Good & Plenty - Candelaria Silva's Blog

Books I Read in 2011

2012-02-03T03:48:07Z

So many people ask me what I’ve been reading because I'm known to love reading and to have eclectic tastes. Here are the titles of most of the books I read in 2011. A few I forgot to write down - especially the children's stories I shared with my granddaughter.

I do want to share a book from this year that I finished a couple days ago that just blew me away, The Book Thief. If any one who reads this post has read this book, please let me know. I really want to discuss it with someone.

Fiction

Imperfect Birds – Anne Lamont

Purple Hibiscus – Chimanda Ngozi Acdiche

Windy City - Scott Simon
The Human Stain – Philip Roth
The Anti-Racism Trainings – David Reich
Then She Found Me – Elinor Lipman
Cowboys Are My Weakness – Pam Houston
Hotel DuLac – Anita Brookner
The Future of Love – Shirley Abbott
All We Every Wanted was Everything – Janelle Brown
Dancer – Colum McCann
Let the Great World Spin – Colum McCann
The Double Comfort Safari Club – Alexander McCall Smith
The Sexy Part of the Bible – Kola Bouf
Every Man Dies Alone – Hans Falada
The Elephant Keeper – Christopher Nicholson
Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name – Vendela Vida
The Lovers – Vendeal Vida
Julia’s Cocolates – Cathy Lamb
How I Paid for College – A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater – Mark Acito
The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes – Tessura Holtne
Super Sad True Love Story – Gary Shteyngart
Knit Two – Kate Jacobs
The Clothes on Their Backs – Linda Grant
The Madonnas of Echo Park – Brando Skyhorse
Following Polly – Karen Bergreen
American Gods – Neil Gaiman
The Elegance of the Hedgehog– Muriel Bybery
Cutting for Stone

Non-Fiction

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson

Sweet Soul Music
The Making of a Chef - - Michael Rahman
The Town That Food Saved – Ben Hewitt
Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs - Elin Galinsky
The Blessings of A Skinned Knee - Wendy Mogel

Memoirs/Biographies

All that Is Bitter & Sweet – Ashley Judd

Just Kids – Pattie Smith

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity & Hope – William Kamkwama

A Pig in Provence – Georgeanne Brandon
Extraordinary, Ordinary People (A Memoir of Family) Condoleeza ice
Damn Near White: An African-American Family‘s Rise from Slavery to Bittersweet Success – Carolyn Wilkins
One Day I Will Write About this Place – A Memoir – Binyavanga Wainama
Bitter is the New Black – Jennifer Lancaster
Such a Pretty Fat – Jennifer Lancaster
Bright Lights, Big Ass – Jennifer Lancaster
Happens Everyday – Isabel Giles
Red Dust Road: An Autobiographical Journey – Jackie Kay
The Grace of Silence: A Memoir – Michele Norris
The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
And Furthermore – Judi Dench
Foxy: My Life in Three Acts – Pam Grief
I Remember Nothing & Other Reflections – Nora Ephron
I Feel Bad About My Neck & Other Thoughts on Being a Woman – Nora Ephron
My Reading Life – Pat Conroy
The Other Wes Moore: The Story of One Name & Two Fates – Wes Moore
Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love & 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture – Thomas Chatterton Williams
The Faraway Horses – Buck Brannaman
Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl – Donald Sturrock
A Life Unburdened: Getting Over Weight & Getting on with My Life – Richard Morris

Children’s
Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

History, mystery, romance, drama, memoir, grand, great, quick, escapism, challenging, witty, silly, snarky, poetic, moving, amazing...I love reading! Thank goodness for public libraries.

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If you liked this post, you might also like - Learning from the Lives of Others, My Fascination with Memoirs

This may be the last time

2012-01-22T03:14:53Z

What would you do if you knew this was the last time that everything would be what it was.? Would you choose your clothes differently? Would you change your location? Would you weigh your words carefully? Would you savor each moment and imprint it in your memory because one day this memory would be all that you had?

What if the last time you visited your family was the final time in fact you would ever see them again? Would you have done different things knowing it was the last visit? Would you have paid attention more closely to what each one said? Would you have said the things you felt be they love notes or explanations why…?

Had you known that the birthday party a few years back was the last time your two children would talk to each other, might you have done something differently? Could you have changed what happened after?

When those words flew out of your mouth, had you known they would have caused a fissure that turned into a wound that would not heal (although it has been scabbed over only to be hurt another time)– would you have chosen your words differently? Might you have chosen silence instead?

Because today is the only day we have, this moment is the only moment that is real and look it’s already gone. How can you make something so fleeting stay?

Pay attention because you just never know when you’re speaking the last words, making the last love, or leaving never to return.

Things to Pray for…or not

2012-01-17T04:00:37Z

Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow has been in the news a lot recently because he prays before games. This got me to thinking seriously about something that I’ve been mulling for a while now – what should one pray for? What do I pray for? Why does it bother me when I see what to me are frivolous (or offensive) prayers?

Here goes a few of the things I’ve mulled about prayer.

Mull # 1 – Faith and the slow cooker
The most recent occasion for me to mull about prayer was when a friend was telling me about finding a slow cooker at Morgie’s* for $14.99. She had seen a slow cooker she wanted at Targets but it was too expensive. She prayed about it. Then one day “faith told me to go to Morgie’s” and there it was.

Hmmm. Since she goes to Morgie’s on a regular basis, I don’t believe it was faith that led her to the slow cooker. I think she just wanted to shop…yet again.

Mull #2-20 – Prayer circles before performances

There are any number of crude and rude entertainers who pray with their crew before performing. As if God is really interested in helping someone do the best violent, sexist, and/or vulgar performance possible. I'm not even sure that God is interested in the most sublime performances. I sorta think you're given the talent, you nurture the gift, and you perform. Although I must admit that sometimes the stars align and music can feel transcendant.

Mull # 21+++ - Prayers to hit the lottery

Hitting the lottery is a want not a need and nobody deserves to hit it more than anyone else. (Including me!)

Mull # 100 – Prayers to win a football (or any other) game

Doesn’t God have more important things to do than to help anyone win a game? A game! I don’t even think God cares football (or hockey or basketball or figure skating or any of our human distractions).

I figure God has any number of ~~true~~ prayers to answer and big picture items to ponder – like whether it’s time to be done with this planet and humans in general.

To me it makes sense to: thank God and recognize the blessings already present in your life and then, perhaps, to pray for:

Strength to get through the challenges you are facing.
Resources to help you meet your needs.
Prayers for healing, management of pain or ability to cope with illness, pain, etc.
Peace.
Companionship/love (and not ignoring this blessing when it doesn’t come packaged the way you thought it should be).

Growing up in a traditional baptist church in St. Louis, I remember hearing Reverend Smith preaching that a “prayer prayed is a prayer answered.”

Mull # 101-1000 – If my prayer didn’t get answered:

Did I not pray hard enough?
Was I not specific enough?
Was I not deserving enough?
Was someone more deserving than me?
Was it just not my turn?
Was it that I needed to recognize the fact that my needs have been met and even a few of my wants and maybe that was all to be had?
Was it that I needed to make the one step so God could make two?
Was it that God had given me what I needed to go forth and didn’t need to be bothered with small things?

Faith is such a personal thing. I am a believer. (I recognize that a number of people I know who have fabulous lives don’t believe at all. There are also people I know who are unfailingly good people and don’t believe at all!)

So I guess I won’t be hitting the lottery or getting the specific goodies I want because these are not things I will pray for.

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Afterthought: One of the most profound prayers ever written is the lyrics of Precious Lord I’ve had this spiritual in my head, specifically the version sung by “The Struggling Seven” a men’s group that used to sing this song “on request” in the Sunday evening service at the church I grew up in – Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church.

Precious Lord

Lyrcis by Rev. Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993)

Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on,
Let me stand
I'm tired, I am weak I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home

When my way grows drear precious Lord linger near
When my life is almost gone
Hear my cry,
Hear my call
Hold my hand lest I fall
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home

When the darkness appears and the night draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand
Guide my feet,
Hold my hand
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home

Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on,
Let me stand
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home

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*Morgan Memorial (Goodwill Industries)

An unexpected change in the neighborhood

2012-01-09T13:03:02Z

Ashmont Market and Liquor Store, a short five-minute (if that) walk from my house, is being sold. I first learned of this from my husband, who saw one of the Georgeoulopoulos brothers showing the ropes to a non-family guy – [presumably the new owner).

Whine. I like it just the way it is.

After returning from my Christmas vacation, I ran up there for something (they have a little bit of everything and always have what you’ve run out of to cook some new concoction) and asked one of the brothers if the rumors was true.

He said, “Yes.” (man of few words)

I said, “Ohhhhh. I’m gonna miss you.”

He said, “ Yeah” or something like that.

I said, “It won’t be the same.”

He didn’t say anything just had a brief look of something like sympathy for my feelings cross his face.

“I hope the new owners keep it like you run it.”

“They seem nice,” he offered.

I fear the change in ownership.

The Georgoulopoulos family have been dependable, stalwart, friendly if not effusive (at least not to be but then I’m a newcomer to the neighborhood only having lived here for 8 years.)

I first noticed the store while waiting at the bus stop in front of another small neighborhood store. There were always cops stopping by for the deli sandwiches in the back of the store. I went back to investigate and discovered they also sold meat. This was where I discovered some of the juiciest pork chops I’ve ever seen. I hadn’t cooked pork chops in more than 10 years until I was tempted by the looks of theirs and bought two for dinner.

Ashmont Market and Liquors been a neighborhood fixture for 30 years. They gave the facade and signage of the store a much-needed and attractive facelift a couple years back. Brothers Harry, John, and Peter Georgoulopoulos run it. (Two of them are twins but I don't know which two.) I believe they inherited from the father who passed a year or so ago.

Observation: I sometimes loathe change. (Who me? Yes, me!)

Realization: I am assuming that the change in ownership would be a change for the worse; it could be a change for the better.

Decision: I’ll be optimistic. I mean it would only be in the new owner’s best interest to keep/maintain what has made the store work for the neighborhood.

Right?

Here's hoping.

This could be the year

2012-01-02T03:22:20Z

This could be the year
This could be the year, you know.
Right now, you can believe and/or decide that this is the year that:

You find the love of your life (or renew the one you have).
You get the job you want (or a job that will do).
You sign that book/music/movie contract.
You snare that scholarship.
You forgive the person you need to forgive.
You forget the things that aren’t important.
You start that exercise program that you know you should.
You welcome that new baby who represents new hope for the world.
You lay down you weapons.
You (fill in the blank)

This could be it, you know. This year.

Oh the delightful possibilities of a brand, spankling, New Year.

Jingle all the way

2011-12-18T00:01:00Z

Yeah, I’m corny. I admit it. Especially this time of year. I am jingling all the way this holiday season.

I adore the Christmas lights and holiday carols. I called them holiday carols because in addition to Christmas carols, I love and sing Seven Principles, the Kwanzaa song (lyrics & music by Bernice Reagon, recorded by Sweet Honey in the Rock*) as well as winter carols like Frosty the Snowman (lyrics & music by Steve Nelson & Jack Rollins) and Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! (lyrics by Sammy Cahn, music by Jule Styne).

I love carols so much, I actually joined the throng at Pops Goes the Holiday Season on December 3^rd in the World Record Breaking Caroling Attempt at Christian Science Plaza in Boston.

I dig Christmas movies, old and new. I watch these every year. My favorites are:

It’s A Wonderful Life (no surprise there)
A Christmas Story (also no surprise)
Home for the Holidays
Scrooge (various versions including the one with Bill Murray and they all still spook me a little bit)
Grand Canyon (not a holiday movie but has the holiday spirit in it to me)

I treasure Christmas accoutrements - trees, ornaments, wreaths, garlands, holly, poinsettias, wrapping paper, Santa hats and reindeer antler headbands and car ornaments. I have a red velvet lounge set that I wear every Christmas morning. Call me Mrs. Santa if you want to…I am. Having granddaughters and a (step) grandson give me license to Mrs. Santa-it-up.

I love-love-love holiday shows particularly sharing the experience with my fellow audience members and becoming of one positive mind at least for a brief time. This season, I’ve seen:

Black Nativity (41^st annual production put on by the National Center of Afro-American Artists) in collaboration with Roxbury Community College) – It lifts my spirit and celebrates the birth of Jesus and the struggle of Mary and Joseph to find a place for her to give birth.
Anthony Williams' Urban Nutcracker by Ballet Rox – An exuberant production!
Holiday Pops – A time-honored Boston tradition featuring the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.
The Christmas Revels – This year the songs and skits were mostly French (with a couple of numbers from the Middle East) and I didn’t know any of the music (although the music was provided) but most of the audience seemed to. I was still able to experience the glow emanating from the exuberant performances and the enthralled audience. (I preferred Christmas Revels in 2009 which featured traditional American music, including Appalachian folks songs and African-American spirituals because this music was more familiar to me and I could more easily participate.)

Next year, I hope to have my granddaughter with me in Boston so I can share these holiday shows with her and take her to her first high tea. Meanwhile, I look forward to Christmas Day with family and friends. We’ll cook, share stories, laughter, and delectable food (especially cakes, pies & cookies). We’ll exchange gifts (tokens of our esteem according to our means), we’ll sing carols (on key and off), we’ll go to church (Jesus is the reason for the season after all), and we'll give thanks that we are all together once again and anticipating a great new year!

Merry Christmas, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Hannukah, and a Feisty Festivus (for the rest of us).
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You might also like to read:

This Christmas

(*From the album, B’lieve I’ll Run On See What’s the End’s Gonna Be.)

Reciprocity

2011-12-09T12:19:42Z

Give only to those from whom you have received. Receive only from those to whom you have given.

Ayi Kwei Armah

Two Thousand Seasons (1973)

I read Two Thousand Seasons years ago and this quote has always stuck in my mind. In the novel, this philosophy and practice of reciprocity is credited as a seminal Pan-African belief system by the Ghanaian author, Armah. The breaking of this practice when the Europeans arrived then plunged the African people into a period of utter devastation that will last for 2000 seasons.

This explanation of reciprocity has always spoken deeply to me because I believe in and like to count on reciprocity. Through helping and supporting others, I believe I am building an account that I can withdraw from when I need help or support.

The fact is that the circle of reciprocity has to start somewhere. Someone has to give first. Someone has to keep account or the giving. You want to be able to go to the people you’ve given to and know that you can get back when you are in need. You want to be able to give to people who’ve given to you when hey are in need.

Reciprocity doesn’t often happen as an equal exchange or in a straight line. Rather, it happens that you give to someone in your sphere and they return the gift to someone else within your (or a different) sphere. The sphere might be as small as your family or as large as the world. Generosity will be given to you, sometimes from people you don’t even know.

I often wish for straight lines. They are neater and speedier. It’s easier to keep account. In my time of need, I find it difficult not to keep account when the account I thought I’d build within a certain sphere is depleted of resources. However, this is not often how life works so I am having a renewed lesson that generosity, payback and/or support won’t always come from people you expect or even people you know, but it will come. Your job is to be generous when called on to do so.

I have realized, however, that being generous and showing support doesn’t require one to keep giving to specific people if they’ve proven themselves non-reciprocal or appreciative. (I’m all about showing appreciation.)

I must confess, I wrote another post about support and reciprocity that was a raging, get-people-told rant. I drafted it late lone sleepless night and sent it to my husband and asked him what he thought. He made a good argument for my not posting it. In fact, writing it, expressing my hurt and dismay actually dampened those feelings. So let’s give a round of applause to Tessil for keeping me from doing the wrong thing (even though it would have felt so devilishly delicious to have posted it).

As a blog friend from Australia wrote me recently “remember to take your own advice and Believe!”

I will. I am.

As my Mom often says, “One monkey don’t stop no show.”

Don't Change - An impossible request of family

2011-12-01T13:34:02Z

“Don’t change a hair for me, not if you care for me.”*

When you live away from your family-of-birth and only get home to see them once a year or so, you hope that all the things you love about them will be the same when you see them. This was my wish for my Thanksgiving visit home.

You want the loud laughter and the recounting of family stories, even the ones that feature you. You hope the cousins will sing songs from the church you grew up in and imitate the singers and the classic shouts of particular church members who you remember so fondly.

You want your Mom to be as fabulously beautiful and appointed as she has always been. You want your brother to be the stalwart, kind and dependable man you treasure. You want your sister to be as bossy and directive as she has always been. (Everybody thinks she is the older sister because of her bossiness.)

You want your younger aunts (who are more like cousins) to be as funny, boisterous and loud as they’ve been your entire life. You want your jewel of an aunt to have on another of her fabulous sparkly accoutrements – hat, jewelry, sweater and or wig.

Don’t change a hair for me not if you care for me.

The core of these things remain, I’m happy to report. But change, change happens, of course. It is impossible to stop. Some of the changes are incremental and more visible because you don’t see them daily:

The physical change of a niece growing into a thoughtful and accomplished teen in a young woman’s body who drives now!

The slight bend of your still fabulous and fashionable mother’s shoulders and twisting of her fingers by arthritis.
The graying hair among those family members who do not heed the clarion call of Miss Clairol or Dark ‘n’ Lovely.

Other changes are dramatic:

The change in bodies from lithe and lovely to bloated and leaden.

The transformative weight loss of the heavy brother into a sleek, stylish man.
The continued signals of mental illness that is devouring the personality of the once brightest light in the cousins.
The calamity of divorce breaks apart the bonds of a couple and thrusts their children into a landscape of ever-changing allegiances and alliances confusing to everyone.
The death of a matriarch and a beloved uncle who strong personalities, opinions and ability to bring everyone together are lost.

There are positive changes:

New & rediscovered love and marriages, which the family expands to embrace.

Cousins doing well, traveling well beyond the original geographic strictures of the family and doing good work.
The quiet ones now raising their voices to be heard (and having something to say).

It is good to come home to the people who made me, who are the foundation upon which all that I am was built. In many ways, they have changed little – I am comforted by this. In other ways they (and () have changed so much. Older, frailer, but mostly unbowed.

We are family with our long memories, unrelenting love, highly visible but unspoken fissures and secrets, legendary lore, and grand gossip.

Don’t change, don’t change, promise we won’t change before we meet again.

(*Lyric from "My Funny Valentine" by Lorenz Hart)

With Appreciation – A List

2011-11-12T20:57:52Z

I am feeling appreciative that I’m an appreciator of the bounty of this world.

I appreciate the arts events that I’ve participated in over the past 2 years courtesy of my gig as marketing consultant with Door2Door to the Arts by SCM. In this capacity, I put together seasonal calendars of arts events. This fall I’ve attended: a BSO rehearsal with YoYo Ma, a trip to the Museum of Russian Icons, a concert by the Cantata Singers, a talk by Malcolm Rogers, Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Candide at the Huntington Theatre. I look forward to attending Martinis and Merriment at the Jewish Community Center in Newton tonight and Singers’ Night at Berklee College of Music on Tuesday. (I am a culture vulture in case you can’t tell.)

I appreciate other arts events like Roxbury Open Studios and a talk by author Walter Moseley at Roxbury Community College recently.

I appreciate living in Dorchester. Last night it was my pleasure to attend the latest talk of the Dorchester Speaker’s Forum: 50 Years Later: Jane Jacobs and The Death and Life of Great American Cities. More than 125 people gathered at All Saints Church on a crisp Friday evening and listened to the wisdom of the panelists: Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, Glenna Long (author of Genius of Common Sense: The Story of Janet Jacobs and “The Death & Life of Great American Cities”, M. David Lee, a partner of the architecture and planning firm, Stull and Lee; and Frank Keefe, a Boston developer, who served as moderator. It was a convivial evening that featured rich discussion during which the panelists, especially Gov. Dukakis, shared the hard-won battle to prevent what Boston might have been if the continued path of so-called urban renewal that decimated the West End of the city had been allowed across the city. (While some skirmishes were lost, the battle was won.)

I appreciate facilitating two successful workshops in the past 2 weeks. The first was “Selling Yourself on Paper” (part 1 of Pick-Up Your Power and Use It to Get a Job). The second was “Discovering Who I Am: Guiding Young Children as They Learn about Their Racial/Ethnic Identity” at the A View from All Sides Conference in Marlboro. I appreciate Parent University of the Boston Public Schools and Children’s Trust Fund respectively for selecting me to do these workshops.

I appreciate the deliciousness of the fall soups that I’ve begun making in earnest. Nothing is more soul-warming that homemade soup on a crisp fall day!

I appreciate an unexpected payment for work done voluntarily. (It came right on time.)

I appreciate receiving a Roxbury Pudding Stone Award at the Heart of the Hub fundraising event from Discover Roxbury. I stepped down from the board after many years of service in June 2011. It is affirming to get an award from people who know you! (Thanks, again, everyone.) And I appreciate that DR has taken over Roxbury Open Studios, an event I founded, thereby ensuring its continuance.

I appreciate the people who’ve ordered copies of two my two booklets, Pushing Through Shyness: Networking Tips when you’re shy, slow-to-warm-up, inexperienced or just don’t feel like you belong (a mouthful if ever there was one) and Handling Rejection.* Thank you.

I appreciate having many irons in the fire and the possibility of an additional iron or two because of 1 recent and another upcoming interview.

I appreciate holding on to love despite a recent rocky time in my marriage.

I appreciate:

the comics who provide laughter.
the writers who write so many incredible novels, stories, memoirs & poetry that I will never lack for material to read.
the musicians who provide music to dance to, groove to, make love to...
food, glorious food.
my life despite occasional turmoil and uncertainty.

I appreciate my faith and my doubts.

I truly appreciate my family:

the children I birthed,
the granddaughter I adore,
the husband I found (and who found me),
my mother who is unfailing in her love, and
my sister, brother and the rest of everyone in St. Louis who know me from the beginnings of my journey.

And I appreciate you, my readers, some known to me, others unknown to me.

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*Copies of my booklets can be ordered via my website: under the putlications button.

Pushing through shyness: Networking tips

2011-11-01T01:02:21Z

ON SALE NOW:

Pushing Through Shyness: Networking Tips when you’re shy, slow-to-warm-up, inexperienced or don’t feel you belong by Candelaria N. Silva

Networking can be useful or a waste of time. It can be painful or it can be fulfilling. It can be drudgery or it can be delightful. You hold the key to what the experience is for you.

Pushing Through Shyness gives you tips and tools to work a networking event to your advantage. It is useful for novices and for professionals. The 9-page booklet is illustrated and printed on high-quality stock and would make a practical motivational tool or gift. An order form is attached for your convenience.

Candelaria is also available to do a workshop on this topic. Contact her if interested.

(Also available for purchase is Handling Rejection, an inspirational essay. Watch for upcoming booklets including How to Design and Facilitate a Workshop and Real Issues to Discuss with Teenagers about Sex.)

Thank you for your support.

Order Form for Pushing Through Shyness

Please note, there is a PayPal link on my website (candelariasilva.com) under the publications heading.

If you like this post, you might also like:

Handling Rejection: An Inspirational Essay by Candelaria N. Silva

This or that? (depends)

2011-10-26T01:00:05Z

Were you making an observation or lodging a complaint?

Are you noticing or criticizing?

Am I informing or bragging?

Am I sharing or lauding?

Does silence speak volumes or are the meanings so much background noise?

Where did the music go?

Does the music go down when life gets too loud?

It's one thing or another. Either/or, neither/nor, or both/and!

It depends... on our history.
It depends....on the state of our relationship.
It depends...on my mood at the moment.
It depends...on the condition our condition is in.

This or that. This or that.

The words might be the same but the way they're delivered will change the response.

This or that, tit for tat, good or bad…it all depends.

(I’ll try to remember my inclination to sort for the good.)

Petite Women as opposite & inspiration

2011-10-18T02:36:42Z

Feisty. Strong. Assertive. These three words describe the petite women that I know. Many of my closest friends have been petite throughout my life. We are drawn to each other. Opposites attract – it has been said.

Petite is the opposite of how I walk in the world. Everything about me is big:

Big hips, big butt, big hair, full lips, big eyes, large feet, big hands, full breasts, big mind, large ideas, voracious appetites, and gigantic heart.

I’ve always been curious about how it would feel to be petite. So, in one of my stories, I created a character whose petite size was central to her part of the story. The story, What Does This Remind You Of, has three episodes of male-to-female violation. In creating Patricia’s character, I remembered one of these friends talking about having difficulty walking in a strong wind. That image didn’t make it into the story but it seeded another thought – how wonderful it would be to be swept up into someone’s arms. I turned that lovely image around so it would fit into the theme of my story. What if it wasn’t so lovely to be swept up? Here’s a snippet:

Sonya opened her mouth again and pursed her lips trying to soften the edginess she felt and knew would continue to be evident in her voice. How to say it? How to communicate through Patricia’s smugness?

            “Do you have any gaps in your memories?” she asked. “Any blank days that you cannot recall? Do you ever get anxious around certain people/voices/scents/situations? Have you ever been scared, felt over-powered? Have you ever felt little, so small as to be inconsequential? If you can’t answer an emphatic no to these questions then don’t be so damn sure that nothing happened to the girl you were!”

            Later, as she fixed dinner, having finally kicked off the three-inch heels she always wore, Patricia surveyed the beauty of her kitchen and said a quick prayer of thanks for it and her life once again. She had the life she’d always dreamed of, surrounded by beauty and peace in her custom-built house deep in the country. No cramped rooms and noisy voices. No sirens and dirty streets. She was living a beautiful life.

            Still, the words Sonya had said kept coming back to her. “Have you ever felt little? Have you ever felt lit-tle…so small as to be inconsequential?” She had. She was little; a small girl who’d grown into a petite woman who did everything she could to give herself heft: bouffant hair teased as high and wide as it could be and sprayed until it was lacquered into place; three-inch high heels; seriously tailored suits with strong shoulder pads. She tried to present herself as a woman who was “large and in charge” but in fact looked even more diminutive because of such efforts.

            “Put me down, Glenn, put me down,” Patricia shrieked as her husband, who’d slipped into the kitchen while she was lost in her thoughts, spun her around and up into his arms for his welcome- home kisses; a nightly ritual.

            “Where’s my sugar, woman?” Glenn demanded.

            “You know I hate when you do that.”

            “Oh, you hate my kisses do you?”

            “Not those, big boy” she paused, flirting despite her annoyance, “I love those. I don’t like to be picked up like that.”

            “We go through this every evening, Patricia. Why do you resist? You know I love having my pretty China doll in my arms.”

            She gave a slight sigh and smiled at him. She didn’t feel like explaining once again how she didn’t like being lifted unexpectedly. She felt like she’d explained her feelings in as many different ways as she could but still had not been heard.

            When she was a child, her brothers, the twin terrors, Bobby and Terry, would just pick her up and move her whenever they felt like it, as if she were a feather. They’d swing her around until she was dizzy or they’d walk with her tucked under their arms. “Now stay put, China doll.” She’d kick and scream, scratch and bite to no consequence. She couldn’t land a blow on their bodies or in their consciousness. She spent hours plotting elaborate strategies – how she could somehow show them how it felt to be moved against your will, to be taken away, to be carried so high above the ground that you felt the wind would continue what they’d started and you’d lift into the atmosphere like a balloon that had been let go, eventually to disappear.

            As a girl she’d taken to putting rocks in her pockets, a futile attempt to anchor herself. She’d tried to gain weight as a teen but vanity and a naturally speedy metabolism thwarted that wee rebellion. Bobby and Terry would stop when she ceased screaming, when her voice had left her, when the shuddering began and her eyes narrowed into slits, when they’d crossed the line and she was “too-through.” Then, and only then, would they put her down as they choked with laughter.

            So, as an adult, Patricia dressed for height and bulk, developed a stare that strangers wouldn’t challenge, avoided her brothers’ barbecues and other large family gatherings because they’d drink themselves back into the raucous bullyboys of her childhood. And her husband, her wonderful husband, she endured. Like millions of women she grinned and bore because compared to other husbands his was only a minor annoyance after all. It barely counted. (And at least she had a man.)

###

(I give a shout-out to all my feisty, strong, and assertive petite friends: Phyllis, Faina, Mimi, Pam, Eileen, Dolores, and Nayo. You all are fierce! I don’t think anyone would dare life you against your will.)

I thought I’d share my process – a certain angle or noticing something about the people around me or hearing a phrase can make its way into my writing often removed but still tied to the original thought.

◊◊◊◊◊◊

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Words I Like

2011-10-10T13:13:31Z

There are words that I like not just for their meanings but for the way they feel when I say them. I couldn’t write a post long enough to include all the words I like, so I’ve randomly picked these few, In no particular order:

Autumnal
Lush
Awry
Banal
Salsa
Penultimate
Passion

It is hard to separate the meanings from the words. Lush is just so la-la-la- lush. Luxurious sounds like what it means. On the other hand, banal (pronounced ba-nall) is a word whose pronunciation I enjoy but whose meaning I strive not to have in my life. Awry – sometimes things go awry…they fall apart. The sassiness of salsa is inevitably linked to the sound of the word for me. when I say it, I see and feel red. And passion well, I hear the pronunciation of that word by Milton Nascimento as he sings it in a duet with Sarah Vaughn.

There are names I like as well:

Giancarlo
Javier
Sophia
Mpelelesi (took me forever to learn how to say it)
Siobhan

And Tessil…your name feels just right in my mouth…it was one of the reasons I married you.

I don't agree

2011-09-29T12:57:01Z

You cannot get me to agree with your decision not to hire me.

You can explain all you want to. You can explain all you need to. You had your reasons. Good reasons. Sound reasons. You made the decision that was best at the moment for you. But surely you don’t expect me to agree with it.Surely you don’t need me to assuage your feelings about your decision.

There’s no way, no way, no way you can make me feel good that I wasn’t selected.

There’s no way, no way, no way that I will agree that the other candidate was better than me.

I bear no ill feelings. (You don’t have to dodge me when you see me.) I’ll speak to you. May even send a few informational items your way ‘cause that’s how I do.

I know how diligently I work, how resourceful I am, and how creative. I know what a quick study I am, how I will immerse myself in a topic and get up-to-speed on the things that I don’t know or that have grown rusty. I know what an impact I’ve had in my work.

I know how many people I have worked with who stay in touch years after we worked together because I motivated them and taught them something that they still use. I know me. Magnificent me. (I know other parts of me as well but they’re not in this post.)

So stop the explanations. Let it go.

You will not get me to agree with your decision not to hire me.

□□□□□□□□

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Seen on the job boards

2011-09-24T17:30:56Z

“Please do not apply if you are not had previous art training and experience.”

Please do not post if you don’t use proper grammar .

"Please do not apply if it will take you more than 30 minutes travel to zip 02458."

How about letting me decide how long I’m willing to drive to get to the job. What about if it will take me 32 minutes?

"INSIDE THIS CUSTOMER SERVICE POSITION:
You'll need to be available from 7am to 9pm seven days a week."

Really? 14 hour a day availability, 7 days a week. I thought indentured servitude was illegal.

"Part-time position (30 hours per week) is responsible for timesheets, accounts payable and various marketing projects."

30 hours a week is not a part-time job. It is a full-time job that you’re squeezing into 30 hours to save money and so you don’t have to offer benefits.

"Medical Adult Day Care is looking for Administrator Assistant, who needs to speak Vietnams."

Does anyone speak Vietnams? Perhaps they meant Vietnamese. Administrator Assistant? I think it’s called Administrative Assistant. Heard of spell-check? (This was an English-language agency, readers, so don’t go ballistic about my being insensitive.)

You just never know what you might see on Craig’s List. The pay for this job is $50.00/hour. Read the description and you’ll understand why.

Heading: Lice Removal (This is a FUN job.)

Currently seeking individuals to work in head lice removal for Lice Aunties in the Greater Boston area. I am looking for a few great people who are punctual, reliable, have great communication skills, a sense of humor, and offer outstanding customer service! We are a wonderful small company with great people and happy customers. Flexibility is a MUST, as most jobs are sporadic and are at an "on-call" basis, and you must have your own transportation. Having a great personality is crucial, since you will be working with children and inquiring parents. Experience highly desirable. You should be available at least a few hours every day and must be available by cell phone. No 9-5-ers and no weekend only please. This is a great and very fun job for the right person. References and background checks required. Please submit resume and cover letter.

Ewwhhhh. What references would I provide for a headlice checking position?

We have a Full Time position available with PAID take home work. (A reliable internet connection at your home with a usable PC is required.) In-office schedule from 7:00am -- 7:00pm Monday thru Friday and2 paid nights/wk PLUS 2 paid weekends a month from home.

Don't worry, I won't be calling. Can't work those crazy hours.

PPl Please, no phone calls about this job.

How can I call you when you don’t list a name of company or phone # in the description?

Looking for a part-time Office Assistant to work Mon-Fri from 9am-2pm. Must be able to multitask, answer phones, relay messages. This is a part-time position that offers generous compensation ($400.00 weekly).

Uh, $400 isn’t generous for 25 hours/week in the USA.

The required schedule is Monday - Saturday, it is roughly 55/hrs per week all year.

Isn’t it illegal to require someone to work 55 hours per week?

We want you to delight the customer.

I can be delightful but I don’t control whether the recipient is delighted. What some find delightful (perkiness) others find annoying (perkiness).

Grump, grump, grump.

All the way...love

2011-09-18T00:29:21Z

“When somebody loves you, it’s no good unless she loves you…all the way.”

I can hear Frank Sinatra’s inflection crooning this love song.

All the way.
Love.
‘Til death us do part.
Love.

I witnessed the meaning of those words at a celebration of life for a walking buddy’s husband who is near the end of his struggle with esophageal cancer.

Love – all the way.

A few years back, he’d nursed her through her battle with breast cancer. Now she’s nursing him.

Their love for each other…their grace in allowing friends, family and neighbors to fete them brought the Frank Sinatra tune to mind. Fran and Ann loving all the way.

I also witnessed " all the way friendship" in the grace of another "all the way couple, their friends," Judith and Brook, who put the celebration together. It was a celebration that showed the reach of Fran and Ann, FranandAnn is how it was said all night. The rainbow that is Dorchester was present in their home, giving thanks for all that Fran has meant to so many people.

Fran and Ann demonstrated what it is to love all the way.*

All The Way
(lyrics by Sammy Cahn, music by Jimmy Van Heusen)

When somebody loves you

It’s no good unless he loves you - all the way

Happy to be near you

When you need someone to cheer you - all the way

Taller than the tallest tree is

That’s how it’s got to feel

Deeper than the deep blue see is

That’s how deep it goes - if it’s real

When somebody needs you

It’s no good unless he needs you - all the way

Through the good or lean years

And for all the in between years - come what may

Who know where the road will lead us

Only a fool would say

But if you’ll let me love you

It’s for sure I’m gonna love you - all the way, all the way

(*I pray that I (and my spouse) will have the same grace and fortitude when our turns come.)

The See-Saw & The Ick

2011-09-10T19:31:25Z

The See-Saw
Last weekend was an UP and down weekend – as I experienced the joys and sorrows of life in abundance. The week continued in that vein in a less extreme fashion. Unfortunately yesterday, I began to feel the ick. And with the arrival of today’s mail which still did not contain what I’ve been waiting for since July, the ick intensified. More about that later.

UP & Down
Labor Day Weekend 2011 had me attending:

two memorial services,
two cookouts,
one nightclub outing, and
two opportunities to dance.

One of the memorials was for a long-life, well-lived by a 95 year old. “He was ready to die” said his daughter. The other memorial was of a well-lived but too short life. Her niece recounted how she and her aunt had talked through her disappointment that she wasn’t going to win her “brief but aggressive” cancer battle and her aunt’s eventual acceptance of this fact.

The cookouts were delightful – in addition to finger-lickin’ good food (topped off by peach cobbler at one and plum cake at another), there was dancing, impromptu singing, stories, jokes and laughter.
Later on Saturday evening, my husband and I had occasion to go to Mantra downtown and got our groove on. We were too old for the crowd, but we didn’t care nor did they. In fact, we, his cousin and his wife got the dancing started. Don’t know if we’ll ever go back but it was fun and it reminded me of my “girlish” days when every Saturday night would find me out dancing.

Life is for the living and I lived fully last weekend.

Rain, Rain Go Away to Texas and other places you’re needed

The rains came in the wee hours of Monday morning and they stayed for four full days! Grey clouds, chilly weather, torrential downpours.

The Icks
The icks are little annoyances – you know they’re little, perhaps even inconsequential but that doesn’t prevent them from making you feel icky.

Ick 1: The freezer in my frig stopped working on Sunday evening. Can’t afford to replace a refrigerator.

Ick 2: Too rainy to walk and it’s chilly. This means the weather has changed and summer is over. It really is fall and it feels so sudden.

Ick 3: How bad will the basement flood?

Ick 4: I’ve got a job interview, I have to figure out what to wear. The summer wardrobe won’t cut it. Have to go dig through the bins with the fall clothes. (I know this is a trifiling complaint, but that’s what an ick is.)

Ick 5: Good conversation in the interview. The interviewer and other staff at the organization know me* and my work. It occurs to me as I leave that I wasn’t asked certain questions and that perhaps I’d been interviewed out of courtesy and not out of the genuine possibility of being hired for the job.

Ick 6: A check I’ve been waiting on since July has still not come despite assurances that it would be mailed last Friday. Money flow icks have increased.

Ick 7: The pain of others, near (a buddy’s husband has no more hopes for treatments for his cancer) and far…all the press about the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center bombings on September 11…finally get under my skin.
Tears flood my eyes. My heart aches. I suck it up and pray and do the things that I can do - writing letters to friends, doing chores, offering to volunteer, reading while trying not to think about sickness, death, bad luck, and not enough money.

Ick 8: I’m experienced enough, have lived long enough that I know I either will get the job or I won’t and that’s that. Meanwhile, have to keep on looking until I get one. No longer compelled to worry or analyze the situation.

Like most everybody I know, I’m on the see-saw, which means I’m still here. That’s as good a place to be as any.

(*To know, know, know me is to love, love, love me except when someone can’t stand, stand, stand me. Oh, well.)

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Elizabeth Warren – Opportunity & My Mom

2011-08-29T11:42:38Z

As an attendee at an Elizabeth Warren Listening Tour gathering recently in Dorchester, I was struck by her down-to-earth qualities, passion for and clarity about her beliefs. She has a message, grounded in her background and values, and she can deliver it straightforwardly.

Her message is opportunity - that the USA has been a land of opportunity for everyone and that those opportunities cannot continue to be eroded.

Something she shared about her background was so similar to my Mom’s background, that I called Mom to discuss it the day after.

Warren shared that she’d married at 19 (like my Mom) and went to college to become a teacher. A federal grant she received during that time had 10% of its interest forgiven each year if one taught in schools in a particular district. She said it was an NDEA grant (National Defense Education Act*). I remember my Mom got a federal grant with the same terms. It turned out that the entire grant was forgiven if she taught in a low-income school district for a number of years. This worked out perfectly for my Mom because she wanted to teach in an inner-city, low-income neighborhood.

When my Mom went back to college, I was in the 8^th grade. I never knew what had prompted her to return to college. Talking with her after hearing Elizabeth Warren, I asked her. In asking her, I learned more about her motivation than I knew before.

Mom said that she decided to try to go back to college because of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination. When she saw the images of him being shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel, she was struck by how he’d given his life fighting for opportunities and freedom for Black people. She thought, “If he can die for us, what am I going to do?”

She went down to Harris Teacher’s College and took the placement test, telling no one in case she failed. She didn’t know how she would pay for college but she stepped out on faith. She aced the test. Mom told me that Mother (her mom, my grandmother) was so excited when she told her. “You know your sister and brother will follow you as you lead the way.” That is what happened – my uncle (R.I.P.), and my aunts all ended up going to Harris Teacher’s College. Four of them, including my Mom, got their Master’s degrees. They all became educators – three are now retired, two still teach.

My mother could not have gone to college without the grant. When that door opened for her, it opened for our extended family (some cousins were motivated to go to college) and close friends.

Elizabeth Warren went on to law school. She talked about the loving assistance she got when her aunt helped her with her children. My mother talked about my grandmother driving way down from Kinloch, the small city out in the county to pick her up from school sometimes. She shared an especially telling story about how she got the money to buy her textbooks which she remembers costing $124. I won’t share that story here, let’s just say it was a family effort.

A couple of people commented during the gathering with Ms. Warren that “they wish they could get such forgiveness for their loans” and lamented the fact that our public university was becoming more like a private, elite institution because it was charged with raising so much of its own funding.

Federal programs like NDEA, Head Start, Model Cities and OIC (Opportunities Industrialization Centers) ushered a lot of people into the middle class in this country. They provided opportunities that my family is still reaping and raised the bar in our expectations of what we could do/should do with our lives.

I believe that if Ms. Warren continues to talk directly to people across the state and shares her personal story, her fight for consumer rights (which she does not divorce from consumer responsibility), and her passion for the duty of the government to provide opportunities for working and middle class Americans, she can be elected as the Senator from Massachusetts.

In the meantime, I had an unexpected conversation with my Mom and added more knowledge and stories to our family’s history. Thank you, Ms. Warren, and thank you, Mom.

(*NDEA was signed into law on 9/2/58 with the express purpose of increasing the # of students attending college and of boosting science proficiency.)

Unforgettable except by me sometimes

2011-08-22T19:47:08Z

I apologize. Profusely.

You’re not forgettable. I, more often than not, forget.

I can’t remember your name. I do remember your face (except for when I don't). Sometimes I remember the place we met and bits of our conversation. Other times I have no memory at all of meeting you.

This is especially difficult and downright embarrassing when you remember my name and other details.

I apologize. Profusely.

You are not forgettable. I am a person who forgets.

It has always been this way with my brain. Some things, even obscure or unremarkable details, I retain. Other things (like names and vital information) I forget.

It is as if they’ve been erased from memory, forever. (Except for a day or a week or so later when they pop up, long after I needed them to. Thanks, brain-of-Candelaria, for the delay. It's too late now.)

I apologize and promise to:

Stop pretending to remember more than I do. It would just feel better to say, “I’m so sorry, I can’t remember your name” or “I don’t remember where we met, do you?” And smile and reconnect or tick you off because I don’t remember you.

Again, I apologize.

You’re unforgettable except when I forget.

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What don’t you do any more that you used to enjoy?

2011-08-10T21:44:41Z

What don’t you do any more that you used to enjoy?

For all the things that I do that I enjoy, there are other things that have fallen by the wayside - some unnoticed, some because I get into various ruts now and again.

I know I’m not alone in this.

Some of it is just having limited capacity at any given time to do all the things one may want to do.

Some of it is determined by the resources at one’s disposal.

A woman I know has a baby grand piano in her living room that has been unturned and untouched for well over a decade. She played the piano throughout college. It may have been the demands of young motherhood that made her stop playing. Being a young mother made her drop out of college at the beginning of her senior year and enter into a short-lived marriage. But now that her children are well-grown, I wonder what keeps her from playing.

I ask these questions of you and of myself:

What don’t you do anymore that you used to enjoy?

Why did you stop doing it?

When did you stop doing it?

What would it take to get you started again?

I know adults who know how to swim, sail, sew, skate, make furniture, sing and play instruments who don’t do any of those things now. While they/we are busy, they/we aren’t all that busy to find ourselves mainly doing the necessary tasks of life.

Why are we like this?

Sometimes what one intends as a short hiatus turns into a permanent absence from one’s talent(s), interest(s) and skill(s).

I don’t have skill in sports or a talent in music although I wish I did. I do have a love for dance. From square dancing in grade school in the winter months when it was too cold to play outside resulting in boys and girls square dancing together, to the modern dance classes I took in my last year of high school, to the nightclub dancing I did in my 30s and 40s, I have always loved dancing. “The music sweets me so, ” declares the granny in The Dancing Granny, an African folktale written and illustrated by Ashley Bryant.

When did dressing up on a Saturday night to Dance! Dance! Dance! fall out of my life?

Why did I let it go? (Was it the promise I made to myself that I wouldn’t be the old broad in the club?)

Do I get it back?

Note: On the other hand, I do I have a friend who is taking piano lessons now, having always wanted to take them but never getting to when she was younger. She is taking them for the sheer pleasure of being able to create music for herself.

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