Today I had lunch at the Tio Yeyo Restaurant in Coátepec with Laura González and her husband Robert, daughter Aralisa, and son Ian. Aralisa, a biologist who lives here in Xalapa, picked me up and drove us to the restaurant, located on the outskirts of Coátepec near a river that feeds the trout ponds that supply the trout served at the restaurant.

As you can see from this photo, the Tio Yeyo rises modestly among trees, flowers, flowering trees, grass, and wild flowers, and a stream that requires a foot bridge to reach the restaurant.

On the way to the beach, La Mancha, two weekends ago, June 29, my guides--four fellow English teachers at the Centro de Idiomas--and I stopped at a restaurant in Rinconada for brunch.

In the photo above, Gregorio, José Miguel, Luís, and I are posing while Janeth takes the picture. Just behind our table, women are working over a large comal to make fresh garnachas--which we ate with gusto.

Then we piled back into Gregorio's VW and headed for the beach. The ocean water felt cool when we first inched into it, but it soon began to feel just right. The sky was overcast for the most part, so it wasn't too hot--but I found out that night that it didn't prevent me from getting a bad sunburn. (Yes, I did put on sunscreen, but I should have reapplied it periodically.)

After three hours or so, we gathered up our stuff and headed toward La Antigua for something to eat and to visit the first chapel built in America. Here we are in a riverside restaurant where a tropical band was playing when we first arrived.

Then we went to see the first chapel in America, built by Spaniards in 1523. It is a small building, still in use, well maintained. To test the acoustics, José Miguel sang some Gregorian chant, remembered from his childhood, that filled the whole chapel.

Read about La Antigua on this blog (scroll down about one-fourth of the way) to learn more about this chapel and see better photos than mine here.

Last night on the “glorious 4th” (Independence Day in the United States) I was invited by fellow English teacher Laura González to a concert of the Xalapa Symphony Orchestra with Tania Libertad, a singer I had never heard of before—although she is well known here in México. Peruvian by birth, she’s lived in México for many years. (Here you can read about her and sample her voice, but the samples really don’t do justice to the power and range of her vocal abilities.)

It was a wonderful evening—and not just for Libertad’s beautiful voice and impassioned interpretations but for the symphony orchestra, directed by Fernando Lozano, as well. For one thing, watching Lozano—a tall man in the tercer edad (the third age) as they say here—was a pleasure in itself: his gray hair clearly styled by a protégé of Einstein’s hairdresser, his directing at times an elegant dance, at other times a pounce, sometimes languid, sometimes lively, always interesting to watch.

Here is a list of the music I heard—and I write it down here so that when I return, I can begin to acquire some of it. If you’re not familiar with it either, dear readers, I encourage you to try it out.

The orchestra played two pieces of music before Libertad came on stage for each of the concert’s two parts: “Conga del Fuego Nuevo” and “Danzón,” both composed by Arturo Márquez. I loved them both.

Libertad sang these songs:

• “Mañana de carnaval” (Luis Bonfa)
• “Placer de amor” (Schwarzendorf)
• “Rival” (Agustín Lara—a Veracruzana, incidentally, and much loved here)
• “Los pájaros perdidos” (Astor Piáosla)
• “La Guinda” (Edusebio Delfín)
• “Cuando sale la luna” (José Alfredo Jiménez)
• “Caruso” (L. Dalla)
• “Noche de Ronda” (Agustín Lara)
• “Himno al amor” (M. Mannote)
• “Piensa en mi” (Agustín Lara)
• “Syboney” (Ernesto Lecuona)

And for an encore, demanded by the audience with chants of “Otra! Otra!”(Another! Another!), Libertad sang Schubert’s “Ave Maria” and—a cappella—“Alfonsina y el mar,” an especial favorite of the crowd.

After the concert, Laura gave me a ride home, but we didn’t get far from the concert hall for about a half hour because of the huge line of cars exiting the Universidad Veracruzana campus. So she parked her car at the top of a hill overlooking the hilly city of Xalapa, the view softened by a thin fog. Around us were palm trees and araucarias (a native evergreen tree) and the tall grass fed to exuberant heights by the rains that have fallen during this rainy season. We lowered the windows to enjoy the cool night air and take in the sights better. We could see far away on another hill in the center of the city the cathedral, clearly lit, a beacon on a hill.

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Back to the topic of the United States' Independence Day, July 4, readers who haven't been to the U.S. might be interested in learning how we celebrate this day. You can find a smorgasbord of information, articles, and photo slideshows of this year's celebration on the New York Times website. Also, have a look at "A Taste of Independence," an article that talks about what people traditionally eat as they celebrate this day--and how immigrants to the country have added their own twists to these traditions.

Two weekends ago, I went to Mexico City where I met Brenda Lopotro, another Fulbright Exchange teacher.

On Thursday night, after a six-hour bus trip, I arrived at the bus terminal and took a taxi to the Hotel Calinda Geneva located in the Zona Rosa, an area close to Mexico City's historic center. It’s also the gay district and offers tourist a lot of shopping and restaurants.

On Friday, Brenda took me to see some of Diego Rivera’s murals. We got our big disappointment of the day out of the way quickly: we’d gone to the SEP (Secretaría de Educación Pública) building to see the three floors (!) of Rivera’s murals displayed on the walls there, but we were turned away by guards who said the building was closed and wouldn’t be open to visitors again on Monday—alas, we’d be gone from Mexico City by then. Brenda told me that the last time she’d tried to see the murals several months ago, guards had told her the same thing.

But onward and upward. Next, we headed for the Palacio Nacional, an historical building where Hernán Cortez once lived and where Mexican presidents have an office, at least nominally, for formal occasions. It’s also the building where the president gives the grito (in remembrance of Miguel Hidalgo’s grito, or battle cry in 1810) on September 15, on the eve of Mexico’s Day of Independence from Spain. September 15 is actually the day its war for independence began in 1810. It wasn’t achieved until 1821.

One of Rivera’s murals in the National Palace spans the three walls that rise above the double staircase leading up to the second floor. Brenda and I stood on the second floor landing to view this epic depiction of Mexico’s history and Rivera’s vision of a socialist state in which, finally, Mexico’s poor and indigenous people would rise to the level of their deserving. To read more about this mural, click on these links:

Right wall
Center wall
Left wall

The mural—and all the other murals covering the walls on the second floor of the palace—deserved much more time and study than we gave them. Brenda had seen these murals before, and she helped me see certain details that I probably wouldn’t have noticed or understood without her help. And she herself noticed new details that she hadn’t discovered before. The paintings are so rich in history and symbolism that, I think, if I could take in everything they contain, I’d understand Mexico’s history and culture in great depth.

Next we went to the Museo Mural Diego Rivera, which houses “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park,” one of his most well-known murals. In fact, the museum was built to display this one mural. It covers one whole wall, and in front of it, at viewing distance, a line of armchairs and two comfortable couches invites people to sit and study it. Brenda, again thegood guide, helped me identify some of the people in the mural, and I had fun trying to figure out the identities of others on my own. Rivera wasn’t a bit subtle in his depictions of the good and the bad guys. Still, I know I missed a lot by not knowing more about Mexican history and culture.

I was intrigued by Rivera’s death mask and a sculpture of his hand—actually, I think it was a mold—displayed at this museum, too. The face and the hand showed that he was a smaller man in the flesh than I had imagined him to be. Perhaps I was misled into thinking he was a big man by the photos of him with Frida Kahlo, who must have been petite, judging from her tiny torso brace that I saw the next day hanging in her museum, the Casa Azul. Certainly Rivera was big around the waist and big in artistic stature, but if the mask and sculpture are to be believed, he wasn’t big-boned.

Behind the sofas and chairs were two maps of the mural—one in Spanish, one in English—with all the outlined figures numbered to help viewers identify them and learn a little about them and their relevance in the scheme of the mural.

After we left, we did some shopping in nearby stores featuring the work of Mexican artisans—Brenda bought a beautiful top and a turquoise bracelet, shown here—and then we headed to the Museo Dolores Olmedo Museum. Dolores Olmedo was a wealthy woman who was also a friend of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (as well as his model and probably his lover at some point; Rivera was a notorious womanizer). Olmedo shared Kahlo and Rivera’s political views, and when she died, she gave her lovely home and fabulous art collection to the Mexican people.

The grounds around the house are beautiful—large expanses of green grass, flowers, trees, sculptures of Juan Soriano, and peacocks ambling around. Mexican hairless dogs are also kept there, the same breed whose image appears in all of Diego Rivera’s murals. This breed dates back to the time of the Aztecs.

Although visitors are allowed to take photos of the museum grounds, unfortunately photos aren't permitted to be taken inside.

The rooms of the house are divvied up between those devoted to Kahlo’s art and those devoted to Rivera’s. Interspersed among the paintings in each room are prehispanic sculptures and religious artifacts as well as religious icons of Spanish origin.

I was especially interested in a painting—Diego Rivera’s last—of watermelons after Brenda told me that Frida Kahlo’s last painting was of the same subject—watermelons—on which she inscribed the words Viva la Vida ("Long live life"). The fact that Kahlo was in pain much of her life, to me, gives those words a triumphant and defiant ring. And did Rivera make a conscious choice to echo her last creative act? Surely he did, joining her in affirming life--and also affirming her--by using the same symbol.
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Brenda had to leave Mexico City the next day early in order to make her flight back to the U.S. at 7:00am. I woke long enough to see her off, and then I went back to bed. When I woke later at the civilized hour of 9:00, I dressed and went to the Starbucks on the corner to get coffee and a sandwich for breakfast. Then I walked two blocks to the nearby subway station (Insurgentes) to get to Coyoacán, an artist community/suburb of Mexico City where Frida Kahlo grew up and died, and where Trotsky and his wife Natalie lived for several years—and where he was assassinated.

It wasn’t easy to get to the Casa Azul, the house (and now museum) where Frida Kahlo was born and died. From the guidebook I was using, I knew I’d have to take a pesero (a bus) from the Metro station to a bus stop on a major street, and from there I’d have to walk or take a taxi.

So when I emerged from the Metro, I asked directions of several people, none of whom knew the street I was looking for. Then I asked a woman who told me to board a certain pesero across the street from where we were standing. I crossed the street and waited for that particular bus—and another helpful woman asked the driver of a bus that she thought was the right one if his bus was the one I needed, and he said it was. (This same woman told me a Mexican dicho that I don’t want to forget: “Preguntando, se llega a Roma.” ["By asking questions, one arrives in Rome.”])

So I boarded—only to find out a couple miles down the road that the bus driver had thought I was looking for the Coyoacán Metro station, not the suburb. So I got off the bus and backtracked partly by foot and partly by Metro to my original stop, where I started over again. I reflected on the dicho my helper had told me not long before--Preguntando, se llega a Roma—and I decided that the saying was still true, but I realized one might have to travel through Singapore first.

This time I asked a zapatero (I’m not sure this is the correct word in Spanish), a shoe-shine guy located outside the Metro stop, and he told me where to find the correct street corner to find the correct pesero. Whew! Soon I was walking along Calle Tres Cruces heading toward Casa Azul.

Along the way, I ran into a used bookstore, Librería Tres Calles, which looks more like a book warehouse than a bookstore. I felt like I’d stumbled into heaven. I found a large section of books in English on the second floor, where I chose a few books for my friend and fellow English teacher Luís Méndez, who has been so generous about lending me books in English from his personal library over the past year. (I typically read the newspaper and books in Spanish in the afternoon, but before I go to sleep at night, I like to read in English.)

Then I forced myself to leave the bookstore—I could have spent hours there—and pressed on to the Casa Azul. And it was worth wrenching myself away from the books.

Fast forward: This weekend, I watched the movie Frida that another English teacher here, Josefina, lent me, and I was delighted to see in the first and last scenes of the movie the same Casa Azul I saw last weekend. In the movie, I saw scenes that included the Mexican hairless dogs, the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon at Teotihuacán, Frida’s bed with a mirror overhead that allowed her to paint some of her self-portraits, and a cast and back brace that she wore at different times in her life.

One of the most startling and poignant sights in the Casa Azul, for me, was Kahlo's tiny bedroom whose windows and the door on one wall look out onto the patio in the center of the museum that was once her home. I could imagine that she needed to be able to look out and see sunlight, trees, and flowers from that tiny room where her many operations imprisoned her. Now, on her single bed, there rests a black death mask of her face, surrounded by a rebozo that gives the illusion of covering her hair and neck. If you click on the photo here, you can see a larger although blurry image. Next to the pillow, you can see the death head, and at the foot of the bed is a plaster torso cast Frida once wore.

I also saw her last painting, the watermelon-Viva-La-Vida painting in one of the rooms of the house that serves as a gallery. Because it isn't permitted to take photos inside the house, I took the photos of Frida's bedroom and the watermelon painting from outside.

When I left the Casa Azul after spending about two hours there, I walked the six blocks or so to the house where Trotsky and his wife lived after they fell out with Diego and Frida—but not before, it’s said, that she and Trotsky had an affair.

Trotsky’s house intrigued and touched me even more than Kahlo’s. The museum made it clear that Trotsky was very much in danger from Stalin—and the movie Frida provides a scene in which Trotsky tells Frida that four of their—his and Natalie’s—children were hunted down and killed after he fled Russia. Two attempts on his life were made in Mexico, one unsuccessful—that left gouges in the bedroom walls, visible still, where he and his wife escaped death by ducking into a corner next to the window where Mexican artists/Stalinists attempted to shoot him. The second attempt successfully ended his life. He was killed by an axe for cutting ice that was plunged into his skull by a Stalin supporter who gained entry and acceptance in the house by wooing one of Trotsky’s secretaries.

I saw Trotsky’s study and his library, and I saw the papers on his desk that were there on the day he was killed. (He was writing a book on the life of Stalin that he never finished.) I saw the cot in that room where he rested when his headaches became acute—he suffered from high blood pressure. I saw the dictation machine he used to dictate his book to his secretaries, and I saw the rabbit hutches that held the rabbits he cared for himself and some of the cacti he gathered from the nearby Mexican hills to decorate the garden of his home. And I saw the hammer-and-sickle symbol that crowns the concrete monument marking his and his wife’s grave in the garden of their Mexican home. Unfortunately, I ran out of space on my camera's memory card right before I entered the house, so I wasn't able to photograph any of it. The photo here shows the Trotskys' house with the garden in the foreground and the monument marking their graves.

It was almost 6pm when I left to return to the hotel by Metro.

A note: taking the subway in Mexico City is an adventure in itself. It is easy to navigate and cheap—2 pesos, or 20 cents US—to get around in this huge city of 20 million (or more) people.

Unfortunately, some of these people take advantage of the captive audience. On almost every stop, a new vendor will board the car and try to sell pirated CDs or DVDs by playing them on portable players, with the volume turned up LOUD, strapped on his/her person. Beggars and the disabled also use the Metro to ask for limosnas (charity). I enjoyed and gladly paid to hear a blind guitarist sing and hear his impassioned song as he moved slowly and unsteadily through the car.

Then there are those who bring theatre or, more correctly, the carnival to the Metro. Brenda had already told me about these guys, thank goodness, so I wasn’t quite so shocked as I would have been otherwise. Here’s what I witnessed twice: a young man, shirtless, entered the car while carrying his shirt like a sack. His back was scarred, and this is why: He lay his shirt in front of the doors of the subway car revealing the broken glass of beer bottles. All the while he was talking like an announcer or a barker. Then he moved away from the broken glass and—with a quick turn—made a gentle somersault, landing on his back in the broken glass.

The crunch of it made me flinch the first time.

But with hardly a pause, the young man rose and enfolded the glass in his shirt again. And then he walked throughout the car with his hand extended, asking for money. And although his back had red marks on it, there was no blood, probably because of all the scar tissue he'd built up over his career.

I didn’t give the young man anything either time because I didn’t want to encourage him to continue to make his living thus.
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I left Mexico City on Sunday afternoon, taking the bus back to Xalapa. It took only five hours to return (six hours to arrive), and it was good to get back home as usual. But I would love to return to Mexico City one more time before I return to Albuquerque on July 31.

I wrote about my mother on Mothers Day, May 11, but I didn’t write about what I did on Mexico’s Mothers Day, which falls on the same date--May 10--here every year. This year, May 10 fell one day before Mothers Day in the U.S.

My fellow English teacher at the Centro de Idiomas in Xalapa, Gregorio, invited me to have dinner with him, his mother, his sisters, and other family members on that day. I found out that all of the members of his immediate family are teachers at different levels of education--including his mother, who is a retired teacher.

La comida was served on the patio where tables were set up under a canopy and umbrella to shield against the early-afternoon sun. I don't remember everything on the menu, but I do remember how delicious the chicken and the gelatina de rompope were.

-But before we ate, the party—members of Gregorio’s family—sang “Las Mañanitas” to all the mothers in the group. This song is the traditional birthday song in México, but I found out that it's sung on Mothers Day as well.

I had a great time. The walled-in patio is beautifully designed, with flowers and trees around the edges and the gurgling of a fountain adding to the ambience. I enjoyed being with Gregorio's family, visiting, and relaxing in that lovely space. (Please click on the photos to see more details.)

After that, Margarita went with me to a quinceañera in a nearby pueblito just outside of Xalapa. The invitation was extended to me by Susana Molina, the woman who sells me the Diario AZ (my favorite Xalapa daily newspaper) every weekday at a newsstand close to the school. It was her daughter, Yamileth (pictured here between her aunt and Susana), whose fifteenth birthday was being celebrated.

As soon as we arrived at the salon where the event took place, Susana greeted us and introduced us to her children, sister, father, and her husband, Javier Conde. And we were fed heaping plates of food, including barbacoa, rice, tortillas, and salsa—and later cake—although I couldn't really do justice to it because I was still full from the meal I’d eaten at Gregorio’s house.

One of the rituals that formed part of the coming-of-age ceremony for Yamileth was the presentation of a doll from the parents to the daughter—the last doll they will give her now that she has passed from childhood into young womanhood.

Today is Teachers Day in Mexico, so teachers at all levels had the day off, and the schools were closed.

One of my colleagues at the Centro de Idiomas, Gregorio, offered to take me to see Zempoala and the beach nearby about an hour and 15 minutes away from Xalapa. As it turned out, we went in another teacher’s—Bertha’s—car, which has air conditioning while Gregorio’s doesn’t. Ana Lilia and Jose Miguel, two other English teachers, went with us as well.

We left Xalapa at 10 this morning and stopped first at Zempoala [pronounced Sem-poh-AH-lah] to see the pyramids there. Gregorio was an excellent guide and gave me the history behind this Totonacan site, which Hernán Cortez and his men came to and conquered in 1519. (In the picture above, you can see the Gladators' Stadium behind Bertha, Gregorio, me, and Ana Lilia.)

From the ruins at Zempoala, we drove to Quiahuitzlan [Key-ah-WHEATS-lan] to the place where the Totanacos built a city about mid way up a mountain that juts above the surrounding coastal area, renowned for its Totanac tombs and the gorgeous view of the beach below.

On the way there, we made several stops at small stores to buy ice and beer. The beer wasn't hard to come by, but the ice was. Finally, we found a place that had some. As we headed back to the car, I caught José Miguel using a tree to scratch his back, bear-like, and couldn't resist taking a picture.

After we’d wandered around the ruins of Quiahuitzlan, we drove down to the beach of Villa Rica and headed straight for the water to cool off. I hadn’t brought my bathing suit, but I went in in my clothes. I loved being in the water, sometimes standing up to the waves and at other times bobbing with them. Here's a photo of Gregorio hamming it up.

Finally, we went to a little restaurant, Los Cuates, in a little town nearby and had mojarra, a fish found in this area of Veracruz. It arrived, head, tail, and all, accompanied by pico de gallo, guacamole, and fresh corn tortillas. Deliciosa!

It was evening when we headed back to Xalapa. We were all tired from the sun and sea, and it was good to get home. But we all agreed it had been a great way to spend El Dia de Maestros.

I’m heading out tomorrow for Puebla to meet my fellow Fulbright teachers Cece and Brenda. They’re leaving Mexico next month, so this will be our last hurrah together here. Lucky me—I’ll be here until the end of July.

Today is Mothers Day in the U.S. I’m far away from my mother on this day, but I'm thinking about her, and I want to take a minute here to tell you about her.

My mother, Lois Orstad King, was born in North Dakota. Her parents, both of whose parents were Norwegian immigrants, farmed a beautiful little farm in the Red River Valley of the North less than 100 miles from the Canadian border. She learned to speak Norwegian before she learned English. She was 5 when the Great Depression blighted the country, but she told me that her family of seven—her parents and five children—never went hungry because they had a garden, chickens and thus eggs, seven cows, and crops of wheat and potatoes that fed them. They didn’t have much cash money, but at least, she said, they had plenty to eat unlike many others during that time.

My mom graduated from high school (here's her graduation picture) when she was 16 (it was 1940 or thereabouts) and then went to work in a bank and later in a government office during the war years. She quit her job when she married my dad, Murray King, in 1945 at 21. It was a marriage of opposites, an oil-and-water combination. Culturally and temperamentally and in practically every other way, they were very different. He was the descendent of Irish forbears (with a dash of German), a very different culture from the Norwegian heritage of my mother. He was Catholic, and she was Lutheran, but she agreed to raise their children as Catholics, and she kept her word, helping us learn our catechism and prayers, making sure we made our first communions and were confirmed. He, the son of an attorney, had gone to college for two years. She was the daughter of farmers, and her father had finished high school but her mother had not.

My parents had six kids between 1945 and 1960: Guy O’Gorman, David Murray, Katherine Ann, Kevin Michael, Jason Harold Elmer (the lucky boy got both grandfathers’ names tacked onto his first name), and me. My dad supported us through a variety of jobs over the years, from preparating taxes to selling quonset huts and insurance, running a tavern, managing a potato processing plant, and finally, working for the Soil Conservation Service. Like many fathers of the '50s in the U.S., he shared in his children's conception and left the raising of them to their mother.

Thanks to her, our house was always clean, our clothes always pressed and mended, our bellies always filled, our birthdays always celebrated, Sunday mass always attended, green worn on St. Patrick's Day, stories read to us as children, nursery rhymes taught to us, songs sung to us--in short, despite the many moves and insecurities brought on by our dad's job changes, our mother gave us loving care and stability. (But don't get me wrong: our dad had many fine qualities, and he shaped us in ways for which we're grateful. We loved him dearly and still miss him since his death in 1974 at age 54.)

But I'm writing about my mother today. I could write a book about her cooking and baking alone. In fact, some of my best memories from childhood center around the food she would make for us, not just on holidays but everyday. I grew up knowing that we were poor, but I had no idea until later that there were times when there wasn’t much food in the house. I realized later that my mother often had to call upon her gift for turning a few simple ingredients—flour, sugar, potatoes, a bit of bacon or beef, a can of tomatoes or peas, noodles, cheese, and especially leftovers—into smacking-good, rib-sticking meals, and we kids had no idea how bare the pantry really was. On Fridays, true to her word to raise us as Catholics, she would make some of our very favorite meatless dishes: macaroni and cheese, creamed peas on toast, fish sticks and potato patties, salmon patties, grilled cheese sandwiches and homemade tomato soup…oy vey! I could go for any of it right this minute.

Odes should be written about her cinnamon rolls, chocolate-chip-nut cake, snickerdoodles, fudge, puddings from scratch, and especially her pies. I recall most fondly the pleasure of eating her lemon meringue pies and her chocolate pies with sesame seeds in the crust and whipped cream on top. Oh, lordy, that woman could bake! How can I forget coming home from school on a snowy North Dakota day to the sight of my mother pulling a pan of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven that warmed and scented the the whole house?

My mother suffered a stroke several years ago that paralyzed her left side and put her in a wheelchair. Since then, she hasn’t been able to cook or bake—her favorite means of creative expression and of giving to others—that she misses still. But the stroke didn’t take away her enjoyment of eating, sweets especially.

My mother loves music, too, especially the music of her day, the crooners and Big Band sounds of the 40s and 50s. I remember coming home to find my mother washing the kitchen floor on hands and knees (“The only way to get floors really clean”) as she sang along to the music on the radio. She sang a lot, and we learned the songs from her. The best birthday gift I ever gave her was to take her to see the revived Glenn Miller Band when it played in Albuquerque a few years ago. She hardly took her eyes off the performers the whole time, and she sang along softly to many of the songs.

I'm getting long-winded here, so I’ll stop. My intention wasn’t to write her biography, and I fear I’ve given a very one-dimensional view of her in order to focus on some of her gifts and talents. Like many mothers and daughters, our relationship has been difficult at various times in our past. She, unlike I, is not a saint. (Just a little humor, Mom. I couldn't resist. :-) But when I look back on all she's accomplished in her life, I’m reminded of the New Testament parable of the loaves and fishes (see verses 32-39). Certainly she has taken—and continues to take—the little she has received from life and turned it into a sustaining feast for us, her multitude of children.