We are officially in the future. Some would argue a dystopic mother-fucker of a future.  I know there are people who get paid to put it in a more alluring way. But enough of the self-deprecating. There is something else to talk about today.

Friends are great. I mean, all around it is great to have friends. Childhood friends are particularly special. When a child picks you, count yourself lucky. There is responsibility in that. And This is no Adam Sandler movie.  I was nine, mom and dad had been divorced for a year. Enter Whitney. I was worried, mom having a new fellow could go a million ways wrong. My sister kicked him in the shins, immediately drawing blood. Always be the first to draw blood. Now that hierarchy was established we could get on with the business of getting to know this person.

He was fun and funny. A seriousness interrupted by folly. If adults could be that way, count me in! Too inexperienced to realize the same made him very unreliable, among other life-threatening things. I wonder what you would say about the present state of things. I have a mind to light up to invoke you. I supposed that is where you can find friends when they are no longer around. I’m pretty sure of it. 

Through the eyes of a nine year old, you were like the grown-up movie kids could watch. It was funnier because you were not in fact a kid. Now Peter Pan Syndrome to start and narcissistic personality disorder to top. The guy who brought Pink Floyd and Radiohead into our lives. The signs were all there. When you found out I was smoking, I imagine you asked, what?  The utter disappointment it was tobacco. Joining the circus would have been a more amusing option. What possibilities that friendship would have opened up. Not to toot my own horn, but I am something of a conversationalist. Mind you, they aren’t all winners. I imagine it would have been great to have your input on a couple of growing-up matters. 

I wanted this third parent. Two were already great, the prospect of a third with very cool music and the knowledge of how to grow your own stash were just too promising. 

How many years have passed since that sunny day, one just like today, the day I found out you had died?  

It had all gone down two weeks before,  in Mazatlán. That is what I overheard 24 years ago. While clinging to the tree in front of my house, like a monkey, waiting for my mom to unlock the gate. I had forgotten my house keys. I believe your friend Pete was breaking the news to my mom. Talk about heartbreak. The whole situation broke her heart several times over. Irreparably I think. My mom’s face was the first crack in my heart. Those tears. Then..  

Why would you go out any other way? My first friend to bite the dust. I would later learn that it was just a matter of time, that the distance from the family was purposeful. No more cheerleader on the sidelines for joining the circus. You weren’t the type we needed at home, that is for sure. It was nice knowing you were around. Now, sometimes when I need that extra push to just be me, I imagine you would have said something witty and inspirational to say. Your voice through a nine year old’s understanding. Some lessons, and especially people are never forgotten.  Read

It’s on the way there, picking you up is not a problem. Click, or beep. Whatever hanging up the godforsaken phone sounds like these days. Catching up on calls, thoughts, projects… so much you can do in traffic. I love it. Listen to music, listen to me… 50 ways to make better use of your time in traffic. Paul Simon offers 50 ways to leave your lover. 50 thoughts in 50 seconds… Sounds like a challenge. A duel! To the death! AT DAWN, NO LESS!!!! For your honor Beatrice! For. your. honor! No. Interrupt, Interrupt! The topic is traffic. The mind wonders if you are bold enough to let it. What better place than among 50 strangers, in boxes, on wheels, there may even be a fox. So these strangers in boxes, a vision of what is to come, in a more compact model. Meandering thoughts. The box with wheels comes in all sorts of colors and sizes, for the young at heart and serious in the brow, there is something for us all. Don’t you want a box with wheels? Wouldn’t you love to feel the absolute solitude of encapsulated strangerhood? On roads? It’s the best time to think, practice your English (ejem… ) or another language, listen to my podcast, listen for the hidden messages…listen to songs that remind of your freer times, outside of the capsule. But right now you are here, I guess I’m here too. Next to you, watching you drive. No! Don’t change the dial! Don’t think about that part too much. This is just another voice, part of the environment. You are alone in the box with wheels. What color is it? What make and model is your box? Do you see other’s on the road, in front of you, behind you, to your sides? Are you looking in the rearview mirror? Hey… is your seatbelt on? When was the last time you got your brakes checked? How about that oil change? Have you considered converting to the faith of UBER? Have you heard the call?  So many things to consider. How are those car payments? Fun times. All so you can sit here, with me, and pretend there is no one else around. But, you are not the only person stuck in traffic. Sucks… Can’t read while you are here, can’t paint either. Can’t really work. Would be nice to make a friend as we are semi-parked here, waiting for this agglomeration of metal boxes to move forward.

Now let’s get down to this. The nitty-gritty. There is someone who obviously does not want to get home, or wherever they are going. It might even be you! You, holding up traffic, going a little slower than you should, you prick. People have places to go and people to see… Do you think we want to be in this traffic! DO YOU THINK THIS IS WHAT I WAS BORN TO DO?! What kind of cruel joke is this? 840 hours a year wasted on rush-hour! WASTED! I could have been learning something. Falling in love. Creating a masterpiece. At least one of you might have found the cure to a horrid ailment.

Hey, don’t forget to use your turn signal. Don’t get me started on the strangers in boxes that don’t use their turn signals. I hate that. I also hate when drivers fail to use the roundabout or traffic circle correctly. How about Sunday drivers abusing the high-speed lane on the highway. It is for the fast and the furious baby… off, off I tell you! I blame you.. Sunday drivers who would see us all suffer the loss of precious time just to get where we are going, to whoever is waiting on the other side. They say… by the way, who is they?? Can we meet?? I’d love to hear what else they say. Anyway… They say it’s the journey that matters…  that is life. The road most traveled and the other half less traveled. It’s all the same, you are on a journey. Those hours in gridlock are part of the experience...

Hello, Welcome. I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus.

I can’t wait to close my eyes and go to sleep. It is like living twice. Something similar happens when reading a book or watching a movie. There are stories that play out in spaces and times, other planes of existence, that enrich life as we know it. The first and most obvious for me are my dreams. And more recently, the space of dreams where I feel the presence of loved ones. As if that were the place where I can be with the person or people with whom I am not with in my waking world. It is a place that feels different than a dream. Sometimes I would prefer a dream so at least I could carry out a conversation with that presence. A presence that might accompany me till the moment I wake. When I wake, I only have the memory or recollection of presence. Generally a feeling of comfort and then the reminder that they are not in the waking place. Still feels as true as any given coffee date, party, or stroll down the street. A memory without a face or actions, just presence. I have come to accept this. I wonder if this happens to you too.

I also wonder, how they gained entrance to this place.  Who let them past the gates? Was it the shared laughter, the memories or the stories written? It must have been the laughter. 

In waking life, there are parallel worlds we can experience together. People who join bookclubs are organized in their travels. Sharing the experience from the same pages can be like taking the trip more than once on the same ticket. Each reader becomes a tour guide, pointing to different scenes, alerting the rest to the words and meanings that might have not been evident. I think they are pack hunters, thirsty for blood and guts and experiences borne from imaginations and recollections of others. There are those who read up on the context of the author, searching for clues in their life and surrounding political, social, technological, musical, and cultural contexts. Whethering Hights is not the same after book club, I am not the same after either. There are more voices and dimensions of the same story after a meeting with the story hunters. I love them.

In waking life, there is magic projected onto screens we congregate around in hollow rooms of darkness and overpowering loudness. As if we needed much to fall into a trance. Perhaps only 15% aware of the person in front of us because they laughed a little hard, or cheered the protagonist on. When this happens, the trance is not broken, this becomes a shared experience in which echos of laughter and grunts of indignation, shrieks from being startled, and sighs of relief constitute the stuff of group therapy. We share. And when we don’t share the same reaction, it is also significant. The most personal reactions, primal evicerations of soul happening next to complete strangers. All the while, breathing the same air, sharing the same sound waves and chemical reactions that make image. We are part of the chemistry experiment. The missing elements in the lab. We pay for this shared experience, a temporary voyeristic partnership and lift on the restrictions of the public expression of shame, sadness, pain, fear, angst, seemingly masked by the darnkess. Seemingly anonymous. It is not so dark we cannot see each others faces or hear each other’s voices. We are traveling together, we paid for our visa at the doo]]> https://rss.com/podcasts/musing-interruptus/2251993 09b6436f-9239-46e4-8b02-171d5f89bb72 565 full true Sun, 14 Apr 2024 15:34:17 GMT A brief intro...

Transcript:

Thanks for clicking play. Welcome. My name is Renée, which means to be reborn, a concept used to excuse following your heart.  A disclaimer… serious projects need a justification, there will be no such seriousness here. It is barely a promise of a collection of short thoughts I would like to share, for no good reason at all. I’m not too sure how much I want to say about myself, other than I love teaching, writing and the plethora of skills you develop when you are having good conversations. In some cases, I will be continuing age-old conversations by myself. I might however find people who want to chime in. I don’t think I will come up with something new. I’m just being realistic. I subscribe to the Fight Club adage, we are not unique snowflakes.  So, on with it!

Transcript:

Sneezing over thirty

Hello and welcome, what have you been up to today? I hope nothing good, as that generally makes for the best stories. I’ve been thinking about sneezing over thirty.

If there is something that irritates my husband, to no end, it is my sneezing. I pride myself on it. Seriously, I take longer strides just remembering how loudly I sneeze. Mind you, I never hid my outlandish sneezes while we were dating, I suppose he just never factored in what it meant to live with someone with chronic allergies.

There are many things I learned early on that I was sure would keep me out of trouble. I have been wearing sunscreen since high school. At 16, I received my first pang of what was to come, Oprah had a segment on it. I stayed out of the sun, mostly because I lived in a concrete jungle, far, far away from the sea, the only place I associated with the sun.  But before that, came sneezing. At age 14 I was scolded a couple of times for, what I like to call, petite sneezing.

Let me tell you about this. However uninteresting it may result to be, I feel committed to finishing this topic and recording this for you. Whomever you are. Is there anybody out there? Does this sneezing thing resonate with you at all? Let me know. I don’t have a landline, and this is not live,  but if I did, and it were, it would be open and I would say… I’m listening. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

Anyhow, the petite sneezing thing. A mousy-like sound squished under a pinched face while attempting to suppress any real semblance of pleasure and authority. - Yes, that is exactly where this is going. Have I lost you yet? No? This must be homework, thanks for staying. As I was saying, I was reprimanded for self-repression and what I know now, could have resulted in a ruptured eardrum, a ripped esophagus, and even, I mean, there is a remote possibility you get brain damage. I said remote… In any case, there is a reason we sneeze, that is the way the body liberates mucus and bacteria, and junk from our lungs. It gets rid of some of the toxic waste.

Now to sneezing over thirty….

Wait, we are just starting to get to know each other.  Let’s keep it moving… A good sneeze reveals your true voice. Or at least a part of it.  A proper sneeze lets everything out and should be simultaneously caught in the crook of your elbow. Like a vampire. Vampires are sexy, be a sexy, loudly sneezing vampire. Strut around that home of yours, preferably with protective wear. Kegel and strut. The more you know, right?

Are you still there? Do you sneeze too? How is your sneezing etiquette? Are you at all worried about brain inflammation or tears in your esophagus? I’m listening.

Hi. I was hoping you would come back.

I love listening. Listening is half of the conversation, isn’t it? Getting to know the person in front of you is the most important thing happening at that moment. It might be over coffee or tea, a glass of wine, medicinally, of course, a toke, medicinally, of course. Another’s humanity in their own words can be a gift. Today, I bring you some questions and thoughts on one of my favorite conversations.

Tricks and strategies don’t make for a good conversation. Good questions do. What do you like talking about? What kind of things do you like people to ask you? What you are passionate about provides for a great topic. You might say: what are you crazy about? What gets you geared up?

I’ll provide a short answer. For me it's music. I get lost and overwhelmed by music. It fascinates me to no end. From the strum of Mi on my acoustic guitar to James Marshall Hendrix’s electricity. Bootsy Collin’s bass, the in-a-gadda-da vida percussion solo, Queen and Paul Simon’s storytelling, the soft romantic revolution instigating voices of the Nueva Trova Cubana and Cerati’s bout with his psychoanalytic divan. It is useless to make a list. Rolling Stones magazine has a list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. They are experts.

As I turn and look to my past, my list of songs could seemingly go on infinitely, as I gaze at the future, I see that song path is closer to infinite. I’m overwhelmed again. It is music and what it makes me feel and think and imagine at the same time. I’m hooked on it.  I feel something release in my brain, which then seems to get lost in the sounds.

What are you passionate about? How did you realize it? Was it love at first sense? What kind of images do you use to describe it? Is there freedom there? Do you like to talk about it? I’m listening.

Are you down in the dumps (feeling sad), do you have the blues (feeling sad)? There is comfort in sadness. A childhood friend, a familiar place. A place where you can let it all out (to behave freely). It’s ok to be sad. This past year has had heaps (many) of sad occurrences for all; a sad set of affairs indeed (an unfortunate situation). Although there are many, many happy ones, we aren’t going to visit those just yet.

It is said that the saddest day of the year is in January. This year it was January 18th, next year it will be January 17th. I was curious about Blue Monday and, as it turns out, it was just part of a publicity stunt (BBC News). There is even an equation. Whether it's a blue Monday, once a year, or dark Mondays in general,  feeling the blues can take its toll (have a serious effect). When it comes to mental health, I am a proponent of getting down to business (do what needs to be done), of reaching out (getting in touch) for professional help and talking about it. It’s real and we all need to take care of it. I do.

That said, I’ll describe my perspective. Sadness comes with a certain modesty, it serves as a refuge to process and feel. You could say it is more than a feeling, it’s a place, a state of mind, and a haven (a safe place). I like to write there, read, and reflect. It’s a place of softness and dim (low) light. It is also a place where kindness can move me to tears. I know I shouldn’t stay too long. It’s not really a decision. It is not always comfortable either.

Leaving sadness has many approaches.  One of my father’s catchphrases includes - Everything in life is work, happiness requires work.- In certain cases and to a certain extent, I believe that it is true. The decisions we make, starting with how we view life’s slings and arrows (Hamlet uses this phrase to talk about the difficult things in life) and including the will to work towards our fulfillment count towards experiencing happiness. Others might propose working through the sadness, transforming it into art, gardening, painting, dancing. A  melancholic garden might provide the sweetest strawberries and plumpest tomatoes. Talking is a classic way through. But… What is on the other side of sadness? I don’t believe happiness is the opposite of sadness. The pendulum doesn’t swing from sadness to happiness, there are feelings that knock the pendulum in other directions. Anyway, there is no pendulum.  I started writing on a Monday, a dark Monday… I am wrapping this up (finishing) on a Thursday afternoon. Not happy, not sad, not angry. Contemplative and full of wonder. Wonder should be a more commonly felt and expressed feeling.

Well, there you have it, a few idioms to express sadness and other ideas and an invitation to share how you experience sadness. I’m listening. Before I go… The happiest day of this year was June 20th  according to those calculations I mentioned earlier and Google. Did you feel it?

BBC News, Blue Monday, Why its a Load of Rubbish https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-51173730

Today, a story… or maybe just the start… An Education and a Fascination.

Listen, she said. Listen and you can hear the universe expand and contract. Like breathing. We are all part of it. The woman’s voice was impossible to dismiss (not consider), you could hear the years, you could see them in her crinkly (wrinkled) hands. Her granddaughter listened intently (with great attention), she knew there were truths she would not learn anywhere else. She also knew that it was the only place she would confirm if magic was real.

Lorena was 14. Her surroundings felt dull, the air stale. The old house was built in the seventies, it was the nineties. The walls were covered in yellowing wallpaper. She was eager (really wanting to) to learn the secrets of the house and the people who lived there. She was used to ferreting through (looking, rummaging) her parent’s things; her grandmother’s house held a promise of treasures yet to be discovered. Of course, as most stories between a granddaughter and a grandmother, the greatest treasures were found in the companionship, friendship, complicity, and bridge to the past.

Listen, the old woman said. You can do what your heart desires, it is there for the asking and the taking. Look beyond what you think you know and trust in the connection you feel. The closeness you feel with me, the memories we have made, let that be part of the energy you send out to the universe, be part of it, let your particles dance. Don’t be afraid.  She took Lorena’s hand in hers. Close your eyes, the old woman’s voice was soft. Lorena shot out a  guarded (not wanting to show her thoughts) and wary (cautious) smile. This is probably one of her stories, she thought to herself. She can’t be serious. She is the oldest adult in the family.  Her grandmother began to breathe in and out deeply. A humming noise from the back of her throat. Lorena imitated the breath. She could smell the years on her grandmother’s exhales. She tried to control the breaths. Breathe in now, she thought to herself, shortening her exhale. Now they were breathing in time. Lorena couldn’t focus on her breath anymore, her grandmother’s hand felt so fragile. Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice…

Move your energy from the inside out, put your feelings in it, send the feelings out, project them like a light, hold your focus on your energy, hold it there until you feel it is constant. Lorena started to feel it, she felt it and imagined the places it was going, she sent it to the trees, she sent it past the neighborhood park, she sent it to envelop (cover/surround) her best friend. She sent the best of herself, imagining she was sending protective energy. She also couldn’t get away from the image of colorful bears fighting evil with their belly powers. Lorena didn’t laugh. She wanted to…

The next day at school, she looked at her friend from the other end of the classroom. She wondered if it had worked. She knew her friend needed to be protected from something. How she wished her energy were enough. Would her friend think she was crazy if she said all of this out loud? She had until recess to think about it. That gave her four classes to make a decision.

So there you have it, gentle listeners. Tell me, does Lorena’s experience ring true to you? Or is it all just fun and games? I’m listening.

Language allows us to name ideas, people, and things. Objects come into existence through recognition (identification) when we name them. We create and destroy realities and perception with words. Needless to say (it is obvious), words matter. For a writer, words are everything. For a child, it is the difference between getting attention and getting exactly what he or she wants. Setting aside the matter of actually knowing what you want… knowing how to ask for it, is the most important thing. It’s not just a matter of assertiveness, but word selection.

The words we choose to use indicate our ideological stance (belief), education and expertise or lack of expertise on certain topics, where we come from, maybe even where we are going. The way I see it, the words we use communicate much more than the idea or image of something; through words, we present elements of who we are. Naming things into existence, like stories, is an amazing phenomenon. It’s fantasy, something unreal that undeniably exists when we repeat or read the stories. Our parents named us. That name holds energy, hopes, and some might say, a part of our destiny.

You may or may not like your name. I love mine, by the way. Some people prefer (like better) to change their name because it doesn’t become them (be suitable/appropriate). We are allowed to do this because we deserve to feel represented. Who we are, is all we really have. In practice, most of us discover ourselves through experience and reflection and struggle with social impositions. I wonder what type of world we would live in, if people were provided a safe space to discover themselves and were not forced to fit into molds. It’s revolution baby, the molds have been broken throughout history. It’s nice to be nice in a world which elicits (bring out, prompts) defensiveness; a place where we are ready to protect ourselves where the State cannot. Words matter. When something is named into existence, there is a better chance to create laws to defend and protect people and the environment, culture. Childhood and adolescence were not always a thing, much less protected… just ask the workers with less than 10 years of existence in factories during the Industrial Revolution (of course, this is not a thing of the past… enforcement of the law is another topic). Now we have the rights of the child and even concepts such as late adolescence… in your late twenties. The fact of the matter is, creating words that are better suited to a person, group, situation…  can result in rights, like human rights, labor rights, and the right to be who we discover we actually are. Doesn’t everyone deserve to be who they are?

Language evolves with the discovery and understanding of our surroundings and ourselves. I like to think about the inventions that we have left behind, along with many words that have been slowly forgotten. I’ve never had a rolodex, my contacts are floating in a beautiful heavenly cloud, I think, and I have only used a fax machine once. I never called a flight attendant a stewardess. Picture shows and penny arcades are places I’m sure I will visit once I have my Delorean up and running (functional). The ice box in old movies and black and white shows had an actual block of ice...My refrigerator doesn’t need a block of ice, it gives me little cubes of ice that I use to cool my martini, shaken not stirred. VHS could stand for very horrendous streaming,  [...] What do you think about words? What are your favorite words? What are your least favorite words? I’m listening.

I’ll start with the practicality of making friends after your 30s. It’s not. People are generally not forthcoming, their guards are up, Shields up, Scotty! I have a few choice words, not politically correct, which come to mind. Basically, several adults are pusillanimous and prove we have never actually escaped Hobbes’ state of nature. Whatever is behind this is more of a chicken and the egg situation. The question might be: were people hurt and therefore decided to shut the world out, or are people intrinsecly meanies? Either way, it seems that life Sucks. The underlying issue is trust and motivation. Can you trust the person who smiles at you? Are they motivated to get something from you? Are you just a means to an end? Can your boss be your friend? You won’t truly know until the power relationship is gone. Don’t get me started on car salespeople. Is there friendship after psychoanalysis? I’d never thought much of the situation until someone indicated my classes were like talking to a friend. Like? I thought I was a friend.

Kindergarten was easy. Wanna play? Here’s my truck, can I play with your blocks? Parents would set up playdates, we played, we fought, we lived to play again another day. There was no need to be friends with everyone. If it didn’t work out, that was life. Then, elementary school came along and along came the bullies. These poor children most likely suffered abuse and abused others. We still have a problem with that at schools. Nobody seems to know how to get a handle on it. At that age, kids know where they stasnd. Friends are crucial during those years. Those friendships were honest, there was no second-guessing involved. If you said, let’s be number one best friend forever, you were. I still think of my number one best friend from time to time. We are Facebook Friends.

So many types of friendships happen between kindergarten and our twenties. Real friends, new friends, old friends, friends who are old,  fake friends, friendly friends, fickle friends, fierce friends, disappearing friends, Facebook friends, Frenimies, On Wednesday’s we wear pink,  the six chicks, the pink ladies, Breakfast Club of Misfits, the friends you go to the Coffee Shop on Tuesday’s with (CLAP, that is supposed to be the clap that you know), the friends you go to the pub with, which are not the same friends you go pub crawling with, abooga booogada boogada hahaha (that is another reference), friends you talk about sex with, friends you have sex with, army buddies, dead poets that join a society, friends who will stand by you, and friends you complete your bucket list with, oh wait… the friend you sit on the porch with as you age.  My early twenties were great, it was so long ago for me that it might as well have been kindergarten. I’m that old now. Beware of my sneezing, old. Friends were easy to make. Between Friday evening and Monday morning, legends and friends were made. I wonder what the forties and on have in store. I’m just going to jump over the thirties because I’m still processing the whole Did that really just happen? Factor. In any case, difficult or not, making friends at any age is worth it, not just because of the opportunities to remake certain key movie moments, but because of the potential of making your own epic stories that have never been told in that way, through the eyes of happiness, laughter, solidarity, a part of your home.

Do you like your friends? I mean, really like them?...

Elegant, sleek (stylish), poised (graceful), well-dressed, coifed (nicely done hair), well-mannered (polite), and highly educated. She always has the perfect thing to say, a topic laced (mixed) with the right amount of amusement. He moves around his environment without hesitation. Nothing can stir (excite) or disturb (bother) them. Animatronic androids. Fuck you and the horses you rode on. White steads, for sure. Stay in your coffee commercials and James Bond movies. I have no time for you. My love and admiration go out to the everyday people who share and invite you to share in the experience of life. That is one of the most basic experiences of them all.

Being invited into the lush greenery of life, luminous, loving, my goodness, the joy, and excitement. That is fun and invigorating (energizing). Nobody regrets that. Nobody comes up with archetypes out of happiness and comfort, you don’t need them. Ah, beware, there is a part of life that we are taught not to share. To do our best not to show. Because #architype. Life is not a shampoo commercial. We do not live in Pleasantville, however much our instas try to show we do. The best parties, food, food, food, my god the picture of food, families, perfect smiles, even grief has the perfect picture. Nonetheless, the pictures and excerpts are there. They are so telling of our need to connect and share.

There, within the rough stuff, dark thoughts, lapsus (when we say something unintentionally), pain, the undeniable reality we live, we feel, we hurt, we make mistakes, say the wrong thing at the wrong time, desire that which is out of reach, the things we do to reach. Laughter revealing reality. Making a joke that comes off mean and is misunderstood! That space, otherwise reserved for therapists and sometimes a very close friend.

What happens when you are careless and blurt (suddenly speak) it out to the wrong group. Ohhh I’ve overshared all over again! Right in front of the mean girls, the shallow, beneficiaries of an unguarded moment. Work people! Noooo! Humanity at work! Save me now! My humanity is showing! Panic. Clammy hands. A knotted-up throat. Seething with regret. Of course, this has an internal component, the responsibility and the capacity to live and accept ourselves. This is fundamental. There is also the component of who is listening. Who is there? Who is receiving our humanity? Is there compassion and empathy on the other side? We might not feel we have gone on a word binge, sidestepping altogether the shame hangover, if the right person is on the other side.  Let’s get serious here for a minute. People could be nicer to each other.

Are you doing your part? Or are you a heinous (absolutely hateful and morally wrong) repressive critic of the people who surround you and their most human and delicate vulnerabilities? No judgment! :P Are you capable of true kindness? Which comes down to your capacity to be accepting of yourself, humanity, and darkness. Are you listening? Because I am…

Dusk (the darkest part of night) arrives with rain pouring and battering the windows, howling winds push the sun into the ground. I could clearly see the path I longed (really desired or wanted) to take when I arrived. Certainly, it was drawn in my brain. How complicated could it be to remember a path?  I had been there once before. How difficult would it be to walk down that path as night erased it?

Would I dare venture into the darkness, relying solely on my memory? Would there be obstacles to trip me? Would the rain create a slippery (smooth and wet) path? If I slipped, would I slide straight into the cold, dark lake? What sort of creatures come alive when the sun goes down? So many questions. Only one way to answer them. Or was there?

With the flip of a switch, a bulb amongst the trees lit up. Our own private moon, I thought to myself, since no one else could share my mind at that time. Shadows were born and questions were answered. Relief (feeling of calm) spilled over me, rolling down my nose and chest, down my back and calves, out my fingertips, like light. What is that in my pocket, a pocket full of cookies or apocryphal (not real) cookies? The light helps discern reality from the props (accessories) left about.

That bulb was the voice and the blessing I didn’t know I needed, but so gracefully accepted. I was among chiaroscuros, not (just) light, not (just) dark. Shadows are tricky, seeming one thing, maybe a scary, frightening thing. To confront the matter (material) they are really made of, takes the mystery away and creates friends where foes (enemies) were thought to be found. Inhale bravery and exhale freer. Stomp, stomp, wherever I was going, I would be sure to go on purpose. Stomp, stomp. If they find me, they will tell from my footprints that I did not tread lightly nor pusillanimously (not bravely).

Each step I took, I focused on light, crisp air, raindrops, and the sound of my breath. Sheer (pure) happiness inside was met with the joy hiding in the dark, just waiting for a playmate.

Some of the finest people and moments are found where our sight seems to have failed and our senses must kick in. What do you call a light, seemingly misplaced, which fortuitously (luckily) is switched on when you need it the most? A metaphor which can have many interpretations, names, faces, places or things, you know, nouns,  which become examples of serendipity and synchronicity.

My dear listener, tell me about your moment of illumination. Where were you? Do you think you would have made the same decisions? Would you have arrived at the same place? Did the light make your travels any easier? Were the trials and tribulations lessened? I’m listening.

I am thinking of a cartesian plane to organize the mistakes or mishaps (an unlucky accident) in life. Where do mistakes come from? Whether it is ignorance, lack of perfection or plain and simple humanity. Mistakes happen. Sometimes we walk right into them, with our eyes wide open, alarms going off, left and right. Others we are completely blindsided (unexpected). On the spectrum from ignorance to I meant to do that, I imagine all my mistakes. They can be on the x or horizontal axis. I’m not sure what I would put on the “y” axis. I might need your help on that one. Maybe the degree of shame and the ripples (small waves in consecutive circles) the mistake makes in your memory. Heading towards minus infinity on the y axis might take us to an altogether different plane of experience, it might be the pre-experience plane. But I digress (speak of something different than the main subject).

Mistakes, some have made a few, I’ve definitely made more, countless mountains of faux pas (embarrassing mistake in a social situation), I’ve put my foot in my mouth (to say something without tact and foolish), swallowed my words, gotten red in the face, broken things…I’ve accidentally made cigarette holes in car interiors, twice.. sent messages that were better off in my diary, forgotten to do things, gotten caught looking in the wrong direction, overshared, and under shared. I’ve overstayed my welcome and given too few hugs. That’s life, right? Live and learn.

How we approach life and mistakes makes a difference.  I think it would be wise to learn how to make mistakes so they become learning experiences and life lessons, instead of the causality to punitive measures. I mean, within reason and the law, of course. When it comes down to brass tacks (the basic facts), it is not that easy to break the law in a heinous manner. No, this is not a challenge. Do not unsheath (take the sword out of its case) that sword, yet. I’m really focusing on the mistakes that feel a lot bigger than they actually are. What a horrid word, mistakes. What horrid people who revel in your mistake. It says a lot about them. Beware. Holding oneself up to extraordinary standards and expecting others to live up to them, with the sole  (only)  alternative of punishment, is downright sadomasochistic. Yes, it takes two to tango. I have so appreciated the people in my life who have reminded me that it is human to err  (make a mistake), it is the mark of great learners and success to have the humility to learn, execute, fail, and learn. Get back on the metaphorical horse, in some cases, it's a real horse. Whatever is in front of you, learn to ride and learn to fall. That not only takes the sting away, but it might also make for better living. The Judeo-Christian approach includes absolution. Why not allow that for ourselves. Get rid of the Y-axis altogether. Just live and learn, without the attachment of punitive measures, shame, and mental anguish. God, how I love the voices who made those moments alright, bearable, and even pointed me in the direction of learning. Those natural teachers. I salute you and thank you.

What have been your worst mistakes? Were they really that bad? Have you had an amazing teacher in life who has shown you to live, humanly? Do you help others do this? I’m listening.

Numbers, my dear, can give you information about your personality and what life might have in store for you. From that perspective, so much rides on the day you were born. The luck of the draw.  Seems as unfair as being directed by the sun, the moon, the planets.. Something is rising or ascending… The house of the rising sun? No, no… that is a song about prostitution. Being born under a star is a shoo-in for a charmed life. What cosmic fuckery is this planet about? Paul Simon calls it being born at the right time. Being lucky in love and unlucky at cards. Seems like the universe totally balanced that one out. Let me tell you, I pulled an all-nighter with some friends… The poker game of the century, from where I was sitting… I mean, I wish the stakes had been high. We played till four in the morning. I won the whole pot. The implications that it was a friendly game, and that I walked away a winner with empty pockets must mean something! So, what does it mean?

Is it possible to change your luck?, regardless of the numbers, the planets, and God forbid getting the evil eye. I decided to look into it. You can! For just 99.99 you can change your luck forever. Seriously, just call. An operator is standing by to take your call. But I digress… Is it possible to change your luck? You can bury the bourbon, knock on wood, make a wish at 11:11 or 4:20.. Either way, something good is sure to happen. What happens if you walk under a ladder, in reverse or glue together a shattered mirror? How about crossing a black cat’s path… that’ll show them! Drink four-leaf clover tea or mix it in with your yerba mate. I wonder if wearing horseshoes will improve circulation.. A good bleed might be all you need. Keep rosemary by your garden gate, so you don’t forget to use it when you are making chicken. In that case, keep all the herbs you need close by. To not have them is obviously bad luck. At least, untasty.

There is another approach to changing your luck. Just go in the opposite direction of what you have been doing. Say yes to life. There are movies around that, self-actualization literature and yes, surely a couple of gazillion podcasts on it. There might be something to it. Just say yes. It’s obvious to me that when you say yes you get to do new things, new challenges. Heck, at least you won’t be in the same place as the bad luck. It’s just good common sense. As most old wives’ tales prove to be. I’m an old wife. Cheaisus  meri end yosef.. . because that is what we say when we realize truth. Another approach is to create synergies. This is also quite pragmatic. I have recently started a letter-writing campaign to get the cogs a-movin'. My first letter was to John… Dear John, I have a new bicycle and your services are no longer required. Have a great life. Sincerely done with you. 

Wait, the synergy would be with the bike... Ok, another letter. Dear Prince of Nigeria, Thank you so much for reaching out. I have always felt a piece of my heritage was unaccounted for. Thank you, and thank you for the wealth. I will deposit what you ask and make preparations to away to your side. Please prepare the spare room. Or castle? I’m not picky. Your faithful relative…

Well, enough about the secret to my success. What do you do? Do you believe in luck? Are you feeling lucky, punk? Are you? I’m listening.

People say it all sorts of ways, in different languages, and spaces, they sing it to the tune of their favorite song, they might send letters with hidden messages, other times they are overt messages, in plain sight, or maybe they are hidden in plain sight, some people use their voices, perhaps in undertones, speaking words from across the room, relying on their stare to carry their messages, like carrier pigeons beaming out eye sockets… there are people who use their hands,  maybe signing messages that are bursting from the heart, others send out vibrations to the universe. They, me.. Who knows.

It’s fresh coffee at 6:00 am, a delicious breakfast, a hug given at our most vulnerable, to keep the sensitivity from spilling onto the kitchen floor. A game that has no name that you just play. A phone call out of the blue, you know… just because. Listening quietly, or expressing indignant outrage in solidarity. Asking questions. Making the perfect gift, or even just remembering to bring a gift. Proposing with gigantic letters from the first major skyscraper in Mexico City, did you see that? Or a secret indecent proposal you blurt out, out last.  A friend showing up at a funeral, or any given Sunday to shoot the breeze. It’s patience and the colors purple, red, and teal. Going out of your way to give a ride. Going out of your way for someone else, period.

Lord knows it's not easy being green. Some languages seem more prone to love than others. Portuguese’s namorados, who in Spanish might say te amo, and chase it in French’s with a Tu me manque, you are missing from me. In psychoanalytical terms, I accept you and your neurosis… isn’t that the basis of honest friendship? True partnership. True love. That level of acceptance is special. I embrace you and your need for reassurance, thank you for not forgetting mine.

It's a love revolution and people are sharing themselves more and more. Closeted lovers of people and life manifest in the streets, wearing face masks. Thinking of the other and not just him, her or themselves. It's the student that becomes the teacher, perpetuating a virtuous cycle. Realizing you have the vocation to serve humanity, somehow, somewhere. Childcare, medicine, education, parenting, policing, studying… idealist bastards of a heartless production system, indeed.

Well then, let's have it, how do you say I love you? Who do you love? Do you have a favorite love song? I’m listening.

Certain situations in life invite us to turn off the receptive areas in our mind and body. Life’s constant hum can be tiresome. Hum hum hum. Like a machine that is constantly on. The sound comes from the friction of its parts. The pitch of the hum, the volume, the intensity. They all have an effect on us. That, which is happening outside and is received by our core, can be pollution or nutritious energy. Fundamentally that is what it is. Energy. That is how I explain the feeling I have when I look around my neck of the woods or go to the forest. There is a quiet quality to these spaces.

This is a recent discovery for me. I am content to not be invaded by the sounds of the city. I used to need city noises. By George, I had those noises in spades. Grunting trucks and buses that exhale loudly, bellowing for attention. They are spinning their wheels, rushing towards a fainting couch. Interesting how the fainting couch is a cousin of the divan. In both cases, there is a loss and regaining of consciousness. The buses where I used to live will never achieve consciousness… they are so unaware of the havoc they are responsible for in the city. I remember listing the requirement of city sounds to fall asleep. The absence of bustle made me uneasy. Was it an addiction to the creation of neurosis or naming the malaise… needing the malaise? I couldn’t tell you any more than a patient could during open-heart surgery or a passenger on a plane who is asleep. Consciousness is best attained over a soft couch. Running into reality without that comfort can be a nuisance. Speaking of such, a sharp desire led me to live in a place of quiet… hush sounds and pleasantries. The constant hum may or may not be there. On the other hand, being alone with my thoughts is a welcome novelty. Those are the inner sounds. Sometimes soft and others towering symphonies. Symphonies… well… something.

Quiet solitude soothes the soul and provides the space to be who one is, without the struggles and noise that distract attention from what is most important. The construction of life, and more specifically, life on our terms. I admire those who work on higher and more visible planes, who practice a political life and shape power relations. Something is obviously not right, as the hum of injustice is strident as ever. There is a time to be in the thick of it.  There are people who have the constitution to endure those processes. Agents of change. Changers of strident hums of the world. Then again, there are people who take on smaller parts, who work to enact change elsewhere, in quiet places, people who prefer anonymity. They are no less relevant, just less visible. They change the hum as well. They just don’t have very good PR. ...

There was nothing more terrifying than what was in the closet or under the bed when darkness sank over our heads. That which cannot be seen and only heard is a heart attack waiting to happen. God bless young hearts. I was certain that I needed to be in the know when it came to personal defense and vampires. Unfortunately, I didn’t know there were some rules that innately protected me. I learned more when I watched Let the Right One In. Many nights of headache would have been avoided had I known that you have to invite vampires in… they can’t just let themselves in or fly through the window. My reasoning led me to consider the use of a broomstick for impaling and the protection of a mirror, as I was certain that any vampire, while trying to trick me, would avoid any mirror, as it would reveal, rather, fail to reveal their reflection. This now makes very little sense to me. Go figure, perhaps I was not that bright. Mind you, my plans for protection were always concocted with what little energy I had left, as Morpheus pulled me into never-never land... That is another mind fuck, in itself... I mean come on… pirates, grown men, angling against flying children. Talk about scary situations. Back to those vampires. They never came. I mean, vampires were interviewed, twilight came and went, I sleep with the goddamn window open, no mirrors anywhere in the room, impaling apparatus out of sight, and this seductive older gentleman bloodsucking fiend is nowhere to be found. It's a classic catch 22. I over-protected from vampires as a child, it seems too well.

Why, you ask, would a grown woman ever consider such a thing? Why do I do most of the things I do, would be my answer… first of all, it entertains me… but secondly, there is sound logic behind it. Consider this: dreams are a way of processing emotion. Our minds are hard at work making sense of our experiences and our perception of those experiences. Dreaming is part of that process. So nightmares are based on reality… therefore vampires are real. I am at a loss, forsaken by my demon…  I am just now realizing that once again, I have forgotten another important vampire rule… garlic. I love garlic. It's good for the heart, the gut and it tastes amazing. However, no vampire in their right mind would risk it, no matter how enticing my jugular vein is.

Short of a psychotic break, and following my evidently sound argumentation process, I wonder about our imaginary friends from childhood, would they make an appearance? If they did, would they have free will? Would there be a battle of villains against bears that care with their tummies? Would the villains of the past maintain their status? Nightmares are outgrown, heroes too. That is the natural progression, for those that mature… Are you mature? I’m listening.

A sonic boom ripped across the galaxy when the star formed, other stars exploded, others are born.. Infant stars. They are made of the stuff of the stars before them. We share that matter.

Trust the elements Lorena, trust what you are made of. In that sense, the most basic things in life can be trusted, for better or worse. When you are in doubt, search for these elements and construct reality as best you can.

Lorena looked up at her grandmother, wishing she could learn from her heart and her experience. As if there were a way to avoid the learning curve… her expectations were always ahead of the learning curve.

The  wide-eyed girl tried to soak up everything going on around her. She wanted to understand it all, she especially wanted to remember everything. She hoped to remember enough to be able to recreate the events with brush strokes and words. She was so present, she felt her molecules expand and dissipate until she became as light as the air, certain that her presence was no longer felt. She felt this was something she was good at. However it was not something she could control. As a child, she often felt that way. It was as if she had the ability to be unseen. Not invisible, she wasn’t an idiot. It was more about the illusion of stealth. As she grew older, it was as if she could become absent from herself. Not exactly daydreaming. Was it the mark of a romantic soul? An old soul, perhaps. A new soul, in awe of life. She had what she felt was the unique ability to find beauty everywhere. Lorena sometimes worried she would space out during an important event or worse, a life and awareness altering conversation. Lorena knew she needed to listen for the teachings. She knew that greater truths were between the lines of what was said. It was a struggle. She would lose track of conversations and time. She considered the prospect of losing herself to that place all together if she didn’t react in time. ¨Pull herself back to where things actually happened. That place of solitude where nothing is happening, and nothing matters, the inside place of comfort, on the wrong side of presence. That might as well be death. She teetered between these two spaces. A pas balancé, to a rhythm she had no control over.

Lorena’s grandmother’s name was Leonor. A woman who lived in her own right. She seemed immune to everyday problems. Life was old hat. Her certainty was founded on experience, not just a set of beliefs. An avid participant of life. Although it was unclear if she navigated life or simply knew how to survive tidal waves. In anycase, life didn’t present a challenge anymore. It was death she was preparing for. Leonor was determined to enjoy her granddaughter. This was part of the sweetness life had offered her. The eldest daughter of her eldest son. She was easily enchanted by her children’s babies. Her heart had enough love to go round. She had her favorites. Lorena was one of them. Since she had Lorena’s ear, she quickly capitalized on the opportunity to impart her wisdom, many times skirting just how she had come to know the things she knew. Today, her mind was set on teaching her granddaughter how to keep a grasp on reality.

Leonor could see Lorena coming a mile away, she also knew what life would have in store for her. [...]

Saying goodbye can be sad. Some stories will haunt you, even if they are not your own. A friend that held her husband’s hand in his final hours, the words she whispered. The woman that took care of her ailing husband after a lifetime that had led them down separate paths. The children who sat vigil of their father’s final hours. The parents who survived a child. The grandchildren who learn about the soul-searing loss on a Sunday morning from a parent. Most of the stories are love stories. That is the ingredient which gives saying goodbye a big dose of hurt. Ego and attachment are another, but I won’t get into those. Not today. Today is about the other side of goodbye after the mourning clothes have been put away.

Afterlife happens on different planes. The belongings of our departed hold energy, either because we bestow them with energy or because our loved one did. Whatever your belief, decisions on what happens to those things can be a mire. Whoever deals with it is probably the person who most needs to. Sitting with loss, processing it over and over until the rooms our loved ones once inhabited are empty. However empty you think you have left a place, there are memories of life that remain. That cannot be packed up and shipped off to the Good Will or auctioned at Sotheby's. Once the rooms have been cleaned and you walk away, the echo continues within. Some utterances unintentionally on a loop, some phrases that become their legacy. At first it can be overwhelming. As time passes, and part of their energy remains present, the living might find ways to honor that energy. There isn’t a physical place, most times of the year.

Some visit graveyards, niches in a church, special places, where mourning is welcome. In Mexican culture, we are taught that respect for our dead can manifest as a celebration of their lives through memory and physically creating a spread of what our loved ones most enjoyed. An altar to their life and memory. We prepare the path for them to come back, once a year, we sit with their memory and energy more openly. Drinking and eating their favorites, listening to the music, maybe saying a prayer, or just talking. It’s ok to cry and laugh, to sing and let oneself sit with their loved ones because they have permission to be there, on November 1st and 2nd. You see, we say goodbye to the physical body, to what hugs and kisses felt like, to their breath and smile. The rest of the person is invited to stay and roam or just stop for a visit. Sometimes even intercede. Who's to say?

In the US we have Halloween, a Celt tradition that would also welcome their dead back, in time to celebrate the harvest of the year and prepare for the roughness winter had in store. Survival included communion with the energy of their loved ones. A combination of both types of sustenance for the cold season to come. The harvest and the spirits of their departed. Presently, a different type of celebration has evolved. It's more the practice of camouflage, to trick the spirits who might want to pull the living to the afterlife, ahead of time. It's a matter of survival. As we know, not all spirits act on their best behavior, just like when they were human. Dying does not make your energy better, so you’d better do that in your lifetime. A good costume is required after 8:00 pm on October 31st, to make sure you can pass undetected among the spirits that come back to play on All Hallow’s Eve. The Catholic religious tradition starts on the evening of the 31st and culminates on November 2nd. If you ask me what I like or celebrate. I do both. They are both part of my spiritual life. They both help me feel close to my friends

The conversation is set in a park. It is autumn and the light has changed along with the crispness of the air. We see a rock wall sprawl across the park, which actually seems more like a clearing in the woods. They sit, side by side, with a cup of coffee and heavy sweaters. They were hell-bent on developing their game: Not a Musical - conversations through lyrics-

Friends since college, best friends. In good times and bad times, birthdays, conversations spanning over years, boring Wednesdays and hangover Sundays, 3 am calls, always on call.

Their backs are visible to us. Cotton sweaters in earth tones and the steam from their coffee cups escaping back into the sky. I need to tell you something, says the sweater on the left. I have a feeling that things are going to change, and soon.  - Ahh, you mean the winds of change, says sweater on the right. Well, not the end of the cold war, change… but change. Like, cha cha cha changes. Ahh, Ra ra ra right. Answered sweater on the right. So, what’s going on? Sweater on the left clears throat… mmm mm, It comes easy to me, to communicate through songs, because there are words that sometimes cannot come out in the right order. The added bonuses are the beats and sounds that come along with it, giving the message an assured release of dopamine. Go on, said Sweater on the Right.

Sweater on the left shoots a glare peeping under the eyebrows. Ok, I basically asked you know who to Sway my Way… Wait… exclaimed Sweater on the Right, Michael Bublé or Bic Runga? Bic Runga… said Sweater on the Left. I finally did it. It was perfectly horrible and wonderful at once, in a single breath it's like the Earth shifted on its axis. I’m walking on the Moon, Police Style. Standing there, face to face. Snow Patrol’s Life on Earth coursing through my veins and out my voice.

- huuuuu , exhaled Sweater on the Right. Finally. You know, whatever happens after this, you will forever have that moment, when the inside words became outside words. Bravely.

Sweater on the left continued… I can’t tell you how many times I imagined that moment. Intoxicated, caged, and then set free. I became an expansive wave of energy. I can’t tell you how many times I backed down before that moment. But today… today, I walked away,  in a very New Radicals, You Get What You Give way.

We both have great loves in our lives. Music is one of them. It’s not the most important. The people who make that music relevant are the most important. The experiences we craft can be as magical as we imagine. And the moments that surprise us, those treasures. Well, I’m sure you know what to do with those.

Thank you for listening, thank you for clicking. Send me audios or write me, on Anchor, Facebook, Instagram. Tell me about your bravest moment in front of someone else. Have you curated a playlist for special moments… or your life? Are you brave with your feelings? Do any of the songs on the list have a special meaning for you? I’m listening.

Now to the nitty-gritty of it… Dream dating, yay or nay? Is it a thing, the workings of a creative mind, or an indicator of psychosis? [keep reading: https://bit.ly/3daIs0l]

Vaccine is the word of the year. Let me be very clear, all my appreciation to all the scientists and and all the healthcare workers who have made up the force, our front lines of the resistance against Covid-19. Our heroes, whom I suspect will never truly receive the level of recognition they deserve. Vaccine. We are part of the massive group who will go down in history as guinea pigs, scared shitless of getting sick and getting vaccinated, nonetheless capable of carrying out high risk activities, such as Covid parties under the slogan, we only live once. Which is true, it’s the duration of life which comes into question when we partake in risky business. In fact, this behavior is a de facto reduction of our appreciation of healthcare workers who tirelessly have put their lives on the line. Vaccine is the word of the year. Sure, many of us have been vaccinated. There are regions in the world where covid-19 vaccines are just not attractive enough. Some people can’t be bothered to get vaccinated. Which is an incredibly selfish act, as the virus has a greater chance of muting in the unvaccinated, putting us all at risk, but specially, those, would love to get a dose, but don’t have access to them. This is a global issue being tackled on a case by case basis. Sounds like a winning strategy. Of course, what can we expect when strategies to tackle international issues such as the pollution of our environment and organized crime take a back seat to economic and political interests. It’s the production system, you stupid hippie. Money makes the world go round, if you don’t got it, then you are stuck with second and third rate access (or no access at all) to vaccines.

Vaccine is the word of the year. Availability according to region and resources. The kicker, the ripple effects of not having access will continue to generate waves, straining healthcare systems, economies, and most importantly, quality of life and even life itself. 

Forgive me if I am not happy enough about vaccine being the word of the year… It represents hope for some, and for others, it is a reminder of the vast economic development gap, whose effects will ricochet over and over on the very regions that once had imperialistic aspirations, whose  past generations colonized, extracted and pillaged. They, who question and limit migration from the very countries they have benefitted from, those countries to the south. What’s behind the lag? How long before true cooperation will render the results we need for humanity, and not only a few nations?  I am reminded of John Donne’s poem: no man is an island. Pandemics tend to remind us of this. Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3dff74R 

High Fidelity is a movie I’ve watched a few times over the years. John Cusack’s character is infuriating and adorable. His top five lists are endearing and his love of music relatable. But it’s the title I want to focus on. Words and phrases change meaning, become fuller and heavier, as time goes by. Words like: love, friendship, freedom, happiness, sadness, orgasm, speed limit, breaks, life insurance, glucose, will. It seems they accumulate gravity, or the force with which they are said and fall are all the more real and heavy.

For example, believing in change or an alternate way of doing things. When I heard my favorite hippies had sold out, I was a bit devastated. I think that Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream represented so much more than a desert. It was the possibility of a business that seemed fair, sustainable, a dream of doing things differently, that connected generations. They sold out because everyone has their price. Then again, don’t they deserve their payday? Don’t we all have a price? This happened in the year 2000, I am just now learning this. Talk about being dazed and confused. They still retain their own board of directors who decide on social matters. Whatever that means.

Fidelity. It has to do with loyalty. Normally associated with loyalty to a partner, this word has gravitas. Especially when the context is self.  Fidelity to one’s values, ideals, desires… Listening to high-fidelity music requires the right equipment to reproduce it. Being true, faithful to one’s self requires an immaterial thing, an internal apparatus of inner strength, motivation, and the willingness to accept the opportunity cost of being faithful to one’s self. Depending on the social context, this could include social ostracism. Reliance on one’s self is not readily learned by the masses, nor taught in schools. We are taught to adapt, adjust, and tolerate the heat. Is that the only way to do it? No, that is their way. Only through questioning can one achieve an understanding of whatever is before you. The scientific method starts with questions, the Socratic method revolves around questions… asking the right questions is crucial. How many questions were you asked at school? Not as many as you were asking. It is in a child’s nature to ask questions. They are natural instigators of resistance and rebellion in a system that would have them be socialized to take part in the systematic depletion of the planet and ultimately, humanity, an ill excuse for survival of the fittest. Slap that on a t-shirt and get back to work.

I was watching the first installment of Get Back, a miniseries on the Beatles. I was appalled at the situation in the band, the external pressure exerted on the band to produce greatness in no time at all. The show must go on because economic interests dictate it. I’m not advocating for a completely laissez-faire approach, nor would I have them working at a Starbucks, however, they were financially in a place that would allow them to create at leisure. What type of work would we have been exposed to had they not been pressured? Would Paul have been so dismissive of George? It’s economic interests you stupid hippie, it wasn’t Yoko. You are told that everyone is replaceable. That is just not true. There is no other George, they tried replacing Paul, and that has been a fiasco, and they didn’t even try with John. There is no replacing the Beatles. Just as there is no other weirdo writing for Musing Interruptus. When I am gone, Musing Interruptus will be gone.

I woke up on Sunday, thrilled by what was in store. A morning of biking around a town called Tequisquiapan, in the state of Querétaro. I thought that the air would warm up by the time we arrived. It wasn’t the case, I could feel the cold wind, burn my skin, just a little. By the time the bells toll reverberated off the buildings, it was warm.

We heard the bells toll (ring), incessantly… I needed to see where it was coming from. I pushed my bike into the square and pulled out my phone… I wanted to record the sound of those bells. They were hypnotic. I pushed my bike to the fountain. I could see the bell tower and the young men swinging off the bells. There were so many people, flocking to the church. They sat outside… chanting. I still hadn’t realized what day it was. I never really thought about this day, much less desired to be in a place of worship on this day. I have a lot of family and friends that do. And that is just fine by me. My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of shells… they ayoyotes rattled, then I smelled the copal incense…  A group of indigenous people entered the square, carrying a painting of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I swear I felt the earth shift… I know it was something inside of me shifting. They walked towards the church and entered. I stayed outside. I watched.

I thought I was just a bystander, an unintentional tourist. I wasn’t meant to be there, I was meant to be cycling, finding my way up a hill, shifting the gears, pushing myself… but no. I was there. Encapsulated by this moment. It was someone else’s, not mine. I was not meant to be there. I was only supposed to bike through. Not even a tourist, a temporary traveler. Not even for the day, just the morning... Those bells kept ringing, inundating the heavens, flooding my consciousness.

I can feel you, grandma.

That happened. I can feel you. Look, grandma, I am here.  I used to accompany you, because it was important to you. I know this was so important to you. I know she was important to you. She was the ultimate mother, our lady of Guadalupe, and you venerated her. Now here you have me. I never meant to be here. I am.

I sobbed, I sobbed for my grandmother, I sobbed because I was overwhelmed with the energy that went through me as if I were nothing and everything. I was reminded that I was mistaken if I thought I was not part of it. My atoms and sub-particles danced and participated. I could not put up any resistance. It was useless. I just let it happen. Let is a strong word. It happened to me.

I turned and saw families carrying images of La Virgen de Guadalupe, heading the call of the bells, maybe their faith. Groups of musicians with big brass instruments, in full uniform, crisp and clean. Today was a very important day. Mexico’s special mother.

I went from unintentional tourist to being pulled into the ground, rooted by my Mexican’s past, stunned, covered in tears, having shed something I never… I don’t know what.

As I saw the group of what I imagined were the heirs of the Chichimecas, leaving the Parish of Santa María de Asunción… It was time for me to leave too.

I was lighter, freer, and more connected to my Mexican Identity. ...

So, you, my dear listeners and beloved students, are included in my wishes and also gratitude. Thank you for clicking, thank you for listening, Happy Solstice,  Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year.

Today, I will read a poem I learned when I was in Kindergarten. Of course, my cheese brain only remembers the first few lines, so I had to read it. Still, I read it with love. I hope you enjoy. I’ll be back next year, and as ever, I’m listening.

Twas the Night before Christmas Poem

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her „kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled down for a long winter‟s nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window, I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

“Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer And Vixen! On, Comet! On Cupid! On, Donner And Blitzen!

... Continue reading: https://bit.ly/33Wo4P3 

Hello. Welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. That was quite a year. Hellish at times. Frankly, I feel quite beaten up, and I know I am not the only one. I also know that there are hardships that don’t care if the year is over, they will continue day by day until they are good and ready to end. I’d like to know if there are any rituals that can ensure the year to come will be better, or at least not worse. I’ve eaten the grapes, run around with a broom, and made my own rituals. None seem to really work. They are fun to do. Being realistic, feet on the ground, and such. Very uncharacteristic of Musing Interruptus, I wish, at this time, to raise my glass to you, to me, to all we’ve been through. 

Making it through one more year, making good things happen, dealing with the difficult things. We need a toast. We deserve a toast. Whether you toast with sparkling white wine, champagne or apple cider, a cup of coffee, an aromatic tea, your mate, or simply a nod, let’s mark the end of the year. Having a chance to toast implies we have a moment of peace. Those are the moments I wish I could make last longer. It’s the end of the year. It is time to say goodbye to 2023. I think today I’ll order One For The Road. 

One for the road and one for my baby. One for my dogs, and my family, and my friends. Hey, for my neighbors too. One for my friends listening to Musing Interruptus!!! 

Bartender, pour that to the brim, don’t worry if it overflows, I’m not judging. Friends, let’s wet our lips, relax, and breathe in the much-needed relief that this moment is affording us. Let’s make a memory today.

There are a few memories I’d like to take with me to my next life. There are a lot, actually. I’d like to package the laughter, love, kisses, more love, more laughter, the feelings of accomplishment, mine and others, the feeling when I am in the presence of art, being in the presence of love. I’d like to package it so I dose it, put it under my tongue. I’d play a song timed perfectly to feel the explosion of all those wonderful feelings life has to offer at the moment the music takes off. I’d like to ask for one for the road. If that were possible, I’d ask for a doggy bag to tie me over until my next life. I’d like to take some people to my next life too. 

I’d also like to experience life in a song. You might be wondering if I got high to write this. I assure you, I am not. There are, however, guitars, voices, basses, and drums that make me wish I could travel on those waves of audio, on a sub-particle level. The closest I can get is to listen. A listener, an intense listener. I do listen intensely. To music and words. I remember things I wish I didn’t. They can stay in this life. I’ll just take my music with me. I’m not too sure where I’m going. I guess none of us does. Come January 1st, 2024, Year 8 will begin. For those paying attention to numerology. This is the year we must make things happen.  I’m not thinking about that right now. I am thinking of the end of this year. This year which I truly want to be over. There are things I did, and things I didn’t get done. Whatever. What matters is that we are doing this. 

Bartender, one more for the road, and play it again Sam (even though that phrase is never said in Casablanca). Continue reading

The wooden floors creak as I walk towards the kitchen. Bright light normally bounces off the walls, but now it is night. Darkness embraces every corner. I stub my toe on the leg of a kitchen stool with such force that the stool flies across the floor,  the sound reverberates and shatters whatever peace I had inside. I can feel my chest pound, for a moment, surprised that any noise existed in the dark, or furniture, for that matter. I don’t remember leaving that stool there. Then I reassure myself, that is a great alarm for intruders. I can hear my dog’s little nails pitter-patter on the floor, making her way to my side, investigating the commotion. She does not bump into anything.

I hear a cough coming from next door. I shutter. Could the wind carry the virus to my door, maybe through the window. I laugh at my thoughts and continue my expedition. A midnight snack. I must not wake anybody, especially not the monster under my bed! It took me hours to get him or her to sleep. (they have not shared their pronouns with me)  What a ruckus, wanting to play music at all hours, breaking out the fizzy drinks and funny cigarettes. I read to the monster, my monster. From atop my cozy bed, I read until I could see the monster’s head tilt to the side, as if dead. I read a little more, just to be sure. I was about to cozy up to my monster under the bed, but I would risk waking him or her, and the ordeal would have to start all over again.

Back to the kitchen… I was there standing in the middle of the dark kitchen, thinking to myself what a propper midnight snack looks like. Is it a cup of tea with a hint of mint? No, I mustn’t, the teapot will whistle, calling the monster to work!  Maybe it’s a more elaborate sandwich, with cold cuts and cheese. A pickle. That would be ideal. However, the pop from twisting the jar open would surely wake my monster. The cookie bag will crackle and chips will crunch! What a conundrum I have before me! I start pacing back and forth, back and forth. I feel the gaps between each plank of wood on the floor. My dog just stares. I can only see her funny little eyes. I hear crickets chirping outside. What a symphony. How can my monster sleep through this! I pace, back and forth. I feel a knot in my stomach. I’m not hungry. But something will undo the knot, just you wait and see. It will be a perfect midnight snack for me.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3ryxR5Y 

Welcome to Musing Interruptus. Life and death are two of the most natural events I can think of. Sex is another, but we’ll save that for another installment. Life and death… things we are certain of, unless confronted by Morpheus in the Matrix with some groovy pills.

Day 12, year 2022. I remember the precise moment when he said, It can’t get any worse than this. I immediately glared at him and said -oh please don’t do that. You should know better by now. I am well aware that those words are not magic, nor did they instigate the forthcoming events. The Christmas season began with two thoughts. 1. I am going to stop being a grinch. It was actually an advance on a Christmas present. 2. A seasonal movie would have this be the watershed moment that puts the protagonist’s sense of goodness and hope to the test. A Christmas Spirit test. A story is as old as time.

I vowed to put the Christmas tree up and not mention the atrocity of having a green tree rotting for the pleasure of the household, thus my personal pet name for the tree over the years, Christmas Corpse, was not heard, not even once. No gentle listeners, not even once. I ventured into a handicraft store, bought a few kilos of glitter, glue, paint, tulle, and ribbons…  and made decorations and a reef. I Played Christmas songs, fake it till you make it. And by George, I had the Christmas Spirit, it invaded me all over, I was intoxicated… Christmas hives all over the place. I was the voice of Christmas hope and tenderness… I was feeling good about it. I even philosophized over the importance of controlling one’s feelings and perceptions and taking responsibility for one’s feelings. If you listened to my last podcast of the year, I freakin’ recited the Night Before Christmas. I Christmased it up alright.

Bad news at work, and some shocking news from another two fronts… which by the way, in the end, had good outcomes. In the face of this,  I didn’t consider giving up the Christmas Spirit, no. I only decided to be close to family, and that was the right move. In the end, the people we call family, be they your flesh and blood or the family we chose to have, are with whom we need to be, in happy times, but especially in the hardest times. I recognize the universe did not throw things at me, nor was I the subject of a cruel experiment. No. I am just a human, getting by and yes, loving every moment of it. Even in the hardest and darkest times, love shines through. I don’t think it hurts any less, though.

Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3fjgjoU 

Love has such wonderful expressions. I do not distinguish types of love but feel it is a  continuum, like a river, which flows through me as I swim through it. There are places where love is expressed differently, most likely because of who is on the receiving end. If I had to force my mind to think of types of love, then today I would speak of romantic love, the type that inspires great minds to write and leave a testament of truth for those unlucky or plainly too stupid to appreciate how great it is to fall in love. One such testament is the case of  Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare, my favorite part says:

… Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

That type of love maddens people and causes them to do brave and impulsive things. Including participating in an act of resistance that would one day be observed by some as Valentine’s Day.

Many believe great love has to be sealed with the promise of forever. For those, what better way to do it than through marriage. I will not get into the institution of marriage as a tool to exert control over sexuality, I’ll leave that for our Valentine’s Day episode. Today we will invoke one of the many explanations behind Valentine’s Day, the one most befitting my argument, of course, that of the despotic emperor of Rome, Claudius II, who prohibited marriages to ensure young, unattached soldiers, were available for war. A suffering Roman Empire needed all the soldiers they could get, but a priest named Valentine would marry the young men in secret, thus ensuring they could bind themselves to their beloved forever. An act against the ruler and Rome itself. A rebellion against control.  Our priest Valentine was sentenced to death! As his acts were certainly acts of treason.

This February 14th, join the resistance and fall in love, buy that special someone chocolate, diamonds and flowers, speak sweet nothings to their ears and remember there was a time and a place men were not allowed to marry and two monumental institutions were at odds. I would be remiss if I did not say, we are indeed just pawns and carnage in someone else’s war. But then we wouldn’t celebrate Valentine either. So join me in looking at only one side of the story and resist by falling in love.

What do you think about Valentine’s Day? What other stories behind Valentine’s Day do you know? Are you part of the resistance? I’m listening.

There is a window that leads to places I know, down roads that I have traveled, back and forth. Through that window, imagination throws itself to the wind. It is carried to the places of shipwrecks and pirates, monsoons and, jungle hideaways. The ticket is procrastination. To get that ticket to ride, You must first go to the Office for General Beaurocratic Paperwork. You walk into the office and to your right, you will see a reception with a burly man. He generally wears a hat. That hat is too small it pinches in all the wrong places. I asked him once about that hat. By the way, his name is Jay. He told me all about his father’s hat and how it had once belonged to a famous person. He couldn’t remember his name. He did, however, remember that he was a famous whistler. I myself do not know any famous whistlers, so I will probably remember that for the rest of my life. I didn’t mind not knowing the name. As I said, I don’t know any whistlers, but I do know a Steve, Dan, Stan, David and Raúl. If that famous whistler were named Michael, George, or Aaron, I might forget the name too. But a whistler, really, that was all I needed to know. So, that hat, atop Jay’s head, had once belonged to a whistle that was recognized around the world, I bet. Or at least around the county.

-Are you still with me? Go on, don’t lose your concentration. I’m taking you on a little trip to the OGBP. The Office for General Beaurocratic Paperwork, to get ahead of the process of getting a ticket to ride to Procrastination. Especially if you want to ride the wind to your destination.

Sign the ledger Jay has set for you, it's a long red book. Remember to show your ID and write down the number found on the back of the id. I think Jay asks you do this just for fun. Click to continue reading along

Some mornings start out softly because softly is all you can muster. Sun rays creep through the window, beckoning your eyes to open and you know at once, we must be gentle today. Was it last night’s dream, which caused a bit more anguish than you bargained for, or pulling the all-nighter to meet a deadline? Maybe it's the accumulation of life’s wear and tear or the feeling that you’ve come to live with, more than a feeling, a new appendage. A third arm popping out of your clavicle, which cannot help, at all. You cannot even ask it to carry an extra shopping bag or glass of water. It would be most helpful if it could do something. Reality is, it is just a burden. Some live with this, every day.  Whatever it is, your body and brain are in sync. Today you must be gentle.

There are many ways to be gentle or kind with yourself. The allowance for tenderness and softness provides space for much-needed recovery. Life can be harsh. We need to find ways to deal with it. One way is to give ourselves time to process, feel, and regroup.

There are different ways to do this, it can start with an aromatic chai tea, instead of jolting yourself with an espresso. Maybe picking out a sweater that is extra soft against your skin. Taking a few extra minutes to put lotion on your feet, putting your favorite oils in your diffuser, and a chill-inducing playlist. Hell, why not go all out, take the day off and go to a spa, get a much-needed massage and facial. Pampering yourself is a fine way of creating the space to recover from the world’s harshness. Doing it to different degrees, from the chai tea in your hands to a day in the hands of professionals.

Being alone can do the trick. Time to think or not. Maybe just zone out, maybe sleep. Do what you like, when you like. Drink, smoke, listen, touch, paint, read. Process what is going on.  Let it out. As Pumba always says, better out than in.

I think that one of the best times is behind the wheel, down a highway with the wind in your hair and your best furry friends in the back seat. Some memories will live past their lives. I have to admit, that after my dog passed away, I don’t look in the backseat, because I’ll miss his face. Best dog friends are great for long road trips. They are great listeners and could care less if you cannot reach the high notes or forget the lyrics.

Not all healing is done alone… some of the best healing is done around a table, with a bottle of wine, maybe whiskey, maybe coffee. Connecting with the people we love, connecting with people who listen and we listen to.  That shared understanding of what makes you laugh harder than you thought possible. Letting it out, the thoughts, fears, pains, embarrassments, loss. When it becomes shared and set free to dissipate in the air.  The highest form of this collective healing, in my book, is laughter, of course. Count me in.

What is your favorite way to recover? Do you have a ritual? I’d love to hear it. What is your favorite place to laugh? Who do you love laughing with?  I’m listening.

It’s a sham. It doesn’t exist. It is your parents.

It’s a scam, that is what it is. It is a scam to subjugate the second sex.

You bought into it, you with your bright future and career, between Simone the Beauvoir’s Legacy and the Woman Destroyed, you chose the latter. A white dress and chastity of mind, body, and spirit, until death do you part. The white dress is enticing, that is what all the messages say. They lure you into the dress, binding your hands, but not your senses. You are wide awake as it’s happening, the words come out easily as you are watching from above and below. Your body reacts, but it is too late, real censorship kicks in as your new identity is forced on you. The contract is modern but the institution is medieval.

Welcome to your life as wife.

Hidden away behind social conventions and oppressive laments, silent laments. Hysterical laments. Writing in the dark by moonlight. Harboring the desire of freedom while meditating in an enclosure of what you actually thought was your own design. It was not. Feeble minds of the young, unenlightened, lacking that special ingredient that would have saved them. Experience.

Is what I would say… if marriage weren’t such a wonderful thing. The true meeting of love and partnership, an endless endeavor to mutually pleasure each other and enjoy the honey drizzling from life’s lips. Isn’t it true that is why so many people get married? Bless you Saint Valentine for defending the institution and the right to marry. Let us remember thee as we shower our spouses with love and affection and passion, mountainous warm and, illuminating love surrounding each other.

When I told my student my plan for this episode, she astutely answered… Schopenhauer basically said that marriage is where love goes to die. Thank you, what a great corollary for the second installment of Musing Interruptus and our Valentine’s Special.

A losing game on all ends. The most expensive of self-impositions. Control is masked by romance and passion. Our own bodies against ourselves. Beware of the flood of endorphins and oxytocin. They are drugs and you will go into withdrawal. Rage if you are lucky. Reapropriaton and recolonization of your body and thoughts. Liberation, design and, creation. You never knew freedom had this value. Aprés moi le deluge.

Are you married? Have you read The Second Sex and A Woman Destroyed? Did you read it before getting married? How are you liking it? I’m listening.

Some thoughts poison the well, like happiness must be automatic, if it isn’t, then it isn’t happiness. Same deal with love, learning, and success. The disconnect between the objectives and the effort to accomplish is big. I consider the legions of anti-sciencers a result of this very disconnection.

We are all winners in this game of life, gentle people. Let’s not think about the tough stuff. Not until life gets real. Which is a valid argument for keeping it light. Except it isn’t, because there are others, living under other circumstances. We live in a system where our actions do in fact have consequences, beyond our imagination. It is hard enough to fathom and swallow this, let alone digest.

Don’t think for a moment I am trying to colonize your thoughts, as Saramago might imply…  I’m simply stating that having people who think, learn, work, love, enjoy, and appreciate what is behind each of these experiences have a positive effect on society as a whole.

Today on Musing Interruptus: Instant gratification vs pleasure delaying.

The first time I watched Vanilla Sky, I was completely taken by Penelope Cruz describing pleasure delaying. What a thing. What a delight. Stretching the moment from the inception of desire to satisfaction. Combined with courtship... There is artistry there… I wonder how many of you are well versed in the art of courtship. Is it still alive among other generations? I was thinking about the relevance of bands like the Beatles and how little by little there are songs that are no longer welcome because they express violence and toxic signs in a relationship. Case in point. Run for your life. Of course, there are so many other songs that are the soundtrack of the finest love affairs and psychedelic experiences. I wonder if the way we understand love will change, making these songs irrelevant. I hope not.

I am under the impression that instant gratification is more generally pursued these days. Technology surely plays a part in it. Tiktok and Instagram provide entertainment that has been digested several times over, in many cases condensing the principles of storytelling and reaching the punchline faster. I’ll tell you this, I still love a long story, long conversations, and lectures from interesting professors. Activities that occupy your intellect feel good. How will this cult, nay shared inertia for instant gratification change the face of the world?

This made me think of the sequel to Sexo, Pudor y Lágrimas, or Sex, Shame, and Tears (as it was translated). The dialogues pale in comparison to the first one; the second installment, 20 years later lacks the poignancy and insight that caught our attention the first time around. Maybe someone was lazy or was under the gun to write… or even worse, they knew depth would be lost on certain key demographics.

Instant gratification, it's like a coca-cola when it is really hot. It hits the spot immediately, but it's not what you really need, nor will it make you feel good in the long run. Then again, who cares? None of this will matter in 100 years.  I promise.

So, instant gratification or pleasure delaying? What does courtship look like today? What does our future society look like? What is meaningful in the future? I’m Listening.

Imagine a hospital waiting room. Sterile, stale air, busy, with fluorescent lighting and time to kill. You are hoping that is the only thing that will die when you are in a hospital waiting room.  Worst case scenario, right?

Wait around for something to happen and you will be deemed passive. Be a doer and shaker, take control of your life… don’t just wait around for something to happen. Even if it's not your turn. Picture the deli counter at the supermarket, I hate those little numbers that dictate your fate. You take number 247, and you look at the screen: it’s number four’s turn. Come on, go for it, jump over the counter and grab that deli meat! Take a bite out of that Iberian Ham! Yum! Well, you might not be able to bite it, unless you have razor-sharp teeth or you are a shark. Are you a shark?

Composure!

Waiting for someone, ahh the expectation the person will arrive, walk in the door and something new will happen. A new conversation, a plan to take over the world, to write a story, make a movie, escape to a deserted island, rob a bank. I hope you are not waiting for the getaway car. You know you should not hire an uber when you need a getaway car, you might be waiting longer than you expect. Zero stars sir, zero stars!!!

I just can’t wait for some things to happen. The expectation is too big, big feelings! Remember when we were children and said things like: I can’t wait to be a grown-up! How wrong were we!? I mean, ok, I’m enjoying all of this buying a cake or taking off whenever I want, except I rarely do. I generally make a note, plan; I consider the ramifications. Go back and forth, write about it a thousand times, make a list. In the end, I wonder how long could I wait? Because… all good things come to those who wait. I want good things, so I can wait. What are the good things in life? They are worth waiting for, aren’t they? To be honest, I’m not all that sure. I guess the only way to find out is to wait and see. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Wait a second!! I mean, not literally a second… maybe 60. If it is 60 seconds, then you need to ask a person to give you a min… a full one. Give me a minute, please.

We need to talk about being waited on, hand and foot. Who doesn’t like this? I can see it now, lying on a beach, beautiful people tending to my every want and desire… Lower me in the ocean, no! Now lift me! Go on, like a teabag, yes. I am the tea bag and the ocean is my cup. Then swirl me around, wait, careful, not too close to that shark!  I shouldn’t have to tell you?! Because when somebody waits on you hand and foot, they should be able to anticipate every last need and desire.

You might be waiting for your big break, that one chance to shine and show the world what a bright star you are. An understudy waiting for the lead to break their leg, literally… they are waiting in the wings, that is, waiting to take someone’s place, for example, in a play.

I love to hurry up and wait. It’s like winning the contest of time. If I hurry up and get there before expected, I surely can do something else. So there, I’ve won! Suck it! Unless it’s to die… don’t hurry up to do that. If someone is waiting for me to die, they might be waiting to inherit my very large pile of sand, you might say, they are waiting for a dead man’s shoes.

There you have it, lots of waiting has gotten us nowhere fast. What do you think? Do good things come to those who wait? What is the longest you’ve waited for a good thing? I’m listening.

Now, I want to write about desire, seduction, and feminism, I want to write about true love among friends and family, the fragility of life, and the importance of leaving it all on the line when it comes to living and loving. What can I tell you, we are reminded how short life is, every day. Whether it is war, a pandemic, a horrible illness, or simply the feeling of how fucking unfair life can be, we know there is an egg timer and the oven won’t be able to hold us forever. Are we rising? Did someone open the oven door ahead of time? Are we a perfect loaf of bread or has the souffle of our life gone flat? Can anything be done? Well, if you are afflicted by these questions, don’t ask a pessimist, ask a helpless optimist who believes in magic and the power of creation.  Ask me…

A good friend of two of my friends passed away at the end of February. As his life was brutally taken, a part of their innocence was stripped away with it. I am so sorry for your loss. As they gather their bearings and relearn to walk this earth, minus a dear friend, we are all reminded of how important it is to tell the people we love, our friends and family, that in fact, nothing will change our feelings for them, not their actions, not their performance. That is true love, that is true friendship. I’ve never shied away from telling people how important they are to me. But I am reminded of making a point of telling my friends of my appreciation of the wonder they bring to my life, the colors, and laughter. Friendship is a beautiful thing. Sisterhood and brotherhood are friendship’s older siblings.

That being said, it might seem I’m going off on a tangent, but I’m not. I want to say some things about my day job, which also happens to be one of my great loves.  This is dedicated to new and future teachers… A letter I wrote to a student who became a teacher. A young woman I profoundly admire, who I remember from one of my first classes when I became a high school teacher. History. Not my forte. Her group bore the brunt of my inexperience. The growing pains in that classroom were real and went all around. The letter said something like this:

To one of my dearest students:

It is impossible not to remember the teenager full of curiosity and intelligence, unwilling to follow anyone’s lead, just her own. A young person who seemed to enjoy her intellect and authenticity. I also remember that you were part of the group that saw me teach my first classes in high school. I had years of teaching experience, but not in high school. That was the beginning of a new education for me. The experience forced me into adolescence.

I am going to share with you some things that I would have liked to know, things that other teachers would later share with me, in a roundabout way. I do it in the hope that your experience will be diametrically different, and that you do not feel alone, in one of the loneliest professions I know, next to uninhabited cave guard.

I'll start with something mild: Preparing the class doesn't mean it will turn out that way. Planning is sometimes a suggestion, and that is ok. Teaching and learning will happen.

It seems that teaching is a juggling act between achieving learning objectives, keeping students engaged, incorporating all learning styles, grading, preparing for class, dealing with your humanity, your expectations, your students' expectations. Do no harm. Do no harm. Nurture. Teach. Learn. Relax. It's ok to fail. Relax. Tomorrow is another day. Relax. Nobody gets it right the first time. 23 years later, I am still learning and I still love teaching. Keep reading 

I found a questionable website with a list of philias, what some define as the highest form of love. Let’s go with that… shall we?  There are some philias that have given me the giggles… I apologize in advance if, you know. You are into something and I giggle at it. But let me explain, according to this website,  I am a geliophile… I love laughter. I love my own laughter, but making others laugh, it’s one of those things. I philia you should be a thing.

Musicophilia… well, let's just say I have a superfondness of music ( if music could fuck me sideways till Tuesday). This is a Musing Interruptus if there ever was one.

Back to it… do you think that lawyers are angrophiles? I just watched the series Suits, they seemed to be angry and enjoying it most of the time. Asthenofiles have a fondness for fainting or weakness. Does that apply to the person who hyperventilates to faint or the person who loves to catch those who swoon? Yes… swoon…

An autophile is happy to be alone. Anybody who is married… Carnophile, I know a few. Catoptrophiles - anyone who leaves their camera window open while they are on a video call (you know who you are, I’ve caught you looking, admiring yourselves instead of me… the fucking nerve), chorophiles --- fondness of dancing, I’ve got that one too… cibophiles are fond of food (well who isn’t?, even if you don’t let yourself eat it, you are thinking about it…), clinophiles love going to bed… I mean… I think the phobia might be more interesting. Fear of sleep must be horrible. Love of going to bed, that seems healthy.

Cyclophiles galore, hard not to be one, cynophiles (according to the page I’m looking at, are fond of dogs or rabies… either). Ok, I’m wondering if this is a credible source of information… I see the link between dogs and rabies, but I’m uncomfortable with the implications.So, lets jump to the next logical idea: Words are a wonderful thing. Words are wonderful. They can make or break your day. They create worlds, truth, and fiction. Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophile, which is not in the dictionary and is supposed to mean fondness of lo

Some people cannot go a season without traveling. It is no surprise, as the benefits outweigh the discomforts of sleeping in a strange bed, making use of foreign toilets. Constipation, for some. A very small price to bear for all the wonders to see and experiences to be had.

Give it a little think, think about your most wonderful travels. Perhaps the most wonderful are yet to come. No matter… If you dream it, wonder it, muse over it, you will probably experience it.

Some people travel light and others… well, let me think, what do I need? Underwear, a bathing suit, pajamas, the kind with feet and an opening in the seat of the pants (are you imagining them? They look comfy, don’t they?, I’ll need my sleep aids, my favorite oversized sweater. Let me tell you about this sweater. The person who made it never, in her wildest dreams imagined I would be its keeper. This is a sweater that I fell in love with, instantly. I knew if interobject marriages were available to us, we were the right match. A love match… If you follow this podcast, and remember the one on childhood friends, then I’ll tell you, this sweater belonged to a friend of our dear and late friend Whitney. Whitney’s friend is a very tall woman, and her grandmother made her a sweater that probably fit her very well. I am the opposite of tall. I really love this sweater. It might not be much to look at. It's heavy knit, gray. However, it gives me comfort and makes me believe in creativity. So, it is my adult security blanket. Special for all types of trips. What else do I need? My book or kindle, laptop in case I need to work, lotions, toothpaste, toothbrush, half the medicine cabinet, passport (in case we need to leave the country in a hurry), earphones for work, earphones for music, external battery, offline music, reading glasses, shades, sleep mask, concert earplugs, normal earplugs, moist towels, dry towels, diverse toiletries, sunscreen. Do you remember how important it is to wear sunscreen? I never leave home without it.  As I was saying, I travel light. I can leave at a moment’s notice. Maybe two moments… I’ll get there.

Once you are packed and out the door. Remorse sets in. Not about leaving no… it’s all about that coffee pot you are wondering if you actually unplugged. Did I leave the gas open, is it escaping through the stove burners? Is there a bag of food decomposing in the middle of the kitchen? Is the front door locked? How easy is it to kick in? I would miss my bike… and the big TV. Gosh. Remorse for not being absolutely certain. Dearest, 100% certainty does not exist. Nothing is foolproof. I’ve been a known fool. However, I have created a checklist to ameliorate the sensation. Continue reading

Throughout life, we meet people, some who stay, some who go, some who come and go. I am reminded of the importance of doing my best to see people for who they are, behind the bravado, pain, trauma, resentment… All of which create a chasm between themselves and the world. I’m not saying it is our responsibility to do this. I believe our responsibility is to work on ourselves. That being said, we are passing by, sometimes stopping in, invited to sit a spell in people’s lives, and we extend these invitations as well. -Come in, take a load off, put your feet up, can I interest you in a drink? How about a life together? Let’s be friends forever or at least while we’re here. The art is seeing people for who they are, not who we want them to be. Loving people without expectations of fulfilling our own needs. Of course, they are there. Our needs, desires, wants… But fulfilling those, falls upon us, those are our responsibilities. Understanding the other person’s language, strategies and words, on their terms, as best as possible, unlocks new worlds of interaction. Hello, I see you are scared and hurt, let me sit with you. Ahh, you laugh a lot, that is how you share your truth, that is how you hide it too. How sweet when we encounter people who are willing to do the same for us. What you have there is potential for friendship, and other ships.

I was harshly reminded of this during my trip. Manifestations of love come in different shapes and forms. An exercise of empathy and forgiveness, of love and healing.

Before I left on my trip, a dear friend, who, by the way, is excellent at seeing people and naturally finds ways to understand them, reminded me the seaside is an ideal place to let go. Something about salty water curing all ailments. It is a common belief. After more than two years of absence, I felt the need to be closer to the ocean. There is more to it. Walking along the beach, at the blurry edge of water and sand. There is sound. Booming, crushing, inviting, magnetic and hypnotic. I had forgotten how much I loved feeling slammed by the waves, rendered helpless only to get up and do it all over again. Sitting in the surf or just flirting with my toes and the sand. A love affair in three acts. A redundant, maybe misguided love.

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Mine, of course, I had it, whatever elements affected my dream, created and crafted my dream. It is mine. But, could it be construed as a matter of teamwork? Let’s be serious about this for a moment, ideas don’t happen in isolation. Unless you live in a room, closed off to the world. Furthermore, some people attribute magical meanings to dreams. As if they were prophetic. I’d rather consider them meeting places. But, what if they are prophetic? How many of you remember your dreams in the morning? How many details can you remember? When you retell your dream, do you realize you are missing elements? It would be nice to have a recording service, so we could audit our dreams. They might reveal more than we know. In psychoanalysis, dreams reveal truths about ourselves, our thoughts, desires, fears, pains, and traumas. But what if we could remember more? What if our dreams actually hold more information? How could we know, if we can only remember portions of our dreams? Prophets.

This brings me to my next question… What would we do with that information? What would the point be? If you could know what was coming up, would you change anything? Do we even want to know? Could we band together as one? Imagine… all the individuals. Living for … there is a song there.

If dreams could tell the future, would they be the key to an improved future? Would our dreams sync up? Could foreseeing the future result in greater empathy? Would a collective dream lead us to finally caring about the environment, lifting our fellow brothers and sisters out of poverty? Anticipating the commission of crimes, like oracles or precogs, like in Minority Report. People would be massively interrupted in their attempt to commit a crime. Massively is a lot. Even if it is just one person interrupting a crime… that could make a difference. Someone would do it. Right?

Our collective dreams could change the world as we know it. But… what about insomniacs. They would be left out. What about the people who say they never dream? How about people who have memory disorders? We would have some type of segregation, dreamers against non-dreamers. A privileged group. An unlikely bunch who have access to strategic information. I guess the dreamers would have to know how to identify the information that is strategic and know what to do with it. Read on https://bit.ly/37CopIZ 

A couple of weeks ago I got into a heated discussion with someone, who shall remain nameless, who posited that it wasn’t keeping with the times having students read and write essays. Students are learning faster, technology can stimulate our brains and that is how we learn. We were talking about higher education, by the way. I believe there was a defense of the use of TikTok as an example of how issues should be simplified, into bite-sized capsules. Honestly, what I felt was a hot sword sear through my brain. My upbringing included being told that not reading was something to be ashamed of. -Mind you, I live in a country where people read 3.9 books per year. Teachers have their work cut out for them.

Why should you pick up a book (or kindle or bootleg pdf or photocopies)? According to Batini, Toti, and Bartolucci in Dementia and Neuropsychology (2016) Mental stimulation… the processes of mentalizing (understanding a narrative) and autobiographic memory are stimulated. The authors indicate that reading stimulates changes in connectivity, and it is an efficient training not only for language but for all cognitive domains. So if you ever worry about dementia and are one of the many that have a glass of red wine and a cup of coffee as preventive measures, this might also be one of the reasons you read. Even if you don’t have that much time.

Reading is crucial for mental development, to increase vocabulary (we need words to imagine and express thoughts, words are thoughts, imagine that), concentration, writing skills… to imagine realities other than our own, which stimulates empathy, critical thinking, imagination, and a plethora of skills I am not imagining. I need to read more.

My work revolves around reading ideas, mostly about international affairs, and I read my student’s reflections on international business and international affairs. I help them organize their ideas. I also translate, so I read about whatever I’m translating, and for fun, I joined a book club. We finished Wuthering Heights last month. I’m not over it yet. Now we are reading Cloud Cuckoo Land. I can feel the transformation happening. My reality is being transformed, once more. The glasses with which I can understand the world have a new tint. The very way I ever imagined organizing a story has changed along with it.

Joining the book club not only brought me new friends, travel companions sharing their reactions of love, hate, and conundrums over the worlds we discover with each turn of the page. It has also given me the opportunity to make new fictitious friends. They joined the others. It’s a party. I’m also painting again. The mental stimulation is intense. I needed to read something for fun, for beauty, just because. Continue reading: https://bit.ly/3s1LGuW 

I knew that cool people looked and acted a certain way. At 7, The New Kids on the Block, the Fonz from Happy Days, and Amelia Earhart;  at 9, my cousin the musician, at 39 Lilly Tomlin and Simone de Beauvoir… and Bono.  From 7 to 9, they all had a few traits in common, they were aloof and calm, assured, attractive, had leather jackets. They looked like rockstars. The real kind, not glam rock. The New Kids On the Block had their own collectible cards.

A few years later, I struggled to identify coolness in the people around me. Maybe I was the cool one. Although, I most definitely didn’t feel calm, controlled, aloof… far from it. I forgot about my quest for coolness and got wrapped up in being me and not what was expected of me. I realized I wasn’t cool, and that was ok. By the time I got to high school I knew a few things about not being cool and the importance of controlling the narrative. So I got a friend, who was very sociable, to start calling me by a particular nickname. Still not cool, but at least I wasn’t going to be called something that would socially scar me for life. Plus it was versatile. Clothing is a big part of being cool. I didn’t like fashion trends or any trends. I kinda wanted to dress in Victorian-era dresses, long busty dresses. I thought they were sexy as hell. The whole, decolletage thing was aspirational.  Later I realized that the empire cut is not for me, it just made me look like a pregnant teenager. Not to dis the pregnant teenager niche here, but it wasn’t my idea of cool.

I understood that perception was important. Being in control of people’s perception of me was something I wanted to do, never actually succeeded in, awkwardly. I was not good at it. A series of bad acting moments, strung together one after the other. I still remember and cringe. Putting it into perspective, the best people have cringe-worthy moments to speak of. That is just a fact. Best people for what, I couldn’t tell you.  Maybe, just maybe I got all of that out of my system. Probably not. It's a matter of self-discovery if you ask me. I’d like to say, no regrets. But I would cringe at that too.

I don’t long to be cool, like my 7-year-old self. I like to be me. Still awkward, confidently awkward. Like when I had to tell the waiter today that it smelled like urine was baking in the sunny garden area where we were sitting. For some reason I felt I had to clear up, it had not been me. Confidently awkward. You just know that I would have owned it, if it had been me.

I once thought my taste in music would make me cool. But a dear friend once exclaimed, mid gettogether that he knew it was my iPod playing because my music made him want to speak in words of more than three syllables. I assume that he was not remarking on my coolness. But it's ok, I was over wanting to be cool- I wanted to be a writer. The words comment would somehow work in my favor. Cont. Reading

Her mind raced back to her grandmother. Lorena could not understand her decision to pack up and leave, as anything else, other than a tragedy. She closed shop, and closed her heart. She was in her forties. Is that the age of giving up? Wondered Lorena. She couldn’t help feeling the weight of her own years under her grandmother's. She continued walking in the parking lot of the upright minimall. What a concept. It was 25 years ago when she first stepped foot there. It was new. Now it was so old, it had been repainted several times over. It looked and felt fresh and familiar. Lorena couldn’t help feeling the same way, despite her experience and countless mistakes. She climbed the stairs to the outside, the outdoors. City outdoors are so different from suburb outdoors, she thought to herself. Unsaturated colors vs saturated colors.

There is a light that never goes out repeating endlessly since morning. She didn’t even like that song anymore. It always made her think of a Rabbit she used to like, one of her cousin’s friends. He had curly hair and kissed by the book.

She shook off the memory and wondered if Bono ever felt this way. And, does the music consume him like it consumes me? Probably more so, it’s his life. What consumes me?, Lorena asked herself. - Senseless questions. I could make a career out of senseless questions, that aren’t really senseless. They aren’t. Not if they cut to the essence of the thing. Continue Reading

There is nothing quite like the feeling of sheer happiness after conquering a fear or facing adversity. Even if it was all in your head, the whole time. The exhilaration of achievement needs to be nurtured and lived intensely. It all starts with the turn of the ignition key, lowering all the windows, opening the sunroof, and playing your favorite tunes on the radio… chased by the feeling that this will be short-lived… but how long? That is irrelevant. Right now it’s just you and the open road. Wind, speed, tunes, nothing but the road ahead, and happiness.

Every road has a turn, and there are no exceptions to this. In my case, a turn that led to speed bumps and the smell of a factory that interrupted the feeling a little, but not enough. The right song came on to rescue me back from the ill-conceived location of the stinky factory.  The sun was perfect and the wind did its part to stop the nauseating smell from putting an end to my ecstasy. I kept driving, but something did happen. I am suddenly aware of how happy I am. How light I feel. I’m as light as air. What is wrong with this picture?

I reconsider my surroundings. I look at the door handle where I normally hang my mask. Something is amuck. I double-check the rearview mirror and it hits me. For the first time in two years, since the start of the pandemic, I left the house without a mask. Mind you, I’ve been meticulous about masks, portable disinfectants, and carrying on in open spaces. It was bound to happen. I let happiness get the best of me. Not all was lost! I always have a stash of masks in the car! I had always had a reserve of masks in the car. I shoved my left hand into the space between my seat and the backseat door. Nothing. It’s empty. My god, my car is clean. It’s too clean. My husband cleaned my car. He is so thoughtful. With my right hand, I dump the contents of my enormous purse onto the copilot’s seat. I’ve also changed the soundtrack to something a little more appropriate. Chopin’s Funeral March in C minor seems fitting. The front seat has nothing that will do. I even try to fashion a mask out of a little blue microfiber cloth I use to dust the surfaces. Wait! The glove compartment! There might be something there. As I opened it I knew that I knew the exact contents of that glove compartment, I rifled through it anyway… and no, there are no extras in there either.

I’m looking on both sides of this very long and stupid street for a pharmacy. Come on! We are enduring a pandemic, there should be pharmacies all over the place, especially on this long and stupid-looking street. I have to turn again. I’m glad to leave that street behind me. It’s ruined everything. No worries. I’ll fix it. I could raise my blouse over my nose, thus exposing the bottoms of my breasts to the world. This could work twofold, considering the baguettes I was on my way to purchasing… did I mention I was on my way to the bakery? It was lunchtime. If the attendant at the bakery liked what they saw, we could have a reenactment of Aerosmith's Crazy music video. This afternoon could still be saved. Then I remembered that I live in a very conservative city and that the lady sales assistants at this bakery are seldom kind to me. Keep reading

The word towards stems from the 9th century. The other day, a friend told me he was old. I asked if he really felt it. -No answer.  I wonder how the word towards feels, being born in the 9th century.  Imagine a word feeling. What a thing. What a one-sided relationship we’ve been in, with words. If only words knew what they make us feel and do. Perhaps that is precisely why they don’t feel, it would be, altogether, too much. But I digress…

Today on Musing Interrupts… everyone gets a medal…

There are stories we tell ourselves to live. To survive, to make it work, and sometimes, even be victorious. This is one of them.

There are situations that seem more difficult to swallow or get through than others. Tragedies, of course, but then there are others that are just plain hard. Situations that put us in a complicated place, maybe scary because of the implications, the changes they could bring along, the risks. Why not, some put into question worthiness, because, what if it actually happens? Would I deserve something so great, what if it takes something away from someone else? My parent’s made sure that thought pattern was ingrained in me. We add, we don’t subtract.

Moving to a new city, getting a new job, starting new projects, rebuilding after a separation, separating, falling in love, starting a novel, going on an adventure… it all starts with a single movement forward that serves as an indicator that you are not giving up on happiness and love and life. Which doesn’t mean that it works out the first time you take a stab at it. Anyone who works with children knows the value of teaching persistence and recognizing efforts. Adults who were brought up this way or who have learned this, are the lucky bastards that push through adversity, sometimes with a smile, courageously brandishing a sword. Lucky for us, this is something you can learn, even later in life, even if you’ve been around since the 9th century. I realize that last phrase is neither here nor there, but I have a feeling you understand where I’m coming from.

I confess I’ve survived life, sometimes with courage, other times, in fetal position. The thing about the fetal position, is that you eventually have to get up anyway. Courage doesn’t always come easy, especially when it comes to my own happiness. I was taught to give and sacrifice. A little too much, I think. My parents making sure they weren’t raising a psychopath. Jokes on you! I drink me coffee black!! (have you seen the meme about drinking unsweetened coffee?? I think I was the only one who saw it. Every time I bring it up, I just get blank stares and I feel I have to follow up with… but I’m not really, I’m just kidding). Every time… :( Would a psychopath write this stuff?? I don’t think so… to be on the safe side, I’m not going to google this. Continue Reading

Open to a room bouncing with kinetic energy, product of every single object residing there.

A man and woman are talking about declarations of love and anxiety.

The burden of risk is placed on men, and that is not fair. - He said.

You don’t realize how much I risk, just being here. Just entertaining the possibility. If you understood that, you would embrace the burden, as you phrased it. You would understand the true stakes. You would never be ostracized, but I would. She, explained. This is the mindset I grew up with, when it comes to relationships, being vulnerable, making friends, and falling in love.

He interjected, you are not wrong, but I am going to share something with you, and all it makes think is, I had had already learned this in the movies. You can’t imagine what I went through last week. I’m in love with a married woman. It makes me sick to my stomach.

The last thing she told me, is that she felt sick, it’s like the last time. I’m seeing my doctor later. - Great, good luck, hope you feel better. I said to her. Something in the pit of my stomach clenched. Ok, it wasn’t my stomach precisely. That was in the morning, that afternoon, I messaged her, checking in. There was no answer. Hours later, no answer and no indication of anything. It’s not my place to pry, this was going round and round in my head, going against every single fiber in my being. You know where this is going. You can see it approaching and increasing in girth and height. It’s the darkness and discomfort and the fear and skin crawling doubt that the one extreme thought that popped into my mind, explaining her absence, was true.

It will be ok. I said to myself, Practice mindfulness… repeat what you are doing three times at a time. That will definitely make you less crazy. Definitely. This isn’t working. I have to work. I have so much work to do. I start spiraling out and reattach myself to my work. Breathe in and breathe out. Why wouldn’t she be ok? I keep thinking to myself. Time for bed. It’s ok. Sleep comes, but at what cost. I must have smoked, popped pills, and dropped more cbd under my tongue than ever. I couldn’t risk another restless night. Morning came and there was no answer. She’s gone. It must be true. She’s gone. Don’t resist this, just accept whatever life has in store for you today. I can’t message her… her husband might see and see straight through my message… I’m in love with your wife and can’t imagine my life without her. Sorry about that. Yet I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t put her in that position. In my mind, that is also me saying I love her. I start thinking about the funeral. Would I come up to the grieving husband and express my condolences, all the time thinking, you should express yours back to me. I imagined her casket, and how I would finally express the things I carried for her inside. She was gone, in the worst fiction I could imagine and all a product of my anxiety. The murderous bastard. Continue reading

My first love was the first boy who made me laugh, without fail. I was 11. I really loved him. We were friends, in the same class. We had playdates at each other’s house, we have memories playing his FIFA game on my super Nintendo, watching movies, and eating pizza at my house, pitched battles with his friends at his neighborhood park, and sitting close to each other in class. On my behalf, it was a silent love, I never told him… although, I’m pretty sure it was plain to see. I’m not a master of mystery now, so at 11… I mean. Whatever… What I most admired, was how he just knew what would make everyone burst with laughter. It was not only the phrases he said, it was his timing. I so admired that. I desperately wanted to be funny too. He was not they only funny person in my life, a few years later, my sister filled our home with comic relief. We were not great friends then… but ohhh, she made me laugh. She still does.

Comedians have this fantastic ability to break down walls, emotional, moral, the 4th wall, through observation, commentary, and a playing with perspective. Comedy is a vocation for serving laughter and helping people discover the boundaries of their laughter and their imagination, sometimes through the power of deduction. Like explorers and scientists in the field, they observe, mix, condense, project and make it go boom. Comedians should be sent in when diplomacy has failed. Think about it, TNT vs a Release of Serotonin… the effects are clear.

From the moment you meet a comedian you know you are in for a treat. They have the best ice breakers. Ahhh, the first impression can be poetic. It could go both ways too, you could be funny right off the bat, or you could present yourself as a very modest and serious person, whom, when you least expect it, makes you laugh hard. Yeah... Some people like to laugh so hard that their bowels move and their face becomes completely distorted. Some people, and me too. I love to laugh. Laughter is the great defeater of sadness, a champion against angst, a mediator between the anguish life has to offer and breathing life and color. Making laughter, what thing.

The best ice breakers are those that catch us off guard and make us laugh out loud, in the most unguarded way. Like when you are at a funeral, and you approach the grieving widow and ask if she thinks people are having a good time.  That might not go over so well. However, if I go first, I do hope you ask my husband that. Also, I hope my admirers put on a proper display of grief. At least one should drape themself over my casket, and the speeches should also include words like loving, an unparalleled seductress, brilliant writer, master teacher excelcium, and overall, humble. Which takes me to my next point…

The principles of comedy. The following list is neither exact nor all-encompassing. It is an exercise in observation and an invitation to continue the conversation. Continue reading

It was the weekend of June 30th, 2007. My best friend knew I was blue, melancholic even. Heartbroken. He devised a plan to musically reset my brain. Little did he know, so much more would happen. There was a before and after. I remember he called me up: - You have to get out of bed to come with us to a concert. You can’t say no. So, I didn’t say no. He was pulling me out of my funk to go to El Rock Nos Une festival. I packed up my Betty Boop purse with some money, my id, my cell and Riopan, the antacid I never left home without. I don’t remember what I was wearing. I know I wasn’t wearing any makeup. I didn’t believe in it. Like Santa Claus. Also, I was upset with the world and the universe. However, that evening would have some surprises in store.

I had never gone to a rock festival. I had no idea what to expect. I was nervous. Hopeful for a reenactment of Woodstock. Nonetheless, that night would open a world of possibilities for me. I also didn’t know it was a set up. I’m glad I didn’t know. I was my full self, no filters, whatsoever, and in a bad mood. I’m never more me, than when I am in a bad mood.

We met up with some guy at the entrance. I felt my friend’s energy change, in a mischievous way. He had set things into motion. He was so full of himself, playing God, I’m sure. He would later tell me, he had to take a chance, it seemed right. As we entered the neon blue tunnel, I saw the weird guy lunge surfer style into the music, as we approached the main hall. I still remember thinking what a cool way to enter the music.

I didn’t know any of the musicians playing that night, I felt like I was being inducted into a new, exclusive society, and I knew I was in the right place. It had been by invitation and somehow it was right. I was still in a horrible mood and trying to make sense of everything that was happening around me. I wish I remembered the song that was playing when the group of friends we were standing with started to dance to the beat, they paired up and locked arms, turning and switching partners… all of a sudden, I was pulled into the dance. That was it for me. That was the moment, my before and after things fell into place. That accompanied by the new music I was listening to, live… the feelings that accelerated my heart and dilated my pupils, explosions in my cerebral cortex cerebellum, and amygdala. Musical frisson, you know, dopamine release. This was the best. The name of this festival, Rock Brings Us Together… I had found my people. They weren’t exclusive, they seemed to be infinitely inviting and overall good people. After years of feeling out of place, the misfit, the brave authentic one, with the funny accent, I was just another heart opening up to the music and the good vibration of other people melting into the music and having fun, dancing, drinking, being. I was there. Cont. Reading

I woke up cold with the familiar smile on my face that beats me to my thoughts each morning. It was raining. I think this is the first rainy morning of the year, it’s not, but if feels that good. Cloudy, cold, dark, beautiful morning. It was raining, so we have to wait for the right time to go out. Just be patient.

It is 9:00 am, the rain has stopped, and the weather is wonderful, the air is perfectly crisp.  My body is vibrating with happiness and peace, Penny Lane, my dog, is uneasy about having to wait for our walk. She is forgiving and helps me put her dog harness on. Let me correct that, she doesn’t help, she just didn’t move back when I get close to her.

Before leaving the house, I put my shoes on, one at a time, grabbed my mask, the keys, and walking sunglasses (just in case the sun poked its rays out from behind the gray clouds). I’m wearing the hugged sweater and the watch that counts my steps and monitors my heart. I never check the register… but I assume it would alert me to something wrong. Fit as a fiddle I am… no beep - beeps, buzzing, or otherwise.

As I take the first steps out the door, peace invades me, I’m cold but I don’t go back for a jacket. Today it is Penny, the wind, and me. If it starts raining again, it will be a win. The music is perfect, and I can’t help but smile. No one is around, its too cold, I guess. Cold for summer, that is for sure… cold for this city, for certain. I’m so happy. Today I wake up, an aunt to my brother’s first baby boy, today I have no regrets but love to speak of and declare, today my body vibrates with happiness, peace, and freedom.

I can’t help it, as I walk and feel the wind hit my face and rustle my hair, I feel an invitation to dance, and Penny agrees. Each step down the sidewalk, brings new thoughts and private conversations back to life. I smile, I hold my body up like a ballerina, and take everything in, through my eyes and the pores of my skin, hoping I will remember every detail, from the color of the sky to the strength in my legs, and how Penny looks up at me every so often. I dance a little and think how spectacular to be able to do that and remember a conversation about the power of an ever-patient ballet teacher and the dream to learn ballet that came true. The wind is the perfect dance partner and listens to my every step and thought. I remember the times I’ve been alone but felt the company of something and the pseudo mysticism of energy. Coming out energetic is understood by the few that live it, the rest enjoy or reproach the fiction. In any case, the wind, Penny, and I are on a walk, clop clop clop, jingle jingle swoosh. Continue Reading

Sometimes not getting what we wish for is a blessing in disguise, that means that what we wanted was not going to be in the best interest of all involved. In that case, maturity brings acceptance without resistance. Other times, things do happen. I’m going to talk about those things that happen today. When you make a wish on a shooting star or unicorn. Hopefully, it isn’t a horse with a pointy horn tied to its head. That happens too… Although to be clear, I don’t think making a wish on a unicorn is thing, but it might catch on.

There is a state of being in which the soul is open enough that energy rushes to meet other energy, and communion happens. I reject this notion as much as I believe in it, which poses a conundrum of sorts. A paradox, a hypocrisy, a revolution, a madness. And yet, unexplainable occurrences, connections, images, and sometimes premonitions occur. Knowing when someone is thinking of you, having an image of someone in distress and later confirming it, wishing someone would come back into our life after an absence of decades, and it happening, being in the right place at the right time. It could all just be coincidence.

Mothers are particularly good at these connections and feelings. Knowing when something is wrong. Although I have thought that it might be that they always think something is wrong and when something bad does happen, there is a sense of confirmation.  Let’s put a pin in that thought for now.

I love calling up friends who say they were thinking about me even before they say hello. As if it were something cosmic that led us to that very moment. About two months ago, I was heartbroken remembering a dear friend from my childhood and adolescence. I remember feeling cared for and protected by my friend. He was kind, funny, and very self-assured. More importantly, he was my friend. As it happens with life, we said goodbye one afternoon, not knowing it would be the last time, for a long time. Maybe 17 years. This year I was remembering him, the music he brought to our lives, the laughter, and the simplicity of our friendship.  As we drove through the desert in the early hours of Sunday morning, I told my husband the story of my friend and how much I missed him and the fun we had on any given Friday, we just needed a guitar and young voices. Those Fridays had come to an end and not evolved into brunch with the families or Saturday dinners chased with guitars and nostalgic rock anthems. I think Heroes del Silencio was playing and that was enough for the nostalgia to become a few tears and for my heart to shoot out a care bare slash bat-signal and I sang through the desert in a white car, rushing the pavement and racing the wind. Continue Reading

Leonor woke up in the same place she fainted hours before. Nothing but the fog had changed, you wouldn’t believe you couldn’t see your feet a few hours ago. - I couldn’t see my feet, I’m alone, she thought to herself. I can speak aloud. Probably doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. Was she in a postapocalyptic nightmare or was this really happening? How did she know she was alone? It must be a dream, she thought to herself. Herself. Was there an echo on the field or did the sound come from within? It was dark except for the stars she could see. She hadn’t moved. There was nothing to move, she could not feel anything. She was just aware. She could blink and talk… she was breathing and staring at the stars. Star gazing. She was still overcome by whatever had made her pass out. She had been standing, and the collapsed. She lost consciousness. There is a before, she said out loud. What is the before!? There is silence and a dull feeling between her ears. She can feel her breathing accelerate, lightheaded. I can’t see my feet. I can’t look down. I can’t move. Why can’t I move. I have to remember where I was before. Leonor passed out again.

When she came to again. Her eyes opened and she smelled dew, it was cold. It was the cold that roused her. The coldness of that morning opened a window of consciousness. Yesterday she was in a battle. But not with swords or automatic weapons. It was a battle of some other sort. Internal maybe. She wasn’t sure. The haze was starting to rise, it would cover her eyes soon. She needed to move. She needed help. Why was she all alone in that clearing? She needed to tell her extremities to react once and for all.  It has to be that easy. She could feel gravity pulling her down, she needed to move. The stillness was not welcome anymore. She could feel the rumble of her voice starting to vibrate through her lungs and ribcage, up her throat and out her nose and mouth. Loud and deep, more than a cry for help, confirmation of life. And man, she was alive. She knew it. As she sat up, as if her booming voice had allowed her to waken the rest of her body, she opened her eyes again. She could still hear her screaming voice, but the environment changed. Silence again. Deafening silence. Darkness. She knew where she was. Sitting up in her bed, sweating, with a hoarse throat. She was undoubtedly awake. It had been a nightmare. Leonor would remember the field, and the fog. Would she remember she was immobilized, could she remember what had happened before collapsing on the field? Was she meant to? Continue Reading

As a child, summertime was almost as magical as Christmas time. It was an ongoing holiday in honor of the sun, pools and sprinklers, fun fairs, and the big one… going to amusement parks. In Pittsburgh, Pa, we had the Storybook Forest theme park and Kennywood. The most awesomest of amusement park experiences. There is even a movie… it’s called Adventureland, situated in Pittsburgh, Pa. When I watched this movie, a part of my heart glowed a little brighter and warmer because it somehow meant that the magic I lived as a child was real. It’s in a movie. I remember going to Storybook Forest. Imagine a park where you got to walk among the characters and settings of bedtime stories. There isn’t a movie about that. That place might have only been magic for me, not movie worthy. Fair enough.

The great one… Kennywood, we would visit it once every summer, it was a tradition we shared with our best friends, Adrienne and Andrea. We all knew the order of rides. First, the water rides: Raging Rapids and the Log Jammer, and then then the flying swings to dry off… If you got there very early or stayed late, you would get the chance to avoid long lines, but most of the day was divided between standing in line, the anticipation of getting on the ride, and the actual five seconds you were on the ride. It might be possible that my favorite ride was the Musik Express (imagine going in circles in a box, fighting gravity, and listening to loud music. That was fun. The lines didn’t matter, they were worth it. This was a special exercise in learning how to wait for good things to happen and your turn. I still do that. I get in line, enjoy the anticipation of the first drop, and hope for the best. With arms wide open and a near empty stomach, just in case… When it is over, I just run to the next ride to get in line. If the ride merited it, a second time around was possible.

As I look back at this experience, I think the whole thing very odd. At the same time, the metaphor for soooo many things in life and life lessons were there for the taking that day. Going to the amusement park felt like a reward, but part of that reward was standing in line, for what seemed to be, eternities at a time. Every year, getting taller was also a thing. Hoping to get off the kiddie rides and onto the adult rides was a rite of passage into full-blown childhood. You know, being a big kid. This was tantamount to getting your driver’s license.  I loved anything I could drive or that spun me in circles, especially the one in which the floor dropped. I would ride the rollercoasters because everyone was doing it. I didn’t really like them. I was under the impression that riding roller coasters would make me brave, like going into the haunted house and not closing my eyes.  It’s true, I am very brave because of it. Continue Reading

Of course, this is all ridiculous, I mean, a complete projection of latent desires onto -fiction-. Because it doesn’t matter who or what is on the other side of that account. Nevertheless, I’ll tell you how the affair started.

The account just popped up in my feed one day, and I was drawn to the picture of the old sheepherder. Old… rough but tender, exuding wisdom. Connected to nature and his flock.

I started looking at his tweets every so often, you know how it goes, first a few glances, he caught on to it, then I even started translating those tweets from Spanish to English. And slowly, I connected with the words and discussed the undertones, of course, one sided discussion, much like this podcast. Weird, right? Who wouldaknown! Well… I ached. Therefore…

I did the next logical thing… I ignored the account and hoped it would miss me. Out of 89.1 thousand followers, it could happen.

It didn’t do anything to that effect, of course. It just kept posting. Which made me want it more.- I kept reminding myself, this is a bot, nobody should have feelings for a bot.  Then I remembered - humans experiences are generalized for a reason, I’m sure I’m not the only one. There are gazillions of movies and stories between humans and artificial intelligence. Hmmm, if you could only see the tweets, you would know what I mean … There was one tweet, with a phrase I could not wrap my head around. Ojos que se quiebran cuando dicen te quiero… I still don’t know how to translate, ojos que se quiebran. The author is expressing his delight over the expressive eyes of his interlocuter who declares love, the eyes might be melancholic, maybe even expressing defeat o succumbing finally to what he/she feels, and the out loud part is pictorially represented. The eyes become a visual aid. I think this was the moment I realized that twitter account and I had a future. Much like a fan who is sure, if they only had the chance to meet their platonic love, that love would cease to be platonic and it would become the real thing, or even better than the real thing, it would even be requited. Elation is a byproduct of fantasy.

Anyway… last weekend I decided to read all the tweets, because I began obsessing over the twitter account. I wanted to figure out who it was writing for, if there was any indication or clue that would reveal who was so adored. It read like a novel or micro stories, just waiting for me to fill in the blanks. I was able to go back to the tweets from January 16, 2022. A sign! Cont Reading

Company is coming! And you know what that means… clean, clean everywhere, clean until you feel there is no corner revealing human existence. Seriously, no cobwebs, lint, dust or stains behind the dryer or the refrigerator. Flip the couches! Dust the books. We have humans coming over. Today on Musing Interruptus: Hey! That’s For Company!

It all begins with a phone call to set up a visit. Remember those? Before WhatsApp, we would listen to each other’s voices in real-time. But things are different now. Now you need to write it out. Words that will be saved in a phone's memory or the cloud for the rest of time. Once the date is set, the games begin. You are off! If you are the host, you will be expecting company, that is, people who come to your home and look at your stuff, how it is organized or disorganized, the combination of colors and type of lighting. They will also be evaluating the beverages you serve and cleanliness of the bathroom. Having company over can be stressful in the wrong hands. In my hands it is a recipe for disaster, impending doom. Everything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Relax, this is the planning stage. Here we envision the best-case scenarios and the worst-case scenarios and craft a plan. It is only maddening if you let it be.

There is no reason for people to be looking under the sofas or behind the refrigerator, but I’ll tell you something, you can sense dust bunnies. Once you have cleaned your place, from top to bottom, corners, nooks, and crannies, the bathroom has been thoroughly disinfected and smelling like a hill side in springtime right before the rain, kissed by the sun… its time to plan the menu. -You know, it is a full circle kind of thing.- It is a good practice to be familiar with your guest’s diet, or at least their nutritional dos and don’ts. If there are any dietary restrictions, it is nice to take them into account. Making a nice homemade meal can go a long way to making people feel welcome. If you can make a homemade dessert, you might have a home run on your hands. Remember to put out hors d'oeuvres, napkins, glasses, and have a plan B ready on speed dial. Once you have the menu and the shopping list you can get to the fun stuff… The audiovisual experience. Continue Reading

I have been a passive observer in many respects, purposefully, I assume that is part of writing. I also understand that life’s experiences are there for the taking. What is a writer who does not dive into the deep end? I know I need to have the experiences that nurture my imagination and senses. Striking a balance between observing and experiencing is fun. I have craved what movies and literature have depicted as love and lust. Inspiration is everywhere. I’ve been fascinated by Woody Allen’s take on loving with neurosis, and John Cusak in High Fidelity and Say Anything, the surrender to life’s experiences in Far Away So Close and Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing. I’m not ashamed, all of Zoey Deschanel’s characters resonate with me and a there is little bit of Ángeles Masttreta’s Emilia in the mix. I have taken life into my own hands and been the protagonist hoping to one day craft a great story, meanwhile, making a lot of great memories. Of course, in real life, I lack the Oscar flair, nonetheless, I’ve jumped from that bungy and walked over hot coals, traveled, and made speeches. Sparked conversations with fellow travelers and fallen in love, taken risks. Dreamed my little dreams and found ways to materialize them.

My expectations are completely skewed, driven by fantasy and then again, how great life can be when you make things happen. I have managed to create a life in my cauldron, a combination of magic intertwined with life’s very real slings, arrows, and boring afternoons. I know I am not a unique snowflake. Whatever that means. By now I am more clear than ever that life’s succulent pleasures are destined to those who dream, desire, and bring them to the realm of everything material. You know, those who make it happen. And boy, I love making things happen. However, sometimes things happen to you. Not magically, of course. I’m talking about life’s unguarded moments. Here is one of them.

Awaiting my first time was a combination of expectation, fantasy, energy surging through my body, capturing my imagination, a pulse towards life and death, at once. Exhilaration, curiosity, and lots of research to know what to expect. I talked it over with friends, specialists, I asked questions, got answers, and then more questions. With every passing day, I wondered when it would happen. Would I instigate it? This is a matter many people face, to instigate or to passively receive. It seems like a matter under our control; however it is more a matter of our own biology and natural predisposition. Even immunity comes into play. Continue Reading Playlist

Rejection is a part of life and growth. Well, let me rephrase, learning how to deal with rejection is a part of life and growth. Learning to lose is part of learning how to win. Out of the numerous decisions we make everyday, one is how to react when we are rejected, or when our work is rejected. I don’t know which one is more difficult to face, especially when we have our heart set on a particular outcome. Which leaves space to reflect on our attachment to expectations.

Why shouldn’t we have expectations? We need to direct our energy towards certain goals, unless we want to be static. As if that were possible. Don’t we do things to avoid static? Static interference is bad, static cling is horrible.  Wait, so this is confusing. Are we supposed to be unattached and unmotivated? I’m sure I’m confused. However, achievements cannot be underrated.

So, let's say one is a writer and wants to be a great writer. Then one must put themselves out there and write, and share what is written not only to be a writer, but to receive critique that could generate growth. You have to be brave. A dear dear dear dear dear person related to me told me that after your first 10 rejections, it gets easier. Very easy to accept rejection and then grow from it. We must not be afraid of the sting associated with rejection. Ok. As I mentioned earlier, there are different types of rejections. A rejection to your person, perhaps a friend who turns you down, or a company that has no use for your services, a love misconnection, the satellite is down, it is not you, it is not me… it is the satellite. Relax. But then there is rejection of what you create. Be brave, create, write, fail fast, and learn. This is not only trial and error, it is learning from critiques. Continue Reading

I can immediately feel my personal time and space invaded by the suggestion I should provide this Entity attention outside office hours. Taking attention away from my family and decompression time. My heart accelerated and I felt uneasy. This is cortisol pouring onto my organs, degrading them. My whole body was reacting to this. Both of the cases I mentioned would have easily been resolved over the phone or with an email, during office hours, the office hours stipulated in my contract. There seemed to be no logical reason to be reading work-related WhatsApp messages when I was in my bed, looking at my phone, reading Tweets, looking at Insta Reels, catching up on my reading. Relaxing and preparing myself for rest and the next day’s grind. For all intent and purposes, this is naked time. I don’t work naked. No offense to people who work naked. I just don’t. Do you know when I get to be naked? When I’m off the clock. And I do personal things, like wash the dishes, naked, read in the sun, again, naked. I’m relaxing, naked. I don’t know if you enjoy wearing clothing all the time. But I definitely do not need a cross-over between my naked time and work time. I have the right to disconnect. Furthermore, the entity I work for doesn’t remotely pay what I would consider a competitive salary, to work naked on a Sunday afternoon.

So, as I write this, I’ve put my metaphorical nakedness away and put my metaphorical clothes back on, sufficiently stressed, feeling that my Sunday brain, relaxed and happy is very quickly reentering Monday’s atmosphere, and I can really feel the burn. My downtime has been cut short. Fuck, even my musings have been interrupted, and not in the funny way that could make for a good story. I keep feeling, this arrangement isn’t going to fly. I hate having to set boundaries with an entity when I think people should have enough common sense to look at a watch or a calendar and think about using the official channels. I didn’t answer the message today. I won’t. I have things to do, with my personal time. However, I’m bothered, uncomfortable, and yes, invaded. I have to figure out how to separate those feelings from my home feelings. It is not ok. It won’t be ok. We should not put up with that. We are not feelingless cogs in a Chaplin movie, and these are postmodern times. Rights can be easily forgotten when justified by the relentless adage, you should be grateful you have a job. Followed by kowtowing, scurrying out the door, never turning your back on the entity. Don’t forget, it will stab you, wound you. This particular entity has done that already. Since then, I’ve worked with very professional people in another area. It is, however, the same entity. Continue Reading

Betrayal can only exist when you trust a person or group with information or resources, thus giving them power over others. For example, a ruler might have their trusted advisors who run around behind their backs, sharing information, resulting in the ruler being overthrown. Even the brightest leaders have misread a run-of-the-mill sociopath who extracts information for their own gain, in a game they feel they must win at all cost. As losing is the ultimate blow to their very fragile egos. People who sacrifice trust and friendship to -win- —whatever that means– generally lose more along the way than they were capable of realizing. It was lost on them from the very start. This can be a hard truth. The sacrifice is true and honest friendship, support, and companionship. Maybe the most fragile of sacrifices, although not necessarily the most valuable, is trust. We can probably agree it is a foundational element. Once this is lost, know this, you may have won, but your reputation will be tarnished. That is a double loss.

Betrayal is not only an action, it is a lesson. We are always alone in life, we are all we have, and our reputation is part of that. A reputation for being callous will lead to loneliness versus being kind. The matter or material we are made of, be it contaminant or nutritious honey, will mark our lives and the tracks we leave behind. The latter, being kind, requires a great deal of inner strength, intelligence, and patience. Especially with oneself, because kind people are bound to trust the wrong person or people at one point or another. The stakes may be very high. No one is exempt from betrayal, just as everyone has a price. A devastating kiss, sealing conspiracy, the Judas Kiss. The multiple betrayals of being sold by your family and then by the people who bought you, and finally, being sold off to a group of conquerors, having to serve them and their purposes, and establishing a final blow of betrayal to the people who betrayed you several times before. Like the Malinche… that one seemed inevitable. A brother saving himself and his wife by throwing his own sister under the bus, Greenglass betrayed his sister and brother-in-law, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. They got the chair. The Cold War was a curious time for agents, double agents, and betrayal.

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People always find a way to justify these acts. Betrayals have justifications, even lofty justifications. Such is the case of Brutus who conspired and betrayed Caesar, who was stabbed 23 times; a sacrifice to preserve the Republic, protecting it against the designs of a man who would amass more power and dissolve the Senate. Brutus, who was said to be manipulated into fulfilling his destiny, as magnicide ran in his family. Continue Reading

I got the address off from a funky-looking dog, who, as it turns out, was waiting for me on the corner. It was a Sunday, at 6:00 am, I was on a walk, and there he was, a scruffy, down-to-no-good lookin’ dog. He stood in front of me and I felt like some sort of energy traveled from him to me, and I figured there was a hidden note in his collar. I’m just going to chalk it up to one of those things. The crazy part was reading the dog's handwriting. No, I’m kidding. That is obviously not the crazy part.

Sunday morning, 6:00 am, at the corner of Give me Sign and Please Don’t Let Me Be Wrong, the weather was cool, dewy, and darkness was being threatened by light. I decided hope was not lost. I just wanted a peek into the future so I could feel the slightest satisfaction and appease my mind with an iota of confirmation from a trusty source. Something had led me to that corner. This was not fortuitous. That dog was not in my way, that Scruffy Mr. Funny Eyes McGee was waiting for me. Does that mean, the roads I traipse down are part of a more complex configuration? I mean… destiny? Was I destined to meet that dog there? Is that a thing? Is that scruffy dog, that I have now officially named, proof of that? That note was addressed to me. This was probably the most mysterious part so far. Who set this up? I sat on the curb, next to the dog. Paper note in hand. I wondered, why not just message me, send an email, or even, I know this is old school, slip the note under my door. I was looking at a handwritten note, with the address of M. Clair V. That’s cute. This is like when you say you want to buy something out loud and Facebook shows you personalized ads.

So, are we just pawns or whatever chess piece you prefer… they are ultimately being moved. Is that us? What a joke. Then again, I think of the arts as the confirmation destiny does not exist, art is creation and free-will at its finest. My logic seems to be flawless. Go with it.  I’m at another crossroads. I can see two arguments here, at least. Creation confirms there is no destiny and we are indeed endowed with free will. Legit! What follows? The work of oracles, precogs, clairvoyants is further defined as seeing what then? Wouldn’t they be able to see these future works of art and become the artists themselves? Or winning lottery numbers? Avoid catastrophes, … it wouldn’t make sense to have destiny apply to some situations and not others. The system does not have independent parts. So the future isn’t found in the chapters written out in the stars or the contents of Santa’s Naughty and Nice list. If nothing is written and each moment builds to a different reality-- Well, what it means is that anything is possible, therefore anything the precog says they see, is bound to happen or not. And just like that, they are frauds. You won’t get your money’s worth of sound future telling. But the dog.  The dog was there and I was there. I am forgetting to factor this in. The dog had a note for me. Continue Reading

I’d like to be an eagle, soar through the air, or a cheetah, faster than a speeding bullet. Oh wait, that is mighty mouse. I could do that too. Here he comes to save the day. Wait, that is a middle-aged woman. I wouldn’t eat an eagle, a cheetah, nor mighty mouse. Worms, I might. Worm tacos, worm, ice cream. Worm baguettes.-- du dump dum!

I’d like to be a great many different things, but I would also like to be, just who I am. Couldn’t I just be? Undefined by you or me? Could I just breathe who I am, not worried if you think I am wrong or right? Is there a breath so free? I used to race the rain until gravity put me in proper submission. From the onset, I knew I could not beat it, but I did it anyway, until the cold cut my reddened cheeks. Yes, witching around can be exhausting.

You see, it is not only the physical exertion, it is so much more than that. It is dealing with neighbors and a community that would prefer not see the likes me. Worried for their youth, I might absorb it up with my magic. But let me tell you, that doesn’t happen. I don’t know how to do that and my Tuesday’s witches circle hasn’t spoken of it either. Let us remember, this is for you, non-witches, if we could harness youth, witches would be a more aspirational thing to be. I mean, in this youth-centered society, it would simply be the thing to be. No, it is fatiguing, going around, wearing the wrong fitting skin, just to avoid disruption or intrusion. Getting into that skin every day is exhausting. More than that, its walking around in that skin, convinced that it is willingly. Until one day, you no longer have the strength to convince yourself.  You can see it in the mirror. It is plain to see. A duller reflection. If I didn’t have my Tuesday witchery time, I might go mad.

Do you know what witches do on Sunday evenings?- While everyone is eagerly postponing Monday morning schlepping around the city. We drink sweet liquids and paint the sky. Sunday evenings are the best moments of the week, as long as you shred past the denseness of the air, polluted with heavy hearts, soar into the night air, wind blowing in your hair, cold cheeks and speed. Nobody looks into the night sky anymore, I wonder what they do with all the hope that isn’t had… No, no eager eyes to the night sky, not on Sunday evenings. What a pity. But it’s great for us. That is when we witches can be the freest, what seems like the most dismal day of the week, leaves an opportunity to just be, in plain sight. Continue reading

There are certain activities associated with youth, a mindset whose true north is freedom, consequences be damned, as youth has the certainty it will always be worth it. Wisdom will set-in confirming it, don’t you worry. Beautiful ingénues, hindsight is 20-20.

Ok, that aside. One of the best parts about being young is that it is socially acceptable to get excited about things. Jumping up and down and squealing, for instance. I wonder if as we age manifestation of excitement is subdued on account of embarrassment or bad knees, I’ve got both. I can’t entertain the possibility of people simply not getting excited anymore.  I do know that as we have more experience, we try to conceal the heart on our sleeves. Way battered from the intense experiences of our youth. That is another reason sitting the next one out seems forgivable and even desirable, at times.

Then again, you are as old as you feel and, damn it, I can feel any way I goddamn wanna feel, you too. So, this reminds me of another brilliant part of youth… First times. First words, the first time you taste chocolate, first day of school, rollercoaster ride, dance, kiss, broken heart, trophy, the first time you make love, first car accident, marriage, child, their firsts… A fun one, first time you fall in love with a music idol. This energy harnessed by the person at the mic, center stage, personifying an ideal and becoming the collective object of desire. Some of my favorite sex symbols: Elvis, The Beatles, Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Prince, Lenny Kravitz,  -Bono- Their moves awaken primitive feelings, one of those feelings, very characteristic of youth. Elvis Presley was interviewed, and many times questioned about his moves. In 1956 he told TV Guide:  “... I don’t roll my — what they call ‘pelvic gyrations’ — my pelvis has nothing to do with what I do. I just — I get rhythm with the music. I jump around to it because I enjoy what I’m doing. I’m not trying to be vulgar, not trying to stimulate [sic] sex. I just do a lot of wigglin’ and quiverin’, but I never do a bump or grind. I can’t sit still when I sing, so the kids can’t sit still.”

What a loaded answer. People normally mean what they say they don’t, when it is stated right off the bat like that. Then again, music is intrinsically a manifestation of feelings. The most dominant feelings are desire, falling in love, sadness, and anger. Music is plagued with the expression of these feelings. Storytelling with tunes. Sometimes non-verbal musical storytelling takes place. In any case, movement goes together with dancing. What came first, the music or the dance? This is a great question. As many times music imitates sounds, and natural rhythms. One could posit music starts with our mother’s heartbeat. Do you see that too?

It is only natural to move, give into the music, let it rush through you and take over. Dance is a young person’s game, better knees, you know? Which doesn’t mean we stop swaying as we get older, but it does seem that opportunities to dance diminish as time goes by. Continue Reading

As I start writing this, I immediately regret the song selection, too late for cold feet,  no use in crying over spilt milk. It is not like I can go back to the title and start all over again, and nobody would find out. No. That would be dishonest. I’m committed to this song. We are in this together. And this my friends, is a serious business, not monkey business. Here I go… Are you ready?

To understand this song, we need to jump back to June 15th, 1941, the day my friend Harry was born. His mother had such a difficult time in childbirth that she decided not to have anymore after Harry. He was an only child, as you will come to appreciate, this made an impression on him. You know, back in the day, childhood didn’t exist. People were just young and strong enough to get to work or war for that matter. By 1942 he was walking and by 1943 his family was sending him off to war with the special short and young people’s brigade. War is messy and not much to be proud of, no matter what side you are on. Sending young ones may have been one of the most brilliantly calculated moves, but never spoken of, on account of the massive loss of young life. To this day, this song is the only real tale of the under 90 Battalion. Under 90 cm that is. Harry was one of the lucky ones. He came back, but was never really able to speak of the horrors he saw. Mostly because at three his vocabulary wasn’t that developed yet. He never forgot those experiences. Being an only child, going to war and being the sole survivor of his battalion. When he started school, his PTSD, undiagnosed, of course, complicated his interaction with the other young people in first grade. Let us recall that post-traumatic stress disorder was recognized as a mental health issue until 1980. As I was saying, Harry would go in and out of  flash-backs with certain triggers. The playground, as I am sure you can empathize with my dear friends, can feel like a battlefield, throw a dodgeball into the mix, and you were sure to have Harry in a state that required the school nurse to coax him down from the apple tree. This happened to be the highest place he could get to. Sometimes he would use the apples as projectiles. This, however, was well received and the young ones would crowd around Harry and cheer. His flashbacks were not swayed by the cheers. The damage had been done. His perception of himself and life as he knew it had been altered. He was alone on the field, surviving and heavens knows what else had gone on during the war.

By the time he was 27 - 1968 - still undiagnosed, found solace in songwriting. One is the loneliest number, this is a reminder of how he learned to count while on the battlefield, one short stature, young person left standing. Two can be as bad as one (don’t start singing please, this fake story is not over yet). Learning to count, one, two… there were no more on the field, one left, the last to be picked to play dodgeball on the playground, one in his lonely bedroom, playing with one car, one up a tree throwing apples. Continue Reading

Expressing desire and love, two very different things, can be daunting, under even the best of circumstances. A leap into an abyss which generally if not always, is propelled by an expectation that this expression will be reciprocated, is no easy feat. The abyss can be dark. A fall into darkness is both exciting and liberating. Scary too. Ultimately, a must-have experience. There are so many ways to do it. Blurting it out, as if the feeling caught you off guard, in a moment of vulnerability, when you were thinking about something else, and this parallel feeling, racing to the moment of being liberated, beats out all the rest and stumbles out of your mouth. A nice surprise. You can also plan it, prepare the stage for what you hope will be magic. A little pomp and circumstance won’t hurt anyone, and it can make for a very nice memory. Then, there is the love letter. Timeless. Crafting it can be tricky. A few things to keep in mind: be honest, find the right words, stay away from derivative imagery and platitudes, and let your words slice through your fear, expectations, and insecurities straight to the heart of who you are, what you feel, and what you wish for and from the person receiving the letter.

A few words of caution, ego needs to be set aside when writing for someone else. Be prepared to have your work eviscerated. This doesn’t mean you aren’t appreciated, there is another, more delicate level of work that hangs in the balance. This is an exercise in expression and valor. The hired-writer becomes coach and sometimes a voice. Maybe legitimizing feelings, showing support and accompanying she or he who is pining. A veritable Cyrano de Bergerac.  Your words may be the vehicle or simply the mirror or echo. Two can seem like an army. We're talking about the stuff superheroes need to muster up to go up against their nemesis in sudden death. Do or die. Sink or swim. It is all or nothing. I know it comes easier for some- good for them. The rest need a little support, a little help from their friends. As you write, whether you are capturing someone else’s feelings, or you are writing for yourself, it will do you good to remember that the objective isn’t necessarily winning someone’s love. You either have that or don’t. Like Schrodinger's Cat. Continue Reading

Before we start, this Musing Interrptus was inspired by a class I had with my student Fernando who contributed to the conversation by bringing up the woodcarver in question, Daniel for telling me the uncensored version of Pinocchio. Thank to both. AND a challenge launched by my sister Andrée. So, if this is toilet, we can just say it is all on them.

A lot of Disney’s animations are very sad. For the life of me I can’t get through a second viewing of Dumbo, Bambi or Pinocchio. These are a special kind of mental torture that I would prefer to sit out. I’ve had Geppetto on my mind, especially since Fernando decided to talk about the cruelty of a wooden boy being kicked out of school. He was particularly miffed with the school teacher. In all honesty, I think I would have done the same thing. How do you explain a walking, talking wooden puppet who thinks he can learn, and arrives at my school. Call me mean hearted but I too would kick out the wooden fiend, hailing from hell. Come on, I mean, any responsible schoolteacher would keep a demon away from their students. Seen from another perspective. If you, as the teacher, realize you are starting to have hallucinations, and I bet there are a lot of teachers who would agree with me, you have to put a lot of things in order, like get your lesson plans, materials, and notes, and find a suitable sub (available sub), before you deign take care of yourself. In any case,  I think the teacher was in the right to protect the classroom from demons. Maybe, considering the times, the teacher’s actions would be considered above and beyond had he called the exorcists from the local catholic church… according to my calculations, if the story happened in a Tuscan town, the approximate distance from the Prisoner in the Vatican was about a day’s worth of horse riding. Taking a whole two days off from teaching is unthinkiable for a teacher covering a syllabus. Let’s face it, it could have been longer, considering the newly unified Italy had a ways to go in terms of nation building. The teacher would have found obstacles on the road. Their best bet would have been to alert the local church or burn the possessed puppet in a bonfire or nearest witch burning. That aside, let’s look at the root of the story. Geppetto, the woodcarver. Continue Reading

There are many absurd notions circling about. Programmed obsolescence for one. Seeming to be a very rusty nail the coffin of climate change. Waiting in traffic is absurd. Waiting when life is so short, is absurd. You know what I find truly absurd?! In Mexico, you are required to have a driver’s license to operate a car, however, you just have to pay for it. There is no test. Absurd!

In a world where injustice and pain reign (statistically speaking), one of the largest institutions promoting a semblance of a moral compass falls short of truly promoting a more just and peaceful world. It starts out well, the promise of an afterlife paradise, you know, being reunited with loved ones works out for a few. Because, obviously, being good to each other for the hell of it doesn’t seem to be worth it. I think it is, by the way. But most need a reward, we do this in school, it is called gamification. Take a page from these long-lasting institutions. They use that strategy too. HOWEVER, very much like a party-school, there is something appealing in the contract that will retain your allegiance to the very end.  Repenting for absolution of sins before death. That has to be one of the most absurd loopholes I’ve ever heard of. It is like a get out of jail free card, or purgatory, after doing everything wrong while alive. This seems to have no limitations. Are you Hitler or Pinochet, Stalin or Pol Pot? King Leopold the II of Belgium or whoever invented the institution of marriage. Repent just before your soul leaves and all will be taken care of, all will be forgiven. Of course, we can’t really know if that is what happens. Maybe you do have to do no harm, all the time. Period. By the way, this institution also promotes unequal relations among humankind, so I won’t think too much of the wolf in lamb’s clothes. I do think highly of those who promote love, peace, and acceptance with their actions. Whether or not they are part of an institution. I think it is absurd not to.

I live in a country where we find the need to make a distinction between sopa aguada or Mexican Pasta Soup which translated from Spanish is watery soup and pasta, also called sopa in some households. This is where I get very confused, because pasta can be served in a soup, as a side dish or as a main course. Depending on the household this is true to a greater or lesser degree. My fragile mind just thinks, this is absurd, they are different pasta dishes. But that is far from cultural relativism, and my relatives would probably not appreciate this part of today’s podcast. Because of their affiliation to the Church, I don’t think they will like the first part either. So, this is a lost cause and to continue writing this is simply, say it with me… absurd. Wait, let’s try that again, one, two, three… absurd. Continue Reading

There are phrases that indicate you should brace yourself; whatever is coming next is going to rock your world or maybe even turn it upside down. Whether it is an irreversible act, or plain bad news, there are words that when strung together, can feel like a blunt blow to the head or even the gut. Feeling the air is knocked out of you or maybe, that the air escaped the room leaving basic sounds that overwhelm the space or even the world. The kind of words that stop your heart and then throw your whole system into overdrive. Today on Musing Interruptus, Let’s Call It What It Is.

Social conventions dictate we construct our discourse in such a way we prepare our interlocutors for what is coming. Generally, I believe this is a good practice. It helps the receptor of our message better understand what we want to say, not only in terms of explicit content but what is implicit. These phrases introduce difficult conversations, they imply that what is coming is perhaps uncomfortable and you most likely won’t like it.

Phrases like, we need to talk, are a clear indication you need to brace yourself; the relationship is over. If your girlfriend says this, start thinking about what kind of breakup you want, get some ice cream, romcoms and update your Tinder account, a heartbreak is coming.

I wish things could be different, meaning that whatever happened, probably can’t be reversed. I’m sorry to tell you or I regret to inform you implies rejection, maybe your work is toilet. Remember, that phrase doesn’t actually exist, but it might catch on. The phrase, I’m not going to lie to you, and you’d better sit down for this implies that what is coming up is bad. I’m not going to lie to you, your haircut is toilet. A phrase I’ve told several dogs after I’ve believed I can be a doggy stylist. My sister and husband have heard this phrase in the very same situation. You can’t see me, but I have an oops face. If you are at work and your boss says, we have to let you go, that means you are fired. And no, you are not in the position to say, oh, don’t worry, I can hold on. I’m calling it can be heard among doctors and surgeons who have to declare time of death. You might hear someone, in a different context say, I’m calling it, meaning, they are giving up on something, like a project or a specific outcome. You might get a call from someone shady, saying, it’s done, if they don’t say exactly what is done, you might have an indication it isn’t legal and, since they are reporting back to you, well, they did it on your behalf. Holy moly. Get an alibi, lose the phone, jump on a plane and get yourself to a non-extradition country and figure out the details later. Continue Reading

There is a difference between showing your affection because, it exudes out of your pores, creating a halo of adoration, unequivocally so, and showing affection as a way to receive affection. There is an ego push, relentless, disconnected, intermittent, and unsustainable.

The ulterior motive defines how seduction is perceived, and if I am not mistaken, it sets the tone for the relationship. Today on Musing Interruptus, Wild Horses.

The life drive, as in Freud. In Spanish, pulsión de vida, an energy that comes from the origin and feeds the origin. Any and all sensations that motivate satisfying a need. It is tension, libido, infatuation, and connection-based pining. It is a search for release, a short-lived, addictive satisfaction. Is it an addiction if you need it to live, by definition? On the opposing end of Eros is Thanos, a death drive balancing the voracity of desire and creation.

Mary Wollstonecraft articulated an argument for women’s edification based on the need to differentiate a worthy suitor from a scoundrel interested only in sexual intercourse. An educated woman may uncover the wolf in sheep’s clothes. What Mary didn’t mention is that education may also allow said woman to disrobe the wolf, in an act of seduction. Furthermore, an educated woman’s life is informed by a plethora of interests and curiosities, diverse needs to create and achieve. The life drive serves purposes beyond the preservation of the species on a biological plane, it fosters diverse human manifestations of intellect. Pushing creation and intellectuality, hurling human development through space and time. Yes, women need to be educated as a means to save humanity.

Say you find yourself on this journey and your path should be met with a counterpart, to the fullest extent, or three-quarters or half. You will be able to identify them with every atom and sub-particle. This is the path, down which, seduction cannot be planned or manipulated into existence. It is an unsupervised chemical reaction urging the hosts to act through attraction, cemented by admiration. Unmistakable for anything else, by those living it and those witnessing, the stuff love stories are made of. In real life, it takes a lot more than a meet-cute to kick things off. There is a lot of internal work that goes on.

The ulterior motive is either classified, in terms of music or songs, as Wild Horses, by the Rolling Stones or Jimmy Buffet’s Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw. Mind you, I’m not passing judgment on either scenario, I am simply stating that both parties should be able to identify which it is if only to create the right playlist for the occasion. Thank you for listening.

Have you confused these scenarios?  What tipped you off? How did you resolve it? Do you agree when I say every level of an individual deserves to be developed and that this is conducive to true self-love and the ability to love others and even be loved? I guess what I’m saying and asking, in the words of Bob Marley, Could you be loved? I’m listening.

It starts out in the womb, where there is a fine duet between a heart that discovers another, in its own ecosystem. Call it magic, the baseline for music or plain life. Percussion is in all of us. The dyad turned duet turned family of individuals. Each person hones their instrument, discovers their notes and tempos. It takes time to create music, the sounds are there from the very first moment. Sounds are vibrations. Colors vibrate too, did you know that? They are a chemical reaction. But that is another Musing Interruptus, not this one. This one is rooted in the core of our origin, linked to generations going both ways. Unless they are not. Which can also occur.

Each person in the family plays a part of a piece of music, a composition unique to the walls that housed them, or should I say homed? Masterful, at times harsh, others whatever the sound of home is. The music we make is as harmonious or eclectic as the personality of each member, each instrument, playing the notes that tell the story of what is happening, that accompany moments or intervene and embrace, sustain. We play the notes that come to us, we play the notes that are most familiar to our hearts and minds. The dark heavy notes, full and ominous, and at times vexing. The kind that gives you a foreboding feeling which is not so great but makes sense as the base of the composition, keeping time and keeping the sound grounded. How about sunny notes, that need to be played staccato, that announce light, beaming, joyous harmony, jumping off the staff. The energy that fuels laughter. Ah, but play the note flat, and you have the copy with less saturated colors. Not too sure they could strike out on their own as they are regarded as the compliment. In an impressively supportive role. Or could it be that the flat note is disruptive? Have I simply misunderstood flat notes, failing to see the beauty? It is very possible. Need a rest note? Silence, of course, is crucial to music and music appreciation. As well as appreciation of these relationships. A time to reflect and regroup, breathe and get ready to jam again. Continue Reading

When I was born, my monster was born. Sleeping under my crib and then under my bed. When the space under the bed was too tight, my monster moved to the closet. We grew up together. When I learned to read, he demanded I read him bedtime stories, demanded cookies and dry cinnamon toast crunch cereal. My monster never understood I didn’t choose to be born at the same time he was. I couldn't break it to him. As I grew, he watched me learn and dream, waiting patiently for me after school, watching me play outside with my friends, sometimes alone. After all, he had come to be when I arrived home from the hospital. The tiny monster under my crib, pacing like a little velociraptor, practicing his growl. Little did he know that he would not be frightening me, but frightening those who came to scare me. He was my protector. Seems he missed induction to monsters under the bed or maybe he went into the guardian angel course by mistake.

My monster fiercely defended me from the grumbles coming up from the first floor. He was so brave, never faltering, never blinking in the face of the hurricanes. Those high-speed winds could turn the house upside down, but my monster always kept us right side up. Amazing, he was always my age, no matter what age, and he knew how to take the most appropriate form. Whatever the case called for, he could shape-shift into a shadow, a hug, a shield, the voice in my head that reminded me I was not alone, my knight, never errant, my constant friend and playmate, battling the horrors cloaked by the dark. My philosophy teacher, as I was forced to explain life, God, and loss to him. I was scared of things hiding under the stairs, wanting to grab my feet, pull me through the rise between steps on the staircase. I wonder now what I was really afraid of. Was it really the aliens living under the stairs or behind the refrigerator? Was it the miracle of make-believe?

Life changes on a dime. I was afraid my monster was left behind when we moved so urgently. So much was left behind. I was still so young. I needed my monster close to me. Especially back then. There would be no house, no bed to dive into, to sob and wail after an injustice and hurt feelings, ever again. At least if I had my monster, I would feel protected. I couldn’t imagine the sadness of my monster, waiting in that empty house. Roaming around, making the floorboards creek, sleeping in the empty closet, pushing himself down the stairs, belly-down, feet first. Our things, you know? Would he be poking his head out the window, wondering what time I would be back? How many bedtime stories had he missed out on? Who would bring him cereal?  How many scary things had happened, he could have protected me from? If I was feeling the hole in my chest, I’m sure he was feeling it too. This is the only connection I never questioned. Continue Reading

Hello and welcome to Musing Interruptus. Thank you for clicking and thank you for listening. There is nothing like an oh-no moment after sending a message. Either because it can be misunderstood or because you have a lapsus, you didn’t mean to write that or you were under the influence and thought it was a good idea at the time. This has happened to me. Several times. Including, texting the precise person I was not supposed to the -remember we are not supposed to tell you this- message. Mind you, this happened before covid, so I can’t blame it on covid long term effects. The thing is, the unconscious will have its way, one way or another. That can mean blurting things out or miscommunicating. I mean, not for your unconscious, your unconscious meant to do it, it is you, the unenlightened fool who is trying so hard to repress it, engaging in a tug-o-war like struggle with the other part of yourself, that is as free and expansive as possible. That is a recipe for disaster or freedom, depends on who ask. I think as we age, the repressor gets weak, and succumbs more and more to the freer one… you know… the ID.

Why are we so afraid of the ID in society? Granted, limits must exist. That is not up for discussion. Responsibility should not be understood as the counterpart of freedom. On the contrary, complying with responsibility frees up space. Emotional space.

Anyhoooooow, texting after thirty can be challenging. Take for instance those funny little faces and stickers. I’ve seen people struggle with the meaning of emoticons. Can we just all agree to disagree and explain everything with words which, by the way, can also be misunderstood for reasons of basic sentence construction, a hiccup with subject verb agreement, split infinitives, punctuation, and not following a general line of thought. Case in point, exhibit A. this podcast. But I was talking about erring on the opposite side of interpretation via selection of words to express ideas and feelings. I’m not saying get rid of emoticons all together, but maybe they don’t substitute the written word. Emoticons, stickers, gifs, they are all great, nifty, even, but they are the equivalent of a child making faces and having the parents guess what they are feeling or need. —Wait, wait, wait, dude… interjected Jack, but talking about your feelings is hard. It makes me feel weak inside.     Ok, so you have a point there, but it’s not reason enough not to speak your mind. Once you learn how to articulate your feelings, you can identify what you want and assertively ask for it. It’s that simple. Continue reading

John never gets to play. His one-track mind puts off any kind of real enjoyment until he has finished his work to his satisfaction. Satisfaction was never easy to come by.

His one-track mind, destination cogville… mmmmm you know what, he wouldn’t get the reference to the cogs from Chaplin’s Modern Times because he was never allowed to watch movies, and he never found the need to scrutinize that. Childhood was about chores, school, homework, and being the emotional support, his mother needed. He never quite fit the bill. Textbook. Even after his mother’s passing, he couldn’t fathom a different life for himself. Survival mode was the only speed he knew how to keep.

Daily grind was nothing to him, scratch that, it provided structure, and that comforted him. However, there was no joy. Not in his morning coffee, much less in the bowl of soggy cereal he shoveled into his mouth before work. It never occurred to him to change his schedule or habits. God forbid he would miss a beat. He kept time as a function of what was expected of him. He nourished himself, as expected, as was indicated. Compliance with life. He was great at that. That didn’t cause him pleasure either.

Imagine love, it was never on the to-do list. Life had proffered up a series of meet-cutes he brushed-off, not even recognizing an opportunity. You need to to show yourself love before you can love. What did that even look like? He never considered anything was missing.  Had he not been on the 5 o’clock bus that Tuesday, he wouldn’t have overheard the conversation about music that would set his life a blaze. A child was describing the instruments and sounds in a song he was learning at school. He seemed to get lost in words like staccatos, high, low, sustain. It was John getting lost in the words. He had never paid attention to the radio, much less street musicians. All sounds, up to that moment, had been part of a great wall of noise, each part indistinguishable from the next. He experienced life that way, having to face a wall of noise that included requests, demands, and some of his basic needs. Was it the hum from the bus’s engine that let him relax and listen in on this child’s description to his mother? Was it the vision of a reality he would have loved for himself? It would have been nice. Whatever it was, he shot up and rang the bell signaling the bus driver to let him off at the next stop. To potentially experience, that was more than enough. Call it serendipity, but there was a record store at the corner, known for its eccentric owner. If you let him, he would be your spiritual guide into awakening that soul-searching eye through music. John would be in the right hands.

Today, he would discover a part of his brain and self, accessed only with the resources music provides to understand the world on a sensorial plane, one in which souls connect over waves and descriptions that become seared into your soul. Continue Reading

Knowing what to, how to take care of your emotional self is not always readily available.

You might be surviving the passing of a loved one, losing a job, losing love, a home, the idea and expectation of a love affair. Maybe it is bad news at the doctor’s office or failed project. Knowing what to do requires clarity, what a thing, sometimes feelings are so intense and aggressive that thinking isn’t the intuitive option or even at hand. For others, hubris (arrogance) outweighs their own humanity, shoving and repressing feelings way down.

I’ve heard two big schools of thought on this, one is let it hurt and the other is try not to think much about it. I’ll start with the latter.

There are things that need to get done. Wash the windows and take out the trash. Keep busy, get through your inbox, and go to the grocery store. Exercise, keep it up. Don’t stop. Deadlines keep coming and the world won’t wait for anyone. FOMO or fear of missing out might push you to continue, or simply the fear of being overwhelmed and struck down by the emotional pain associated with a series of events or processes is enough to just keep going.

In this case, listen to the music that will build you up, bring up the fight song that makes your insides burn, focusing all your energy on the task at hand. Give it your all. That sadness inside feels like it can be transformed. You believe it and envision coming out on the other side of whatever fuckery this is. Just push through this, don’t look back. Play the song again, don’t let go of the phrase that fuels you, and let the melody and when the music drops become the tunnel through which you make it through. You are rough, you can withstand this you have been doing it for years. An expert in your own right. This is on you, and nobody is coming to save you. You know this. The music is just one of the many tools you have to get it done and never look back.

I get that. I have no rebuttal. Just know, there is some unnecessary roughness there you might want to reconsider. You can’t hold on to nothing. The way I see it, acceptance results in real strength. Facing the emotional distress, therein lies a test of valor. A life obstacle. It is life. Continue Reading. 

Well, you’ve caught me, I’m not the most Christmassy of folks. I won’t go into it, I’ll just say, there are more of us, and I’ll speak for myself, I won’t get in the way of your Christmas cheer, just don’t touch me with it.

You might not celebrate Christmas on account of having other celebrations, Krampus Nacht was on December 5th (if you are still around, this is a confirmation you were good this year, if you aren’t listening to this, you might be in the underworld because you were naughty);  you might be in the middle of Hanukkah, Santa Lucía is in a couple of days, Yule and December Solstice are coming up, Kwanza, and New Year’s. There are lots of last month of the year celebrations. At their core, there are nice feelings and motivations to be good humans around this time of year. I totally respect your celebrations. As a show of goodwill toward you, I will talk about a few things my family likes doing around this time of year and that I don’t interfere with, much.

They celebrate Christmas.  They take out the ornaments and decorations from the boxes at the very back of the storage space. This is the part I call, fun with old dusty colorful things that will collect more dust and make cleaning the house a trying experience. They buy a Christmas tree or Christmas corps. I get the whole, it smells so good thing, but to me, it is the same as putting a butterfly in a cage. Looks pretty for a while, but in the end, you get a dead butterfly. That makes me sad, not happy. But as I said, I won’t interfere much. If you want a tree, that is fine. My family buys a tree, they strap it on the roof of the car, tie it here and there to make sure it doesn’t fly away on their way home. You know what else people strap on the roof of their cars and drive home?... anyway when they get home, fun with little needles that clog up the vacuum cleaner begins. So now they have made a mess of the house, with the pine needles, the ornaments, and other decorations, just strewn about while they find the right place to hang the stockings (those are the big socks Santa puts the little presents in), if you have a fireplace, you hang them there, if you don’t, you hang them where you always hang your dirty socks. I might hang my sports bra after yoga and a bike ride, just to make it a little more festive. Smelly you say? Don’t forget, this time of year is about the senses, what would it be without Christmas odors and music?

My family plays Christmas carols and ballads, there is even rock. There is a John Denver and the Muppets Cd, and there is another with John Lennon and Springsteen, which is not too bad. I don’t cover my ears when they play that music. I just stay out of the way of putting up the tree. First, they affix it in a base with water and cover that with a skirt, like in nature. Then, they wrap the Christmas tree lights, which blink and may or may not cause epilepsy or a fire. I like the optimism my family has when it comes to safety, plug something in that is sitting in water and you will continue to water until it is very dead and we have to Mary Jane’s Last Dance it (this is a reference to a Tom Petty and The Heart Breakers video from the 90s that made a huge impression on me)... continue reading

My intuition is very good. Witch like even. I knew Thursday night that I would be getting up on the wrong side of the bed on Friday morning. After sleeping four hours, I got up, took a shower, and made breakfast, a really good one. The omelets were perfect and had little pieces of bacon and just the right amount of cheese. I would have breakfast after our morning errand. For a moment, I thought, my intuition was so wrong, perfect, fluffy omelets don’t happen on bad days. I would be chauffeuring and offering moral support to my sister that morning. — She is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. So, we drove to the old neighborhood, where, strangely, I wasn’t asked for my id, which goes against their security protocol, which I’d never been exempt from. Seems like a tiny stroke of luck. We picked up a friend and off we went, again, leaving the old neighborhood without even a peep from the guards.

On the way to our destination, I was thinking about how well I was driving and how I would not get stressed out with the drivers that seemed to be having awful days. They probably didn’t have perfectly fluffy omelets, with little bacon bits and the just right amount of cheese. It is understandable and I wasn’t going to make their day worse. As we arrived, I found the perfect parking space and waited for my sister and our friend. It took them some time, so I drank my coffee and listened to my favorite songs on Spotify, had myself a think, and looked at the time. Listened to more music and wondered about the nearest bathroom and thought I would be better off waiting till I got home. Against my better judgment, I had a few more sips of coffee. Some time later, they were out, our friend called an uber and made his way to his next appointment and we got in the car. I had had the perfect song for my sister and the moment, it would play automatically as soon as I turned the ignition key. It was set up to make a flawless, magical memory. - tac tac tac tac tac tac, my heart skipped a beat and I saw the lights on the dashboard flicker. —No. Again. Give it gas. Check it’s in park. I turn the key again— tac tac tac tac tac tac tac. — No! I know what that is, it’s the battery. I try again, stupidly, and reminding myself of the saying, it is crazy to repeat something under the same circumstances expecting to get a different result. I call my husband while my sister is telling me to just call an uber and leave her to take care of the problem. Now, I didn’t just have to use the bathroom, I had to get to a doctor’s appointment that would be pushed three months if I missed it. I had to do this. But I also had to make sure the car was taken care of and my sister got to her next appointment (moving to her new house). Continue Reading

I’ve noticed my proclivity for Twitter accounts that tweet about lusting and pining over an unrequited love, a love that has been torn away from them, or a love, so silent, only thousands of followers know it exists, yet the identities are in the shadows, anonymous. I’m hooked. I devour the little tweets, imagining the stories, fantasizing, and resolving them so they can be together. It is not all fun and games. As I am generally confronted with the question: if it were real love, why wouldn’t they be together? What is the point of declaring everlasting love or lust and not going for it? The truth is, building is hard and unromantic at times, at least in the mainstream romantic comedy sense. But I digress… today I am not for understanding the realities behind unrequited love or the appeal of platonic love. I’m interested in the fools that believe they can make it work, the fools that step out, from behind anonymity. Today, I want to talk about the fish and the bird who were faced with having to find a home because they fell in love.

The little fish, or in Tom Wait’s version, a whale, falls in love with a bird. Perhaps they met online or on a singles cruise. I can totally see their types putting themselves out there, taking the risk of meeting the psychos, weirdos, and creeps, with the hope of finding a diamond, a special someone who will squench their heart and stay around the next morning, and the morning after that. They are the type that never stopped believing in love, they never gave up. The singers of Morrisey songs and puckers of petals and blowers of dandelions, making wishes, gazing at the moon or the sky or through windows. They were looking, open and waiting for lighting to strike, and they found each other.  A counterpart in love. Once they saw each other, they just knew everything that came after would be noticed as just that, their own personal watershed moment.

Although their families never understood, the bird and the fish laughed the hours away, kissed to their delight and traveled by air and sea. They stopped at every port, caught rides on boats, and enjoyed the wind, each in their own way. They had so much in common, their love of the moon and worms, for instance. They never had trouble picking out what to eat nor where to travel. The looked at each other with such admiration. The fish adored to watch his love fly, glide in the air, to the moon and back. She flew for both, with all her might, she would swish and dive, delighting her love, her fish. She, in turn, would watch her beloved fish, swim around the moon, through it, and to the depths where all the moon’s secrets were kept.  The fish would exclaim, my darling, I swim and feel you with me, even at the distance. My darling bird, I slice the water, and the thought of you makes my two-ventricle heart beat softer and faster, all at the same time. You are my first thought in the morning,.. Continue Reading

Impasse. Finality. Time is invented and relative and a river and we are fish in that river. If you are Doc Brown and Marty Mcfly, you move around time.

Impasse. There is no moving forward from an impasse. We don’t use it to talk about the passing of time, seconds, minutes, years, decades. We use that word to describe an issue or position in a negotiation where there is no wiggle room. I’m sure there are cases where this is an absolute. There is no negotiating certain positions, no matter how good a teacher, negotiator, orator or storyteller. Time passes and so do people. That was the bad news today. Today of all days. You can’t negotiate with death.

Sometimes there are issues that feel like an impasse. In negotiation we teach strategies, speak of perspective, understanding the other side’s positions, needs, interests. Looking at the metaphorical pie, making it bigger. Perspective is a great thing. I believe most anything can be negotiated. Death and time are not such things. Two reminders that courage and a lust for life need to be nurtured. That is life and death.

Reaching the end of the year is not always a time for ecstatic celebration. Time is relentless, we are in motion, we lose, we mourn, the best or maybe the worst, our bodies have memory. You can remember what your lover made you feel a year ago, two years ago because your body remembers. That song on the radio might take you back to a moment you thought long gone, but your body remembers. It wasn’t your brain giving you the memory  per se, it was your body who remembered, then you got the memory image. Last year’s loss is not easy. This year’s losses might leave you not really wanting to celebrate. That is ok. Hear me out, if you are feeling this way, lets make it a we problem, if you don’t like my perspective, you can throw it out. If you do… tell me. Ok…. to the point and in a nutshell… Cont. Reading

Picture this, a rectangular box that fits in your hand, covered in plastic. Pull the little tab that excises the top protective plastic covering off the box. Now you can flip the top of the foil cigarette box open, the first smell of tobacco overtakes me. I pull out one of the little paper tubes of tobacco, putting the filter side to my soft lips between my index and middle fingers, with my other hand, I strike the lighter and make fire, pulling the flame closer to my face, pulling in everything that makes the world ok for that moment and that moment alone. I’ve breathed in fire and smoke and released dopamine in my brain. I did this over and over again, daily, several times a day… in many, many places. You could say, I know something about it.

Our first week in 2023, so far so good. Promises may have been made on New Year's Eve, as it is not only a night for partying, you might have made resolutions and wishes. Now we have to get them done. Sometimes they imply breaking cycles, correcting bad habits, addictions. Sticky, tricky, addictions. You might want to quit smoking, get out of a bad relationship, start a project, get fit, find a different job, make a new friend, or learn something new. If you think about it, as long as you have air in your lungs, you can build towards what you want. Air is the operative word today.

I am reminded of when I wanted to quit smoking. Let me rephrase that, I had to quit because I couldn’t breathe anymore. I was at a crossroads, live or die, it was up to me. By the way, that is not always the case. This was truly a special moment, as life gave me a glimpse into the future, is this the death I wanted for myself? I have a whole other Musing Interruptus for that one… bear with me. The hospital had a world-renowned program to help in the process. I did it because I thought I would have access to better doctors, I never had the intention of actually quitting. Two weeks before the program, I quit smoking, and my plan was to pick it up again when I felt better. That was 9 years ago and I haven’t had a cigarette since. You could say I quit cold turkey, because I just did it. However, the program is what really did it for me. They educated me on my brain chemistry and laid out strategies to deal with withdrawal syndrome. Honestly, not being able to fill my lungs was enough for me. That was scary. I did the program with and older gentleman who pulled an oxygen tank around, he was doing the program so he could kiss his daughters before he passed. He didn’t want his last kisses to be stinky. He was in the final stages of emphysema. Another participant, maybe 15 years my senior, a man set in his ways, vociferating he had absolutely no way of changing his habits or routines (this was a recommendation, alter the order in which you do things). As I heard him say it was impossible, I noticed my own inflexibility cheering they guy on, left fist in the air. No, I won’t change! This works for me you stupid motherfuckers! My insides were going all John McClane on me. Cont. Reading

There is a fly on the white wall. I think it crapped out or maybe died, the evidence is the two spots next to the static fly. I don’t know if that’s what happens when flies die. What I do know is that flies live from 45 to 50 days. As time goes by I am reminded of mortality. Everything reminds me of mortality. I’m going to be forty, shortly. Imminently. Thoughts of morality have been my life since I was a child. Sometimes scared of death, petrified of losing my parents in some freak accident or an everyday accident or to lung cancer. Kindergarten was fun. A great launching pad into existentialism. I learned you are not supposed to reference baby making, there is a right and wrong way to draw the letters M and W (they are symmetrical Mrs. Miller, it still doesn’t matter if I draw them from right to left!), I was scolded when using an opera voice during group sing-alongs, reprimanded from moving my hips during group dance----  all preparing me for the inevitability of the rape culture and institutionalized violence I would experience in all the countries I would live out my life.

Me being me, happiness has always been attainable in the face of sadness and loss. It is a way of life, anarchically enjoying what I have, a rebel against angst and optional suffering. The system would have me ignorant and complacent, content with whatever was easiest. I know full well pain is not optional. My personal rebellion to suck the most delicious parts out of life has marked the past 39 years. I have failed, no doubt. Fallen of the wagon, gone into prolonged eras of darkness and felt terrible pains. I’ve fought and lost against staying in bed, crippled by emotional pain. So far, I’ve always been able to rescue myself, with professional help, and sometimes, with help from my friends. In my experience, life happens in a moment, one event can instigate the greatest most earth shattering, life altering changes. It might be perceptible like a catastrophe, it might be imperceptible and incremental, gentle.

I started doing yoga in 2013 because I needed to get out of bed. I was struggling. I made it to the floor next to my bed and started. That one decision was transformative. Until now, I had never thought of how transformative one action has been in my life. An emotional, existential, depressive crisis, rendering me a quivering blob of helplessness, I only had my laptop and a little initiative in my index finger. I typed in yoga… and found Yoga with Dr. Melissa West. I woke up every day to do a little with her. Other things happened, I decided I would reevaluate my personal and professional choices. I imagined new projects and let myself dream, from rebuilding happiness to a career, I have always started small. I don’t know how to do it any other way. My happiness starts in my imagination tied to reality with a burgundy satin ribbon. Probably from the description I read as a child, of a dress with a satin sash. When I’ve been confronted with scary moments, I have two gears… Continue Reading

This has been a long time coming. Gordon Sumner, a.k.a Sting, former member of the Police and once English teacher has an umbrella that I cannot get my mind off. The image of that umbrella has accompanied me over the years, and as you’ll see, he has been holding on to it for even longer. Let’s set aside the one-sidedness of these situations. I’m going to tell you about the umbrella and, oh I will be so bold as to tell you about the significance of the umbrella. Let’s not think too much about the arrogance in that and consider it more like an opening position. If you have ever thought about this particular umbrella, I’d like, scratch that, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Here we go.

It starts with a song that catapults me through the clouds. It mentions the umbrella. This very specific umbrella. It occupies my time, it holds my attention.  What color is it? Is it oversized? Is it a sober black or whimsical yellow? I don’t know what color it is, nor do I know how big it is. Is it inspired on Mary Poppins? Will it fly you away or bring you down to earth? Gordon Sumner, jazz/punk/reggae fusionist, repeats over and over again in his songs, it’s a big enough umbrella, but I always end of getting wet. So, the song… I’ve been fascinated with, for decades: Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, fascinated by the progression, the lyrics, the story and faces I imagine, the taunting phone. It is the nervous percussion and the whimsical, longing, piano.  For me, one of the most perfect songs and that melancholic umbrella that does little to protect Sting from getting wet, drives me crazy. I think he likes the rain; I think the umbrella might be upside down collecting raindrops. Also, I bet the umbrella is big enough, but there is no escaping the feelings that motivate artists and the everyday Joe alike. The great equalizer, just as rain soaks through our outer protective shells, no matter who we are, so do these feelings, either catching us off guard or sometimes on guard and consciously, lowering the draw bridge, waving them through. Please, cross the moat here, enter the castle, no no, the guards won’t stop you. That is a fallacy and illusion. We may have control over our reactions but not what we feel. He calls it magic, but it is physics and chemistry. Chemical reactions that I’m not so sure can be neutralized.

In Shadows in the Rain, he dances and toys with the idea of sanity. And ends up getting wet here too. He doesn’t even try to avoid it. He relishes the rain. He gives in to delusion. This song seems to provide a bit of the code. A piece of the puzzle.

Then, there is the 1983 O My God, a song that reveals his plight to be emptiness, perhaps a lack of faith connecting him to God. Rain and the umbrella make their appearance, as if, sweeping up after the song. There is no escaping the rain, regardless of the size of the umbrella. This umbrella must be red. Continue reading

Some of the best arguments are crafted way after the fact, or just, five seconds after the discussion or argument is over. Having an active imagination, for some, might mean a very intense inner dialogue. I’ll leave it to you to imagine what happens in my mind. This might mean, continuing those conversations, quarrels, heated discussions, arguments, or rows, until resolved. Being involved in a one-sided activity, resolution is not as pleasurable, plus the added I wish I had thought of that when I was defending my point, I wish I had a quicker wit. It is not that I intensely enjoy arguments, it is the construction of truth and solving puzzles verbally. I used to think it was the adrenaline of needing to be right. That was true, long ago. I love having a long ago in my possession. Perhaps with age and why not, a little bit of maturity (just a little) I have discovered worlds of understanding and stages of development. I wouldn’t be a very good teacher if I hadn’t. Searching for truth is not about being right. But back to arguments and not worrying about being right. The construction of a solid argument depends on fact and the objectivity of fact. Seems like objectivity should be inherent to fact. That is, it exists independently of anyone’s subjectivity. In fact, objectivity is an ideal, a guiding light, and not necessarily an absolute, but varying in degree and relying on diverse factors. We should ask a scientist, that is what we should do. This doesn’t mean we can’t get close to the truth. But you can’t just say your facts are objective, even if they are, even if you know. -You can’t see me, but I’m nodding and making the most annoying face you can imagine. The know-it-all face. Frankly, I think in my realm of operation, that should be enough to win any argument. - Mind you, I didn’t say I was that mature. Just a little.

When engaged in an argument, there are certain minimums we need to cover to be right, for instance: the identification of variables, if one variable depends on the other, and in what way. One might explain why their variables are pertinent and provide sound, objective, evidence. If you need to be right, you might consider preparing for the argument like an attorney before a trial. That means a bit of prework and learning about the matter at hand. Considering the diverse angles, factors involved, you need to identify your blind spots, read, read, research. Write the arguments down, on a special yellow legal pad. Emphasis on the legal. This gives an air of seriousness to the construction of arguments. They weigh more on yellow paper with blue horizontal lines and a red line down the left side. On TV shows about lawyers, I seldom see prosecutors pull out a legal pad with their arguments. I think that is why they always lose in the end. Continue Reading

What wouldn’t we do if we could do it all? Resources be damned. Time in the day to make the most delicious breakfast you can imagine, for the people you love and yourself, sit and read the entire book in one sitting, watch a movie, travel around the world to have lunch with a loved one, take a leisurely walk and if strikes you, run up the steps of a pyramid, for the hell of it, and still have time to work the project of your choice, finishing it in one sitting as well, being completely content you did a great job, with time to spare for a late afternoon of tea with grandma, beers with friends, a romantic conversation and love making with your special person, come home in time to do homework with the kids, play games, make them an amazing dinner and talk about their day at school, everything they learned, what they played with their friends, how much fun they had at space camp and the birthday party at the water park. Everyday. Every day could be as different or similar as the last. You could spend enough time in bed and still be up in time to have the rest of the day at your feet. A lifetime of lifetimes, and always enough resources.

However, I have just been informed the contrary happens. I’m glad someone let me know before the next forty years are up. We are meant to make decisions on a daily basis. We decide how and where to best use our resources. We chose the people we want to surround ourselves with, where we want to work, how we spend our free time, where we want to live. Mind you, making these things happen is not always easy, it seldom is. However, that is part of what makes each of you remarkable, your personal journeys. Each our own motivation, pressure, and tension to make decisions that will count. Knowing full well, when the moment comes, no one else will be there to blame. It is up to us to defend or sacrifice spectacular.

I am reminded of the story of Max and Lola and the pug. They had been friends for years, Max and Lola. Life threw them together after high school and they managed to make something of it. Lola was grateful and convinced of doing everything Max asked her to do. She knew, deep down inside, he was looking out for her. If you asked Max, you would probably hear another story, one that she would never hear. A lot of her life was just about going along with things. With Max, she felt needed, she brought in the money that put food on the table, and she was the only one who could manage his mood swings.

When driving, he had one speed, really fast, and always over the speed limit. They were driving down the coast that day, looking for the right place to set up shop that evening. Lola was dressed the way Max liked it, the curves of her breasts were inviting, at least that is what she was going for. Her summer dress was long, flowy, and her neckline was nowhere near her neck. Max would whisper in her ear that that was her most beautiful attribute. He just had to whisper, and she would feel captured and possessed. Continue reading

You have to break some eggs to make an omelet. Gross. I hate eggs. I hate milk too. Gross. Omelets are not good, only the stuff you put in them. They make eating the omelet possible. Cherry tomatoes, spinach, goat cheese, bell peppers, a pinch of salt…. I eat eggs because they are a good source of protein. However, I'd rather not.

Breaking eggs, getting the egg white all over my fingers, because, of course, when I crack the eggs, they don’t just slide into the bowl, part of the slime has to get on my fingers. It is a salmonella risk. But seriously, the phrase, you have to break some eggs to make an omelet is a phrase that begs to be extrapolated to other situations. Here we go…

Enjoyment might also require breaking things, a beautiful crème brûlée starts with the crack of the caramelized sugar, tap tap crack. If you get a present, half the fun is tearing the wrapping paper. Break open or crack open a bottle of wine, chin chin… well, in this case you aren't really breaking the bottle… it is just a figure of speech. When you want to open a bottle of water, you need to break the seal. If the seal has previously been broken, don’t drink it, someone has polluted it with the worst possible things you can imagine. Are you imagining terrible or maybe unmentionable liquids being diluted in that bottle of water? I like my water from home, thank you. I digress… speaking of breaking things for a higher purpose, I am am reminded of the breaking of a glass at a Jewish wedding. According to myjewishlearning.com The Talmud (one of the main sacred texts) describes how, during a wedding, the father of the groom noticed too much happiness and decided to break an expensive goblet, because where there is rejoicing there should also be trembling. A reminder of a past of suffering and that the world needs healing. The sound of breaking glass  also scares the demons away. … It is a reminder of the fragility of marriage and, it has sexual connotations, the release of the sexual union. I like this myjewishlearning.com these teachings are right up my ally. Demons, happiness with a chaser of reality, sex, and shattering glass.

Breaking things to bring new and better ones make me think about psychoanalysis, you need to break down your walls, beliefs, traumas… only you can do that, nobody can do it for you. What will you build in its place, once you have removed the debris? That is up to you. Let’s hope for courage and creativity to be part of the building plans.  Breaking down walls with others is also needed to build friendships… breaking down walls is symbolic of opening up to a friendship. It is the way we say, please, intrude. Fewer things are off the table for discussion, the human experience is shared in a purer form. These days, it means, just picking up the phone to talk, sharing the tough stuff, embarrassing stuff, scary stuff! Imaginary stuff… , phrases like, man, I really need to feel good, badly…  all chased by words of encouragement or a healthy laugh. Continue reading

Have you ever noticed how people go around life? Driving around in metal boxes, crossing the street, some with a purpose, others just going through the motions. A seemingly endless choreography to the chaotic sounds of the surroundings. I wonder about the reasons behind people’s actions and reactions. I listen to their tones, what is said between lines, what is overtly said, and the silences. Always listen for the silences. If you only listen to what is said, you miss out on the rest of the story. The thing is the way we listen and what we hear is filtered by our own life experiences, traumas, and defense mechanisms. So, instead of worrying too much about that, I’ve decided to turn into the skid and just enjoy all our defense mechanisms. For what it’s worth, they are all great, I mean, they allow us to get through the hard stuff, although some are more fun than others.

Take projection, narrating the fears, insecurities, the perceptions of who we are to other people. Mirror mirror on the wall, who is in pain, most of all?? So that one is no fun. And if you are careless enough, people get hurt. Seems like a defense going on offense situation.

Denial is great. Just keep going as if nothing is falling apart. That didn’t just happen or Everything is fine, we are all fine, I’m fine. So, that one is not much fun either. It is more like facing a brick wall. If you remember the Labyrinth (the Jennifer Connolly and Bowie movie), there are ways to get through in and around the walls.

Compensation. Ok, this is great for the person on the other side of compensation. That goes without saying. Feeling guilty? Ashamed? Go in the absolute opposite direction and throw money, gifts, attention, protection. Over protection… of course, if you think a little about what is on the opposite side, what is being compensated for, then, you might not feel too great about it. Still, seems like a win -win situation, at first glance. But really, it is important to pay attention to what is being compensated for. Kindness can go a long way.

Repression is denial’s older sibling. A little more hard core, a little tougher, considering that what is being repressed is actively living inside. Festering. The person doing the repressing may not be aware of what is oozing, all over everything in their lives. A bucket and sponges might be helpful.

I think all types of defense mechanisms are interesting. But when it comes to regression… Seems like it is something hard to come back from, if you get what I mean.

Rationalization and Intellectualization, these are my favorites… right daddy? Over intellectualize, scrutinize, explain it until it becomes illogical to emotionally react. I can talk myself into and out of pretty much anything. Or so I’ve made myself believe.

Displacement. As a teacher I am constantly on the other side of this one. Although all defense mechanisms deserve to be identified, as they serve as an alert to be little softer, more understanding and patient. This one can be endearing. Continue reading

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to your Musing Interruptus flight 84, we know you have several alternatives, which makes us appreciate your choice all the more. Take a seat, wherever you like, the chairs and extra comfy, sofas are not numbered. The flight attendant will come to you, should you need anything. And I do mean anything. About those emergency exits. Don’t worry about them. In the event of a sudden change of reality, you’ll have all the information downloaded into your escape pod, you won’t have to do anything. Just go with it. Our pilot is really something else.  She has ample experience and a special relationship with the control tower. Close your eyes and relax.

The place between reality and fantasy, the one, just before liftoff, tends to be a decision to let the alternatives take over, asking logic, in its different degrees, to take a back seat. I find myself settling in that place, succumbing and indulging. It feels like the most exquisite indulgence. Are you there? Can you feel something else, gently taking over? Look out the window. What does it look like? Is there a curtain, what shape is the window? Look to your left, who is there with you? Are you happy they are flying with you? Can you reach over and take their hand?  —Excuse me, our flight attendant gets our attention and we look up.  We are about to take off, in case you need something from the kitchen. No, thank you, you smile and nod your head and look back to your left and smile at that person.

Unlike take-off in an airplane, take-off here is gentle and imperceptible. Before you know it, you are talking to the person next to you. Explaining something or perhaps you can feel the other person. Maybe, it is in this place, on this flight that you can connect to their energy. Flow into this notion. Settle in and give way. Imagine what you would say, do, see? Can you smell anything? What textures do you want to feel? Are you ready? Let’s be in another place, maybe somewhere next to the ocean, so we can feel the sunlight on our faces, hold on, now we are surrounded by trees and the air is cold, clean and the wind blowing through your hair. The rustle of the leaves is musical, are you wearing your favorite sweater? Can you feel the heat trapped by the sweater, contrasting with the cold wind on your face? Are your nose and cheeks pink? If you look up, can you see the canopy made by the trees? How tall are they? How small are you? What if you were to run up a tree? Like a squirrel? How far would you go? Now look down. There is no fear here, you can look down and jump off, floating or racing back to earth. Either way, you will be fine. Just enjoy the ride. Continue Reading

What a phrase! An invitation to use your other senses to perceive something or someone. It is a a warning, something might go down. Imagine, we are about to rob a bank, we’ve got our masks on, we are carrying our duffle bags for the loot. Our friend, Raúl is in the escape car, he is waiting and also on the lookout. You are wearing a Zorro mask and I am wearing a Batman mask and we are standing in line for a bank teller. It is October 31st, so everyone is in costume at the bank branch that day. We calculated that risk. I mean, in case you thought that the Zorro mask was too obvious, and how could we be standing around a bank branch wearing masks and carrying around duffle bags without alerting anyone to the upcoming heist. We had planned for everything. HOWEVER, a wrench gets thrown into our plans, as you tell me, under your breath, don’t look now, but your mother just came in through the door. I turn to you, and even though you can only see me roll my eyes, as the batman mask is covering my ever-expressive eyebrows, you know that the gig is up. We would have to wait until next year to try again. I mean, I couldn’t risk my mother recognizing…. Renée!!! Exclaims my mother, recognizing me in from behind, in my Batman mask, from across the bank branch. She walks over and says, Renée, remember to stand up straight, you used to have such beautiful posture. What do you have planned today? I saw Raúl in the car. Are you going to any parties in the evening? I love how you and your friends have not lost your sense of whimsy. Imagine that, you are all middle aged and still dress up for Halloween. Have you told your therapist about that? Mo-om! (exasperating gasp). You look a little thin Renée, are you still doing that fasting thing in my day we just called that skipping a few meals and it is a disorder. —Yeah mom, no, I’m eating alright. I’m being healthy… and if you hadn’t noticed, I was trying to be Batman, you could’ve at least played along and stayed in the alley until I came out. You laugh under your Zorro mask because, you get the reference. — That is not a very nice thing to say, you know how many people would love to have their mothers around today, me included. You should count your lucky stars. God forbid you know that pain anytime soon. —Mom, I was just joking. I pull off my mask, fully embracing there is no turning back now, I’ve been made and the whole bank branch has heard us talk.

We move forward in line, I take out my id and ask to make a withdrawal. The bank teller lady looks at me, reminds me there is a withdrawal fee I could avoid if I use the ATM which is at the door. I smile and say — Thank you for the reminder, and move to the side. You, my Zorro mask-wearing friend, laugh at how the whole scene played out. We wait for my mom to make her payments, because of course, she prefers to make payments in person instead of online. That’s fine mom, I’m glad you get out once and a while. You see, I can do it too… —Can I get you kids a burger and milkshake? Mom asks. You say, thank you very much, but I am watching my diet. I say the same, why don’t we go to the Green Grass they just opened on the corner? Continue Reading

Dear listener, you might relate to this. Just maybe. What to do with all those lemons thrown at you, dumped on your head, stuffed in your coat pockets and weighing down your backpacks? Lemons from the bank, lemons from those car people, lemons from work, lemons tossed form the other side of the table, lemons from the student that wants an easy A; family lemons, my friend’s lemons. A juggling act just won’t do. Conventional wisdom would have us make lemonade. The thing is… the thing is, that lemons in any other presentation are still acidic. Too much hurts the tummy, too little, and you’ll find yourself afflicted by scurvy. Argh pirate person.

We need lemons. What is a taco without a few drops of lemon? What is a shot of tequila without a lemon slice or lemon juice chaser?  What kind of chef would you be without a few accidental drops of lemon in the eyes? A chef that can see, and that isn’t distracted. Then again, what is a painter without the lemon yellow or lime green? Missing the point? Me too… Missing, most of all. That is a lemon in itself.

You’ve got to make the best of things. It is what it is. That’s life. Do your best. Everyone lives with the consequences of their decisions. Not making up your mind is a decision too. It’s a lemon. So, what if I make lemonade with all those lemons? I make the best out of the worst of what life has to offer me? Life threw me a curve ball and I got hit in the head. Yeah, I don’t always knock it out of the park. But I digress, that is baseball and this is lemonade. Today, I don’t have the energy or will to look for the silver lining, I’m not much for finding the lesson to become harder, better, and faster. I chose not to, just for today.

I mean, how about I leave some lemons in a crate at my window, for anyone to take, or better yet, on the corner, far away from my front door, where anyone can take those lemons and make lemonade, set up a business, make money, get rich, buy a house, go on trips, save for retirement, study a degree, but art supplies, the expensive ones. Or maybe they are better than you or I, and just give it all away, all that lemonade. Refreshing and full of hope from all those lessons learned.

I’m reminded of Tita from -Como Agua Para Chocolate-, like Water for Chocolate. Her feelings were ingredients and altered her diners in an unexplicable way. As the passive audience to her story, we knew exactly what was happening. It was not magic, it was real. Could our unexpressed lemons become the vessels of the lessons yet to be learned? If you drank the lemonade from my lemons, if you ate the tart desserts, would you benefit from the lessons I should have learned? Continue reading

A few weeks ago I declared my relationship with the bot over.  However, today I decided to partner, with CHATGPT to write Musing Interruptus. You see, I know I have students that are using AI to do some of their coursework. So, before I go off a cliff I decided to see what AI could do for Musing Interruptus. Are you ready? I’m not, frankly I’ve got mixed feelings of amazement and fear. What if AI is better at this than I am. What if AI takes over my podcast? Would you know the difference? There is AI that expresses feelings, that is funny… I mean, that is all I’ve got, more of the former than the latter. So, without further ado, this is what CHAT GPT had to say about love and intangible connections. I asked it to make it funny and to provide in text citations. I decided to read it myself for the full experience. So Hey Ho, Let’s Go. Continue Reading

Pain and suffering are related although not necessarily a consequence of one another. Some would express the importance of knowing the difference, precisely to avoid indulging in suffering. But that is not today’s topic. Today is more about the magic in our everyday words. The language includes phrases we repeat to help ward off pain causing situations. Perhaps charged with magical thinking or maybe, just maybe it is magic. You get to be the judge of that. 

At the end of a meeting, get together, encounter, workday or work week, we close off by wishing the other, our interlocutor, the person in front of us, or maybe someone we are passing on our way out: 

Have a nice day! Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Good night! Have a good one! Good luck! Farewell! All wishes for positive outcomes, charged with hopes of everyting good for the people we are telling them to. As if our words could anticipate their movements and pave their ways with comfort and delightful experiences.

You might want to wish someone safety, on the one hand a reminder to make good decisions on a trip they are taking, it doesn’t have to be far.  Drive safe! Safe travels! Have a safe trip! Have a safe flight! Take care! All phrases that intentend to create a bubble of protection around the person you are talking to. A spell cast to repel events and energies that could cause pain, to keep someone safe and out of harm’s way.  

Perhaps you were too late, and something happened. Someone forgot to say the right words and the person has taken ill. Now you can wish they recover in the shortest possible time. 

 Get well soon! A message directed to the mitochondria and the most basic celular levels to perform their functions and heal the person you are saying it to. 

Have you ever felt you don’t want a meeting to be the last. You’d like to see the person again. You might say: Don’t be a stranger! Stay in touch! These phrases are like anticipating the invocation you would make in case you don’t see them again. A spell for them to keep you on their mind. Magical words invoking permanence. Or maybe, in some cases we are just saying stay. 

Lets face it, the easiest thing to say is bye. It is terminal, cold, lacking everything discussed in these lines. In those terms, it is a careless and unfeeling word to terminate a conversation, encounter or exchange. A clear message. Unless there is a tone…. But that is another Musing Interruptus. Thank you for listening and Peace out! 

What are your favorite ways to say goodbye? What are your magic words? Do they work? I’m listening.

The voice on the other side of the telephone was tense. Her brother was calling, with only one certainty, she was being mistreated by her doctor and she needed protection. This was not a drill, it was happening and so many things were on the line, her right to breastfeed for one. She is his person, his haven, his friend from childhood, from home. He called me because he knew I would stir things up to help push the energy in her favor. He was sounding all the alarms he knew of. The doctor had told her the night before, right before her emergency surgery, that she would have to stop breastfeeding, and anyway, he said, two months was enough. As I listened to her brother repeat this, my teeth clenched up, my jaw tightened and my sight narrowed. —What do you mean, I said. The WHO advocates for at least six months, that is common knowledge. Her brother proceeded to explain that the doctor didn’t want her malnourished on account of breastfeeding, and his sister would not let anyone or situation come between her and feeding her baby. That was out of the question. As soon as we hung up I messaged the only two women I knew who would educate me on the matter and point me in the right direction. I was instructed on her rights, and without a shadow of a doubt, the word violence was pronounced. Who is the doctor? What is his specialty? The network was activated. Meanwhile, her mother activated her tribe. They came together like clockwork, women coming and going, caring for the baby, holding him through the hours of separation and waiting, finding out everything they could on baby formulas, breast pumps, bottles, sterilization pots, and visitation timetables to get the baby to his mother and breastfeed at the hospital, and they let their arms’ memory guide them and soothe the baby as best they could- Her mother was focused on soothing her own child, who was wounded and rallying as fast as she could from a hospital bed. 

A continent away, her doula called and coached her on expressing milk, on her rights, accompanying her from afar. Her friends and cousins relentlessly called and messaged, not at all surprised at how strong she was. Her brother, friends, and cousins gathering around her, spending the night by her side and her hospital surroundings, standing next to her as nurses and doctors came and went. Allies in the nurses made themselves known. The doctor said he would prescribe something to make her stop producing milk if she didn’t stop. The tribe pulled closer together. — No, you can’t do that, there is no medical reason to do that. And the pièce de résistance was sharply thrusted, slicing whatever his reign of terror was mounted on. Her aunt was informed, she immediately called her niece, got the information, and called her colleague. She called him out and informed him of her areas of specialization, pediatrics, and neonatal care, and that he should focus on his area of expertise. She put him in his place, she informed him, she was not alone and eyes in the know were watching very closely. After that, his behavior changed. He no longer threatened to strap her breasts or block her milk production. Ah, there was a way to bolster her nutrients and improve her diet. Continue reading.

What would you do differently the second time around? 

If you had a chance to live it all again, would you change anything? Let’s say you needed to erase a memory; just one. What if that were possible? What if you accidentally found a way to erase a memory that was attached to a cell of memories? You’ve gone and done it now, the memories of a certain person are gone but your reality still calls for knowing them. You don’t know it yet, but this has become an opportunity. An opportunity to meet one of your favorite people all over again. A relationship reset, but only on one side. 

Yes, I know, this has been done to death, amnesia, the amnesiac’s family goes through the motions of reintroducing the person into their life. The underlying care with which it is done, the safety net becomes a narrative of love and beauty. So, however done to death the storyline is, I don’t get tired of listening to the different ways and voices that tell it. Furthermore, how lovely to see a mind rediscovering a part of what makes our humanness worth all of the difficulties we have to face. 

So, it is you, you aren’t a passive observer, like in the movies (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, 50 First Dates, Amensiac, The Butterfly Effect, Finding Nemo), no, you are living this, you are the protagonist. Like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you decided to erase something, mind you, you wanted to erase just one thing. From one moment to the next, it is gone. You don’t even know that you did it. Unknowingly, missing the past three years of experiences with someone. By your own hand, you erased a piece of your experiences that were tied to the others, you unwillingly unraveled the threads that held together your knowledge, understanding, love, and admiration of the other. You meant to erase just one memory, the most recent. If you were truly honest, you might admit that you in fact had considered wiping the whole experience clean. It would make everything easier. A hard reset was never in question. However, here you are. You accidentally wiped your mind clean of her or him. It wouldn't be a problem if the other side of the equation weren’t also invested in those memories. And that my friends, is the heart of the story of all our hearts. A complicitous soul.

You forgot this. You don’t know of the complicity and softness behind the actions of whomever realizes you have lost them, and they you. It isn’t a tragedy. It doesn’t have to be. It is a chance for one of you to rediscover everything, all over again. To be on the other side of the magic the other is unaware of, knowing what the outcome could be, the treasures and secrets encapsulated by the chemical reaction waiting to happen. The elements are there. The question of the tree that falls in the forest, having no one to listen to it, did it make a sound? Did it actually fall or was it placed there? By giants, of course. If you forgot everything that happened to make you feel a certain way, is the feeling gone? Can it happen all over again? Would you want to? You see, the bittersweetness of the love, the deepness of the roots entangled in personality, the way we see life, the new voice in your head and endless discussions and conversations, the narration and laughter that accompanies you, the thought that wakes in the mornings… Beautiful and exhausting. The chemical elements are there. It is all in the other’s hands. Accidental or not, instigating that chemical reaction is up to just]]> https://rss.com/podcasts/musing-interruptus/2252047 92e2ec29-14cc-41d6-8182-7ead07ea91e7 603 full 3 3 14 14 true Mon, 10 Apr 2023 04:41:02 GMT Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, It Was Stolen.

Disclaimer: I, Renée Valentina, know stealing is wrong, don’t steal from people, it is not only morally reprehensible it is illegal. My stories are fiction. That said… 

I stole it for you. I stole this story for you, today. This happened, and it's not mine, but I’d like to think that since I partially inspired the deed, I can tell the story, so, it is partially stolen. 

She made gazpacho for the first time. She’s like that. She isn’t afraid to try recipes out when having people over. Some might say, stick to your best work when you host, others, the brave, like herself, will try out something new. 

I like people who take the time to design their lives, surroundings, and have hobbies and passions. You feel that when you meet people. All you have to do is start with a corner in your life and keep going. Before you know it, you’ve carved and designed a life for yourself on your own terms. It takes me a while to get things the way I like them. The balance between colors, smells, textures, sounds. We’ve discussed this before. Back to her, what I like about her is that she creates experiences for herself, her family and her guests. I was one such guest in her home. I was commissioned with dessert. As soon as I bought the cake I regretted it,  I would have loved to make her my tarte tatin. Especially after all the wonders that night had in store for us. Next time. 

I loved everything, the way she painted just one wall with lines and curves, like a plant reaching out from her atrium, just outside of the dining room. The light fixtures were awesome pet-like creatures coming out of the ceiling and her kitchen was designed to perfectly accommodate her culinary whims and fancies. Like clockwork, everything was ready. Her husband had paired each dish with wine, cheese, nuts, and music. The music was also perfect. I’m big on music, so I noticed. We sat down and ambrosia fell from the heavens, and as if that weren’t wonderful enough, story time began. This is also one of my favorite activities, scratch that, it is a way of life. So when the story began, I just let my head tilt to the left and locked in. 

It all started with a diagnosis and a list of foods she was no longer allowed to eat. Imagine a person passionate about foods, smells, tastes and having them limited. Well, garlic is on the list of forbidden elements. Forbidden fruits are delicious, stolen Allium sativum, hmmm… What is it? Is it a fruit? Is it a vegetable? An herb? Medicine? Does a stolen clove of garlic alter the taste of the gazpacho? It surely altered something. She told us how she secretly took just one clove from an undisclosed location. Had it been perfectly selected or did she have to blindly pick through the heads of garlic and snap-off a clove? Continue reading

First quarter of 2017 was closing and I was ready to change my life, again. I was nervous and worried I wouldn’t be up to the task. I had been hired, phase one was accomplished. I remember pulling up to the offices and wondering about all the experiences I was about to have. That was the year of the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that lasted 20 seconds, and the devastation lasted a lot longer. Many of us still have aftershocks run through our nervous systems when we hear the early alert. I bet we can say that about a lot of situations in our lives. My time, especially at the end of my tenure in that position, is characterized by that. It is a wonder how our brains can heal and adapt. We never get back to where we started, but we do come back. 

The great experiences I had include writing letters, reports, and position papers.  I would start with a petition, nay, instruction, and a little backstory, then I would develop it, research and the collaboration would begin, my boss acted as my editor. She pointed me in the desired direction, polished my work, and built up the feeling that I was doing well. 

I can still recall my first assignment, I was asked to write a letter in which the chairwoman expressed her support for the Chilean candidate’s leadership in an international group. I researched the candidate, crafted the lines, and conveyed the compelling reasons he was the right horse to bet on. A day's work went into that letter.  By the time it was signed and sent all I could think was: that letter will never see the light of day. It would be read and the scoreboard would reflect the vote. I couldn’t tell you if that letter was really as special as I remeber it. I just knew that it would line the wastepaper basket, sooner rather than later. There are so many things we write, as hired hands, mercenaries, that have that very destiny. Who wrote it and what is behind it is of no consequence, whatsoever. Of course, the consequences come if it is not done correctly. A mishap in communication can break a deal and strain a relationship. I had always wondered if I would participate in diplomatic efforts, and here I was, baptizing a type of diplomacy nobody cares about, but it meant the world to me. My Trash Can Diplomacy.

Trash Can Diplomacy makes me smile and reminds me how rich the world can be with the right words, and oh the right delivery. Thank you for listening. 
What do you most enjoy about your work? What secrets does it hold for you? What truths have been revealed? Do you have a special name for scutwork? What phrases have you made up? Do you also think about trash pandas, I mean raccoons, of course, when you hear the phrase trash can diplomacy? I’m listening.

When learning to meditate you get a lot of information that you aren’t supposed to think about when you are doing the deed of not doing anything at all. Did you hear me thoughts?! I’m talking about you! I don’t know if I’ll ever become a master meditator. Even if I did, I couldn’t prove it. I suppose if I did, I wouldn’t need to prove it. That is part of the point. Not having to prove anything to anyone. That is a work in progress.

Bottom line, I think I cheat when it comes to meditation. What the hell does that say about me? I’m going to tell you why. You see, I do a guided meditation. That means there is music and a soft, mellifluous voice telling me how to breathe and what to visualize. I love it. I don’t care if it is wrong. By the way, nobody has told me it is wrong. I just assume it is because I’m not under a tree completely and utterly achieving nirvana, all by myself. 

That isn’t the worst of it. Notwithstanding the abusive standards. There are double-agent thoughts and feelings that start off harmless enough. They might be sweet, exciting, addictive. Like a plant, you water it, visit with them, let your guard down, and that’s when it happens. Pow! Pum! Splat! Obsession. Thoughts are retraced, over and over again. Like playing a record. Except every time you play it, the grooves get deeper. Replaying the record becomes addictive. Like picking a scab. Don’t pick the scab. Everyone knows this, let it heal. No. pick the scab. It is so satisfying, if only, for the briefest moment. This is when you know the thought has turned on you, or was it actually you turning on yourself? Someone here is the double agent. Once you’ve realized this, you can make a resolution. You will stop the thought, in its tracks. You will practice mindfulness, I’m breathing, I’m breathing I’m breathing. I’m in my present. I’m not thinking about it! NO, I’m NOT! Until it is true. 

You’ve passed the hurdle. That was a hard one. That was a long one. There you are, just walking around life, doing things like a normal person. Whatever the fuck that is. But you are doing it and it is like vacation. Focus on life is back. It’s like it never even happened. Ohhhh, no, that is repression! A week, two weeks go by, and then, surprise, like a gunshot in the dead of night, someone says a word, unlocking the seductive double agent. Unlocking the door it was hiding behind. And like a tidal way, it just rushes over you, over me. The daydreams, the repetitive thoughts, the old conversations. The struggle begins at dawn. Like a duel, with the purpose of fending off the repetitive thoughts. Die thought! I pierce it through the heart, I cut off its head! Thought blood spewing everywhere, Tarantino-style. A tight close-up of the thought-brains dripping off my sword! And zoom out, it’s just me. Exhausted all over again. Too exhausted to cry, but I still do. Though blood all over my face and hands. For everyone to see. Like an ugly hat, like a really bad haircut. Shake it off, just shake it off. Continue reading

Just one thing before we begin, is the Big Bad Wolf the same in all stories? Is there a crossover between Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs? Tell me you’ve worried about this. Tell me you wonder if there is anything to it.  I’ve been thinking about the bad rep this canine, would-be foe, has amassed throughout the years and generations. I’m not sure I’m ok with the Big Bad Wolf’s marginalization from society. Furthermore, I wonder if we aren’t to blame, just a little. 

We’re all familiar with the story of the hermit turned beloved town friend, after just one person opens their heart and herd mentality ensues. FOMO you know. Fear of missing out. Although, FOMO sounds like it should stand for something else. I guess it is because it sounds like MOFO. Anyway, the hermit has a relatable backstory we can all get behind. So many questions pop into my head, what happened? Didn’t the hermit have any friends to comfort him or her? Why not? Did the hermit push them away? What about the public health system? I know the answer to all of those questions. People seldom think about what is going on in the other, their pains, and insecurities, nor do they think about the effect their actions, pains, and insecurities on others. We all have our limits and being pushed beyond them happens every day. In some cases, for sport. The trouble with the hermit is not living alone, it is society shrugging off the effects of their own doing. It is expecting anyone to be strong enough to withstand the worst humanity has to offer, starting with indifference. The thing is, that takes a toll on everyone, on their families, work, friends, inner circles, outer circles, public health systems, and economic development. One of our most terrible sins is to believe we are replaceable. I assure you, getting someone to push a button does not mean a person was replaced. This is what people say so you endure hardships, longer. 

How can we be so unkind?  Continue reading

Oh, how expectations rise, and hearts accelerate. The moment of truth, the materialization of desire and all those dreams, sweaty brows, butterfly stomach and jackhammer heart attack. It feels like it is all too much. Four sleepless nights, strung together by incredulity and anticipation. What joy awaits! What adventures are in store? This is no question, but an affirmation, a certainty as serious as that dagger in your pocket.

What do you mean that isn’t a dagger… you are happy to see me then? How embarrassing, I didn’t bring you anything. Ahh yes, the letdown. The moment of realization that the other side has not met your level of expectation. This is why before international summits people talk, a lot, they ask questions, there are phone calls. Interests are laid out; floors and ceilings are at least insinuated. Sentences and phrases are crafted, there is a constant flow of suggestions, editing, and rewrites. Original texts altered, scandalously accommodating the interlocutor, to a point. Whoever has the reigns will not let the spirit of it die. A word here, a phrase, there, in the end, we all know who the theatrics are for. 

That is just one part of international relations. The projection of all which is national onto the international stage. The good, the bad, the naive, the nitty-gritty of human existence under all lights of morality. What it all boils down to are individuals representing interests; their own, adopted, or biological.

 Expectations run high when you meet someone for the first time. It can be devastating when you realize that you were not on the same page. A reflection of sloppy preparation and letting your head get the best of you. Sometimes we have to stop and ask the serious questions and be prepared for serious answers, like, who is that I just heard, was that your heart, or was it your penis? Tricky tricky little dicky. I think you all know what I mean. Being honest with oneself and true to one’s interests can be more confusing than you think, -because you think-. Because you are influenced by a set of standards, expectations and threatened by a strait jacket in case your thinking gets too free and true. Our sense of survival, as a species, is founded on the very prevalence of power of certain groups who are no more virtuous than you or I. Not asking, not telling can sometimes be a result of feeling intimidated, the person doing the intimidation is definitely getting something from your complicity, fake complacency, and silence. Other times it is just putting off a truth, resisting what your intuition tells you, because if you don’t face the truth, maybe it will go away on its own. I’m sure that works out very well, every time. But back to that dagger…
There are so many subjects we avoid uttering until the last possible moment, the moment when Veritas shines all over our faces, like projectile vomiting in a b movie and most likely proves that it was much, so much bigger in my head. Thank you for listening.

It can be mortifying, to say the least, being so sure of an outcome, and see everything fall in the opposite direction. What do you call that? Was it bad luck or did you spur yourself into a head-on collision with a truth you did not want to consciously face? I guess saying it was bad luck or just not in the stars is easier. Then again, the truth can sometimes be less jarring than the stories we tell ourselves. Tell me, I really want to know, what was bigger in your he]]> https://rss.com/podcasts/musing-interruptus/2252042 f16236d6-3306-43e7-adff-ee9a5712d1dc 402 full 3 3 19 19 true Sat, 13 May 2023 15:33:25 GMT Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, Spells and Incantations.

Opportunities to connect with others in this life are never as plentiful as one would like. So you can understand I am an advocate for jumping at and creating them. Some occasions must be hunted. Hiding how eager you are to share life over coffee or whiskey is part of a strategy to foster interaction. You don’t want to scare off your desired interlocutor. Other occasions must be jumped into, much like a big pool on a hot summer day. And, I’m not talking about an artistic and athletic controlled jump, I mean, running off the diving board, arms and legs splayed starfish style... Erratic starfish plunging and splashing water all over the place. After a few years of these episodes, I bet you can identify which I am. I am the jumper. Seductive mystery and stealth are not my strong suit, as much as I would love to think so.

When Marisol proposed to meet in my town, slumber party style, I couldn’t resist. The slumber party is the cauldron and the guests doing everything but sleep are the magic. We discussed what the evening would bring. Should we do our nails? Watch a movie? I thought about appropriate pajamas and underwear for the next day. Toothbrush, toothpaste, basic toiletries, my Kindle, my laptop (in case I could get some work done on downtime), a bottle of water, and her playlist.  That was my present for her, a secret compilation of songs I had made for her over the past years. The songs that took my thoughts to her. 

Marisol, the careful listener she is, considered the options on the table and then proposed we go another way when it came to the activities; a list of questions made famous on a sitcom showcasing very talented and neurodiverse characters. This proposal did not come without a warning. There is one risk in answering the questions, she explained, people fall in love with each other. So, I echoed Marisol’s words, once we know the answers to the questions, there will be no turning back. We were both in. A week, two weeks passed and finally, it was time to have our slumber party, bags were packed and expectations were high! That night, we talked about love, and life, broken hearts, bravery, the loves of our lives, the plurality, and beauty, our life’s work, our mothers, our fathers, our sisters, her babies. Movies that touched our souls and shifted our imagination. We fell to sleep and awoke several times, never skipping a beat. And then, with a nod, and knowing looks, I said the words that neither of us needed to hear out loud because we both felt and knew the answer. I asked anyway, as a way to mark the beginning. Like a spell. Are you ready for the questions? It was the perfect time, rain was pouring and the moon was out. We were surrounded by crisp air and hazy windows. Night had fallen and the elements were all there. She nodded and spoke the final phrase of the incantation, we both answer each question. We nodded and proceeded. I had the list in my hands and started asking. Over the next hours, we asked and answered only 11 questions. Actually, we never finished question 11, so I guess that is where we will pick up next time. I listened to her voice and her words. I was a little girl, holding her hand in some of the stories, being brave next to her and her next to me. Our souls were there, pure, fearless, and trusting. We played our memories for each other, describing feelings, remembering words, and recreating dialogues. [...] 899a6cf8-d462-4195-8f38-8602cb008be4 493 full 3 3 20 20 true Sun, 21 May 2023 16:12:24 GMT Hello and welcome, I’m Renée Valentina and this is Musing Interruptus. A podcast meant for sharing thoughts, stories, enjoying idiomatic phrases and words in general. You can read along; the transcription is in the description of this episode. The idiomatic expressions are in italics. Try to get the meaning from the context and then look them up to see if you were right. If you like it, share it, but more importantly, continue the conversation. Today, It Had To Be Done. Before I start, I need to warn you, if you don’t like my strange voices, if you are put off by poor imitations of accents, then please, tune-in next week. You’ve been warned. 

Raúl- call me Raúl, it is better for all of us. Continue reading

Some traits are useful in life, a good head on your shoulders, to make good decisions, if your project has legs it will be successful. A good head and legs. So, you don’t want to lose your head, that means you have to keep it together. Whatever that means. I have to say, there is a special hell for people who think it is useful to say: relax and calm down when you are teetering on the edge of losing it or if you are spiraling out. There is very low tolerance in our society for our purest moments of humanity, our tenderst vulnerabilities. Some seem to be living a latent Victorian era. I wonder who they are serving. The Queen is dead. 

Upon years of reflextion, which add up to something, I’m 40 and so proud of it. I think of the concept of the norm and what is average. How there have been times in my life in which I wished so hard to fit in to a conception of average. I never did. And the reality was that I couldn’t last five minutes adhering to the social norms of a subgroup or counterculture which I perceived contained repressive rules or silly artificial standards. I was not a nerd, not a punk, not an emo, not posh, not rich, not poor, not an artist, not a philosopher, not a dancer, not popular, nor did I go unnoticed either. Most people are all those things too. Others are so eager to be seen and defined, validated. Please, don’t, I think, that might become a pigeonhole you cannot escape. It can be be so very dangerous to let someone else’s perception, skewed by definition, tell you who you are and what you deserve.

I’d rather believe we can be whatever we like if we are willing to develop the skills needed. Is everything readily availabl? —No. That is life, there lies the frustration. I would think that, I am a teacher. That is a pigeonhole I worked very hard to put myself in. I guess coming to terms with a configuration of life that escapes the Victorian norm is has its pitfalls, requires courage and the willingness to put in flight hours. Of course I sometimes seek validation. Intensely. But the pigeonholes, am I right? Of course there are traits that are so natural, so engrained in your personality that it is best to know yourself and make space for what you need. We should all take architecture classes for life that start with psychoanalytical work. Make sure you are building what you want and not what they want, whoever they are. It is better to be aware of that sooner rather than later. After all, you are the one who has to live in whatever you build. Having a good head on your shoulders should include that. Ballet dancers work on their tendons and muscles, they need to be light on their feet to make quick changes, jump very high, with precision. That is part of the training. So, change you mind, make a plan, build, build wherever you want, and use your talents. Identify your talents. Surround yourself with natural teachers and leaders, who encourage you to put in the hours it will take to become who you know in your heart of hearts you can become.  This is a very enlightened notion, the use of reason and science to get what you want. Find the teachers that are aware of the importance of frustration and developing the tools to work through it and achieve. That is part and parcel of keeping it together.https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BtgPdnvsMtgaoSnRVYH5_CCXJw_XUJsYzOM93oQ3dw8/edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs]]> https://rss.com/podcasts/musing-interruptus/2252039 38b96f1f-5fe5-45b8-b5ff-c1f3cf88d6e6 599 full 3 3 22 22 true Sun, 04 Jun 2023 17:33:41 GMT 23. It Isn't a Competition, It Is Love