Peace at Last

There is a little girl in the photograph below who was born in San Diego. Her father was a Basque jai-alai player and her mother was from the Philippines. The little girl had big ears so perhaps you can spot her. She loves opera and has fairly liberal views about life. She is 8 years younger than I am. She lives in Barcelona. In my early life as a nasty and spoiled pre-teen I thought she was terrible, particularly because she was a little girl. I didn’t like little girls. It took me a long time, once I was married and had two daughters to appreciate the charms of little girls. By then she had receded in my memory.

It is only recently, 59 years later that I have re-connected with her.

Tonight I was suffering from my perennial insomnia and suddenly I had a thought. I went to my family album and picked this photograph that was taken in a resort city (it was cooler) in Baguio in the Philippines. One of the women, standing on the left is my grandmother. The picture was taken around 1888. The woman sitting to my grandmother’s left happens to be my new friend’s grandmother. Her name was Paz. All are dressed in costumes of the local natives called Igorrotes.

My life might have been different had I liked little girls then.

Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.