Winter Solstice Update 2024
December 20, 2024
December 21, 2024
Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere marks the year's shortest day and longest night. On December 21st, the darkness dominates our lives. We seek comfort in sparkling lights and crackling flames. We celebrate to cajole the light to return, but what if we embrace the darkness and draw it around us like a warm blanket? What if we honor our failures, disappointments, and disowned parts as valued teachers? As we pull that shadow blanket tight, we find comfort in the courage that allows us to transcend difficult times. We see that the returning light is inside us. Our resilience is the light of the world.
For me, 2024's final quarter has been a delight. October began with a welcome reunion with a childhood friend. Linda lived across the street from me when I was in high school. She was smart, funny, and a talented singer. We became best friends and got into mischief in 1960s Los Angeles. We went to the first "Love In" in Griffith Park. We danced to The Doors before they were famous in a tiny bar in West Hollywood where they were the house band.
After high school, she got married, and I went to the University of Southern California. We kept in touch. She and her husband were the witnesses at my wedding. We all went to breakfast at IHOP after the courthouse ceremony. When my parents died, she sang at their memorial service. Then we lost touch for about 30 years.
Early this year, I got a Facebook message and a friend request from an unfamiliar account. It was Linda! She'd tracked me down. I was delighted to reconnect. By video chat, I learned she was the mother of three adult children who'd made her a grandmother many times over. Her husband died five years ago, and she was ready to explore the world. We made plans for her to visit me in Spain.
She arrived in early October and settled into her own Airbnb in Madrid a few blocks from my house. I showed her my city with its plazas, palaces, tapas bars, museums, and shady parks. We traveled together to Granada, where we toured the Alhambra, took a workshop in clapping Flamenco rhythms, and soaked up the Moorish ambiance. We returned to Madrid and flew off to Venice, Italy, where we shared an Airbnb with my well-traveled buddy Jeffrey Clawson and met up with my LA friend Michael Caldwell. We rode in a gondola, crossed the Rialto bridge, ate tasty Venetian cicchetti (the Italian version of tapas), marveled at the San Marcos Basilica, and wandered the Biennale…and under Jeffrey's adept guidance and heartened by Michael's humor.
We returned to Madrid for a few days. We enjoyed theater in Spanish and sang along at a piano bar as we sipped gin and tonic. Next, we took one of Spain's fantastic fast trains to Barcelona where we joined the crowds entranced by the stunning Sagrada Familia Basilica. We wandered Parc Guell in the rain, then stuffed ourselves with seafood at lunch with a Catalan friend. We stood in awe before a couple more examples of Gaudí's fantastical architecture and took a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter. On our final day, we took a train to Figueres and whipped through the surrealistic Salvador Dalí museum. We grabbed a quick lunch, took the train back to Barcelona, then hopped on another train to Madrid.
With just a couple of days to go, I recruited a friend who is a chef to give us a cooking lesson in my tiny kitchen. We learned to make gazpacho and tortilla de patatas, the classics of Spanish gastronomy, and practiced eating and speaking Spanish at the same time. At a goodbye dinner in a Thai restaurant, Linda and I reminisced about our teenage days and hatched plans for future travel. I was sorry to see her go, but we continue to video chat. Stay tuned for upcoming adventures.
In the first week of December, I had the opportunity to volunteer in an English immersion program for Estación Inglésa. I have done many of these programs. I always enjoy going to a resort with an equal number of native English-speaking volunteers and Spanish-speaking professional people learning English. It's six days of speaking only English at meals, in one-to-one conversations, in group activities (like a sangria-making contest), and in games. The students pay, but a private hotel room and all meals are free for volunteers.
This location in Villajoyosa, near Alicante on the Costa Blanca, is spectacular. The hotel is right on the Mediterranean Sea. Each room has a balcony directly facing the ocean. I fell asleep to the sound of the waves at night and watched a glorious red/orange/yellow/pink dawn every morning. That alone was a rejuvenating experience. In addition, I met fascinating people, both Spanish and English-speaking, including a journalist for Spain's most important newspaper, El Pais, a professor of Iberian pre-history, and two members of the Guardia Civil (which is like the FBI). And I had fun!!! After that, I spend two days in Alicante on my own to visit friends there. Although it's a small city, I'm always mesmerized by the magic of its castle, beckoning beaches, and palm-fringed, colorfully tiled, oceanside esplanade.
In 2025, I hope to release my as-yet-unpublished memoir 20 Years in Hollywood: Tales to Tell about my career as an Assistant Director. My accounts of my interactions with movie stars from 80s are a big hit on TikTok. You can see them here. So far, I have not landed an acceptable publishing deal, so I am investigating self-publishing. I need your feedback about which way to go. I'm wondering if it is worth the trouble and expense to publish a physical book. Ebooks are more eco-friendly because they save trees and the energy required to ship physical books. Audiobooks have the same savings with the added advantage of being able to listen to them while you are doing other things like driving or cleaning the house. I now prefer audiobooks over physical books. I know it sounds like heresy coming from a writer, but I want to be realistic about living in this busy, digital world. I am thinking of only publishing 20 Years in Hollywood: Tales to Tell as an audiobook narrated by me. What do you think? Is that a good idea? How are you spending your book budget these days? Drop me a note at newsletter@marshascarbrough.com about how you think I should proceed and why.
If you need a few last-minute gifts, books are always appropriate for everyone, and Amazon delivers.
Merry Christmas! ¡Feliz Navidad! Happy New Year! ¡Prospero Año Nuevo!
Wishing you a safe, warm, light-filled 2025!!!
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