Good & Plenty - Candelaria Silva's Blog

Sometimes love goes missing.

Candelaria — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 14:29:00 GMT

Sometimes love goes missing. When it does – go find it!

Did it get trapped in the pages of yet another book you’re reading?

Is it stuck in the keyboard of the computer that’s become an appendage to your fingers?

Is it hiding among the kids and their demands?

Will you find it at the board meeting or volunteer event you’re at?

Is it at the church or the club?

Does it live in the television programs you watch so frequently?

Love can go missing not only because of infidelity or major disagreements.

It can go missing because of simple neglect – it is easy not to be demonstrative.

It can go missing because you think it is always there and so don’t nurture it, name it, or claim it.

It can go missing because it is easy to take for granted ‘cause you think “My love lives here. It ain’t going nowhere.”

Ha! Ha! Better think twice. Love doesn’t have to explode away it can fritter away, eroded by all the other things that life demands.

My advice is to stop all the other things you are doing and do love!

Do love!

Add it to the list and you just might keep the bliss.

The Hills are Alive...a Walking Observation

Candelaria — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:59:42 GMT

The hills are alive, okay, not really hills, it's one hill and if it feels alive because it seems to change or at least my experience of it changes. Read on.

I face the same hill nearly every day that I leave my home on my walk to Ashmont Station. At the top of the hill, there is a small church, Calvary Baptist Church. Whenever I make it to the church, I always think, “I made it to Calvary.”*

Some days I bound up the hill almost unaware of the experience because I'm emeshed in my thoughts and not concentrating on the walk. Other days, every step is felt as the church and the hill’s crest seem to recede no matter how many steps I take toward them. Still other days, the hill is a sensory adventure as I look at the flowers and vegetables blooming and growing in front of the large Victorian houses that line the street.

There are decisions to make:

Shall I walk on the left side or the right side of the street today?
Shall I continue past Peabody Square and walk all the way up to Washington Street then come back down to the station?
Shall I avoid the hill altogether and take a detour – going left on Florida street and walking four streets over, then up to Dot Ave., then back right and down to Ashmont Station. (Going this way will take me pass the small tub filled with gold fish in front of one of the brownstones where I always pause and count the fish.)

Most days, I do not avoid the hill – my legs have gotten stronger as a result.

There are days when I am aware of each breath I take; days when I cannot breathe through my nose because the air is so cold that it hurts; days when I breath so heavily that I am angry with myself. (Why is the hill such a challenge today? Why is this hill ever a challenge, goodness knows I’ve walked it enough times that it should be a piece of cake!) Still other days when I do meditative breathing – in through the nostrils (2, 3, 4) and out through the mouth (2, 3, 4).

No matter what the experience of the hill has been on any given day, I embrace the feeling of accomplishment I have every time I’ve made it up that hill again.

A few times each year, I expand the challenge and walk the opposite way down Ashmont Street over to Neponset Ave. Turning right, I walk a few blocks down to the Pope's Hill neighborhood to S. Monroe Terrace, which has a monster hill that starts immediately from Neponset and gives no grace until you’ve reached its top and magnificent views. Walking that hill is always a bear for me: will I make it? Turn back you fool! Nah, I can do this!. I keep my head down, focusing on each block of pavement until I get to the top.

Another challenge is to walk over Adams Street to the playing field and up the sixty-plus steps to Train Street (I think that’s the name of it). I pretend to be Rocky Balboa.

Having managed these hills for the past six years, I was surprised, last summer, when I walked the path around the golf course in Franklin Park and breezed up the slopes. Years ago, when I walked Franklin Park almost daily, I hated those slopes. I used to kick nuts and/or rocks all the way to take my mind off that part of the path. Now, those slopes have become minor (or at least they were last summer. )

Minor or major, the hills and slopes don’t change. What changes is my perspective, my stride, and my learning not to avoid them but to take them one step at a time. I can’t have the incredible feeling of accomplishment or the view from the peaks** unless I complete the climb. And so it is, with other areas of life.

(*A few strides past Calvary across the street and there’s the magnificent architecture of All Saints Church of Dorchester. I hear that the All Saints’ Choir of Men and Boys is magnificent. I will go hear them one day.)

(**Hey, I know you true hikers are laughing at my mini-jaunts. You have your mountains and I have my...my, hills, slopes, whatever.)

If you love this post, you may also love an earlier one I wrote, "I Love Walking in Dorchester."

Source of Strength, Source of Pain

Candelaria — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 01:10:00 GMT

I admit it. I’ve often avoided facing history. Especially history from the period of African-captivity known as American Slavery. I’ll read history but avoid seeing history, especially this period, because of the pain that it conjures up in me. So, it was with some trepidation that I went to see the play Harriet Jacobs, presented by Underground Railway Theater, playing until Jan. 31 at the Central Square Theatre in Cambridge (Massachusetts). The play is inspired by the autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs.

I went because it was written by playwright Lydia R. Diamond. I know her. I’ve seen and read other plays by her. She is a superb playwright with keen intelligence, substantial wit and a technician with having the emotional center and central points of her plays sneak upon you. She’s not a wham-bam playwright like August Wilson who never lets up. He pummels ideas with language that is so fiercely, so cleverly rooted in Black urban culture that its like the walking bop that many Black men used to do (before this generation got into wearing their pants below their asses). Ms. Diamond is not a wizardly word smith who plays with words and images just for the fun of them whether they make sense, have a point or are in any way important or necessary*, like Suzi Lori Parks.

She graciously taught a playwright mentorship for ACT Roxbury when I was director there. So, I went, knowing that this play, based on the incredible life of Harriet Jacobs was gonna have some pain. (I don’t like to feel pain in public spaces, hence my refusal to see Precious in the movie theatre.)

I also went because my dear friend, Mary, one of the playwrights who’d been mentored by Lydia wanted to go and so I knew I had someone I could lean on if the subject matter got too deep. (Once there, I discovered to my delight that another of the students in the Playwright Mentorship program, Denise Washington, was Assistant Director of this production. Thanks, DW, for giving a shout-out to ACT Roxbury and the mentorship in your biographical statement.)

Harriet Jacobs, the play, is deep and difficult. It pulls you low-down. It shows the inner-lives of the slaves and the ordinary moments they managed née dared have despite the oppressive situations in which they lived. It shows the myriad costs of the institution. That some slaves could have the fortitude to triumph through the institution is important to broadcast again and again. So despite the tears and anger it brought up in me, I am glad I saw it and recommend that you do, too. It closes on January 31, so there’s not much time to see it. (The actors are magnificent working wonders in the small space with an appropriately minimal set.)

Having gotten through this one, I plan to go 'head on and see another play based on the more recent history of the Civil Rights era, next week, The Good Negro. Written by Tracey Scott Wilson and directed by Summer L. Williams of Company One,. It will end its run on February 6.

I guess I have to grow up, toughen up, and achieve balance between remembering and honoring history versus wallowing. and getting stuck in it It seems to me that, unlike my Jewish friends, African-Americans don’t plumb and revisit our history with the same depth or frequency. It is one of the reasons that certain films, like Rosewood, Amistad and Beloved bombed. Many of us don’t care to look at that painful history. But think of Schindler’s List, which was widely heralded.

I have matured to the point that I now know what to do with the pain – not only of the physical hardships but of the lingering psychological scars, societal wounds and what it means when one group of people feel innately superior to another.

I know that Black people do not have a monopoly on pain. The ability of human beings to be cruel to one another whether they are brethren from the same culture or strangers from different cultures never ceases to amaze me. It is difficult to bear witness but bear witness I must (in manageable doses). If Harriet could live through her pain I can certainly witness it and learn from it.

(*I know this is pointedly judgmental but hey, it is my blog, my opinion after all. I am one of the few people who didn't like or respect the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Top Dog, Under Dog, by Ms. Parks despite it's admittedly riveting dialogue.)

<><><>
FYI - Another of Lydia R. Diamond's plays will grace the Boston area when Stick Fly, directed by Kenny Leon, runs at The Huntington Theater from Feb. 19 to March 21, 2010.

Sufferin' Succotash - the MA Senatorial Election Debacle

Candelaria — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:35:00 GMT

“Sufferin’ succotash," Sylvester the Cat said when he was distressed usually after having failed, once again, to catch Tweety-Bird. He said it with a stutter and plenty of spit. (Daffy Duck also uttered the phrase but it was Sylvester’s originally.)

I’m stuttering, sputtering and shaking my head in dismay at the outcome of the special election to fill the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts.

Unlike Tweety, Martha Coakley, did not outrun her nemesis, Scott Brown. In fact, she didn’t even run a campaign. I wonder why:

Was it arrogance?
Did she believe the poll numbers and think they were written in stone?
Was it merely that she is not a people person and therefore didn’t think she needed to get out and campaign among the people?
Did the other Democratic candidates in the primary fragment her political base?
Were they too invisible in their support after she won the primary?
Did they fail to campaign for her?
Did she have the I wrong campaign manager?
Was she too broke to mount an effective campaign a few weeks ago?
Did the Democratic machine take her winning as an inevitability?

Perhaps it was all of the above reasons.

I do know that she messed up, no, a stronger word is needed, she effed up this campaign.
I do know that, until last week, I didn’t get a piece of mail from her campaign and was only invited to one event the week before. (I got plenty of mail and emails from everybody else, except the Kennedy guy.) I even got mail from the Brown campaign!

The lessons resonate beyond politics:

Don’t ever get comfortable or complacent when running for any office or pursuing any job. (You don’t have it until you get it and even then the rules can be changed along the way. Just check out what happened to Conan.)
Don’t take your constituency for granted.
If you’re going to run for public office you got to deal and be among the public, in all sorts of settings even those that aren’t comfortable.
Whenever progress is made, there is inevitable backlash and backsliding.
Don’t underestimate the power of social media to garner support.
Never under-estimate how far media recognition and good looks can go.
(Having a daughter who has a bit of fame, i.e., Ayla Brown who competed on American Idol and is a basketball player for the NCAA, can give you traction.)
The Republican Party used to represent conservative and upper-crusty, classy – no longer. Can you say WWT?

I would like to have the option to vote NO when I hit the polls – as in, none of the above. Please give us some better candidates. As far as I’m concerned, neither Coakley nor Brown are worthy successors to Senator Ted Kennedy’s legacy.

Oh well, 24 months until we can undo this debacle.

It Ain’t All About You – Communication Issues with Friends

Candelaria — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:03:00 GMT

It Ain’t All About You – Communication Issues with Friends

My friendships with a couple of long-term friends are in an inactive phase, either because we are no longer physically located near each other or because we’re in a different phase in our lives so that the things that brought us together – a job, children, hanging out at the same places – is no longer providing glue for the relationship. We just grew apart. It happens.

This distance doesn’t mean, however, that I don’t still care for them. I do and so I try to be in touch on a regular basis.

With some friends this is managed easily. A phone call every couple of months or so, an annual lunch date, a touch-base birthday or holiday card. With others, it is quite difficult to connect. They are the ones to whom this blogpost is written.

I email. I don’t get a reply. I leave a phone message. I don’t get a return message. I leave another email and/or another phone message. Nothing. I send a card or book or article. I don’t get a thank you or acknowledgment.

One friend I finally reached when I used the old ring code we used to use when we were dodging bill collectors or boyfriends.

“Did you get my other messages?” I asked.
“Well, yes,” she replied.
“And you didn’t call me?”
“Well, no. I’ve been a little down and just didn’t feel like I’d be good company. Blah, blah, blah.”

We talked about the “blah, blah, blah” for a few minutes. And then I pushed back.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I needed help? That maybe I needed to talk to you? When I reached out, more than once, in more than one way, it never occurred to you that I might need you to respond?”
“Well, no, it didn’t.”

I exploded (a little bit). ‘IT AIN’T ALL ABOUT YOU!” I exclaimed in a tone of voice just short of a scream.

“Oh. It never occurred to me that you might need to talk; I thought you were just checking in on me.”
“Harrumph,” I uttered.
“Don’t give up on me,” she asked.
“Even though you’d given up on me?”

I won’t give up on her but I’m telling you, it is so exasperating. It’s so easy for us to get so caught up in our own drama, day-to-day lives, that we can’t see an SOS.

She’s not the only one, she’s just the second one of my friends I finally got to come up out of her funk/life issues for a minute and engage in dialogue. My long lost friend Etta, well, I don’t know what planet she’s on. I just know I'm not a part of it. While the friendship has effectively been let go, my feelings haven't. (She would be my longest friend aside from my sister.)

These are people I used to hang-tight with. One harkens back to high school. Another lived next door to me; we were compadres through our pregnancies and through our children’s daycare years. She knows my first husband when few people do. She knows some secrets.

Oh, well. Some friendships survive a lifetime, others are severed along the way. The severances are usually clear. They did something or you did something and now the friendship is kaput! But the slow-leaking ones that have no precipitating event that would cause them to dissolve those are puzzling.

I say to you, my sisters (and brothers), if your friend reaches out to you, you might want to reach back, because sometimes, it ain't all about you!

*****
If you like this post, you might also like:
Year of the Friends
You're Not My Effin Friend

Wait for it, Wait for it*

Candelaria — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:00:00 GMT

Wait for it, Wait for it*

Patience is a virtue, it truly is. Sometimes, when I’m being wise, I know this. I guess I had a wise moment over the holidays or perhaps I just so busy with work projects and the hustle and bustle of family, travel, cooking that I ran out of time to nag, nudge and cajole the young woman I’d been mentoring. I’d emailed her a part-time job opportunity and hadn’t gotten a response.

Instead of calling her on/about this, I decided not to contact her. I decided to leave her be, to just give her a little time.

Lo’ and behold, just when I’d nearly given up and was about to call her, the phone rang. It was her, checking in. She told me that she’d finished the volunteer project I’d found for her and that she was looking for opportunities to volunteer with a day care. She asked if I could help her find some places.

She asked for help! Out-loud!

I said yes. (Of course.)

As we continued to talk, I asked her if she’d written a thank you letter to the folks who’d given her the volunteer opportunity. She hadn’t. We then discussed what the contents of the thank you might say. I told her to also ask if she could use them as a reference as she looks for work while she completes her GED.

I asked her if she’d seen my email about the job. She said she hadn’t checked her email in a while. I reminded her that we’d talked about email being my preferred communication method and that, since her email was on her resume and on various job applications, she needed to check it on a regular basis. (She doesn’t have a computer at home but has access at the education center she attends and at the public library.

Turns out, after further conversation that she had checked the email but didn’t know what an “usher” was. (Sigh.) I explained the job of usher to her (as opposed to the singer, Usher, lol) Suggested that next time she didn’t know what a word meant – she look it up online, in a dictionary, do a search, or ask somebody. I reminded her that I would only send her jobs that I knew she could do and that wouldn’t interfere with her primary goal right now – the completion of her GED.

Despite promising to check email and to send me a draft of her thank you, I didn’t hear from her for a few days. So, in addition to emailing the volunteer opportunities I uncovered, I also printed them out and mailed them and a blank thank you card via postal mail. And waited, once more.

Postal mail nets email (go figure!)
This afternoon, I got an email from her thanking me for the info, promising that she would begin to call places tomorrow, and informing me that she had sent her thank you letter to the organization with which she volunteered.
I got her attention and she got mine. (I would bet that she doesn’t get much postal mail.)
She followed-through! (Shouting for joy right now.)

There was something in her face that made me connect to her from her visit to me in my recent stint as a job counselor. I do believe she’s going to continue to grow and develop and that the chilly urban chick demeanor that she sometimes cloaks herself in will melt and her unnecessary walls will come down. (Some walls are necessary for self-protection!)

She is reminding me:

to be patient, to wait for it, wait for it,

to allow her to walk toward me,

to share information and then let it go,

to ask her if she’d like my feedback or a suggestion.

It’s a lesson I should have remembered from my days rearing my two teens and the many teens I’ve worked with over the years.
I'm still learning and I'm still mentoring.

<><><>
If you like this post, you might also like:

Real Questions to Discuss about Sex & Relationships with Teens
I Wish Nothing but the Best for You

(*Comic Katt Williams uses this phrase to great effect in his routines, as in waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's one of the few phrases he uses that doesn't have a bunch of curse words in it.)

A Ring-Tone of Love

Candelaria — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:17:00 GMT

I have a couple of blog ideas in the queue that are musings, rants, rumblings - \the usual stuff. They'll have to wait to be posted later, however, because on this sunny Saturday in Boston, I've decided to share a small wonderful thing that I experienced this morning instead of keeping it to myself.

Here's what happened: My husband ran out to unlock the doors of the school where he works, responding to a call asking him to do so. A few minutes after he left, I heard his cell phone ringing several times upstairs from his office while I was getting dressed. I thought it must be his work phone* he’d left and maybe someone from the school was trying to reach him. When I went upstairs, I saw there were several messages but couldn’t figure out how to unlock the phone to answer them.

I went downstairs and began assembling clothes to do the laundry. His cell phone started ringing again. I picked up my phone and called his personal cell phone number to tell him someone was calling him on his work phone. All of a sudden I hear the phone on the third floor ringing again but with a different ring. In the space of a few seconds, I realized the tune was A Love Supreme by John Coltrane. That’s when I realized that this was the ring-tone he'd selected for me, his wife A Love Supreme!

I thought: He loves me! He knows that we have a love supreme! It made me stop , blush and grin. It made me feel all warm and toasty .

I’ve never particularly cared about ring-tones and have just been using what was already on the phone when I got it. I think that will change this weekend especially for one special number of one special man, my husband.

A ring-tone of love, a small, wonderful thing.

(*When he came home later, I found out that he didn’t have a work phone any more in his new position. I slept on that one..)

Sorting for the Good

Candelaria — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:03:00 GMT

While having a quick bite at Au Bon Pain with a good friend, Mary, who is also an accomplished playwright, she paid me a compliment about my writing. She said that she thought I was a good writer and that even when I got into deep issues, the writing always came back to a place of optimism and light. She also said she liked my humor. Her words meant a lot to me not only because of my admiration for her as a writer and a kind and lovely human being, but also because she got what I try to do with my work and how I try to walk in the world.

I sort for the good.

On the way home from visiting my friend and a subsequent errand and meeting, I read a brief interview in the Boston Globe’s G Section, with Benoit Denizet-Lewis, author of American Voyeur. His writing seems to be the antithesis of sorting for the good. He seems to sort for the fringe, the twisted, and the suppressed. The more fringe the better.

“Denizet-Lewis says that when he can keep his own judgments from surfacing, he can depict his subjects more accurately."

One of the groups he writes about has practices that are so despicable that I won’t even name it here. They should be judged and eliminated. If you lay down with dogs you will probably end up with fleas, the old saying goes (or some such approximation) like There's a difference between writing about dirt or writing about soil. Denizet-Lewis has penned several cover stories for the New York Times magazine, much of it celebrating the sordid.

I do censor some of the images and ideas that I imagine. When I’ve let myself go in creating images or recording negative things I’ve witnessed or endured, I carefully excise some of it that serves no useful purpose in being shared.. I just don't want to be responsible for putting more slop into the world!

For every tidbit of gossip I share, there are dozens more I swallow.
I try hard not to put a lot of negativity into the air. Given air, negativity seems to blossom especially when in the hands of the media who will hop over 20 positive stories to get to one negative or who will pick out and magnify a negative thread in an otherwise positive event.

I’ve often heard that if you can name it you can heal it, however, I’ve come, at this point in my life, to feel that some stuff needs to remain unnamed and private What’s the point in putting more junk into the consciousness of a world already saturated with negativity?

It’s not that I’m merely a “best foot forward” woman. (Although I do try to be my best self as much as I can be.) It’s just that staying down in the muck and the mire isn’t helpful for me. Reliving and remembering negativity leaves me exhausted and weakened. Once having survived certain experiences, I don’t feel a need to replay them or explore them ad nauseam. (That’s why I only lasted four sessions in therapy.) Rehashing the past didn’t help me getting over the situation and move on. (I’m lucky that my mind will often close off and forget specifics of negative events. It does this with some positive one as well – and I can live with that.)

I’ve learned to selectively call friends and family members who bear doom and gloom. I take them in small doses and will end a conversation when it’s gotten stuck on sorrow or woe is me, yet again.

I picked up Say You’re One of Them by Ukem Akpan – one of Oprah’s Book Club Selections with great anticipation. Sister, brother, was I let down.. I found this collection of short stories overwhelmingly depressing. There is virtually no light in the book. That it was written by a Jesuit priest is stunning to me. Told from the perspective of children, the writing and circumstances draw you in but I kept looking for the redemption in these stories and it wasn't there. There were tiny flickers of possible escape in some of the stories but what would be escaped to seemed as bad as the circumstances being escaped. I know that children all over the world are going through violence, slavery, prostitution, war and other acts of betrayal by adults. But come-on, couldn’t Mr. Akpan, a priest, give us some positive stories in between the tragedies? Save the bonds between the children, there is little positive here. And I found this disturbing.

I also haven’t jumped on the Precious bandwagon. Having read the novel it is based on, Push, by Sapphire years ago when it came out, I felt no need to rush and see the movie. I will watch it but it will be in the privacy of my home where I can absorb the shocks at my own pace, remote at the ready if it is overwhelming. Precious is this generation’s The Color Purple by Alice Walker although not as well written and definitely more graphic.. 9I understand the director of Precious put in some fantasy and hope that wasn’t in the novel.

(For a better exploration of illiteracy and its impact on a young person’s life I highly recommend is A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, an incredibly gifted novelist. Despite the fact that the protagonist is on death row, there is redemption, growth, healing among him and the teacher his grandmother hires to educate him so that he will die like a man. It is exquisite.)

I could cite other examples on both sides of the coin, books and movies that drag and those that are buoyant, but I believe I’ve made my point. Writers and other artists have the right to tell their own stories in their own ways, but I also think artists should think carefully about what they put in the world, what messages their work is sending, and what images they are leaving behind.

Meanwhile, I sort, write, listen out for, notice, and share the good. I’d love to hear what y’all think.

2010 is going to be the best!

Candelaria — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:06:00 GMT

2010** is going to be the best year ever for me. How do I know?

Because I’m living to see it.
Because I will do my part to make it so.
Because I embrace what it is not.

It is not any of the previous years I squandered in envy or fear.
Envy: how come I don’t have a man, will the man I’ve been dating be with me on New Year’s Eve (or do the disappearing act that other-brothers had done before)?*
Fear: how will I pay this or face that?

It is not any of the years I wasted waiting.
Waiting: for it to happen, whatever it was. (A man, money, my adult children’s lives to sort out, an acceptance letter…)

2010 is going to be the best year because at this moment it is full of possibilities like every year that came before. The possibilities of goals fulfilled, dreams realized fantasies experienced. (It is also possible that it will be the same sugar/sour dressed up in a new decade. Guess what? It wouldn’t be so bad if it were the same. A lot of good has happened in this past decade!)

2010 is going to be great because I was fully present and content on its eve. I celebrated in my home with my husband:

good food,
good music,
candlelight,
champagne,
love expressed in words, silence and actions,
a home reverberating with love,
calls made to and received from loved ones,
glimpses of celebrations around the world.

Unlike many other years, I wasn’t wishing I was doing something else or worried about what I might be missing. I did not trouble myself over a brother or friend who chose to be alone and did not even plan to stay up to witness the moment the New Year began. Their lives, their choices. Who am I to judge? What would my worrying do except intrude on my good time?

I put on dangling earrings, a glittery blouse, velvet pants, silver sandals, swept my hair up (except for a few locks falling seductively down my right cheek) and had at it!

I remembered various ways I’ve ushered in the New Year:

Doing First Night activities.
Throwing a big party for friends and strangers.
All dressed up for a ball (in St. Louis and in Boston).
At a private, catered dinner (Chicago).
As the official babysitter (ch-ching).
On the phone reaching out to not be alone.
With a bunch of girlfriends.
Saturated with angst.

How delicious to face 2010 squarely, celebratory and satisfactorily. It’s going to be the best year ever.

Happy New Year every one!

(*I started dating my husband in the month of September. It quickly became apparent to me that he was the one for me. I wasn’t sure if I was the one for him. My sister told me, “If he is with you on new year’s eve,, that’s yo’ man.” He was, and he is.)

(** Dear Reader, I just discovered that I had drafted but never published this entry. I apologize for the delay.)

Heroes are people and people are human

Candelaria — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:31:00 GMT

Heroes are people and people are human, this is a distillation of the various thoughts I've had as the Tiger Woods drama has unfolded. It was the topic of a dinner party I was at. My husband updates me regular. My son left a comment on his Facebook page about being glad that Tiger did not lay one finger on his wife.

What I think after the jumble of thoughts I’ve had and comments I've heard is this:

Stop...looking...for...heroes.
Stop expecting humans to be saints.
Saints and angels are in the heavenly realm.
This is the earthly realm - were people dwell.

There are heroes among us
but they are not usually those the media choose to spotlight (except in one tiny segment on the nightly news or occasional print articles.

Heroes are ordinary.
They are your mother, your father, your uncle, your son.
Your daughter, your niece, your neighbor, your friend.
Your pastor, the barista, the janitor, the cook.

Heroes are among us every day.
The security officer. The guy who collects the garbage.
The social worker, nurse, doctor on call.
The builder who makes the structuresthat do not fall.

Heroes are people who just do their jobs.
The fire-fighter, police officer, pilot.
The farmer who plants and the farm workers who harvest.
The teachers, coaches, daycare workers who care for our young.
The activity directors, ordelies and volunteers who unburden those nearly done.
The train, bus and cab drivers who get us from here to there.
Heroes exist every where.

Heroes have integrity.
Doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do.
Without fanfare or applause.

Heroes answer the call
to serve others,to serve our country.
Heroes are the emergency responders who risk their lives to save the thrill-seekers who engaged in folly.
Heroes are the strangers who answers other strangers' calls of distress.

Heroes are not athletes,
although athletes can do marvelous things.
Heroes may not be rich,
although the wealthy can give heroically.
Heroes need not be famous,
although entertainers can elevate issues in the public eye.

Heroes are fully human:
They sweat, cry, make bad decisions, and, like all of us eventually, die.
A human can be a hero and do magnificent things.
Heroes can be foolish, stupid, dishonest and vain
In other words flawed and therefore fully human
.
The most important heroes are there when you need them in small and large ways,
Not usually sanctioned by the media, often noticed at all.
Don’t prop up your heroes too high.
Don’t be astonished when they fall.

I can enjoy Beyonce and Blige, Mr. Wonder & Jay-Z.
I can support Obama & admire his family.
I can aspire to the deeds of Mandela, Malcolm or Martin.
I can be inspired by Oprah, Geoffrey Canada or any number of people doing great things.
But I recognize that their achievements are the achievements of human beings
and that as human beings they have failings and frailties that stand beside with their triumphs.
This does not cause me despair (although it sometimes hurts and creates dismay).

I admire the special ones and heroes among us in spite of and because they are human.
As am I. Perhaps there is a hero in me.
Maybe I can be a hero for myself.
Maybe I can be a hero for somebody else.

Heroes are people and people are human, no more, no less.

(Note, I cannot put my hands on my Collected Poems of Langston Hughes. When I do, I'd like to quote from his poem,
Crowns & Garlands, which came to mind when I started thinking about the topic of heroes. It ends with this line, "Yeah, I like Ralph Bunche,* but I can't eat him for lunch.")

*Ralph Bunche won the Nobel Peace Price in 1950. For additional information, go to: http://www.ralphbunche.com/

ADDENDUM: A friend recently wrote a piece about Tiger Woods addressed to his fans that I highly recommend, Tiger Mauls Owner.

Age related rites of passage, do they exist any more?

Candelaria — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:35:00 GMT

(This post originally appeared in a slightly different versionon BlogHer.com as Age-Related Rites of Passage, Do They Exits Any More?)

It’s funny; when you are older the fact that someone was two grades ahead of you in high school or is 10 years older, scarcely matters. In the teenage and even the college years, the difference of a few grade levels could make you grumble with anger when, say, you had to let your younger sister hang out with you and your friends. The same separation of a few years could make you froth with anticipation when, say, an upperclassman noticed you.

I remember eagerly counting down months and years when I was younger to get to those signature ages when I could do whatever it was I’d been restricted from doing. Some seem so innocuous now but some were, and still are enforced. Here’s my list:

Rites of Passage that don’t exist any more:

Wearing my first sheer stockings and pumps (dress-up shoes with tiny heels). My mother said I had to wait until I was 13, an official teenager. before I could wear stockings and pumps and then I could only wear them on Sundays to church or for special occasions. (I can still remember my anger when, only a few months later, my sister who was younger by 22 months was allowed to wear stockings and pumps. Thus began a pattern where I, older sister, would follow the rules only to have them passed over by younger sis.)

Singing in the Intermediate Choir. The Intermediate Choir was the choir between the Children’s Choir and the Adult Choir, in other words – teenagers. Being with the teenagers was the place to be! Despite becoming a teenager in June, I had to petition to get permission to officially cross over.

Changing my hair from pig- and pony-tails to a flip like the one worn by Marlo Thomas on her sitcom, That Girl. I rolled my hair faithfully every night and slept with my head basically hanging off the side of the bed, so my flip would last all day.

Wearing Makeup - I don't think I was ever officially allowed to wear make-up. (I snuck and wore it to school beginning in high school making sure to wash it off before I got home. Don't tell my mother, please.)

Wearing Black – I wasn’t allowed to wear a Black dress until I was out of high school. (Now Black clothes are sold for all age levels, including infants. I’ve bought some for my granddaughter.)

Getting a Social Security # - I remember my Mom sitting my sister and me down to fill out our applications when we were teenagers. Now, parents get SS#s for children soon after birth, otherwise they don’t exist in the eyes of the IRS. (No one wants to jeopardize a tax-deduction these days!)

Getting my ears pierced – My Mom pierced me and my sister’s ears at home using a sterilized needle and thread, later replaced by a short straw burned at both ends for a period of days until we got gold hoops. This was done according to tradition and the sign of the moon when we were starting elementary school. Now many children’s ears are pierced within the first year of life and that includes some boys as well as girls.

Being allowed to have boy company – Other than close cousins, my sister and I were not allowed any boy company until my father deemed us ready. For me, this happened when I was age 15. It was a big deal. The boy’s name has passed from memory but he went to Soldan High and he had to endure my father’s questions. For most of the visit ,my father sat in the living room with us, leaving us alone for maybe ½ hour.

Barbara Curtis shared the following “Dads: Rules for Dating My Daughter” on her Mommy Life blog. The first part has a form that a prospective date must fill out, “For Permission to Date My Daughter.” It includes such essay questions as: "In 50 words or less, what does 'LATE' mean to you?" The questions are followed by Daddy’s Rules for Dating:

Rule One:
If you pull into my driveway and honk you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

Boys also had certain rite. For the boys “back in the day” one of the rites of passage would have included getting the first haircut (usually at 1 year of age) and shaving for the first time.

Rites of Passage that still exist:

Getting working papers – I had to be 16 to get my working papers. It was a serious affair, going to the county office and filling out an actual form bringing my recently acquired social security card and carefully tended birth certificate, items that my mother stored like treasures in a special box. Now the official age for working is 14 but I’m not sure if there are official forms to fill out.

Getting a Learner’s Permit and taking Driving Lessons – I know the strictures around this still exist although, across the country especially in urban areas, many schools have eliminated school-provided Driver’s Ed lessons and parents have to pay for private driving lessons or, gulp, teach the kids themselves.

(If you have a young driver in your orb, check out Perfect Holiday Gifts for Teen Drivers by Jody DeVere
In addition to gadgets, like a ladybug air freshner or decals to decorate a car, and additional driving lessons, this post suggests the 56-page "Coach a Rookie" guide, packed with vital information and tips to help you coach your new driver.

Voting – The official voting age was changed from 21 to 18 while I was in high school. This happened because of social activism across the country. If our boys could be and were drafted into military service at the age of 18, it was unfair that they weren’t allow to vote for or against the politicians and policies that created war. I am proud to say that I cast my first vote when I was 18 and that both of my children are voters.

Fashion as Rite of Passion
In today’s world, I’ve noticed more and more young girls having experiences that were restricted to teens and adults in my day. The first example that pops to mind is wearing nail polish and getting a pedicure! In fact, tmany salons now have mani-pedi specials for young girls. I didn't get my first pedicure until age 40. It was in a spa and it cost a ton. Then, all of a sudden, manicure and pedicure places sprung up all over the country, making what was once a luxury so affordable that they've become routine for many women and youngsters.

Wearing make-up and the notion of age-appropriate clothing have clear generational differences. A guest post on the blog, Wearing Mascara, asks When Does My Daughter Start to Wear Makeup? She writes:

"Stage makeup during a performance…okay. Ten year olds looking like the just visited the Mac counter for a make over…not okay.
I think that until a little girl becomes a freshman in high school they shouldn’t be sporting eye liner, mascara, blush, foundation, etc. All children are beautiful and I just don’t understand why a parent would let their child hide the cuteness that is 8 years old."

As always, the comments section is really illuminating offering a variety of takes on this situation.

And finally, I think of the first kiss and developing romantic feelings. Like all girls, I had my crushes growing up. I actually remember my first kiss and the first boy I wanted to kiss (Alfred in elementary school but it never happened. My first kiss happened in 8th grade - again, please don't tell my Mom. She'd probably give me a retroactive whuppin'. A recent article links the Twilight phenomenom to the development of romantic feelings in girls.

'Twilight' hunks part of girls' rite of passage
Associated Press • November 18, 2009
“These girls aren’t just experiencing a movie-star crush, they’re participating in a uniquely female rite of passage: The birth of romantic fantasy. And today’s technology — online fan forums, Twitter, an endless Web stream of photos and videos — lets them get closer than ever.
Before real boyfriends and first kisses, girls’ imaginary relationships with their heartthrobs provide a precursor to adult romance — a love before they know what love might be.“

(I've never been into vampires so the Twilight attraction just doesn't resonate for me. Perhaps if I was a young adolescent in these-here times it would.)

Both formal rites of passage and informal ones, signify growing from one stage to another, maturity, trust and development. Something is lost when there are no clear markers.

What do you think?

What Age-related rites of passage did I miss?
What Age-related rites of passage did you experience?
Please share.

Hey Young Chick on the Texter - A Rant about Texting During Concerts

Candelaria — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:53:00 GMT

This rant was inspired by a routine, "Hey, Little Girl on the Cellphone," by comic, William Stephenson. )I couldn't find his routine on line, unfortunately.) My son, works at the Gotham Comedy Club in NYC, and recounted Mr. Stephenson's routine at Thanksgiving. I can't find his routine on line but it starts, "Hey, little girl on the cellphone, everything is not awesome."

Here's my take on the relentless texter at last night's concert.

Hey young chick on the texter
Be glad that my name is not Dexter *
I said, hey, young chick on the texter
Be glad that my name is not Dexter.

You were at a live concert
What could there be to say?
For 1 ½ hours you texted away.
I told you nicely the light was flashing my eyes
I asked you to stop but you wouldn’t oblige.

Hey chickee-poo on the texter
Be grateful that my name is not Dexter.

If I were younger, we would have had a few words
I would have snatched away that cell phone.
It would have gotten absurd.
Being much too classy; I let you ruin my night
But if I see you alone be expecting a fright.

I’ll be up in your face and lay down the law
Live concerts are for listening and not to thumb-caw.
The click-click of texting is annoying as hell
And cell phone lights are not part of the spell.

You should have been ejected but I went with the flow
And suffered in silence trying to enjoy the show.
i can only get revenge on this lovely blog
Seat 109 last night contained a definite hog.

-----
In all fairness, she wasn't the only one texting or using the devices that the announcer at the beginning of the show asked us to turn off. There were several people videotaping and taking photos from the audience - and they were not the hired guns!

I didn't enjoy Berlee's Singer's Showcase as much as the last one I attended which I blogged about positively. Once I can separate my annoyance about Ms. Texter with my disappointment with the concert, my review will be posted.

(*For the record, I've only watched Dexter once, it was a bit too gruesome for my taste.)

Plans change but the celebration remains

Candelaria — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:37:00 GMT

My Thanksgiving was loaded with:

gratitude (I have so much to be thankful for),
laughter (the side-splitting, jaw-aching kind),
food (a groaning board of delectable dishes or as we would say when I was young – “food for days!”), family and friends

Although the holiday didn’t happen as originally planned (because of the absent daughter and her family).

I planned to have three Thanksgivings but ended up having two. My son, (step) daughter, husband and I visited my friend M’s house (our friendship goes back 33 years) It was the first time my son and (step) daughter met. He was in rare form, sharing his comedic, acting, voice and improvisational gifts at the table with long-known friends and new people.

The second Thanksgiving was on Friday. First hubby and I shared a day of gentle shopping on Boylston Street in the Back Bay section of Boston. They were amazed by the number of new buildings and the refurbished Prudential Center and Copley Place and have gotten old enough to lament places now gone like the Copley Place Theatre. We returned home and ate the Thanksgiving dinner I had cooked over the previous two days. One of my son’s childhood friends to come by but that didn’t happen. Instead, my friend P and her 3 daughters and her goddaughter came and noshed.

Her twin daughters are in college and were regaled with bits of recently acquired advice and wisdom by son (30) and (step) daughter (29) about the importance of college, finishing what you start, and the enjoyment that comes after, when you’re working, traveling, partying and growing as the captain of your own fate. Older younguns encouraged younger younguns to travel abroad, to be open to friends/acquaintances from all backgrounds, and to be careful. This was all delivered in a non-stop stream of humorous stories, anecdotes and exagerations with great passion, serious wisdom, and bales of laughter. Even the shy 12 year old, participated in the conversation and – shudder – hugged everyone as we said goodbye.

While we didn’t end up with the folks we thought would be there, everyone who ended up at our table was meant to be there!

The third Thanksgiving would have happened today with my daughter, granddaughter, son-in-love and two of his clan. They were going to come here from NYC where they were supposed to have had their first Thanksgiving. Car trouble cancelled their trip. (It is a wonderful blessing that the car trouble happened at the beginning of their journey and they were able to make it back home safely and enjoy Thanksgiving with another family member.) so, I've tucked away the little surprises and plans I had for them until Christmas when we plan to be together. (Yes, I'm making plans, again.)

I have learned to expect the unexpected and to realize that whoever ends up at the table is who was supposed to be there. Instead of regretting those absent, I have learned to be fully-present whoever is there, capturing the precious moments in my heart and mind.

I know that my Mom and siblings, niece, nephew and cousins, aunts and uncles are breaking bread together in St. Louis and enjoying each other as well they should. Some holidays or other occasions we are all able to be together or at least a majority of are able to be together. On other holidays we are all split into our various family configurations. Either way brings its joys.

I miss everyone who isn’t around, but I don’t ache for them as I used to because I carry them with me. I see them in the faces of those who are present. I give thanks for birth families, chosen families, old friends, new friends, teens transitioning to adults, a child coming into teenage hood, a baby grown to be a toddler who walks and talks, new parents and veteran grandparents.

I am blessed to have at least half-a-dozen tables that I could share on any given holiday and a long list of friends and family whom I could invite to my table. Who knows what tables we’ll share next year or who will be sitting with whom? It always works out in the end whether or not according to plan.

A Good Death

Candelaria — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:56:00 GMT

(This post first appeared on BlogHer.com)

The father of a friend of mine died recently. Here’s how it happened. She was driving home from a board meeting thinking about the finishing touches that she needed to put on a grant. Her cell phone rang. It was her brother telling her that her father wasn’t feeling well. He’d been a bit under the weather. She rushed to his home. He was talkative and joking. A couple of hours later, he had a heart-attack and died surrounded by his children and other family members.

"He died the way he wanted to,” she said. “He was very vocal about not wanting to suffer or be a burden to the family. He was adamant about not having a long, slow death caught in the grip of Alzheimer’s disease like his wife had been.” While my friend M misses her father dearly, she, too, is glad that he had “a good death.”

I think about death every day but not morbidly. I think about it mostly because I read obituaries in the paper. Reading obituaries introduces me to people I’d never have known about otherwise. There are so many wonderful people in the world. Some of them have great accomplishments and have won accolades. Others of them were ordinary people whose small accomplishments supported their families and their communities.

Obituaries often tell how people lived their lives. One woman who’d loved to garden was restricted in her nineties to a wheelchair and so she had her garden beds raised so that she could tend to them from the wheelchair. Another woman taught into her eighties and continued to tutor after that. A gentle-man worked at his law office every day until he died. A 19-year-old felled by ovarian cancer spent her last months cramming all sorts of loving activities in and awakened in her family a zest for living. While the deaths of children and young people sadden me deeply because they are or feel before their time, they are no less instructive about how to live.

Marilyn Johnson, a former obituary writer, celebrates the cult and culture of obituaries in her riveting book, The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries.

There are dozens of examples of inspired obituaries as well as stories from the annual conference of obituary writers. An example from the book shows that obituaries can be humorous:

"Selma Koch, a Manhattan store owner who earned a national reputation by helping women find the right bra size, mostly through a discerning glance and never with a tape measure, died Thursday at Mount Sinai Medical Center. She was 95 and a 34B."

Another book about obituaries has gotten great reviews, although I haven’t read it and therefore can’t personally vouch for it: OBIT. Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People who Led Extraordinary Lives by Jim Sheeler

A good death. If I must die (I say this seriously because up until about 10 years ago, I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t going to die) I hope to have a good death. Would that it be peaceful. Would that it also be scandal-free. Recently, certain high profile deaths also got me to thinking about the notion of having “a good death.” A refrain from a hymn often sung in the church I grew up goes like this:

I wouldn’t be a sinner.
Tell you the reason why
When my master called me
I wouldn’t be ready to die.

For some people, the ways they die overshadows who they were and what they may have accomplished. The deaths of singer, Michael Jackson, actor David Carradine, and Anna Nicole Smith, struck me in this way. Mr. Carradine’s death was not a good death at all caught as he was in a private sexual act that to my mind is unseemly for any age but most especially for a man in his seventies.

His and other “not good deaths” get me to thinking about things I’ve done that I wouldn’t want to be my parting act or part of my lasting legacy. (I dare not share them here.)

2009 is the 40th anniversary of the publication “On Death and Dying” written by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, psychiatrist, who passed in 2004. This groundbreaking classic and best-seller outlined the "five psychological stages of dying" (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. Throughout the 1970's, Dr. Kübler-Ross led hundreds of workshops and spoke to standing-room-only crowds throughout the world. Always outspoken, her work challenged the medical profession to change its view of dying patients and advanced many important concepts such as living wills, home health care, and helping patients to die with dignity and respect.

In preparing my living will and health care proxy, I had a conversation with my sister and found out that she wants all life-extension methods employed while I want no extraordinary measure taken if there is not chance for me to have quality of life. “I plan to wear out, not rust out” my sister always says as she lives with the demands of lupus.

BlogHer contributing editor, Megan, on "Sometimes Out of Death Comes Life: Happy Birthday Megan's Minute" writes about a friend's death that inspired her to start blogging as a way of sharing her writing. Another post on BlogHer, End-of-Life Care: Working within the Laws Nature by Caregiving begins with these profound words:

"This is hard to hear, but important to know: When caring for an aging relative, you are helping a family member die well. The process of helping someone to die well begins early on in your caregiving journey. It begins when you first hear a diagnosis. Or, when you first notice that your mother just isn’t able to keep up the house as well as she used to. Or, when you celebrate your grandmother’s 95th birthday and wonder: Where did the time go?."

Angelina on her blog, Dustpan Alley, asks How do you Mourn Death?

She writes:

It also reminds us that no one lives forever. We will all have our time in the sun and then we will move on. This is a non-denominational truth. It 100% doesn't matter what your spiritual beliefs are: we all die and whatever happens in that instant isn't about god or atheism or beliefs. Death does not require you to believe anything. It just is. It is.

And continues:

The message of life and the message of death are almost indistinguishable. Like identical twins who learn to speak and dress differently but who, when stripped down to bones, were still split from a single cell. Life and death were split from a single cell too.

I apologize for the rambling nature of this piece but I am now ready to go back to my original point - a good death - I hope I have one and I hope that I will be ready when my time comes.

Free Schools & Dumb People

Candelaria — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:25:00 GMT

Free schools and dumb people is one of the favorite sayings of a friend of mine. This phrase has been front and center in my mind recently because I’ve interacted with several young people between the ages of 18-22 who have dropped out of school. That they are unprepared for their futures is an understatement.

In working as a job counselor part-time for several weeks, I’ve met:

Young people who’ve never worked.
Young people who are under-employed and looking for better work (which they interpret fairly narrowly to mean better pay).

These students are trying to take control of their lives by going back to school to get their G.E.D. or enroll in a high school diploma program.

Some of them are pleasant and keep their appointments, follow-up on suggestions, and read their email messages. Others are salty or surly or too smart to play by “the rules” but not savvy enough (yet) to create their own rule book. One has been court-involved and so is dealing with the reality that this can impede his getting a job. Some have dropped out of high school and alternative programs more than once! Many no longer live with their parents or are trying to earn their way back home by going back to school..

They are children of color and white; U.S. born and immigrant; low-income and solidly middle class.

What they have in common is a lack of preparedness for being adults, a paucity of energy and self-determination, a deficit of vision, and a passivity and complacency that is down-right depressing. Each of them has tugged on my heartstrings and gotten to me.

I long to have superhero-powers to turn back the clock to the pivotal moments in their lives where they veered off course. I want to meet the adults and institutions who’ve failed these young people, all of whom were clearly born with enough intelligence and talent to succeed. What they lack is a clear purpose or direction. Their interests are infuriatingly narrow. Their goals are incredibly small. Getting them to set goals, make an outline for how getting the degree and a job fits into their future plans is nigh impossible.

Most of these young adults have not:

worked for pay (ever)
Participated in extracurricular activities at school or in a community-based program (including organized sports or club
Attended church.

They have been failed. I am especially hurt by the young adults who were born and raised in the U.S.A. and who haven’t taken full advantage of the tremendous blessing our free educational system offers to say nothing of our free libraries. It’s one thing to come from a country where there is no compulsory education or jobs. It’s quite another to have these things and not embrace them.

Working with these American-born young people, I veer from anger (what!) to disappointment (really?) to curiosity (why) to pity (poor kid) to anger again. It is an anger that propels me to action,

to find and create volunteer opportunities to help them build work experiences;
to create resumes from thin air (did you baby-sit?),
to pull references out of them (surely one of your teachers can vouch for you),
to take them out of their comfort zones to see what else is going on,
to dig for their interests and talents.

They don't make it easy. It is hard work to cut through the layers of fear masked as indifference. It is frustrating to see the shrugs of shoulders and listen to yet another response of “I dunno.”

It is striking how they:

Have not learned how to learn or mine for information.
Don’t act but rather react.
Confine themselves to the neighborhoods they grew up in (like they live on a compound to which they are restricted).
Have never really completed anything that they’ve started.
Are dressed in the latest fashions and have cell phones and side-kicks (despite no income).
Limit their internet use for recreation and not for things like finding out what a cover letter is.

They are no longer children but certainly not adults. I work hard for them but not harder than they work for themselves. I speak truth to them – both their harsh realities and the possibilities that are available to them if they can imagine a bigger life and create a plan and go for it.

I encourage them: this is where you are but this is not where you have to remain!

I started out this post with the phrase, “free school and dumb people.” I will end it with another phrase that contains free, “free your mind and your ass will follow.” (a politer version is “free your mind and the rest will follow” but I don’t feel particularly polite right about now.

Bored or Boring?

Candelaria — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:01:00 GMT

In the space of a week, I’ve had three separate people tell me they were bored with nothing to do. This begs the question, are you bored or boring?

I find the phrases “I’m bored” and “there’s nothing to do” to be annoying and irritating. They stick in my craw for some reason. This time, they got to me so deeply, I had to write about them.

I simply don’t understand this. How can anyone be bored?

I can understand being lonely, being broke, being indecisive, being overwhelmed with possibilities, being lazy, being slow, being preoccupied, so on and so forth, but bored? Nah! I just don’t get it.

There is so much to do! You can:

Read a good book (or even a bad book if you like).
Take a walk down the street, to a park, around a mall. (In Boston, you can take a walk around the harbor or the Charles River.)
Listen to music quietly or sing along with your favorite song.
You can people watch at the mall, in Harvard Square or Davis Square, at Ashmont Station or South Station, in Coolidge Corner to name but a very few places.
Fix a delicious meal and eat it or even a PB&J and enjoy it.
Go out somewhere and enjoy a spot of tea, a mug of coffee, dessert, or a full-fledged dinner if you can afford it.
Watch movies – on cable if you’ve got it, at the movie theatre or even borrow DVDs from the library where they’re free.
Watch Law & Order reruns – they are on virtually all the time on some channel or the other.
Call old friends and catch up.
Paint your toenails red.
Get your hair done, maybe try a new style or color.
Dance – by yourself at home with the music turned up loud or out at a club.
Make a holiday shopping list (real or fantasy).
Plan your Thanksgiving dinner.
Clean your house, organize those files you’ve been meaning to do.
Find a volunteer opportunity and help someone else.
Peruse your clothes and come up with new outfits to wear.
Purge your closet and get a bag or two to donate to a worthy cause (or sell stuff through a consignment shop or on Craig’s List).
Take a workshop/class/seminar.
Write that novel that you know you have inside you. (Every November there’s National Novel Writing Month - join thousands of other people who pledge to write a novel in a month.)
Take piano lessons (or flute or drums or singing).
Join a choir or affinity group (find them on Meetup, etc.)
Make a blanket for the Welcome Baby baskets that are give out by Dorchester Cares.
Play games - Scrabble, volley ball, backgammon, chess, Uno, whatever.
Embrace solitude.
Meditate or pray.

For goodness sakes, pick something and just do it. There are a universe of possibilities waiting for you.

Boring is an attitude, a state of mind, a condition you choose. Unfortunately, many people embrace boredom, finding nothing to their liking, being judgmental even though the only taste they have is in their mouths and even their palates aren't developed!

Perhaps you’re the problem. Perhaps you’re boring. Perhaps you lack imagination. Perhaps you’re waiting for life to bring something to your door. Life doesn’t work that way. You have to be out and about in life for “it” (whatever “it” is) to happen to you.

So please, stop with the boring and if you are bored - don't tell me.

(After thought: Sometimes boring is a blessing because it means there’s no drama going on in your life. I wrote an earlier post about it: Bor-ing, Bles-sing.)

A Diamond in Dorchester

Candelaria — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:18:00 GMT

I met a young girl waiting on the bus in Dorchester to go to Fields Corner. (Some mornings I do the 20 minute walk down to Fields Corner but not this morning. I’m glad I didn’t or I would have missed meeting Diamond.) brought the sun out on a chilly day. She was so personable and bubbly. The conversation started when she told me and another woman standing there, that we’d missed a bus. She’d forgotten her bus pas, ran home to get it and saw the bus going down Adams Street on her way back.

In between crunches of the cereal she was munching from a plastic bag, I learned that she was in 6th grade, where she goes to school, that she’d made all A’s on her recent report card, that she was interested in acting and would probably audition for the Boston Arts Academy but then, again, her brother was waiting to hear from Latin School – he’d done well on the entrance exam – and one of her teacher’s thought she should take the test for Latin, too.

All of this info was delivered in a quick-torrent-of-words. Then she’d stop, take a breath, munch more cereal and begin talking again.

“Oh, you like to read like my mother,” she said, taking note of the book I was carrying. (I usually read on the bus but not this morning with such an engaging conversation going on.) Somehow that got us into a discussion of Kindle readers – which she’d never heard of. I described them to her. “Oh,” she said. (She punctuates her conversation with “oh’s.”) Then the conversation went off in another direction.

I learned:

that we are near neighbors…she lives only a few houses away.
that her cousin’s birthday is on Christmas Eve.
that she used to know how to crochet and wants to learn again. (I told her I could teach her again, if her mother would allow me to.)

I wrote my name, # and email down and told her to give it to her mother to see if she might be able to come to my house when my niece, Naz, comes to visit. I think they would get along being near the same age.

I asked her if she was going trick-or-treating on Halloween or if she “too old” for that stuff. “Oh, No!” she exclaimed. “I’m not too, old. I love to dress up.” I made her promise to stop by my house – I always have candy and the lights turned on although each year the trick-or-treaters are fewer and far-between. Most of them seem to stay on Adams Street or go over to Melville Park which is deluged with droves of kids – some of whom are dropped off by vans.

Her name is Diamond. I also have a friend, Diamond, who lives in Charlotte, N.C. I see the southern Diamond and her brother whenever I visit Charlotte. (Happens that I crocheted a shawl for her in her favorite color, purple, and sent it to her in the summer.)

I hope I have made a new friend in Dorchester’s Diamond. I am glad she wasn’t so cautious about “not talking to strangers” that she didn’t talk to me.* I would have missed out on meeting a joyous young girl, clearly being loved and cared for and optimistic about the world. Children need all the caring and principled adults in their lives that they can get. I hope I am able to become part of her village.

<><><><><><><><>

If you like this post, you’ll also like, “I Love Walking in Dorchester.”

(*Although she did give out TMI. I’ll have to caution her about that.)

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are: Friends Lost Along the Way

Candelaria — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 02:10:00 GMT

Today I’ve been thinking about friends I’ve lost.

Some have passed on and “I’ll meet them on the other shore,” as we used to sing in church when I was growing up.

Others I’ve lost touch with. They’ve moved. The addresses, emails and phone numbers I had for them no longer work.

These were people I cared about, deeply. I think about them frequently. I haven’t found them when I’ve looked for them on the various social networks that I belong to. You would think that if you cared about people deeply, shared strong connections over time, the contact wouldn't be severed. But it happens. The pace of life, the change of locale, and stuff get in the way, some times.

So, I’m sharing their names with the hope that someone who reads this blog may have a clue as to where they are

Susan Schotz

Jim Pritchard

Stacey Simon

Sonia Diaz

Terry

Mahr

They may not want to be found by me and that’s fine. I would just like to know if they’re okay. (Actually, I want to know what they’re up to, how’s life treating them, how they’re treating life, but a “they’re fine” would work, too.)

There are other people I’ve lost along the way who’s names I can’t for the life of me remember (that selective memory of mine again). They were classmates from college, colleagues from a job, and former neighbors.

On the internet, there are any number of websites that will help one search for lost friends. There's also a television program where a guy reconnects friends, adopted children, and old loves. I'm not ready to try these avenues, yet.

Along the way, I’ve lost some great people. Is it better to have friended and lost than to never have friended at all?

I Know a No in Disguise

Candelaria — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:06:00 GMT

“A no in disguise.”*

I’ll get back to you on that.
I don’t have my calendar with me. Let me check it give you a date.
have to check with so and so about such and such…

In other words:

you don’t want to meet with me,
you don’t plan to follow-up on the project and
you are full-of-manure, fake, phony...

You might be on of those people always talking about what you’re “fittin’” to do, who just want to go on record as being interested and helpful even though you don’t plan to follow through and do anything. (You know who you are.)

It’s a no in disguise (except when I say those things, of course).

There are also lies in disguise, as when so many people say to someone who knows me, that they've been trying to reach me.

“I’ve been trying so hard to reach you…” (Uh, no you haven’t. If you googled me you can find me plus my phone and email haven’t changed in six years.)

“You’re so tough to get a hold of.” (Uh, leave a message on the answering machine. I’m not tough to get a hold of. I return phone calls and email messages. So you must be lying.)

Anyhow...

(*Thanks to my husband for this phrase. It hits the nail on the head.)

I Love Fall Most of All

Candelaria — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:36:00 GMT

While each of the seasons has its unique beauty, events, and tone, I love fall most of all.

Fall is when I first came to New England (Boston to be specific) to go to college as a 17 year old freshman. I happened upon the Highland Park section of Roxbury and used to visit the small library located in the Parish Hall behind the First Church in Roxbury Even though the Dillaway-Thomas House in John Eliot Square had not yet been remodeled and was boarded up, there was a grand stateliness and history to the buildings and to nearby Dudley Station that bustled with people and businesses – many long gone – that spoke to my heart.

I eventually completed college at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont just outside of Montepelier. Vermont is a grand state for someone who loves the striking colors of fall and mountains. I tasted real maple syrup for the first time in Vermont and have used it ever since.

Walking in historic John Eliot Square
Walking along the brick sidewalks on Roxbury Street on my way to a meeting for Discover Roxbury recently, I made a feeble attempt to dodge acorns falling furiously from the trees. (It was as if an army of squirrels was taking aim at all human targets.) As I walked, I noticed the lengthening shadows of the tree and buildings and the crispness of the fall air. “Ahhhh,” I thought, fall has come. Autumn has arrived.

Fall is a perfect time for walking because I get warmed up and remain cool at the same time.

Bustling-Hustling
Fall bustles with events, so many to choose from, and students – arriving and returning in droves at the many educational institutions for which Boston is known.

Politics
Fall is the season for elections – last year’s historic Presidential race – and this year’s never-a-dull-moment local mayoral election as Mayor Menino defends himself against the one-two punch of the Flaherty-Yoon team. When voting in the city election primary I realized that for the first time I remember, I could have only voted for candidates of color if I so chose. The times and Boston are a-changing. The election to replace Senator Ted Kennedy is underway with his successor not predictable and a healthy field of candidates running. Ditto for the Governor's race, where our first Black governor faces a fierce competition. Massachusetts politics - more lively this year than it has been in a while.

The Leaves
I like the carpet of color-rich fall leaves blanketing lawns and sidewalks and forming crunchy borders on the sides of the roads (when they are dry). I am even happy to rake them.

Apples
I like apple-picking and look forward to a return to visiting apple orchards when my granddaughter comes to visit so I can start a new tradition with her that has been suspended since her mom and uncle were youngsters.

Pumpkins
This fall I will once again don the porch steps with fat pumpkins, crossing fingers that this year, like most years but not last year, they’ll be left alone. I’ve already perched the fall wreath on the front door. (Perhaps I’ll make a scare crow to perch on the porch rail. That'll scare the pumpking nabbers!) I'll also catch, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" when it airs on TV as I've done almost every year since my children were young.

Trick or Treat, Smell my Feet, Give Me something Good to Eat!
I’ve been collecting coupons for Halloween candy which I’ll start buying this weekend, making sure to get mostly candy I don’t like, since fewer and fewer children ring the door with each passing year. I would hate to think of the tummy and toothache I would get if I were to eat the leftovers myself!

Fall Food
In fall I buy apple cider, make apple cake, and prepare dishes with pumpkin, butternut and acorn squash.. I didn’t grow up eating squash in the ‘Lou and have only come to enjoy it in the past few years. It's delicious, nutritious, and thrifty!

Fall is also the season of the annual Boston Vegetarian Food Festival - being held on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 at the Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center in Roxbury.

I could go on and on but you get the point!

Each season has its reason, but I like fall best of all!

Good & Plenty - Candelaria Silva's Blog

Sometimes love goes missing.

The Hills are Alive...a Walking Observation

Source of Strength, Source of Pain

Sufferin' Succotash - the MA Senatorial Election Debacle

It Ain’t All About You – Communication Issues with Friends

Wait for it, Wait for it*

A Ring-Tone of Love

Sorting for the Good

2010 is going to be the best!

Heroes are people and people are human

Age related rites of passage, do they exist any more?

Rites of Passage that don’t exist any more:

Rites of Passage that still exist:

What do you think?

What Age-related rites of passage did I miss? What Age-related rites of passage did you experience? Please share.

Hey Young Chick on the Texter - A Rant about Texting During Concerts

Plans change but the celebration remains

A Good Death

Free Schools & Dumb People

Bored or Boring?

A Diamond in Dorchester

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are: Friends Lost Along the Way

I Know a No in Disguise

I Love Fall Most of All

What Age-related rites of passage did I miss?
What Age-related rites of passage did you experience?
Please share.