Alabanza!

Me again, your substi-spew blogger. I am here to report that Lola is alive and doing well on her island writing retreat and she is actually having an amazing time. She is still fairly isolated out there and contact with her has been limited to a few random texts throughout the day and perhaps a brief phone call at night. But, every message from her has been so filled with excitement and joy about what she is doing, that I know this will be a week of her life that she will cherish forever. She deserves one.

If you wonder what you do in a writing retreat as I do, apparently, it seems you write. You write, and read, and revise, and write. Throw in some time for meals and perhaps a glass or wine of two, but otherwise, it’s all business. I will hear from Lola in the morning and she will already be writing (usually having her morning cup of Joe with the sun on her face). She writes all day with her group. Then she writes at night. I usually get a call as I am going to bed, and Lola is just finishing up. She’s writing and writing and writing.

My only fear that she is just filling up journals by continually writing, “All work and no play makes Lola a dull girl.”

But I don’t think so.

She is so pumped about the whole experience. She loves what she is doing. It has made her excited about doing more and is she is just relishing the supportive environment that her new writing friends provide. She loves the serenity of the island. She is overjoyed by the guidance of Joyce Maynard. She is appreciating every moment and all her surroundings. She is just soaking up every minute of this experience.

Alabanza.

That’s a new word that I fell in love with this week. For some reason, one day this week, I woke up singing the title song from “In the Heights”. It’s a Broadway show, one of Lola’s favorites, about a neighborhood in New York and the people. Definitely has a Spanish flair to it, but with a slight hip hop twist – my Lola can, and will, bust it out. But this day, the song got stuck in my head. So, I decided to listen to the whole soundtrack. That’s where I found “Alabanza.”

Alabanza is a word that Abuela, the grandmother of the neighborhood in the show, uses when she appreciates the small little blessings in her life (glass Coke bottles, breadcrumbs, a sky full of stars.) It means, as they explain, to raise this thing to God’s face and literally, to sing praise to this. The song has a sad tone to it, given the occasion upon which it is sung, but the word has such a subtle and profound beauty to it, that it keeps ringing through my head. How many things in our everyday life which we take for granted deserve our praises? We all need to cherish the blessings of our life.

So to this workshop and retreat that Lola is in the midst of, I say, “Alabanza!” I sing your praises. It’s a little gift to Lola to be where she is and to having the time she is having. It’s a blessing to have her feel the freedom where she can write all day, without worry, without interruption, without guilt. It’s just her and her pen. It’s a blessing to give her time out on a peaceful island where she can appreciate the rolling sounds of the surf, the squawk of the seagulls, the smell of the ocean. It’s time for her, time to feel her Mom with her, and time to breathe – deep and long – soaking it all in.

Alabanza.