A Taste of Life After my Honey

My friend, Marcie, and I went to a Taste of Isabela or in Spanish Sabor de Isabela to taste our way through the food vendors. These early forays into society after widowhood make me tense. My world has turned 180*, but everything else is the same. He’s never coming back to me; my husband is gone in this lifetime. This hasn’t sunk in yet. It horrifies me, but here I go smiling and laughing with my friend.

Our first shared dish, chicken wrapped around chorizo sausage accompanied by mashed yucca got lip smacking rave reviews. The sun shone brightly, so my big floppy hat came out of the back pack. Salsa music kept our feet stepping smartly. The Plaza of Isabela is charming with well trimmed ancient Mimosa Trees shading some of the walks.

Marcy my vivacious friend talked to everybody in the fastest Spanish I’ve ever heard. Some conversations I understand nothing, and then others I can follow along quite well. Learning Spanish is almost as much fun as learning to speak dog. A major difference would be I don’t know when the dogs are laughing at me. Speaking Spanish takes me away from my usual fears, for some reason I’m not afraid of my mistakes.

My budget is so tight I squeak, but I’m a sucker for things people make themselves, if of course, I like it. Lucy, this tiny little slip of a vendor made some of the loveliest jewelry out of dyed seeds and coconut shells. Twenty dollars will feed me for a week, so it’s dear, but when she put the necklace around my neck we knew it belonged there. Her first sale of the day had to be my last, since I found a purse another woman made in shade of blue that suit me perfectly and my well worn fanny pack no longer zips.

Kirt waving from car. 

Marcy with the Rosie Perez voice tickles my funny bone so we cut up like school girls. When a thirty something told us when she grows up she wants to be just like us, I laughed more deeply than I have in a long time. We high fived womanhood. It was a good day; it’s still possible. For so long I thought I’d never see the sun in a day.   

Let me buy a couple of things, feed my face and tell me a good joke; turns out I am easy to please. The pain of losing Kirt begins to ease. And then I feel oh, my God how can this be; I’ll never see my love again.