Tag Archives: Christina Romero-Cross

Smoke And Fire – Letting Go And Staying Open

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A few days ago I wrote a piece called ‘ Up In Smoke ‘ if you missed it, take a minute and go back for a quick read through. What follows will make more sense if you do.

Now that you’ve caught up, take a look the beach bonfire where the ceramic containers went into fire on New Year’s Day so the strips of paper inside could be turned to ash and the wishes and burdens released.

Here’s shot from a distance to give you some scale for the rockiness of the area.

Remember when I said there would be sausages roasted over the fire … well, that is Tina’s brother in the foreground with a sausage on a stick. He was there with his wife and daughter and wrote about his bonfire experience in the comment section here. I’ve included it below as well. (Thanks, Pablo)

” Ari, Amber and I really enjoyed the wonderful new years day bonfire on Baby Bay, watching the urns get hotter and hotter as we cooked hot dogs and sausages. After about an hour the urns got so hot that the wishes and burdens caught flame and made a whooshing sound as they exhaled fire and smoke from the egg like urns. It reminded me of the celebration of lights that signal the coming of longer days and rests at the heart of our solstice inspired christian midwinter festivals.”

Ahhh … Cornish sausages over an open fire. I have to eat them with American mustard though. I carry it with me when I know I’ll be eating some especially at our village pub. Nothing says American like pulling a BIG bottle of French’s mustard from your handbag.

Big thanks to Amyra Bunyard who documented the process and gave me permission to use her images here.

Up In Smoke – Hopeful Thoughts For 2012

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Photo by Christina Romero-Cross

I went to my friends Tina and Henry’s home on Christmas Eve for a mince-pie and a glass of mulled wine and left having satisfied more than my appetite for sweets.

Tina’s an artist and she had two ceramic vessels that she’d made sitting in a featured place with small slips of paper layered around them and several ink pens nearby. She spoke briefly about her intention for them when I arrived, but after being swept up in conversation almost as soon as she finished, I only remembered her plan for them as I was putting my coat on to leave.

We were encouraged to write a burden we wished to be rid of in 2012 on a slip of paper and drop it into the vessel on the right and if there a secret something we hoped for in the new year to write it on another paper and put it into the left container.

I did not hesitate with my hopeful wish or my relentless burden and after a quick scritch-scratch on the paper, I was done. The next morning I felt lighter already as if the act of writing both down had lifted a weight from me overnight. I know that sounds silly and too simple, but it’s true.

The vessels and the papers inside are destined for a big beach bonfire on New Year’s Day. The ceramic containers are made to withstand the fire while the papers inside are baked to ash.

I like that.

I like the idea of my dreams and doubts going up in a puff, while sausages and marshmallows roast on sticks over the same fire. I imagine Tina and Henry’s twins will be dancing and twirling around the beach while things crackle into dust and it seems right that children should be playing nearby.

Children are naturally hopeful and isn’t hope a part of why so many of us think a wish or resolution has a chance for success even if we make the same one every New Year.

Please feel free to share any of your rituals for the new year in a comment below or leave a link if you’ve written your own post for 2012.

Vibram’s FiveFingers For My Aging Ten Toes

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Vibram's FiveFingers For My Ten Toes

I always come back from my visits to the US with things I think I cannot live without such as my favorite peanut butter, hair gel, and protein bars, but this time I added a new pair of shoes that my friend Jules told me about recently. You may remember that I have been experiencing some fairly major aches and pains that I had  been attributing to my aging baby boomer body and years of long distance running.

As much as I haven’t want to admit it, my low back and knees hurt most days and even more when I run a lot or do the five or six-hour coast path walks that John and I love so much. Usually, I just suck it up and drive on as we used to say when I was in the army and eat a couple more Tylenol than I would regularly, but after hearing about these shoes and how they might make a difference, I thought I would give Vibram’s FiveFingers a try.

Yesterday, I slept more in one day than I normally do over a three-day period as I had a wicked and unusual case of jet lag but I did manage to make it to the supermarket with John and wore my new shoes out for the first time. While you can buy these in the UK, I have not seen any on feet around here and from some of the looks I received I don’t think they’ve made the Cornwall scene in any great numbers yet.

I am giving myself one more day to settle in before I hit the ground running (literally) with my running buddy Tina on Saturday. If these new shoes can help slow down my aches and pains while speeding up my feet, I’m sure Tina will appreciate my increased mobility.

I’ll get back you on my transition from Nike’s to FiveFingers in a few weeks along with any comments worth repeating. So far the prevailing one from several people who know me has been, ” So you got those in America, did you? ” John however, has been quite supportive of my new footwear finding the different looking shoes an interesting idea for improving my mood and mobility, but remains slightly amused at being seen with a woman wearing as he puts it, “Shoes that look like black monkey feet.”

Our Cornish Christmas – An Open House – Part II

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I’m so glad you could stop by for part II of my post about our Cornish Christmas. If you missed part I which was yesterday, you can go here to read it first.

Our Christmas stockings were made by my paternal grandmother years ago. Mine is the largest. I made one of the same size and a similar look in white for my daughter’s first Christmas 23 years ago and while I have it here, I couldn’t bring myself to hang it since seeing it made me miss her even more. I brought it to England with me to make some repairs to it. My version has not weathered the years as well as the one my grandmother made. I’ll take it back to her later when it’s fixed.

This is our Christmas tree. It’s a live one that John used several years ago and has been growing in the garden since that time. I was surprised to see it transfer so nicely to a larger pot and work so well inside the house.  It will stay decorated and in its spot until Twelfth Night when it goes back to a place in the garden. The Christmas angel on the tree top is a special one I made for Miranda’s first Christmas and has been on my Christmas tree for 23 years.

I used to like to think of my angel’s out stretched arms as open and embracing, waiting in a way to envelop one in a big bear hug, but after buying our first Christmas ornament as a couple this year from a local artist, I think of her arms as opening wide to hold the joy that is in my life and in my heart. Instead of hanging the heart embroidered with joy on the tree, I thought it fit perfectly in the arms of the angel.

On Christmas Eve, John’s cousin Mary and I ventured down early in the evening for the children’s Christingle service. I didn’t take any photographs of the service, but the pictures  below give you an idea of what our church looks like from the inside … except it was full of singing children and special christmas decorations and lighting that night.

This is John just inside the door of our village church in a photograph taken almost two years ago. While I have great interior shots of churches all over the UK, I seem to have neglected the one in my own village.

There’s no heat at all in this church so you have a sense of what it must have been like throughout the ages. Of course we have better fabrics for insulating our bodies from the cold, but it was still chilly on Christmas Eve.

After our Christingle service we went to a Christmas open house at my friend Tina’s house, but again I don’t have any pictures to post. John took a few, but she and her husband Henry had a full house and it was difficult to get any that looked very nice.

Because we had icy road conditions on Christmas Eve the vicar canceled the midnight service. I had been looking forward to it so I stayed up late writing my Christmas blog post and watching a midnight mass in the lovely cathedral that you see above. ( I snapped this shot from the television)

This is Mary on Christmas morning. She said later at the end of her five day visit with us that it was the best Christmas she could remember in a long time. I was so pleased since I knew with the recent death of her brother Michael with whom she always spent Christmas, that this was going to be a difficult one for her to get through.

This is John looking cute with a lawn mower razor that was in his stocking. He was quite surprised to see that I still believed adults should hang a stocking for Santa to fill. His was overflowing so he must have been a very good boy this year.

Ah … one of me … holding some spackle, I mean wrinkle filler that my sister Margaret sent me from Alaska. After dabbing on a little, we headed for the pub for a traditional Christmas Day drink.

Mary didn’t let her almost 87 years (she’s a new year baby) keep her from a Christmas morning trip to the pub. In our village, Gary, who owns the pub along with his wife Margaret, opens the pub between 11 and 2:30 on Christmas Day so locals can come in for a drink.

That’s Gary in the Santa hat and Roger in the navy shirt beside him. You can’t tell from this picture, but Gary is wearing shorts. It  was cold outside, but he was still wearing shorts. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Gary in long pants or trousers as they would say here since pants means underwear.

A distance shot of some of our neighbors.

More from behind the bar.

This lovely image was painted by a local artist using Gary, Roger (barman) and Becky (barmaid) along with some pub regulars in her version of the Nativity scene.

After my usual pub drink of diet lemonade, (like a diet sprite) it was back to the house for our first Christmas dinner together. There are a few things on the plate I’ve never had at Christmas before, like the roasted potatoes, parsnips and the bacon wrapped sausages they call pigs in a blanket here.

Here’s a shot of me with Mary wearing a traditional Christmas party hat that fell out of my Christmas cracker.

Burp!  ” Oh, pardon me ”  It turned out to be a lovely mix of my traditional American Christmas favorites along with John’s English dishes.  I almost forgot…

Hello Dolly … anyone?