Köln, virtually

Cristina took me out for the-day-before-my-birthday breakfast. She just completed a Maxwell tour in Norway, Finland, and Köln. She has been doing costumes and jewelry for Maxwell for about twenty years, and she loves the spirit of camaraderie on his support team. In their off-hours they swim together, go to museums and cathedrals, console each other over losses, and celebrate each other’s kids and accomplishments. Cristina’s cousin Lillian met her on a day off in Köln, and this is the view from Lillian’s hotel window.

Cristina gave me a book she bought me for Mother's Day and didn’t have a chance to give me till now: Feminist Freedom Warriors, edited by Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Linda E. Carty (2018). She chose it because, she said, it has stories of women I can relate to. And she’s right. Angela Davis, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Himani Bannerji. 

I couldn’t wait to read it and opened it to the perfect page. It’s Bannerji saying, “The time has come to remind ourselves of the famous choice indicated by Rosa Luxemburg between socialism and barbarism.”

I have the best daughter-in-law in the world.