Holiday Letter 2003

Holiday Thoughts 2003
From Flamenco Romántico
Federico and Marianna Mejia

It is almost the night before Christmas and it is the fourth night of Hanukah and I sit here writing. There is no holiday letter yet from us this year, but we are receiving cards and letters from our beloved friends and I want to answer them. Last year I wrote a holiday letter, which I e-mailed. But I never sent out snail mail the copies I had printed on rainbow paper! That was the year when Freddie almost died in Spain and upon our return Freddie went back into the hospital here. That year I was to drained and to busy taking care of Freddie to finish my Christmas intentions. And now this year, on the Monday before Christmas, I have decided that I do want to send our love to our friends and family through written communication. I want to send our holiday greetings and to thank those of you who have already sent us beautiful cards. You are in our hearts as we receive the caring cards and letters you send us. And this year, like last year, I have been to0o drained to “do Christmas”. We arrived home from Sevilla, Spain at the midnight of December 10. We were both exhausted from being so sick this year in Sevilla and we have been slow to regain our energy. It seems as if we are still fighting getting sick yet another time. We are still unpacking and re-settling into our home. My ankle is still sprained and Freddie is still dealing with his back and foot pain. But on the other hand, we have had some incredible experiences and made some wonderful friends this year. We have dealt with pain and with incapacity and grown from that encounter. Freddie is playing some beautiful guitar music on his beautiful new golden flowered guitar.

​Our story of this year’s three-month Sevilla trip is written in the Spain Chronicles 2003. If you would like a copy (e-mailed or snail-mailed), please let us know and I will send it to you. You can also read it on our website www.flamencoromantico.com. Hopefully I will soon get to putting up the photos we took this year.

What happened in the rest of the year? Freddie and I, as a team, taught some inspiring Flamenco dance classes that included guitar and palmas too. I sprained my ankle in a gopher hole in the summer and it never got completely better. I am still dealing with it now, nearly six months later.

Freddie and I went to visit my son Elun and his wife Donna in their new home in upstate New York, where they teach history.  We had to fly into Ottawa and we loved that city. Elun and Donna live near the Amish people and one day Elun and I went quilt hunting at the simple farmhouses of the Amish of this area of rolling green hills. Freddie and I had a wonderful time with Elun and Donna and their three cats and we hope to visit again soon.

Last March Farruquito and Juana Amaya, two Spanish Gypsy Flamenco dancers who are among the best in the world, came on tour through both Berkeley and Santa Cruz, California. Our friends Pepe de Moron, dancer and singer, (who had visited us with Miguel Funi the year before), Raul “el Perla”, guitarist for Farruquito and friend and guitar teacher for Freddie, and Paco “Pacquito” Fernández, Concha’s nephew, Juana Amaya’s guitarist and also Freddie’s guitar teacher and now a good friend –all these friends came with the tour group and so they and the whole group came over to our house for wonderful dinner after their Santa Cruz show. And we renewed our friendships with them again when we were in Sevilla.  

In August, just before we left for Sevilla we presented a house concert for Transition, the Armenian musical group of our friends from Spain who live in New York: Souren, Haig and Polly (whom I had known before when I did Middle Eastern Dancing to her wonderful drumming and who actually lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico). Rayhana, our friend who is the dancer of the group, could not come with them and we missed her. We had to wait until Spain to see her. Our house concert was a success and was a lot of fun. We enjoyed having these friends stay with us and share our space. And of course we enjoyed hanging out with them soon after that in Sevilla, Spain where they were again contracted to play Armenian music for a month at la Carboneria.

We also had an enchanting visit this summer from Freddie’s daughter Maggie and her three wonderful children, Kyle, Katie and Kerra. Maggie’s husband Jason was serving on the Nimitz for what seemed like forever and was still there in Iraq at the time of the visit. Luckily he is home now and their family is happily united again. We missed Jason on that visit but we loved having Maggie and our grandchildren here. We wish they lived closer. Instead, they are moving from San Diego to Texas in February. Unfortunately we did not get to see Freddie’s son Manolo or Manolo’s wife Alta this year.

I am still keeping up my Psychotherapy practice and facilitating Shamanic circles once a month (I have substitutes leading the shamanic groups when I am gone). When I am in Spain I stay in touch with my psychotherapy clients who request it by e-mail. I have even scheduled phone appointments when needed. And I occasionally do shamanic work in Spain. In that way life has not changed so very much since last year.

This year, Freddie built his dream “Sunset” room, the former lean to off the edge of our dance studio. It has a wall of windows and a sliding glass door facing the canyon where the sun sets. From the bed you can see the stars at night and the canyon in the morning. The pot bellied wood stove keeps us warm on just the tiniest amount of wood. It was here that I sprained my ankle one beautiful morning in the tall grass outside the door, when I stepped into that gopher hole. Now we have a sturdy porch there so this won’t happen again.

Freddie’s dreams continue and now he is dreaming the dance studio bigger. We will see what happens in this coming year. Meanwhile he is playing that tremolo cleanly and delicately. The music wafts into the room as I type, filling these pages with melody.

​What is important in this year? It is important that we have good friends and loving family. It is important that we have the health we have and that our bodies still work and that we are alive. And it is important that we have love in our lives. Freddie and I continue to take the garbage out each Wednesday night that we are here living at home, holding hands and then sitting on Mama’s bench, watching the night and talking. We are certainly more and more in touch with mortality each year, as the life cycle continues. And in turn, we are more grateful for each moment of exquisite life lived beautifully and fully.

​So we wish you all Happy Holidays and Health, Peace and Happiness. May your days and nights be filled with music and dance or whatever makes you the happiest. May you have every blessing you deserve.

Marianna and Federico Mejia, Flamenco Romántico