For Ivy

My teacher asked my favorite color. I said 'rainbow.' - Anonymous

In an ordinary world, you appeared like a double rainbow.

Through the years, you've come in colors everywhere, adding brightness to my gray skies.

Top left: Hot Springs, Arkansas: May 2022 | Top right: With Pink Flamingoes. Pittsburg Zoo: July 2022  Bottom: Easter, 2022

That's the reason my heart leaps up

when I behold you.

Far left: "Who dis?" | Left: "Who dat?"Alice on 70's sitcom "The Brady Bunch." Halloween, 2021

A promise of sunshine after rain. 

Of calm after storms. 

Whee! Ziplining in Hawaii. July 2022

Of joy after sadness.

Of peace after pain. 

Right: Not Covid-safe at a wedding. "I blame the Chardonnay." Cincinnati: September 28, 2021

Rightmost: Showing off dance moves

Of love after loss.

Meeka celebrates a birthday. Columbus: September 26, 2020

Welcome Home! June 21, 2017

During those times when I'm afraid that I’d forgotten all the colors of the rainbow, I remind myself that I know just where I can find them again.

I quote these lines from Lord Byron in my wish for you, on this, your birthday: 

Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. 

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, 

and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray. 

***

Read on for a bonus tribute, recently found from a fading dot-matrix printout.

Tribute to Iris Velasco

on her induction to the National Merit Society

May 1, 1991

 Northwest Community Christian School

You are a special baby and will always be Guging, Reesie-Owie, Gugsie, and Sampaguita.

You have always been independent from the time you were just a little grape, deciding when you wanted to get out into the world and not giving us much of an advanced notice. Remember my story of how I wasn't really sure whether my delivery time had come?

Even when you were growing up, you pretty much knew what to wear or change into (which happened several times because you had wet your skirt or underwear). At 7-11 or was that at Circle K, once more, you demonstrated that your time was yours alone to decide - that was when you made that puddle in the store.

You have always been unique in your own way - with the word peach as your first word, rather than the traditional Mama or Papa of common babes. In your crib, you could only take a nap when you were set in the seater - what a sight you were -comparable only to the latest spectacle of you in our Campo Bello pool, as you had floated that one afternoon, with your multi-colored sunglasses, variegated patterned and colored swimsuit, and colored toenails sticking out.

The better parts of you include your concern for the environment, the poor, the hungry, and the needy. That is a good trait which most people are lacking in. From you, we are also learning in that aspect.

The best part that, at least I am in awe of, is your gift of music. As you religiously touch those piano keys, I could see your Pa's hunched position, as he produces the same wonderful music, which is perhaps his best legacy. When you perform, even if I dread to watch and would close my eyes, I would peek at times and literally gape in amazement at the agility of your little fingers. See, you did get something from practicing your cut, cut, cut activities with your scissors.

It goes without saying that comparable to your musical talent is your mind: which is not only intelligent but also logical and practical. It is your efficiency in thinking out all aspects of a task which is one of your best virtues.

And yet, even if you were not all of the above, I will still be writing this - perhaps saying something else, but it will still be written in love, for whatever you are.

Congratulations, little Iris! Keep up and count on us to be there to stand behind you.

If there is a reminder which we would like to leave with you, Iris, it is that what you have is but a gift. Qualities worth honoring, when coupled with humility and gratitude to the One source of all beauty, goodness, and truth, will work out always for the best.

Your sister, your Pa and I bless and honor you on this day. We are proud of you and love you, Iris!

###

Gion

Iconic Edifices: Kyoto, Japan

Finally, finally, FINALLY...

The place that I dreamed about and crossed my fingers for in the past 15 years or so (since reading and watching Memoirs of a Geisha) has become a reality.

With numerous other tourists, I'm in Gion, Kyoto's most famous geisha district, hoping to tick off at the same time a must-see subsidiary item. 

To catch a glimpse of a geiko or maiko.

What?! Who?! Were you expecting me to say, geisha?

Confused? 

I was, too, at first. 

Here's what I've learned.

Geisha, as it is known in Tokyo, is called a geiko in Kyoto. A maiko is a younger woman or even a child who is training in the arts of the geisha and geiko.

Now that terms have been cleared, let's look around this iconic place, shall we?

Umm... See that traditional wooden machiya townhouse? That is what I think my front entry could look right now.

Wooden lattices on the first floor facade. Unpainted maybe, just like those. Or painted in red ochre. 

With a second story window that is not made of wood, but of earthwork. An insect cage window, our tour guide explains. I wonder why?

What do you think about that entrance door? Too narrow, do you agree?

It looks so closed-in and mysterious. I bet I could easily do a reno on that and have it open into a big tatami room.

And shōji walls. Yes, please.

But enough daydreaming...

For shortly, an excited murmur runs through the crowd. Within seconds, it becomes the wild buzz like that of a high school auditorium before the teachers take charge.

Everyone is talking all at once. 

I have been patiently waiting for this moment.

A maiko... 

Ahh... Quaint. Exquisite.

She is shuffling in a pair of cumbersome zori flip-flop sandals. 

Her kimono, long, colorful, and intricately adorned with embroidery, has extra long sleeves that touch the ground when she drops her arms. Her collar is red, and her obi is long and wide.

Our tourist guides explains, She must be on her way from an engagement at an 'ochaya' tea house.

I'm fascinated, staring at her ultra-white face. Way too light, rendering her with a ghostly appearance. Her okiya 'mother' obviously has not heard of, or doesn't really care about, matching her makeup to her skin tone. 

I'll concede, though, that it goes well with the hair. No messy bun for this lady. Hers is a low, flattened chignon that is elaborately decorated with combs and hairpins. 

FYI: Have you heard that in order to keep this hairstyle in as perfect a condition as possible, a maiko is unable to use pillows and has to sleep with her neck in a small wooden support?

マジで 

(A Japanese interjection for, Seriously)

In order to become accustomed to this practice, the maiko’s mentor often places rice around the base of the support. If in the morning, rice grains are found in her hair, the maiko knows she has moved her head too much while asleep.

What more can I say? Such is an apprentice's life in Gion.

She flits away like a butterfly. I try to listen to her footsteps, but she has left without a whisper of a sound.

In Gion, there is only the exhalation of the wind and the seasonal sound of a wind-bell in the distance.

Great Pyramid of Giza

Iconic Edifices: Cairo, Egypt

Here are some fun facts about Egypt.  

Egyptian men and women wore makeup. They were one of the first to create the perfect winged cat eyeliner.

They invented writing, using ink on paper called papyrus.

And the country's most noteworthy feature?

The Great Pyramid of Giza.

Oldest of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one that remains mostly intact. 

Tomb of fourth dynasty Pharaoh Khufu. 

Largest Egyptian pyramid.

Standing face-to-face before it during one of our journeys-of-a lifetime, I'd conceded rather quickly that the historians weren't kidding. 

This edifice is staggering.

Actually much bigger in real life and with near perfect proportions.

The theory was that the pyramid was based on the application of a gradient of 5.5 sekeds.

This measure means that for a pyramid height of 1 cubit which is 7 palms, its base would be 5.5 palms.

The ratio of height to base is 7 divided by 5.5, which is 1.2727.

Did you understand all that?

Me neither. 

But I could see a lesson in this. 

Pay attention in Trigonometry. Or anything that involves sines or cosines or long division or the Pythagorean Theorem. Because when you want to create a four-sided figure each of which needs to be evenly split from base to tip by very subtle concave indentations, your knowledge will come in handy.

Now, I need your opinion. 

Have you ever wondered how it was assembled? 

The pyramid was constructed out of stone blocks, each weighing at least two tons. Do you think several men together maneuvered each block over a ramp that encircled the structure as it rose? 

Did they move each stone up long ramps that got higher and longer as the pyramid got taller?

Or was it built by... (gasp)... ALIENS?!

And why the sloping sides?

For the dead pharaoh to climb to the sky and live forever?

Or are they representations of the rays of the sun?

Perhaps, Carnac the Magnificent would know. (Aside: Carnac, a recurring comedic role played by Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, was a mystic from the East who could divine unknown answers to unseen questions.)

Actually, when I think about it, how it came to be doesn't really matter. To me, it remains to be the supermodel of all pyramidal structures.

Every detail.

Every furrow.

Every groove.

كويس اوي. Kwaiz awwi.

(Awesome, in Egyptian Arabic.)

St. Basil's Cathedral

Iconic Edifices: Moscow, Russia

Do you have a bucket list of places you like to visit?

I do, and I'm checking it twice. 

Russia had been on the top. 

Ever since I read about Yuri Zhivago, a man torn between his love for two women while caught in the tumultuous course of twentieth century Russian history.

More so, when I saw the James Bond movie From Russia With Love where the main character battles a secret crime organization known as SPECTRE. 

But it got checked off my list that summer when we tzar-trekked on Russia, largest country in the world. 

A dream-come-true.

The sights were awesome but for me, more than the Kremlin or Lenin's tomb, nothing tops the utter magnificence of this Russian icon that was at the southern end of Red Square in Moscow.

St. Basil's Cathedral.

What a crazy confusion of colors, patterns and shapes.

Eight onion-shaped domes.

Like an assortment of handmade Hammonds Christmas Classic hard candies. Pillows, straws, art candies, and mini ribbons. 

A masterpiece of quintessential beauty.

I was starry-eyed. 

Legend has it that Ivan the Terrible had the architects blinded so that they could never build anything comparable to this landmark church.

выражение горя!

(An expression of woe, transliterated Vyrazheniye gorya!)

I didn't know what else to say. My mind wasn't making sense, my thoughts mixing up words and language. Like Yuri, I was devastated. Like Bond, I would have battled Ivan's dreadful phantasm.

Hands thrust deeply into my coat pockets, I strode along a path on the square.

The air went from cool to chilly as the sunlight vanished.

Eiffel Tower

Iconic Edifices: Paris, France

When did Winnie the Pooh become a brilliant philosopher? Every time I look for quotes, there’s one from him that gives me a new perspective and a reason to reevaluate my life.

Seriously.

Like this one.

How do you spell love? asked Piglet.

You don't spell it, you feel it, said Pooh.

Climbing up exactly 674 steps to the second floor of the Eiffel Tower that day, I wondered. Could I?

Constructed as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair, it is now one of the most recognizable structures in the world. Reputedly a symbol of love.

In total, there are 1,665 steps from the esplanade to the top, but the stairway from there is not open to the public. Thank goodness, a stairway+ lift ticket took us the rest of the way.

So from 984 feet up (or 1,063 feet if you include the broadcast antennas), I peered through the wrought iron lattice of the tower and surveyed the scene.

I wanted to feel the love.

I began to imagine a scenario in which total strangers meet. The woman falls in love with the guy. And he falls in love right back. And they walk off into the sunset together. 

Cue the fireworks.

That was how I pictured love.

That was how I thought it should be.  You know… sparkling stars in the sky and trails of petals everywhere and fireworks.

But along the way, you know what I’d discovered?

You know what they never really talk about in Hallmark movies?

It’s that sometimes, the happily-ever-after isn’t in the grand gestures and proclaiming your love from the top of a tower.

At times, it is in the smallest pleasantries.

Like a libation of cappucino with frothy cream. Or a crème brûlée. 

Surely, I will have been had at, Bone-ghore!

L'amour est dans l'air. Love is in the air.

I can feel it.

You go Winnie!