"Us" and "them"

When I go about my daily tasks, i.e. chores: ironing, picking up the clothes lying around in my room, cooking, etc. I often think about my mom. I get flashbacks to her daily routines. I think about her urging me to pick out my clothes the night before school or about preparing my lunch the day before instead of waiting to do it half an hour before I walked out of the door the next morning. I think about her ironing on Saturday nights while watching Sabado Gigante or mopping the floors on a sunny Saturday morning instead of running away from chores under the excuse that it's a "nice day outside."
Now, don't get me wrong. I haven't always had these flashbacks and I don't always follow in my mother's footsteps in this way. In fact, I am nowhere near as clean and organized and disciplined as she was during my childhood. But, as I strive to be more organized and disciplined post-college, these memories inspire and motive me.
Going back in this way helps normalize what I'm doing and deters me from sitting down in front of facebook, for instance, or from taking a nap when I know I should be getting ready for the next day. I suppose that for most of us this process is more subconscious. However, for some of us, the households we grew up in do not inspire such actions. For some of us, our childhoods consisted of parents who did not work, suffered from some mental or physical illness and were bed ridden most of the time. Some of our parents did not wake us up for school--we woke ourselves up. Some of our parents did not iron or mop or pick up the clothes on the floor consistently, except for some small bouts of inspired moments when this was the case. And I imagine that for those of us whose parents struggled in this way, inspiration to go about completing daily tasks must come from somewhere else.
I think about these things because of my line of work; because everyday my job reminds me of the lines that are drawn between "us" and "them." My job causes me to think about thinking patterns that shape our behavior or our potential to learn and grow. And often, we are products of the upbringings we had--with the possible exceptions of those outlier children--the Rory Gilmores and the Barak Obama's and the genuises who managed to pull themselves up by the genetic bootstraps they were given. But for most of us, we are direct products of our environments. When we experience this kind of lack, where do we get the tools we were "supposed" to get when we were 5 years old and the foundation for our adult lives was being laid?

Platano-Chocolate chip bread

There is platano-chocolate chip bread sitting in my kitchen and it wasn't made by me.
For those of you who don't know, Dominicans do not make bread out of platano--at least not usually. "Platano is for mofongo, mangu, fritos, tostones and sancocho! Maybe sometimes a pastelon or two!" Shout the purists. But the new generation always has something new to say to the purists and new lines to cross.
I suppose this is what happens when you put people of different backgrounds in the same house, in ways reminiscent of the Arabic sounds found in Flamenco or the accordion used in Merengue borrowed from the Germans who brought it to the Caribbean; or the Catholic churches in Central America incorporating rituals rooted in Mayan spirituality. Syncretism.

So I go about my business frying my platanos and someone says,
"Hey, this is kind of like a banana. I'm making platano-chocolate chip bread." And it appears on my kitchen table as a gift. it's delicious.
But don't be deceived, sometimes mixing isn't that delicious. Like hot sauce and ice cream is still not fun, no matter how exotic it may sound (unless you fancy that kind of thing).
We don't mix for it's own sake. This "platano-chocolate chip bread"-style syncretism is organic, natural. It's not coerced. And organic mixing--when it results from a genuine love for the different items before you--is beautiful. Kinda like my love for the folks I met at Gordon. Cambridge-Latina meets white-suburban crunchy folks and by deafult, makes a concoction of platano-chocolate chip bread, among many other syncretisms.

Musings: A Work in Progress

It's beautiful you. And I'm not talking about smooth pore-less-porcelain skin-shiny -silk-hair-bone-structure-evident-no bulge-everything in its place-no-need-for cashmere-or-makeup-(with the possible exception of some natural looking eye shadow and some clear lip gloss).
Fearful that someone might see those enlarged pores up close? Oh yes.
Bouncing around with ease, can-wear-anything- 'cuz-anything-makes-me-look-like- those-American-apparel-and-Gap-models-in-Glamour-Magazine--Not an option.
But,I'm not talking about them. Not today, I'm not.
I'm talking about the things that pour out of you like streams. Your art and the colors you combine when you dress and the red and orange pastels you know how to mix to create sunsets and the messiness that you make the most out of or the cleanliness that marks your aura. How about that one strand of hair that curls and you just can't straighten or when the afternoon sunlight highlights your face. Or the hips that will serve you well during child birth. Or the thinness that reminds us of a ballerina (raise that chest up high, girl. No need to hunch over).
Or the 10 year old journals with coffee stains and mascara-tainted-tear drops.

I'm talking about the journey that has made you, the scars in your nervous system that make you strong, the breath that has carried you through during panic. Your idiosyncrasies that make you beautiful--
like willows aging over rivers or streams--
like charcoal spread out over paper, dirty paint brushes and oil paint-stained jeans
like the wrinkles on the corner of your eyes
or the laugh lines that are now there to stay
like corrugated wood, now turned into an antique desk
or that snaggle-tooth that presents itself every time you smile..or talk.

like dandelions with their nappy hair blowing in the wind, becoming one with the ground that grew them--
like Peruvian flutes singing over Andes for thousands of years--
like stories your great grandmother used to tell you and passed down to her children and theirs--
like getting ready for the day, 8:00 am smells of coffee against the crisp morning air
like a kiss on your forehead
like waking up next to your beloved as the sun peaks through the curtains
like cute little kids discovering the world with their tiny hands

This is your beauty. Your unshakable beauty--the one that says wrinkles take precedence over perfection. The one that looks like a bloody wound on skin but is, in fact, a rose beneath the surface.
Jasmin scent breaking through when you speak, not directly obvious on your rolls, fat or hair. Porcelain skin subtly glowing when you read. And struggle. And make it. Not directly obvious,
as they see pimples with their eyes instead of beauty with their souls.

A letter to the unproductive

Now, before you start feeling guilty for waking up at 11:30 am and going to sleep at 11:00pm, remember Saturdays are for sleeping. And winters-
for hibernation.
Now, before you start feeling guilty for sitting--
For spending the first half of your day unproductively, remember that there is still a half a day left to go--or three-quarters of a day. These windows of opportunity are there for you to take. And even if you choose not to take it, remember that you, by sheer fact of being you, are valuable.
Give thanks for the ability to breathe, for the gift of wonder, and that you got through the day with your 5 senses in tact.
Take your idle days as opportunities to evaluate what your body is telling you.
Take your messy room as opportunity- to learn lessons about what happens when you start with 1
1 thing at a time.
Take your funk as opportunity- to sit and wrestle with the sources of these feelings and learn about yourself--pushing the walls of your little corner just a little bit further.
A little, that's all, you need.

Scarcity

You've heard it was said *You can be anything you want to be*, but I say unto you, * our world is one of scarce resources and we must recognize limitations in order to be what we want to be.*

meh...

Do you ever wonder if anyone else ignores the cat poop in the bathroom because you somehow convince yourself that if you pretend it's not there, it will magically disappear?
Does anyone ever feel like there are not enough hours in the day to clean this cat poop so you, instead, proceed sit in front of your computer, doing mindless things for 4 hours?
Do you wonder if anyone else approaches practically everything in life this way:
Bills, homework, the trash, calling your mom.

Do you ever wonder if other people are hypochondriacs too?
What they do when they start feeling brain fog
Or how in the world they get themselves to start doing work when their head is pounding and they're stressed?
Does anyone else get overwhelmed about 3 months into doing any type of work, feeling like they can start things very well, wow everyone at an interview and give great first impressions and then slowly begin to wither and let people down---
Oh, and letting people down. Is there anyone else who's consistently under the impression that everyone's mad at you, frustrated with you and deems you generally incompetent to then let an overwhelming sense of defeat paralyze you, making this cycle a self-fulfilling prophesy?

I'm such a mess.

But I've realized that all it takes to get that spotless bathroom you've always wanted is precisely to clean things when they happen so that in a week you won't be running away from it even faster when it gets even more gross.
And to get that spotless credit report you never thought possible means paying the bill right when you remember to and not putting it off.
And to write that paper you're so overwhelmed by means that you need to start it now, just look at it, start reading, do something about it because the overwhelming stress will not magically disappear, nor will the cat poop, nor will the bills that are due. Just do it.

Reflections on travel

I was looking through my pictures today of Croatia and Budapest--beautiful pictures. One of my favorites is of Gornji Grad, where I had lots of time to reflect, meditate, pray, and make meaningful observations and connections. The intricate iron gates, the dim lit candles next to the cobble stone road, the many passers-by from all of the world. Many friends later told me, "I'm so jealous you got to travel to Eastern Europe."
But, the truth is, that while I spent many beautiful moments and meaningful moments in Eastern Europe this summer, I also spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to actually make my time there meaningful--arguably, more time trying to figure out how to make it meaningful than actually partaking in meaningful activities. I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of why exactly I was in a foreign city with little connection to the culture. The truth is that the words "Eastern Europe" and "cathedrals" sound cooler than the actual act of being there; that the whole time I was there I was thinking about how I could find meaning in a place I had little understanding of, I spent many nights missing family, many days doing nothing, many Saturdays waking up at 11am, aimlessly traveling on the tram, searching for things to do on a tight budget and mustering up the guts to talk to people I would probably never see again. Although the experience seemed way cool, a lot of the "coolness" of it came after-wards, when I was home in Boston, away from Ilica street and away from Novi Zagreb, when I was able to make sense of how pushing myself in this way had made a difference--how it had left a tiny mark on my journey. My travel this summer was a seed and I am only now seeing some of it's fruit. I imagine I won't fully reap the "coolness" of this experience until I am able to compare it to future travel and future experiences.