STAY THE COURSE

Live in Joy

2011-01-17T10:21:00.002-05:00

"People who follow their joy discover a depth of talent and creativity that inspires us all." — Dr. Robert Holden

Have you ever met someone who loves to go to work? Who no matter what is going on is always reaching expectations, being a true team player and coming up with ideas all the time?

To some people discovering their passion in life was just part of growing up. The traits that would become part of their career emerged as part of their personality and they would find their calling without trouble.

Then there are those of us, whose purpose was not so clear, not so easy to find. And, if you are like me, you have searched in a million occupations and worked in every job and you cannot get that elation that others seem to have.

But let me tell you, once you find it, it is huge, it is like being able to see after being lost in the darkness. It was loud too, like a bone snapping back into place, once that pop was heard, I realized that I had talent and I was creative.

The words flowed from my mind and it was not work, it was like a game. Not to say that writing is always easy, like sex, I have to be in the mood. If I am not in the mood, I just sit there staring at the screen waiting for something to happen. But when the muses are on my side, I can crank a thousand-word paper in an hour (I am also a transcriptionist, I type fast).

And yet, writing is not my bread and butter; not yet. I write for the pleasure of it, it’s almost like an exhibitionist; there are parts of myself that must be revealed through writing. Nothing else will do.

And while writing doesn’t give me money, yet! It does give me the fuel to meet my day creatively and positively. My work, as an interpreter, flies by when I know that I have a paper to complete as soon as I am done with my shift. Don’t misunderstand; I do love my job, helping people, creating bridges of communication, helping in the assimilation.

But writing is a secret pleasure, like a chocolate bite that restores you in the middle of the day.

Can you imagine how much happier the world would be if everyone followed their calling?

What if you tried, just this once, to do that which makes your heart sing? You don’t have to quit your job, you can do it as a hobby, you can take a class, teach a class, join a cause, share a thought. You may not be the next American Idol, but if singing brings you joy, joining the choir will lift your soul and make your day brighter, which will enlightened your life. Isn’t it worth a try? I dare you….

Find your purpose, once you find your path you will hear the pop, feel the flow of your soul and live in joy….

Puppy Love

2011-01-16T13:48:00.002-05:00

My daughter has a boyfriend; No, not my teenage daughter, my seven-year old.

Gabriela has been Justin’s girlfriend way before my Victoria had a boyfriend. A source of tension between the girls; however, it was Gabriela’s relationship that we focused on and gave attention too, because, seriously what does a seven-year old know about relationships?

Often at the dinner table, we sit down and we ask after her boyfriend’s well-being? Has he been on the wall lately (punishment during recess for breaking the rules), does he eat all of his lunch? You know just regular questions you could ask about a seven-year old.

One day, though, Damian (my eight-year old son, a whole year wiser) asked her:

Why do you love this Justin? He was mocking her, to be sure…

But her answer floored her sister and me: Because he makes me laugh….

It was so simple, so true and so very honest. She said that of all the boys in her class, he was funny and he made her laugh.

A few days later, she was playing with her Barbie’s and one of them was arguing heavily with the other and in the end she screamed, I just love Justin, ok! Apparently the argument had been about Justin. Part of me wanted to leave her to her games, the other part wanted to talk to her about this Justin character, so I went into her room to talk about it, what the heck! I hadn’t played Barbie’s in a while.

As I sat there playing Barbie’s with her and trying to tame the unruly hair into a precise French twist, Victoria (17 year-old) walked in and grabbed the other Barbie and proceeded to join our game.

(In my head, I congratulated myself in being able to deliver the lecture to both girls! Yes, my young grasshoppers, mother will impart her wisdom about love)

So it went something like this:

Gabriela, it’s so sweet that you and Justin are dating!

Yea! He is such a funny boy, I really do love him

(BINGO!! Perfect opening…) Sooooo, you love him huh?

Yep, I sure do…

That’s so cute, but you don’t love him, love him right? (If you say it twice, it means something deeper)

Mom, if you love someone, you just love them right?

Well yes, of course dear, but what I mean, this is just a little boy in your classroom; it’s not real love…

(Victoria snorted; Gabriela looked at her sister and frowned) So what is real love mom?

(Victoria snickered; it’s never good when a teenager snickers)

You see, sweetie, real love is a feeling in the bottom of your belly that has a sense of good and warm and it’s fuzzy around the edges. It is a smile that appears on your face when you think of that special someone; it’s all of those feelings of warmth that spread in your heart for that special someone. It’s the desire to shower that person with good deeds, good thoughts, and good feelings.

Well, I feel that about Justin!

Yes, but its puppy love dearest, not love!

Victoria, not trying to be helpful and trying to get back at me for having the same argument with her earlier asked: What is the difference mom?

CRAP!

You see, Victoria, the difference is that puppy love is young and innocent and notoriously short lived.

(Big words, so Gabriela wouldn’t understand)

But you do admit that it is love, right?

(Thinking furiously about what I was getting myself into, or from which angle she was going to get me) Why yes, of course, it is love!

Then, if its love and its genuine, is it not your duty, our duty to respect it and give it room to grow and flourish?

(Losing my cool) OH COME ON!!! She is seven… She doesn’t know anything about love, I am just trying to teach her that you don’t go telling people that you love them, that you don’t go showing boys your feelings and leaving yourself vulnerable so that they hurt you, you don’t leave yourself open.

Does that mean that because she is seven, seventeen, or seventy the emotion is any different? Mom, you are not teaching her about love, you are teaching her about fear, about holding back, about ego.

(A distant part of me was so happy,she had been listening to all of that metaphysical stuff I had taught her over the years.)

And, I was rocked back! She is right, my idea of love is so twisted and distorted, how in the world are my kids healthy and normal? Well maybe not normal, but functional, you know?

Having grown up in a dysfunctional family, my views on life and love were a bit distorted. I had been aware of that all along. I constantly went in search for a new definition of who I was. I took quizzes and learned astrology, palm reading, studied body language and read tarot cards. I was only thirteen. My desire to define was obsessive.

I finally stopped running around in circles when a book told me that what I was, what I had become and what I would be depended only on me, entirely on me.

YCYOR: You create your own reality.

How? Through your thoughts, your ideas, your actions. They define you; they carve you out of the basic material of the universe. Your thoughts, as they swirl in your head, become embedded in your mind, and then in your soul.

Things that have happened in your life before and inevitably repeat themselves over and over are just an expression of your mind chasing its own tail. Have you ever wondered how those abused women stay with their abusers? Yea, thoughts can take themselves in a vicious cycle.

Where did those thoughts come from? Sometimes they come from what you have learned in your short life. They are from your direct experience. Hot stove, little hand, not a good feeling. Fall down, mom sweeps me in her arms: mom will comfort in times of pain. Fall down, mom scolds or berates me: mom is not a source of comfort. Even at a very young age, children can follow that logic.

Others were given to you, on a silver platter by your parents and the adults around you.

Men are not to be trusted. Women belong in the kitchen. Love is treacherous. Life is full of nasty surprises. Children are to be seen and not heard. Go to college or you will not be worth anything. If you don’t have money, you are nothing. The better the car, the neighborhood, the better you are.

You hear this in their conversations with other adults; sometimes they even sit you down and tell you all about this. Trying to teach you about life, they will impart their wisdom and make sure that you understand the lessons that they have encountered in life. You wont stumble over the same rocks they did, you will learn from their heartache and you will know, beforehand, what life is like.

Seems reasonable, doesn’t it? If I pass my experiences to my child, to the children around me, then they will avoid making the same mistakes. They will be enlightened and better off than what
I was, and surely, if I tell them all about the bad stuff I have encountered, well, they will be wiser, right?

How quickly we forget when we were young! Children won’t learn from your experiences. They won’t appreciate your life in another country, in the road, in the farm, in the other side of the universe. They are a result of their current environment and they cannot absorb what life was like for you. Nor is it realistic of you to expect them to, you are a result of your experiences and if you have made a conscious effort to provide your children with a different experience, how do you expect them to understand where you come from and what you lived throug? It doesn’t work. Handed experiences are not profitable, only the earned ones, the ones that leave scars, in mind, heart and soul.

Children are not a mold of clay, you cannot shape them to your liking, you cannot create in them the qualities that you think they will need to succeed or be as you think they should be. The things they will learn are modeled by your intentions and your actions; you overprotect your child, they will learn that there are things to be feared, because they need to be protected.

Same with love, if you have had negative experiences in love, you will pass those experiences to them. Kind of like saying that puppy love, teenage love is not real love.

And so I sat holding on to the Barbie following the origin of that askew view of love and wondering how much of my life had been shaped by this unconscious notion. And I realized that in my life, love had not been given, it had to be earned. It was something of value that had to be traded for, bartered for, and invested on,be worthy of.

Much, much, much later in life, after motherhood changed my life. I learned that giving it away was powerful. When I loved my children, loved them unconditionally, something in me stirred and moved. When I accepted my husband, my friends, my family, unconditionally, I was taken to another dimension of humanity. When a classroom of children come willingly and give me love and revel in the idea that I love them, each and everyone of them; it’s a high, drugs and alcohol could not compare. The idea of giving, the idea of loving someone enough to see them as exactly the way they are and accepting them exactly the way they are, well truly, that is love.

Because, it was all coming together in my head, when you love someone you see them in your mind as they are, EXACTLY as they are and you accept and you give your love, your energy and your acceptance, without asking for anything in return. You don’t see them as perfect, perfection is elusive and makes for feelings of inadequacy, you see them just as they are, all of that they are.

Can a child do that? Can a child love like that?

Yes, children can love like that. Children can love someone who in the eyes of society is imperfect and love them so much, anything else becomes superfluous.

I knew they could, as my dad struggled with alcoholism, I loved him. As my sister battled her depression, I loved her. As my brother hid under layers of past hurt, I saw his light and I loved him. As my husband pushed away, it kept pulling me in and I loved him.

You have done it too! That inexplicable moment, when something quickened in your heart and the most unlikely thing happened, someone who you never thought would be a part of your life becomes your beloved, your best friend. You see inside, they see inside, no one is judging, no one expects anything, no critique, only acceptance and naturally, love happens.

Ok, my mind was reeling from this; this is powerful stuff, from a seven year old? From a seventeen year old?

And the more I separated from that jaded part of me, the more I realized…love happens.
You don’t build it, create it, sculpt it, make it happen, potion it into existence or pray it into manifesting.

Love happens. Unexpectedly, unpredictably and sometimes, entirely without logic.

Yea, yea, I know, it takes work to make a marriage work, but that’s a marriage, a relationship. A relationship is not the same as love, and love is not needed to have a relationship, sadly.

So my girls were right! Love, in any scenario, in any expression of itself is still love.

And suddenly I found myself surrounded, in love, all expressions of love. Romantic love, physical love, filial love, sibling love, friend love, maternal love, long-distance love and yes even teenage and puppy love.

Spring

2011-01-05T22:52:00.001-05:00

And so you have come to take her away…
I had expected your arrival but now that you are here,
I cannot say I welcome this day
But it is inevitable, the bud must bloom and spring will arrive
And with its bellowing sunshine, it will change our paths…

No longer does she come to sit at my side; no longer does she tell me the long stories of her day
I watch her smile and know that I may never know what gave her such rush
But all flowers must bloom, spring must arrive as it does every year, I cannot change its ways

And so she leaves; hands full of plans and heart full of joy
And I watch from the window as she begins to walk down her own path
No more midnight talks, no more why is life thus?

I remember her perfect little body curled up next to me
Her little arms wrapped around mine, her love intoxicating,
Her perfect rosebud lips curled into a most angelic smile
Yet, all flowers have their time to bloom and here comes her time to shine

Her days by my hearth are numbered already the allure of life calls her name
No more hugs in the middle of the night to soothe her troubled dreams
No more kisses to fix life’s little scrapes
She comes filled with sunshine, with dreams and hopes
and as she waltzes down the merry path of the life she has divined,
I look at her move away from me, and recognize the woman she will become.

For a time comes to all mothers when we realize we are the epicenter no more
This child who depended on us has grown her own wings and fly she will, even if she falls
Yet in my heart remains, the bounce of her curls on my chest as we cuddled together for the night, the hundredth kiss goodnight and moment I first looked into her eyes, alas it was love at first sight

And so you have come to take her from me, to lead her to her own time
She will walk from my door, needing me no more and soon will fly to new heights
Be gentle with her; remind her always she is loved
For I too was once seduced by your song, I remember your pull in my heart

But this isn’t my trip, my time of spring has long past,
Her spring is dawning and soon comes the moment when she will be gone from my arms
And so she walks towards you
Lord Life you’ve come with your inevitable song, she now follows your enchanting road
And so her wings open wide and she welcomes the spring of her soul
Go dearest child of my heart, I remember what it’s like to fly….

Making a List

2011-01-05T14:42:00.002-05:00

I am not a regular list person. I make a list of things that need to get accomplished for the day and before the first hour has passed, I have lost it. Post it notes are not my thing, a task list in my phone just gets ignored, I am not a scheduled person and the thought that I must restrict myself to a piece of paper is unfathomable. Why? The same is accomplished in the day with or without it. And if it doesn’t, there is always tomorrow.

However, there is one list that I do make. I make it once a year and I hold it in my wallet. I don’t remember about it often but when I do, I take it out and I lovingly go through it, as if I had found a picture of someone beloved. And in a sense, I have.

REWIND TWENTY YEARS (Dear Gods, twenty years? Really? )

On a round table in my small kitchen, in a house that is no longer mine, my best friend and I sat with a book that had a recipe for success. We had found out that the book had made its way into both of our paths and although it had not been explored, it remained nearby, waiting for us to discover it.

During one of our lengthy conversations we found out that we both had the book and we both talked about it. Like two children who had discovered the forbidden, we sat around that table and we huddled together trying to unlock the secrets this book was giving us. Everything you could possibly want, all of your hearts desires are within your reach when you apply this knowledge to your life.

Holy Moly! We struck gold!!!

We gathered at the table again and we were ready. Paper? Check! Pencils? Check!

That’s it.

That’s it? Not an eye of Newt? (whatever a newt is!!), frog’s legs? Three wings of a silvered bat?

We were going to reach our heart’s desire and all of our dreams would come true with paper and pencils? I was beginning to grow skeptical.

However, my skepticism was short lived. The instructions continued to be simple and we simply followed them with wonder and excitement.

Step 2: Make a list of the things you want.

Heck that was easy. I want so-and-so to be my boyfriend, I want nice clothes, I want a cool car. The lottery would be nice too. For about ten minutes or so, our minds soared and we daydreamed and giggled about the things we wanted and how awesome life would be when we had what we wanted. The author of the book, Conny Mendez, encouraged our game. She told us to ask of it what we will because there was no question about receiving it. We did not need to be told twice. Off to fantasy land we went!

Step 3: Rewrite the same list, in present tense and using as much detail as your mind can muster.

For example: if you wanted a hot car, your statement would look like this.

My car is AWESOME! It has leather interior and its candy apple red, it is hot and it is sooooo smooth. Every time I get in it, I can see people looking at it with admiration…. Etc, etc, etc; you get my drift.

Step 4: No, no no… there is no step 4.

WHAT? No step 4? Surely you jest.

Nope, I am not Shirley and this is no joke my friend.

So my best friend and I put this paper away in our wallets and forgot about it for a while. Six months later (we had marked the calendar) we sat back around the table and looked at our lists.

Of the ten things we had listed, five of them were accomplished or no longer of interest.

Let me repeat that…

We made a list of ten things. Of those ten things, five or more of them had either come true, or they no longer mattered.

Six months later, the list had to be redone and new things had to be added to the list. In a full year, most of the things in the list had either come true or they were no longer part of our dreams.

How so? The guy I wanted to date turned out to be a jerk and I was glad nothing came through from that.

I had wanted a candy-apple red car and I didn’t have a candy-apple red car, but I did have my mom’s burgundy car that she let me drive to work. It wasn’t super hot and smooth, but it did get me places and at 15, that is all that matters.

So again, we sat down and repeated steps 1-3. We giggled at the possibilities and we dreamt about how it would be and how we would act when the things we wanted came into our life. Same process repeated, six months later, and another year later.

Now, I don’t know if Conny Mendez’s intention was to establish a pattern of a resolutions list but it did take that shape and although we didn’t continue working on our list together, or only once a year. We continued the pattern of designing the future.

FAST FORWARD TO 2010

We have since learnt so much about this list making process. Many people shun it like magic and call it evil and run away from it, afraid of what its power means. And rightly so, it isn’t only in Spiderman that this is true. With great power comes great responsibility.

Do not despair though; I am still going to share the power of the List!

First thing you must know. Your thoughts are powerful.

Have you ever thought about one person, and five seconds later that person called you? Or walked in your door? Or a picture fell into your lap?

Yes, I know coincidence… moving on.

Have you ever worried, and worried and worried that something horrible was going to happen and then much like you had warned everyone around you, it happened, unerringly like you had predicted?

Back to coincidence or your wisdom, could be either one…. Let’s move on.

Have you ever woken up with the thought that it was going to be a wonderful day and that nothing was going to stand in your path and your day went fabulous? Or vice versa, you wake up from a miserable night, you fall off of your bed and you slip in the shower, burn yourself with hot water and cut yourself so many times you look like a sieve and as you get ready to leave, you KNOW, this will be a horrible day.

And guess what? It was. Of course it was, it had no choice. Coincidence again, right?

No, not really.

First, let’s define something. What are your thoughts?

They are not random images in your head; they are not private deliberations that no one else will see.

Thoughts are things.

Things? Yes, things!

How things? Hmmmm, if I was thinking of winning the lottery, I was using some kind of material to build this dream of mine right?

Yess????

Ok, so what was that material? Cloud mist? Fairy dust?

IT IS ENERGY! Not energy like light bulbs and Al Gore energy.

Think energy like when you walk into the ocean and you feel that raw power that envelopes you. Think of the stillness of the forest that seems to vibrate to its own music. Think of the glow that a pregnant woman has long before she begins to show. Think of how you feel as someone with ill intentions approaches you.

How does the power of the ocean communicate itself to you? The stillness of the forest that seems to lower your own blood pressure (vibration)?

Everything has energy, every little bit of everything is made up of energy. Dreams, thoughts, people, cars, pets, broken hearts, aspirations and even nightmares. All of it made of energy.

In quantum physics, it is explained in particles of photon. Everything is made up in these particles; the denser the material, the slower the particles. (yada, yada, yada, look up quantum physics for further debate).

Ok, so what are we up to? Yes, thoughts are things; light particle things.

These light particle things have a level of vibration, a pulse if you’d prefer and it attracts to itself, things that have the same pulse. Imagine a gathering of people; they will group themselves according to their similarities. So it is with energy.

Negative energy: energy from worrying, from fear, from despair, from anger, from hate, from envy, from avarice. It all seeks vibrations, energy that it’s like itself.

For example, if hate is a 2.

You hate morning traffic =2

Your husband hates Brussels sprouts=2

Your father hates the IRS = 2

The KKK hates minorities = 2

You hate war = 2

It doesn’t make a difference what you hate, hate is hate is hate.

Same thing with love. Love, of course, is at the other end of the spectrum. It is not the opposite, for the opposite of love is fear, but they are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Love is a 100

You love ice cream = 100

Your daughter loves to dance = 100

Your husband loves his garden = 100

Your mother loves her charity work = 100

It doesn’t make a difference what you love. Love is love is love.

So, good thoughts give LOTS of vibration. Negative thoughts give little vibration.

In order for something to come to you, you need LOTS of vibration.

Your vibration is to be focused, is to come from a place of intention, and it is to be accepted, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

This is why prayer works. Prayers, meditations, offerings, spells and manifestations. ALL of them have the same thing in common. They are a focus of vibration and a willingness to sit there, open-hearted to receive it.

See, we haven’t discovered anything new. All we are doing is showing you the wizard behind the curtain.

And you know? The biggest challenge with praying for something isn’t that God doesn’t want you to have it, it isn’t that you didn’t use the right kind of vibration, nor that your spell failed.

The KEY ingredient in making this “process” work is absolute certainty, faith and knowing that it will come to pass. Your doubt is your undoing.

If you have accepted that your thoughts are powerful, you have tuned up your thoughts, you vibrate beautifully and yet, your lottery numbers haven’t come up. Don’t blame the magic! The vibration of the lottery numbers cannot come to you, if you still cannot “BELIEVE” that you are a lottery winner.

Before you can bring it into existence, you have to know the feeling, the emotion behind it and then you have to let it go.

Like they teach you in Sunday school: come to church, become one with God (align your energy with positive vibrations, ground yourself, still your thoughts); ask God to act in your behalf (offer your vibration, cast your spell, achieve your God-head) and LET IT GO!

So, as you can see, my list is not a technique that I discovered. It’s not even new. It is no SECRET. It’s your right, your passage, your key, your list, your power, your very own divinity, your nirvana, your bliss. It matters not what you call it, as long as you use it.

So, to recap:

You will need pen and paper

Make your list; include all of your hearts desire. And don’t ask for something you don’t want (what will you do if you get it…. Awkward!!!)

Focus your thoughts, your energy, your light particles, and your vibration on your desires. Include your images, daydream it, live it, feel it. Attach emotion to it!

And then fold your paper up, stick it in your wallet, in your purse, anywhere that it is close to you and from time to time, open it and enjoy it again.

And then let it go. Let it come to you; don’t seek to guide it, to pursue it, to chase after it.

There are more forces at work on this than you could ever imagine.

(I know what you will say, if this works so well, why am I not rich? Look again, I AM)

Letter from a Brother to another...

2010-08-05T07:35:00.004-04:00

Hey Bro! Check it out… people are pissseddddd…

Man, people are out for your ass!! You better run somewhere…

Man, it aint what you did or didn’t do.

It’s the approach you said you were gonna have. You were up there saying, we gonna change things, and we thought, well hell, he is a brother, he knows what’s up, he’ll take care of business.

You is a brother, from a single momma, had to work your way up, go to school and now you was coming to the White House, Dang bro, we thought you was the black superman…

But so far nothing… same bullshit!

What is up with all the change line you was giving us???

Take this shit with AZ, how you gonna let them do that to the beans??

Bro, it’s the same shit they did to us… PROFILING, ya know?? Them Ricans aint illegals, but they still look like the Mexicans, how you gonna tell them apart???What are you going to do about the illegals from Zimbabwe, they look just like us? What if there is illegals from France??? They white!! Naahh bro, this is creating a world of trouble…

Check it out, ima school you in what you need to do???

Now, listen up son, my momma used to say you cant be knocking other peoples houses and telling them what to do if your own house is a mess, that aint gonna work….

What are we doing investing money all over the world in military bases, troops and who knows what else you got going over there??? Bring it back bro… Now, once you got everything here with you, army, navy and who knows what other thugs you got watching your back.

What do you do when you don’t want flies in your house??? CLOSE THE DOOR…

CLOSE THE BORDER!!!! Party is over; whoever is here, is here to stay…. Let the ones that don’t want to stay go, have them hit the road, they don’ wanna be here, we don’t need them here!!!

Talk to these people bro. Some of them want to come and be here for good and work and be Americans like us…. Why can’t we let them? Bro, King said it, not Martin Luther King Jr bro, Rodney… why can’t we all get along???

There be some of them too that want to start shit and want to work and cross over every other day, make money here and take it somewhere else to spend. Nahhh, bro, them people aint Americans and aint never gonna be.

If you work here, that money needs to be spent here… none of that sending out to buy shit in other countries. Like in El Salvador, my friend Felipe says he gets 10 pairs of nikes for like ten dollars, but I told that crazy fool, it aint about what you getting bro, its about what you putting back… these beans don’t get it bro, but they will.

Women be drawing food stamps and getting their kids free education throughout the year and then they send them back to Nicaragua so their auntie can take of their kids for free, what’s up with that???? You need to invest on the daycare here, this is your country now…. Don’t sell out…

Like if Diddy gets his shirts made here and Jay-Z gets them done in China, need I tell you whose shirts you need to be buying…

Here it is bro… them beans don’t think this is home, they be here working their asses off, cause they are hard workers, you have to give them that but at the end, they always want to go home. We aint never gonna make it work with them, unless this becomes home. They be here fifty years and they still be crying about home, they need to own up to that and make up their minds, ya know? Not that I blame them, have you seen some of the veterans in the streets? It is disgraceful

Seriously now, we need to take care of us first.

Didn’t you learn from 9/11??? Them people blew up the towers and suddenly Jose, Wong, Fred and Jerome was helping each other, representing and whatnot. So here is the deal, everyone that is here, and wants to be here, they get their shiny, new americanship certificate!

So what are you gonna do? Make everyone legal. Fine everyone that has been illegal, that plus whatever they have to pay for their papers ought to make up for the budget deficit, plus I bet you never thought about the extra money you are gonna make when all of them pay taxes.

You gonna have to hire tons of people to process them as legal. They gonna have to be registered, someone is gonna have to work with them while in that process, then you are gonna need testers, and then you gonna need to have someone take the pictures and give’em their brand new certificate of americanship.

You gonna have to have people around to help them. You need civic centers bro…

You need centers in the community where people can go to find out about jobs, education, raising their kids, health and all of the things that they need to know about to become American citizens. Your momma taught you about being an American, they don’t have a momma to teach them, they are being taught by the other people who came here before them but none of them have the right information. They need help; our help…

When kids go to college, they get a mentor, someone who walks you around til you get familiar with the campus and tells you about the rules and how you gonna get from here to here and who to talk to if you need something, where you can get the good shit, ahem…. now why would we think that coming to a new country would be any different… it is the same and some of these people are lost and get bad advice.

Then you gonna have to open the schools at night and hire more teachers. You need to teach these people to speak English, you need to make it mandatory and make them pay for their classes, as part of their americanship program. Think of the new revenue that would generate. More teachers, more jobs, more consumption…. I can see them dollar signs dancing in front of my eyes… But, wait, you have to make sure these people are FLUENT. My friend Maria took her citizenship test and do you know what they asked her? What color was Washington’s white horse??? What kind of civics and American history test is that? That’s bullshit; it’s harder to get through the airport bro…

That ought to quit the extra expenses in translating documents and printing fifteen hundred different versions of one form.

Also, you are gonna have to get rid of the current welfare failure. Man, we can’t give prenatal care and food stamps to everyone who gets pregnant. That’s like rewarding your kid for doing something they are not supposed to do. I know you don’t want to leave the kids unprotected and it aint the kids fault the momma got pregnant, but if you pay for it, they aint gonna care, they gonna keep having babies, white babies, brown babies, black babies, ALL kinds of baby. We in the middle of a recession and people don’t even know whats gonna happen and they still having all kinds of babies… Crazy!!! Taxes should be commensurate to the expense that the government has for you and your family. I am just saying… you gonna have twenty kids… that’s cool, but you gonna pay more taxes… not the other way around.

The first thing we are gonna have to teach everyone, not only the new people new to the americanship thing is accountability.

You lost your job and you need a hand, that’s cool bro, shit like that happens all the time, we gonna give you and your family a hand for about six months til you get back on your feet. After that, you need to scoot… If you have not found a job by then, then you need to seriously consider going back to school or doing something else. You wouldn’t have your momma support you for your whole life, why should the government?

Insurance is too expensive for you, that’s cool, the government can offer you insurance alternatives, but I tell you what, they need to pay something for it and make it available to everyone. What the hell makes you think that the people that work want to spend all kinds of money on insurance, hell sometimes they gotta do without and people that don’t work, have insurance, which makes no sense bro, no sense…

Here is another idea I had, you know how you go to NY City and that shit stinks and it’s dirty. They gotta have at least half of the damn population in that damn city on welfare and housing. Tell their asses to hit the streets and clean it up bro, someone needs to be getting their hands dirty. They can’t find jobs; we find something for them to do. We need people to provide daycare for mommas to go to work and school, straight! You getting welfare, you gonna work in government provided daycare, no more sitting in your house watching Jerry, we gonna help you help yourself!!!

Didn’t your momma every teach you? Yo, don’t give someone a fish; teach their asses how to fish…
No handouts bro, no handouts, and then you got them people thinking, you owe me, the government owes me… bullshit, no one owes you nothing…

What about them mommas saying they kids sick so they get a check? Bro, why a kid with ADD need a disability check? Check it out, if you told me you was gonna give her like ten hours at a local day care so she can get that little bugger out of her hair for a while cause if not she is gonna go crazy herself, I understand that, but why a check??? The schools be teaching them and shit. That momma don’t need anything extra…

Ohhhhhhhh!!! I almost forgot bro, I almost forgot…. This kid I know hooked me up with a Dell, ya know a laptop so I can be connected and check out what you up to on CNN. It started acting all goofy and I called him and he said he wasn’t no tech to call technical support, have you ever tried to call them tech support people???

I was talking to Yuba, she had an accent, but that’s cool you know? A lot of people do, but I was telling her that it was crazy hot here in the heart of it all and then I asked her if it was hot where she was at, you know what she told me, she couldn’t tell me where she was at…. I looked at that phone like Yuba was crazy, what you mean you can’t tell me??? Where are you at??? Finally she told me she was out of the country.

Are you for real?? You know how many people can work those jobs? Why you letting them send them jobs out of the country?? Man, even them big fat people on the Wal-Mart carts can run their mouths and work customer service, we don’t need to send our jobs out. Same for them companies that go to Mexico and shit to build stuff cheaper, you know that never made no sense to me either.

If the Mexicans are coming here to make money and the factories are working over there, you’d think something would’ve noticed something aint right….

Anyways back to these Benedict Arnolds, tax them! Tax the companies that outsource jobs and the ones that bring in foreign made products to sell here. Tax them outrageously. There are 307,006,550 people in this country. We have enough of a project trying to become self sufficient. If the company wants to stop doing business here, good riddance!!!! We need companies who believe in the American spirit and not in the capitalist-get-your-own-now-and-fuck-everyone-else-spirit but the lets-work-together-to-create-a- nation-that-allows-people-to-be-self-sufficient-independent-self-fulfilled-and-investing-fully-into-each- other-and-our-children’s-future spirit.

The worst part of it all, the craziest part of all of this bro, is that if we all looked to investing our money, our time, our interest in here, in America, the country would flourish….

I know why you stuck, why you can’t do anything. There are those who are so far up in the system, that are profiting so much from the way things are that they cant allow for it to be changed. Truth of the matter is … we can’t change it all, unless we ourselves change. We are responsible for allowing those people to take advantage of us. We are responsible for letting things so out of control.

People stopped caring about who was in office and what they was doing and they became numb.

Now everyone know who Ochocinco is gonna choose for his baby momma but don’t nobody know about the laws and how they be changing and the fact that we are so far in deficit that it’s not even funny.

When the gas prices went crazy, people suddenly woke up and the gas was like a dollar higher. It wasn’t over night, people. Wake up! They be raising prices of everything, everyday, passing laws you don’t even know about cause you too busy on facebook and then you gonna get mad, child please!!

Bro, there is so many things that can be done to change this. You just gotta get your strap on and make the hard decisions. The justice system sucks, its not rehabilitative, its crippling. Welfare is creating a generation of self entitled boobies. The education system is being destroyed, have you noticed that world wide we rank like 200th in education. Damn bro, I know we got some smart kids. Let’s start investing the money where its worth investing at.

Instead of paying Lebron the millions and millions of dollars he gets, I know this one teacher in my school that we drove insane, I swear she used to eat antacids every two minutes, she deserves millions of dollars because she stood with a bunch of lost hope kids and believed in them, that’s a lot harder than shooting hoops. How about them firefighters that jump into your house to save your ass in a fire, they go in there and get you out and they go back to get Fluffly??? The policeman who sticks his neck out there in the ugly parts of town, who have to run into the shootouts. How about you holla at your stay-at-home moms, who make it work on one income so they can be home not only for their kids, for the kids she helps when she volunteers and for the kids she watches at home to make a little extra money. How about the single parents?? They deserve millions and millions. For working and going to school and raising their kids and still wanting to better themselves to make it better.

How that crazy Lebron gets money like that??? I don’t know, there is something stupid about a society that is willing to pay a basketball player money like crazy and give minimum wage to a daycare worker.

I don’t know bro, I am just saying…

This aint about race either. The AZ law is wrong not because they illegal, but because the way to enforce it is to physically profile. Hell yea, you need to stop illegal immigration, but don’t make stupid suggestions, Hard problems require that you play hardball. People take advantage of welfare, all people, white, black and Hispanics. People go to jail and get branded for life, white, black and Hispanics.

Stop making it an issue about race and integration. It can’t be integrated. It will never be. Integration means that we will blend into some freakish creature, and we cant, our strength is our diversity. So stop, no one is going to have pot roast, collard greens and rice and beans for dinner. It’s not happening. Celebrate our diversity. Celebrate our differences and learn to use those differences as resources for our growth and improvement.

Maybe one day, not that far off, we can all sit together for a brand new type of Thanksgiving dinner. Can you picture it? Some rice and beans, get some macaroni and cheese and some fried chicken.

Now, when we can all sit down and enjoy that table just for the sake of the food, then we will have made progress, otherwise, this is just a game and the Arizona law is just the first step in our long course to self destruction.

Now do what you came to do! Lead us bro, lead the change, lead the revolution!!!

Word to your mother! Peace! I am out!

Love

2010-07-29T09:01:00.003-04:00

A mother sitting at a park watching her son, Johnny, play T-ball with his friends. Johnny can’t swing as well as his friends but his mom sees him as precious, he is trying, he is working so hard, he has come such a long way. A love of a mother works that way.

A documentary talks about how some people establish relationships with prison inmates and fall in love and some even marry. Somehow, even the most misunderstood people of the world, have someone who loves them. Why?

Does the crazy person try harder to reach out to one person than to another? Is a mother totally biased because genetically speaking she is predisposed to love her child more? What makes someone be perceived as great by another?

I know it’s not Valentine’s Day yet and I hate to be corny, but it is love. Love changes how you view things.

The scientific method explains the phenomenon of observer effect. That which you are observing is changed by who observes it.

How does the scientific method apply to this you may ask? If you see someone a certain way, they will either rise or sink to meet your expectation.

Before you begin saying nay, let’s start on the same page.

We all communicate in different ways. We all communicate in words, body language, and even energetically. When someone walks into a room, you can interpret their attitude, their voice, tone and even pitch. When we come into a place where there is hostility, you can feel it, your tingly feelings pick up on it and you become aware and alert. Same thing happens when you run into someone you love and care for, before you have made it into their arms, you are already bathed in a loving feeling that suffuses every part of you and the moment is almost transformative.

So, how does this truly work?

Parents are the easiest examples around.

You have a baby and you are so happy that you have had her, you love her, and you have loved her since conception. You have pictured clearly in your head the times you will sit down and play tea with her and the dresses you will make her and the ballerina slippers she will wear as a young ballet debutante. You even had her name framed in the prettiest pink tulle.

The moment has arrived and she is here. You look into her eyes and know that she will be mom’s best friend and daddy’s little girl for the rest of her life. You bring the little princess back home and she cries, constantly and inconsolably, you call your mother, your doctor, the nurse and your best friend, Sandy who has a baby older than yours by just a week. They all tell you, don’t worry all babies are different; your baby is well fed, changed, and loved. It is just her personality.

At that moment, something happens to you. Your view begins to change, all of the things that don’t fit what you think she should be, become her personality. Oh My! She is so headstrong and independent someone mentions during mommy and me classes; you smile proudly, but keep it in the back of your head. Headstrong? Was that a compliment?

The same thing happens when she starts to walk, color, going to the park. She is active, into everything, not a moment’s peace for you. Tea party? HA! She breaks the little cups and runs away using the dress you made her as a rug to sit on the mud.

She goes to school and you get called in by the teacher.

Teacher: You know, sometimes we have a hard time with her.

Mom: I know, she is so headstrong and independent.

Teacher: Well, we need to do something; she is becoming disruptive and a problem.

You go home and you are so upset, this is NOT how you pictured it. Where is your pink loving baby? Why does she act like this? Finally, she comes to you; she wants to show you the dead frog she has outside by the tree. You look at this creature that came from you and say with all the love you are capable of giving and yet almost defeated, and you ask: why are you so difficult honey? Why can’t you be like the other little girls?

Of course you love your daughter, of course you will do anything for her, but she is so different, nothing like what you expected. As she grows, you try to mold her into your pink dreams and clouds and she chafes, she is more and more herself, you see her as alien and different. Your last view of her is as she jumps into a car with her friends at sixteen, after the last argument about how you don’t understand!

You have been told that she is headstrong and independent, and difficult in class and disruptive, you can’t connect with her and the worse part is that after all of your efforts, after all of the sacrifices and countless nights staring at the ceiling wondering what you will do with her, she doesn’t see that, she only sees that you don’t get her. How does she know that you don’t get her? How can she say that you don’t accept her?

Because she FEELS it!!! She can feel in her heart that you don’t accept her as she is, and so she removes herself from you. Because you, the observer, reject or do not understand, and you AFFECT the results.

Take the other end of the spectrum. A nurse grows up in a household with an alcoholic parent. She is aware of the cycles of this illness and understands addiction, she is compassionate because she has lived the process and believes, with all of her heart and all of the faith that she can muster for human kind that people will overcome.

As she walks through the ward, the patients flock to her. She has brought them chocolate chip cookies she baked for them last night. As she passes the cookies out, she talks to one each one of them, she makes eye contact with them and she fills her words with kindness and love. She decides that no matter how they got here or what it is that they do, that they are all wonderful fellow human beings and that they deserve to be believed in and loved and supported on their path. They can sense it, they know how she feels because her body language, her words, everything about her screams, “I accept you, I believe in you.”

Some of them stay away from her because they don’t believe in her love, her feelings. And patiently, she seeks them out. They reject her, they tell her that they are garbage, that they are the worse of society and that she cannot love them because they are unlovable. Unshaken in her believes, she reaches out for their hand, she puts a cookie in their hand and firmly, with a conviction that only “knowing” can give you, she tells them, “That is not true, I know you are more than you can see.”

Again, something happens inside that person. She sees something in me; she sees something that no one else has seen before. Perhaps she is not wrong, perhaps there is goodness inside me, and has always been there, just no one noticed. Perhaps, I can do this, perhaps…. And so begin they begin to hope and dreams of being more and rising to the occasion.

Human beings have basic needs. Maslow would have told you that they are food, shelter and clothing. I think it goes further, they need acceptance and love.

Acceptance and love come from a place within you of total unconditional presence.

What the heck does that mean?

It means that when you stand in front of someone, you come to them with no judgments, expectations, labels or ideas of how they should be or the things they should do. That means that you look at them compassionately and lovingly. It means you give your love and acceptance with empathy and compassion and with no requirement of reciprocity. Because it matters not what they do, there isn’t anything in the world they can do that will change the way you feel about them.

If you have labeled someone, you have not loved them unconditionally. They will stay within the limits of the labels you have placed on them and your relationship will not grow, it cannot. The chains of your judgment and labeling will forever limit them, even if you have done it with the best of intentions.

It is not easy to sit there and love someone that way. It means that you cannot take anything personal. Their growth pattern and decisions are entirely their own and you cannot interfere, you can offer advise and listen when they need you to, guide and parent, but unconditional love says that you must let them work it out because you believe them capable. This extends even to children, especially to children.

So, how does this all tie into the woman who was married to the triple homicide murderer in TX right before his execution? What does this have to do with Johnny and his mom?

Both of these women are able to see their beloved with perfect love and acceptance. They believe in them, they believe in the goodness in them and in the fact that even though these individuals are not perfect, they are wonderful and love-worthy individuals.

Wonderful essay, now what? Ok, ok, ok, I will spell it out.

STOP!!!

Labeling, judging, patronizing, expecting and letting your ego control the relationships you have with those around you.

Don’t label your children, let them be who they are and work with those around them to ensure that he can be his best within the environment he has to be in. Don’t break his spirit!!

Don’t judge your husband, he is a complete separate individual, and what makes you happy doesn’t make you happy. Honor him by trusting him to know what makes him happy and give him space to do the things he feels he has to do. A happy man can make a woman happy, can be a happy parent. An angry, resentful one, cannot.

Stop expecting for your parents to be who you thought they should have been, just realize that they did all they could do with the tools they had in the moment they were in.

This is not an excuse for irresponsible behavior, but an opportunity to stop sweating the small things. It is a chance to really be there for those you love, for those you care for by not putting ideas, your ideas and your judgments, before their feelings. It is an opportunity to listen not only with your ears, but with all of your heart.

How do you do this? Here are a few tips

Be present. When someone is talking to you, listen with all of your senses.

Be loving: Even if the message being delivered is not very nice, just repeat in your head that you do love that person and you choose not to react to this because you don’t know what is going on with them.

Be loyal: To the way you know they can be, to the love-filled person you know they are.

Be patient: Lovingly accept and do not rush, some people are not used to thinking of themselves as wonderful and love-worthy, give them time to adapt.

Why am I telling you this? Because it’s time. It’s time we stop blaming the world, the universe, the 60s and everything else for what is going on. Somehow we have all created the problems in society; it will take all of us to heal it and to move forward. The prison inmate who found his soul mate is just as deserving of love as Johnny, perhaps, he needed it more.

We all deserve love. We all deserve to know what its like to know that someone has your back and that they will stand by you. We deserve that, all of us, even the man that was taken to the death chamber and cried one single solitary tear for his new bride as the lethal injection stopped his heart.

This is not a recipe for world peace. We are confrontational beings; world peace is still a few evolutionary steps away. But love, love was innate, it is primeval, it was in your heart and it is what you brought here. Love is at the basis of creation and it gives you a foundation to build life upon. Love allows you to see people as perfect and whole, wonderful loving beings that make mistakes and learn. You teach yourself to see people as dynamic expressions of love.

Look at them with the eyes of love, because they deserve it. Look at them with the eyes of love, because it is who YOU are. Look at live with the eyes of love and there will be no choice but to be surrounded by love. And so the song goes….

All you need is love…..

New Statue of Liberty Inscription

2010-05-02T17:29:00.000-04:00

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Ahemmmmm!!!! Perhaps we should change that…

It should be more like….

“Take them, take them all back. All of the immigrants that come to this country to suck our resources dry. Take those who are nothing but a constant drain on our government, take all of them, from whatever country they are from. They are of no use; they provide nothing to us… Especially those Hispanic looking ones, I will build fences and declare open season on them and I will target them and chase them out of here with their tails between their legs. “

126 years have passed since the French gave the United States the Statue of liberty and yet so much has changed especially the lady’s attitude about immigrants.

On April 20, 2010 in one of the biggest displays of a change of attitude towards immigrants, the state of Arizona passed a new movement towards the handling of illegal criminals.

The law states that a police officer can stop someone who is already suspected of another crime and can ask him to show proof of his legal status. The officer, based on the sensitivity training he will have received, will look at you and ponder on the possibility of whether or not you are an illegal alien or not and then ask for your papers.

Hmmmm!!!! Let’s see, what will he be looking at???

Let me guess, the kind of car you drive? The clothes you are wearing? Your signature cologne???

WRONG!!!!

He will look at the color of your skin, your features and he will racially profile you. Then he will come to the conclusion that since your race is more than likely from another country, you will probably be here illegally and will ask for you to proof your right to be in this country.

Help me, if you can….. How is this NOT racially profiling???

Because I really doubt that Nura Oyenusi will be asked about her status or that Adelina Berberi would be asked for her documents. My South African friend and the Albanian one will be ok, one is black, and the other one is white.

Now, if you have dark hair and brown skin. Now that is a different story…
Then you certainly jumped the border, smuggled drugs, receive government benefits and are here to rob us of our resources.

Many people are fighting that this law has NOTHING to do with race and all to do with criminals. But there is no way to implement this law unless you judge based on race. If you arrest a group of people and then it comes up that they were illegal and you begin deportation procedures, I would be ok with that.

If you stop someone and you ask to see their papers because according to you there is a great likelihood that this person is illegal, I have a HUGE problem with that.

Racial profiling exists. EVERYWHERE. But it is NOT supposed to be supported by law enforcement.

Don’t kid yourself, Mr. Bush lied, racial profiling is not leaving, you cannot control it, you cannot even impose a law to eradicate it. It is something inside the person, a non-acceptance of someone who looks different, who is culturally different from you. I would like to tell you that it is not so. But there are so many instances in which I have been profiled, it would take far too long to share.

At this point, I don’t care about your racial profiles. I am used to it. I am used to the surprised looks from people who notice that I speak English fluently. I am used to people introducing me as their Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican immigrant friend; I am used to people speaking to me in whatever level of Spanish they took in high school. I am used to people who joke with me about immigration, taco bell, large families, you name it.

It’s not funny, but I’ve become immune to it. It’s hurtful and humiliating, but that’s ok, you think it’s funny!!!

I do care though that these laws will affect my children.

Already here, in the heart of it all, my oldest has to contend with the witty remarks of those who don’t comprehend that she was born and raised in the United States. She is about to get her license and besides from the drunk driving talk, we also had a talk about getting pulled over because of your looks and not letting an officer search your car without a police warrant.

Ahhhh, those little rites of passage.

Why do I teach her that? Because it has happened to me. More times than I care to count. At stores, at movie theaters, when dealing with the government, when applying for a job, when taking my kids to school, when taking a bus, even when I am walking around town.

It never stops amusing me when I hear white people (can I say that??? They call me Mexican…) saying that we are sucking the government dry.

People can’t go and take from the government, the social services that immigrants are given are granted by the people who work for the government, who follow rules established by your lawmakers.

You don’t like it???? Get involved, vote, and change it.

My favorite bumper sticker…

“I WON’T LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE IN MY OWN COUNTRY” or “I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PRESS 1 FOR ENGLISH”

I am an interpreter. The company I work for is hired by the huge corporations in this country; we also work with most government agencies. The service we provide is paid by those who hire us. They are the ones that commission that forms be filled out in more than one language and that make all of these commodities available.

We are not walking into a business and translating the forms for each other.

YOUR LAWMAKERS AND CORPORATE HEADS ARE DECIDING THAT IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO CREATE THESE THINGS.

Illegals don’t qualify for social services. You must be able to proof your residence or citizenship in order to receive Medicaid, medicare, food stamps and welfare. Their kids qualify.

“Yea, that’s why they have so many kids… sucking down the system…”

Did you know that the government will pay for an illegal woman to have a baby, but REFUSES to pay for birth control, or to educate them about family planning????

BRILLIANT!!!!

We educate the children. Make education compulsory regardless of immigration status, provide bilingual education, get interpreters for parent teacher conferences, but if the parents get deported, the child goes back with the parent to the country of origin.

So, we will get rid of the parent and child, send them back to their original country even though the child is an American citizen and knows nothing of the other culture.

GENIUS!!!!!

Even better, the sheriff of a town nearby said that illegals are here stealing the jobs that belong to American citizens.

Of course, there are thousands of fights at the chicken factories, people just fist-fighting each other for the chance to work there for ten dollars a day; not a day goes by when someone is not wishing out loud to be able to work in the farms, next to the insecticides, for cents a day.

Get real, some Americans won’t even work at McDonalds, do you think they would want those jobs that offer a substandard of living?

What will you do when the Department of Labor goes into that factory and that farm and demands that the employees are protected by the same labor laws that are granted to everyone else? Will you be willing to pay $5.00 for a pound of tomatoes? Will you pay $15.00 for a chicken?

What many people don’t realize is that because of the very little that companies pay those illegal immigrants are the prices of the things they buy so low. Remember sweat shops, yeah, the companies are not going to lower their profit margin just to abide to the new law that says you shouldn’t hire illegals. Someone is going to pay for the increases in their production cost… guess who?

No one in this country can solve the immigration situation with one reform. You can’t solve it with two or three. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that you can solve it at all.

The same illegals you will arrest and take into jail are going to bog down the system; it will cause a deficit in the government agency that enforces it.

What will happen when you pick up and demand proof of status from a Naturalized Hispanic? You know, still brown and dark haired, but legal. They can’t produce any proof; the government has nothing that identifies a person as a citizen. Then what will they do? Arrest him until he can find someone to bring his 8 X 10 certificate of naturalization to the station. What happens then? Will the officers apologize? Will the State apologize? Can you say lawsuit??

(Read in redneck accent) “I am so sorry sonny, I thought you was one of them Mexicans that came over here, speaking Spanish and living like 25 in a house with their taco bells and their loud music.”

Well, not Mexican, but, you just described most Hispanics, legal or not.

When I became an American Citizen, Judge Rose said that the divisiveness was over. That they welcomed us with arms wide open and that they were so happy to have us here. That we had traveled such a long and hard path and that we were finally reached the end of that path and we were granted, like everyone else, the right to freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this new law is racial profiling. There is no other way to call it. It is amazing that this nation that was founded by those who were escaping oppression is willing to use the same techniques to take care of a problem that is continually perpetuated by them.

Have you ever asked your lawmakers why not close the borders? Have you asked why it is that this “problem” has continued for so long and no one has ever done anything about it?

There are million of conspiracy theories that can give you a myriad of complicated reasons as to why. But the simplest one is that it is not profitable. We are not a nation ruled by morals, values, ideologies or even lessons learnt in the past. We are ruled by the Almighty Dollar. Not so mighty anymore, but still the main reason why we do things.

We are not pursuing illegals because of the concept of them coming over and violating the law. We are not pursuing this because they are criminals. We are pursuing this because we have somehow conceived the notion that they are taking money from the government.

We are hatefully doing this based on ignorance.

The line has been drawn on the sand. The people will express their opinion and decide which side they belong to.

Is illegal immigration the cause of all evil?

Or

This is a problem that we can all solve, together.

I don’t know anymore.

As an American citizen, I understand the concerns about the economy, the concerns about the future and how we must find a way for our country to grow. But I will never accept a law that judges people based on their looks, their heritage, and their culture.

So I walk over to the other side, to support those who come here to earn a living, legally or illegally and give their life to a country who considers them a disease. I support the idea that hunting illegals at the border is inhumane and that this law is a total violation of the constitution that I was sworn to uphold.

Many of us have learnt many lessons in our path here; many of us went to school, pursued higher educations and conquered the American dream. We are a knowledgeable and intelligent group who understands laws, rights and liberties. We have assimilated and adapted to your culture. Learnt from your tenets and will hold them, even if you don’t.

Today, at 46.9 million, Hispanics are the largest minority in the United States and we will stay and prevail, in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Nurturing side

2010-04-27T16:12:00.002-04:00

Proms are right around the corner. Victoria mentioned that she will be going next year and of course, I started making mental preparations; we need a dress, mani & pedi, hair appointment, maybe a few tanning sessions, not that she needs it, and then tickets.

I stopped for a moment and I asked her, who pays for the ticket?

I had been to prom twice. Once to Luis’ prom and mine, in both occasions we had been each others date. I can’t remember who paid for what, so I was curious to find out how the Millenials handled this issue.

She said she really wasn’t sure, but if it was such an issue, she would pay for her own ticket. Thank you very much.

That’s my girl! Strong, independent and she makes her own way! (Two snaps up in a circle!!)

She left for school and I got ready to write on an entirely different subject and I couldn’t concentrate, finally I let my mind wander, not too long mind you, lest it wanders away forever.
I kept going back to the conversation with Victoria. I told myself that she was independent and strong and able to stand on her own two feet and needed nothing and no one to make it in this world.

The voice in my head began suddenly took on another tone and I was startled.
Honestly, I was more than startled, I was horrified; I sound just like my mother.

Not that there is anything wrong with being like my mother. I didn’t think that I was like that.
My mom is the quintessential Rosie the riveter. She is strong and she is a hard worker and she does not need a man to give her anything. Shove your home life idea because she will be out there, every day working hard and providing for her home. Remember that song, “that little frail girl can do more than a man can do”. That is my mother.

She pushed away anything that was domestic, hiring a maid for the household and enrolled us in the best schools. When my dad could not decide what he loved more if her or the bottle, she paid him off for his time in the marriage and escorted him to the door and never looked back. There was a lot more to her story with him, but suffice it to say she felt she had been able to buy her freedom.
Like my mom, my aunts are all very strong women. They knew how to work hard, how to achieve and how to be successful. They worked two and three jobs and they have even changed their brain circuitry away from the usual circles of women, to become problem solvers and linear thinkers.

Ask any of us. You have a problem? Let me help you fix it…. PLEASE!!!!!! I know so many things, I am so well trained to deal with these things, I can solve this problem for you…

We don’t actually come out and say that, but we might as well. We take over the problem and get involved , too involved.

As the next generation from the Rosies, we are out to proof ourselves just as hard workers as the previous generations and as good providers, problem solvers and go getters. We are hard.
But hold on a minute, I don’t want to be hard.

I can be all of those things without being hard. I can be strong and not hard. I can be resilient and not tough. I can be warm and loving and independent and not isolated, bitchy and cold.

Somewhere in our brains, we got it all mixed up.

The strength of a woman doesn’t come from doing everything a man can do. It comes from knowing the things that only she can do.

Yes, men and women can do anything that the opposite sex can do. Absolutely, very true, I will not refute it.

But that is if your personality is suited for it.

There is nothing worse than a man trying to be nurturing when he is not feeling it. Or a woman trying to come off as a hard-ass, when you know, that she is crying inside.

Because of the lessons that the women in my life had learnt, I was not around very nurturing women while growing up. So I had no idea how much strength derives from a woman’s love and a woman’s tenderness. How her quiet ways and indomitable faith makes her as powerful as the most impressive show of brute strength.

We thought that by being tough and strong we showed men we could be just like them. Yea!!!!
Power and strength manifest itself in different ways. Just like a tornado can rip off a tree from the roots, so can the soft wind germinate the next season’s flowers. The ten foot wave that swallows the shore is the same water that slowly erodes the rock.

Point? Fine, I will draw you a picture.

There is beauty and power in being soft, resilient and nurturing.

Women nowadays have a hard time dealing with that. Women, who still want to be cared for and loved, feel uneasy about showing these needs because they feel vulnerable. We chastise ourselves for feeling any weakness and beat our daughters when they do not show themselves as completely self assured.

We make it a point to make our boys tough, don’t cry, boys don’t cry. And girls cry but they also get up and kick the boy’s butt, don’t let him do that to you.

Being a bitch is marketed as a commendable trait and more and more you see marriages and relationships deteriorate when women take on this attitude . “Be a bitch and he will love you more”. Skinny bitch, pretty bitch, apparently being a bitch is something desirable.

As with every good thing that was taken to an extreme, a woman’s rejection of her innate nurturing side has had devastating consequences.

It is not uncommon for a mother to leave her child with a grandparent, to not feel a bond with it, to not nurture it and sometimes even mistreat it.

Don’t fly off the handle, I am not saying that this is the reason why these things happen, but follow me for just a moment.
If my mother left the house to go to work in the morning and didn’t return until late in the afternoon and I came home to an empty house and no one was there, or looked at my homework or even ate with me or showed that they cared one bean about me. Chances are that when I grow up, I will be the same way.

In relationships, in parenting, in everything.

Then this becomes ok to you, because, well your parents did this to you, and you are still here, so it must be ok, right? WRONG. Just because your parents made the mistake they did, it doesn’t mean that it’s ok for you to make it as well. Just because your parents were not aware of the consequences of their actions it doesn’t not mean that you are allowed to perpetuate them.

All of the problems that did not exist back then, can find a root at this hardening of women and their decision to walk out of their home in search of real power.

Obesity, well the kid is not buying his or her own food, and when he or she comes home there is no dinner made, what exactly do you want the kid to do?

Early sexual activity: where are they going? Not all of them are under the bleachers. Why be here in this park honey, when your parents and mine are gone to work until six.

Teenage pregnancy: Ask any teen parent and they will tell you, they just wanted to feel love and to feel wanted. Think it’s hooey? Look it up there is over 200 studies showing that most teenage kids who end up being parents were seeking love in either the sex or the child.

Drugs: If someone is at home watching what you do, they will notice the change. Whether they choose to do something about it is a different story.

ADD, ADHD: More than half of these diagnoses are not based on biology, only on behavior deviations. Whatever is causing these changes in the behavior of children, it can be handled by parents who are involved. Involved? Yes, put your drama aside, put your work aside. Focus on the child. No wonder the child can’t focus on what he needs to do, as parents, we haven’t been able to focus either.

Will it solve all of the problems in the world if women suddenly walked out of their jobs and came home and became June Beavers? Probably not. We are in too deep. We are too committed to this new life, to this new culture that has sprung from that movement that started back in WWII.

Can we make changes? Of course.

Don’t reject your nurturing side. No, don’t sit there and coddle and become a helicopter parent or spouse. But show your love, your care, your concern, freely.

Children blossom under the direct light of love and men stand a bit taller, a bit prouder when they know they are loved and appreciated.

Don’t be afraid to be weak. Don’t be afraid to fall. It is part of our nature, of our humanity. Physically we are different from men; it stands to reason that we are also emotionally and spiritually different. Being able to show emotion is part of our strength, being able to love intensely is part of our strength.

As my mother quickly enters the third age, it becomes more and more of a struggle for our role reversal to survive, she cannot be cared for, she cannot be provided for despite the fact that she doesn’t have the same stamina as before. She does not know how to be vulnerable. So until now, she gets up and goes to work, she gets out there every day and makes things happen. But if you ask her, what she wants more than anything, it s to be around her grandkids. As you age, your hard shell disintegrates and you realize that what is really important, what really matters are the moments where you were loved, where you were soft, where you were nurtured.

I don’t know if one day she will allow herself to be soft, to be loved and be vulnerable. I have to believe she will, if there is a chance for her, then there is still a chance for all of us.

A perfect little home

2010-04-27T09:37:00.000-04:00

In the outskirts of somewhere or the other, there are 50 acres with our name on it… Don’t even try to look for it; it sits away from the road, down a happy little driveway. As you get closer to the house the tree lined driveway brings you to the little fountain we built, Tony says it’s our lucky fountain, I think he built it just so the kids can keep throwing coins in.

The gargoyles play guardian to our door, and the fishes swim in happy circles in the front pond.
The house is immense, I think it has more than 3000 square feet; it has rooms for each one of the kids. A library, a game room, a craft room and also a study, not that anyone studies in it… hahaha!!

The house was built over two hundred years ago and when we bought it, it seemed like it had been two hundred years since anyone had taken care of it.

Like someone who lovingly takes a child into his heart, we took the house into our hearts.

We have fixed other houses to live in, we once moved into this house that was so nasty, I thought I would never be able to sleep in there. But this house was different. It was beautiful; you just had to peel away the layers of dust and life the years had piled up on it.

Everyone grabbed a hammer and ripped up the floor. I called my brother and he told us what we needed to do to install hardwood floor. Little by little, we installed each floor board, we hammered in each nail. We were forced to spend time together and I can’t even begin to tell you how much money we spent on band aids and antibiotic cream. It became a competition, how much could be done in one hour; we were constantly trying to outdo one another.

Victoria worked with us every step of the way, being that she was a teenager, I thought that she would not want to be as involved, but she was there every time, hammer or paintbrush in hand, although we never gave her sharp tools, just as a precautionary measure. She has a bad history with sharp tools.

The house seemed more magnificent from one moment to the next. As we peeled off centuries of paint that had been heaped upon her to make her look better, each layer removed from her walls revealed a little more of us and our love for our work, and she grew in beauty in our eyes.

Some spots of her were too damaged, had been beyond repair and we all ran out and bought new fixtures and made this house fit us and we changed with each renovation in order to fit her.
We sanded and stained and painted each little bit of this house. We built new rooms and took down others and discovered new areas of her that we learnt to love. She had others that loved her, but they were gently reminded (birds) and others not so gently (mice) that she was ours now and we would not be taking other guests.
As we picked the colors for the rooms, we fretted like if we had been choosing a name for our child. We wanted to make sure that she was shown at her best. Sherwin Williams associates started hi-fiving each other as they saw us pull into the parking lot, nothing but the best for our lady.
Door frames were sanded and aligned again, only to discover that termites had claimed them before we did, so as we remove the door frames, we design new doors for our home, we used Damian’s drawings on the doors, a little carving and voila, custom made doors. He was beaming with pride; the house loved her new doors.

New lighting fixtures were bought and installed and the warm glow of the new chandeliers softened her up and gave us a second wind to finish our work.

Sinks and plumbing fixed; you would not believe the work in that, more than I care to comment on. Tubs taken away, we scrubbed and scrubbed and fought mold. Tile was installed and as the final battle for world dominance was fought with the caulking guns…we finished 5 bathrooms, from top to bottom. Then we had to call the plumber to fix our plumbing.

Everything went better after that. At the suggestion of the plumber we did a whole treatment and update on the septic system; I don’t care to discuss that experience. Not at all.

The deck off of the master bedroom was designed and the kids called on a strike. They adamantly stated that they would not work in an area of the house where they would never be allowed in. Tony gently reminded them that he could always take apart the game room. It is amazing how much a little persuasion can get you.

The girls took over the design of the outside. They picked out flowers and patterns for the walk ways; they took to their research and went nuts. They selected flowers that bloomed with each season and drove Tony crazy asking him questions about shade and ph levels in soil, they picked out flowers for beauty and scent and also looked for their natural environment. They wanted flowers and plants native to the area; the tulips, the lilies, the pansies, and all of the other ones will be so beautiful all year-round. Tony put in a beautiful white gazebo, surrounded by flowers and beautiful wind chimes. I heard Victoria tell Gabriela that she was getting married in that gazebo, I heard Gabriela say, me too.

As the living area was being finished, we began thinking of our barn and how we would house the animals. We would need enough space for all of them. Damian wanted goats and I have always wanted mini dexters. I know Tony wants chickens, but I am a little scared of them. I grew up in a house where cock fights was the thing for Sunday afternoons, I know what chickens can do.

We will plant our vegetables and our fruits, I love the seed catalogs, I have already researched the types of vegetable and plants that are native to the area. I cannot wait…

We pickup our dogs in another six weeks. Our Masos will be ready to come home soon and we have had to proof the yard for them. They are beautiful giants who will be a part of the family as well as work with us. Princess Gabriela wants something else, but then again, she will probably pick something little, overtly cute and completely purposeless, but it will make her happy.

Almost all of it was done, we had left the kitchen until the end because our special appliances had not arrived and we were having fun creating designs with the tile that we were installing. When suddenly, I decided that the area we had designed as a pantry area would not be large enough. So in a last minute dash, the massive washer and dryer were taken downstairs to their newly finished game room and installed opposite their WII, I said they could pretend that they were on rocket ships when the washer shook and they played Mario galaxy, four pairs of eyes glaring at me limited the rest of my comments

Finally, the laundry room was built into a walk-in pantry and the regular pantry was specially shelved for spices, yes I do own that many spices, and the appliances finally arrived and were installed.
That was our cue to move in.
The dragons came to rest in our home. (You would call them angels, we have dragons) We drove up our beautiful driveway with our little truck filled with all of the things that had made up our life. We watched with tears how everything that we owned, new and old, fit into our new home.

As we sat in the family room, with the fireplace going and everyone hooked by the hypnotic effect of the flames, we looked at one another and realized that we had not only rebuilt and renovated a home, We had left a part of ourselves within this house and when future generations came, they would know that in every nook, in every painting, in every little detail of this house is etched little bits of us, to live forever in this home.

When we found our house, she was sadly kept and not maintained at all. It takes a special love to see the potential in things. It takes a special dedication to invest so much of yourself in something and give it of your time and of yourself without thinking of a profit margin and the market value of the thing.

We built this home for ourselves, much as we have built everything in our life. A little bit of research, a lot of dedication, a little bit of muscle and whole lot of work. A little bit of finagling and a whole lot of luck. Regardless, as a genius works on a master piece, also we did not create it so much as reveal it.

A house is built with wood, cement and paint. A home is built with laughter and sweat, with stubbed toes and splinters and paint-stained pants. A home has that special corner that dad built all on his own, the flowers we planted together and the special color that made mom smile so.

A home is a little bit of you and little bit of me, it is things we have built together that create a new life and new memories. Our house was now perfect for our perfect little home.

falling off the wagon

2010-04-26T12:57:00.000-04:00

I have fallen off of the proverbial wagon. Not the diet one, I broke that one a long time ago. I have fallen off of the spiritual wagon.

At times our actions are guided by our emotions, at others, by our intellect and sometimes, by our ego. Metaphysics tell you that listening to your ego is the equivalent of a capital sin and my faux-pas was a biggie. My ego ran away from me and turned into a monster and left behind a mount of guilt and endless self-analysis that only stopped when I put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard… well you know what I mean.

Your ego tries to convince you that you are special that you are better than others; that you are right and they are wrong. When in reality, we know that we are all one and as every other teacher that I have studied from tells us, there is the divine in all of us and we are all a part of a greater whole.

Well, in a colossal act of self-destruction, I let my ego take charge, for just an afternoon mind you, and now I feel horrible, betrayed and dirty.

What did you do that was so horrible? You may ask.

Well if you promise to keep it to yourself, I will tell you.

I stood in judgment of another person.

Oh stop it with the melodrama! It may not be horrible to you but once you do it, you take your self out of the stream of well being and well, you are left bereft of comfort and understanding, because you have denied it to yourself by denying it to others.

This isn’t an exercise in writing, this is more of a coming to terms with this action, so bear with me, I apologize in advance if the writing is a little convoluted, as it is, I am parked directly on Chaos Drive and it is going to take some fancy maneuvering to get out of this situation.

So what is so horrible about what I did?

I stood outside of a situation, I took a very few and weak facts about someone and I came to a conclusion about them and I stood in judgment and condemned their actions and their decisions. Then I recruited others to my idea and began the hateful act of murdering someone with words.

I don’t know why this person did what they did; I don’t know if this person is perhaps ignorant and did only what they knew was best. But I knew better, I knew better than to try to judge someone without walking a mile in their shoes, and even then, who am I to judge someone else.

This is not the path that I have chosen.

It was an unconscious decision really when I began to toddle along the spiritual path. It began with a book and with the constant and nagging feeling that there was more to life than what I could see. There was always a feeling of not belonging to the human race as if I knew that all that we saw with our own eyes was, not real.

Little by little, I began rebelling against many years of programmed thoughts and began asking not so much as to why, but why not and all the other questions that come to be once you get past the why. And I began to realize that there were others who were in this same path, and there was no unifying trait to all of us looking for more, except that we knew in our hearts that there is more.

I won’t try to tell you everything that encompasses living a spiritual path, even if I told you, your own path may be different and I could not dictate that, nor its contents. But I do know that there are certain truths that help me live a happier life.

I know first and foremost that we are all having an experience and that certain people choose for their experience to be a certain way or another. I also know that there is no such thing as right or wrong, that only we make something so. I know that everyone has free will to be and act and walk through this path experiencing whatever it is they want for themselves.

And I don’t know this because I read it in a book, I know it because I feel it in my bones, like I know that the ocean is large and that the sun is hot. I know it in my heart; I know it in my soul. So after more than twenty years of studying this spiritual path, you may be wondering what may have possessed me to walk away from everything that I stood for and believe in and act this way.

You are still not going to tell anyone, right?? OK, I will tell you. It was my ego; it was my desire to be special and to be better than someone else. It was my need to proof that I was right and the other person wrong.

And so I faltered and I flayed this person, I took my time and dissected this person’s character with all of my spiritual expertise and became the very thing that I had accused this person of. Mind you this person never knew what I had said, and I said it to someone inconsequential and there would be no repercussions from having said it. But I knew, I knew that even if I never tell someone that I have ill feelings for them, they will feel it, their instinct will warn them. The current that animates life itself runs through us and that at that level, there are no secrets from each other.

At first the realization wasn’t immediate; I started having a bit of indigestion. I began by getting irritated with things that don’t usually irritate me and by being impatient and ill tempered and then in a conversation that had nothing to do with the subject. It came to me. I was out of integrity and I felt disgusted with myself. I tried to rationalize, my ego is quick, but I knew, I already knew what I had done and I was so beside myself, I could not walk past a mirror for fear that person, the one who had said all those things, may be looking out at me.

I meditated on it, I prayed and then I also reached out, and although I did not get a clear answer, I knew that I had to tell you. I knew that I had to share with you, the words were bubbling over and spilling out of me and I knew that I had to sit here and tell you all about it.

Will you grant me the compassion that I failed to give that person? Will you look at me with understanding and tell me that I only made a mistake? Will I make it better because I have apologized to that person and cleaned up my mess?

Those of us that make a conscious decision to live life in awareness know that people make mistakes, know that situations sometimes can be tricky and that regardless of good intentions, sometimes, you make a decision that does not come from your highest thoughts. It is in our power and our capability to comfort those who have made the mistake and enlightened them to the fact that even despite the pebble in the way, the lesson they walk away with can be enormous.

I see the lesson. I acknowledge my error and I take responsibility for the situation and for the words that came out of my mouth and for the whole conversation that took place. I walk away totally convinced of the power of my own words against others being only against me and I pray for the wisdom to operate from that place of divinity inside all of us.

I do have the hope of another day, of a new beginning and a new opportunity to create myself anew.

Come morning, come sun, bring me another day.

Until tomorrow, Good night!

Whole in your arms

2010-04-26T11:39:00.000-04:00

Through the whirlwind of the day, in the madness of this moment
I walk the shadows in stealth, trying to make it home unscathed
As I find our sanctuary and I fling myself to safety
I recall what I’ve always known; I am whole in your arms

For wars will rage and people will wrath, and dreams broken will litter my path
In hate and in shallowness, in grudges and in pain
The populace walks aimlessly, firing their deadly poison
But then there is you, there is home and there is us.

In the safety of your love, in the exuberance of life
In the risk of our daily rituals, one thing remains constant
One thing keeps me alive, after the overwhelming day
I recall what I’ve always known, I; I am whole in your arms.

My dearest Child

2010-04-26T10:59:00.000-04:00

My dearest Child:

One of these days I won’t be here. I won’t be able to hold your hand when someone has hurt your feelings, when you need someone to hear your writings or when you just need a hug.

One day my body will leave its fleshy shell and I will be no more. My spirit and my love will forever be with you, but in the midst of life, we forget that we have not been forgotten.

In those times when I am gone and you can’t hear the song of your heart, remember baby, remember, be true to yourself.

Be true to yourself and do what you feel you have to do, with integrity and with pride. Do it so that it gives you satisfaction, do it so you are happy with what you have done.

People have ideas of what they think you should be doing, saying, wearing and even eating; but you have your inner compass and only it leads you to happiness and fulfillment.

Happiness is not a period of time; it is moments that strung together remind you why you get up everyday and why you do what you do.

Each person is its own universe. Not that they are that deep, but that they have their own notions based on their own experiences and there is nothing you can do to change them, they are a result of what they have been through.

Every relationship you have is a reflection of who you are and how you see yourself. Honor the person that brings you that awareness but realize that you also serve the same function in their life. We are mirrors into each other’s soul.

When you fall on your knees, and you will, remember that it does not matter how many times you fall, but how many times you get up. And that in life, it’s about being IN the game, not watching it from the sidelines, but in the thick of things, living the experience to the fullest.

Don’t fool yourself my love, despite it all, I am always with you, you only need to think of me to bring me close to you, to feel my love surrounding you, to know that I have never left you.

Smile child, death is not an end. Nothing has an end, you are never finished. Life is continuous and never ending. Even if you make mistakes, you can fix them, no matter what you do, there is always tomorrow and tomorrow comes full of opportunities and possibilities to create yourself anew. Don’t despair, you cannot see the path unfold before you, but trust me, heart of mine, there is a reason, and there is a way.

The answer to all of your questions is you. You, you, you, always you. It matters not what others do, think or say. They will fall or rise by their own doing. It matters what you do, think or say; you will succeed or not, based on your own steps, your own decisions. Your happiness comes from you, so does your pain and misery.

I love you, never forget it, never doubt it and for even in the darkest moment of your life, you are beautiful, and you are perfect in my eyes. Never will you be any less, never could I love you any less, for I love you with eyes of love and in love everything is perfection. The flaws that you see are not real; the faults you create don’t exist. Be kind to others, but above all, be kind to yourself, love yourself, for the most important relationship you have is with you.

When I am no longer here child, take a look around you, I am in all the things that you love; in the wind that caresses you, in the sun that warms your skin, in the soft rain that falls, in the calls of birds in spring. Don’t forget, I am not gone, look inside, I am always there, I am the whispers of your heart reminding you to smile, I am the subtle rocking that comforts your sorrows away, I am warmth that creeps into your day.

NO matter where my spirit goes, I will always be around, as a cloud in the heavens, as a flame in the dark, from very far or closer than you think, I will always be with you child of my heart, child of my soul, I love you forevermore…

Social Networking

2010-04-22T08:33:00.000-04:00

I have 176 friends in Facebook. Well, I had. Mind you, they weren’t just friends; they were relatives, people I usually stalk

(Yes, I am a stalker… Hello, my name is Claudia and I am a stalker….)

Back to subject at hand, people I admire, people I support, a plethora of people from all over the world.

Facebook is a wonderful thing. Social networking had broadened our horizons and has allowed us to reach out and touch people who would have otherwise disappeared from our life. AT&T never had it so good. Even people who you have never spoken to before got a chance to get to know you, on the computer and some people found their support system in the people who came looking at their status and their page on a regular basis.

Even games like Mafia wars and farmsville provide the premises for team work and cooperation from unlikely groups and create a sense of community. My neighbors, my mafia… you know, my people.
As if that wasn’t good enough, social networking allowed us an outlet for expression. We looked for witty quotes, funny sayings or just a chance to simply blurt out whatever was in our minds, others comment on it, it is interaction with others, as defined by the 21st century.

MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are available to you everywhere, and I mean that literally. If you have one of those nifty blackberry phones, you could be on the porcelain throne and update your status, some people have done it…

You see, and that’s when I think facebook becomes something negative.

Being able to reconnect with friends and family is all good. Seeing how people have changed and how their lives turned out is amazing, some people have changed radically, others are still the same as almost twenty years ago. Social networking permits us, again, to make connections that would never have happened.

But what if they weren’t supposed to happen?

There were 170+ friends on my facebook, I spoke to them initially and it was great, new things to discover about old friends and the joy of discovering the old ones gave us a sense of recognition, as part of us acknowledged par t of them. Sometimes it did not even go that far, sometimes it was the first message and the emotion never sparked, there was no excitement in the reconnection, it was only the satisfaction of having found someone else, (now you understand how a stalker feels). Some of them, I didn’t even greet, I just accepted their request and it didn’t make a difference, one way or another.

However, if you were to go back and look at my page, you would realize that it was only the same people, over and over who went back to my page. My circle, my friends. As I constantly kept up with their status, so did they come and look at mine, we commented back and forth and it was just another way of strengthening something that was already there.

With others though, there is no real connection. Not that you would expect it to be, but in an age when computers and smart phones have taken over our communications, it is really easy to delegate our commitment to others to a few text messages. It is really easy to become engrossed in other drama or even become hooked to the interaction in posts or games. We do this, I have done this and I have forgotten something much more important.

The human factor.

As humans, we relish interaction. We need someone to talk to, to talk at us, with us, around us. Aside from talking we need to be touched, it has been proven in countless of studies that human beings need to be touched, a hug, a pat on the back, even a shoulder to cry one. All of these things are intrinsically coded into ourselves and without it, WE know, we know that despite the connection, it is not the same.

Things are lost in facebook; the love someone can convey to another cannot be fully expressed to one another through a post on a social network site. People post things on each others status and the misunderstandings and Drama it creates is enough to give the Hallmark channel enough fodder for the next millennia. And the number of people willing to air their dirty laundry is appalling.
Because we make posts onto the computer, we allow ourselves to say things that we would never have the courage to say to each others faces. It is so much easier to be cruel, sarcastic and plain rude on a computer. It is so much easier to take whatever someone has posted on their status or used as their flair and take offense from that. We are a narcissistic society, we believe that everything others do or say has something to do or is caused by us. We react to it and thus more hurt feelings, more misunderstanding.

Many times, social networking can create exclusion towards one another.

You know the person is on, they updated their status. You know they were on for a while, their farm was fertilized. They have been on regularly; their fence around their farm is finished.
But there was never any effort in contact. Not a comment, not a word. Never.

When you actually meet, there is that whole routine about missing you, about wishing for more time to spend together, for more interaction, for more, more, more…

And then you realize, the people who are not part of your immediate circle are not there by choice.

When a relationship is good and it flows, it flows everywhere and anywhere. It grows and it is nourished by all things that you do. It may take time, but it is time given unconditionally. It may take some nurturing, but it is nurturing that enriches the giver and the receiver. When feelings are hurt, there is compassion and understanding that together you can make things right and there is even space, to think things away from each other, only to come back and share them.
You may have a thousand facebook friends, but how many of them are real friends?

Many of you will think that I am insane, that EVERYONE knows that facebook is a tool; it is just something fun that you do. That there are no feelings involved and others actions and interactions do not affect you. For the other 99% of the population, social networking is great but it is also an empty shell.

The 3000 friends on your profile will post on your account, like your status and even help you kill the idiot who attacked you on the five minutes it took to get you home from work. But when stuff hits the fan, it is only a precious few that will give you a hand to stand back up.

Many understand, in theory, the true distinction between friends and facebook friends. But many act otherwise. They are on facebook in the morning while they drink their coffee, at work during their break, in the afternoon while dinner defrosts in the microwave and right before bed and every other time in between.

Social networking has created a shift in our day to day routines. We look incessantly to see if someone has commented to our status, if someone responded to our message or to see if our meal is ready in café world.

The internet alone is considered to be one of the biggest timesinks of our time, but facebook users have surpassed that by far. In studies it was found that people who have facebook will spend 3 times the amount of time online than they do visiting all other websites, combined. That means that if you were usually a ten-minute- check in and check out kind of person, if you are a facebook user, you spend up to 30 minutes a day on social networking.

Then people wonder why we are an obese and out of shape nation!!!

There are so many things that you could be doing in those 30 minutes.

You can exercise, you can finish that to-do list, you could read a really good book, you could meditate, you could play with your kids, make love to your spouse, create a new playlist on your ipod, or you could call that someone who is important to you and tell them how much they mean to you. The possibilities are endless.

The internet has eroded our social skills. Our kids are growing up to accept virtual relationships as a given, the art of socializing with actual people is being lost. Our ability to read body language, to develop and cultivate friendships, all of that is becoming something of the past. What’s more, people all over the world are becoming aware of a sense of emptiness inside of us, a sense of disconnection that something is missing. I can assure you it is not that you are missing another car or another gadget, you are missing interpersonal relationships, and you are missing the warmth of another human being.

The technological advances are wonderful. We have become a global community and we are able to reach information a million times faster than generations before, but I don’t think that we were supposed to sacrifice one knowledge for another. We were not supposed to lose that sense of REAL community, of family, of real friends, of real people. We are hyper busy, we are constantly doing things and going places, our time is sacred, what should you be spending your time on?

Time is what we have, we can have more money, more friends, more everything, but time given away never comes back to us.

NEVER.

Secret

2010-02-03T07:48:00.000-05:00

Shhhhh. Listen very carefully. This is top secret, not many are being trusted with this information, but we have been watching you and we believe that you can handle it… you can handle it right???

Ready??

Are you sure???

Ok, here it is…

You know The secret??? The one with on TV, at the book stores, from that lady in Australia???

It’s not a secret… It has been around forever. The first time it was introduced to the populace was through Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” published back in 1937. Seth talked about it through Jane Roberts in the 70s and Jerry and Esther Hicks reintroduced it with the teachings of Abraham. It is talked about in quantum physics. Yes, quantum physics… you know??? Einstein… And it is brought up in churches all around the world, you have heard of it,... the power of prayer, yeah...

I love the new buzz around the law of attraction. Everyone has discovered the Secret and with it they have the key to open the up the treasures that the world holds.

Whoa!!!! Hold the Indiana Jones music and pay close attention…

IT’S NOT EXACTLY LIKE THAT!!!!

You are not going to make a list a put it under your pillow and then get it…

Well, it is like that, but it’s not…. Hang on… Let’s create clarity!!

The law of attraction, which the Secret is based off of, says that you will get that which your heart desires…

NOPE!! Read again…

The Law of Attraction says: That which is like unto itself, is drawn… In English, if you please???

Like magnets, the law of attraction brings into your life what you are thinking, what you are talking about and mostly what you are feeling.

Everything you think about, you talk about, especially, everything you feel… manifests itself.

Like little grains suspended in the atmosphere, your thoughts, words and feelings attract what you are expressing.

I want a million dollars *BINK*

Not that kind of expression… your innermost expression, your emotions.

Whatever you end up saying or feeling ends up coming through in your manifestation.

So you must get clear about your thoughts, about your feelings. You must address them with integrity and clarity in order to bring about that which you really want. You can’t wish for John, down at the corner, to fall in love with you. The law of attraction says that everyone has free will and you may not impose upon them.

You also can’t pretend or try to fake out the law of attraction. Again, it is based on emotions as well. So if you are wishing that you had a better relationship with your coworker, you can’t be calling her a bitch behind her back. Because what will manifest are your feelings of animosity.

So, you have to get clear.

Clarity is achieved with honesty and integrity. Clarity is what leads you on a never ending path of self-discovery, because just as sure as you discover what you want, you discover why you wanted it and suddenly another desire is borne out of that new knowledge.

However, I must advise you. With great power comes great responsibility. No, it’s not just an interesting line from Spiderman; it is also a truism. If you are ready to create a world of riches and the fabulous life that you deserve, and you certainly deserve it, you must take responsibility for everything that has happened to you.

Everything??? Yes! Everything.

I am in an unhappy marriage. My husband doesn’t make me happy!!! Nope, you make yourself happy.

I hate my job, my boss hates me, that’s why I can’t be promoted, if I was I would be making so much more money!!! Nope, you have to take responsibility; you either work with your boss or move on elsewhere. You live the misery daily because you choose to.

My mother hates me; she treats me like if I was still a little child! Nope, you allow your mother to treat you so.

There are too many examples to list here and some that I myself don’t understand. However, I do know that in order to create and manifest and build that wonderful life you deserve, you have to be empowered and to be empowered, you have to take responsibility and to take responsibility, you must look at yourself honestly and see why you did what you did and where you deviated from the path you had dreamed for yourself.

Well, I don’t believe in the law of attraction, Claudia.

That’s ok. The law of attraction does not require that you believe in it. The law of attraction can be seen at work all over the world, subtle and discreet way. Have you ever spent all morning thinking about a person and end up running into them or they call you that morning??? Law of attraction in action!!! Unbeknown to its users, the law of attraction has been around forever. This means that prayer, wishing in front of a well, and rubbing the Buddha’s belly when you walk past it, yep, it’s all connected.

If you were to make a chart of all religions and all methods of faith, you will realize that they all include some form of “faith” and believe in your thoughts and deeds.

Now, I am not here to lecture you in how to use the law of attraction or how to manifest, much less what you should be manifesting about.

I am here to tell you that this tremendously powerful tool has been around forever. No one recently discovered it. It is not a secret. People have had their prayers granted for millennia and it has been called by just about every other name that you can think of.

When the televangelist tells you that he has healed someone off the coast of Papua New Guinea, he is absolutely right. That is called concert manifestation. It is two people working through belief (read faith) and creating a result. The bible says “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." Matthew 18:15-20. The bible can be interpreted that where they are gathered physically, but people gather spiritually too. Just think of the emotions you felt and solidarity that 9/11 evoked. Think of the feelings the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti created in all of us. It spurred people into action and a new sense of nationalism was born in the United States and help has flocked to Haiti.

So, if all of us together, working together can create these moments, out of the emotions that we feel en masse, what can we create on an individual level? The possibilities are boundless.

Don’t believe me? I challenge you

This is a game that I played with my best friend years ago. And whenever someone is open to it, I always challenge them too. This is your chance.

On a piece of paper, write ten things you want. But write them in the present tense, as if they had already come to you.

Fold the paper put it in your wallet, in your purse, or whatever it is you take with you all the time.

When you have an extra few minutes, think about your paper; think about how your life will be changed when those ten wishes come true and how much you will enjoy them.

I guarantee you that in a year, half of your list will have come true and whatever didn’t come true, you ended up discovering you didn’t really want.

But, there is a trick, you have to believe. Don’t believe in me. Believe in the feelings and emotions that come up when you think about all your wishes having come true. They are the motor that will make your wishes come to you. You will have manifested them. Your prayers will have been answered. Nirvana within your reach.

Happy Manifesting!!

Namaste

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” Jesus Christ

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” -Buddha.

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” Khalil Gibran

(For continued reading about the law of attraction, I recommend reading books by Dr. Wayne Dyer, Abraham Hicks and the works of Seth and of course, the teachings of Jesus Christ!!!)

Facebook and Relationships

2010-02-02T14:55:00.000-05:00

People come in and out of your life. It is a process, a general occurrence and it does not reflect ill on you or the person making their exit, it is just expired time together. Life pulls you down different pathways and well, you walk away from each other.

Most people move on, most people are ok with this and shrug it off to life being life and well, you just deal with it.

But it doesn’t have to be so anymore. Facebook helps you reach into corners of the world where you thought you would never go back to. You reconnect with people whom you thought were long gone from your life and through the computer and a little voyeurism, you can instantly create an artificial intimacy (technology).

What happens when you reach out to someone who does not reach back?

What happens to that friend’s request? Does that person ignore it? Does it mean that they are glad that you are out of their life? Do the memories that live in your mind; are they not the same for the other person? Why have they not accepted you? Perhaps they didn’t get your request? Perhaps they did get it and seeing it did not evoke the same feelings in them as they did in you. Perhaps they have indeed moved on and see no more room for you in their life. Perhaps they cannot reconcile the person they were with the person they are and you are just a reminder of that. Perhaps, well, we could speculate until the end of time and we will never know.

Truth is that Facebook allows us to be a bit more impersonal when it comes to the end of these relationships. But in reality the stream of life brings people in and out of your path, constantly.

Relationships are extremely difficult. It is at the very least an exchange and if both people have not achieved and fulfilled the purpose of that relationship, you may find yourself dragging it out for a long time.

At times only words need to be exchanged to achieve closure, at times only goodbyes need to be said and sometimes, some of us, only want acknowledgement.

Even in families, there are branches that don’t connect to one another and despite efforts to create cohesiveness; you cannot force something that is not there, that doesn’t naturally grow there.

A relationship cannot be coerced into being when it doesn’t flow. If you don’t like your aunt Bertha, chances are you wont be very close to her, you might love her, but you wont feel that closeness. And then there are those that inspire in you more and they are not even blood relationships. They are people who came into your path and became the support system that you desired and they are now an integral part of your life.
There are no rules when it comes to this.

We wish for love to flow with our relatives, with our close friends. Sometimes even siblings are not very close. And we think that it should not be so, that we should count on each other and that we should love each other and be there for one another. And sometimes that does happen. My sister was one of the closest friends that I ever had, and I was honored when she called me her best friend. However, there are times when my mother’s personality and mine crash and it is better not to talk to each other because communication has broken down.
There are some people who are unable to create very many relationships and the ones that they do build, run very deeply. There are also those that have millions of friends and no one who is really close enough.

In a world with as diverse individuals as we are, the ways and shapes of relationships all depend on the people who are involved in it. Making a relationship work is WORK. It takes honesty and compassion and patience and forgiveness and willingness to see the person not with the critical eyes of logic, but with the accepting eyes of love.

When a relationship is important to you, you put the relationship’s needs above your own needs. You understand that like a living organism, the relationship requires your love and continuous nurturing. That it is a meeting of equals and sometimes, requires that you only lovingly listen or put a loving arm around someone, when they are down and out. A relationship does not ask that problems be solved; it only asks that you stand fast in the face of the storm. It does not ask of you that which you would not willingly give. It has limits and boundaries but those are only set in order for the relationship to grow, not to change, mold or hinder the people involved.

And for all the differences in relationships, the most important concept is that if it’s ok with you, then it’s ok. You define the parameters of your relationship; you define the hows, wheres and whys, no one else. There is no rule book that you must follow. As with all relationships, the way it flows is entirely up to you. You are there to fulfill the purpose of you and the other person in it. No one else needs to be satisfied by this relationship (unless there are children and that is something else).

There are no rights or wrongs in relationships as long as all willing partners accept the circumstances. There is no one who can define a relationship for another nor can you demand a relationship of another, it is made of equals amount of love and respect and a healthy and generous portion of independence. Because in order for relationships to grow, they must be free.
So as you reach out for that person whom you had a personal relationship with, or someone with whom you are supposed to have an excellent relationship with, remember that relationships happen, they are not made or demanded. They are one of your greatest desires fulfilled, because as humans we want love and support.

Facebook, MySpace, emails, texts, skype and all the other technology are only tools. It is up to you to.

If you are involved in a relationship and you feel that the other person is not an equal or is not equally invested in the relationship and you have tried talking to them to no avail, then walk away. Sometimes the best relationship is the one you let go.

“ Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” GALATIANS 6: 7-9 (KJV)

Faith

2010-02-01T19:46:00.000-05:00

Happy February!!! Here is the first day of the second month of the tenth year in this century. Did I lose you??? It is 2/1/2010.

January has been unique. Much has happened in this first month. Most of it good, some of it not so good and nothing so horrible that it cannot be made better. At least I think so.

There were moments there, though, when I felt very confused. Very lost and in a way reproachful of the things that happened.

For example, unless you were hibernating, you couldn’t have missed the earthquake that shattered Port Au Prince, Haiti. The images of the destruction were spectacular; nothing Hollywood could have come up with could have topped those images. The dead bodies in the street, the rubble, the knowing that under that rubble there were even more people who couldn’t get out. And the lucky ones that did get out and have the job of rebuilding. How do you rebuild? How do you get pass that??? I certainly don’t have an answer.

Later on the month, my cousin called to tell me one of our own was now battling a serious disease. I won’t call it deadly, but it certainly is life altering. I thought of him, so young, so full of life. His children will need him always; his girlfriend, now wife, and his parents. Most of all, I identified with his parents. I am a parent, what if my children ever went through something like that? How can I stand there strong and support my child who fights this battle?

In our own legal battles, we found that Lady Justice is only available to some, not all. In order to reach for justice you need deep pockets, and knowing that “justice” is not within our reach was devastating. How do you deal with this limitation? How do you stand in front of the moment and not let it crush you?

Throughout the day, millions of people will deal with circumstances that can break the human spirit. Millions of people will deal with violence, death, loss, frustration and despair. Millions fall in the path of such battles and others are able to stand, able to face the problem in the face and deal with it, regardless of what it may take.

What makes such a difference? What makes some of us fighters? What gives us the strength to deal with these circumstances and not break?

It is FAITH.

I don’t mean choosing a religion and going to church.

I mean having a knowing in your heart that no matter what, you will prevail, you will be ok, and this too shall pass.

Some of us are taught this through our experiences. Some of us are taught by example and some of us just have it, always, innately.

Faith and Inner Strength are not things that are easily taught. How do you teach someone about that feeling in your gut? that it does not matter that you have hit rock bottom, you will get up and you will get better.

As parents we strive to provide our children with the perfect life to ensure that nothing hurts them, that nothing upsets their world. I don’t know if that works, I do know that as someone who had a “challenging” childhood, I learned to cope and deal when I was very young, my inner strength reached body builder status. It helped that my mother would lean on me for support; I had to be the one with the faith to get us through this. Not a very religious person, I indeed developed faith, on tomorrow, on life and on the fact that like all things in nature, everything restores itself.

I used to often envy those that came from homes that were intact, that were loved unconditionally by their parents. I thought that if I had all of that supporting me my life would have been different.

As I have matured and gotten older, I realize that a lot of that faith and inner strength that propelled me when I was younger still sustains me when I am faced with a problem or a situation. I KNOW that I will be ok, I might fall down and get hysterical, more for the drama than anything else, but I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I will survive…

I talked to someone this weekend who did not have this inner knowing, who lacked the faith in himself to make a decision. Someone who had created a co-dependent relationship with his mother that he could no longer hear what his inner voice was telling him, all he heard was her advice, her prompting, her control on the reins. He had floundered for the past years without any real direction, following her advice, not that it was bad advice but it took away from him, from his learning, from his growth process, from his faith-building steps.

In her efforts to save him from grief, from pain, from loss, his mother had taken away his experiences and his lessons and his opportunity to create something better. She had lovingly taken over his life. And yes, she had the best of intentions but I gently reminded her, that one day she would not be there and then where would he be? Who will care for him now when she was gone? For she had created an infant in a man’s body, totally lacking any survival skills or instincts, an emotional eunuch.

If at this point this man has not fine tuned his inner compass and his inner strength and his faith, is he doomed to wonder in his path until another woman takes over the place of his mother or will he just live his days without that knowing that all will be well.

We cannot teach our children faith from a book, it won’t be covered in school and even if they do attend Sunday school, not everything will be covered there.

It is our job as parents to give them that. To put together those blocks under their feet so that when they fall they will have something to hold on to, something that will help them get back up again. It is our job to teach them through their own failures and their own contrasts to look beyond the immediate despair and reach to the moment past.

Sometimes the despair is so great that you can only look to it one day at a time, and then little by little your vision expands. And you are able to walk away from the situation stronger than before. Sometimes mistakes are made and sometimes we hurt ourselves or others. However, it is making these mistakes, in taking full responsibility for them that we become fully mature and fully able to look at the world and live a fulfilled life.

So we teach our children Faith. We show them that even if the sun goes away for the winter, spring is usually around the corner. We tell them that sometimes we can stand and fight and sometimes we just take our lesson and walk away with a clearer idea of how to make things better. We tell them that tomorrow is full of the chance to make things better, to make things anew. We let them make their mistakes, carve their path and learn the beat of their own song, because when we are not there to sing it back to them, they will have to carry their own tune.

Listen to your inner voice, love, laugh, leap out and live life and have faith, for all will be well!!!

Confessions

2009-12-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make…

I am dense, slow and stubborn.

Stop nodding in agreement… just hear me out, hmmm?

I am 34 years old. I look young, I don’t have many wrinkles, however, I am overweight, I am only
5’4 and I weigh more than I should….

What? You want me to tell you how much??? That’s not really a nice question, you know??

Ok,ok,ok,… I weigh 220 pounds, which is 70 lbs over what I should weigh, and it seems that 50 of those pounds have settled nicely around my waist, or at least where my waist used to be.

Now, I am not a perpetual dieter, I don’t yo-yo diet. I have been consistently 200+ since …well, forever. There was this one time when Luis, my best friend, convinced me to try Body for Life and I lost 21 lbs in one month, I was 190 and then we stopped. The process was murder, up at the crack of dawn, work, work, work all the time, pain here, stretch that, lift this, planning meals, special grocery trips, etc, etc, etc. Arrrrghhh!!!! (But you know? I felt great…)

A few tres leches and cheesecakes later, I had forgotten all about the body for life and gone on to my regular life style.

I have always had a grudge with processed foods. No cans, frozen or prepared foods. And I always knew that sugar was not my best friend, but like a good addict, all it would take was more sugar to make me forget…

Hit me again! Another cookie…. Yeahhhhhhh, Oblivion!!!

Life is persistent sometimes, and when I started working here in Ohio, I met a man who was very focused on himself. Egocentric, self centered, creido, I berated him (in my mind), he seemed so full of life and so full of enthusiasm that even as I was hating him for being so concerned about himself and caring so much for himself, I was totally attracted to his self preservation and his integrity with himself and his health and well being.

After a little bit of time and tired of hating him at a distance, I actually started talking to him and I learnt that his incredible integrity about his body and self was translated into his life with BOUNDLESS amounts of energy. I thought he was high, he was, high in life. He is by the far one of the funniest men I have ever met, not like weird funny either, funny like his brain cells are running circles around mine and mine could just collapse with laughter. I saw him once sharing some information about the glycemic index with another coworker and I asked him what it was, he explained and the fat girl in me said something stupid like “oh yea, I know all bout this” (Yes, Angel, I know all about this, I purposefully kill myself on a daily basis… hehehehe, pathetic)

Mr. Batista and I parted company, but I knew what it looked like to be healthy, what it sounded like… could I turn around and ignore it again???

Yes, apparently I could.

I did.

I went back to baking and cooking and not looking at labels and creating sugar edifices. Now, to give myself credit, I did bake from scratch and I didn’t buy the frosting, everything was home made, it counts for something right??? Right???

Well, as you know, life will not be contained.

My cousin turned writer.

I’ve told you all about him. If anything happens at the house, I consult him first. His insight and information always makes sense to me. He has always given me ways to deal with our ailments and information on how to prevent those things. It is like having a doctor at your beck and call, well not exactly like that, but he does email back pretty quick…

His book, “Stop Diabetes in 30 days” tells you all about diabetes containment and prevention. Now, why would I care about diabetes??? Diabetes runs rampant in my family. Too many relatives affected. Too many lives lost to it.

Well, he had sent me his book and I could not download it. I thought, oh well, I couldn’t open it…darn…

Then his sister sent me the actual book…

Ok, someone is getting pretty annoying up there with their message, if they think that I am going to listen to just about anyone talk about this… I am not swayed just like that… oh no!!!!! (This is me, ranting)

Then, the worst happened. I got sick. I just had a sinus infection. But it was a Titan of a Sinus infection. It kicked my butt and I was laid out, in pain and in tears for about four days. I was alone in the house with the little ones and I got scared.

I got scared thinking about what would happen if I got really sick right now?

I thought… to myself…

What if this headache is more than a headache, what if it is a stroke?

Oh C’mon, you are 34 no one has a stroke at 34.

Fat people do. (I am sorry, that part of me is not politically correct yet, we are working on it though)

I am not that fat.

Yea, ok, tell yourself that.

No seriously, I personally know people who are twice as heavy.

You don’t know their symptoms; you don’t know what their life is like.

Yeah, but seriously, dead at 34??? I am healthy….

You have a sinus infection that is killing you. You are overweight, you have asthma, you have carpal tunnel to the point that you can’t feel your fingers in the morning and you are so out of shape, your heart would give out at the sight of a treadmill. Yes, you are the picture of health.

Well, yea…

I could see that I was losing this battle.

So, I sat there on Sunday Morning, tired of being sick, tired of not being healthy, of being out of energy and I looked towards the Heavens and voiced my challenge…

“If this getting healthy thing is something really important to me, send me a sign. But don’t just send me any sign send me a sign that you know I cannot refute.”

Have you ever done that??? Has it ever worked??? Yea, sometimes I wish it would not work quite as well, but there you have it….

I made my plea to the heavens at 4 am, afterwards I could not sleep, I was miserable and I could not stay in bed another minute. I went to the couch, and turned the TV on. Flipped around the different channels available, and found a channel doing something about Wayne Dyer, I think it was a presentation about his book, “Excuses Be Gone”

Dr. Dyer is a world renowned psychologist, author, and someone I respect a lot. I read his books and listen to his messages intently and have learnt a great deal from him. His book “Your Sacred Self” changed my life, meeting him in person is still one of the highlights of my life.

So there stood this man, whom I love, and he said to me, (yes, he was talking to me) that he had to follow his own advice, and lose those few pounds that he had been ignoring (uh, huh…) and so he went to say that he had looked for a program that strived for health, not just for weight loss, when he found Jorge Cruise’s “The Belly Fat Cure”. (You’ve gotta be kidding me! What a coincidence!!!! I know, no coincidences, everything happens for a reason, you wanted a message, here you go!!!!)

So he goes on to explain everything I have known about the evil sugar, and how it has gotten out of hand and so on and so forth, and I sat there, angry at the TV and saying that I would do my own research on this, thank you very much.

I jumped on my trusty computer and hit Wikipedia… no just kidding, that’s wannabe research.

I looked up this Jorge Cruise and his belly fat cure and his approach. I looked at his experience, his track, his associates, his books. I now know his shoe size and even who was his best friend in high school. It helps to have worked with investigators.

Well, I could find no fault with his theory, with his approach, with his ideas. He even looks healthy and not super skinny and over exercised.

So fine, I looked up his website and it was full of videos… groan!!!!! I am a reader, I don’t like videos. But I really did not need to hear the information again, I know why it works, I have known it for a VERY long time. It resonated with everything I know and at that moment, I knew it, not only with my brain, but with my heart. It was time to do it.

My best friend, Luis, was overweight once upon a time and lost massive weight using this way of eating. When Redux came out and the nice doctors gave us our prescriptions, they also said to follow up with diet, this same kind of diet. When Atkins came out and my sister, subtly, sent me the book, it was the same concept (except the bacon part of it). And so it has been with Body for life and the Glycemic Index that Angel introduced me to. All of them had the same basic concept. Lean proteins, no white stuff, drink your water, plenty of veggies…. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Even many years ago, while I was studying medical transcription, I learnt about hormones and how they affect your body and the way your body works and processes function. And I learnt that perfect health means finding the perfect balance for your body and maintaining it. Finding the perfect balance, finding the perfect balance in nutrition!!! That almost sounds like making peace with your body, doesn’t it?

So here goes nothing, I have placed the book on order, it should arrive promptly on December 28 and I will then be able to begin the New Year with a new goal and despite the fact that I hate New Years resolutions and all of the pressure and nonsense that goes with it, I am going to do this now because I want to be healthy, I want to be healthy, I want to live a good life and watch the kids grow and I want grandkids and I want to be beautiful at 70, like my mom.

So why am I telling you this? Well, in the past, I have always attempted this but never have I been open about this. It was like the big elephant in the living room that no one talked about. Well the elephant needs help, I mean, I need help.

I need help because, obviously, I have tried this alone and failed. I need your help because I need someone to be accountable to. I need your help because being overweight and overeating are not the only problem, something causes that behavior and I have not been clear enough to see what it is, because you may have gone through this and you can send your support or because you are ready to take the plunge and be healthy and want to join me.

Regardless, I need your help.

So here I come, with open arms…. (Ahem, sorry...)

So here I come, naked (figuratively) and vulnerable and putting it all out there (figuratively, again) in hopes that I can achieve this, in hopes that I can do this… maybe…

Don’t misunderstand, being fat has never held me back, I have gotten the jobs I wanted, gotten paid what I wanted and done what I wanted, I even got all the guys I wanted, (don’t ever believe it when people who are fat are not good in bed, not true, trust me I know…)

But… I wonder, how much better it could be? I wonder how much better I could be??? Well, I am curious and motivated, so here I go, to make peace with my body. Wish me luck…

Thanksgiving Menu

2009-11-26T09:42:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving menu

In our home, Thanksgiving is a bit different. My husband is an active and most prominent participant in the kitchen; the men in his family are the cooks. Although, I love to cook, I am glad to step back and let him take over. He will get the children onto the counter and have them smell spices and taste his concoctions and measure out ingredients. The last holidays when we were all together, Matt and Tony threw us out of the kitchen and took over creating a most magnificent meal!!! I gladly gave up my wooden spoon and sat back and relaxed... I love family traditions... but back to our menu!!

• 1 turkey (I remember the poor turkey that arrived from Pacanga. For the longest time he thought he had died and gone to turkey heaven. They would feed him all kinds of yummy foods all day long and let him walk around like if he was the king of the patio. Then one day, things got better, or so he thought, they poured pisco down its gullet and let it get drunker and drunker. We used to love watching it stumble around and trip and fall, and then... well, the pisco did make it delicious!!!)

• Stuffing: Bread stuffing American style?? Ground beef stuffing Peruvian style??? And why stuffing anyways??? Who ever looked at the bird’s cavity and thought, “Well that’s going to have to be filled!!!” Here at my house, we go for a good balance and combination, cornbread and sausage creole stuffing… yes, cayenne pepper inside that turkey, good thing he had the rum!!

• Green Beans: I remember sitting at Tere’s house and having to peel the peas and sift through the rice and snap the ends of the green beans. I remember I used to volunteer for these jobs in an effort to hear all the gossip. My mom and Tere used to talk while cooking, well Tere would cook and my mom would keep her company, and I would hear all of their conversations and their advise to one another.

• Macaroni Salad or Ensalada de coditos: Taste is so subjective, but there are certain flavors and combinations that are embedded in your memory and Emeril Lagasse could cook for you and he would not hit it on the spot. And so it is with la Flaca’s ensalada de coditos. My goodness, I have tried!!! Every combination and every other ingredient that I could throw in there has been added but none compare. I don’t know that she left anyone the recipe and it wouldn’t really matter, she added her own essence, her own flavor for life and it resulted in the most amazing macaroni salad I have ever tasted.
• Rice: Well, this is a Hispanic table; you were not thinking it would be without rice, were you???? Affairs at my cousin’s Olga’s house were always beautiful. From the dishes and the arrangements and the food and the presentation of the food, Olga has a special touch that brings out the beauty in everything, yes my friends, even rice. I have eaten at her table more than once, (lucky me) and the rice she makes for special occasions and well, there is no point in comparison. Something about the sausage and the coloring and the seasonings, well, her rice was fancy and fabulous, much like her…. Didn’t know you could do all that with rice did you??

• Tamales: Ok, so tamales are more for Christmas, but I could not help mentioning them. My tia Alcira would make them and she would give them out, not many mind you, like one or two per house, but man oh man!! My sister, my mom and I would stand around the stove and watch the water boil and take it out and measured out the pieces so we divided it all equally. It was delicious, it was more than delicious it was perfect. Back in Peru, the lady would come around and sell her tamales and my tia had captured that taste in her little foil packets…. Ohh, perfection.

Rolls and Butter: Making bread is a religious experience. I am not being disrespectful, I just think that the moment when you are kneading the bread and bringing its goodness out, is a moment of communion. So much of you is put into this process that you are totally invested in this creation. The butter is something different altogether. I love pure butter. If you can’t believe it’s not butter, it’s probably not butter and I don’t want it. We make our own butter for special occasions and that butter reminds me of my grandma's house. The taste of the Laive butter that she used to keep in her cabinets and how soft it was, my mamita Angelica would butter my bread and set it next to my plate and I can still taste the buttery goodness of her table.

• Finally, a good bottle of rum or pisco. Not for the turkey, for us…

Although pisco was not always around, sometimes it was wine, if we were really hurting that week, well beer would do. But there was always something to celebrate with. My tio Juan would bring the bottles of wine out of his room, and he would give the really dry stuff for the adults and he always had a bottle of something sweet for us. (Don’t be horrified, in other countries there is no alcohol prohibition and no problem with underage drinking…. Huh, wonder if they are related??? Never mind, that’s another post) The wine was delicious, it was sweet and tangy and I felt so grown up, Jessica, Juliana and I would pretend that we were in a fancy party.

My dad would drink anything and felt all of the food he was cooking should be splashed liberally with whatever he was drinking at the time, some things don’t mix, never put red wine in mashed potatoes. But sometimes it would be a hit, that pisco on that Peking duck was the bomb!!! My dad would serenade the world with Nino Bravo and whisky after any holiday bringing the holiday to an end.

My mom and I would slip pisco into our tea when the nights got cold in Lima before our daily walk and Yaly and I would take rum and cokes through the house while we were cleaning, and yes, the music was blasting too and we would sing to the top of our lungs as we got the house clean and ready for the holidays!!! In our own little holidays when Papi would come over, he would bring a bottle of rum and a box of wino… tastes were less discriminating after the first bottle of rum.

And so as you set your table for today, as you prepare to give thanks for all the good things that you have been blessed with, give thanks also for the people that blessed your life and that are gone from us or far from us. Their spirit remains, in our hearts, in our memories, even in our menus.

Remember the people that have helped create your life story and share that story with those who gather around you today. Tell the world that a little bit of everyone’s love shines brightly inside of you and reminds you of the promise that distance and time don’t matter, as long as we have love.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!!

3/11

2009-11-10T11:47:00.000-05:00

3 days done and off he goes again…
For 11 days I will smile instead of cry, wishing he was nearby
For 11 days I will push, continue our mission he is home
For 11 days I will pray, desperately, for clear skies, safe roads, bright horizons and a safe return home
For 11 days I will hope that love strengthens my heart so that I may sound strong for him when he calls.
For 11 days I will think of the prosperity this grants us and devise a million ways to create more from home so he doesn’t have to leave anymore.
For 11 days we will cheer for health and for the eagerness to be together again…
For 11 days I will hold my breath as to not hurt, as to not feel the pain…
For 11 days I will look with scorn at those that complain about their spouses, even though they are always at home…
For 11 days I will look into the eyes of another trucker’s wife and say I do understand the loneliness that swallows us, the loyalty to our men…
For these 11 days will be over and he will be home again, and when he is, when he does come home, all will be alright, I will be complete, again.

I believe

2009-11-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

I believe with all of my heart in the kindness in our hearts that feels so alive during Christmas.
I believe in the spirit of the times that fills our days with joy and bring us closer to love during Christmas. I believe in reindeer flights as they cross the star filled sky during the most glorious night of all, I believe in peace and goodwill to us all during Christmas.

I believe in loving souls spreading their jolly cheer during Christmas.
I believe in children's smiles and the glimmer in their eyes that look out in compassion into the hearts of their fellow men during Christmas.
I believe in Christmas warmth that charms us through the season uniting us in song during Christmas.
I believe in magic that creates a happy world, united hand in hand, in the cheeriest time of all, when joy fills our hearts and lifts us in love during Christmas.

Letter to my beloved...

2009-11-09T08:59:00.000-05:00

Don’t close the door. Wait!

I haven’t come to judge you; I have nothing to say, I was wondering if maybe you would let me hold your hand. Let me be here with you, near you... I cannot go into the darkness with you but I still want to be close.

Wait, what are you doing? Why are you hurting yourself? Don’t you see? Don’t you see what you are doing to your soul??? This stuff takes you to a false light, you are still floating in the dark, and you are still lost in the clouds. This won’t help this wont help….

I am sorry, forgive me please, I am sorry.

I said I wouldn’t say anything, but I can’t help it, I can’t stand to see you hurt yourself, I can’t stand to see you waste yourself away. If you could only see yourself the way I can see you, if you only found in you what I find in you. You are like a star papi, you are like a shining beacon in the night. You are so perfect, so beautiful, why can’t you see it?

Hell and damnation that I can’t talk to you, Hell and damnation that I am in this cursed place and that I cannot reach you. Reach inside you mi hijo, reach to me, I am still here, alive in you… I never left you, I wouldn’t leave you.

I know you are angry, I know you are upset, but doing this to yourself doesn’t make it better papi. Hurting yourself doesn’t make them sorry; it doesn’t let them see what they have done to you. Hurting yourself only hurts you and I never want you to hurt, never. The people that have hurt you in life are only human, they make mistakes all the time, like I did, and I made so many mistakes, so many.

Child of mine, child of my soul, I curse the moment that took my life and took me from you.
While you were little I could protect you, I would make sure that nothing touched you, nothing soiled you. Now I see the folly of my actions, now I see the harm I have caused you. I left you and you were not ready, you were not ready for life as it is.

People can be selfish papi, they can be greedy, but it has nothing to do with you it has to do with them, with how they see themselves. They will try to tell you all kinds of nonsense about being fair and knowing what is right and wrong, but those concepts don’t exist, they are ideas and ideas are not enough to base decisions on. People who impose their will on others and who fail to use their heart in their decisions are those that have turned away from themselves and follow an outer voice in their path. They do what they are supposed to do because that is what they are supposed to do, not because they act with integrity and compassion.

My son, walk away; walk away from this life that holds you back, walk away from this moment that is torture to you. The moment has passed and the actions that define this suffering for you are gone. Wake up son, this is a sin. No, its not religion, look for yourself. To sin is to err, to miss your mark and you are missing yours, you are being less than you can be and while you are not offending God, you are selling yourself short for no reason.

Put away the bottles, the papers and the smokes. Put away these moments of darkness and reach somewhere and to someone. You are not in this alone, I may have left this earth but I did not leave you alone.

Beloved, I watch and I listen and I see your pain. The same pain that sears your soul is in the others who seek to harm you. How can you judge them then, if you cause yourself the same pain??? Flesh of my flesh, put down the pain that you have wrapped yourself in and walk towards the person you know you are inside.

For all of the answers are inside, all of the love and the light that you seek come from inside. And inside, where all is as it should be, I live in love and in peace and in happiness of knowing that you are perfect as I always knew you were and that in you, my hope was never betrayed.
Reach inside child; reach inside, all the answers lie within. And within is also where I am at. Never left you, never will, my beloved.

Different people

2009-07-21T09:52:00.000-04:00

Walk into a retail store, sales associate walks towards me and says, very loudly and slowly;
•DO YOU NEED HELP??? (She made a lot of hand movements)
•I looked at her puzzled and I thought, “Awwww, they hire the challenged.” I told her loudly and slowly “I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE REGARDING AN ORDER I PLACED” (all communication lessons teach you to emulate the speaker, so I was, I also wanted to make sure she got me to the right person)
•OH! , she said startled; “You speak English”
•Oh I said inside me, you really are challenged.
PLOP!!!

Talking to a mom from my children’s school,
•“I am so happy that you made it over here and not have to be underprivileged anymore, I mean, that’s horrible and you don’t even talk Mexican anymore, you learned American”
(visibly counting from ten to 1, about a thousand times, in Mexican and American)
PLOP! PLOP!!

Talking to someone on the phone regarding education.
•“Yes I was granted a full scholarship, it was great, I am so very grateful” I said
•He said “Ah! Yes, you people always get the good ones!!!”
PLOP!

Talking to someone about my children
•“Wow! Your son has green eyes and he can definitely pass for American, you are so lucky!!!”
(Can someone please explain to this person that there are whiter people than her in Peru and that my father had green eyes too…. geeeez?)
PLOP! PLOP! PLOP!!

“So how did you get here? “asked someone
“I drove here; I live about three blocks from here.”
“No!!!! I mean when you came to America…”
“I was born in America, South America…”
“Hehehe!! You are so cute; no I meant like here in America, the country, USA, you know…”
(No I don’t, please tell me, this is just more writing material for me…)
PLOP!!!

I called a store to verify that my order had arrived (another, different store) I spoke to the lady and she said that everything was there, and thank you so much for placing this order and we are so glad that we could do this for you, you are our best customer EVER, etc, etc, etc (you know the deal) I am leaving the box in the store but to the side in case I am with a customer when you come in, you don’t have to wait for me . Sounds great, thank you
I walk into the store and proceed to reach towards my large box that was waiting there with my name on it, She RAN towards me and asked if she could help me, I told her my name and I told her that I was getting my box. She said she was sorry, she could not tell that I was a foreigner on the phone and she wanted to make sure I wasn’t stealing.
PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! PLOP!

Ok, I don’t get it.

I came, I learned the language, I assimilated, and I did everything that was asked of me, I moved away from large metropolis and learned more and became more immersed in the culture. Aside from my looks there is absolutely NOTHING that should create this wedge, this reaction, AT ALL.

But more often than not, the one that plays the race card is you!

You bring up the fact that I am different, that I came from somewhere else, that I eat different, that I dance different, Holly Moly, you have even mentioned that we walk different.

If you are constantly bringing it up, how do you expect me to put it aside???

You know if you are constantly going to remind me of what I already know then please don’t blame me when I take advantage of the constant mention of my differences.

So here are some facts, just FYI….

Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority; there are 45.4 million of us, comprising 15% of the current population in the United States. How does this number grow so considerably you may ask? Aside from the fact that Hispanics reproduce like rabbits, like you have mentioned so many times?

Well, let me explain it… SLOWLY….

In a mixed family, one of the parents usually fills out the demographic information about the children. Someone who is a minority is more aware of what a census does and how it affects you, therefore, Hispanic parents in a multiracial family will usually opt for choosing Hispanic. I heard the Italians didn’t do it that way, we are still growing strong.

Although we are expected to assimilate, this generation of immigrants has not had to compromise and be as isolated from its original home. Thanks to the technological advances that have been developed we can read the newspaper from home on the internet, we can chat using the webcam with family and we can download our music from every venue available. Our foods infuse the market and find their way into your favorites and thrive in places that don’t even have a large Hispanic population. Importing of our favorite foods is now commonly available at mainstream grocery stores and we have our own package in the cable company. This current generation of Hispanics has also created a bridge to older Hispanics who had isolated themselves from their original culture in order to assimilate, no longer necessary.

Everyone complaints that we should speak English but I swear that WE did not translate the forms in the government; we didn’t hire the bilingual people. We didn’t twist anyone’s arm to make the little announcement in Spanish in all public places. We didn’t create the laws that you say lead us to be lazy and a leech in society. As a matter of fact, you did. You wanted us to be able to pay taxes so you translated the forms, you wanted to be able to cater to Hispanic customers and attract the Hispanic dollar, so you hired the bilinguals, you wanted us to go to your amusement parks and other tourist attractions to spend our money so you made the announcements in Spanish too. There are only 26 Hispanics in the House of Representatives and 3 in the Senate, you passed the laws for things in Spanish, you agreed to this. It is good business, it was a strategic decision, your lawmakers saw that, we can see that, why can’t you see that??? Therefore, it was your own actions that perpetuated this situation or those of your elected officials; I think there is no room for complaints.

Most of us came here with the hope and dream of a better tomorrow, to work and to build with our own hands the type of life that you said was achievable here. We came here despite the borders and sacrifice of leaving everything we knew behind and we built our own version of “the dream” with the same passion and drive that allowed us to walk away from our home.

But a little bit of home will always live in us. There will always be song in our existence, whether it is a ranchera or salsa or reggaeton or a CD of boleros, the music will always be loud and where there are two or more of us listening to that music, there will always be dancing. Our food will always permeate the neighborhoods, reminding us and pulling us from every corner and set us running towards home. Soccer will always inspire hysterical behavior in most of us and will have even the most level headed person screaming to cheer on his team.

And of course, not all of you see us as the reason for the fall of modern society, not all of you act as though we are responsible for the growing cancer in communities, not all of you think that we have taken your jobs, your homes, your opportunities and your dreams. Not all of you feel as though we have usurped your right to prosper, not all of you blame us for global warming, well, you get my drift. Not all of you; thank the Goddess. We know who you are too, yes, we can tell. We can tell when you are really open-minded and tolerant and when you are ACTING like you are open-minded and tolerant.

Also, just because we don’t speak the language and we had to come here, doesn’t mean we are ignorant, doesn’t mean we are uneducated and doesn’t mean we don’t understand everything else that you are not saying.

Yes, there are trouble makers, there are people who break the law and who get in trouble and who will make the wrong choice. But then again, there are those in all societies despite their background. We know you catch them, we know you look for them, and we know you get to them sometimes even before they have done something. Its ok, we know. We have come to expect it.

Because if you think that the profiling defines us, you are mistaken. We want to assimilate, in the sense that we want to be able to function in this environ, to prosper and to create a better life for ourselves and our children but there are things that we refuse to relinquish. There are things that are ingrained, coded into our DNA and we cannot deny.

We are a different people. We work hard but we also play hard and our traditions and our culture are as much part of us as the color of our skin and our blood type. So if you have to profile us, if you have to generalize us and categorize us and discriminate us and stereotype us, that’s ok. Most of us have figured out by now that your segregationist and separatist ideas define you, not us.

So from deep in the heart of the Midwest, from Ohio, the heart of it all, I raise my bottle of Cristal, eating my mango, blasting Wisin y Yandel, in a kitchen full of reggaeton dancers, where we celebrate the fourth of July and Veintiocho de Julio, where we do Christmas and Nochebuena, where our lullabies have tropical sounds, and our culture becomes part of my children who then will pass it on to their children, I celebrate the human element that unite us but also the differences that make us unique, and wish you lots and lots of peace pero sobretodo.. ..mucho, mucho AMOR!!!!!!! (1)(1) Walter Mercado

I am more than my numbers

2009-07-15T10:40:00.000-04:00

My bank account sits at 70 dollars. My credit rating is of 450. My blood pressure is 120/70. My cholesterol is 235. I am 34 years old. I have been married 2 times. I have 3 children. I am 1 of 5 siblings. I am 5’4. I am 190 pounds. I have lived in 5 cities. I have owned 4 cars. I have worked with 3 Fortune 50 companies.

None of those numbers tell you anything about me. None of those numbers can give you an understanding of who I am. Of course, you can analyze the data and assume many things about me, but will they give you the whole story?

You can see that I am not rich, I have poor credit and I am relatively healthy though overweight. You can even say that I am slightly unstable (the whole moving thing) and that I am not dumb since I have been involved with good companies. And that tells you what??

Can you measure the compassion in my soul through my credit score? Can you know if I am kind because I am overweight? Will you be able to tell if I cry at the movies from my blood pressure?

I am more than my numbers.

You cannot round me up just by the numbers that pop up on a report. You cannot summarize who I am just by a tally of cold data that you have gathered. Adding up the numbers and taking away my errors will not give you a result based on truths, it only takes into account that which you see and you can analyze.

Like many people, I have made mistakes. I have taken false steps, I have fallen, I have gotten up, I have made the same mistake more than once and that still does not change who I am. Despite what the numbers tell you, I have not fallen from grace and because my numbers are not up to par with the world, it does not make me less worthy. You cannot tell whether or not I will succeed or fail, nor can you equate higher numbers with happier results.

You cannot take the measure of a man by the car he drives, the home he lives in or the job he has. You cannot see into the man he really is by looking to his credit score, reading his SAT results or sneaking a peek into his hemoglobin. You cannot understand someone based on their insurance policy, their 401K statement or their business cards. You will not touch someone with your checkbook, your diplomas or your title.

Once upon a time people had to learn how to relate to one another. There was no credit report that could tell you if the man in front of you was worthy, you evaluated him with your own eyes, you followed your own criteria and you trusted your instinct. Business men used to gage each other based on handshakes instead of resumes and curriculum vitae.

Men and women had learned to look at the little hints in someone’s conversation, in their tone and inflection to see if they were trustworthy or even to learn if the person in question would be a good friend. There was art in communication and some people developed their conversational skills as assiduously as others pursue their careers. Body language was a legitimate way of communicating and many engagements were based solely on the hints of this fine art.

Back in the day, you would look at someone and value their hard work by their actions, not by the accumulation of their wealth. People would be consulted on matters based on their demonstrated knowledge, not on the diplomas that hung on their wall.

It was the art of the shaman to look at someone with the eyes of the soul and to know the intentions of the other just by listening to his inner guides and following his instinct. As interconnected beings, when we meet someone, our inner bells tell us a more comprehensive story than a Federal background check.

Computers and technology are great allies in the world of communications. They have helped us breach distances and reach out to others who otherwise would not be a part of our world. However, as before, we forget that the progress we have made has also been based on the things we knew in the past. It is because of those experiences that we went through in the past that we have the knowledge that has birthed all of this advancement and extraordinary growth.

However, in this as in many other things, we toss the old and bring in the new and we create an unbalanced approach, one that does not serve us well.

You can see that same trend in agriculture, in education and schools and most significantly, in parenting. Spanking was once upon a time used as a disciplinary method. The child knew to behave because otherwise, he would face consequences. With the rise of the self esteem movement fueled by Dr. Spock, parents abandoned spanking; however, nothing took the place of spanking. And children grew up without any discipline, without any knowledge of cause and effect. No base was given to them as parents slacked and didn’t actively teach those values and discipline. Now we have a million of “millennials” scratching their heads because they don’t understand what went wrong.

It’s a pendulum effect, we lean too far into one side, which causes the next generation to do the opposite and then we lean too much in to the other side.

And many things will continue to be that way and that is just the way of life. However, in communications there are many things that stand to be lost in this new trend. We are forgetting to look deeper, further and with our other senses. We are forgetting how to relate to each other and how to reach out to others. The computer is a wonderful tool, I personally love Facebook and recommend it to everyone, young and old, but there is also something to be said for looking into someone’s eyes, for reaching into the firm grasp of someone’s honest handshake, the warmth and soothing effect of a hug from a loved one.

Our automatization has allowed for a more efficient way to deal with growth, with advancement and with progress. But as humans, we also need in place a way to deal with that part of us that makes mistakes, that falls short and that does not immediately fit the mold. People are not disposable, they will need second, third and fourth chances. Our society is not prepared to give them that second and third chance without taking away their dignity. We read each person’s file before we even meet them and make up our minds as to who and what they are before they have come into our life.

In short, the thinking skills that went with the times of old have been given up by the quick and easy to reach information that we all have access to. People listen to experts about what to do with their children, what to eat and how to live their life, they heed test results with numbers and data when their body has been telling them the same thing all along and their own inner guidance has always had the answers for them.

Many years ago, intangibles such as dignity, honor, and integrity had more value. Nowadays, scores and reports and data have taken over. And while all of them are great tools to get to know people, they are not the ultimate answer. When you stand in front of someone and want to asses their worthiness and their character, all you need to do is reach into you and see what your eyes wont tell you, listen for their song with your soul and recognize and smile and wait for the truth is always within your reach.

You are my Sunshine

2009-07-06T07:07:00.000-04:00

You are my Sunshine
Mom, mom, mom! I got to get my clothes ready and I got to take my pens and my coloring pencils and lots of papers, there will be lots of animals on the road and I need to draw them so you know what they look like. Do you think I will be able to see lots of animals from the truck? Aren’t you excited mom? I get to go in the truck with dad, only us boys and wouldn’t it be great if we could go to Texas? I was born in Texas mom, I am a cowboy!!!

~I know baby

My only Sunshine
Mom? Do I need to take money? Will I need to buy stuff??? What if I have to buy something? Dad is going to be working and I am going to be working with him. I know this is not all fun and games, dad says we are going to be rolling all the time, I can work with dad, I am a big boy, I can help him, I can look out for other cars and I can tell him when we have to turn, I am a big boy mami. I know how to read, I can read to dad and I can read the map and I can show him where the states are. Do you know where the states are mami? Don’t worry if you don’t know, I will draw it for you and bring it back, is that ok mom?

That is fine baby.

You make me happy when skies are gray

Mom, what are you and the girls going to do? It’s going to be only boys in the truck and girls in the house. We are going to talk about all the stuff that boys talk about. We are going to talk about predators and wild animals, and guns and wars and all those scary stuff. You don’t like talking about that stuff do you mami? It’s ok, I will talk to daddy, but I know that we are just talking about it. We can’t hurt people or animals. You especially can’t hurt animals, right mami? Mami, when I grow up I want to be a man who takes care of animals and who makes sure they are not extinct. Maybe, I can go around the world rescuing animals and daddy can drive me in his truck, do you think I can do that mami?

You can do anything you want baby.

You’ll never know dear how much I love you
Mom, I am ready, I am going to go all over the United States and I am going to see all the other states and won’t it be cool mami if I see the ocean?? I love the ocean mami, great white sharks and dolphins live there and you can swim. Mom, do you think dad will let me read to him books about animals in the ocean? I hope he does, I brought my other animal books and my other books about zombies and the other books I like to read? Does daddy like to read? Yes, I think daddy likes to read. You love to read too mami, we are all a reading family aren’t we mami??

Yes baby, we are.

Oh please don’t take my sunshine away

Mami? Are you sad mami? Don’t be sad mami! I will be back in 11 days; you can almost count that with your fingers mami. I will be back soon, and I will miss you mami. I am not going to forget you mami, I will be back soon ok, and I will get you postcards and I will call you, can you give me your number so I can call you when I miss you. Oh man! I never had to call you on the phone before. Mami, when I come back I will tell you everything about the road and the truck and the things that I do with daddy. I will take care of daddy, I promise. I can’t drive the truck but I can help him, right mom? I am a big boy mom; I am going to work with dad. I love you mom.

I love you too baby.

Happy Independence Day!

2009-07-04T09:05:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, people lived in a land of oppression and restriction, the things that were important to them were limited by the government and they did not like situation, so off they went, into the uncertainty of the unknown, in search for fulfillment and happiness.

All through our life, we are, at one point or another, restricted. We are restricted by people and things around us, not all of us conform to the rules of the game and it is from our discomfort that we launch our desire for something different and we stand up and we make a change. And so it has been, throughout the ages, people who have been unhappy with the situation they were presented with, have stood up and said, I will not play by your rules, I will create my own rules.

Men controlled by their government, people sold through slavery, women unable to vote, minorities not recognized as whole people, the abused wife who gets beaten up and blames herself, the pushed around boy that is afraid of the bullies and the man who is punished for speaking his mind. These are all forms of oppression, if we have not personally lived through them, we know of someone who has; or at least we understand what it was like, back when it happened.

There are other forms of oppression. There is oppression that does not happen out in the open for everyone to see. There is oppression that is so deeply rooted into our customs of society and community that no one recognizes them as such, however, we know the effect.

There are those who have set rules in their hearts that they must follow regardless of the sacrifice. There are those who would follow the status quo and do what they are “supposed” to do even though they die each day, a bit more. I know you have met those who have experienced this form of oppression, even if you, yourself have not.

They are the ones that have lost the sparkle in their eyes.

There are men and women around the globe right now that wake up, go to work, pay their bills, cook dinner and go to bed and do the same everyday. They are the ones that robotically, allow life to go through them and they do not become engaged or involved in living.

Then there are those that know that their existence is empty and joyless and yet continue to live that way regardless of the fact that the emptiness that fills their heart threatens to drown them in sorrow. They knowingly sell themselves out by staying in a state of unhappiness waiting for tomorrow to bring courage, security, hope and freedom.

Furthermore, there are some that hear the music in their soul and don’t dance to their own tune because they have allowed someone else to dictate their steps. The boss, the spouse, the kids, the mother, society, even the banker. They have taken up the power that someone has chosen to give away in order to continue in their existence. Comfortable existence.

I know you have seen them; I know you know what they look like, what they sound like. They can sit there and give you 1001 good rationalizations as to why they are not doing what makes them happy. Some blame their parents, some blame society, the economy, hormones, and the rules. Some even blame God. They feel righteous for the fact that they are doing what they are supposed to do and look down on those who are different. They can quote the New York Times and the bible and give you excellent reference points for their decision to be and do what they do. They sit there and point at others who have done what they could not; and mock and judge praying that the others will fail so that their point could be proven, so that they could be validated in their choice to not take the plunge.

Some have even cocooned their life in an effort to protect themselves, in not wanting to be hurt; what they do not realize is that by avoiding pain, they have also avoided life.

And so which one are you? Whose tune do you dance to??

Creating your own music and dancing to your own song means no longer believing that society has any power over us. It means creating everything in your life from inspiration and creating life from one moment to another, not following a predestined path. It means asking the questions that no one else asks and thinking for yourself; it is shedding the masks that others wear to hide themselves from the world. It means being able to see with your soul and not believing in the “front” that everyone shows of themselves. It means listening to everyone else’s inner song and accepting that as the only truth. Being your own self means waking up to face life with a smile in your face for the sake of the smile not for what the day may bring. It means making peace with your essence and knowing that it does not matter what comes into your life experience, you are immutable, you are divine, you are FREE.

Do you feel Free?

Freedom is the ability to be the highest expression of yourself and do so without listening to the noise around you. Freedom is living in a constant state of detachment from things, from people, and even from life itself. Freedom means no “couldas”, “shouldas” or “havetos”. Freedom is singing out loud, dancing in the streets and loving exuberantly. Freedom is a physical high, a mental rush, a psychological indulgence and a spiritual uplift. Freedom comes from your cells; it invades your systems and rushes through your veins in a wave of intoxicating energy that raises you to the apex of life, for every day is the very best day in your life.

It is waking up in love with the world and acknowledging that despite the differences in our experience we are all, intrinsically, the same. It is the permission we give ourselves to fall as many times as we need to, to grow up, grow in, grow out and expand our spirit and experience life at its fullest.

It is the compassion to understand that everyone is different and allowing them their own experience without trying to get in the way. It is the courage to love when we feel it and to walk away when the experience is over. It is being honest with everyone about who you really are but mostly being honest with yourself about where and what you want to be.

In 1620, a group of people left Holland and faced impossible circumstances for a chance to be free. Half of the people that began the trip perished and the other ones faced many, many more trials once they arrived in Plymouth Rock. And in 1776, they organized and announced to the world their independence from the tyrant monarchy that oppressed them and recognized that all of us have unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Like these original settlers, like the people within the civil rights movement, women’s suffrage, and everyone else who has stood up for a cause, so you have the unalienable right to pursue your happiness, to live life to the fullest expression of yourself and to change the rules of the game.
So, as we celebrate the independence of a nation, take the step, make the move, jump off the cliff and be free, be alive.

Happy Independence Day!

End of school year

2009-05-28T14:09:00.000-04:00

The school year draws to a close and I reflect back in all of the things that my children have learned. Some of them are academic, some of them are social and some are neither, but it has definitely been a year of growth.

I am amazed at the amount of work and effort it takes to educate the children. It is a balance between state and board requirements, assessments and charts and doing a good job and doing what is right. Add to that the fact that some kids come with other needs that have not been met and the likelihood of success is greatly diminished. Despite the limits, complications and everything else that comes to light while the kids are school, the lesson continues, the learning flows and the teachers push a bit more, the kids learn a bit more, and we all belief just a little bit more.

I have learned a lot this year too. I have learned that there is no way that you can be with these children for such a long time and not become emotionally involved. My own heart swells as they come to me with their little arms outstretched and hug me as their day begins. There is so much more than learning when you are involved with these children.

There is love.

If there was truly a labor of love it is that of teaching a child. It is the building him or her up with so much faith in themselves that they believe in their little hearts that they will accomplish that which they must do. It is earning their trust enough that they can come to you anytime and building respect so that they may function inside their little community. It is coming every morning and leading them into a love of learning so that they not only learn how to add and subtract, but they also learn how to think and make good choices.

The teachers at Wilmington Schools have taught me to look into the eyes of each of these children and to know their story and to believe in them and to give of myself to them, completely. It is their passion in developing each of these little beings, their believe that they can be so much more than we imagine that keeps them at it, every morning, every day, for 365 days a year, for you don’t really believe that the love and concern stops when they move on to the next grade do you?

To the teachers who have given everything they have to give, who have pushed, who have prodded, who have expected more of the children and have shown me how to be helpful and assist in their learning process, I am eternally grateful. Thank you for believing in my child and thank you for the love and dedication you have shown. A little bit of you will forever remain in my child and I am blessed that they have learned so much from you.

Even in high school the teachers have an integral part of the kids’ life. The teachers they feel they can go to and the teachers they feel they can reach out to; those are the ones that they will remember forever.

To all of the teachers everywhere, thank you.

Mrs. Barley, Mrs. Spahr, thank you for allowing me into your classroom, for teaching me by your wonderful example how to reach each child and for allowing me to be a part of their life. What I have given seems so little compared to what I take away, yet I will be back, again and again and look forward to working with you again.

Mr. Wallingford, Mr. Geggie, being able to reach and talk to a teenager and inspiring them to more is a task that seems daunting, yet you manage it with such ease. Aside from my personal experience from meeting you, I hear the kids talk about you and I am grateful for your dedication and your gift. Thank you for being a bright light in the nebulous path of teenagedom.

And Mrs. Alford, wherever you are, thank you for believing in me; your words follow me wherever I go, gracias mamá.

Claudia Martini-Garlo
Wilmington
As submitted to the Wilmington News Journal, Wilmington, Ohio
May 28, 2009

Closer to you....

2009-05-14T09:37:00.000-04:00

One day I will go back, I will hold you in my arms and I will tell you that the pain that we caused each other is forgiven, it’s forgotten and gone.

One day I will go back and I will tell you that your stories taught me about life, that the memories of our times together pushed me to seek the truth within me.

One day I will go back and I will tell you that there is so much of you in me, your thoughts, your ideas, your melancholy.

One day I will go back and show you my writings and watch you read them expectantly, hoping that you like them, looking for the appreciation in your smile.

One day I will go back and take you your grandchildren so you can love them exuberantly like you loved me, so you can tell them your stories and sing to them your songs, do you remember?

One day I will go back and beg your forgiveness, I will tell you that I was proud, that I was arrogant that I thought that the love that we shared could be left behind, I was so wrong.

The day is gone, the moment over, the opportunity lost. Left in my heart is the careful moment I orchestrated in my head, I would find you, we would recognize each other and in an embrace, we would melt away all of the years, the moments, the difficulties that had kept us away from one another. You would tell me that you had missed me, that you love me and that in the 20 years we have been apart, you thought of me constantly. You would look at me and be proud of the woman I have become and take me in your arms and be that shelter that I remember from such a long time ago.

One phone call. One word. I am sorry, he is gone.

There would be no finding each other, no embrace, no I love you, no last words.

What do I do with all of this left in my heart? What do I do with the words I never spoke and the love I never gave? What can I do now that you are gone??? Who will ever understand?

I listen to the music like you did and I read the books the way you did too, I cook just as extravagantly and in my love for my children, there is the same exuberance I learnt from you. The love of life, the happy lie, the inner light, they are from you. All of it from you, and you never knew, I never told you, I didn’t get to say, I am just like you.

And just like you, I grab a paper, I reach for my pen, I write down these words for the world to read. I give of my self, like you taught me to do, from the very first time you put the pen in my hand.

I write the words that heal, the words that soothe, the words that reach across the worlds. I write the words that anger, that evoke thoughts. I write the words that come from the heart, that stir the soul, that feed the mind. I write the words that come to me, I write because that is what I do, I write because like breathing, I need it. I write because writing makes me feel closer to you.

Thank you Daddy…

Raising teenagers

2009-05-07T10:47:00.000-04:00

Every morning, I touch bases with my BFF Amber, just so that we know what is going on, our lives are much intertwined. So this morning she was letting me know that Jeremy, her hubby, would be bringing Kaci and telling me about the weekend plans and the babysitting Victoria would do for them.

She told me she would be picking her up at noonish . Anticipating the wonderful dinner that my husband would be making, I asked what time would she be home so we could hold off dinner until then. She told me Victoria had agreed to babysit while they went to dinner as well.
To tell you that I was shocked and upset, would be putting it mildly.

Victoria did what???

Did she forget it was Mother’s day??? No she could not have, I told her about it myself.

And at first it was ok, I got it, she had to work, she had to understand what it was like to have to work when there were things you wanted to do….

Regardless, we are not talking about 4th of July or Memorial Day, this is Mother’s Day!

Well, she had been asked to babysit in front of me and I could have said no.

But that is the point, isn’t it? She was supposed to say no…

Did you feel that???

It was a disturbance in the force. It was a hormonal mushroom cloud that detonated in the middle of Wilmington, OH.

In a case of histrionics, bigger than Vivi Abbot Walker ever displayed, (if you don’t know who she is, watch Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya sisterhood). I cried, I screamed, I held my fist up to the heavens and I cursed the fact that this child born of my body did not care at all about her mom. (Yes, this is STILL about the Mother’s Day thing). I called her and in my most martyred voice, I told her that I guess she didn’t have a mom, since she would not be celebrating Mother’s Day.

I know, I know, not nice, but I could not help myself.

I emailed her dad. (He should know what kind of inconsiderate, selfish brat he was raising)

I called my mom. (Oops! Forgot she was in Peru, good thing too, she would have told me that I did the same thing…. Don’t want to hear it mom!!!!)

I was going to call Luis (he would have asked me to take responsibility, I wasn’t there yet)

DAMN!!! 1400 minutes to call anyone and I could not think of anyone.

Finally, I called Mary, she has a teenager, she knows how it is to live with the treacherous, little conniving, inconsiderate, self-centered, hateful being that says she comes from me, but OH NO!
She could not have…. I know it, she was switched at birth!!!!

So in between sobs and agonizing tears, I told her what she had done. She had chosen NOT to spend Mother’s Day with me, her mother.

She let me cry, she let me tell her everything that was going on inside me, and in the way that we usually do, we talked about it and I felt better. I even smiled and unlocked all the doors and put her furniture back in her room, re-established service back to her cell phone and cancelled the root canal she didn’t need.

Once past the hormones and the state of devastation that I felt at the very beginning, I called Tony, and told him about what his daughter had done. Yes, I know Victoria has more than one dad, she has more than one mom too, but that’s not here, nor there!!

I began to tell Tony about the viper’s decision and in his calmest voice, he told me: Birds gotta fly outta the nest mom, I guess she is just trying out her wings.

I hate it when wisdom comes from someone I totally don’t expect. And at the moment I don’t expect it.

Two days ago, I cried at the store because my son had gone through a growth spurt, today Victoria makes decisions that I don’t like, what is Gabriela doing tomorrow? Moving out?

But so it is, you bring them into this world, you love them, you nurture them, you give them everything you can and you pray to the Gods that they are ready, that they are listening. You hold them to your heart, in your arms and you want to keep them from harm and from pain. You talk to them, yell at them, cry at them and sometimes laugh at their attempts to be grown up. But I guess the reality is that they will eventually grow up and walk out and leave and try out their wings.

I finished talking to Tony and I went to the bathroom to get something for my eyes so they are not swollen, as I looked at myself in the mirror, I recognized that look. I had seen it in my mother’s eyes many years ago, when I first tried out my wings.

I texted my daughter and told her that I love her, that I was sorry and that I was very proud of her for being responsible and working and that despite the fact that her mom was crazy, she had turned out quite wonderful. I grabbed all the baby books and went back to the first moment, to the moment I fell in love with each of my little ones.

I didn’t sign up for this, I had no idea my heart would be split in threes and walk out of my own door.

And so it is. Children come to us, children grow and children leave. And so is life…. And life goes on…

All that I am...

2009-05-02T08:55:00.000-04:00

We are the sum of all of our parts. The sum of our experiences, the sum of our lessons and the sum of the indelible footprints of the people that have shared our path. There are also some people that have made such a difference in you that you don’t even realize how much of an impact their words have had until you find yourself repeating their words.

Being a mother is the most important job I’ve ever had and will probably, ever have. Everything that I try to be, say and do is measured in how it affects my job and I take pride and delight in my job. I make mistakes, like everyone else, but I try to learn from those mistakes.

I have had the blessing of being surrounded by wonderful people who have shared their thoughts and their ways with me. With their example, they have set the path for me to follow, and I have gathered all of that and become who I am.

And so, this Mother’s Day, as I sit back and rejoice in the love that my children give me, I have to say thank you. I have to acknowledge how you have touched my life and hope that by my actions, I can honor the lesson taught. Some of you may not even be mothers but you will find that in life, lessons come from the unlikeliest people and places….

To all of you, my undying love and gratitude and I give you in my writing a little piece of me, may it serve you as your presence in my life has served me….

First and foremost, I must acknowledge my mother, to those of you that know me and know our history, you are well aware that ours has been a rocky path and that at times we have not had the best of relationships, however, I treasure each and everyone of the difficulties we have gone through. You see, she has taught me to be fierce. Her love is unshakable. Despite the difficulties she has lived through she has never given up, she is a warrior and will give her most in any given situation. Her constant need to improve herself and be more, is a source of inspiration and her hard façade may have fooled some, but it hasn’t fooled you, has it??? In her heart of hearts, she loves intensely and there isn’t a sacrifice that is large enough where her daughters and grandkids are concerned. She will tell you like it is, she is blunt, direct and sometimes she can be a bit rough, but it is out of love. It took me a long time to understand her meaning of love, it took me a long time to realize that she was just the sum of all of her experiences, but now that I do, I can accept that despite the cold and indifferent exterior, she did her absolute best, at all times. How could I ever ask for more???

Alongside with my mother, her sisters have been a constant source of inspiration. In my early years, I was blessed to be immersed in my Tia Tere’s love. Her willingness to love unconditionally. She was the very first one that taught me about that kind of love. She taught us to love our family and to honor that love and to stand beside them. She taught us about our cousins from afar talking about them as if we already knew them, so that when I finally came here, it was easy to fall into rapport with them. She had planted the seeds for the relationship we would have. She taught me that humor is more valuable than money and whenever I get sad, I think of one of her antics and all is well again.

Mina is the epitome of generosity. Not because she is always distributing food to everyone, although I would kill for one of her flans right now, but because she selflessly has given ALL of us a little bit of her self. In her giant heart, she has made room for our equally giant family and she always cares, she always shows it and with a phone call, with a card, with a gesture, she has woven her way into our souls and shown us that love is the answer.

Teco was my aunt too, but she never acted like an aunt. To me she was someone loving and understanding that was wonderful to have around, like a blanket that protects you and keeps you, going to her house and talking to her was an escape, it was sacred ground. She was all-accepting, and she listened to my childhood woes as if I was telling her the most important story in the world, there was something soothing in her presence and I always envied her daughter for all the love that her mom so freely bestowed on her, all of the soft and loving moments they shared when I was in their home. I carry those images in my heart and hope that wherever she is, she knows that she is very much loved.

Despite the fact that I did not have a relationship with my Tia Alcira and my Tia Fela, those two women taught me the meaning of courage. Their courage in coming to a new country with their children and creating a new world of possibilities for them is inspiring. Losing my Tia Alcira was devastating, in a world where each one of my aunts are strong and powerful in their own way, only made me realize that they are also not eternal and that one day I would have to face this world without them. It will be a sad world indeed.

In a large family as the one I have, there are cousins that are older than I am and of course the filial relationship that I had with some of my contemporaries was not possible, but in their own way, they taught me much.

Gladys is a rock. When the world crumbles, she comes in and does what needs to be done and sets right the wrongs. She stood indomitably while Teco was ill and took care of everything, she was at a thousand different places at once and had more to handle than many of us realize, and she still had time to take us all kids out. She would pile all of us in her car and take us through a drive thru and let us play, let us enjoy the moment of innocence while she took care of the rest, while she took the world on her shoulders.

I haven’t talked to my cousin Olga in a long time, much longer than it is decent to admit, and the older I get, the more I realize how much she touched my life. In a world where everyone sought to make our new life here in the states, one of sacrifice and duress, she showed me a different life. Much aside from her fabulous flair, she showed me that it was ok to take care of your self, to be generous with yourself. She is splendid and worked hard, but she also played hard. She lived life. There were no compromises, ever. She knew what she wanted and how she wanted it and she went about it with passion and determination. She achieved, not only for herself, but also for those around her. Being around her was an intoxicating experience, are you hungry???? Her table was always laden by the best foods. Are you bored??? Her parties and get-togethers are still the highlight of some of our lives. But her life was not only about that, she stressed to us kids that we had to be ready, we had to ready ourselves to be and have everything we wanted. She taught us to work hard, yes, but to think and plan, use our minds, and go to school as well. She lived The Secret before anyone marketed it, and inadvertently SHOWED us that life is what you make of it.

My cousin Papi, ok his name is Cesar but I can’t get used to calling him that, he is perhaps one of the most unlikely contributors, but he has taught me about being in the moment. Children naturally flock to him, he is there at their level, engaging them and talking to them and playing with them. He is loving and generous, and even though he is hard to pin to one spot, once you do, he does what he does and you are there, in the moment with him. Well, children know…

Joyce Martini, my ex-husband’s mom, taught me to accept, to love and to be a part of my children’s lives. From the PTA, to the cookies baked, to being around the grand kids and always lending a helping hand, her love has no limit. My mother- in-law today, taught me one of the hardest lessons yet. She taught me how to let go, a little bit. In times when there is nothing else that you can do, she taught me that to love meant to simply let go. I still struggle with this lesson but I am grateful that I’ve had it and that I learnt it from her lovingly.

In order to be a wonderful mom, I have to be surrounded and supported by wonderful dads and I am blessed by the two men who have shared this experience with me. My husband Tony and my ex-husband Kevin are just as devoted to their children as I am, they are loving in their own unique way and they are there, willing to listen and willing to get their hands dirty in the raising of the children. They take uncommon interest in the life of their kids and are involved in every minute detail. They are wonderful providers and are everything a father should be.

My daughter is lucky that she has two moms. Kelly, Kevin’s wife has been, always, loving and accepting of Victoria. Victoria is her own and I love their relationship and I thank God that someone else is there, loving my child, and giving her the unconditional love and wisdom that only another mom can give.

I have my very own personal doctor. When my children are sick, I send an email and then I make a doctor’s appointment. The media can confuse you about the decisions about your child’s well being, but my cousin Arturo shares with me his knowledge of the wonderful world of nature, teaching me and giving me the tools to make my kids healthy and give them a connection to the natural world.

Mrs. Anne Pas came into my life and filled me with confidence and understanding. When I was confused and lost and had not yet found my peace with my mother, this wonderful woman, held my hand and lovingly guided me into self-confidence and self-reliance. Her patience is infinite and her caring ways allowed me to heal many things in my life that had held me from becoming everything I wanted to be. In the disguise of a boss, this wonderful woman shed light into my darkness and taught me about listening and family.

Last, but absolutely not least are my immediate circle. Luis, Mary and Amber. In this ever changing world, parenting of all things, did not come with a manual, however, when I doubt, when I am confused, frustrated, angry or lost, I call them, they are the ones that I can talk to, vent to and cry to when I feel drained and insecure. I talk to them often enough and I always feel renewed, with new hope and energy to deal with the rest of the day…. To you my unconditional love.

I am a complete, fulfilled and happy being. I rejoice in the love I give, in the moments I create. I am the sum of everything I have ever experienced, learned and seen. I have evolved into the person I am today and I am excited to find out who I will be tomorrow. But I could not be everything I am without the people who have touched my life. On this Mother’s Day, I am grateful for you and everything you have given me.

Integrity and Faith

2009-04-09T12:13:00.000-04:00

I received an email this week about how the father of one of the victims of the Columbine shooting absolved the NRA from any responsibility for Eric and Dylan’s actions. Instead, he said, that as people we have failed to account for the other needs of our children. He explains that as three part beings, mind, body and soul, our schools may nourish the mind and body but our soul is lacking. He believes that what would have prevented this incident is prayer in school.

Ok, so I do agree that the NRA is not at fault for the shooting of anyone. But I do not agree that prayer by a few would have prevented those two boys from doing what they did that day.

Spirituality, under whatever label you prefer to refer to it by, should be taught at home. Values, morals and spirituality are things that should be taught by parents. (And a village, if you are of the same views as Mrs. Clinton, like I am. )

It is our job to raise whole children. Not just the teachers.

Whole children?

A whole child is a child that not only has food, shelter and clothing but who has been nurtured and appreciated. A whole child is one whose emotional needs have been fulfilled as well as his physical ones. A whole child is a child who has been taught about reciprocity and caring for one another as human beings, one who has respect for life in all levels. A whole child is one who uses his faith daily, not just when the chips are down. A child who understands that a little bit of the divine lies in all of us and therefore knows that in order to gain fortitude to go through life you reach deep inside and then you reach out.

Our parents taught us to work, to stick to the grind, to commit to our success and to be more than they were, for that is the job of our generation. In the growth and evolution of people, corporal punishment and discipline were discarded for indifference towards a child. They were no longer beaten when they were disrespectful, so they were not taught to respect. They were not spanked for lying, so they were not taught integrity. We forgot that because we were taking away the harsher way of teaching our kids, it didn’t mean that we did not still have the job of teaching them and preparing them for tomorrow.

It is my personal opinion that two of the biggest things missing are Faith and Integrity.

Faith in what??? I don't know that is up to you to decide.

Integrity? YES!

Integrity of your word, of your thoughts of your actions. Integrity of being 100% in the moment that you are in and always acting with the best intentions at all moments and taking personal responsibility when you don’t. Integrity in staying true and standing by your word. Remember, once upon a time a man's word was his most valuable asset, nowadays we look at scores, ratings and profiles, as if those things could give us the measure of a man.

The measure of a man is in how he reacts to someone else's pain and someone else's need. It is in the compassion of his actions and the understanding with which he views his brothers and sisters and in the inner strength that he derives from his spirituality and his faith.

We are an unbelievable collective. But we keep missing the lesson.

Progress is not possible by just a few of us. It has to be achieved by all of us if it is to have any type of significance. The weakest link concept. You cannot reach the pinnacle of life knowing that your brother or sister is destitute. It is out of integrity.

You cannot call for prayer, nor call yourself a Christian when you look at your brother and sister and judge them because their actions are different than yours.

We have failed to have compassionate hearts so that those of us having a hard time may reach out to us in their time of need. We have failed in accepting all of us as children of a greater being because even now bad feelings and words flow between us.

I know, many of you will say… “I didn’t say anything” but you heard the words and you listened to them and you accepted them. You condoned that behavior. Your indifference makes you just as guilty.

Way back in our collective history, our grandfathers knew that for something to grow and blossom and prosper you needed to take care of it and nurture it and feed it. It was a constant commitment to life and it involved so much care.

Our family tree grows in size only. Our branches are so dispersed we have forgotten that we are all part of one. Some of our branches have reached so high that we forget that we all come from the very same seed, that we share our roots.

So what have we taught our children thus far?

We have shown them intolerance with their mistakes.

We have not given them room to grow and be whatever they choose to be because of the profitability of their choices.

We shown them that things are more important than the people who are a part of us.

We have demonstrated, time and time again, that indifference protects us from getting too involved, getting our hands too dirty.

We have taught them to take family and friends for granted and to value more jobs, careers and profitability margins.

How do we heal that? How do we correct our ways???

Easily. Put your pride, your ego, your indifference aside and reach inside you, yes INSIDE you for that little part of you that yearns the love of your family, of your friends of your fellow human beings and (are you ready, it is cliché) REACH OUT AND TOUCH SOMEONE.

Reach out for that sibling that needs you to listen and just listen. No strings attached.

Reach out to that family member whom you haven’t seen in moons and have lunch with them, no judgments.

Reach out to that person that has wronged you and ask them to forgive you, because that is leading by example.

Reach out for more than your immediately family and get together to celebrate love and one another, no gossip.

In a family of human beings as large as ours there is no need for any of us to do without. Without help, without understanding, without compassion, without unconditional love. In these times when life is evolving faster than we can process, we need to give our children that gift.

The gift of integrity and personal empowerment. And the gift of faith, in themselves, in one another, in the greater collective and in love.

And as John Lennon said, with all of those lessons learned, all you need is love, my friends, all you need is love.

I believe Mr. Scott that what killed your daughter that day in that school cafeteria was not lack of prayer in the schools. It was lack of love and integrity. Lack of love for those boys who were able to do all of their planning for murder without their parents knowing what they were up to. Lack of integrity for the disrespect of the meaning of someone else’s life.

And I am sorry. I had nothing to do with the death of your daughter but I am sorry that this has happened to you. I know that nothing I say can ever bring Rachel back to you, but I am sorry that we live in a society where murder still happens, where we fail to realize that when we kill someone, we kill a little bit if ourselves. Because as many parts of a greater whole, we are all interconnected. All of us.

Happy Birthday Nick

2009-03-08T22:51:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Nicholas, Happy Birthday to you!!

If I had one minute to share with you today, I would tell you that you are loved, more than you imagine.

If I had one hour with you today, I would tell you that I love you, with all of my heart. That the fact that we have not set eyes on each other doesn’t change a thing and that I do understand.

If I had one day with you, I would ask you a thousand questions and I would try to get to know you, know your favorite ice cream flavor, your favorite song, your favorite wii game, so every time I saw them I would think about you Nick.

If I had one week with you I would I would tell you my story and show you how much we have in common, how much alike our stories are and how much I wish I could spare you the pain that you must feel right now.

If I had one month with you, I would hold your hand as you came to understand that we have never stopped loving you or wanting you, that we made mistakes and sometimes life doesn’t allow us to do the things we want but that as soon as we could we came back to be close to you.
If I had a year to share with you I would take you to the places of your own, so that you could see with your own eyes that you have always been loved, that not only do you have a family with brothers and sisters and a dad and a stepmom, you have a grandma and an aunt and uncle who have learnt to love you from afar with the hope that one day they will meet you, once more.
If I had a lifetime to share with you, I would tell you that love is unconditional. I would tell you that the mistakes that our parents have made are their own mistakes and they do not define us. I would tell you that their mistakes were based on their own feelings and emotions and they had NOTHING to do with you. I would make sure that you knew that it was nothing you did or didn’t do, nothing you said or didn’t say, nothing you were or couldn’t be and everything to do with what they did and didn’t do, for you. However, despite their mistakes, despite their ignorance that has hurt you so much, they love you. It is in their effort to show you that love that they erred and that sometimes they don’t understand how much their mistakes hurt others, innocent others.

I don’t have any of those things, but I have hope that one day I will meet you. I have faith that our paths will cross and I will be able to share with you all of the love I have for you and I pray, I pray with all of my heart that one day you will be here, with your family, in love.

Happy Birthday Nick until we meet….

Celebrating President's day

2009-03-02T16:56:00.000-05:00

Wednesday morning came and I walked out of the house with both kids in tow. I got to school and the lesson began. On Wednesdays we do social studies, today we talked about President’s day.

On our little newspaper the proud picture of Abe Lincoln and George Washington looked solemnly at the kids while Mrs. First Grade went over why they were so memorable.

She asked if everyone knew why Washington was popular and a flurry of little hands went into the air ready with the answer. Then she asked why Abe Lincoln was a memorable president and less hands shot into the air and it was mainly suggested that he may have been another “cool-number” president. We established that while sixteen wasn’t a very cool number, we remembered Lincoln because of what he did, not because of his place on the presidents list.

I looked around uncomfortably and wondered how she was going to explain slavery to a room-full of first graders. Thank God for Mrs. First Grade.

She explained that back in the times of Lincoln they did not have the machines that we have now. That in order for food to be grown and buildings to be built, they needed a lot of people to do the jobs of the machines. She explained that back then some people were brought to the states in order to work in those projects and that they were known as slaves. She told the kids that Mr. Lincoln did not agree with the way the workers of those fields and projects were treated because he believed in the constitution and that he thought EVERYONE was created equal.

I thought she had done fantastically; she had told the kids everything and yet not caused any ripples or questions in their little minds. I congratulated her mentally and admired her style in diplomatically explaining one of the lowest moments in humanity.

Everyone was listening to her talk and you could see that they were listening but that this information did not touch them personally. In an environment where you cannot offend nor defend any position, such as in a school, it is difficult to tip-toe the line.

Considering that we had safely avoided the whole slavery situation I started walking towards the work table to hand out the assignments. As I make my way through the classroom, Mrs. First Grade tells the class, “You know, if it wouldn’t have been for Abe Lincoln, President Obama would never have made it to the White House”

Screeeecchhh!!!! Oh Boy! I thought we were going to leave it alone!

By presenting them with something so relevant, they were forced to think about it and to make the information personal. Well, not many of them said much. I was thanking all the little angels that had helped us avoid that whole conversation, when Mrs. First Grade said, “As a matter of fact boys and girls, if it wasn’t for Abe Lincoln, some of our friends in this class would not be allowed to be here with us.”

Now she had done it.

All of their little faces lit up in attention and she had them all. Even the ones that normally count the tiles on the ceiling were totally focused on her. I could not believe she had brought herself into this conversation, on purpose.

All of my internal bells were going off. This is a danger zone. The chances that you may offend or become politically incorrect are so great; we just avoid the whole field.

Mrs. First Grade had jumped in with both feet.

Unbelievably enough as Mrs. First Grade explained slavery and racism to a room full of six and seven-year-olds, you could see the confusion in their faces, you could see that they could not understand the concept of what she was explaining.

Mrs. First Grade asked everyone to look around and notice the different shades that we all were. There were some African Americans, some Hispanics and the rest were Caucasians. She then asked them to imagine that some of their friends would not be able to join us in the classroom. Everyone looked around, everyone looked at those of us who were darker and one of the little girls shot up her hand and said, “Mrs. First Grader that would hurt our friends’ feelings!!!” Everyone else started saying the same.

My eyes filled with tears, these children do not recognize the basis for racism. They see nothing different in you and me, in the color of our skin, in the accent in our voices. They have been brought up in a world where those differences no longer exist. Racism continues to live in the hearts of the older generations who have been jaded and teach our children to watch out for the man, therefore perpetuating the existence of our greatest foe. Racism is learned.
In the heart of these six year olds, the world is wide and inclusive, it is vast and loving and full of friends. They do not see differences, they see only people….

The bell rings and they get ready to go home. They have completed another day of school, off they go and as they walk away, they say “Bye Mrs. Garlo” and I get 28 hugs good bye. Love is color blind.

A truck driver brought it.....

2009-03-02T15:24:00.000-05:00

Hi, my name is Claudia and I am worrier. Yes, I hate to admit it but I worry. A lot.

I worry about the environment and the world we are leaving behind for our children. I worry about the kids and how they are growing up and whether I am doing everything and anything necessary to make sure that they have all the tools they need to be happy. I worry about road conditions and the weather. I worry about my stepson. I worry about my mother. Heck, I even worry about the cats.

But more often than not, I worry the economy. I don’t worry about the economy in the sense that will the markets collapse? Will capitalist life as we know it cease to exist? I worry about whether or not it will be enough; whether I will have enough, whether there will be enough. I know, I know, any good metaphysic student worth their salt would tell you that I am manifesting lack; or any bible reader would tell you that God assures us that all of our needs are met.

But I need more reassurance, so I turn to my husband.

My poor husband.

He does not need to be told what is wrong, he can already tell by the sound of my voice…

~Hi!
~Hi!
~What’s wrong?
~Nothing is wrong, God, just because I call, it doesn’t mean anything is wrong. ~No, I didn’t say anything was wrong because you called; I just meant that there is something wrong because of your tone of voice.
~Oh! Well, yeah, there is something wrong…..
~What is it Claudia?
~Can you say it for me? Please?
~Again??
~Oh come one, pleaasssee?????
~Everything is going to be ok baby.
~Promise?
~Yes, promise….
~What did it this time?? What got you so upset and paranoid?
~I was at the school and there are some kids that are talking about their parents losing their jobs and about them being hungry, it’s scary.
~It will be ok baby, I will keep rolling and we will be ok.

Pheeewww!!!!

I know he can’t guarantee that he will never break his promise. I know that in the unstable times that we live, we are all at the mercy of what happens in our economic market. However, I know for a fact that goods will always have to be moved, taken from the producer to the manufacturer and then to the end consumer. I know that as long as there is production and consumption my husband will have a job. I know this because everything, absolutely everything that you come in contact with everyday has been brought to you by a trucker.

We played this game once. He said name one thing that you use that was not at one point or another in the back of a truck. Me, being the smarty-pants that I usually am, had thought of something way at the beginning of the conversation, because I knew where this was going and I told him my answer, feeling smug that he would not be able to knock it down…..

“The vegetables I buy at the local market!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He gave me “the look”; I knew I was in trouble….

“What about the seed? Where did the seed come from? What about the soil? What about the tools that you use to work the soil? What about the fertilizer?”

“Uhhhhhhh!!!! Well, there is the sunshine….. “

“Whatever!!” he responded

I knew I had lost this argument…

The seeds, the soil, the fertilizer, the hoe, the farming instruments, all of it. They have all, at one point or another been in the back of a truck.

Take a shovel, for example. The wood is produced somewhere and then processed and shipped to a factory for manufacturing (trip one). Once they are done treating it and shaping it and doing whatever else they have to do to it, it is then shipped to the assembly company where it will meet up with the metal part of it and be put together and tested for quality (trip two). Finally, it will be loaded up for it’s third trip onto a semi and taken to the store where the farmer will pick it up and take it home to air the land to plant the seed that he picked up in the store to give you tasty locally grown veggies and fruits.

OK, ok, so that is not totally accurate, I still have not gotten any calls back from the tractor supply store to ask them where their hoes came from, (don’t think that I will ), but it gives you an idea of how many times a truck driver is involved in the products that touch your life.

The life of a truck driver is not easy. He wakes up, eats, bathes and goes to the bathroom based on the demands placed upon him by his load. He can be out on the road for 2 days, 2 weeks or even 2 months. I know of those road warriors that have no home, other than their truck.

They spend hours away from family and friends delivering the goods that we consume, battling the same traffic that we do, and anticipating the errors of those who underestimate an 80,000 lbs piece of machinery.

However, this they do. They wake up, get their truck in gear and they get to where they need to go and they keep rolling, and they keep moving. There are 3.5 million truck drivers in the US, according to the DOT. These trucks generate an estimated 255 billion dollars of revenue on a yearly basis. Truckers will continue to roll and the products that you expect in your usual stores will continue to show up. Rain, snow, ice, no matter what the weather condition is, a trucker is still expected to roll and roll he will. Next time you see a truck driver roll next to you, wave at him and thank him because he is a sign of a still-alive economy, he is a sign that manufacturing and producing plants are still operating and creating jobs. They are a sign that there is still a demand for products in the stores and retailers will hire and goods will continue being sold.

Thank you baby.

Yeah, I think we will be ok.

To my beloved Aunt

2009-01-26T12:38:00.000-05:00

This is homage, tribute, song and verse
For someone kind, someone gentle
Someone who always put everyone else first
Through life immemorial, she’s been near
Loving, caring, giving, calling, being there

She loves selflessly
She gives generously
She has lived a life of service
To you and me and God

She bore no children, but had kids
She was rich and gave it all away
She could have been free and left us
She stayed and loved in spite of us
She is our nucleus, our path back, our way

Our lives are thus enriched,
Our paths are enlightened with her glow
Her life to us she has given,
To love, to family and God.

Would that you be so blessed,
Would that you be so loved,
Would that you have angel
Like our Mina, touch your soul.

I have to come clean with all of you. I bought Christmas cards and even presents, but I am so distracted and air-headed that I totally forgot to send them. It’s almost Valentines and I am still tripping over envelopes and birthday cards from last year. It isn’t that I don’t remember, I just forget to do something about remembering. The internet has helped me a lot. I am able to reach out to a lot of people and let them know that I love them and how very important they are for me. If I had to do it through snail mail, well, I would be tripping over a lot more boxes and a lot more cards.

I have always admired people that send their presents out on time and that always send the perfect card and that always have it all together like that. Is it that they care more?? I wouldn’t say that, I would say they cared differently.

In a numerous family as mine, it is almost impossible to remember everyone’s birthday and to reach out and let them know they are loved. It is almost impossible to try to reach every corner where we have gone to and let you know that you are remembered and that you are loved, especially if you don’t have internet. It is almost impossible to get a little something for everyone and to share what you have and divide it so much so that it reaches every one, at least a little bit. Almost…

My aunt is an emissary of goodness and love hereon earth. She is the quintessential light worker and reaches out with love and generosity, offering a prayer and passing the treasures that come to her onto everyone who surrounds her. She is the staunchest believer in people and is fiercely loyal to her belief in goodness, forgiveness and acceptance.

People that share her faith know that her conviction is admirable, her faith unshakable and the love that she feels for her creator are her light and salvation. She believed in God when it was cool to be religious and even now that it is not so cool. She carries her bible and has remained true through the decades of love, apathy, cynicism and awakening. Through the changes in the world and the evolutions of spirit she still labors the same way, showing love, sharing grace and living life with integrity and for the sake of others.

One day, we will have to imagine what will become of us when she is no longer with us. However that day is not upon us and we still have the opportunity and the grace to reach out to her and tell her that she is loved, that she is cared for and appreciated for the wonderful things she has filled our lives with. We can still tell her that she touched our lives and that somehow we are a little better, a little wiser because of her actions, because of her example.

I wish for everyone to have a Mina, I wish for everyone to be blessed with that grace that she bestows upon us. If you have your own Mina, reach out to her and tell her how she has changed your life and tell her how much her life has impacted yours. Tell her she has made a difference and how you are blessed with her love.

Tomorrow is her birthday and I will celebrate her presence in my life. I will cheer the love that has reached throughout the years and the miles and pray that we are blessed with yet another year of her miraculous touch.

Happy Birthday Beloved Mina
With all of our love,
China
Victoria, Damian, Tony and la Flaca…

Tengo que confesarles algo. Yo compre tarjetas y regalos de navidad, pero soy tan distraida y tan alocada, que no los mande. Ya es casi dia de San Valentin y todavia me estoy tropezando con cajas de regalos y tarjetas de cumpleaños de el año pasado. No es que no me acuerde, pero siempre me olvido de hacer algo con lo que me acuerdo.
La internet me ha ayudado. Ahora tengo la oportunidad de compartir y conversar con diferentes personas y decirles lo mucho que los quiero y cuan importante son para mi. SI tuviera que usar el correo regular, bueno, necesitaria otra casa para las tarjetas y los regalos.

Yo siempre he admirado a las personas que envian sus regalos a tiempo y siempre mandan la tarjeta perfecta. Es porque a ellos les importa mas, ellos quieren mas?? Yo creo que para ellos es diferente.

En una familia tan numerosa como la mia, es casi imposible acordarse de los cumpleaños de todos y dejarles saber de que son recordados. Es casi imposible alcanzara todas las esquinas y los caminos donde nos ha llevado la vida y recordarte lo mucho que eres querido y apreciado. Es casi imposible comprar regalitos y detalles a todos y compartir con todos lo que tienes, dividirlo cien y mil veces para que todos tengan, para que todos estemos bien.
Digo casi porque hay una persona que si se acuerda, que si se preocupa, no solamente en tu cumpleaños y navidad, sino siempre y por todos. Alguien que a pesar de que no tiene es millonaria, reparte sus tesoros, su tiempo y su amor entre todos nosotros. Mi tia Mina es unica.
Mi tia es una emisaria de la bondad y el amor en la tierra. Ella es un ser iluminado que toca a todos con su amor y su generosidad, ofreciendo una plegaria y compartiendo sus momentos, sus manjares, sus tesoros. Ella cree en la gente, en el bien, el perdon y la comprension hacia todos.
La gente que comparte su fe saben que su conviccion es admirable, su fe es inquebrantable y el amor que ella siente por su creador son su luz y su salvacion. Ella creia en Dios cuando creer en Dios estaba de moda, y aun ahora que no esta tan de moda. Ella lleva su biblia y ofrece a todos su mensaje amor y salvacion y se mantiene firme en sus creeencias a pesar del recorrido de los años. En los tiempos de amor libre, apatia, cinismo y despertar. A pesar de los cambios del mundo y la evolucion de el espiritu ella todavia tiene su mismo mensaje, demostrando su amor incondicional, compartiendo su fe, y viviendo su vida con integridad por ella y por todos nosotros.
Algun dia, Dios la llevara nuevamente a su lado y nosotros sufriremos la perdida. Pero aun la tenemos con nosotros. Aun tenemos la oportunidad de decirle cuanto la queremos y cuanto ella significa para nosotros, dejarle saber que ella en algun momento toco nuestras vidas y somos mejores personas por la fe que ella tiene en nosotros y el ejemplo que ella ha sido en nuestras vidas.
Quisiera que todos tuvieran una Mina, que todos se sientan bendecidos con el amor y la comprension que ella nos regala. Si tienes tu propia Mina, llamala y dile lo mucho que ella ha significado y significa para ti, y como ha impactado tu vida y como tu vida es tanto major por ella.
Mañana es cumpleaños de mi Mina y yo voy a celebrar su presencia en mi vida. Que las 1146 millas que estan entre su casa y la mia no sean obstaculo para yo dejarle saber lo mucho que ella significa para mi y cuanto la quiero y aprecio. Voy a celebrar por otro año que ella nos regala donde su amor no conoce tiempo ni distancias, un año mas de su amor incondicional.
Feliz Cumpleaños Minita!!!
Con todo nuestro amor,
China,
Victoria, Damian, Tony y la Flaca

Lost in a cup of coffee

2009-01-06T09:17:00.000-05:00

Hmmm!!! The smell of coffee fills the air and that is just one of the not-so-subtle reminders that it is time to wake up and that there is plenty to do for today!
I get out of bed and wait for the coffee to circulate through my body. Piece of toast and coffee, that has been my breakfast for the past decades. At least I don’t eat it like my mom, standing over the countertop. The day will be filled with plenty of hard work, I am going to sit down and enjoy my coffee.
Today is not that bad actually. I have to go out there and make sure that the garden area has been prepared. I have to stir the soil to make sure that everything has gotten plenty of exposure to oxygen before we begin planting. I am waiting for my shipment to arrive for all of the seeds that I have ordered. We will have tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, strawberries and all of the other berries. I still have to get the apples from the man next door, but my apple trees should be ready next year. Still haven’t decided what I am going to do in the perimeter… pumpkins are great and not expensive but what to do with all of those pumpkins.
This morning I also have to work on the layout for the new site for the chicken coop. I want it to be larger so that the ladies have more room to roam around and I have to see about the ducks that Tony wants, although I would prefer just turkeys or quail…. Hey, there is an idea; maybe if I can convince him of the quail we can avoid the whole duck thing… I just don’t like ducks, they seem slimy!!!
The mini Drexels have to be milked and I have to let that milk set out for the cheese. Also, it’s almost time to make more butter again. Have to find where all my glass jars went. Time to clean out the barn and move that to the compost pile, but the kids can do that when we get done with school.
Once that has been worked with this morning, we have to do school and I have to look at what Damian is missing from the rest of his curriculum, maybe this morning we can focus more on the math so he can finish that objective once and for all. Homeschooling lets him do things at his own pace but his own pace is too slow sometimes. Oh well!!
Then he has to go out there and feed the animals and then he can go try his new fishing pole in the creek. Gabriela on the other hand has to finish that essay she was doing for me. I know she has been distracted with her other projects but that has to be done for the school board.
Then I have to work on dinner, I think I will get some roast out of the freezer and get some herbs from the greenhouse and just throw it all in the crock pot. That way I can work on my articles this evening and submit them way before the deadline this time.
I have to email Victoria back and tell her of course she can come home this weekend and get some blueberries out of the chest freezer so that I can make her some blueberry delight and I think Tony is taking the weekend off so I have to see if he wants something special for dinner or what I can do for him too, maybe if I butter him up he will help me fix that spot on the fence and then I can let the animals roam on that other section.
Oops, thank God for the toaster dinging, coffee cup is done and it is time to get out there. Too much planning and not enough doing…..

TOGETHER

2008-11-05T09:30:00.001-05:00

The moment has passed. The choice is known. Now what?
Last night the unprecedented happened. America was driven out of their homes, out of their daily routines and in masses unseen before, make their choice known. Apathy was overcome.

Two incredible men stood a chance to lead an ailing country back into superpower status.

Only one man won.

Regardless of whether your candidate won, whether your issues were supported and whether you feel satisfied with the results, the majority spoke, a leader was elected, and democracy prevails.

Now what? Now comes the hard part. Can you put your differences aside and work to make this country better than it was before? Can you put your prejudices aside and support the man that the majority has chosen and all of us, together, create a better future?

Barack Obama is only one man, he cannot do it all. It will be up to you to do what is necessary to get this country from its current situation to be, once again, the greatest nation in the world.

Mr. Obama’s race, youth, experience and supporters had nothing to do with the reason he was elected. He spoke and touched the heart of his voters and persuaded them to join him as he led us out of these chaotic times and into a better future for our children.

Can you do as he has done? As many have done? Can you put race aside? Can you put your ageist attitudes aside? Can you put all of those things aside and believe in the abilities of this man to inspire millions to get involved?

If you cannot, then we are all doomed.

If this elections have shown us anything is that truly in the United States of America anything can be done. WE can recover. WE can work side by side with our neighbors and rebuild this nation with a stronger foundation than ever before. Chalk aside the previous ways, if WE are to prevail and lead once again, WE have to create ourselves anew.

But WE have to do it together. United we Stand, WE the People. All of the phrases that have been coined became clichés because there is truth to them. WE have to do it together.

As our nation faces turmoil that threatens our livelihood, it won’t take one black man from Chicago to fix it all. It will take the farmer from Iowa, the teacher from California, the nurse from Texas and even the homeless from New York. Not one of us is excluded from this mission. From all corners of this nation, we have to come together and stand together and strong and make the decisions and choices that will empower the next generations.

These changes are not for you and me, they are not even for those that came before us, they are for those that will inherit this world from us. If we cannot learn to love and accept our neighbor, how do we teach it to our children?

As stewards of this planet we have failed. As protectors of our youth and future generations we have failed. As Americans, we have failed in teaching our children the meaning of the basic principles that this land was founded on.

So as we begin a new chapter in our history, what part will YOU play in it? Will you care enough to get involved? Will you let go of your political party, your race, your generation, your background and take a stand to make this a better place?

Change will not come about from just one person; it will not come from a group of people. WE have to consciously and purposefully make that choice. All of us, as one nation.

We stand against our greatest enemy. Ourselves. It won’t be another country that will take down this country; it won’t be special interests, crazed dictators, or any outside threat. It will be brother turning against brother, neighbor against neighbor, idea against idea. This country made up of so many of us, is great because of our diversity and our varied experiences. We have exceeded because of our different backgrounds, our different histories.

Can we take our histories and our experiences and create a common future? Can we stop being a race, a generation and just be people? Can we let go of our prejudices and embrace the tenets and the core principles of this country and let go of everything we have ever been before and be just Americans? Shoulder to shoulder, side by side, making this, yet again, the greatest nation in the world?

WE CANNOT DO IT WITHOUT YOU. YOU MUST MAKE A STAND.

All of us together. Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, European. Young, old, rich, poor.

Together we can make this country better.
Together we can make our world great.
Together we can reach new heights.
Together we can make a new stand.
UNITED WE STAND.

Counting your blessings

2008-11-02T19:47:00.000-05:00

How do people count their blessings? Many people count them by the number of dollars in their bank account. Others think of them as their name on a wooden plaque on their door displaying a title and some even think about them as a sum of their possessions. Blessings come in many shapes and sizes; they depend on your age, your background, and even your gender. Mine come in smiles.

I sit across from my living room while my son and his dad sit down and watch a movie about superheroes and I realize that to my boy, his father is his hero. Damian and his father have a particular relationship. They sit in front of the TV and not say a word to each other but every few minutes you see them looking at each other, smiling in complicity.

During summertime, they go outside and work together on the yard and talk about any thing and everything. Damian asks his dad questions as if his dad had all of the answers in the world and Tony tries to explain to his son the world as he sees it and in doing so, lays down the path for his son to walk through later on in life.

They play video games together, they color and paint together. They are a wonder in the kitchen as father brings down the whole spice rack, not an easy feat, and introduces his son to the millions of combinations and together, they discover the joy of concocting their own moments.
When Tony hits the road, Damian comes home and calls his dad to tell him about something exciting about school and to ask when he will be home. Damian makes sure that he calls his dad to say good night and is the first one to check on the weather to make sure that his dad’s path is clear (Hey! He had to get something from me…)

Tony talks to his son about animals and Damian thinks about a father and son team that will travel the country treating animals in their mobile vet hospital. They talk about train sets and swing sets, cars and boats and together they build projects and dreams that transcend reality and still create the cohesiveness of a father and son relationship.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, he loves his girls. Victoria is a source of pride and a buddy to gang up on mom with and Gabriela is, well, Gabriela is the sweetie. He would do anything and everything for his girls and is extremely protective of them. But like every other man, he realizes that they are little women and that women in general are to be loved but not necessarily understood.

But Damian is different. When Damian was a baby and he was more of a mommy’s boy, there was still an understanding that the minor interactions between them were the groundwork for when they reached this level of their relationship. As Damian grew, he gravitated more towards his dad and now I am happy to say that he will run after his dad and involve him in projects of cars, farms and life in general and leave me behind with a kiss and assurance that he loves me but wants to “hang out” with dad.

The role of a father in a child’s life is paramount. In our society a father is often looked at as an assistant’s role to the mother’s and the bond is not encouraged and nurtured. What must it feel like for a father to know that his son grows up without him, without the advice that he wishes his father had given him? We know that all too well. Many men deal with being absent from their children’s life, many men deal with being away because of location, legalities or pride and misunderstandings. Regardless of the reasons why, as a society, we fail to understand that children need that love and interaction that is so unique to a father. We fail to honor the role of a father and therefore we raise our children without teaching them the true value of a paternal figure.

As a I sit at my computer desk and I look out to the couch and I see my son look up at his dad and smile , I realize that my son will learn and accept his father as a man, I see that my husband will learn to see himself with compassion through his son’s eyes and I see that together, they will build a friendship that is everlasting. I count my blessings in smiles.

Dear Mr. Future President:

2008-10-24T19:18:00.001-04:00

Dear Mr. Future President:
Greetings from the small town of Wilmington, Ohio in the heartland of our country. I am writing you today because I feel that there are a few things that need to be clarified.
Why the anger you ask? I was just at the grocery store sir, a depressing act all by it self, and overheard a conversation between my neighbors; neighbors in the loosest sense of the word.
You see, like every other frustrated consumer that makes their way to the store, my neighbors were complaining about the cost of food, clothing, and health care. They are anticipating the elections and hoping that the new president elected would walk across the aisles with fiery sword in hand and slash the prices that oppress the masses.
Sir, I know better. I know your administration will have nothing to do with prices, I do not hold you responsible nor do I expect the impossible from you. My neighbors, however, were more than ready to assign blame.
Perhaps it was the fact that this morning there were two of us at the grocery store.
Us, you know, Hispanics.
Maybe it is the fact that the vegetables are incredibly expensive and they associate farming with us. Maybe it was that their coffee didn’t taste right this morning. Regardless of the reasons why, they said, loudly, “it is those damn illegals making everything go wrong.”
And see? This is where I have an issue. Let me explain it to you.
For every illegal that works and that is not paying taxes, there is another set of illegals that does work and that works at a company where the taxes are taken from their checks, naturally, as it should be. Now, those illegals cannot file taxes and get that money back. Let me repeat that. They do pay taxes and do not get it back.
What happens to that money??? Where does that money go???
I have never, in the twenty years that I have lived in this country, ever heard of anyone giving that money back to the company. Never have I seen the IRS account for that money, nor explain where it was distributed to. There has never been any acknowledgement of where that money goes.
So let’s get this straight, minimum wages in a heavily “illegal” populated area is 6.55 an hour, if you multiply that by 40 hours a week and then take away the 18% in taxes and then add it up for the whole year, and then you have yearly contributions of $2452.32 per year, per illegal. Now, being that we are so numerous this should take a sizable chunk for all of the liabilities we have created.
Another point that perhaps needs clarification. Illegals taking away jobs.
I am sorry, the last time I spoke to anyone able to work, that had papers and was willing to go out and work wanted a minimum of $10/hour to walk out of their house. Illegals do the job that everyone else refuses to do. From working in farms for far less than minimum wages to taking construction jobs where they work outside, exposed to the weather and risk their life, because remember there is NO workman’s compensation if you are illegal. Has anyone thought of the price of produce if they did not work for as little as they do? No? Well think what would happen if “regular” people did those jobs, where you, sir, would have to make sure they received unemployment benefits and ensure that all Is were dotted and Ts were crossed. What would be the cost of our food? Perhaps, we haven’t considered that.
Another thing, and not to sound disrespectful sir, but….
In the 20 years that I have lived in this country, I have seen illegals work all kinds of hours, living 20 to a house and carpooling to work in order to ensure that they were able to work. I have also seen sir plenty of people, native born, that did not want to work, chose not to work and rode the system. They complained that there weren’t any jobs and that they couldn’t make it happen. Sir, if someone without papers can make it happen, how do we sit back and accept that from people who do have the opportunity to make it work and choose not to work???
They go to the hospital and don’t pay. Yes it is true, they will go to the hospital and uses the hospital and not have the means to pay for it, but half of them are afraid to death to show up there and will self-medicate until the illness is so advanced nothing but a hospital will do.
They don’t learn English and cannot be assimilated. I have worked for the government sir and I know what kind of money the government pays to provide bilingual information for the “illegals” and other “aliens”. You see, what someone has failed to realize is that printing up that information gives work to the people that print that material. Bringing food from other country to indulge “Us” reinforces commerce. We have to hire more people to deal with them and therefore produce more jobs, yes I can see how having illegals is a problem, more jobs, more need for specialized services, more commerce, yes dreadful. The money that we spend at the store is the same color green as everyone else’s. We pay the same fuel tax, sale tax and every other tax that is impinged upon us whenever we are parts of this society.
Even when you are a “legal” alien, you are still expected to have the same responsibilities in paying taxes and going to work and abiding by the rules, but when it comes to election time, I have to let Bubba, who can’t get a job, who did not go to school, who I would not leave in charge of my cats, I have to let him pick the president. I believe that is criminal. It is also taxation without representation.
I know sir; you were going to suggest that I should become a citizen. I am in the interminable process of doing so, it has taken over 2 years and more than 750.00 to accomplish this and I am almost there, I think. You see sir, navigating the immigration system such as your legislators have designed it requires a lawyer’s legal knowledge, an accountant’s accuracy and a saint’s patience, oh yeah, and a bailout plan as well. Most of us who are legalized don’t take the step further because it is price prohibitive. Everyone who has something to say about illegals constantly say that we should become legalized and therefore naturalized but they don’t realize the process.
The cost is outrageous, the bureaucracy that hinders every step is overwhelming and the testing is a joke. I had a harder time answering questions to get a grocery savings card than at passing the naturalization test. One would think, sir, that if becoming part of this great nation was such a feat, you would require more understanding and more knowledgeable comprehension from your “would-be” citizens.
Because even being the “alien” that you have categorized me as, I am more informed, more aware and more educated and cultured than most of your denizens. I arrived in this country and I had to learn another language, learn another set of customs and another set of rules to the game. I have worked hard, studied hard and developed my skills and achieved more than most of your naturalized children have and yet my children will still be looked at funny because of their features and the color of their skin, and when I go to the grocery store, I will still be profiled and called an “illegal”
Therefore, Mr. Future President of the United States, take heart, yours will not be an easy task. You will have to show the country that what ails it are not the illegals, its not teenage pregnancy, it is not even the troubled youth or the education system.
Your biggest problem is greed. Greed that makes it ok for someone to buy cheap and consume endlessly without wondering where those resources and production came from. Greed that allow us to work someone inhuman hours and not pay them decent wages when we know that they have a family to care for. Greed that does not permit us to set up low cost clinics so that everyone has access to healthcare. Greed that thinks it is ok to call Hispanics “illegals” in a derogatory manner just because they left their country to get something better for them and their families (Like the Pilgrims and Italians and Polish and….. well EVERYONE, with the exception of the American Indians)
Greed and Ignorance.
Ours is a socioeconomic cancer that eats away at a culture that is so disconnected from its base it has no idea that it’s attached to the putrefaction at the core. Their “That is them and this is us” attitude which they feel will save them from the world. Poor fools, they haven’t yet realized, we can’t escape each other.
Sir, yours will be a difficult task.
Godspeed.

Victoria

2008-10-23T06:24:00.000-04:00

I understand how Bristol Palin feels. There is certain defiance in being a teenage mom and also a fear that shakes you to the bone. I know that becoming a mother is a life-altering experience but being a young mother is all of that, and more.

I was seventeen when I “officially” found out that I was pregnant and only two weeks out of high school. I had suspected that I may have been pregnant but after an accident I had had x-rays and blood work done and nothing “came up”. I suspect divine intervention.

We finally made the doctor’s appointment and went in to see what could be done. The doctor took his cue and let me listen to my baby’s heart beat and well, the only thing to be done was to get ready. This baby would be born even if it killed me. Thankfully, it didn’t. My mom accepted grudgingly that I would be skipping college until the baby was born and that I would have my child and it would be ok. I told her everything would be alright and apparently all she needed was the reassurance, she just shrugged her shoulders and accepted that she would be a grandma very soon.

What I hadn’t told my mom was that I had wanted this baby since I understood about the birds and the bees. Like a maiden that calls to her love, I had called this baby to me, loving it and carving it out of my dreams and bringing it close to me with every stroke of the clock. The thought of her growing and living inside me made me feel alive and filled with love. I had no idea of the responsibilities and commitments that come with having a child and I lived oblivious of those facts until later. At that moment, I was in love. I sang to her and I talked to her and even though she hadn’t been born, I knew her. I had seen her in my dreams and I knew her soul. Her movements were in answer to my comments and we anticipated the moment when we would meet. Thinking of how it would be…

But nothing happened like I imagined it; nothing.

After passing my due date and wondering when nature would signal the coming of the child, I was urged by my cousin Arturo to go to the hospital. I didn’t feel sick but I felt kind of funny. I waited at the emergency room to be seen and the doctors told me that I had a very bad infection and that I needed to be admitted. No big deal, I thought, they took me to the maternity section and hooked me up to the antibiotics. Something happened and the baby’s heartbeat dropped and I was wheeled into the operating room. An emergency caesarean section got the baby out and she was wheeled away from me onto the newborn intensive care unit.

Victoria Alejandra Urban Martini was born on October 23, 1993 at 2:27 in the morning and was air-lifted to Miami Children’s hospital at 6 in the morning. The doctor was kind enough to let me call my mom and my sister to the hospital before he told me that the baby had a 50/50 chance of making it and that I wasn’t doing well either. As my baby was taken from me to get her treatment, I stayed back at the hospital where an aggressive routine of antibiotics was started and both, my baby and I, began a battle to wellness so that we may be reunited again.

The doctor told me that I would be in the hospital for five days. My baby was far away and Arturo, again saving the day, took my mom and my sister to the hospital so that my little angel knew that we were all on her side in this battle. He came to my hospital room after seeing her and told me, with a certainty and assuredness that the doctors had not transmitted, that she would be fine and that soon her and I would be home.

Victoria was released from the hospital 14 days after being born, pronounced healthy and whole and sent with the best wishes of that wonderful staff at the NICU unit. We came home and I quickly undressed my baby to make sure that she was whole and I took her in my arms and sighed with relief at seeing her, with my own eyes, safe and sound.

Victoria proceeded to steal our hearts and bring joy where few dared enter. She was her grandma’s darling and her aunt’s delight, the only one that pierced the darkness, the only one to make her smile. She walked into her aunt’s room not concerned about the “do not enter” sign on the door and reached out to her aunt’s soul and bonded with the one who refused to be loved. Together they played Cinderella and read books and even danced on Saturday morning cleanings as Victoria chased poor Sable’s tail and Yaly laughed at the merriment of her two loves playing together. Her father fell in love with her when she was one and she continues to enchant us all.

Today, she celebrates her Sweet Fifteen and she is more enchanting then ever. She is my dancing partner and my in-house editor; she is my partner in crime and my research buddy and baking assistant extraordinaire. She is a young woman who thinks for herself and is strong in her convictions and her beliefs. She is a loving sister and a devoted daughter, fiercely loyal, sarcastic like her stepfather and good-natured like her dad. She is everything that I could have wanted and more. She is her own woman.

I would love to tell you that I am glad that we have all done a great job raising her but aside from guiding her, I did nothing. She came hardwired with all of the things that make her who she is. She is instinctively protective and loving and understanding and kind. She is an amazing girl that has brought more love and joy to my life than I could have imagined possible. Having her has brought me enlightenment. Having every wish of mine fulfilled in who she is helps me realize the perfection of the universe and, as we sneak into my bed and giggle and laugh ‘til our sides ache and we can’t breathe, I unravel the mystery of unconditional love.

My Princess:
Let my humble writings show you how proud I am that you chose me. How wonderful life is because I share it with you and how much I have learned from having you in my life. I have enjoyed the past 15 years, getting to know you and growing together, you to be a woman, me to be whole. I look forward to the rest of our lives where I can see what new things you’ll create and what new life you’ll find. Always know that my love to you is unconditional and unshakable and that I am better person for the blessing of your love.
Happy Sweet Fifteen Princess….
Shine on Princess, Shine on!!!! It’s a Whole New World out there!
Love you more than anything in the W.W.W
Mom

Tell her

2008-10-23T06:20:00.000-04:00

You have no idea how glad I am to know that she is real. I kept feeling something amiss for such a long while and to hear you tell it, of course, nothing is wrong.

Don’t worry, I am not angry, I am relieved. There is nothing worst than feeling something and hearing someone deny what you are feeling. The confusion it creates is enough to drive anyone crazy, and well I don’t need much help.

But you shouldn’t worry, I know nothing about the details of your friendship, nor do I want to know. Whether you continue them or not, whether it is more or not, it concerns you two, not me.
Tell her that I am relieved that on those days when I wasn’t available to you, at least she was able to be there for you and talk to you. Tell her that I am glad that as you cruised in your truck many, many miles away from here that at least someone else was wondering about you and who knows, perhaps loving you too.

Tell her that in the dark nights when I wonder what you are doing, at least I am grateful to know that it is she that keeps you company and that never do I have to worry about whether or not I do enough or love you enough, there is someone else that can take care of you as well.

Tell her that even though I love you I understand the need for someone else there. Tell her that I knew that she existed long before any suspicions aroused and that perhaps I always knew of the possibility of someone like her in your life.

Tell her that I understand if she says that the relationship is nothing more than a friendship and that all you guys do is talk shop, tell her it is ok, I no longer require any explanations.

Furthermore, I understand why she would have such an important role in your life, someone who understands the trials of always being on the road and always having to be away from home, really, who better than someone who has already been there.

Tell her that I am impressed. There are very few people who command your attention such as she has and that knowing how much she is keeping you interested makes me feel better, because then I realize that it is nothing fleeting and that she will be around for a while. Tell her not to be modest, I know how much you guys are in touch and I think its great that you have so much to share with each other.

Tell her that what remains between us is no more than a partnership based on concern for the well being of our common children and friendship. Tell her that I no longer wish to participate in a physical relationship with you and that I bequeath that role to her. I am a little less than generous in that and if there is the slightest doubt that we would share then I would rather she took on that entire role. I can’t.

Tell her that I love you dearly and unconditionally and that will never change. That long ago your actions stopped dictating my love for you and that I know you far better than you give me credit for and that despite your ways, I still choose to love you.

Tell her that I begrudge her nothing and that I wish for her to be happy and to make you as happy as you deserve to be made.

Tell her that it is pointless now for her to hide her existence, tell her that I know about her and that she no longer has to go through all of those extra steps to block herself from me. Tell her that I know and that it doesn’t matter. I love you because loving you makes me feel good not because I need you to love me. Tell her that if you love each other that I am glad and that I give it my blessing and the children and I will always wish for your happiness, I couldn’t think of anyone more deserving, my love.

Letter to myself

2008-10-22T11:50:00.001-04:00

Dear Chinita:
I know you are afraid. Hold my hand, I can’t make it better for you but maybe together we can get through it. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you.

Things may seem confusing to you. Words don’t make sense and people don’t make sense, the only constant it seems, is the fear. Their shouting and screaming has nothing to do with you, their angry words are not about you. You didn’t do anything to make him drink and make him angry. You can’t stop it or make it change and it’s not anything you did.

Its ok, it’s ok to be afraid. You don’t have to be brave for them, let it be. They are adults and they know what they are doing. Stay here with me, warm and cozy in bed, don’t go out there, there is nothing for you to see!!!

Come back here with me. I know you had to go out there and try to help, I know why you got involved, but I also knew that it wouldn’t stop them, that’s why I tried to keep you from it. Did he hurt you? I am glad he didn’t, I thought definitely when he pushed you against the wall you had been hurt, but maybe he just wanted to get you out of the way.

I don’t know why he gets like this baby. Alcoholism is an illness and daddy is definitely sick. You know he is different when he isn’t drinking and he talks to you and plays with you and he is good. But sometimes older people are hurting inside and instead of trying to make it better they drink to make it go away, but we know that doesn’t work, does it?

Oh honey, he is not doing this to hurt you. This has nothing to do with you. Even if daddy were to make the worst mistake ever, it would have nothing to do with you. It would be better for you if you were not here, I know, but until mom decides to leave, there isn’t much we can do. Just stay here with me next time they fight, I am just so afraid that you are going to get hurt.

Hey, but at least that police officer was nice. He took you to the station and he was kind and gave you toys and at least took you out of the room when they started fighting again. You know, you would think they would be more careful than to argue in front of the sergeant, but I guess there is no helping it. We could have been out of the station way before dawn, like every other time, instead we missed school and now we are stuck at home waiting for him to be released and come back.

No, neither one of them is a bad person. They are both sick.

Yes, mom too. If she wasn’t sick, she wouldn’t stay with him and go back so many times even though he always ends up doing the same thing.

Of course not, it has nothing to do with you asking her to let him back to the house. She is an adult and she knows what she can and cannot do; besides, in the middle of the anger and the violence, she can’t protect you. How many times has she found bruises on you where she thought there would be none, it would be so easy to see what is happening. I know you are just trying to get him to stop hitting her, but how can you do that when you are only a little girl??? This isn’t your fault, you didn’t make this happen.

I am sorry, I didn’t mean to raise my voice, I know it scares you. I am sorry, don’t cry. Nothing you ever did or didn’t do made this happen. Yes, it would be easier if Yaly was home but then again, maybe not, we will just never know.

Remember tomorrow is Sunday and we go to Tere’s house. You can play and maybe Mary will take you to the next block and you can watch Gringo and Papi play soccer. If you and Jessica behave, she will take you and then you don’t have to be in the house when mom has to explain to Tere why they were fighting again. Your padrino will be there and maybe with your allowance you can buy some candy and chancay, you can save it again and we can have it here under the desk when they start fighting again, you know it will make you feel better. I know, I wish Tere would let us live in her house, and I think Tere would, but mom won’t let us. I know it’s not fair, I know you don’t like to be here because they will fight but I don’t think we can do anything about that.

Don’t go back out there. He already broke the phone; you can’t call anyone for help. No, the neighbors won’t help and even if they did help, remember what happened with Papi and Celso, they came to get you guys out of the house and daddy said something to them with that scary look in his eyes and they left, and left us here with him.

Stop listening, here, let’s look at this book. Yes, he is breaking the furniture, but what can you do??? You can’t make a grown man stop, get the maid to come down to your room and stay here with us. Don’t go out there, you always get in between him and her and he ends up hitting you and I can’t take that, it scares me. That’s a mirror breaking, you can’t go out there in all of that glass, don’t cry, I know you are afraid but there is nothing you can do.

It’s over now, the police took them. Yea, it’s a good thing they left us here, now will you please stay in bed while the maid cleans up the mess over there? I know it was a lot of blood, but noses are funny that way, they bleed like that. She is not very badly hurt and besides she said she would come for you before she went to the hospital for the x-rays, so you will be with her soon. She is ok, don’t cry, you couldn’t have protected her, she is ok.

Will you try and sleep now? They are both gone. It’s finally peaceful. Close your eyes, that’s a good girl. Close your eyes and yes, mom loves you, yes, yes, daddy loves you too. Of course they do, this has nothing to do with them loving you, don’t be silly. This has nothing to do with you. I promise, you will be ok. You are loved.

Death changes how you live life.

2008-10-19T13:27:00.000-04:00

Death changes how you live life. No two people touched by the same loss will come away from it with the same lesson or message. As our beloved move on from our physical existence, our s+ense of self changes and we redefine ourselves based on this change.

Depending on your age when you are first confronted with death, its occurrence in your life will mark a changing point in your philosophy.

My first personal experience with death was very close and personal. I was young, I was a child and yet the enormity of the loss overwhelmed my senses and my inner compass spun around aimlessly. Teco was more than just an aunt, she was my friend. I hadn't known her long, I was only a girl, but in her I found a kindred spirit and a loving heart. There are very few people who as adults really know how to listen to a child, instinctively she did and she let me pour my heart out to her and gave me an anchor in this new world. I do not dare compare my loss and its impact with what others, who knew her and loved her felt, I just know that at that moment, everything changed.

Death wouldn't show up in my life again until many years later. Despite the fact that in a family as large as mine it is inevitable that there should be as many exits as entrances, none of the deaths touched me personally. Until my sister died.

It had been an uneventful morning, I was on the internet looking for a birthday present for my mom, her birthday had been the day before and I hadn't forgotten, I just hadn't found anything that I wanted to gift her. Then the phone rang and my life was never the same again.

I remember everything, the screams, the confusion, the impotence, yet I remember nothing. Instantaneously my emotions shut down. I made the phone calls I needed to make, I packed my suitcases and packed up my car and headed south, I headed home. I drove from Cincinnati to Fort Lauderdale non-stop. I remember absolutely nothing of the trip, I came back to myself when I saw the Cypress Creek Road sign and I made my exit off of 95.

I got home and I took my mother in my arms. She was a frail thing that aged a lifetime in one day and whose world had been shaken upside down. I walked into my house and felt the despair hit me like a wall, she wasn't coming down the stairs to greet me, we wouldn't share one more cigarette at the door, my sister was gone.

People kept coming to me telling me my mom wasn't ok, wondering if I was ok, saying words of comfort, I am sure; I heard nothing, I felt nothing. I walked around the house looking for a sign of what had happened and why, yet those walls held no answers for me, she had left and taken all the answers with her.

Arrangements were made and plans for her funeral readied and the moment came to say my last goodbye. I followed her wishes as she explained them to me many months before her actual death. She wanted to be cremated, no viewing and no typical funeral get-togethers. I walked into the funeral home with a handful of my relatives and fell apart. This was the same funeral home where I had come to say my last goodbyes to my aunt, all of the overwhelming feelings that had been kept at bay flooded my heart again as I walked into that viewing room to say goodbye to my sister.

I know that there were people with my mom, I don't know who and I haven't thanked them yet, but at that moment I truly understood that she was really gone.

She laid there in the favorite blouse that I had picked out and delivered to the funeral home. She lay with her hands crossed at her navel and seemingly asleep, except I knew she wasn't asleep. I walked close to her and reached out for her hand, her pretty delicate hands, and I tried to take them into mine but I couldn't move them, she was already in death's arms and she could not hold my hand through this. I looked at her and wanted to pull her back to me, to bring her back into our world and into our complicities, into our heated conversations about everything and anything and into the songs that we had sang at the top of our lungs. I begged her at that moment not to leave me, I confessed that I didn't think that I could do this, that I was not strong enough to get myself and mom through this and that she had to come back, please, one more talk, one more hug, one more I love you, not this goodbye.

But it couldn't be. I can never know what her last thoughts had been, if she'd remember our good moments, our laughs. I will never know if she knew how much I love her, how much she means to me and how empty my life is without her. I will never be able to tell her how much I looked up to her and that more than a sister, I lost my best friend. I walked away that day a different woman.

The life that I had built before losing her was no longer enough, suddenly the frailty of life had been demonstrated and I could no longer go back to my old life so I moved on. Much has happened in my life since and not a day goes by that I don't wonder what it would be like if you were still here. I can almost see you in your comfy chair reading to your nieces and nephew. I can see you taking pride in your nephew's drawings, gratified that at least one of them is artistic like you. I can see you spoiling the girls rotten and calling and talking to Victoria about her plans and chatting to Gabriela about her day at school. You and I would be tearing up this election and making plans for thanksgiving and Christmas and you would ask me if I was happy, like you always did, and I would tell you Yes and I would steal a hug and a kiss and we would giggle and laugh like if we were girls.

I have had other losses. My aunts, friends and even my father passed away, yet nothing had the effect on me that losing my sister did. She was supposed to have been there when mom was not, she was supposed to have been there and not have left me, again, now I don't know what will be. I do know Yalita that death cannot take away the memories and the happiness we once shared. It cannot block the love we felt and the fact that despite the illness and distance and age differences, love knows no boundaries, no loss.

So with you in my heart and hope in my eyes, I take one more step towards life and hope that you are watching from wherever you are.

This is for all of you that know only too well what it is to have lost someone you love.
All of my Love,
Claudia

Sweetest Day

2008-10-19T13:26:00.000-04:00

I have a confession to make. It's not right, I know. But there was no helping it, it could not be changed, it happened and I really don't even know how, but I know that this is the way it has to be.

There are two men in my life.

They both know about each other and they both know it can't be helped. They have accepted that I love them both and I can't give them up. They are my beloved. I love them both, I cannot live without them and I won't.

One of them is handsome and strong, powerful and creative, unique and larger than life. He is his own person; he knew the secret way before it was main stream. He is a compassionate soul that will not let you get away with giving less than your absolute best but will stand by you when the strongest winds knock you down. He is fearless in the face of change and is divinely aware of his imperfections. We can stay up until all hours of the night talking about life and love, Tangamandapio and fashion, all in the same conversation. We know when something is wrong with the other one without making a call. We recognize the heavy load of life in each other's voice and with arms of love reach across the miles to heal the emptiness we sometimes run into. We can right each other's wrongs and see with eyes of wisdom into the stories we tell the others. We have been there through all of our phases and know that we will be there until the end. Love between us flows unconditionally and ever lasting for our bond reaches through the ages and times. His shoulder has been my comfort and his light my guide. Whenever I didn't have the courage to stand up for myself, he stood for me. He held my hand until I found my path again; and in the darkness of my most scary times, he never wavered, he never doubted. He believed in me when no one else did. He saw me for whom I was and accepted me even when I couldn't accept myself. He is part of my homestead, my family, my soul. The one who can put me back together when I fall apart, he is a part of me, my brother, my soul mate.

The other one is handsome and strong (yes I am surrounded by handsome men), independent and courageous, loving, loyal and daring. He has the heart of a lion, always standing up to each challenge and facing every obstacle head on. You can knock him down; he will get up, no matter what. He is strong in his convictions and his beliefs. He has faith that moves mountains and is committed to his own sense of right. He is a loving and attentive father, reaching across the miles so that his children know that even though he may be far away, his love is always with them, always protecting them, always guiding them. He willingly goes out to that truck and puts it in gear to drive away from home, knowing that he is doing what he needs to do to take care of his family. He is funny and affectionate, caring and tender and true to himself and to those he loves. He is comfortable in his own skin and accepts me exactly as I am. Perhaps you don't know this side of him, then again, not many do. His love is my shelter, my stronghold. No matter where we go, in his embrace, I am home. His words may not always say what I want to hear but the melody of his voice sings the song of my heart. I cannot claim that I posses him, only that I am blessed with his love in return. His love is my lifesaver, my rock. There is no one else I would do this with. He is my best friend, my partner, my lover and my love, and the most fascinating man I have ever known.

Their love supports me, lifts me and carries me through dark times. Their love is unshakable and unconditional. My soul is enriched because of their presence in my life.

Many women have not found Mr. Right. I have been blessed to have found two men that have changed my life and that have, with their love, taught me to love and be myself. Today I celebrate their presence in my life and share with you a new way to recognize the many faces of love. May your path be filled with loving people throughout your way. Happy Sweetest Day!!

Happy Sweetest Day Luis, Brother-of-my-soul!
Happy Sweetest Day Tony, Love-of-my-life!!

Grandparent's Day

2008-09-29T12:18:00.000-04:00

Did you know that September 7th was grandparent’s day??

I missed it. We were in the middle of a furious battle with the roto virus and between 24 hour laundry rounds and yet another coating of antibacterial spray, the happy holiday went by unnoticed in our home.

Back when I was little there was no grandparent’s day, or perhaps there was but it was nothing we celebrated. I didn’t grow up very close to my grandparents but I have stories that I have inherited from my cousins and flashes of moments when I was very, very little. If I would have known how much I would need my grandparents and how much difference a grandparent can make in someone’s life, I would have treasured those memories more, I would have never allowed them to fade.

My grandma Maria died before I was born and my mom and my aunts never talk much about her. The very little that I know about her is that she was enterprising and hard working. They say that she was submissive and used to yield to her husband more often than not. Whether she was this subdued woman or not, she raised strong and independent women, hardworking and adventurous, she couldn’t have been too different herself.

My Papa Viejito or Papa Morante, what you called him depends on when you were born, was still alive when I came around and the memories I have of him are sweet and tender and full of patience and a certain air of defeat. See, I was one of the last ones that would be born before he died. Papa Viejito had many grandchildren and he was a father figure to them, he disciplined and he was to be obeyed. But as his life came to a close and he moved to Lima to get better treatment, illness made him weaker and he wasn’t quite so formidable and scary. That’s when the old man and I got to know each other, as I jumped all over him and my grandfather, overpowered by illness and age, let me romp freely.

I remember his wrinkled face, the creases of his skin and his funny smell. He smelled of that salve that they used to rub on us when we had a cold, a little menthol and a little Yuk. These memories of my Papa Viejito are mine; no one told me about them, something in me instinctively recalls them when I think of him. They tell me that I used to comb his hair and that I would get it tangled and I would lie next to him and play with him and he would ruffle my hair and call me his little sheep’s head. I think I remember that, but I am not certain, it could be that I’ve heard them so many times they have become part of my history.

Despite the fact that I did not share much with my grandparents I see some of what they were in their daughters. My aunts and my mother are incredible, they are all very different from each other yet they are all remarkable in their own particular way. Not perfect, bur remarkable and admirable nevertheless.

Today, some of us are grandparents too and we understand the quiet wisdom that age and time grants us and we realize that we can touch the life of our children and their children simply by sharing ourselves, and passing on the stories of our life and the ones before us.

We no longer have the same struggles that past generations faced, times have changed. Ours is a new challenge. It is our job to tell our children about Pacanga and Peru, to take them there and have them collect their cultural inheritance. They should know that we stand on the accomplishments of our parents and grandparents. It is our job to make sure that our children learn about the Christmas get-togethers we used to have when one house wasn’t enough for all of us, it is important for them to know that once upon a time we clung to each other because we were all we had in this new home. Nowadays it is different, we are dispersed throughout the world and sometimes we forget the places we come from and the places we have been, the people who used to be a part of our life’s and the memories of family and love that make up who we are.

On a day like grandparent’s day though we are all united by one common denominator, we all come from the same place, from the same family, from the same love.

Happy grandparent’s day to all the grandparents in your life!
All of my love,
China

Ustedes sabian que el 7 de Septiembre es el dia de los abuelos??
Yo me lo perdi. Estabamos en la mitad de la batalla con el virus roto y entre tandas de ropa sucia todo el dia y el desinfectar de la casa cada cinco minutos, se me paso el dia de celebracion.
Cuando yo era chiquita no habia dia de los abuelos o talvez no lo celebraban.Yo no creci cerca de mis abuelos pero tengo las historias que he heredado de mis primos y primas. Si yo hubiera sabido lo mucho que me harian falta mis abuelos y cuanto ellos pueden significar en tu vida, hubiera cuidado mas esos pocos recuerdos, no hubiese permitido que se borren de mi memoria.
Mi abuela Maria murio antes que yo naciera y mi mama y mis tias nunca hablaron mucho de ella. Lo poquito que se de ella es de que era trabajadora y emprendedora. Ellas dicen de que ella era sumisa y dejaba que mi abuelo fuera el fuerte de la casa. Si es que en verdad ella era sumisa o no, ella crio hijas fuertes, independientes y trabajadoras … ella no puede haber sido muy diferente.
Mi Papa Viejito o Papa Morante, el nombre varia dependiendo de el tiempo en que nacieron, todavia estaba vivo cuando yo naci y los poquitos recuerdos que tengo de el son dulces y tiernos,llenos de paciencia y resignacion. Yo fui una de las mas chiquitas cuando mi Papa Viejito se mudo a Lima para poder recibir tratamiento. Mi abuelo habia sido fuerte y estricto con sus otros nietos, pero ya cuando yo llegue, el ya estaba cansado y vencido, por la edad y la enfermedad.
Yo me acuerdo de su carita arrugada, su piel color caramelo que escondia sus ojitos y ese olor peculiar de el. Era el olor de esa medicina que nos ponian en el pecho, que tenia mentol y quien sabe que otra cosa. Esos son mis recuerdos de mi abuelo, nadie me ha contado de ellos, son algo instintivo que llevo en el alma y que salen cuando pienso en el. Si me contaron de que yo lo peinaba y le enredaba el pelo y me echaba con el y le hablaba y jugaba con el. El se entretenia con mi pelo y me decia cabeza de borreguito. Creo que me acuerdo de estas cosas, pero no estoy segura, es probable de que me lo han contado tantas veces que ya se volvieron parte de mi historia.
A pesar de que no comparti mucho con mis abuelos, algo de ellos paso a sus hijas. Mis tias y mi mama son mujeres increibles, cada una de ellas es diferente pero todas son notables. No perfectas, pero notables y admirables.
Algunos de nosotros ya somos abuelos, ya entendemos la sabiduria que nos da el tiempo y la edad y nos damos cuenta de que podemos influenciar la vida de nuestros hijos y nuestros nietos simplemente compartiendo un poquito de nosotros y contandoles las historias de nuestra vida y la vida de los que vinieron antes que nosotros.
Ya los tiempos han cambiado y nuestra lucha no es como la lucha de la generacion pasada. Nosotros tenemos otra mision. Nuestra mision es contarles de Pacanga y de Peru, llevarlos a que recogan su herencia cultural. Asegurarnos de que ellos sepan que estamos donde estamos por los sacrificios que nuestros padres y abuelos hicieron por darnos una mejor vida. Nos toca a nosotros contarles de las navidades donde nos reuniamos todos en una sola casa y casi no cabiamos. Que sepan que en algun momento nos buscabamos y nos aferrabamos los unos a otros porque eramos lo unico que teniamos en este pais. Ahora es diferente, estamos dispersados por todos lados y en el trajin diario nos olvidamos de donde venimos, de donde somos y de las personas que han sido parte de nuestras vidas, los recuerdos de familia y cariño que nos hace quienes somos.
En un dia como el dia de los abuelos todos estamos unidos por un mismo denominador. Todos venimos de el mismo lugar, de la misma familia, de el mismo amor.
Feliz dia de los abuelos a todos los abuelos en tu vida! ( mas vale tarde que nunca)

Nunca te olvides de donde vienes porque entonces dejarias de ser quien eres.
Telmo Morante Morante

Hurricane Ike

2008-09-29T12:06:00.000-04:00

Its three o’clock in the morning and an unusual constriction in my chest wakes me up and out of bed and in search for relief. Odd, the windows are closed and my allergies could not be causing an asthma attack, but nevertheless, my body impels me to seek release and I hit the medicine cabinet.

Medicine found, given in proper dosage, now it is time to wait for the effects. I wonder what is going on with Ike and how Texas is faring. I don’t have any personal acquaintances in Texas but my son was born in Katy and I feel a slight connection to the place.

So I turn the computer on and hear the gears bringing up the system as the computer wakes itself up. I make myself toast and tea, I might want to go back to bed and coffee would prevent that. I bring up the weather channel and decide to weed through its panic filled reports and try to ascertain what is really going on.

If you have ever lived in an area prone to hurricanes you understand the terms wind gust and the effects of the barometric pressure in a system, you know that sometimes the weather people can make you panic for no reason and their predictions of wind and rain will have you running to the store for your supplies and after you have fought five people for the last bag of charcoal at your local Publix, nothing happens. At times, it is all just instinct and you prepare, you reinforce and then you sit and wait for Mother Nature to do its thing.

To me hurricanes are the worst. Nothing like knowing that devastating wind and rain are heading your way in advance, and they might or might not destroy your home. The anticipation kills me. Knowing what kind of devastation is coming your way and that it might or might not hit you, that it might or might not affect you and that you won’t know for certain until the last minute. That is too much for me to handle. After Wilma and 17 days without power, I made my bags and left South Florida and the uncertainty of its weather.

That is not to say that Ohio’s weather is any better. Last year’s blizzard had me in awe of the power of winter storms but nevertheless, it was nothing like a hurricane.

So as I look at the storm, I say a silent prayer hoping that those people in Texas can get through this quickly and painlessly, but the angry red of the radar shows much precipitation and winds and with the size of this storm, many people are being affected. The storm even reaches into Louisiana and Arkansas.

Oh no, not Arkansas.

Why not Arkansas? No, none of my children were born there. I don’t have any friends or family there. You see, in a little truck stop, just a few miles of Little Rock in a cab of a semi truck, sleeps my beloved in his 80,000 pound rolling home. My husband is a truck driver. He just left TX and I was relieved to know that he got away from Ike in time, I didn’t look at Ike’s path inland, and I didn’t realize Ike would be following his route into the northeast.

As a truck driver’s wife, I have learned, out of necessity, to read maps, to read weather reports and to track weather systems to help my husband make his way through it all. I have on my computer the weather channel, traffic report and MapQuest in my favorites ready to give directions and to try to outmaneuver traffic, construction and even the weather. As I watch the path of Ike, I realize in horror that in next few hours this system filled with rain and winds will be turning and heading for Arkansas and creating havoc in his path. I call him and try to warn him so he can get out. No answer. Does that mean that there is no signal? Is the storm already hitting? The radar and the map say no but I cannot help myself, I panic. I start pulling up reports, local weather news and even newspapers so I can see if he is stuck in the storm or if he will be able to get out… after 53 seconds of anxiety, the phone rings. He had been woken up by the activity of the other trucks rolling out; he was prepping his truck and getting ready to leave. We tracked the path inland and saw that he may still make Maryland ahead of the system, I can breathe again.

I have learned that regardless of where I live, because of my husband’s occupation, I am affected by what happens somewhere else. As the mother in Texas prays that her home isn’t too battered by the storm, I join her prayer in hoping that my husband can outrun this storm and make it safely to his next delivery. Hurricane, snow, rain, tornadoes and all kinds of disasters affect “people” out there, every day. It wasn’t until Tony started driving that I realized that it has nothing to do with people out there, things like that affects us all.

You are nowhere near TX? Its ok, the increase in gas prices will affect you regardless of where you are. The early ice storm in Colorado has nothing to do with you? Unlikely, unless you are a vegetarian and you don’t consume meat or drink milk, in that case their loss in cattle would mean nothing to you, then again, it will affect someone you know. As different areas of the world are affected by nature, slowly we begin to realize that those things affect us all. We might not be as personally affected as someone who has lost their home, but in some way you will be affected.
It can affect what you consume because it is produced in that area or the consequences and losses will affect the nation’s budget, therefore your pocket. We are in a time where we can see how we are all interconnected, one way or another, and so you cannot turn your face and ignore their plight. As a society, we are as strong as our weakest member. You cannot look away and say it doesn’t affect me, their problem, I don’t care. Some way, some how, at one point or another we are all affected by one another.
So as you wake up this morning, offer a thought, a moment of reflection, prayer, meditation, monetary donation or your time or whatever you are inspired to do for those who are braving this storm, pray that after Ike has his way, that we are not too devastated by the losses. Pray that together we can all repair, rebuild, restore if not the material losses, at least the hope and faith that United we stand.

The opposite of love is not hate but indifference. -Elie Wiesel

Son las 3 de la mañana y una extraña presion en el pecho me saco de la cama y en busca de alivio. Que raro, las ventanas estan cerradas y mis alergias, que usualmente me causan ataques de asma, no me pueden estar afectando, pero aun asi, mi cuerpo me pide que busque alivio. Encuentro la medicina, tomo la dosis apropiada y ahora me toca esperar a que la medicina haga efecto. Mientras espero, me pregunto que estara pasando con Ike y como la estara pasando la gente de Texas. Yo no conozco a nadie en Texas, pero mi hijo nacio ahi, asi que siento una leve conneccion con la ciudad.
Prendo la computadora y me pierdo en su despertar Ruidoso, en lo que me preparo mi te y tostada, si tomo café ahorita no puedo regresar a la cama y todavia tengo tiempo antes de que los chicos se despierten. Busco en la internet el web site de el clima y trato de descifrar lo que esta pasando, interpretando reportes que inducen al panico.
Si alguna vez has vivido en una area propensa a huracanes, entonces ya estas familiarizado con los terminos rafaga de viento y presion barometrica y sabes tambien de que los noticieros tienden a predecir el fin del mundo y al fin y al cabo, ni llueve. Despues de que corristes al Mercado a comprar velas, latas y agua, despues que te peleastes con cinco personas por la ultima bolsa de carbon, no pasa nada. Bueno mas vale prevenir, que lamentar.
Para mi los huracanes son los peores, tienes como una semana para verlo creciendo en el caribe y escuchando reportes que dicen que es possible, pero no seguro, de que talvez, quizas, pueda destrozar tu casa y tu vida, pero no te podemos decir a ciencia cierta hasta unas cuantas horas antes. Que va,mis nervios no pueden con eso. Despues de Vilma y 17 dias sin luz, hice mis maletas y le dije adios al sur de la Florida y a su ruleta rusa con el clima.
Eso no quiere decir de que el clima en Ohio sea mejor. El año pasado, la tormenta de nieve y hielo, me dejaron en duda de que talvez me fui de Guatemala a Guatepeor, pero bueno, al hecho, pecho.
Al mirar los reportes de Ike, le pido a Dios de que la gente en Texas no la pase muy feo, que pase ya el huracan, rapidito y sin mayor perdida, pero los rojos de el radar muestran que este sistema viene con mucha lluvia y viento, y que es tan grande de que llega hasta Luisiana y Arkansas.
No, no Arkansas.
Porque no Arkansas? No, ninguno de mis hijos nacieron ahi, no tengo amigos, ni conocidos en ese estado. Pero en una parada de camiones a unas cuantas millas al Sur de Little Rock, duerme mi esposo en su dormitorio de 80,000 libras y 18 llantas. Mi esposo es camionero. Anoche cuando hablamos por telefono, el habia salido de Texas a la carrera, tratando de escaparse de los vientos de Ike. No me fije cual era el camino de Ike despues de haber tocado tierra, no me di cuenta de que Ike sigue en la misma direccion de su ruta.
Ser la esposa de un camionero me ha enseñado, por necesidad, a leer mapas, reportes de el clima y hasta seguir tormentas en su senda para ver como afectan la ruta de mi esposo. Programados en mis favoritos en la computadora estan los reportes de trafico, clima y MapQuest para poder dirigir y maniobrar cualquier percance que surja en su camino. En lo que sigo el camino predicho para Ike, me doy cuenta que Ike esta persiguiendolo y que la lluvia y vientos van siguiendo su ruta.
Lo llamo para despertarlo y decirle que tiene que irse de Arkansas, ya! Nadie contesta. Que quiere decir eso?? Ya empezo la tormenta, ha afectado las torres, no hay señal? El radar y el mapa dicen que no, pero el panico me cierra el pecho de nuevo y me duele hasta respirar. Empiezo a buscar reportes locales, los noticieros de Arkansas y hasta los periodicos para ver que esta pasando y si el esta estancado en la mitad de este huracan. Mover el camion durante vientos fuertes podria llevar a que el camion se volque, es peligroso. Despues de 53 segundos de panico y ansiedad, el telefono suena. El ya estaba despierto, la parada esta vacia ya todos los camioneros saben de que viene el viento y la lluvia y todos estan evacuando. Ahora conciente de Ike, seguimos la trayectoria dentro de el pais y vimos de que es possible de que llegue a Maryland, antes de la lluvia. Me volvio el alma al cuerpo, ya puedo respirar.
He aprendido de que no importa donde yo viva, las cosas que pasan en todo el pais de alguna forma me afectan por el trabajo de mi esposo. Asi como la madre en Texas que reza por que su casa no se la lleve el viento, yo me uno a su plegaria y le pido a Dios y a todos mis antepasados que cuiden a Tony y que pueda llegar sano y salvo a su proxima entrega. Huracanes, lluvia, nieve, hielo, todo tipo de desastres afectan a millones de personas en todos lados.No fue hasta que Tony empezo a manejar comercialmenteque me di cuenta que lo que le afecta a esos millones, tambien me afecta a mi, a ti, a todos.
No estas cerca a Texas? No importa, la subida de precio de la gasolina te afecta donde estes. Las consecuencias y perdidas tambien afectan el presupuesto nacional, por lo tanto, tu bolsillo. La tormenta de hielo en Colorado no te afecta? Las perdidas de ganado puede que no te afecten si eres vegetariano y no comas carne y no tomes leche, pero te apuesto que si le afectan directamente a alguien que tu conoces. Estamos en una epoca donde es facil ver como estamos todos interconectados, de alguna forma u otra, ya no podemos voltear la cara e ignorar la necesidad de otros. Como sociedad, somos tan Fuertes como nuestro miembro mas debil. No puedes hacerte de la vista gorda e ignorar lo que les pasa, no puedes decir no me afecta, no es mi problema o que me importa. De alguna forma, todos estamos afectados.
En lo que comienza tu dia, ofrece un pensamiento, una plegaria, una meditacion una donacion, tu tiempo, o lo que te nazca a todos los que se han tenido que enfrentar directamente a este huracan o otro desastre natural. Pide de que despues de que pase el huracan, las perdidas no sean demasiadas.Pide de que juntos, podamos reparar, reconstruir y reponer . Sino las cosas materiales al menos, restauremos la fe y esperanza de que Unidos, perseveramemos.
Lo opuesto al amor no es el odio, es la indiferencia . -Elie Wiesel

Brand new baby

2008-09-29T12:01:00.000-04:00

There is something magical about holding a brand new baby. The perfection of their dimensions, their chubby little legs and arms, that angelic semblance that you can stare at for hours as if it held the answer to life’s ultimate questions. Today I had the pleasure of holding a baby for an hour. It is the baby of a friend and while this friend and I are not extremely close, this child inspired in me a surge of protectiveness and I instinctively knew that I loved this child with all of my heart.

Don’t misunderstand, I have had three babies of my own and I know what it is like to have a child and NO, I don’t want anymore of my own, but there is still something about babies that touches me deep.

And then I thought back of all the babies that I have held. I remember holding Karina with her big alert eyes, looking at everything and never missing a thing. I remember holding my Chinito and I remember being proud of him, like a father is proud of a son. I remember the bond I felt with him. I remember Jaakko and how he would steal everyone’s heart, and I remember Tatita, those big brown eyes that spoke directly to your heart.

Then there was Felicia, pretty snow white baby and Shawn, strong and big, like his grandma called him “Chon”. More babies came and went and I wasn’t around but I remember when Chelsea was born, and Lauren and Victoria and the three stooges spent their days together at Apira’s house. Our family grows exponentially, the last time we all got together, for not so happy events, I found babies that were completely new to me. Christion’s son came into my arms, hugs and kisses given to Kalisha’s baby and Jay’s kids, something in me tingled and realized that yes, they are my own. Jeffrey, K’Andre, Damian, Mikey and the rest of the children ran around the house oblivious to the sad fact that death loomed near, simply rejoicing in the fact that we had come together.

Some of these kids were big, really big!!!! But regardless, there was something in their embrace, something in their approach, perhaps something in their blood that made me recognize them and love them at that moment, totally, unconditionally. It was like that joke everyone makes about family reunions, where you are introduced to your uncle Mike, uncle Mike traps you into a bear hug and you nod and say, “Oh yeah, Uncle Mike” as if you’ve known him all of our life. And sure, you have, you just didn’t know it yet.

So to all the new babies that I have not held, I look forward to the first embrace, to that moment of recognition where we may come together and come to know each other. To everyone else, perhaps those of you that grew up with me, or even those of you that held me when I was a baby, these children grow up without the benefit of knowing their extended family. Stories that have surrounded our family for years have broken down and become lost to the next generation. There is so much to share, so much to give.

We have wasted so much time.

Reach out, call that cousin you haven’t spoken to in years. They might be alone and hurting. Your sister that you are angry with, forget about your differences, they are not real. To that nephew that you think might be in trouble, hold his hand, this life is scary, perhaps he doesn’t know the way. Put aside your pride, your judgments, critical comments and egotistical notions, drop them all and embrace who you are, who you truly are. Our grandfather had 10 kids and their kids had a whole lot of kids and then they had kids. We may have all gone our own way, but when it comes down to it, we all came from the same place.

Communicate.... (5/21/2008)

2008-09-22T09:15:00.000-04:00

I am going to share a story with you, a story that was shared with me and that should definitely be shared with others.

Once upon a time there was a man who lived in an impoverished village. This man left his troubled home, headed out to find his luck in the world and worked hard to make something of himself. Such were his struggles that he vowed that he would teach his children early on to work hard, make them strong, independent and self-sufficient.

His daughters learned these lessons and went out onto the world, applied their knowledge and became prosperous and abundant. They raised their children with that knowledge hoping that they will also make something better of themselves.

So here we are, we are the next generation and what will be our legacy? What will we leave the next generation? We no longer have to worry about shelter and nourishment. We are in a place that allows us opportunities to work hard and grow and improve our situation, if we so desire.

Those things have been provided to us through the sacrifice of those that came before us…
However, previous generations did not understand and value the power of communication. Previous generations found shame and judgment in sharing their life and their situation with others. Previous generations dealt with problems stoically and did not reach out for the much needed help.

I know what you are going to say, I am so busy, I have so much going on, it’s not my problem; that is not how I was raised. Those excuses are no longer valid.

We live in the age of technology, where distance from our home and families is not significant any more. There are phones, computers, cell phones, postal service and even skype. We have been given awesome tools to accomplish the next step, yet we all live in our own little corners of the world blind and deaf to what goes on around us.

Despite what we have told ourselves, family is a bond that you cannot shake. If your brother or sister is in pain, you are going to be in pain. Whether the pain is self inflicted or not. Whether the pain is redundant and voluntary, physical or emotional. You will feel it. You may decide to turn your eyes away, but your heart will still be invested. And it doesn’t have to be your brother and sister, your aunt, your uncle, your second cousin, twice removed, a friend, even someone you went to school with. If you have ever known the person and shared with the person, you will feel their pain.

And so we discover that we are interconnected, that the love we feel creates webs in our hearts and those webs reach out through distance and time. You, me, my children, your children… we are all connected.

I am not suggesting that you put tights on and a cape and rescue people randomly. I only suggest that you let them know, through whichever communication method you prefer, that you are there. Just let them know that they matter. Let them know that you care. Put away your pride, your judgments, your criticism and your advice, your sense of right and wrong and your misguided intentions. . And be present with them, be in the moment that they are in and tell them how you feel about them.

So let me be the first one to say it now. I love you. You are important to me. If you are in pain, if you feel lonely, if life has you down and you don’t know what to do, I am here for you. I love you unconditionally. There is nothing you could have done, said or been that will make me love you any less. NOTHING. Perhaps I haven’t talked to you in a long time; perhaps we just got off the phone. Regardless, if you are receiving this, you are loved. We will go through your difficult times together and we will also celebrate together.

This is our gift to the next generation. COMMUNICATION.

Now, make the decision to break the chains of what they taught us or what they didn’t teach us and turn around and reach out to someone….

You are loved

Voy a compartir una historia con ustedes. Una historia que compartieron conmigo, que deberia ser compartida con otros,.
Habia una vez en un pueblo pobre un hombre que tuvo que trabajar bastante yy sacrificar mucho para poder vivir. Este hombre la paso tan dificil que le enseño a sus hijos a trabajar, tal como el lo habia hecho. El queria que fueran Fuertes, independientes, auto-suficientes.
Sus hijos asimilaron esta leccion y salieron al mundo, aplicaron las lecciones de su padre y crearon una vida prospera y abundante. A su vez ellos pasaron esta leccion a sus hijos con la esperanza de que ellos superaran lo que ellos habian logrado.
Y ahora nos toca a nosotros. Nosotros somos la proxima generacion. Cual es nuestro herencia a la proxima generacion? Ya no tenemos que preocuparnos por tener que comer y tener donde vivir. Estamos en una situacion que nos permite, si eso deseamos, salir adelante y mejorarnos dia a dia. Eso fue lo que nos dejo la generacion anterior como leccion.
Sin embargo, generaciones anteriores no supieron el beneficio de la comunicacion, tal como la entendemos ahora. Generaciones anteriores no pudieron expresarse libremente por el que diran y por verguenza de que los vayan a juzgar. Generaciones anteriores aprendieron a vivir con el sube-y-baja de la vida solos, sin decirle nada a nadie por perjuicios que alguien mas les impuso.
Ya se lo que van a decir. No tengo tiempo, no es mi problema, a mi no me criaron asi. Esas excusas ya no son validas.
Vivimos en un tiempo donde la tecnologia nos permite comunicarnos a nivel global. Estar lejos de nuestos seres queridos por que vivimos en diferentes lugares ya no es excusa. Existen telefonos, computadoras, celulares, correo, skype. El mundo nos ha dado herramientas increibles para crecer y aprender y compartir, pero muchas veces permanecemos en nuestras esquinitas de el mundo, ciegos y sordos a lo que pasa a nuestro alrededor.
A pesar de que nos hemos tratado de convencer de que no, la familia es un lazo permanente. Si tu hermano y tu hermana sufre, tu sufres con ellos. Asi el dolor sea a consecuencia de sus acciones, asi sea voluntario y repetitivo. Asi el dolor sea fisico o emocional. Tu lo sientes. Puedes voltear tus ojos y tratar de pretender que no sufren, pero tu corazon lo sabe y tu lo sientes. Y no tiene que ser tu hermano o tu hermana. Tu tia, tu tio, tu primo lejano, tu amigo y hasta un compañero de trabajo. Si en algun momento has compartido con la persona, de alguna forma estas afectado.
Y es asi como descubrimos de que estamos conectados. Que el cariño que algun dia sentimos no dejo de existir sino que dejo huellas en nuestro corazon que siguen a pesar de el tiempo, a pesar de la distancia, a pesar de la vida. Tu, yo, mis hijos, tus hijos, todos estamos conectados.
Entonces dejale saber a esa persona de que los quieres, no te gusta hablar, esta bien, escribeles una carta, mandale un email, solamente dejales saber que ellos son importantes para ti. Deja el orgullo, los perjuicios, la critica y el consejo de lado. Solamente comparte un momento con alguien a quien tu quieres y aprovecha la oportunidad para decirles lo que ellos significan para ti.
Dejame tomar el primer paso. Te quiero. Eres tan importante para mi. Si estas sufriendo, si te sientes solo, y no sabes que hacer. No te preocupes, no estas solo. Apoyate en mi, que juntos podemos. Te quiero incondicionalmente. No importa lo que hayas dicho o hecho. No importa la persona que seas. Te quiero. No hay nada que puedas hacer o decir o ser que vaya a cambiar lo que siento por ti. Talvez no hablemos en muchos años, talvez hablamos esta mañana. Si estas recibiendo este mensaje es porque eres importante para mi y te quiero.
Esta es la leccion que tenemos que dejarle a las proximas generaciones. COMUNICACION. No dejes de decirle a esa persona lo mucho que significa para ti. Enseñale a tus hijos, a tus nietos que una persona no es un mundo, que somos partes de algo mas grande, que somos parte de una comunidad, de una familia que crece con el tiempo.
Communicate….
Te quiero…

A little light for us all, 12/16/2007

2008-09-22T09:13:00.000-04:00

The hardest lesson for me to learn throughout this experience is to deal with the loneliness. I come from a huge family, my grandparents did not believe in television. We are about 150 here in the states only; we are dispersed throughout the country. Truthfully, we have spread out. We have created many separate little families throughout and although we strive to remain close, sometimes it doesn’t just work out.

In my immediate family, there’s only my mother, my children and I left. I have lost a sister and just this last year my father. All of my extended family and my friends are everywhere else. So I called everyone and told them all we were starting a new tradition. I urged them all to get a candle, any candle and I proposed that on nochebuena we all light this candle, I proposed that in making this little light we all connect with the ones that we wish were there to share this night with us. I propose we light this candle in honor of all of those who have in one way or another left a mark in our lives and whose little bit of essence we carry around in our hearts forever.

So I offer you this little light. I offer you this little light to honor those that are not with you on this night. Whether they are far away or have passed on, whether you still know them or not. This little light can burn for all of those who have shared of themselves with you throughout your life.

On nochebuena with my little family I will light this candle for Yalile, my beloved sister and for Rodolfo, my father. I will recall the wonderful times we share and pass them on to my children so that they live on forever. I will light the candle for my aunts and uncles and cousins galore, for my nieces and nephews and for my great nieces and great nephews. For all the friends that throughout the years have become family and for the wonderful people that have somehow touched my life. And I will light this candle for each and all of you, because I am grateful for your presence in my life and because being here with you everyday and sharing the tidbits of life we share, makes me appreciate all the wonderful things in all of you and helps me feel a little less lonely. I invite you to honor those who have come into your life and to put our differences aside and celebrate this season of love.