of decades. And some, for a few weeks. I value their support, compassion, and their reaching out when you least expect it. Most of all, I cherish the laughter we share together. A hearty good laugh is a balm for the soul.

Recently, I heard from friends from my youth. They brought back a torrent of emotions, for they helped me remember some of the “good old days” of yore, when we were studying and working and carefree. How lucky can one be?

I am blessed.

The Arrow And The Song

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Sliver of the Moon or Wisdom Sometimes is Slow to Arrive

October 28, 2024

So, after the moon walked the night in her silvery shoon, I caught her last sliver of shine on a gloriously crisp Maine sunrise. I tried to capture the beauty, but the phone did not fulfill its promise. Pretty, yes, but not glorious as I witnessed it. I thought as I stared, how can one be sad peering at such majestic color and scene? And so early in the morning? I am in good company, staring at the moon, with ghost crabs and singing frogs.

Working on a concept paper to help a friend, I had been thinking about what constitutes a “drag” in the business world, as you want to speed things up in order to accomplish as much as you can in the shortest time available. Sometimes you need to do the right thing and get rid of excess baggage, so to speak, whether it is product or humans. As to the latter, it can be quite devastating to contemplate the process. I’ve had my share of having to tell employees that their end date had arrived, and, when the individual was decent and hard working, it was horrible to let go. That’s one of the reasons I opted not to pursue management. As a lawyer, I liked the solitude of research and writing and not the upheaval of directing hiring and firing. It is so very true in one’s personal life as well.

Upon reflection, yesterday morning, I realized that not only am I entering the “death cleanup” stage in my life, trying to sever the balls and chains that tie me to “things” – in itself a huge “drag”- but I am discarding “dead wood” and all that constitutes what I finally see as useless or dangerous detritus. Sometimes, it takes an ugly trauma to accelerate this process. Other times, it just happens.

At the end of the day, I don’t need nor want dead wood, be it memories or people that draw me down to complacency or ennui or despair. More importantly, it is the awareness that some of my dead wood are the so-called “friends” I thought I had, that either were Judas goats and very treacherous, or complete idiots that I put up with because of circumstances of life.  I don’t need dead wood, rotten apples belong in composts, and weak idiots are just a drag. It has taken me a long time to finally reach this conclusion, and it is liberating. My only regret is not having figured this out sooner. But then, wisdom sometimes is slow to arrive. Yet, it’s better late than never.

It’s amazing how the above musings are all thanks to staring at the silvery light of the sliver of moon as I savored a serene sunrise and thought of Walter de la Mare!

Silver

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and a silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

Walter de la Mare

Along Came a Spider

October 26, 2024

Along Came a Spider…

I noticed the boy keenly observing me through a glass door as I walked to a friend’s house for dinner the other night. I smiled at him, and he darted inside. But after all the initial hellos among the adult guests, the little boy quickly approached me and stared at me. So I introduced myself, and he looked me up and down, and then we began an enchanting conversation that basically lasted a couple of hours!

He is 10 years old, loquacious, inquisitive, and ready to share what he knows. He sat down next to me and proceeded to tell me all about a racist bully he has to contend with in school (the boy, as he explained to me, is a mix of white and black, and that’s why he has light coffee-colored skin and there are very few blacks if any at his school. The bully is 9.).

He then moved on to talk about the video games he enjoys playing, the collection of Pokemon cards that one day will cost $500,000 on Ebay because they are collectors’ items, and the beauty of ghost crabs that only come out at night time to stare at the moon. “They are shy, you know”. He tried to play the ukulele that was on a chair, but with no success. “Hah, I’ve never tried to play the ukulele!”. I told him about my “charango”, an Argentine ukulele-sort of instrument made out of a real armadillo body. “Wow!” I promised him I would show it to him.

He then darted off somewhere and quickly returned with his second most prized trophy: a brown cap with a gold medal insignia that belonged to a member of the military, part of the uniform in World War 2. (I believe it is an USAAF officer’s visor crusher cap with a round insignia). He ruefully admitted it was not in such great shape, but it was ancient he said, so he loved it because he will be joining the Special Operations Command Forces. No ifs, or buts. He can’t wait.

He gave me a side glance and asked me if I liked Snoop Dogg, because he is his favorite rapper. I could genuinely answer yes, miracle of miracles! And he smiled. I told him I didn’t really know the songs, though. “Oh, yes”, he said. “ If you know of him you’ve heard his songs. I will play you some of them next time we see each other”. “It’s a deal”, I said. Dear God, I thought. What are the chances that I would know Snoop Dogg? But the boy was pleased.

He gave me a quizzical look and said, “You are very Christian, huh?” “Well”, I replied, “I do believe in Jesus and that there are good people and bad people who ought to know better. But I probably could be a better Christian”. “Oh! One of my Grandmothers who is not related by blood says she is very Christian but is mean to me, and says she doesn’t like me”. And barely pausing, he then mentioned the poisonous scorpion that he owns, but had to leave with a friend because, well, it’s poisonous and his Mother did not want it in the house. I mentioned the story of Coyotito, who is stung by a scorpion in Steinbeck’s The Pearl. Wide eyes stared at me.

Then, with the biggest smile, the boy said “Well, I want you to meet Curly”. “And who is Curly?” I asked. I thought of a labradoodle or poodle. “Oh, she is my best friend, a curly haired tarantula bigger than my hand. I can bring her over right now”. And with that, I snapped: “Oh, no, you won’t. I have a phobia about spiders. And I am not staring at a hairy thing before bed tonight!”. He burst into peals of laughter and then, calming down, he said he would bring me to his house the next day, during day time, to show me his most valuable possession, Curly, and that she is the sweetest, gentlest creature that ever walked the Earth.

Today, I heard a soft knock on the door, and I opened it surprised, because it was early evening and I was not expecting anyone. There was my new friend, holding a box with a couple of slices of pizza. His Mother was waiting in her car. He smiled and said he had thought of me while having dinner with his Mom and that he knew I would like pizza. “So here! Oh, and by the way, tomorrow I come to take you to meet Curly. You’ll love her!”.

Surely Goodness and Mercy shall Follow Me all the Days of My Life

October 26, 2024

Sunrise somewhere in Maine.

I just found a sermon a Presbyterian pastor once shared with me, because it made such an impact on me after the many deaths I had witnessed. It was his love song about the famous Psalm 23, The Lord is my Shepherd.

Beholding a most beautiful sunrise over calm waters this morning, the serendipitous encounter with the sermon I received in March 2019 made me reflect on a myriad of things. I share one paragraph of a series of many that the Reverend encapsulated as the essence of life:

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”…

So what about the mess I have made of my life from time to time? What about the loved ones I disappointed, the people I deceived, the compromises I made with my conscience, the scars I left on those I harmed? No one likes to be followed, but in this case I take comfort in the possibility that goodness and mercy might not get too far out ahead of me, but might follow me, picking up the broken pieces of my past and putting them back together again. The assurance here is that goodness, which is the benefit of forgiveness; and mercy, which is the basis of every new chance at life, will follow me all the days of my life.

Afghanistan: Reflections of a Not-so-Long Ago Era

October 22, 2024

Someone asked me about my legal work involving Afghanistan.  Her question triggered old memories of an enthralling time that appears to have been lost, at least for a while.  However, my propensity for keeping diaries and writing e-mails and letters, developed during elementary school in Buenos Aires, preserved memories of my impressions visiting and working in Kabul a decade ago. 

I was new to the country, but an old hand in what we used to call “development work in the Rule of Law”.  What follow are my personal impressions, as written then, updated with a couple of edits. All the work mentioned here can be found in the myriad of inspection reports, evaluation reports and other documents that the US Government makes available to the public.   

February 17, 2012:

It was a gloriously sunny day, clear blue skies, with not a hint of cloud or haze.  So much so that I could see, for the first time, the little houses built on the denuded slopes of the Hindu Kush.  

I had no idea that Hindu Kush actually means Hindu Slaughter.  I need to do more research about this.

So, two days ago I was up by 6:30am and by 7:45am we were all in 3 vehicles going from Camp X, where I live, to Compound Y, where we work (some of us live and work in the same sites, which can become quite onerous.  Can you imagine having breakfast, lunch and dinner with the same people you work with day in and day out?  For a year or two or more?).

Compound  Y is situated in the most exclusive neighborhood of Kabul.  It consists of villas walled in.  It is no different than all the other villas around (some held by Embassies, others by international organizations, and others by the ministers and sundry government officials).   The movie The Kite Runner apparently was filmed in this neighborhood called Wazir Akbar Khan.  Wazir Akbar Khan was the leader who fought during the famous First Anglo-Afghan War that ended in a monumental defeat of the British army in Gandamak. At one point the highest governmental award that the Afghan Government could bestow was an eponymous medal.

What is noticeable, though, is that -apparently- all the streets are unpaved, (I cannot tell right now because of the snow), have barriers across them that are always up, and can compete with the rest of the roads in terms of the deep craters that destroy cars.  Rumor has it that the residents don’t want these holes repaired because it protects them from nefarious sorts:  these craters don’t allow for a quick getaway.

I took the opportunity to go to the roof of my building to take photos of the city and the surrounding mountains, because I was told that it is very, very rare to get such a clear glimpse of the mountains that encircle the city.

I met a young lady, from abroad, with a Masters in Business Administration, who is a “procurement advisor” at a major Ministry and is helping them set up a system for tracking, budgeting for and storing, inventory.  She has been in Kabul for 3 years and loves the Afghans and her job.   

One of the aims of my program is to train Afghan judges, prosecutors, lawyers and criminal investigators to clinically apply the law.  Among the several courses we offer, one lasts 8 weeks, and another 4 weeks.  Since 2007 there have been more than 14 thousand individuals trained by us! 

Another aspect of the project is to have the Attorney General’s and the Ministry of Justice’s Offices identify promising Afghan lawyers who are then trained for 1 year before sending them to University of Washington’s Law School for a 1 year LLM program.  Why University of Washington?  Because they have, apparently, the best legal clinic that provides pro bono work for Native American tribes.  And this is the closest one can get to understanding the tension between the formal justice sector (courts and the power of the state) and the informal justice sector that handles tribal issues and customary law.

There are so many things that are happening here that one never hears about!  I shared a cup of tea with an engineer with the US Corps of Engineers, who has been managing construction projects all around Afghanistan.  Example:  building generators in remote villages (that have no roads) and that, through the use of little streams, generate the first electricity these people have ever had!  They have also built small schools in these small villages, so that, again, for the first time, children have a place to go and sit down to attend classes taught by Afghans who have been trained by the international community.

I share the pics of the mountains that form the Kabul bowl, and you can get a sense for the architecture of the place.  We cannot drink the water, so bottles are stored, en masse, everywhere.  

And we have a little kitty that sits by the front door of the building. 

We are, of course, in a state of alert, and, for good reason, the security task force here takes it very seriously. 

I leave you with a comment a wise advisor made to me:  

In Afghanistan, 2012 is the Persian year 1390, which, if one compares it to our Western world’s 1390, not much has changed:  there are still feudal lords or barons (the Afghan warlords) fighting each other with the vast majority of the people being illiterate serfs.