Fin del 2024

 Llorando mientras pico cebolla y pensando que en Mexico, las cebollas si me hacen llorar, cierro el año. Habrá tacos de chicharrón en salsa verde, picadillo, rajas, mole. Lasagna vegetariana, volcanes de chocolate, brownies, y seguramente olvido alguna cosa más. Estoy segura que mi papá tocará el acordeón y nosotras bailaremos. Y como ahora se sigue esta tradición de las doce uvas también habrá que consumir las pensando en cada uno de los meses del año y los deseos que tenemos por cumplirnos. 

Lo mejor de estas celebraciones son las risas, los abrazos, las conversaciones cruzadas y las canciones de las que nunca nos acordamos de toda la letra.

Nunca he hecho eso de pensar en lo que me propuse y que cumplí, porque creo que eso es solo para quienes saben planear. Lo único que si puedo decir es que este año aprendí a ser más aventurada y logré hacer mi parado de cabeza en yoga y logré pararme de manos con la ayuda de una pared. Logré enojarme menos, observar con mas calma y no dejar de sorprenderme con los cambios de las plantas con sus flores en primavera o el otoño con sus hojas amarillas. Seguí aprendiendo a tejer cosas distintas, a pintar con acuarelas, y a snorquelear. Cosas que alguien más probablemente ya había hecho hace mucho en su vida, pero pues cada uno tenemos nuestros propios tiempos. Deje de correr, pero comencé a hacer un poco de meditación. 

En fin que el año viejo se acabo y ahora que en nuestros calendarios cambiamos de página y de año, habrá que hacerse el propósito de continuar siendo saludables, y ojalá que también muy felices. 

Yo sigo haciendo mis mosaicos con memorias nuevas, que espero no olvide en el furturo. Dicen que con ayuda de la tecnología igual y logramos tener un lindo cuadro que nos lleve de vuelta a esos sitios que enriquecieron nuestras vidas.

Feliz Año Nuevo!

Navidad

Can I tell you that I love you…the music sounds in the background. It is Christmas Eve and for some reason it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all. Pieces of my family are not here. Important pieces of the picture that I have always created in my mental image are lacking. Some can’t ever be here anymore, while others choose not to or can’t make it. That’s the way families evolve. They grow and they start their own other families, and they sometimes stay closer, others, they fly away.

There is a part of me that wishes things would be different, yet there is also that other part that reminds me that this is the way it should be. And I am happy for those who started their own new traditions with their own families. And for the ones that are no more with us, I keep a special corner in my heart and in my mind to bring them along wherever I am. I know it’s the natural order of life, we are supposed to split and reproduce again and again like fractals.

This time I have not felt as if it was Christmas, perhaps because the weather in this place is warm, or perhaps because I cannot associate Christmas with the beach, or perhaps because the missing pieces made me feel it was not complete to celebrate. Who knows what dictates what we feel in this times of the year. 

Celebrations are always sprinkled with all kinds of emotions. Happiness, sadness, anticipation, disappointment…it’s all there to get mixed together, to spark in any given moment to colored the memory we will form in our minds.

Later we will composed a different picture, with all the good parts that we liked, modified perhaps a little, perhaps a lot, omitting the things that did not go our way, because in the end, our hearts and our brains will like to only keep the good portions of it all.

So happy Christmas says my heart, and I take that mental picture. 

Food is delicious, company is good, music plays outside, and games are played to close the night.

It doesn’t matter how we feel really, it matters that we are together to celebrate and the warmth of the hearts is captured.

Feliz navidad

Time

 It is so easy to ignore that it is finite, until tragedy strikes your world closer than what it’s shared in the daily news with the constant shootings, stabbings, and killings that get reported every single day. The war in Ukraine and Palestine simply have become numbness in the heart

In recent months a couple of friends were diagnosed with cancer. Two different types that can only affect women. They both had chemotherapy, radiation, surgery. Their odds seem to be in their favor and so far we think they still have time, time with us.

Most of the time when we are young , we don't even think of time as a commodity, as a luxury. We go through life ignoring danger, run risks that don’t seem that large, and waste our precious time over sleeping, over complaining, obsessing about work, thinking there will be another chance to do what we postpone, ignoring the signals that tell us not to waste opportunities; we may not have, after all, another chance.

I use to think that my time in this country I chose to live was never going to be so long. I used to wish I could go back to my country, live near my parents, my sisters, my friends.

When life gave me this cards to play, I could only see the near future. I have never presumed to know that I would have a long life, but it wasn’t even because of that. My objectives were only short term, not because I thought I would die young, but because I was very naive about consequences. I wanted to find happiness, and every chance I had to take it, I did.

First I wanted to love, with all my heart, and I did. Loving someone does not translate into happiness though, and so, I learned that I needed to be loved the way I liked to be loved. So I found a man that seem to love me beyond anything, that kissed me and held me just in the most perfect way. All we wanted was to be together, breath the same air, feel the same sun caressing our bodies. So I jumped into his life. I was in his country, and did not care about time, because I knew in my heart, that in time, I would go back home. But consequences are consequences, decisions made carry them and I just never went back.

Time gave me also the amazing gift of becoming a mother, and my two daughters were born and filled my time with the most incredible experiences. I was again only looking short term, thinking soon, I will be able to go back. Though I started to realize there was nothing to go back as I remembered it. Friends had move on, families dissolved, my parents divorced, some of my sisters too, people grew in different directions and environments were I had become a stranger.

Time changes you, and others, and slowly we stop having connections, we drift apart. Silence grows between humans, unless we use time to maintain the bridge, but our busy lives make us blind, and we put it off, for when we have more time. But time keeps running.

My mother then started to forget things, repeated same questions right after we just answer her, and soon what seem to be a problem with depression, became a larger monster, Alzheimer. And then I knew there was no more time, she only would walk deeper and deeper into the invented world she had created to survive her divorce and her loneliness.

I had time to get angry, to wish different outcomes, for me, for her, for my sisters, for all the people I loved. Time was gracious enough to allow me to go through this period of depression and rage, without bigger consequences, and when my mother died ten years later, I had reconnected with most of my family and the few good friends I had, but most importantly, I had reconnected with my husband, who had never gave up on me, even when I was lost in my own world of regrets, wishing I had more time to spend with my mom, my sisters, my dad, my friends back in my city where I grew up, that now I could hardly navigate with all its changes.

At that point, I had to think what to do with the time I still had left (since now it was evident that it was very much finite), how to make sure I did not waste it, I did not fall for the mirage that I still have plenty ahead of me.

It was time to repair my relationship with my self, with my decisions, with my life. Restore the bridge of communication with my daughters that were grown ups, and as all humans that grow, had also drifted apart to start their own lives,

 I apparently had bad habits, wanting what I know I could not have, and rejecting what was there in my reach. So I discovered yoga, and begin a new journey, where balancing, flexibility, acceptance, patience, and trust became my new focus.

My mother died in the city where I finally decided to buy a small house, where I could go home for the winters. Not the city I grew up, not in the mountains or near the forest but near the sea. Nothing I imagine or wanted to happen has come to be on my older years. But I am not complaining, I am happy with this decisions because I finally accept my reality, and I have no regrets.

One thing is for sure: Time keeps running

Please vote

 November is approaching at a increasing speed, and the candidates are sharpening three personal attacks on each other. Like in every single election since I arrived at this country, I am amazed by the viciousness and the incredible dirty war that happens as the election campaign final stretch comes to an end.

I used to think that some of this commercials on tv were cheap low jabs, out of context comments, or chopped conversations where the candidate is caught saying something very negative. So it was the job of the audience to look where could this things be verified and how truthful the comment was.

Since the arrival of Donald Trump to politics, nothing has been more disturbing to me that to hear him admit that he could say anything, he could even shoot someone in the middle of the street and he would still be elected president, because people didn't care what he did, they just simply love his rhetoric.

What is more disturbing is to hear him say the blood of migrants is poisoning the blood of the US citizens, that anyone not in his side is an enemy within,  that both the current president and his vice-president are mentally challenged. How could it be that half of this country voters do agree with this man? 

Where are the principles that we so carefully instill in the children in school about tolerance, diversity richness, respect... I am so conflicted accepting that most people in this country do see immigrants as a threat especially if they are not white.

Options, we do have options. We most exercise the power of our voices and go out there to try to change this distorted view of our reality. 

Please vote

The change

 El cambio…when is that we realize things have changed? The change is constant, yet we only noticed suddenly because perhaps the many times before expected did not happen. Or perhaps because the usual reaction we thought we would have does not appear in our mind, heart, body. 

Today I saw how they cut a tree, they took each branch and swallow it inside a machinery that reduced it to chips. There was a lot of noise. But nobody was there to witness it but me. I mean there were people walking but nobody really was paying attention. It wasn’t even a large tree, it had somehow died over the winter perhaps, and it was just the bare branches that never sprung back to the call of spring. 

When we arrived to this city, and we used to have to walk the dogs that back then were also still alive, walking underneath it was a painful thing, because it would drop an amazing amount of fruits. I believe it was some kind of a cherry tree that nobody seems to eat here, and they make a blanket of red small fruits that people, and dogs, step on and splatter them, carrying some of the purple/reddish juice on the soles of their shoes or in between their paws. Later I could see the stains on the entrance rug or even in the carpet on the stairs or in my bedroom.

Not this year, this year after my last dog died and there were no more prescribed daily walks, as I walked to my yoga classes, I kept thinking how empty the side walk look without its flowers, its leaves, its fruits. And now it will even be more empty without the tree itself.

It was never the same but there was continuity, and suddenly there will be nothing instead. 

And just like that things continue to change, and we don’t notice them until they have completely disappear, or perhaps we do notice, but we accept that everything is in constant change as long as the changes are subtle, and most things maintain certain continuity, that allow us to feel  the changes are not as evident.  

Changes are hard, but they are constant. Cambios…

Cambia, lo que tenga que cambiar…

Low expectations -politics

 When I was younger, listening an orator talk in public was an authentic exercise of the use and of my knowledge of the language. Back then, politicians, union representatives, news casters etc, were expected to use ,not only an eloquent speech, but use also a high level vocabulary.

The orator was prepared, had practiced his speeches, would take a moment to think, repeat a question before answering, would be polite and wait until there was something useful to say. You would also expect that they would use good and elegant metaphors.

Politicians were articulate and usually spoke using a variety of adjectives when describing what they were planing to accomplish. 

Sadly, nowadays we have lost the power of the language. People do not expect the candidate to the presidency to have an elegant use of the language. We hear them behave like bullies and there is no outrage, we see them talk about retribution to their opponents and dismiss their lack of respect to the authorities, to the institutions, to the processes that are in place; because we have become so use to not only to a lack of proper language use, but also a lack of respect to even the most basic respect, where we do not put down our opponents in order to win approval. 

Is is very sad to see how many followers respond to this type of oratory, how many people are liberated by it and feel the right to simply behave without manners, without care, without respect. 

We believe that only mirrors are the correct people. We look for the behavior we portray and for many generations it was cultivating the love for the honorable, until someone came alone to let the hate be ok, and the outsmarting the rules of a system as a virtue rather as a punishable and disapprove behavior.

So listening  the use of the word “great” and “ huge” over and over becomes suddenly the best way to describe any accomplishment by the candidate to a presidency. 

We have reduce our expectations so much that we don’t even think a debate about important issues was necessary to prove one candidate is better than another. They can lie over and over and nobody is outraged or surprised, the exaggeration of their accomplishments verge into delusions and people applaud this type of oratory.

Certainly the world is upside down for me, or I have become old and wish to go back to the old times. 

war or peace

 Do you ever wonder why do we keep fighting? And then why do we stay? So many times we exhaust all the possible ways to communicate, or so we think we have. Living life with the same person for over 30 something years makes it harder to understand how two people who had share so much in this life can have so different understanding of the others points of view. 

A couple of days ago I once again, lost my composure and swirl in my impotence and desperation to not be understood, listen to, or validated in the way I perceived my reality. And when I talk about this, I am fully aware that each one of us has their own reality, and they differ tremendously from the others person perception. Yet when I explain how I felt at certain point, to be told that I have the wrong memory of such and event, makes me feel like there is not even a slight desire to see my point of view. 

I am sure, that people tend to have different ways to address this differences. If the person we are talking to, is not that close to us, I think it is easier to just let it go, and really, stop caring wether they change or not their mind. If the topic is not necessarily personal, like say politics, I think it is simply a matter to agree to disagree. But if the person you have the difference with happened to be you partner, you mother, your siblings, you definitely feel a stronger desire to clean those rough edges, to make sure there is an understanding of the different point of view. 

But if this becomes a recollection of events, and the parties who participate in such recollection have completely different memories of such and event, it is very hard to come to an agreement.

I don't know how to not get upset when things like this happen. I don't know how to let it go, and learn to agree to disagree, because part of the problem comes from the fact that such recollection of events produced a feeling that needs to be recognized as valid. Even if the real intention of the other was not what it's perceived. There is a need to have the feeling that the other side is capable of recognizing that may be there was some part of the perception of the other that was the result of the way we behaved, the way we did things. 

Communicating such feelings are hard because of their emotional charge. 

Are you going to war or are you going to make peace?

It’s ok to begin again

 To begin again but without any preconceived ideas. Is that really a possibility? Lay down on the grass, on the sand, on the dry leaves and not have any expectations. Just look at the sky, perhaps the clouds will come, or perhaps they will open up. Are there ants, or ladybugs around? Will the wind kiss your face as you just lay there?

Anything can be the new starting point. The moment you open the cabinet to get your cup for your morning coffee. While you turn on the corner and realize that is not the street you meant to turn into, when you pick up your hair but decide to let it go free instead.

I think that we start all over everyday, without realizing it. I know we fall into patterns and repeat same behaviors, same routines, choose the known route because requires no effort and within our confort zone.

But we get flustered if things don’t work the way we want them. And rather than just starting all over again we fight to continue on that same path. 

Sometimes it’s ok to just stop and restart. Look forward, and start from the very beginning without any expectations. It’s ok to try to walk the path as if we were brand new explorers. 

Puzzles

 Cada día es un nuevo rompecabezas, pensó, todos los días pensamos que ya lo armamos ayer pero en realidad hay que volver a acomodar las piezas para que sigan encajando donde deben de ir. Luego uno piensa que igual hay muchas formas de hacer que cada pieza encaje donde debe de encajar y formar el mismo rompecabezas pero con diferentes arreglos. Le pareció que eso sería posible y tiro todos los pedacitos de su calendario y los re armo, sin realmente recordar como los había acomodado primero. 

A últimas fechas había recibido un par de noticias que la habían hecho sentir todavía más convencida que uno tiene que re acomodar las piezas cada día que nos toca poder despertar. Su amiga y su cuñada ambas habían sido diagnosticadas de cáncer. Una en la mama y la otra en el útero. Mujeres condenadas a una posible muerte, si acaso la medicina de hoy no era capaz de destruir y erradicar esa células enfermas. Recordó a su otra amiga que transcurrió cerca de dieciséis años peleando esa batalla perdida, que finalmente sucumbió a ella sin más preámbulos. 

Su rompecabezas se recomponía cada día. Poco a poco se despedía de quienes desaparecían porque así es la vida, mientras más tiempo caminamos en esta tierra, más nos aproximamos a nuestros finales. 

Quizás el punto está en encontrarle el gusto a esto de los rompecabezas y armarlos y desarmarlos sea más bien para alimentar nuestros cerebros, nuestros corazones, y nuestras ganas de lograrlo un día más, cada mañana en que abrimos los ojos y tenemos el gusto de seguir aquí.

Enfocarse en los posibles resultados que más nos gusten y construirlos con el mismo amor de cuando no lo sabíamos, que un día ese rompecabezas no tendrá solución, y nos tocará dejárselo a los que nos despidan. 

Por lo pronto, pensó, armo mi rompecabezas que hoy no se acaba el mío todavía.

Volver a empezar

 Cada año se vuelve a empezar. Quizás uno así lo cree, se hacen los muchos nuevos propósitos, las nuevas listas de las metas o de los cambios que se pretende hacer en el año que comienza. Nos hacemos a la idea de que cada año nos podemos renovar, proponer ser mejores, diferentes. Cada año comienza arbitrariamente en cualquier lugar, en nuestros cumpleaños, en el comienzo del año del calendario, en nuestros aniversarios, después de una gran discusión, cuando regresamos de un largo viaje, después de la muerte de un ser querido…

La renovación, que tanto nos gusta mencionar, pienso que se refiere en realidad a lo que nos gustaría poder completar. 

Yo nunca he hecho listas, no pienso en esas metas que escucho a mis amigas(os) mencionar. Creo que prefiero pensar en mejorar mi estado anímico. Por aquello de que uno siempre quisiera poder ser feliz…por eso pensaba en eso de volver a empezar. 

Volver a creer en la posibilidad de conocernos mejor, de creer en que podemos ser más controlados, menos reactivos, más equilibrados.

Será que de verdad se puede modificar? Yo sigo cayendo en los mismos patrones de enojos, de molestias, las fricciones de la rutina diaria no parecen disminuir, sino al contrario. Cada día se explota más pronto por lo que se ha hablado hasta el cansancio, parece. 

Yo me pregunto que controla mi reacción? Mi mal humor? O mi short temper diría mi marido.

Cuál es la pastilla mágica que nos deja hacer la vida sin alergias, sin cansancio, sin molestias por el desorden o la falta de limpieza, por la caminata más larga de lo planeadas por la posible llegada a un lugar tarde. Porque lo que uno percibe como falta de atención es simplemente una reacción distinta y ya. 

Si hay amor, hay paciencia, suponemos. Pero no siempre el amor es suficiente para limar esas diferencias, y no siempre se traduce en paciencia o entendimiento. Es conocer ese cuarto tantas veces visitando y volver a encontrar las mismas esquinas, las mismas ventanas, cerrar las que queríamos que ya no permitieran que llegara el viento a desordenar o bien, abrir las que queremos que nos refresquen con su nueva brisa. Y no hay sorpresas, las conocemos todas y sin embargo seguimos esperando algún cambio, algo diferente que nos sorprenderá de nuevo. Lo que ya sabemos no nos deja disfrutar. 

En esta nueva renovación, me propongo aprenderme de memoria cada una de las cosas que quiero poder controlar, y practicar con solo  tres de ellas. No más listas infinitas, habrá que hacer pequeñas conquistas. Y si acaso logro escaparme de mis propias trampas, entonces podría intentar agregar a la lista algunas nuevas posibilidades. Dar grandes pasos solo cuando los pequeños hayan sido conquistados.

Estuve haciendo yoga por 5 meses casi 24 días por cada mes. 

Aun así sigo sin poder hacer inversiones, pero al menos siento me acerco algo a mi objetivo. 

Cuando regrese a mi casa de Portland en la primavera volveré a hacer yoga con esa misma idea. Quizás para cuando comienza de nuevo esa renovación, sea capaz de hacer alguna sin ayuda de una pared. 

Este año serán 60, como no pensar en renovarme? 

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Every year we start all over again. Perhaps you think so, you make many new resolutions, new lists of goals or changes that you intend to make in the coming year. We get used to the idea that every year we can renew ourselves, you propose to be better, different. Every year begins arbitrarily anywhere, on our birthdays, at the beginning of the calendar year, on our anniversaries, after a big argument, when we return from a long trip, after the death of a loved one... The renovation, which we like to mention so much, I think is really about what we would like to be able to complete. I've never made lists, I don't think about those goals I hear my friends mention. I think I prefer to think about improving my mood. Because you always wish you could be happy... That's why I was thinking about starting over.

To believe again in the possibility of knowing ourselves better, of believing that we can be more controlled, less reactive, more balanced. Could it really be modified? I keep falling into the same patterns of anger, of annoyance, the frictions of the daily routine do not seem to diminish, but on the contrary. Every day it explodes faster because of what has been talked about ad nauseam, it seems. I wonder what controls my reaction, my bad mood, or my short temper, my husband would say. What is the magic pill that allows us to go through life without allergies, without tiredness, without discomfort due to the mess or lack of cleanliness, without anger for the longer walk than planned, for the possible arrival late at a place. Because what one perceives as a lack of attention is simply a different reaction and that's it.

If there is love, there is patience, we assume. But love is not always enough to iron out those differences, and it doesn't always translate into patience or understanding. It's getting to know that room so many times visited and finding the same corners, the same windows, closing the ones we wanted to stop the wind from letting it come to mess up, or opening the ones we want to refresh us with its new breeze. And there are no surprises, we know them all and yet we are still waiting for some change, something different that will surprise us again. What we already know doesn't let us enjoy.

In this new renewal, I intend to memorize each of the things I want to be able to control, and practice with just three of them. No more infinite lists, small conquests will have to be made. And if I manage to escape my own traps, then I might try to add some new possibilities to the list. Take big steps only when the small ones have been conquered. I was doing yoga for 5 months, almost 24 days out of every month. Even so, I still can't make investments, but at least I feel like I'm getting a little closer to my goal. When I return home to Portland in the spring, I'll be doing yoga again with that same idea. Maybe by the time that renovation starts again, you'll be able to do some without the help of a wall. This year it will be 60, how can I not think about renewing myself?