total lunar eclipse - morning june 16, 2011

 

taken from stellarium

because sometimes you just want fruit

The Healthiest Fruit with Antioxidant Fruit Benefits 


1. Apples, with the skin, provide pectin, 5 grams of fiber and a heaping dose of flavonoid antioxidants. Apple fiber helps lower cholesterol and keep you regular. And the powerful flavonoids reduce your risk of heart disease, stroke and cancer. A medium apple has about 80 calories. 
2. Apricots are a good source of vitamins A, C and E, potassium, iron and carotenoids. The lycopene found in apricots helps protect your eyes and prevent heart disease, LDL cholesterol oxidation and certain cancers – especially skin cancer. And the fiber in apricots helps relieve constipation. Plus 1 apricot has only 19 calories. 
3. Bananas are a great source of potassium (about 400 mg), which helps lower your risk of high blood pressure and stroke and plays a key role in muscle function. Bananas are delicious and sweet to eat, making them a good sugar substitute and natural energy source. The fiber in bananas helps restore normal bowel action. A medium size banana has around 108 calories.
4. Berries are super high in powerful antioxidants, including vitamin C. Numerous studies show berries offer great protection against heart disease stroke, cancer and many other diseases.  

• Blueberries top the antioxidant fruit benefits list. Besides other health benefits, blueberries help prevent high blood pressure, macular degeneration and brain damage leading to Alzheimer’s disease. 1 cup of blueberries has 81 calories and 4 grams of fiber.

• Blackberries – a single cup of blackberries has 74 calories and a whopping 10 grams of fiber.

• Raspberries – there are 60 calories in 1 cup of raspberries with 8 grams of fiber.

• Strawberries – 1 cup of sliced strawberries has 50 calories and 4 grams of fiber.

5. Cantaloupes are packed with Vitamin C, potassium and carotenoid antioxidants. Cantaloupe can help reduce inflammation, prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease, boost immunity and help protect your skin from sunburn. Half a melon has 97 calories and 2 grams of fiber.
6. Cherries are very high in iron and disease-fighting flavonoids. They also have potassium, magnesium, C and E, folate and heart-protective carotenoids. Cherries can significantly reduce inflammation, arthritic pain, bad cholesterol and cancer risk. 1 cup of cherries has 88 calories.
7. Citrus Fruits are best known for flavor, juiciness and high vitamin C content. But they’re also a good source of folate, fiber and other antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. Citrus fruit has been shown to help reduce cholesterol, blood pressure and the risk of some types of cancer.

• Pink or Red Grapefruit – half a grapefruit has just a scant 47 calories.

• Oranges provide an impressive 50 to 70 mg of vitamin C and a medium orange has only 68 calories.

• Lemons and Limes – 1 lime or small lemon has about 17 calories.

8. Kiwifruit, when compared ounce for ounce, has more than twice the vitamin C of an orange. It’s also an excellent source of magnesium, potassium and vitamins A and E. Kiwis have been shown to boost the immune system and reduce respiratory diseases. 1 medium kiwi has 47 calories and 3 grams of fiber.
9. Papayas are loaded with vitamin C, folate, carotenoids and natural digestive enzymes that help with protein digestion. 1 cup of cubed papaya has 55 calories.
10. Red Grapes contain iron, potassium, fiber and  an abundance of powerful disease-fighting antioxidants. Although red wine gets most of the publicity, dark colored grapes are the original source of the flavonoids, anthocyanins and resveratrol, which have been shown to help prevent heart disease and cancer. 1 cup of red or purple grapes has 60 calories.

mom I want some candy

dear mom

listen to your heart

 

Listen to your heart and not your ego. Your ego prompts you to boast of vain assertions to obtain the glory of this world. Turn away from vanity and seek Him in the recesses of your heart and soul
- Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillani [Fayuz E Yazdani]

paris

at night, at the base of the Eiffel Tower, the giant steel structure comes alive!  street artists and souvenir sellers mingle with crowds gazing skyward toward the surprisingly lacy-appearing structure.  yes, it’s touristy, but it is also quintessential Paris

subhanallah

tea party

 

alice in wonderland

take me here someday! :p 

forgotten

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel

-maya angelou- 

beluga whale

Have you seen it before?

This is one of mammal that i love so much! Beluga is a white whale that lived in Arctic and Sub-Arctic area. It is up to 5 m (16 ft) in length and an unmistakable all-white color with a distinctive protuberance on the head. The other funny thing about Beluga is, it can flip its neck 180 degree. 

In the spring, the beluga moves to its summer grounds: bays, estuaries and other shallow inlets. These summer sites are discontinuous. A mother usually returns to the same site year after year. As its summer homes clog with ice during autumn, the beluga moves away for winter. Most travel in the direction of the advancing icepack and stay close its edge for the winter months. Others stay under the icepack.

Belugas can be playful, they may spit at humans or other whales. It is not unusual for an aquarium handler to be drenched by one of his charges. Funny huh? :D

Belugas eat some of marine animals such as crab, squid, and fish. The other reason that i love this mammal is they are highly sociable, and they are look like always smiling.

Have some interest? May be you can find more in Mr. Wiki ;)

Crux and the Milky Way from Easter Island

Photographer: Wally Pacholka, Wally's Home Page 
Summary Author: Constance Walker; Wally Pacholka

The constellation Crux or Southern Cross, shown at extreme top center above, lies within the stream of stars that makes up the Milky Way (lower left to top center). For the Southern Hemisphere, this is one of two constellations new to the GLOBE at Night campaign. The sky above Easter Island, where the image was taken, is so dark there’s a wealth of stars visible to the naked eye. However, for at least half of the world's population that lives in cities, the brightest stars in a constellation may be the only ones they can see because of light polluted skies.

The GLOBE at Night campaign asks the public to be citizen scientists during its two-week campaign and to make very easy measurements of the night sky brightness. First, you stand outside for ten minutes to allow your eyes to becomeadapted to the dark, so that you can see the stars better. Next, you match the appearance of a constellation (Leo in the Northern Hemisphere and Crux or Leo in the Southern Hemisphere) with simple star maps of progressively fainter stars. Then you submit your measurements online; including the date, time and location of your observation. After all the campaign’s observations are submitted, the project’s organizers will release a map of light-pollution levels worldwide. These measurements are used for research later in comparison to wildlife, health, energy consumption and cost, among other things.

Starting this year, citizen scientists can also submit their measurements in real time if they have a smart phone or tablet. The web application for this can be found here. With smart phones and tablets, the location, date and time are put in automatically. As always, the campaign urges people to take more than one measurement. To help with that, the campaign is piloting a new program called "Adopt-A-Street". The aim is for people to adopt a different major or semi-major street and take measurements every mile or so for the length of the street (or for as long as they can). The resulting grid of measurements of the city will help scientists, governments, policy makers, and individuals to track and address light pollution issues.

Please consider joining the campaign from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. local time March 22 through April 4 in the Northern Hemisphere and March 24 through April 6 in the Southern Hemisphere. Your measurements will make a world of difference. Note that the Large Magellanic Cloud is at lower right. At bottom, in silhouette, are the mysterious Easter Island stone statues (Moai).

mercy on others

Oh Allah have mercy on us, and soften our hearts so that we are able to have mercy on others

Allah pasti berikan yang terbaik

ayo yudi tingkatin lagi kualitas ibadah kamu, ayo lebih lagi ngedeketin diri dengan yang di Atas :)
janji Allah itu pasti..
"laki-laki yang baik adalah untuk wanita yang baik
dan wanita yang baik adalah untuk laki-laik yang baik (pula ) "
an-nur:26

puisi Bapak BJ Habibie

I
Sebenarnya ini bukan tentang kematianmu, bukan itu.

Karena, aku tahu bahwa semua yang ada pasti menjadi tiada pada akhirnya, dan kematian adalah sesuatu yang pasti,
dan kali ini adalah giliranmu untuk pergi, aku sangat tahu itu.

Tapi yang membuatku tersentak sedemikian hebat, adalah kenyataan bahwa kematian benar-benar dapat memutuskan kebahagiaan dalam diri seseorang, sekejap saja, lalu rasanya mampu membuatku menjadi nelangsa setengah mati, hatiku seperti tak di tempatnya, dan tubuhku serasa kosong melompong, hilang isi.

Kau tahu sayang, rasanya seperti angin yang tiba-tiba hilang berganti kemarau gersang.

Pada airmata yang jatuh kali ini, aku selipkan salam perpisahan panjang, pada kesetiaan yang telah kau ukir, pada kenangan pahit manis selama kau ada,
aku bukan hendak megeluh, tapi rasanya terlalu sebentar kau disini.

Mereka mengira aku lah kekasih yang baik bagimu sayang, tanpa mereka sadari, bahwa kaulah yang menjadikan aku kekasih yang baik. mana mungkin aku setia padahal memang kecenderunganku adalah mendua, tapi kau ajarkan aku kesetiaan, sehingga aku setia, kau ajarkan aku arti cinta, sehingga aku mampu mencintaimu seperti ini.

Selamat jalan,
Kau dari-Nya, dan kembali pada-Nya,
kau dulu tiada untukku, dan sekarang kembali tiada.

selamat jalan sayang,
cahaya mataku, penyejuk jiwaku,

selamat jalan, calon bidadari surgaku ....

II
Namamu Ainun
memang indah matamu..
selalu saja berbinar-binar
manakala kau  menatap suamimu
dengan sinar gelora penuh cinta

Namamu Ainun
memang tulus penglihatanmu
atas segala hal yang ada di sekelilingmu
ketajaman melihat dengan bola mata yang cantik
dan melihat dengan hati yang juga cantik

namamu Ainun….
yang mengorbankan karir doktermu
demi engkau menginginkan kedua putramu
menjadi doktor-doktor yang handal dan perkasa
betapa ikhlas kau meninggalkan masa depan cemerlang itu..
karena rangkulan ibu kepada anak kau anggap jauh lebih bermakna
itu yang selalu kau katakan kepadaku…
selalu saja kau anggap karir suami jauh lebih penting..
masa depan anak demikian pula…

Namamu Ainun..
penuh kesabaran menghadapi dunia yang semrawut ini..
tatkala hujatan batu menggelinding di atas kepala
menimpa suami terkasihmu dan keluarga besarmu…
matamu tetap lembut cantik menatap dunia
dipenuhi ayat-ayat suci menggema
karena kau tak pernah lepas dari kedua hal sakral itu..
bersujud senantiasa, dan membuka lembar demi lembar kitab sucimu…
kadang hanya setengah berbisik..
kau mengaji di sudut rumah dengan begitu khusyuk…
karena kau tahu persis segalanya  menjadi sumringah bila dilawan dengan doa
serta tawakal yang penuh tersebar di hati…

namamu Ainun
yang memiliki mata indah  kadang redup sejenak dan terpana
menyikapi apa kata orang tentang keluargamu
semua kau balas dengan senyum cantikmu..
karena hatimu yang juga cantik
selalu berupaya meraba segala hal dari sisi yang  indah-indah saja….

namamu Ainun..
yang telah terukir dalam hatiku, hati teman-temanku, hati saudara-saudaramu
terutama hati suami anak menantu dan cucu-cucumu
yang semua begitu penuh kasih menjalankan nikmat Allah selama ini

namamu Ainun…
yang akan menjadi sebongkah monumen di hatiku
yang kini kembali ke hariban Ilahi
dengan nyaman..
penuh damai
sebagaimana makna ayat-ayat suci yang selalu tersebut dari bibirmu
selalu…
selalu…..
dan selalu……

sebuah puisi dari seorang BJ Habibie yang diperuntukkan kepada istrinya, (alm) Hasri Ainun Habibie Besrari yang berpulang ke Rahmatullah pada Jumat, 22 Mei 2010 silam di Rumah Sakit Ludwig Maximilians - Universitat, Klinikum Gro'hadem, Muenchen, Jerman. Telah berulang kali saya membaca puisi ini dan berulang kali itu juga mulut saya hanya bisa terdiam membacanya, saya terharu, sangat terharu

Rabbana hablana min azwaajina, wa dzurriyyatina qurrata a’yuniw, waj’alna lil muttaqiena imaamaa.
“Ya Tuhan kami, anugerahkanlah kepada kami jodoh kami dan keturunan kami sebagai penyenang hati (kami), dan jadikanlah kami imam bagi orang2 yang bertakwa.” (QS 25:74)
amin..

....

SABAR adalah separuh iman
dan setengahnya lagi adalah SYUKUR..

al hadits
thank you for inspiring me, teaching me a lot !
:)

...

klo kita bacain alfatihah untuk seseorang, Allah akan mengikat hati kita, dan ikatan Allah itulah yang paling kuat

-bu dini, pembina asrama IC
beliau selalu mengatakannya setiap bercerita tentang suaminya yg sedang studi di Mesir

please cover up your hair and body

why do muslim girls cover up their hair and body?

A non-Muslim guy: why do your girls cover up their hair & body?

Muslim guy: (smiled and got two candies, one covered and the other not and threw them into the dusty floor)

Muslim guy: If you were to choose one of them, which one would you choose?

non-Muslim guy replied: The covered one.

Muslim guy: And that's how we treat & see our women.

there is no doubt about it

Jika di halaman depan semua buku selalu tertulis :

"Mohon maaf apabila terdapat kesalahan pada buku ini."

Maka Al Quran adalah satu-satunya buku yang di halaman awal langsung dijamin :

" Dzalikal kitabu laaroibafiih."

Inilah kitab yang tidak ada keraguan padanya

(QS. 2:2)

it's just my lord and I

bismillah :)

prayed

Allah tidak membebani seseorang melainkan sesuai dengan kesanggupannya. Ia mendapat pahala dari kebajikan yang diusahakannya dan ia mendapat siksa dari kejahatan yang dikerjakannya. Mereka berdoa, " Ya Tuhan kami, janganlah engkau hukum kami jika kami lupa atau kami bersalah. Ya Tuhan kami, janganlah engkau bebankan kepada kami beban yang berat sebagaimana Engkau bebankan kepada orang-orang sebelum kami. Ya Tuhan kami, janganlah Engkau pikulkan kepada kami apa yang tak sanggup kami memikulnya. Beri maaflah kami, ampunilah kami dan rahmatilah kami. Engkaulah Penolong kami, maka tolonglah kami terhadap kaum kafir"

(Albaqarah : 286)

berapa waktu yang tersisa

Saya tak tahu, berapa waktu yang tersisa untuk saya. Satu jam, satu hari, satu tahun, sepuluh, lima puluh tahun lagi? Bisakah waktu yang semakin sedikit itu saya manfaatkan untuk memberi arti keberadaan saya sebagai hamba Allah di muka bumi ini? Bisakah cinta, kebajikan, maaf dan syukur selalu tumbuh dari dalam diri, saat saya menghirup udara dari Yang Maha?

my life is adventure

I’m on my way to be grateful.. :(

 

maka nikmat tuhan yang manakah yang akan kau dustakan?

pancake

purple

I want to be here all winter

paris

Question : If you could have a house totally paid for, fully furnished anywhere in the world, where would you like it to be?
Answer : Right next to the Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

wanna taste it

cute cat

dreamless nights

sleepless hours and dreamless nights

moonlight

stars fell out my window tonight

as I was engulfed by the moonlight

when I'm 64

When I’m 64 - The Beatles

When I get older losing my hair,

Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine?

If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m 64?

You’ll be older too,
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.

I could be handy mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m 64?

Every summer we can rent a cottage
In the Isle of Wight, if it’s not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck, and Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view.
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, Wasting Away.

Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine for evermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I’m 64?

I love seeing old couples (part2)

play room

my baby will have this

it will be in my baby’s room

:)

dari seorang teman

"Jika anda menikahi seorang wanita, maka jadilah ayah, ibu dan saudaranya. Dia telah meninggalkan ketiga orang tersebut untuk mengikuti Anda. Maka wujudkanlah pada diri Anda kasih sayang Ayah, kelemahlembutan Ibu dan persahabatan Saudara"

annur ayat 26

“… Dan wanita yang baik adalah untuk laki-laki yang baik dan laki-laki yang baik untuk wanita yang baik…. “

nikah muda

pemuda : yah, saya mau menikah ya setelah lulus kuliah...

ayah : wah, nak. jangan dulu lah. cari kerja dan penghidupan yang mapan dulu..

ibu : iya nak, kasihan anak istrimu nanti..

pemuda : wah, saya mau menikah sekarang justru sebelum mapan..

ayah ibu : (bingung) lho, kenapa?

pemuda : kalo nikah pas udah mapan, semua perempuan sih juga mau... kalo dari sekarang, saya bisa tau mana yang setia mendampingi sejak awal berumah tangga..

dan pemuda itu pun menikah beberapa bulan kemudian..

(true story)

Ya Allah

Ya Allah semuanya adalah kehendak Mu dan aku slalu memohon jodoh dunia akhirat yang bisa menuntun aku untuk selalu berada di jalan Mu, untuk mengharapkan keridhoan Mu ya Allah, karuniakanlah kelak kepada hamba istri yg shaleha, amin ya robb..

I love seeing old couples

the pursuit of happyness

sea otters hold hands when they sleep
so they don't drift away from each other

[c]
José F.A. Oliver

HE-MOON AND SHE-MOON


To write and eying words, to eye them, like the trackers raise the hidden hunt and to be the hunted, pursued relentlessly by letter-accomplices. Pace of words without repose, track of prints, pasturing of rest: To exist of words so as to be inside them. Shy and tender. Tender and calm like fingertips that caress strange skin. Today, which is already tomorrow, I am searching for my tongues.

Mondzunge, lengua luna, moon-tongue. Those day-falls of pale lights and shades, which became familiar nights and moons, pale lightrivering of the sky, remain close to me. There was a house of two houses. Two houses like two cultures. A house with two floors and a lullaby of nonwords melted the rhythm of uncertainties and two languages. Open doors and windows into forgotten voyages. The Alemannic dialect of the first floor, the Andalusian of the second. In-between steps without gender and the beginning of a game. Draft of the gender game. The bodies of the words, their souls. Only a few steps separating she-moon and he-moon, la luna, der Mond.

To submerge myself. Simply to dive into that current of fathers and ancestors, of mothers, at last. Breath and omen. Evidently I remain, evidently audible. To wander near the discarded, the farthest separated. To breathe between the rags of tongues and perhaps to challenge those language guards and alpha-beasts that incite me to name. I, to exist of earthen words, yearn for my languages like the host for the good friend.

My lives, so peculiarly mine, respond continuously to these nights of antecedents, sudden dawns, days of pure invention. Set pieces like tongues of earth. Biographies and remote histories resembling theatre. Monologues of satiated pleasures. Keeping me company, the worn-out wings of an interrupted play that debuts unceasingly, and, like every uninvited guest, these lives arrive to upset my world of attitudes and contradictions. Intruders on my stage of roving theatrics. Hunters of shores. Timid underground lovers like blood brothers.

Memories of a childhood in the Black Forest. Images of the time etched in the mind, summers at dusk and pitchforks of hay. Playing Fongis, after homework, jumping on haystacks at nightfall with the children on my street. The bells and their ring of prayer and the admonitions of the adults always within earshot. The continuous reprimands following and falling into bed, beaten to a pulp. The gaiety anticipated by the next reveille. The first rays of sun and fresh cut grass. The whistles of the scythes. Green-wets. The flavour of sap. Like that, day smelled of day. Like that, childhood smelled of summers in short sleeves.

Days like children. Days on light soles, where the moss, the juice of the red currants and the quince trees seduced me to forgetting. I discovered how to dream and they let me. Without truly becoming conscious, in my little-great universe, of what was dream and what would cease being one. In summer I dreamed just as I was afraid in autumn, hiding myself from those monstrous light-swallowing clouds, hurling kites at them to make myself master of peril: Young Master of Tempests before a grey canvas. But all the daring, in the end, only to bring me closer to my fears and distresses, surreptitiously to my mother’s skirt while she hung out the clothes. The wind spelling our attachment and the storm saying nothing less than protection.

The winters were of snow. Masses of snow. I haven’t stopped caressing those afternoons, closed in by its white coat. I remember descending in sleighs, the Chasms of Death and the oranges in my mittens. Smell of the south beyond the ice chute like the wakeful nights on each trip back to the little homeland bearing toward Andalusia. I remember the slices of bread with jam, confections of cherry or strawberry, laid on thick, and that ancient little heat of our glazed tile stove that let us thaw after quixotic descents through sleigh courses that we had traced ourselves, plunging downhill: “Look out below! Sausage and mashed potatoes!” – Instants of a childhood in which I was one more among them. An expert in the games of the occasion.

Still, there was someone that escaped slyly from those hidden idylls merely through his undeniable presence. Serenely surprised, and, at times, wounded. Someone who, essentially, was not of the native soil. At least, he couldn´t go unnoticed at vesper-meals of pure smoked Speck, dinner well earned after the production-line haying that brought unity and solidarity to the neighbours, who showed a disposition for mutual help never seen before, facing the August storms that loomed maliciously; or someone who didn’ t fit into the wintry landscapes with its pork-fat sandwiches, the pointed hats and the red, frozen noses. That “Someone”, no one but this One, had constructed with the lies of the time a refuge from questions and yearnings.

I had dug myself a den and I furnished it. A hospitable hideout in case the Other, which was confined in me, threatened to escape. The one that had to model a little sailor suit every Sunday afternoon, totally incomprehensible to the first, and white to top it off. Almost ready, so gallantly presented, he regarded the sight of himself with an air of embarrassment: decorated in that blue of extreme sea, that sailor-white, and covered in little gold buttons besides; becoming excessively angry, or as angry as the moment required, then suddenly, standing up straight as a stick, because he would have done anything to escape to the forest that bordered his house to play cops and robbers. Despite every resistance, Sunday went as Sundays must. Out of habit and faithful fulfilment of the tradition that was destroying the world, he was condemned to a pilgrimage with some twenty adults –though the exact number of participants is secondary– and, with his showy, southern appearance and purely immigrated stock, he played his part, grumbling or no, in the Sunday Andalusian rally of the promenading Spanish educators and their respective pupils. Vacant footbridge over rocky paths for little decorative puppets. Custom and its cultivation à la Andalusian before the amazed eyes of the Alemannic hunting village scenes. What else could he have done, the poor thing. Through experience, he knew pretty well the traitor the little Black Forest grass stain could be, ornamenting any little white suit that roved outside of its clear destination, though when he looked carefully, it seemed the light green on white background could very subtly outline the colours of the Andalusian flag.

Even then, it was impossible to avoid the impression that Sundays were pulling us gaudily toward the typical, which is to say, for the Germans, much more manifestly ehpanisch than during the week – and I use this Andalemannic word with no desire to delve into what today signifies the abstruse and unfortunate concept “to be German or to be Spanish”. Be that as it may, on the days of the Lord, the gathering –southern, heaped by dozens with their Muslim reminiscences and Hebrew preclamors– seemed to unburden itself, and it seemed it would always be so, when the Andalusian Spaniards of that little Black Forest village – whose name out of discretion I don’ t want to mention at this point – would meet each other to breathe their own air on walks with such strict speed limits, they threatened to break the record for slowness (for which they can be counted as precursors to urban speed restrictions). Imagine: an hour or more sometimes for a stretch of a hundred meters; just to take a little air and dream of eggplants; figs, red, ripe tomatoes, to dissolve along those passionate Iberian strolls the milestones lost, like the world, between Andalusia and that Black Forest hamlet (whose name out of respect I continue guarding in secret), which is to say, erasing the distance between their daily lives and their yearning for the south. Kilometer after kilometer yielded and returned home. North-less.
Always at their side, we children. Full of carefully staged duties that we couldn’t stand. Remote voices from a lacquer recording like a skipping record of ritualised niceties. Affectionatly pampered. Well prepared. They offered us sandwiches of chocolate with bananas. Sugar-water for thirst, under lovpressive kisses, caresses and fingers raised among a disturbance of hands, that gesticulated without order or concert, that more than once flew out, missed and corrected themselves quickly –delivering us exquisite ear-plums straight from the fatherland. A food-beating –not only for the first-born, whom they served dessert twice as tart-torture– which we took bitterly and felt like another tenderness from the paternal palate of the mother tongue, and yet received with no uncertain pride. They couldn’ t humilate us. Ever. The little sailor suit demanded posture. A posture of dignity.

Always at their side, we children. Sundayed, dressed and loved. We walked snivelling our heads off and carrying them more haughtily through our Alemannic Ramblas, as complete marvels passed before our eyes: stalls full of flowers, merchants selling birds, taverns, snacks and drinks, fiestas, donkeys and blind alleys. All along our Stations of the Cross we brushed the edges of a plaza, one that began to fill itself with friends, relatives, and uncountable dead as we turned and turned through the enigmatic Avenue of Memory. A Plaza Mayor whose funny stories, coincidences and passing tragedies made the old ones cry, pulled the adults into thought, and made the kids laugh. That was the chaotic struggle of San Quintin – hell in the making. (I had no idea then who that man and saint was, Saint I don’t know who…). All right then.

In those places there wasn’t anyone to hinder them, no one that could throw them out. Not them or their children.

I believe that we, the educatees, must have left a strange impression in the eyes of the natives as we picked up the step with obedient indifference, and, served on a silver platter, we must have presented a few fine examples, singular really, the best gems the Culture of Spanish Emigration could exhibit in those days.

Lightly indignant and stupefied at once, in the days of divine repose we moved in another caravan. Behind us dreams, ahead, phantasmagoria. Confined by languages, desires, memories, silences, recipes, and complaints, we saw ourselves suddenly pulled into the illusions and tears of the adults who we examined during the week in equally surprising incidents, when they entered or left their shifts: a savory and copious selection on the imaginary table; exotic morsels of memory like sweets, and little porcelain figurines – those daily glories completely wasted – but who on Sundays, in all their splendor, made us little and tiny little Spaniards. Time meaning nothing when the factory time-stamper stopped.

So they adorned me and exterminated me very Spanishly. They washed, groomed and perfumed me. “Heno de Pravia” they called that damned fragrance. I don’t know how many leagues it travelled on the wind. I penetrated through people and landscapes, leaving an odorless substance that brought on the ancestors, the reason we carried liters of that contraband cologne, always when we crossed the French-German border at Kehl, on our way back from Spain. Sundays I understood why. The working days, without a doubt, I couldn’ t help seeing myself changed into a chubby-cheeked Black Forest rascal who looked well fed, local and robust in Lederhosen, those short little trousers made of deer-skin, which were never to be washed, and which, apart from covering and revealing certain parts, served to clean the fat off the knives they used to cut the Speck. And not only in August.

There I saw myself again: untied and tied at once, before another distinct language that smelled of earth, which made forget the dead and which, though I would realize it much later, would reject us. Which hat to reject us. German without being German. Spanish without being Spanish. In movement: I. And, among my “Is”, consciousness.

A master of the rules of the games of the place that little by little were being seen outside of the game, just as he kept entering, dominating the rules in order to break them.

My little lair, my peculiar hideout, in those days, was under a balcony, a kind of wooden veranda, already aging and raised on stilts, that served as a lookout. My place. Behind heaps of kindling, stacked against the cold of winter:

A desk I had constructed of a few swiped fruit boxes, and paper –the tatters of paid invoices and snippets of bills that I had saved from certain death in the bonfire– and pencils. We were intimate friends. Accomplices.