Issue #19 – Connections
ISSUE #19:
This week in MUSE:
Connections …. New, old, renewed. Lost, found, discovered. Reimagined, revised, recast.
CONTENTS:
• Searching, Searching, Searching,
• In the Spirit of Things
• 50+
• Destinos’ Children
• The Rewrite
NEWS AND NOTES:
Listen to “Both Sides Now” from Joni Mitchell’s 1969 album “Clouds”.
Joni Mitchell version.
Judy Collins version.
Read De Espaldas for more about the differences between Spanish and English.
Watch Destinos at the Annenberg Foundation website.
Find out more about Munchausen-Syndrome-by-Proxy.
Image Credits:
Cover art: Cumulus Nimbus, photo excerpted from Google images.
In the Spirit of Things: The Circle, Google image edited by B. Wujcik.
50+: 8th Grade Class Photo, unattributed.
50+: Photo montage, digital collage by B. Wujcik.
Destinos’ Children: Parque de Bombas, Ponce photo by B. Wujcik.
The Rewrite: Kids on a porch swing, photo by B. Wujcik.
Searching, Searching, Searching,
It happened again. Out of the blue, I heard from a friend who had been gone from my life for decades. Pam and I lived in the same neighborhood from the third grade through high school, and had been friends for most of that time. She and I attended the local Catholic church and requisite catechism classes, so we were stitched together more tightly than other, looser ties of childhood bind. The neighborhood passel of grade school kids we ran with grew into the girl gang of junior and senior high,

In the Spirit of Things
My dearest Pam,
I am writing back quickly so as to put your mind at ease, because I just know you will fret and worry about alienating me by sharing your faith. Because of course our re-connection is new, and so maybe a little less secure. But please be reassured, your spiritual life would never put distance between us.
You may think that because I am living in the Northeast among the Coastal Elites that we suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome,

50+

Destinos’ Children
Our two god-granddaughters are learning Spanish in school. Like mine, Printha’s formal course began in sixth grade, but Adeline started much earlier, in fourth. It was immediately apparent they will acquire the language individually, idiosyncratically. Some of this may be down to their respective ages at introduction to Spanish. I am not current on linguistic research with respect to language learning, but some capacity is lost as children get older: the ‘window’ may close for many/most at puberty.

The Rewrite
I feel I need to warn you, this is a sad story, with no good ending, really no ending at all. I am in limbo. Many months ago a friend of mine died. And I have been heartbroken since, about her death, of course, but also about my memories and perceptions and beliefs about our friendship. Katie and I had been out of touch for over thirty years until she found Bruce at his company’s website.