So today I want to write about a delicate issue. Not for me because in my head and in my heart things are clear to me. But I know the topic can be touchy for most Catholics.
I want to talk about Mary.
This is my understanding. Mary was a virgin when God selected her to give birth to Jesus. She was engaged to Joseph who accepted to marry her because in a dream God spoke to him.
The virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus. After a bit more than three decades later, came the death of her son on the cross and then we had her assumption into heaven.
In my teenage and early adult years I was baffled by her life and Joseph’s. So I read the New Testament and found reference to Jesus’ brothers, so in my mind it was settled that Mary had children after she had Jesus, the Bible said so.
Then Catholics that know more than me put me in my place and insisted that Mary died a virgin and Christ was her only son. That she never had sex, which led me to believe that, yes, Margarita, sex is bad and Mary never did anything bad.
See, I have a hard time processing this. I believe that sex through love, commitment and responsibility is not only beautiful but smiled upon by our Creator. I don’t think he expected his favorite daughter, Mary, on to whose womb he trusted his son to acquire his human form, and her saintly fiancé, Joseph, to go through life without this deeply needed and deeply satisfying aspect of our humanity.
So I ask myself this, if Mary had sex with her husband, how did this diminish her role and her position in our Christian narrative? In my mind in no way whatsoever. I imagined she led a life obeying the precepts of her faith and that she dedicated it to God, her husband and her children. How could she be more saintly if she didn’t have sex (unless sex is really something bad to be avoided like the plague)? I just don’t know. And anyway, what business is it of ours to wonder and decide she had to die a virgin? I think that conclusion really drives the idea that sex is a taboo, something to hide and hold as a measure of ethic and moral value, instead of making sure we hold it as the wonderful thing it is and learn to approach it and practice it with reverence and responsibility. I think Mary and Joseph did that and that God smiled on that relationship.
This line of thought took me think about Jesus and all the controversy about him and Magdalene. If I accept he is the Son of God and our Redeemer, how would he having a relationship with this woman make him less divine? He still fulfilled his ministry and his destiny, pleasing his Father with the way in which he lived and died. And, ultimately I don’t care what he did in his private life. He still is who he is.
His divine nature remains untarnished in my heart and soul.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Friday, September 16, 2011
#34 -- Let me tell You About…My Books and my Movies
The last three books that have had me lost in my Nook are by Elizabeth Strout. I hadn’t heard about her before, but I read she won the Pulitzer in 2009 with her novel Olive Kitteridge. So I started with that one. She has two others, Amy and Isabelle and Abide With Me that I read immediately after.
Elizabeth is from new England, Maine to be precise. The term “New England” is one that awakens magical images in my mind, mostly of Mother Nature. I love the idea of the fall aflame in color, and the idea of long snowfalls and prolonged quiet, lonely walks bundled in winter wear. I know, most people that actually know the area say that winters can be miserable, but somehow I cannot associate the words New England with misery. Go figure.
Anyway, I read Strout’s three novels and I was captivated. She is a woman who takes her time with her characters and their lives. I read somewhere that she is a realist and I agree. She makes them real in their interactions and in the things that happen to them. Still more, what I find oddly perturbing but captivating at the same time
(because I can be a nosy body), is how intimately she portrays them. To be truthful, I sometimes felt that she had me in a room way too close to a character and that I was learning things that were too intimate and too private and that I didn’t have a right to be like the proverbial fly on the wall. When she deals with all the sordid details of excess or perversion, it’s with respect and objectivity, like she is saying, “Hey, I know, this is horrible, but it is part of our humanity and it explains this character better, so let’s deal with it and move on. No need for your judgment.”
Last week I went to the movies. I saw Higher Ground exquisitely acted and directed by Vera Farmiga (remember her from Up in the Air, as Clooney’s lover). The movie is a subdued but intense drama of one woman’s journey through her spiritual and religious life. Corinne is the main character who in her teen years becomes a radical and fundamental Christian along with her husband. She gives her youth and a good chunk of her adult years to her religious beliefs.
At some point, Corinne begins to struggle with her faith and you can see how she starts to feel unsettled by what she has held to be true in life: God and Christ. Her beliefs begin to crumble, as well as her marriage of many years, one that gave her three children.
The movie is based on the memoir This Dark World by Carolyn S. Briggs that now has been renamed Higher Ground: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost. So moved was I by the movie that I read this book in three days.
When I saw Corinne battling to hold on to her faith, I cried, I so identified myself with that odd feeling of emptiness and of uselessness when you feel you must release something that has anchored you to the world since you are aware of your existence. It took me to those first months when I began to define myself as an atheist.
After the movie and after reading the book I wrote in my journal: Dear Father, I am done doubting and questioning You. You are. Period. And I love You. No more atheism for me, even if I’m wrong, You are and I love You. Your daughter, Tita.
Elizabeth is from new England, Maine to be precise. The term “New England” is one that awakens magical images in my mind, mostly of Mother Nature. I love the idea of the fall aflame in color, and the idea of long snowfalls and prolonged quiet, lonely walks bundled in winter wear. I know, most people that actually know the area say that winters can be miserable, but somehow I cannot associate the words New England with misery. Go figure.
Anyway, I read Strout’s three novels and I was captivated. She is a woman who takes her time with her characters and their lives. I read somewhere that she is a realist and I agree. She makes them real in their interactions and in the things that happen to them. Still more, what I find oddly perturbing but captivating at the same time
(because I can be a nosy body), is how intimately she portrays them. To be truthful, I sometimes felt that she had me in a room way too close to a character and that I was learning things that were too intimate and too private and that I didn’t have a right to be like the proverbial fly on the wall. When she deals with all the sordid details of excess or perversion, it’s with respect and objectivity, like she is saying, “Hey, I know, this is horrible, but it is part of our humanity and it explains this character better, so let’s deal with it and move on. No need for your judgment.”
Last week I went to the movies. I saw Higher Ground exquisitely acted and directed by Vera Farmiga (remember her from Up in the Air, as Clooney’s lover). The movie is a subdued but intense drama of one woman’s journey through her spiritual and religious life. Corinne is the main character who in her teen years becomes a radical and fundamental Christian along with her husband. She gives her youth and a good chunk of her adult years to her religious beliefs.
At some point, Corinne begins to struggle with her faith and you can see how she starts to feel unsettled by what she has held to be true in life: God and Christ. Her beliefs begin to crumble, as well as her marriage of many years, one that gave her three children.
The movie is based on the memoir This Dark World by Carolyn S. Briggs that now has been renamed Higher Ground: A Memoir of Salvation Found and Lost. So moved was I by the movie that I read this book in three days.
When I saw Corinne battling to hold on to her faith, I cried, I so identified myself with that odd feeling of emptiness and of uselessness when you feel you must release something that has anchored you to the world since you are aware of your existence. It took me to those first months when I began to define myself as an atheist.
After the movie and after reading the book I wrote in my journal: Dear Father, I am done doubting and questioning You. You are. Period. And I love You. No more atheism for me, even if I’m wrong, You are and I love You. Your daughter, Tita.
Friday, September 9, 2011
#33- Homesickness in Cardboard Boxes
When my mother, almost eighty, returns from Mexico, she usually arrives with a suitcase and two cardboard boxes. These boxes could very well have the logo of the Mexican detergent Ariel. She expertly ties these boxes with vinyl yellow rope, a typical sign that one must be Mexican (or maybe we could generalize and say Latin American).
I remember one particular trip. She arrived on a bus from Jiquilpan, a town near her native village in the state of Michoacan, to the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff with a four-hour delay and swollen feet but, surprisingly, happy and strong.
After the vicissitudes that delays of this nature cause, we got home around midnight and brought in her cardboard boxes while she explains the delay and we call friends and relatives to inform them that she’s made it safe to Dallas.
As I help her with her boxes, time is somehow momentarily suspended. When she opens her boxes, yawns and tiredness magically disappear. She pulls out a lot of round cheeses, about 10, and jars of cajeta, a creamy caramel, and other sweets from her village, everything homemade, along with a very large plastic bag about to burst with dried red peppers. All this comes from Michoacán. Then come the bolillos or baguettes from Guadalajara and mugs for my new kitchen. She tells me sheepishly, “I wanted to bring you an entire set but one cost 1,800 pesos and another about 2,000 (roughly between 180 and 200 dollars). Can you believe it? So I just brought you these two mugs. They’re from Tonalá.”
It’s always like this when my aging mother returns from Mexico. Whether I like it or not, her boxes open the door to Mexico and my childhood: I can see the small village where my parents were born, the tile floor of my house, the streets of my barrio; I can smell the characteristic smog of my city, I can hear the deafening sound of the buses; I can peek at the steaming taco stand on the street corner. I remember some of the blurry faces of my many relatives.
With every cheese that I rinse for my mom (“to get rid of the excess drippings,” she tells me), I recover I-don’t-know-what essence that has become dusty and almost forgotten in my hectic everyday life in Dallas.
But the apex of my nostalgia, of its marvelous significance that is beyond words, occurs this time when she tells me that a woman reached her in Sahuayo to give her a pair of wings that my daughter had asked for as a birthday gift. I laugh when I explain to my husband that la Abuela could have made things easy on herself and just asked me to order them from the catalog where my daughter got the idea, instead of having to choose between bumblebee wings, or yellow, pink or white butterfly wings as she boards a bus, and then carry them tirelessly in her lap during the entire 27-hour trip that became longer because of two bus breakdowns in the middle of nowhere.
So that year my daughter got those Third World pink butterfly wings for her birthday.
From Mexico.
It seems to me that that is how it was meant to be.
I remember one particular trip. She arrived on a bus from Jiquilpan, a town near her native village in the state of Michoacan, to the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff with a four-hour delay and swollen feet but, surprisingly, happy and strong.
After the vicissitudes that delays of this nature cause, we got home around midnight and brought in her cardboard boxes while she explains the delay and we call friends and relatives to inform them that she’s made it safe to Dallas.
As I help her with her boxes, time is somehow momentarily suspended. When she opens her boxes, yawns and tiredness magically disappear. She pulls out a lot of round cheeses, about 10, and jars of cajeta, a creamy caramel, and other sweets from her village, everything homemade, along with a very large plastic bag about to burst with dried red peppers. All this comes from Michoacán. Then come the bolillos or baguettes from Guadalajara and mugs for my new kitchen. She tells me sheepishly, “I wanted to bring you an entire set but one cost 1,800 pesos and another about 2,000 (roughly between 180 and 200 dollars). Can you believe it? So I just brought you these two mugs. They’re from Tonalá.”
It’s always like this when my aging mother returns from Mexico. Whether I like it or not, her boxes open the door to Mexico and my childhood: I can see the small village where my parents were born, the tile floor of my house, the streets of my barrio; I can smell the characteristic smog of my city, I can hear the deafening sound of the buses; I can peek at the steaming taco stand on the street corner. I remember some of the blurry faces of my many relatives.
With every cheese that I rinse for my mom (“to get rid of the excess drippings,” she tells me), I recover I-don’t-know-what essence that has become dusty and almost forgotten in my hectic everyday life in Dallas.
But the apex of my nostalgia, of its marvelous significance that is beyond words, occurs this time when she tells me that a woman reached her in Sahuayo to give her a pair of wings that my daughter had asked for as a birthday gift. I laugh when I explain to my husband that la Abuela could have made things easy on herself and just asked me to order them from the catalog where my daughter got the idea, instead of having to choose between bumblebee wings, or yellow, pink or white butterfly wings as she boards a bus, and then carry them tirelessly in her lap during the entire 27-hour trip that became longer because of two bus breakdowns in the middle of nowhere.
So that year my daughter got those Third World pink butterfly wings for her birthday.
From Mexico.
It seems to me that that is how it was meant to be.
Friday, September 2, 2011
#32 - My Aunt Olivia
It’s early morning, the cows have been milked, and beds have been made. Now, rosy-cheeked, my Aunt Olivia reigns from her small, dark, windowless kitchen. My cousin Cuca has returned from the mill where she took the corn or nixtamal to be made into masa, dough for the corn tortillas her mother will now make.
In the mud oven or fogón the firewood heats the round griddle, and it’s ready to receive the thin discs of uncooked masa where they will become tortillas, round and light, like magical globes lifted by hot air. Silently, one of my six cousins feeds the firewood so his mother can begin. The wood tortilla-press is big and heavy. From behind the metate, her grinding stone, Tía Olivia, expertly throws the hot tortillas into a basket lined by an impeccable white napkin, impeccably embroidered by her or her daughter. It’s from this old woven basket that we take the tortillas and we spread on them the milk’s skin just recently boiled and we sprinkle it with salt. If it’s not with milk’s skin, we eat the tortillas with cheese or cottage cheese, or a spicy salsa just made in the rock mortar or molcajete.
My sister Irma loves her ranitas. A ranita is a tortilla freshly pulled from the griddle and onto which Tía Olivia throws a few grains of coarse salt and drops of water. She rolls the tortilla with damp hands and squeezes it a couple of times. Hungrily, hurriedly, Irma takes the damp and steaming ranita and bites into it with obvious pleasure.
It’s a delicious ceremony. Tía Olivia smiles and watches us eat the tortillas that bloom from her busy hands. There is not much talking. And sometimes, when she takes a break to puff at her cigarette, she watches us from behind the smoke she exhales with an intense, quiet look that we’re too young to understand or appreciate fully. Still—though at an unconscious, wordless level—we know ourselves to be before some type of archetypal goddess, a goddess of inexhaustible resources and strength. We witness the exact moment of her mystery—her ability to transform matter into nurturing food. Dressed in black, always wrapped in her shawl, in that dark room with dirt floor and mud walls, where she is illuminated by the fire, we watch her, mother and aunt, perform this sacred daily ritual.
Beyond the narrow door the day expands always blue and luminous. Somewhere in the distance dogs bark, the radio plays Mexican folk music and children laugh, calling us to play. But we choose to stay here, to pay her tribute. We choose to grow strong and healthy by the apparent simplicity of her everyday miracle.
In the mud oven or fogón the firewood heats the round griddle, and it’s ready to receive the thin discs of uncooked masa where they will become tortillas, round and light, like magical globes lifted by hot air. Silently, one of my six cousins feeds the firewood so his mother can begin. The wood tortilla-press is big and heavy. From behind the metate, her grinding stone, Tía Olivia, expertly throws the hot tortillas into a basket lined by an impeccable white napkin, impeccably embroidered by her or her daughter. It’s from this old woven basket that we take the tortillas and we spread on them the milk’s skin just recently boiled and we sprinkle it with salt. If it’s not with milk’s skin, we eat the tortillas with cheese or cottage cheese, or a spicy salsa just made in the rock mortar or molcajete.
My sister Irma loves her ranitas. A ranita is a tortilla freshly pulled from the griddle and onto which Tía Olivia throws a few grains of coarse salt and drops of water. She rolls the tortilla with damp hands and squeezes it a couple of times. Hungrily, hurriedly, Irma takes the damp and steaming ranita and bites into it with obvious pleasure.
It’s a delicious ceremony. Tía Olivia smiles and watches us eat the tortillas that bloom from her busy hands. There is not much talking. And sometimes, when she takes a break to puff at her cigarette, she watches us from behind the smoke she exhales with an intense, quiet look that we’re too young to understand or appreciate fully. Still—though at an unconscious, wordless level—we know ourselves to be before some type of archetypal goddess, a goddess of inexhaustible resources and strength. We witness the exact moment of her mystery—her ability to transform matter into nurturing food. Dressed in black, always wrapped in her shawl, in that dark room with dirt floor and mud walls, where she is illuminated by the fire, we watch her, mother and aunt, perform this sacred daily ritual.
Beyond the narrow door the day expands always blue and luminous. Somewhere in the distance dogs bark, the radio plays Mexican folk music and children laugh, calling us to play. But we choose to stay here, to pay her tribute. We choose to grow strong and healthy by the apparent simplicity of her everyday miracle.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
#31- Letter to My Friend S.
S.,
When I was a brought to this country, one of the first things I experienced outside the realm of my loving home was discrimination by the other children at school. At first I couldn't understand if they were even talking to me. There was this red-headed boy, Mark, chubby and freckled, who would follow me on his bike on my walk back home who would call me names associated with my culture: "hey taco," "hey enchilada" and silly things like that. But I knew that what I was feeling was true and not silly, a burning shame for being singled out. I was the only "browned-skin" (in spite of tending to be more light- than dark-skinned) person in my class. Maybe now I would laugh about it but I was not more than 10 then.
I had no information about discrimination or bigotry. I couldn't name what was happening to me. So I kept quiet. I didn't tell my parents. I didn't tell my teachers. I was absolutely alone. So my two worlds sort of broke off. At home I was vivacious, funny, cute and very much loved. At school I was silent, withdrawn, friendless and alone.
And so I became a person who could pretend she was fine alone, that she actually preferred it so. She was independent and self-sufficient. She would never admit to being sad, scared or in need of some sort of validation and acceptance.
During my schooling in Mexico, I discovered friendship and so I came out of my little shell. And my sense of humor came alive. It was the time when the kid at school came close to becoming the same kid I was at home. But then the shaming came with my body being overweight. And the cruel jokes and name-calling started again. So I retracted into my broken shell and there I have stayed. At its door. Ready to recoil and hide again. But definitely able to step away from it when I feel safe and included.
As a fifty-one-year old woman this seems to me to be pretty immature, but what can I say?
You say, "Sometimes I try to figure out what I see in your eyes (when I catch your glance). I wonder if you remember our talks. The insecurity I often felt. It's there." I can relate because I know people have a hard time understanding that at my core, I'm a shy, quiet little girl who makes herself responsible for making others talk about themselves; for making them feel at ease; that I relax when I make them laugh. And yes, that resource was fragmented two years ago, but it's coming back together. When I make a joke about anything, I catch myself apologizing, in case someone might think it inappropriate. But I cannot stop being who I am.
And, S., when I see you , when I catch your glance, all I see is beauty, elegance and grace, so I cannot fathom the source of your insecurity, but through my broken heart, I do not doubt your words. It must be there.
In spite of all this, I defend my right to optimism and hope, faith and happiness and when I feel I'm losing my grip on them, I hold on through prayers and with teeth and claws. I must. There really is no alternative.
Let me finish my letter to you with John Lennon's words, "Every day, in every way, it's getting better and better."
Love,
M.
When I was a brought to this country, one of the first things I experienced outside the realm of my loving home was discrimination by the other children at school. At first I couldn't understand if they were even talking to me. There was this red-headed boy, Mark, chubby and freckled, who would follow me on his bike on my walk back home who would call me names associated with my culture: "hey taco," "hey enchilada" and silly things like that. But I knew that what I was feeling was true and not silly, a burning shame for being singled out. I was the only "browned-skin" (in spite of tending to be more light- than dark-skinned) person in my class. Maybe now I would laugh about it but I was not more than 10 then.
I had no information about discrimination or bigotry. I couldn't name what was happening to me. So I kept quiet. I didn't tell my parents. I didn't tell my teachers. I was absolutely alone. So my two worlds sort of broke off. At home I was vivacious, funny, cute and very much loved. At school I was silent, withdrawn, friendless and alone.
And so I became a person who could pretend she was fine alone, that she actually preferred it so. She was independent and self-sufficient. She would never admit to being sad, scared or in need of some sort of validation and acceptance.
During my schooling in Mexico, I discovered friendship and so I came out of my little shell. And my sense of humor came alive. It was the time when the kid at school came close to becoming the same kid I was at home. But then the shaming came with my body being overweight. And the cruel jokes and name-calling started again. So I retracted into my broken shell and there I have stayed. At its door. Ready to recoil and hide again. But definitely able to step away from it when I feel safe and included.
As a fifty-one-year old woman this seems to me to be pretty immature, but what can I say?
You say, "Sometimes I try to figure out what I see in your eyes (when I catch your glance). I wonder if you remember our talks. The insecurity I often felt. It's there." I can relate because I know people have a hard time understanding that at my core, I'm a shy, quiet little girl who makes herself responsible for making others talk about themselves; for making them feel at ease; that I relax when I make them laugh. And yes, that resource was fragmented two years ago, but it's coming back together. When I make a joke about anything, I catch myself apologizing, in case someone might think it inappropriate. But I cannot stop being who I am.
And, S., when I see you , when I catch your glance, all I see is beauty, elegance and grace, so I cannot fathom the source of your insecurity, but through my broken heart, I do not doubt your words. It must be there.
In spite of all this, I defend my right to optimism and hope, faith and happiness and when I feel I'm losing my grip on them, I hold on through prayers and with teeth and claws. I must. There really is no alternative.
Let me finish my letter to you with John Lennon's words, "Every day, in every way, it's getting better and better."
Love,
M.
Friday, August 12, 2011
#30 - My Talk About Cars
My papi really wanted to raise me to be self-sufficient and independent. So I was about eight years old when I was put in the driver’s seat of our family car. I remember he had to put a pillow under me so I could see out the windshield and I had to pull myself up as close as possible to the steering wheel in order to reach the pedals.
Naturally, he was not expecting me to drive. I think he probably hoped that I would begin to feel comfortable thinking of myself as a driver. So he would make me drive up and down the gravel road of the where we lived in California giving me advice and warnings about what it means to be in charge of a car.
As soon as I turned sixteen (or was it eighteen?) he took me to take my driving test. I remember how happy he was that I passed the written and practice tests on my first try. He was so proud.
In spite of being a legal driver, my sister and cousin Cuca were no fans of mine. Once on our way to work they made me stop the car so they could walk across a small wooden bridge instead of staying in the car with me while I drove it over two skinny wood planks that was the space allotted for vehicles. They didn’t trust me to do it right. But I did it, though I was pretty scared myself, fear that I’m sure had to do more with their mistrust than any possible inability of mine to drive over what seemed a flaky bridge.
Many, many years had to pass before I drove a car again: my papi’s death, my college studies, my first marriage and then ending up in Texas. Since we didn't have a car, a friend let me borrow his so I could take the driver’s test. I was a bit surprised to pass it on the first try again and to have unconsciously remembered so much from my papi’s teachings during the written test.
In the early nineties I bought my first used car for $500. It was probably from the seventies. It was big as a boat and brown in color so I named it El Cucaracho (as a friendly wink to the Spanglish spoken in San Antonio; they call cockroaches, “cucarachos,” though in Spanish as far as I know, the noun is correct only in its feminine form, “cucarachas”).
El Cucaracho had a short life with us. And it wasn’t until December 1993 that I bought my first new car. An acquaintance made the deal for us over the phone, because I was a nervous wreck. We showed up at a Nissan dealership with the confirmation letter of my fabulous new job that I was to start in mid-January 1994 and that was enough for a friend of my husband’s to drive us out of the dealership in a brand new 1994 Nissan Sentra. I did not believe I could drive this new car. We had never owned a new car in my family. I only knew three cars in my family: El Amapolo, El Palomo and El Cafetal, my papi’s pride and joy, used cars that he cared for with utmost reverence.
I promised myself I would drive my new car on that first day to my new job at Mary Kay. So La Nubecita (Little Cloud, it was a light gray color) stayed parked for those two weeks at our apartment complex.
I still worked at a radio station, so a coworker would come pick me up; she would park her car, and she would drive us to work in my new little car. I remember that in trying to be encouraginge, she told me that my car resembled a small Lexus. I didn’t know what the word Lexus meant or implied.
Such was my fear that I promised myself that I would never drive on any freeways. So I started driving from Irving to Dallas on the side streets. We loved our little Nubecita. She was reliable and trustworthy, she never broke down. But I promised myself that I would never buy another Nissan vehicle because of how I was treated when my car needed some bodywork done at the dealership. I remember I was so unhappy with their service that I wrote to several Nissan people, the CEO included. I never received a reply. And I kept my promise. We’ve been Honda customers since then.
After the Nubecita, came La Tortola, an Accord I drove until 2005, and then La Bluesera (a Honda Odyssey). I loved this car, it was ample and so comfortable inside, most especially after my stroke. I felt that it was like my little house on the road. And it had so many luxuries that we had not planned for: a DVD player for my daughter, a six-CD player and it even warmed our seats in cold weather.
Alas, La Bluesera started acting up this year, first the AC (unforgivable in the Texas heat), so we went ahead and got a new car. Another Odyssey. This one is a white one so I call it La Paloma in honor of my papi’s Palomo.
Buying a car is a long, long, strenuous process. About four hours if not more. At least for us. Since money is tight I remember praying, “Oh God, let me be humble and get only a car I need." So I considered another Accord, but it was very difficult for me and my cane to get in and out, as with the Civic; the Element and the Pilot were too high. Though I’m no Goldilocks, the van was just right for me. So I ended with that one again. And of course I love it. Now this one does not come with a DVD player (we really didn’t use it much), but it does come with a navigation system, Amelia we call the woman’s voice that seems to know how to direct us everywhere we need to be.
I wasn’t able to be humble and careful in the matters of money. I regret that. But maybe as a stroke survivor I should drive a car that helps me be safe and as comfortable as possible. Maybe its not a luxury but a necessity. May God agree.
Naturally, he was not expecting me to drive. I think he probably hoped that I would begin to feel comfortable thinking of myself as a driver. So he would make me drive up and down the gravel road of the where we lived in California giving me advice and warnings about what it means to be in charge of a car.
As soon as I turned sixteen (or was it eighteen?) he took me to take my driving test. I remember how happy he was that I passed the written and practice tests on my first try. He was so proud.
In spite of being a legal driver, my sister and cousin Cuca were no fans of mine. Once on our way to work they made me stop the car so they could walk across a small wooden bridge instead of staying in the car with me while I drove it over two skinny wood planks that was the space allotted for vehicles. They didn’t trust me to do it right. But I did it, though I was pretty scared myself, fear that I’m sure had to do more with their mistrust than any possible inability of mine to drive over what seemed a flaky bridge.
Many, many years had to pass before I drove a car again: my papi’s death, my college studies, my first marriage and then ending up in Texas. Since we didn't have a car, a friend let me borrow his so I could take the driver’s test. I was a bit surprised to pass it on the first try again and to have unconsciously remembered so much from my papi’s teachings during the written test.
In the early nineties I bought my first used car for $500. It was probably from the seventies. It was big as a boat and brown in color so I named it El Cucaracho (as a friendly wink to the Spanglish spoken in San Antonio; they call cockroaches, “cucarachos,” though in Spanish as far as I know, the noun is correct only in its feminine form, “cucarachas”).
El Cucaracho had a short life with us. And it wasn’t until December 1993 that I bought my first new car. An acquaintance made the deal for us over the phone, because I was a nervous wreck. We showed up at a Nissan dealership with the confirmation letter of my fabulous new job that I was to start in mid-January 1994 and that was enough for a friend of my husband’s to drive us out of the dealership in a brand new 1994 Nissan Sentra. I did not believe I could drive this new car. We had never owned a new car in my family. I only knew three cars in my family: El Amapolo, El Palomo and El Cafetal, my papi’s pride and joy, used cars that he cared for with utmost reverence.
I promised myself I would drive my new car on that first day to my new job at Mary Kay. So La Nubecita (Little Cloud, it was a light gray color) stayed parked for those two weeks at our apartment complex.
I still worked at a radio station, so a coworker would come pick me up; she would park her car, and she would drive us to work in my new little car. I remember that in trying to be encouraginge, she told me that my car resembled a small Lexus. I didn’t know what the word Lexus meant or implied.
Such was my fear that I promised myself that I would never drive on any freeways. So I started driving from Irving to Dallas on the side streets. We loved our little Nubecita. She was reliable and trustworthy, she never broke down. But I promised myself that I would never buy another Nissan vehicle because of how I was treated when my car needed some bodywork done at the dealership. I remember I was so unhappy with their service that I wrote to several Nissan people, the CEO included. I never received a reply. And I kept my promise. We’ve been Honda customers since then.
After the Nubecita, came La Tortola, an Accord I drove until 2005, and then La Bluesera (a Honda Odyssey). I loved this car, it was ample and so comfortable inside, most especially after my stroke. I felt that it was like my little house on the road. And it had so many luxuries that we had not planned for: a DVD player for my daughter, a six-CD player and it even warmed our seats in cold weather.
Alas, La Bluesera started acting up this year, first the AC (unforgivable in the Texas heat), so we went ahead and got a new car. Another Odyssey. This one is a white one so I call it La Paloma in honor of my papi’s Palomo.
Buying a car is a long, long, strenuous process. About four hours if not more. At least for us. Since money is tight I remember praying, “Oh God, let me be humble and get only a car I need." So I considered another Accord, but it was very difficult for me and my cane to get in and out, as with the Civic; the Element and the Pilot were too high. Though I’m no Goldilocks, the van was just right for me. So I ended with that one again. And of course I love it. Now this one does not come with a DVD player (we really didn’t use it much), but it does come with a navigation system, Amelia we call the woman’s voice that seems to know how to direct us everywhere we need to be.
I wasn’t able to be humble and careful in the matters of money. I regret that. But maybe as a stroke survivor I should drive a car that helps me be safe and as comfortable as possible. Maybe its not a luxury but a necessity. May God agree.
Friday, August 5, 2011
#29 - A Statement-cum-Prayer
I really do not feel like writing a new post, but this damn sense of duty has here me uni-hand typing trying to think about what to write.
Curiously, in my emotional ups and downs, I’ve never questioned that my body will heal completely from the effects of that 2008 stroke. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I refuse to believe that I will die in these circumstances. It’s something I’m still unwilling to accept.
My body has always been strong and in spite of all that I have done to not take care of it, it has been strong and able to carry my weight about with unexpected flexibility and ability.
Now that it’s not what it used to be, I miss every little thing about its past. I promise myself that I will not torment it anymore for not being that desired size 8, 10 or 12. I will honor it and respect it as it is, I won’t dwell in the damaging “what ifs” of my life.
I know what I want, really. Yes, now that I’m 50, almost 51, I really know what I want. I want to fully inhabit my body. As simple as that. I want to claim it proudly mine and mine alone. Through honoring my body I want to honor and love God’s grace upon me. I want to walk long distances on the beach in total communion with Mother Nature. I want to recognize my identity in bodies of water. I want to travel and know rivers and creeks, lakes and ponds and the immeasurable ocean. I want to fall on my knees facing the sea and soulfully weep the joy of my human finiteness and the power and fragility of this my human body.
I want to walk in the rain like when I was a teenager so long ago, raise my face to the raindrops and let them do with me what they must, drench me in the sky’s holy waters.
And when this is not possible because, well, I live in Texas, I want to go home and walk on my treadmill simply because both my legs are strong again and I can hold on tightly to the machine’s bars. And my mind will go silly while I watch a sitcom or a cop show, while my legs do what they were created to do. Walk.
I want to do my dishes, I want to do my laundry, I want to explore cooking. I want to dedicate my time to beautifying my home. I want to spoon regularly while in bed with my husband and fall asleep with his arms keeping all scary shadows at bay.
I will not accept that these simple things will never be possible again. If we do not fully understand the workings and potential of our brains, I’m here to tell you that it has an incredible ability to self-heal and even now, just as I am right this minute, cane and all, non-functioning left hand and all, I’m a wonderful example of that.
But just you wait…
Curiously, in my emotional ups and downs, I’ve never questioned that my body will heal completely from the effects of that 2008 stroke. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I refuse to believe that I will die in these circumstances. It’s something I’m still unwilling to accept.
My body has always been strong and in spite of all that I have done to not take care of it, it has been strong and able to carry my weight about with unexpected flexibility and ability.
Now that it’s not what it used to be, I miss every little thing about its past. I promise myself that I will not torment it anymore for not being that desired size 8, 10 or 12. I will honor it and respect it as it is, I won’t dwell in the damaging “what ifs” of my life.
I know what I want, really. Yes, now that I’m 50, almost 51, I really know what I want. I want to fully inhabit my body. As simple as that. I want to claim it proudly mine and mine alone. Through honoring my body I want to honor and love God’s grace upon me. I want to walk long distances on the beach in total communion with Mother Nature. I want to recognize my identity in bodies of water. I want to travel and know rivers and creeks, lakes and ponds and the immeasurable ocean. I want to fall on my knees facing the sea and soulfully weep the joy of my human finiteness and the power and fragility of this my human body.
I want to walk in the rain like when I was a teenager so long ago, raise my face to the raindrops and let them do with me what they must, drench me in the sky’s holy waters.
And when this is not possible because, well, I live in Texas, I want to go home and walk on my treadmill simply because both my legs are strong again and I can hold on tightly to the machine’s bars. And my mind will go silly while I watch a sitcom or a cop show, while my legs do what they were created to do. Walk.
I want to do my dishes, I want to do my laundry, I want to explore cooking. I want to dedicate my time to beautifying my home. I want to spoon regularly while in bed with my husband and fall asleep with his arms keeping all scary shadows at bay.
I will not accept that these simple things will never be possible again. If we do not fully understand the workings and potential of our brains, I’m here to tell you that it has an incredible ability to self-heal and even now, just as I am right this minute, cane and all, non-functioning left hand and all, I’m a wonderful example of that.
But just you wait…
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