I am living in France since late August after 875 fabulous days of living in Spain.
I came here to represent the Office of the President at The American College of the Mediterranean and I am glad I did.
Some days ago, I began reading the notebooks in which I wrote and drew during the Barcelona days. It’s wonderful to be inspired by that Marianne who dared to return to Spain without knowing how it would all work out.
Aix is inspiring me, too.
I popped in to say HI – (my new abbreviation for Human Intelligence).
Since I began working at ACM-IAU aka The American College of the Mediterranean-Institute d’Universités Americains, life has been filled with newness and learning. Less posting, too.
I love to put together images to share with you, and that takes time, and today I will post with less images than I would like, because I want to post something.
Still writing.
Still heartened to see Lucy, go see. and I am home. moving in the world, being read, talked about. Still dreaming about translations and films.
Repeating the phrase Je veux encore jouer daily.
Sketching, snapshotting, looking at it all.
Also working on the delicious project of tasting and ranking French desserts.
Doors, stone heads, shafts and splashes of light. Virgin vines (les vignes vierges have a different translation, but I like this one). I enjoy these things and so much more in Aix.
It’s a curlicue place. Water running everywhere under the surface, making man-made structures lopsided, floors curvy. Immense plane trees, pines, cypress, walnuts, chestnuts. Ochre stone, a city chock-full of centuries of stories. Heads were chopped off here in a beautiful plaza in front of a church and stone heads adorn intricately carved wooden majestic doors. Places fit for royalty, archbishops.
Strange note to end on but there it is, thought about constantly as I walk through the city-center’s labrynth of wonder.
Here’s a slide show for you, quickly clicked together. A smattering. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for your attention. Love, Marianne
This slideshow is a fraction of the snapshots from a fraction of my journeys during 2020 – 2023. The first shot is of my feet up in the garden of a Silver Lake sanctuary in Los Angeles while I was musing on where to go next, in between–amid other ordinarily extraordinary things–getting two books out into the world. One could say I was in a foxy den there, licking wounds in a beautiful spot. I was also writing, editing, teaching online, and occasionally acting. Most of my adventures were driving explorations through grief–of losses and disasters, some willed, most not. They also were celebrations of freedom, and often after a completed draft. While writing about these journeys recently, I realized though I was alone in the car, there were many other folks in there with me, perhaps listening to the conversations I was having with them and myself about love and home.
And now, I enter a new era of my life. This week I joined the Barcelona team of the American College of the Mediterranean as a full-time Faculty Advisor. After years of working on my own from wherever I was, and searching for a place I would love to land and work with others, it is happening, and I am really happy about that. I am also deeply grateful for the pleasures and gifts of the solitude, wandering, and wondering of the last eight years. What a wonderful time I had exploring the country I was born in, then making my way back here, to this Barcelona home, to this city and sea I love.
I have spent much more time than I planned on selecting images and have to stop and go out for a walk up on the mountain overlooking the city before the light goes. I would love to show you the beauty I saw throughout California (there are only a couple of shots in this video of the splendid Sonoma Coast). And there are so many Midwestern travels I’d like to share, including the Upper Mississippi Valley I love so and wrote about in I am home. All these journeys could each be a book and movie on their own. So could other amazing travels during those American years–alone, and with my son–across the US, within Mexico, and finally back in Europe. It’s been a traveling life.
But this little picture show is already eight-and-a-half-minutes long. A good accompaniment to coffee in the morning. I selected the shots with the intention of putting you in the driver’s seat.
Traveling far and long alone, I saw the diversity of the United States and witnessed the behavior of some of its inhabitants. There is outrageous wealth and gutwrenching misery. Opulence and abandon. Cruelty and kindness. Violence and generosity. There are also folks living simple and beautiful lives.
Ah, the open roads! The vast landscapes. The freedom. The beauty. I highly recommend that everyone solo travel for a while.
When I see myself in some of these shots it makes me feel happy. I loved hanging out with Marianne.
Life is a precious opportunity. I am looking forward to sharing my love for it with curious students from across the United States who come to Barcelona to do their own exploring.
Thanks for your time. I hope you find this imperfect offering inspiring.
When I started my meander on this special day, I was unaware that Iowa would appear near the end of it. Roses on a balcony moved me first. As I mentioned before, Sant Jordi is a romantic Catalan holiday that celebrates love and Catalan literature. It is a combination of remembrances from different periods of history–for one part, it commemorates Sant Jordi slaying a dragon and offering his beloved a symbolic red rose from the bleeding belly of the beast, and for the other part, it celebrates a 19th century Renaissance of Catalan identity and culture. It’s marvelous to live in a city where people gift each other books every year on a day associated with romance and culture (almost two million books are expected to be sold), selecting them and also rose arrangements from vendors while strolling through the city’s wonder-filled streets, blocked for pedestrian traffic only. The symbolism of the day started, for me, in a private school up on the hill where I was being interviewed for a position to teach about books, writing, reading and speaking. I was then invited to see a special poetic performance and was witness to that wonder along with the prize-awarding to students in Sant Jordi writing competitions. I walked down the hill under ever-changing April skies, the scent of orange blossom filling the air, then made myself some lunch at home, with the plan to wander through the streets after. A friend from a village nearby called to say she was coming to town to see it all, too, and we met in the center of the city and had coffee at the café in the Hotel Pulitzer. While there I received a message offering me the teaching position. When my friend and I separated I headed for Paseo de Gracia because I wanted to see the Casa Battló decked out in roses for the day. Everywhere I looked there were smiling people, books, and roses. A helicopter whirred overhead and I imagined the view and wanted to be up there, too. As I was wondering if Laia Fabregas would be at the ONA bookstore (one of more than three-hundred bookstores in Barcelona) stall, I looked and there she was, signing books. So I stopped to buy her new award-winning book, El silenci dels astronauts, confident I would be able to understand the Catalan and when I did not, I would increase my vocabulary. Reading stories in other languages is an especially sweet way to learn them. I carried on strolling gently up the hill of Barcelona’s most luxurious boulevard, lined with modernist architectural masterpieces, cafés, restaurants, and high-end shops, marveling again and again at the quantity of readers and the grace of a culture that celebrates reading. I stopped to admire the Casa Battló with thousands of others. Then kept heading toward another favorite place, the magnificent Casa Fuster, and its Café Vienés, pausing along the way to look at books and roses. There was a Book of Mormon, in English, propped up outside in the window of the café. I called a sister in Iowa to mention this oddity and there was no answer. Then, I was drawn to the book stand ofMales Herbes, a publisher who has published some of my favorite US and French authors in translation. I noted all the striking green covers of the books, some of Kurt Vonnegut’s among them, and commented on that to a friendly woman standing behind them. Then I saw one with the title AIOUA–I mouthed the vowels in Catalan–it sounds like IOWA. I stared at it for a while then turned it over and saw that it is about a woman who travels to and throughout Iowa in search of peace. I read the author’s name. Is Roser here now? I asked. That’s me, the woman I had already spoken to said in Spanish. I’m from Iowa, I answered in Spanish. Her eyebrows rapidly scaled her forehead as she said, Are you serious? She told me about driving around the state, her desire to return, and before long we were talking about the International Writing Program in Iowa City and other beloved places. Roser pointed to the photo of Strawberry Point on the cover, something I had overlooked when I fixated on the vowels, and I mentioned my parents talked to me about going there, and one of my brothers liked it. I kept to myself that these three people were now dead and I grieved them deeply. We spoke of getting together for drinks and a meal soon and as she signed my copy, she said we have to take a picture, and she kept marveling that on Sant Jordi in Barcelona, promoting her book AIOUA, she had met a real live Iowan who chose to live in Barcelona. I think we are less rare than people imagine yet it is true that I am the only Iowan I know here. I have made some marvelous Iowa-Barcelona connections in my life, other great stories to tell, and this was wonderful to add to the list. I can stop here, this is a perfect ending, I said after she wished me a wonderful rest of the festival of Sant Jordi. And then I wandered more, uplifted and connected. The Barcelona Film Festival was also happening so I saw a wonderful comedy. All afternoon I had been craving one of the many pastries I had seen, and after the movie noticed there was one golden yellow rose left at a nearby bakery. As I waited to be served, I saw a new friend passing by with a smile on her face and went out to call to her, Paz! I sang out (Paz translates as Peace. She is from Barcelona and lived in the US for about as long as I lived in Spain). She was too far down Calle Asturias, so I went back inside and called her. I’m on my way to meet my kids at the English bookshop then go somewhere to eat, she said. I felt a pang of envy. While feasting, a featured photo came up on my phone–there was my son, dressed as Sant Jordi for a school play on this day in 2006. My sister called from Iowa as I was walking home and I told her all about the perfect day. I just want to go home and go to bed now, I said. I imagine, she said. Just to make sure it stays perfect, right?
Stop in at River Lights and do all your Christmas shopping this year. This is one of my favorite bookstores in the world. It’s about more than books, just like books are. Find great gift ideas in every corner of the store and enjoy the warm and welcome atmosphere. I am thrilled that I am home. is on the shelves in this place where I feel very much at home. The setting for I am home., this non-fiction tale, is Dubuque, Key West, and many other places in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, and across the United States of America. You can also travel to Iceland, France, and Spain within. It’s a story that shows it is possible to go home again, and to leave home again, and to carry it with you always, and have a great time doing it despite all the challenges. You will laugh and you will cry. And maybe even think about things in a different way. It is a gift of light and love, this book, and thus fits with the season.
After you leave the bookstore with all your Christmas shopping in the bag, stop and enjoy other great places nearby like L. May Eatery, Salsa’s Mexican Restaurant , and Jitterz, where I wrote a lot, and had great conversations. I miss all that. I’ll be back.
Is there someone on your Christmas list who likes to read? Who enjoys true stories? Who loves home, and loves to travel, and wonders about how others live in the world and what freedom costs? Who loves Iowa? Who especially loves the Upper Mississippi Valley of Iowa? And loves and wonders about Spain and Iceland and France? Who loves driving? Who loves rivers, valleys, and being in the great outdoors? Who loves life, family, friends? Who loves to walk, dance, and swim? Who sees beauty everywhere? Who appreciates absurd humor? And sees the humor in even the difficult moments? They will probably also love this book.
It has been called a book about the wideness of love, a book about what it means to be a free spirit in this world, and a book about what it means to be home. It has been called a memoir hiding inside other genres. It has been called amazing, brilliant, heartbreaking, enthralling, relevant, resonant, brave, inspiring, moving, insightful, incisive, beautifully written, and soothing.
If you’ve read and enjoyed it, please spread the word. If you haven’t read it yet, please give it a chance. It would be wonderful if you asked your library to order it.
If I could afford it, I would hand out copies everywhere.
Here, at this desk, looking at this view, I smile thinking about how writing and reading connect me to other souls who are also interested in being as alive as we can be. I imagine these people believe that life is a chance to exalt and contribute.
“They are your contribution to humanity,” a friend said recently when I wondered about the value of my books and the time spent writing them.
Happy Thanksgiving! I am in Spain, craving warm fixings with loved ones, and giving thanks for family, friendship, resilience, and growth.
This is plant that adorns the cover of I am home. It was given to my mother in 1952 at the birth of her firstborn, a son, Tommy. I only knew him through stories and photos because he died, at 8, before I was born. In the family we called it Tommy’s Plant, and sometimes I called it the Tommy Mommy Plant, and recently I have been calling it Millie’s Beanstalk. I guess I could call it Marianne’s Beanstalk because I would likely have been the child to trade the cow for the magic beans. I love that Mom is in it, the whole family is in it.
The image of the plant in the middle is recent, here in Barcelona at home. The drawing on the right is how it started in 2005 in Sitges, when I brought a cutting of it from Mom’s plant back to Sitges. That’s also a recent shot, of course, with the book in the plant’s arms. That globe on the cover is the World Book one we had at home and I often dreamed about traveling all over it.
The long story short is that I gave the plant to a friend when I went back to live in Iowa in 2012. Before I did, I took a cutting from that plant, carried it with me, and re-rooted it in Dubuque. It lived with me there, and in Chicago, Iowa City, and Los Angeles. I added some roots of another immense dieffenbachia I saw thriving in the offices of the memory care center where Mom died..
The plant never quite thrived and multiplied in the USA in the same vigorous manner it did in Sitges, but it stayed alive and shone. In 2021-2022, I spent six months back in Europe and left it outside in the garden where I lived in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, where I have seen many dieffenbachia thrive. Looking through the photos now, I notice that it started to decline most seriously when my son moved to France from LA. He also loved that plant. I was sad to learn of its death in the spring when I returned, and told myself that 70 years was a good life, and everything must die, I guess.
That summer, I traveled to Iowa and when I walked into a brother’s house in Dubuque, his wife said, “Marianne, do you remember when you moved to LA and you left us a cutting of your mom’s plant? Look at it now,” she pointed. “But something weird is going on with the leaves.”
“It lives!” I said, raising my arms in the air and rushing toward it. The sister next to me grabbed my hand to stop me from separating the leaves that had attached to each other at the tips–both their own and that of others nearby–and weren’t unfurling because they were blocked by that attachment.
“Wait, let me count them before you do that,” my sister said, and she counted seven. “I knew it. That’s the number of Mom’s children.”
“Well, let me free them,” I said, chuckling, and showing my sister-in-law how to gently detach them both from themselves and others nearby so they could unfurl on their own. “It happens sometimes, they get too close or turn in too much as they grow and you just have to give them enough room so they don’t.”
what they looked like after separation, ready to unfurl on their ownIt would have worked better if I had cut more from the base.
I took a cutting of that plant back to Los Angeles with me. It was a long, adventurous drive, and the Tommy Mommy plant cutting made it but didn’t last long once there. It was a month or so later, as I was pondering a return to Barcelona to live and walking around Silver Lake one afternoon, when a friend I met in Sitges, who now lives in Northern California called. “Marianne, I have to tell you something. Do you remember that plant of your mom’s you left with me when you went back to Iowa?” I couldn’t speak, just hmmed. “Well, you should see it now,” she said. “It’s huge. The woman renting my house just sent me a picture.”
I had forgotten I gave it to her. And I took it as a sign. And here I am in Barcelona, and here is the plant. We’re together again. It’s difficult to take my eyes off her.
I’d like to tell you more about Tommy and plan to make a book about him and his short life. I wrote some about him in I am home. He was born with a lot of physical obstacles. Here are some photos of a much larger selection, kept safe in a sturdy gray box with TOMMY, in Dad’s handwriting, on top.
“Be glad you can see, sit, stand, walk, and talk, just be glad you have a body that works like yours does,” Mom used to say when I complained about my unfortunate life sometimes.
Sweet news via Chez Soi Press. I love knowing I am home. will be on the shelf in the Iowa City Public Library, one of the many places where I worked on it.
I moved to Iowa City from Chicago with a first draft completed (started in Dubuque and written throughout the Midwest, Iceland, France, and Spain then completed in Chicago on a fine day in May, hours before I did a reading and presentation of Lucy, go see. at the wonderful 3rd Coast Café).
When I left Iowa City nine months later to move to Los Angeles, the fifth, or was it the sixth, or maybe the seventh? draft went with me. Anyway, there were more drafts to come until I finished it there on the Pacific with the Angels. And here I am with the fox in Barcelona. We made it this far home.
Marianne Maili 