She moved into our lives like a bird of paradise. Brilliant. Colorful. Delightful. Flamboyant. Creative and imaginative, she made time to be a friend in all things. Always pushing our envelopes, always expecting us to reach for more, she lived life in full Technicolor as if it were right there at her fingertips waiting for her to grasp it.
She would invite us out to dinner. Perhaps with a friend. Invited to tea on her back deck, or lunch. The hand she held out to us was a life ring that we didn’t always grasp. Her classes jackhammered us out of our ruts, her presence in our life poked us to think beyond our cardboard boxes.
Finally after years of almost retiring but not quite because she so needed the money. Finally after years of traveling hither and yon to work with the poets and authors she translated, she did retire. She had sold one house, moved next door and expanded another house, created a magic home out of crumbling stucco and color then let G plug her into the modern computerized world. Still in debt, after her retirement, she told us she was renting her home and moving to Canada. She kept her converted garage….a glorious spot of color on a canyon in San Diego.
Her dream didn’t last long. There will be a public memorial service at the end of October. I will truly miss her magic presence.
I cannot imagine life without her somewhere here in the world.
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