The tip of the island.

Ft Myers, January 12.

Dead fish and the new year.

Ft Myers, January 12, 2010.

It's been cold down here, unusually cold for an unusually long time.
Today we got brave and went to the beach - and found it strewn with dead fish. A passer-by informed us they were killed by the cold.
The new year slid in with no big news; the Peruvian family came and went, and so did Fridman, and so it's us four again. We got food poisoning, discovered a doctor of Chinese medicine who is from Britain and speaks French (and keeps us healthy) and keep unfurling our days following to the smaller ones among us.

The house next door.

December 18, Ft Myers.

Games.

December 17, Ft Myers.

One tree.

December 17, Ft Myers.

The estate is full of trees and plants from around the world, impeccably tendered.
There was a fig tree, from India, all lighted up like a star.

Another world.

December 17, Ft Myers.

Forgot a visit to the Edison Ford Estate, bordering the Caloosahatchee river, over the avenue from our house and another world.

Florida landscape.

December 16, Cape Coral, Florida.

Cookies.

December 16, Ft Myers.

Home.

December 16, Ft Myers, Florida (not counting the miles anymore.)

More than a week in Florida, back into the summer we never had, Fridman took off the day after we arrived to go finish a job at Kelly Miller, my mother is here again, they crossed paths at the airport, the boys are high intensity, and the house is starting to slowly feel like a home, the woman at the laundromat greets me like a regular, you look nice today with the makeup, she did too, she'd let her hair down, it has taken the feel of home, we went to visit the arts elementary school a few blocks away, the Spanish teacher is from Peru, it may be home one day, faster than I know.

Winter landscape.

November 27, Brooksville, Kentucky.

Table by the window.

November 27, Covington.

Kentucky days.

November 27, Covington, Kentucky (410 miles.)

We're at Matt's, it's getting cold, I get up before everybody to be alone with a book, or two, it's getting colder, driving around Kentucky then, steep little hills and a home on each of them like a nipple, bare trees, the navigation system says take the ferry but we go the opposite way along the Ohio river, gentler countryside, cool towns, we hurry home to Matt and fixing the world over a beer (for the guys.)

Poems, free.

November 25, Columbia, Missouri (340 miles.)

A few hours of being kids-free, back in Columbia, waking early to slip out of the house when they sleep, walking the streets of my graduate school days, reading E.E. Cummings at the Ragtag Café, chance-meeting Sally's friend April there, and her partner, Sam, reminds me of a lost love, or is it an actor who looked like my long-lost love, it's cold and the coffee is strong and warms me, the poems are essential, but I'm just reading, enjoying, being.
In the house now, and I hear steps upstairs, in a second they'll rush down.
We're on our way to Florida by way of my past and maybe our future.
Next stop Kentucky.

Extra.

November 16, Hugo.

We celebrated again at night with Marcos, Castro and the third cake.
More candles.
Still four (but not for long already.)

The blue guitar.

November 15, Hugo.

Dylan turns four.

November 15, Hugo.

Yesterday was Dylan's birthday and we threw him a circus party with all the folks who are wintering here. The Rosales were here, and Dee Dee and Sam, Tavana and her family, and the Cainans, and of course our circus trailer park neighbors, the Moss family and Lucky Eddie and Vickie. Sheyla also came up from Dallas and cooked a Peruvian dish, the same Fridman had cooked the day Dylan was born, arroz con pollo. There were three cakes and plenty of presents, and Oscar had let us set up the bouncy bounce in front of the trailer too.
Dylan turned four, a little boy.

Wild time.

November 12, Hugo.

The kids and I spent a few days in Columbia, where I used to live, visiting my friends Greg and Sally. Dylan and Nicolas did a lot of singing and bouncing on beds, and Dylan a lot of painting, encouraged by wonderful wildly gentle creative Sally. The house is full of books, and elusive cats.
I miss Columbia but mostly Sally's joy and Greg's bear hugs.

Elephant.

November 2, Hugo.

Snake.

November 2, Hugo.

Circus cemetery.

November 2, Hugo.

Yesterday John Moss and his family took Courtney, the kids and I to see the Hugo cemetery, where there is a section, marked "circus" on a small white and red cemetery sign, devoted to circus people.
From circus owners to performers and down to animal handlers, the genealogy of Hugo the self-proclaimed "circus city" is there, and the tomb markers are often surprising.