Off to Spain

Leaving for Madrid at 8:50 PM. Can't remember if this is the first time I will be on Iberia since I came to the U.S. in '72. Might have flown Iberia to Madrid in '97 -- but could have also flown British Airways. One of the very few things I have kept over the last 30+ years is the two books Mom gave me to read on the plane. "Tales of the Alhambra" and the "Prince and the Pauper". Novels by American authors -- Irving and Twain -- that I would subsequently read over and over in their native language. "Tales of the Alhambra" sounds better in Spanish -- then again just about anything does. By all practical purposes I should have been terrified on that flight -- 11 years old flying by myself to meet my grandparents in Dayton -- did not speak a word of English. Immigration idiosyncrasies I believe somehow made it easier if you sent a minor child a week earlier. Had to switch flights from JFK to La Guardia -- a cousin collected me and took me to La Guardia. It was Halloween night -- October 31st -- my first encounter with the peculiar Holiday. All I can recall is being speechless. Somehow I think I passed a level of scared after which you kind of turn off and are not scared anymore.

I need something to think about other than 1972. Maybe I should think about what September's Yoga Journal said we should all do. Write down short and long-term goals four times a year. Two personal, two business and two health for 1, 5 and 10 years. Because goal setting triggers "your subconscious computer". Which is really true -- just about anytime I have written down goals I have met them -- even getting back into my super skinny red dress :-). In fact about the only goal I have not met is be blond for a while -- ironically what I would have total control of so I must not really want it bad enough. Learning to swim, ride a bike, new job, all sorts of things the result of goal-setting. I should try it. The again I could be Sydney whose goal is to win at tug-of-war :-)!