Obstacle Course

Every so often, a word bubbles up in my mother's brain.

Our street was being repaved, but the construction was taking a long time to be completed. The manhole covers were several inches above the road; you never realize how many there are until you have to drive around to avoid them. 

"Gincana", she said. 

"Obstacle course" I said.

Exactly!

Xmas Present Visit

I spent Xmas with an older Portuguese lady.

She has spent years in the US.

She discovered a box of books in the basement, left by the previous owners.  She gave me a book with gold leaf edging from 1895.  Because it was in good condition.  Literally judging a book by the cover.  She had not even read the title.

We had a discussion on how I should ask for a raise.  And how, since I'm eating vegetables, I should try that diet that Marie Osmand went on.  On tv.  It worked for her!  This was not so much a discussion as free advice.  From her.

What we did get into a heated discussion about was facts.  And how something she had heard was something she understood to be true.  For instance, she had heard there was 7 women of every man.  And if it was not true now-although you must admit there are more women in government and in colleges now!!  If it's not still true, it was true once.  When she heard it.  I asked her if it might have been true about just the senior population.  She seemed puzzled by a confusion of the facts.  And why more words would make a statement more true.

I remember having a difficult discussion with her son when I was 14.  I said that I was in the middle of literally 100 books.  He said, "Literally?"  and fought me like all teenage boys do, with forceful logic.  (Think Hendrik in Little Night Music)

She said that he called her, so that she could speak to her grandkids for Xmas.  All she told us was how mad she was about her daughter in law.  She was on the phone with her for half and hour and the girl didn't even introduce herself!

Massa Souvada Poetry

Is itself a kind of poetry.

Handed down across generations, echoing, always slightly different.

Maybe that is why my mom is so afraid for us/me to make it.

It will not be her mother's. And that is painful. 

But the newer version will be different, and glorious in its own way. Merely because it exists.

Minneola, Long Island

Another Portuguese community, near NYC, which I've never heard of.

Because it is not Azorean!

A friend brought back pasteis de Nata.

Which tastes amazing, no matter which region they come from!! 

Losing One's Sight

My mom was just diagnosed with Macular Degeneration.

I want her to see ALL the paintings and art and scenery as possible in the time she has left.

I want to bring her to Pico again. 

She seems fine with it. 

As if she had seen everything she has needed to see.

Old Friend

My cousin's friend.

A random meeting outside of Newark, on New Jersey Transit.

She's still family.

Mom's Performances in My Plays

Whenever I am able to do a play in Concord, especially about the Transcendentalists, I give my Mom a line or two.

In SENSE, she read my aunt's poetry.

In Thoreau vs Schultz, she read the line "I came to the woods because I wished to live deliberately" in Portuguese.  I was proud to find it in my Portuguese version of Walden, As Vida Nos Bosques.

And my latest idea is to record people who know different languages to say something in their native language. And record it, and edit it all together.  To show how international (and American, by the way) Walden really can be.

Latest Round of Portuguese Books

Adding to the Portuguese library in Waltham!!

Barnacle Love by Antony De Sa

A Barrelful of Memories

Pauline Carreira Stonehill

A Quest for the Story of Antonio & Maria

By Doris Machado

Saudade 

Fado & Other Stories

Mariana

by Katherine Vaz

Lua

We always sing together.

Every time there is a full moon, we sing.

A Brazillian Bossa Nova song, sung as a lullabye. 

I'm surprised other mothers & daughters don't have the same ritual!

My Painting in a New Santa Maria Arts Space

I posted some pictures on my other blog and wanted to share the post here (below).

There will be more pictures of the painting in its new space in future!

http://atelierfreitasleandres.blogspot.com/2016/04/espaco-em-cena-in-santa-maria-azores.html

My Family in Santa Maria: Poetry Reading

Lost in translation

I dreamt I swam the waves, a few days ago

Somewhere between my bed sheets and the Atlantic

I was gently rocked

I saw a picture of Luis’ new piano, an upright with history

my paintings on his walls,

the ones that can be seen from the streets

Of cobblestones

My new favorite Portuguese word

Parallel ippipedos!!!

Through the giant picture windows

I spent the summer painting views, flowers & people

Such simple subjects

Which cause such longing in me

I'm still there

(I imagine living in his house as an old lady,

Or running the museum of my past loves

Building a cushion of work and community

And finding a room where nobody asks me to do chores

I suspect they love me

In any language,

Especially the words spoken by the ocean

Translations lost to the waves

And every flavor of food

Eaten at the round table in the kitchen

My gay cousin that my mom wants me to marry

My divorced cousin who thinks he's James Bond,

But who needs his mom to keep him fed.

Miguel& I played modern American hits

Which I would hate in America

on the radio in the cheap euro car

The yellow dragon

Gliding past glorious fields in the haze of sunset

Awkward conversation yielding to jokes

Everything ending with a dip in the ocean,

If the waves cooperate

We can swim

And only once was it calm enough

And we were brave enough to touch the white buoys

Which look yellow when you squint from the shore

Too much beauty to turn into art

They don't need my alchemy

I have confusing dreams today

Where you can go back to the starting point

Start the scene over again

And play out both choices

In whatever language you want

And I love the idea of the modern “SHARING” economy

Which implies all the benefits of socialism

And all the drawbacks of capitalism

We will share everything and have nothing.

I know I should FIGHT for a house of my own

For my own physical things

But I believe the fewer things I have

And the more art that I can give away

Or SELL on a good day

Strengthens my value in this world.

And then I wake up, and like a big girl, I pay my bills

And cry.

Read this poem in NYC, on March 20, part of the Argonaut Series from Golden Fleece, in Times Square, Studios 353, West 48th st.

Song: "A Moleirinha"!!!

My mother would sing to me as a little girl.  She named me "Tammy" after the song sung by Debbie Reynolds in the movie of the same name.

She was a DJ on Ases do Atlantico, on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores.  She was the first to play the Beatles in the Azores.

She'd sing "Listen, Do You Want To Know a Secret?" and I always eagerly said that I did!!!

She loved American songs, "Button Up Your Overcoat", "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree".  Songs from WW1 & II, sung to her by her father.  Things to tell a little girl as she is your captive audience.  

She'd sing Portuguese songs as well.  "Lua, O Lua" which we still sing to this day whenever we see a moon in the sky.  I learned MANY years later that it was a Brazilian samba, and not a lullabye-as I had always heard it.

There was another song which she sang to me as we drove home from her sister's house.  It was my favorite until I asked her to translate.  From then on, I cried when she began the first few words. It is essentially  mournful tune about your love going away and the train never coming back.  Years later, I heard it Neil Sedaka singing it on an old cassette tape of my roommate's in Manhattan. I was shocked and scarred.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLQdC-3XuEA


And my favorite, "A Moleirinha", which she also sang to my father when he was in the hospital.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n83wrG_OkQw&ebc=ANyPxKr4BfBG9WGSiCjKIL_IwVobDwBOR8FKoA4-f0HGkBrvP4AFUjXAnegpTn_9_upD_oIJMlrDXHBwQd52AC8lwY0W9t1U0A

Here is a recitation of the poem that it comes from, I think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rho40vVWDQw

"O Desterrado/The Exile" A Poem Remembered by Agar, Translated by Fatinha, Typed by Tammy

My grandmother learned this by heart in school and probably recited it in public.
(Found among our papers in Waltham, randomly, 5-31-1983)

O Desterrado/The Exile
Como sao brancas as flores/ How white are the flowers
Deste verde laranjal/ Of this green orange grove
e doce a sua fragrancia/Its fragrance is sweet
como a deste roseiral/Just like the rose garden
Mas tem mais suave aroma as rosas de Portugal.
But the roses of Portugal have a better soft fragrance

O solo destas florestas/The soil of the forests
o lerilhante e ouro evcerra/Have the spark/shining and gold
sao imensos estes rios/These rivers are immense
imensos o vale e a serra/And so are the vales and the hill
porem nao tem a befasa dos campos da minha terra-
but they don't have the beauty of the fields of my homeland.

These stars are more beautiful?
Their starlight is more beautiful
But they sparkled in the sky of exile
I don't love them the same way
Oh stars of my motherland
Wish I had your bright light

Of loves inebriated
The dove sights here
With these strong perfumes
Everything loves and laughs
But, oh! More charm has the land where I was born

There, the moon was prettier
More for the eyes were the flowers
The spring nights
Are there for lovers
And in the woods of the salgueiros*
There are sweet singers

Oh! No, not as pretty is the place
Of any sorry forced retreat
Where everything, all the time
Tells me I'm outcast
No, there is not prettier lands
Than that of my homeland.

===

Notes
*Salgeros- a tree that grows close to the ocean

Both the title and the theme are VERY common in the Portuguese culture.
A brief Google search leads to the following video is of a statue with the same name, sculpted by Antonio Soares Dos Reis in 1872:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61Bd-8mhW5o

Xmas Pictures 2015

Manuela with chicken & handmade tablecloth!

Godparents!!

Mom & Fall Photos

Thanksgiving 2015

Bolo de Tijolo/Flat Bread from Pico

I wanted to recreate an incredible taste sensation I found in Faial. It was called "Bolo de Pico", but it seems to go by a bunch of different names.

I got the recipe from my Mom's friend, Dona Manuela, who loves to pride herself on knowing everything. But her recipe left out the sweet potatoes!!!

I did some Googling and found this: (you can use Google Translate, but it won't convert the kilograms for you!)
http://pt.petitchef.com/receitas/outro/do-faial-bolo-de-tijolo-fid-137852

This is what they looked like going in:

They got a little more brown & crisp coming out.

Finally I think we used : 

3 cups boiling, salted water (keep 4 on hand bc you want to get the mixture as wet as you need)

4 cups of (white) corn flour

1 cup of white flour

2 sweet potatoes

butter for your hands and to create non-sticky surfaces when rolling the dough

cornmeal for bottom & top

Boil the water, add it to the flours (which you should mix together)

Get it to a good consistency for dough, mash & add the potatoes. 

Roll out onto a board, or if you want less mess, pull out the dough in balls, and make shapes like massa souvada. 

I liked having course corn meal on top & bottom, my mom said she wishes we had made some with ANISE seeds on top (not my favorite!)

Put it into a 400 oven for 45 min or 1 hour, depending how well-cooked you like.

(I was afraid they'd be too dry)

They ended up crunchy (tough?) on the outside & nice and moist on the inside.

The ones I've had have been soft on the outside as well.  Maybe done in a slower, cooler oven?

==

Conversions were a little difficult, but this page helped:
https://www.weekendbakery.com/cooking-conversions/

Bolo de Tijolo

Portuguese American Mom Recipe

portuguese-corn-flour-flatbread-bolo-de-sertao/

http://leitesculinaria.com/10318/portuguese-portuguese-azores-hearty-cuisine.html

Portuguese dictated recipe:

Aqua de fevir 3.5 cup

Teaspoon de sal

Chave na meia of cornflour 2.33

Chave na terce de farina branca 2.33

Add boiling water stir vigorously til smooth

Cool, stir occasionally

Add reg flour

Knead for 5 min

Make round roll

Roll on board with cornflour

Half inch

450 oven

Bake for one hour until golden brown

Death of Monsenhor Júlio da Rosa, age 92, My Grandfather's Cousin

Rui Brum Ávila‎Ilhas do triângulo (S.Jorge, Faial e Pico) - Açores

Faleceu Monsenhor Júlio da Rosa, na noite de sexta feira dia 13 aos 92 anos de idade.
Nasceu a 24 de Maio de 1924 nos Flamengos, concelho da Horta.
Cedo descobriu a sua vocação para o sacerdócio e a sua sede de conhecimento e espírito de partilha que o levaram a formar gerações como pároco das Angústias, professor do Liceu da Horta, colaborador e fundador de alguns periódicos, educador e homem de cultura.
Autor de treze títulos publicados, recolheu e organizou o Museu de Arte Sacra e Etnografia Religiosa, e foi Sócio Fundador do Núcleo Cultural da Horta e seu Presidente durante vinte anos. Era membro do Conselho Internacional dos Monumentos e Sítios, do Instituto de Estudos Genealógicos do Uruguai e foi orador em diversas Conferências e Congressos em Portugal e no Estrangeiro, entre os quais se destacam a da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina no Brasil e a da Brown University, nos Estados Unidos.
Tinha uma vasta obra no campo social, tendo fundado a Casa dos Rapazes, a Conferência Vicentina – Secção Feminina, a Cozinha Paroquial e a Escola Paroquial.
Comendador da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique da República Portuguesa e homenageado com as Insígnias Autonómicas no dia da Região em 2013
Paz à sua alma.

(And Automatically translated from FB)

Passed Away Monsignor Julius the rose, on the evening of Friday morning 13 to 92 years of age.
Was born on 24 may 1924 in the flemish, county of horta.
Soon discovered his vocation to the priesthood and his thirst for knowledge and spirit of sharing that led him to form generations as vicar of woes, professor of high school of horta, collaborator and founder of some periodicals, educator and man of culture.
Author of thirteen titles published, collected and organized the museum of sacred art and ethnography religious, and it was a founder member of the cultural core of horta and its president for twenty years. He was a member of the International Council of monuments and sites, the institute of genealogical studies of Uruguay and he was a speaker in several conferences and conferences in Portugal and abroad, among which are the the federal university of Santa Catarina in Brazil and the brown university , in the United States.
Had a wide work in the social field, and founded the house of the boys, the conference vicentina - women's section, the kitchen and the parish parochial school.
Commander of the order of the infante d. Henry of the Portuguese Republic and honored with the autonomy insignia on the day of the region in 2013
Peace to your soul.

The Coral Castle

My 5 American cousins, who spoke perfect schoolroom Portuguese, grew up in a giant house with tiny rooms. 

I see this as an adult, one of the rooms is the size of my Brooklyn studio, and that's small for me (and my stuff).

In Rhode Island, it was actually the room where I was conceived. Where 3 boys grew at one time, 2 girls in the room next door.

Visiting the three family house was always an experiment in time travel.  

The first floor was now. But it was oddly, 1960. In the Azores, in America. A Disneyland version of dolls in grim reaper costumes. They dwarfed working windmills. Working until we broke the threads that represented their sails.

When the eldest got married, she moved upstairs. My prototype for how far away daughters were really allowed to live. Once they grew up.

My mom had plans for an expansion of the attic, if my father had stayed alive. As if I would be grown, living there. If he were alive, I would have been more responsible sooner. And on my own.

The second floor was modern, as of 1980. No telltale Portuguese anything, except cooking smells. That had been left downstairs.

The third floor was more rare to visit. Almost designed for tomorrow. A floor of wedding shower gifts and hifi and electronic equalizers. It was always too transient, which also meant it was the cleanest and most up to date. All the mistakes quickly ripped out.A floor of the brothers and their failing marriages. All the cousins (except the last daughter and me) have been married at least twice.

The stairwell was a square spiral staircase, wooden, rubber mats on each step. You always know when people are coming or going, and everyone knew everyone's business.

Except me. I lived in a house of everything layered on itself. A collection of yard sale items from divorced dads of Lincoln. Sunday drives in the country, looking at rich people's houses, imagining how we would live in them. 

My father warned me not to buy books.

But I wanted to steal knowledge, to listen in, to eavesdrop on every family. To see what I was missing. And always, reassure myself that my missing father was different.

The first and most perfect man.

I dismiss my dates if I can't have a decent conversation.  My father was my model for how to stay curious and delighted. My main cheerleader. He loved me unconditionally, and my mind too. 

That's what I miss.

Mom Returns

The biggest news lately is that Fatinha is back!

A cousin was supposed to come (but Vovo tripped her, in front of her own building!) 5 days before the trip.

And so Mom had to step up to the plate.

And now she's visiting everyone.

And going everywhere.

And she'll have a grand 75th bday party! 

One that I could never give her in Boston.

Here she'll have family, lots, to help her celebrate.

(Today she looked at an old ruin by Praia and wanted it. That and an automatic car!)

And I think she would stay!

Mom's Bio : Stepping Back In Time

Fatima’s stories

June 15,2015, Monday (1 week before I go to the Azores)

Tammy has just arrived from NYC (showed off dresses, dinner at Marios, shower-ready for bed)

The below is what we came up with, after exploring the map she drew of the house!!

==

Sitting at the kitchen table, talking about life.  I hear a bird (I feel like I haven’t heard bird since I’ve been in NYC for 2 weeks, all we have are pigeons!!)

But the sound was so sweet and clear

(She gets up at 4 and the Mockingbird is singing his head off!!)

Mom begins telling the story about how she’d interuppt the birds, by running into her backyard.

“There is a bird singing in my house/yard in Waltham.  And its song reminds me of the birds that I used to scare/scatter going up the stairs to the 2nd level of the house/orchard in Horta”

Mom is DRAWING her house

Story of birds

Antonio in backyard

reaching to get the Autumn berries, and tearing off the branches

(Oh my god, I planted one of the branches!)

If he couldn’t reach, he would have a  .. .  thing to grab it

We were very, um

>Resourceful?  Destructive

Resourceful!  Yes,

>She didn’t care about the branches?

SHE DID!

She put up a line of iron spikes along the whole of the roof,

and when there was an earthquake, part of the wall came down

and took it with it.

She made my Mom pay for it

(and she paid it bc she didn’t want to deal with lawyers!!!

NEIGHBORS!!!

>>Also, you cannot make another person feel bad in the way that you want them to (through emotional manipulation, maybe through PAYING or overt control of things in the real world

Installing spikes is getting long term revenge

==

Stepping Back in Time BY Fatinha Freitas Rose

Rua da Sao Paulo #6 (or 3)

The front wall of the house was very thick, 3 feet wide

It was thick enough to fit a caixa de roupa/a chest of clothes (Hope chest)

If we want to run away from my sister (any) we close the door and we lean against the door and stick our foot at the edge of the hope chest so she couldn’t open

There were no locks on those doors, IMAGINE!!

Between Quinta do Matos (his orchard) and a casa do Senhor Leal

A casa tinha tres quartos grandes

The house had 3 large rooms

2 bedrooms and a dining room, quarto de jantar

Dois quartos de cama

When you come in the house

Entrava-se na casa pelo corredor da porta da frente que dava para o quarto de cama, quarto de jantar e o corredor de traz.

Fugiamos pela janela do quarto do meio, saltando para a rua quando minha mae trancava a porta da rua/frente.

“MJose caio esta janela”, da janela do quarto da mae (the room closest to Quinta do Matos)

(Pai estava na Terceira quando tinha nove anos)

Quarta de jantar tinha a janela

con rede (screen) durante o verano

(Antonio’s house has a metallic cover, the mosquitos could get thru)

All the windows had jaousias/jealousies

Shutters!! Functioning, though!!!

BUt the mosquitoes, again, would come through the shutters, we had to kill the mosquitoes before turning off the lights for the night!

I still dream about it, the windows had double panes-it was so tricky to open it, because you had to pull it all up and twist it so it will hold on a little piece of wood, It was very tricky until I found the way to do it.

Arvora de groselha-

by the end of September, the tree was LOADED with red berries and we looked and we couldn’t reach!! (cry in her voice!)  And the streetlight was shining on them, it was a SIN!

We could hear the birds in the morning, sweeping aroind, eating, having a ball.

But we just couldn’t get it, but my brother Antonio did!!

He climbed on the stone wall and the house (the peak?)

So he could grab some of the branches

so we could eat them!

Later on, I stuck the pieces of the tree all over our yard (like in Waltham, too!)

In the back of the house, there was a long storage corridor, divided in 2.

O corridor de dentro

O corridor da forra (inside and outside, ha!)

Dentro=havia a

(something with shelves, with potatoes on all levels)

We had 3 levels in the backyard and in the very top, my mother used to have potatoes growing

and we’d have potatoes for the rest of the year

5 feet long with 2.5 wide

I remember bc one time my sister said it was a bunk bed, my sister put me there (MJose, she’s the one who played tricks on me) Prob why I have claustrophobia . That’s where the cat slept!

When we had what-you-call a banana bunch, we’d hang it up close to the end of the corridor.

One time, My sister Maria Z, found out the bananas were ready to eat, she didnd;t tell us, we found a bunch of peels outside the window!!!  She was lost!!

bastante comprido por que tinha lugar para a coisa das batatas storage bins, lugar ou bao-hope chest-treasure chest, round on top, and smaller one. That was built with 6 whole pieces of wood. MZ has it!!!!

That’s where I spent my summer days reading the Reader’s Digest, start being published in (Brazilian) Portuguese in 1940!!

There is a story I never forgot, that I read every summer, called How Sweet is My Heart/

A boy brought up in Louisana woods or something

Huckleberry Finn? A boy with a black sheep . . . (You have to read it!!)

Brought up by his grandmother, who had a friend

a country fair, needed money to go to country fair

had to go in wods, find a beehive

followed the bees, found lots of honey

fume out the bees

Went to the fair, entered the contest,

day of the fair, polished the hooves of the sheep

Judge said we have a VERY special prize for sheep, “it’s not the race of the sheep, or the color, it’s the way it was brought up”

Grandma kicked the sheep out of the house

Prize never been given til now

Grandmother got prize for her blueberry jam

“So CLose to My Heart”

My best summer reading (like Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer)

Oh, so you related bc it seemed like the farm life in Portugal.

I’ve never lived with sheep. (dead straight!!!  LAUGH!!)

My grandmother had a farm (father’s mother) Lived in Horta, a farm in Horta

She was in America twice!!

She had pigs that you’d feed with corn to fatten before they died.

Nice thick layer of fat. We didn’t put weight on!!!!

Walked to school 4 times a day.

Story of Mom’s Paternal Grandfather

My grandfather

I think his name was Antonio Freitas

was a very good (not a mechanic??)

in his job

and in Horta, there were 2 companies assisting the ships that needed repair

Faial Co, and the BeneSaude

The rival company came to him and said, we’ll give you a trip to America, and when you come back, we give you a job.

He came to America WITH HIS WIFE, made a lot of money, as a Pipefitter (late 1800’s?  Did they come to America twice??)

in Providence

He had a brother in Providence, BURIED WITH HER FATHER!!!!

(Father was born 1902)

Money enough to buy a farm at the edge of town (Horta)

called “Boa Vista”, it was, it had a BEAUTIFUL view

(fell down with the earthquake)

We visited in 1984/2002!!!

We did!!

Right at the top edge of the crater

they have been selling lots and building brand new houses, of course

I don’t know how big it was

ASK MCHICA

We sold it little by little, that’s where Vovo got money to send us to school, high school had to be paid, “My father had no sense of finances”

Then he went to Horta, got a well paid job again

Think he came to America later on

My father had I don’t know how many brothers & sisters,

the only one who survived (past 20??) or kids??

A picture of him and an older brother of his-when they were boys, 6,7?? 8 and 5?

The older brother looks just like Antonio!!!!

Vovo had a house in Angustias, just before she got married, lived there with her father!!!!

Porto Pim.

to go someplace out of town, we had to have a car

he had 3 cars before the war, he sold the cars, bc there was no rubber for the tires

sold them to a guy who made lots of money with a taxi station!!

Dream w/Ruben I was looking at my father’s store-not bookshop/ not newspapers-delivere daily to houses, sold paper goods & pencils and perfume and cigarettes

Fatinha went there when she was 2!!!!