#19 Write postcards

I love writing postcards and letters.


I'm terrible about mailing them though.


I had my first pen pal in second or third grade. I don't remember the year, just that out of the blue a card arrived from my mom's high school friend from Pennsylvania. I had never met her, but she asked if I would be her pen pal. I felt special. And she promised to always try and find peacocks cards for me, because she liked peacocks and peacocks were special.


I saved them all.


Later I was pen pals with my best friend who moved to New England and  then with my aunt who left to work in Ecuador. I saved all of those notes, too.


Here's to the nearly lost art of handwriting notes.

#26 Meditate at la Ermita

La Ermita de la Caridad is the national shrine to the patroness of Cuba - Our Lady of Charity who appeared as a floating statue to three men at sea nearly 400 years ago.


The shrine itself is built to resemble a 90-foot Virgin, covered with a mantle and overlooking the sea.

People sit alongside Biscayne Bay and pray. The seawall looks toward Cuba, if not in reality at least in spirit. It is the wall of lament, the wall of hope for many exiles.

Some throw ofrendas - bright yellow sunflowers and coins - into the water. (I can't help but wonder what name they call la Ermita in Santería.) Many Cuban exiles want the site to be their last resting place. Some scatter the ashes of loved ones, despite the rules against the practice.


I sit and meditate. The water laps at the shore. The constant bay breeze rustles the palms. Our little boats get so easily lost at sea, I think.


Caridad.

#105 Admire the red trees

Washington, D.C. has its cherry blossoms. Pasadena, the purple jacarandas. In Miami, the signature flowering tree would have to be something loud, gorgeous and the color of sin: the royal poinciana.

The trees are from Madagascar - transplants like so much of South Florida. But they fit right in. I've been spotting them all around town. They are gorgeous.

I took a special walk along the historic South Miami Avenue to admire the poincianas' return to glory there.

On the avenue, the poincianas are blooming for the first time in two decades. People blamed obnoxious lights by the Florida utility for confusing the trees' cycle so much they couldn't flower. Lo and behold, the utility changes the lights and the trees return in blazing glory.

A rhapsody in red, as the story in the Herald describes it.

#52 Mass in Spanish

I think I'm still searching for my spiritual home here. I often go to the Spanish Mass at the Little Flower parish.

They sing a lot there. And the priest wants everyone to sing louder, reminding us: "El que canta ora dos veces."

I like to light a candle with a silent prayer. Maybe that's praying twice, too.

#73 Get on A1

I had two stories on the front page this week. One very inspiring. One very tragic.

Read about Hialeah High's pipeline to the Ivy Leagues. The story is about kids who are smart and work hard - and also the school's network of alumni who help younger students make it.

Then there's the Hialeah massacre. A distraught husband goes to the Cuban restaurant where his wife just got a job - part of her attempt to leave him.

He kills her, three other female employees and wounds three other women. He shoots himself in the head a few blocks away. So many lives shattered.