Life As I Know It

Outside the sun is shining, it’s a warm cozy afternoon. The wind is blowing the most perfect sounds of nature. The street is filled with people united by their location divided by their attention. I’m sitting in my front porch, with my legs stretched long in front of me, leaning back, resting on my palms. I’m looking at my niece play with our dog coco. Coco seems tired and worn out and it only takes for my niece to pull his hair for him to get mad enough to try and bite her hand. And there at 6 o’clock in the afternoon, on a street filled with kids playing and mothers immersed in conversation… My niece starts wailing. She runs into my arms and won’t stop crying. Even though the dog but snapped at her, in that moment, the shock, startled this little girl enough for her to cry as if her life depended on it. Everyone rushes to her and within minutes of my dad’s silly jokes and faces she starts laughing again. And just like that it’s over. She’s moved on to the next moment. If ever...

Days before my grandmother passed away I was hospitalized for stress and the lack of knowledge on how to deal with it properly. The following is bits and pieces of the last serious conversation I had with my grandmother. I held this advice the most dearest to my heart not knowing it would be the last… She sighs de eply and takes hold of my hand. “Hay mi niña . Don’t you know you can’t live till you let go. The past will have a hold of you, tearing at you; it will grab you by the throat if you just let it reel deep within you. No Corazon. No. Don’t let them have power over you or they always will. You gotta forgive baby. You gotta let go, and you gotta move on.” "But how do I do it grandma. I don’t know how to move forward. I feel stuck unable to move or to go on.” “Hay mi niña es que no aprendes . You hold on to things forever child. You love too much. You don’t know when to stop loving. You did it when you were 5 with a wounded bird that fell out of the tree. While eve...

“I wish I was a balloon.” - My friend says interrupting my thoughts. “What? Why” I replied startled. “Why not?” another friend chimes in. “I’d never come down, just drift off, and let the wind take me where it wants to take me” she says as she sighs deeply. I laugh realizing she’s right. Traveling in a balloon you can decide only when to start, and usually when to stop. The rest is entirely up to nature. It was a late summer day, the wind was blowing, and we were surrounded by the noise of music, rides, and conversation. We found ourselves with our legs stretched out, sitting on top of a blanket on a hill, observing as one by one hot air balloons were being sent into the sky. We sat there and watched how one by one was slowly but surely rising. And before we knew it the sky was filled with them, each with their own charm. Later on that day I got to thinking about relationships and about our own baggage that at times weighs us down and does not allow us to soar into t...

She sat a table away at a distance that allowed her to hear it all. In the dim light he never even noticed she was there. After all it wasn’t her he was concentrating on but instead on the person in front of him. He sat immersed in conversation with her. She watched as he took her hand in his. Looked deep into her eyes and was lost to her. And at an arms length away she heard him say that he was still in love with her. And that’s when it happened. She could feel her heart breaking to pieces. She could feel the blood rushing out of her body. Her chest tightening up and her breath coming out slowly. She wanted to learn the truth and from a table away the harsh reality splashed her in the face. There he was, the man she loved most, telling someone else something she never dared imagine. They say that truth hurts. That hearing it is a release of honesty but a sharp incision in the heart. The truth can free you of the anxiety but it can bind you to feeling the consequences of its re...

Once in a lifetime we meet someone who changes the taste of love for us forever… They said goodbye the same way they met. He asked her out to dance and she agreed. And in between the music and the beat of their heart their souls were intertwined. Within the laughter and the deep looks she locked her hands forever into his. They spent the next couple of weeks getting to know each other and going on multiple dates. Every minute and every second was spent building something so beautiful and so rare. Her soul was weary and her doubts were many. But he insisted. And as he took her hand in his. She just said “Please, please just don’t break my heart?” He smiled. Held her close and with a kiss they sealed a promise that they both believed.  Life though had different plans for them. Months after they started dating she became ill. Almost lost her life multiple times.  She spent the next year in the hospital in complete and utter desperation. There was only so much med...

Trust is everything in a relationship. It’s what keeps hope alive. It’s what helps you keep holding on to ideals like that it’s okay to put it all on the line. It helps you find this unexplained comfort among you and a person. It’s what helps make sense of things, that voice of reason. It’s this invisible bridge that has to be built, maintained, taken care of, but most of all never taken for granted. Like any bridge, it can take blows. You can hit the median many times but it won’t break to pieces just because. It takes a certain amount of pressure to find its point of weakness before it ever feels like you’ll fall off the edge. A relationship is no different. Most of us are good at taking blows. We don’t fall off our hinges at the sight of a blow. But even when it happens we are quick to re-enforce, re-build, re-structure. We have to. It’s the only thing that keeps us going. That’s not to say that it’s easy, it’s not. It’s work. At times we must put up our “Work ahead” si...

Me levanto en tu fotografía. Me levanto y siempre estas tu. En el mismo sitio cada día. La misma mirada. El mismo rayo de luz. El color ya no es el mismo de antes, tu sonrisa casi se borro. Y aunque no estés claro yo te invento en mis pensamientos y en mi corazón…. Si desapareces yo te encuentro en la misma esquina de mi habitación… …cada cosa en su sitio. El pasado y presente. En el polvo mis dedos se juntan y quiero tenerte cambiando conmigo... Me levanto en tu fotografía cada día invento una actitud y aunque no se note en blanco y negro no me desespero, uso mi imaginación…. I found myself a bit sleepless the other night. After a while I began to take out my picture box and albums. I hadn’t gotten through them in a while and they needed some rearranging. And I slowly drifted into memory lane. I searched through photos of family and friends, embarrassing moments, hideous outfits, hilarious haircuts, interesting poses, and gleaming smiles. The funniest at the bottom of th...

The following piece was requested in belief that among all things some virtues are worth fighting for. She sat there working on a vessel a few months ago and she needed a specific color of thread, but in her effort to get it out… all the threads got tangled together. Frustrated she sighs deeply and rolls her eyes. “Just what I need, more work.” She says out loud. Knowing that it was worth the work and both necessary she started the tedious work of untangling the threads one by one. It wasn’t easy to say the least. It required slowly taking apart what had intricately come together. And though at first she felt her time would be better spent doing something else… something told her to just sit there and keep at it. After all it was her mess to fix; no one else would do it for her. And though frustrated when there was no end in sight she took a few hours to pull them all apart. All the knots and the loops, all the ties and the bonds. And she got to thinking about honest virtues like f...

My writing comes in bits and pieces these days. I can’t quite put the words together. One thing is true, it’s the stories not spoken that we have the most to say about. With time we all learn to cope with what is going on in our lives in different ways. We pull out our heart and invest all our time to something to get us through. Some have hobbies that they turn all their attention to. Some retire to the darkness of four walls and memories. Others search laughter in the abundance of friends and things. Quite often than not, not sure of how or why you got there but in a way accepted the reality. I personally diverge my attention to many things. And though recovery has been long and very strained I’m finally in a place where my endurance can be tested. So on those days when everything wells up inside and I have not a way to express what I’m feeling. I blink back the thoughts. Tie my hair back. Put on my tennis shoes and I run. Running to me is a bit freeing and truly peaceful. It le...

Many years ago I wrote a piece on a dear friend of mine. At the time her story unraveled with a heartbreaking ending. But if anything remains true from that story is that she is and will continue to be the eternal optimistic… who always, always believes in love. She paced back and forth, looking at the door and back at her watch every few minutes. She was nervous and her hands were sweating. Finally to catch a breath she sits down and lets out a deep sigh. And she closes her eyes. It’s surreal to her how years ago this was the exact same spot she last saw him. Where he promised he loved her and that love was everlasting. The last place before their story crashed and unraveled. She never thought shed be back here again after the way it ended. Years had passed and life and time had taken their toll on their story. One she thought was signed and sealed, shelved on a book case and had become dusty with time. She got up at the sound of the announcer saying the flight had arrived. She l...

“Music has the power to move a person between different realities: from a broken body into a soaring spirit, from a broken heart into the connection of shared love, from death into the memory and movement of life." Dr. Deforia Lane I sit swinging back and forth. I haven’t been on a swing in a long time. The breeze is blowing and for a moment I get lost in yesterdays and its like I’m there again. On that old tire swing, in the middle of the courtyard, at my grandmothers ranch house. Where there is nothing to do for a girl but what is expected of her - clean and help cook. I was too young for either task so I played outside most of the time. Entertaining myself. In the morning when all the men were gone to the fields, and all the women ever did was cleaned and cooked I sat out on the swing out of the shooing of my aunts who never seemed to stop sweeping and mopping. So swinging, very close to the opened kitchen window, while the aroma of fresh corn tortillas and my grandmo...

It’s a hot summer Texas day. The sun is shining brightly and the sky is the prettiest shade of blue and clouds as fluffy as marshmallows fill the horizon. And there I am, sitting on the front porch, watching as my dad tries to teach my niece how to ride a bike. She’s so determined to be able to do it alone but she keeps falling over, and at one point runs right into a tree. And we get up frantically to help her every time but she just puts up her arms in the air and says “it’s okay. It’s okay. Otra ves abuelo”. And they reset and restart again. Over and over again. By the end of the afternoon she’s bruised, scraped, and very tired. But even after all that when my brother gets home she’s determined to show him what she’s accomplished. So she mounts up her bike. And proudly screams “I can do it, I can do it” just as she runs right into the fence and gets hurt. Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over expecting a different outcome. It’s ...

It was a late afternoon, the sun was long gone and the rain was pouring. I was tired and worn out. After a long day at work the drive home seemed endless. Maybe my mind had wondered off or I just wasn’t paying attention but within seconds my car found its way to the other lane. I swerved quickly as bright headlights flashed. There I was on a Monday afternoon, in the pouring rain, at 8 pm, completely spinning out of control. And though the wheel was in my hands I didn’t quite know where I was going. And just before I was about to hit the side rail it all stopped, my car, the sound of screeching wheels, maybe even my heart. I had come to sudden halt right before crashing. I sat there with my eyes closed, shaking from head to toe, slowly I felt my blood rushing back in, and my heart began to beat again. I frantically looked all around me and nothing had really happened. I didn’t crash into anyone, nor made anyone crash into any one else. But if you’ve ever been in a similar situation y...

I’m sitting in the waiting room of my doctor’s office passing the time by listening to music. But as my mind wonders off this woman’s voice, next to me, keeps rising. She is nagging at her husband like we women do. “You forgot to take out the trash. You never help me around the house. I do everything.” --- You know those one way conversations were everything is generalized and exaggerated. At the sight of her husband not responding she asks exasperated - “If I fell off the face of the earth you wouldn’t even notice would you?” “YEAH!” says the man loudly “Hello! You’d be on the news. “Woman who fell off the face of the earth.” I’d be on the news too! “Husband of such said woman”.” At the sound of this she starts laughing. And he gently grabs her hand and kisses it as she tells him she loves him. And I start to think how sometimes we get so wrapped up by life and its daily strain we forget the most important things. The things we so badly try to hold on to in a moment can cease to exist...

I watched as with her hands she wringed the handkerchief in her hand, trying to hold back the tears. “ I feel shattered. In pieces. Like he just took my heart and let it break. And all I can do is sit here asking “what if” for both the future and the past .” I sit there talking to a friend and listening as she’s telling me about how much her first love left her hurt and how the healing seems complicated. My friend finds herself completely jaded by her past relationship. The failure of it left her feeling unsteady, fearful, and a bit drained among other things. Which gets me thinking if every reaction is the same when it comes to failing at love? When given a harsh blow do we lose confidence and gain fear? Are we ever really ourselves again or do we with stand the time by building up walls and dodging the punches? I agree that love is a bit of a contact sport. Just like boxing. At the beginning of a fight both opponents seem to be completely invincible. They go in with total confidence....