Como Agua Para Chocolate

I fell in love with Laura Esquivel's novel Like Water for Chocolate while reading it in a college Spanish lit class.  Happily, the sumptuous adaptation is streaming on Netflix these days.   

The story is filled with dizzying romantic and familial intrigue.  Reading it in Spanish some years ago was an extended process.  So every evening as I met my usual dining partner in the cafeteria, I would ply her with the latest plot twists.  Tita and Pedro are madly in love, but she's forbidden to ever marry!  Pedro is marrying her sister, Rosaura in order to remain close to Tita!  And that was just the first chapter.

The true heart of the story though is Tita's liberation (personal, sexual ... even political since the story is set against the Mexican revolution).  She is bound by an oppressive family tradition and a mother will continue to plague her from beyond the grave.  However, her vitality cannot be repressed and seeps out into her cooking (as she prepares all of the meals on her family ranch).   This in turn makes extraordinary things happen to everyone who consumes those meals.

Tito and Pedro have a clandestine love for the ages, but truth be told I don't care much for Pedro.  He's the jealous, moody type even if he is an impressive romantic.  

     

I rooted for Tita's unflinchingly doting suitor, Dr. John.  The bow tie and test tubes belie another deeply romantic, more responsible spirit. 

And then there's Tita's other sister, Gertrudis.  She's a saucy ginger with the boss attitude to match.  After eating one of Tita's recipes, she runs away to join the revolution while er, making whoopee atop a galloping horse.  Naturally, her judgement never disappoints.  

Gloria

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to see Gloria Steinem speak at the 92nd Street Y as part of the Makers project.  She was every bit as brilliant and witty as I had built her up to be.  She also happened to be strikingly youthful and exuded a relaxed, palpable joy.  At one point an audience member asked her (in more words) how she has avoided being worn down by a lifetime of going head to head with misogyny.  She replied (again, in more words) that the women's movement is a bottom-up, communal movement and a joy that assures you that you're not crazy, the system is.

This weekend, I began to read Gloria Steinem's latest book, her first in two decades, My Life on the Road.  At age 81, she has spent most of her life traveling: as the daughter of a roving salesman, as a bright-eyed twenty-something in India, as a journalist and of course most famously as a self-described itinerant feminist organizer.  So, she has gathered her notes and journals and composed a beautiful meditation on the traveling life and global communities.

I'm only halfway through, but one of the most noteworthy takeaways (all the more so in our era of digitized communities) is the importance of shared physical spaces.  Although Gloria began her career as a writer and had a fear of public speaking, she began to tour the lecture circuit after her interest in the women's movement was stifled by editors.  She sings the praises of campuses and particularly bookshops - where anyone can join in the exchange of ideas.  

The New York Times review noted that Gloria largely ignored the social debates happening online.  Instead, she offers a gentle reminder of the alchemy that can happen when ideas, even wildly different world views, meet face to face.    
        

An Introduction

picture found via déjà vu

Hello!  My name is Jamie and I'm creating this blog with my dear friend, Susie.  We met when we lived next door to one another in an all-girl dorm at our Virginia college.  The hallway we lived on (in a building just off the main campus, overlooking a cobblestone street) was magnificent.  Every night, us gals in the middle of the hallway would gather just outside of our doors until some poor soul down the hall would inevitably begin to slam their door in protest.  It was terrific bonding (sorry poor souls!)

Susie and I soon discovered that we shared (among other things) a hometown just outside of DC, relentlessly optimistic inclinations, an abiding love for all things ridiculous and a compulsive need to reference 30 Rock.  Flash forward some years and we now live in cities approximately two hundred miles apart.  Susie happens to be a wonderfully introspective person, so increasingly we've shared personal and creative challenges across that divide. 

Thus, this blog was born.  To quote Willy Wonka in that terrifying boat scene, "There's no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going."  We're here to share the things that excite us, whatever those things may be.