Now that I am in my seventies and I’ve let my hair go gray, it’s a wonderful time to evaluate my life as if every event were an epilogue. Not as a goodbye or an ending, but as an opportunity to tie loose ends, to revisit, to rethink. It could be a trip, reading a book, seeing a film, visiting a museum or maybe a love affair (yes, romance is possible at any age!). I notice that in the dictionary “epilogue” appears only in singular, but I expect to enjoy many, thus the plural of the title. In Spanish there is also a verb “epilogar” which would be the seldom used “to epilogize” in English (careful the auto-correct will change it to apologize).
Come to think of it, I have been creating epilogues for a long time. Each of my books is an epilogue of sorts. Una noche en casa was a trip back home in Madrid, where I found out I didn’t belong anymore. American in Translation was a goodbye to Marine Corps life during the Vietnam conflict, to my parents and to my life as a single woman. Of course, finding my parents Spanish Civil War letters a few years ago became another epilogue which gave life to two more books: My Mother, That Stranger and Retrato del joven escritor Juan Luis Alborg. But the most obvious epilogue was Divorce After Death, the bittersweet farewell to the peripatetic Peter.
Epílogos, the Spanish reference on the title, shows that no matter how hard I try, my native language appears when it’s least expected. Remember, dear readers, that not only I speak with an accent, but I write with an accent as well. Feel free to correct my “ins /ons/ ats” or any other thorny expression that tricks me up. I guess this blog makes a “chica moderna” out of me who welcomes your comments and your visits. Hope to see you here often.
Hasta pronto, Concha
Much success with your Blog, Concha. You know you only have to take an elevator to the third floor for a glass of bubbly!
Thanks, Gail, or better yet, take a walk on the beach…