The Voice of Reason: Sometimes the Voices are all we have

The Voice of Reason: Sometimes the Voices are all we have: I can't believe the last time I wrote on this blog was last year in March, it has taken me a year to return because a lot happened in th...

Sometimes the Voices are all we have

I can't believe the last time I wrote on this blog was last year in March, it has taken me a year to return because a lot happened in that one year.  Three weeks after that post my husband's cousin was also killed in  a "random act" of violence and subsequently after barely pulling myself out of that one his godmother also died of a brain tumor, my son's friend from middle school was also murdered in the street.  It all started that December with my student from my school being murdered and it all just spiraled so out of control after that. I have spent this year in a state of post traumatic stress.  I did not go see a physician or a therapist, but looking back I think I would have spared myself a lot of grief, and thirty pounds of weight that I did not need.  On top of that my household was turned upside in a whirlwind of a negative energy finally being removed and I could breathe.  But I didn't breathe, I wrapped myself up so tight that I could not see the sunshine.  I fell into a zombie like state of wake up, work, go home, forget repeat.  Day in and day out in this routine.  I did not want to feel anymore, I did not want to know about happiness, I did not want to feel anything and when I did it was boredom which I happily replaced with bad food choices.

 There were wonderful things that happened this year too, I was present at the birth of my grand nephew, which really helped me see that the cycle of life does continue, and life goes on.  It is how you deal with all the bullshit that can be the game changer.  I actually put a lot of effort in my job, and got some accolades out of that.  It seemed like I was doing better, but I was not, because the real place where I needed help with was my attitude about myself.  There is a saying that you can't love anyone, unless you love yourself.  I was mad at myself.  I spent so much time listening to the negative voices in my head, that I was drowning in my own voice.  The voice of reason wasn't there; it was on hiatus and I could not stop myself from all the negativity.  I found mindfulness through the noise.  I enrolled in a class to shut up my thoughts.  I needed help because I could not do this alone.  Through this course, I forgave myself.  I was able to learn and put into perspective many of the thoughts that raged on inside.  I had a chance; I grabbed onto this like a lifeline on who wants to be a millionaire.  I still had several months left of school and they were the most difficult I think I have ever had in my whole time of being employed there.  I really had to practice mindfulness on a daily basis , practically an hourly basis.  I got through the year, maybe a little more seasoned, but really just done with the whole year.  I wanted it to end so badly, I don't think I have ever felt that way about the school year ever.

Now it's been three days since I left there and the clouds have parted, sunshine is peeking through my darkness, and I feel so much better.  The reason I am writing today, is because I actually felt like it again.  I went running, something I had stopped doing.  In running there is a sweet purging of the gunk that is inside of you, you sweat it out, you hack it out, it comes out of your nose.  I know not pretty, but not everything that is good for you is pretty.  It takes work it takes dedication, it takes desire.  I have had no desire to do anything, but to just get through the day and move on.  I can't live my life like that though, I am too spunky, and generally too happy to wallow.  This is the longest period of self wallowing I have ever done, but it is over.   The voice of reason has returned, and I'm glad.  I hope they don't abandon me again, but if they do.  I hope that the tools I have from training my mind are going to help.

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If 72 is the new 30, then I must be turning 8

I saw somewhere that 72 is the new 30, if that is the case I am turning eight this year.  I believe it because I feel like an eight year old.  Most people I see on a daily basis are between the ages of five to twelve, and some of my best friends are eight years old.   This is a difficult road to travel because chronologically that's 50, most folks by this age are established and looking forward to their golden years.  I on the other hand feel like I am just starting out.

It's a brave new world I want to come into and I still have so much to do and I don't know where to start.  My childlike enthusiasm has never dwindled and I am as curious as ever to discover the world and myself.  I spend most of  my time wondering and dreaming about my adult life. I do not feel like a real adult yet.  Maybe because I haven't done many adult things, never mind that I am married, have a full time job and have raised two adult children these things happened to me but I don't feel like they helped me grow much.  I know that sounds a little harsh, but it's true.

Growing up means taking charge of your life doing what you want to do and loving it.  I have not done that.  I want to do that and if it takes me the next twenty two years to do it, then I have not just taken up space on this planet.  For starters my blog is going to change I know my zero followers will be heartbroken but it has to happen.  I am interested in so many things that I feel I am wasting my blog on myself and not exploring more things that I like and sharing things people are really interested in.   So with that I wish you all a great life and I hope you all will enjoy my new incarnation.  See you on the flip side.

Rediscovering My Salvadorean Roots

  On a cold winter days all I can think of is my mother's cooking.  The kitchen was always warm and the smells that eminated from it were heavenly.  I was a happy child when I was in the kitchen, everything else about my life was dysfunctional, but not when I was in the kitchen with my mom.

  Her recipes especially during the holidays were something we all looked forward to.  I sat there enthralled with the mixing and baking.  The tamales were the first project which started early in the morning standing in a long line in front of La Palma Mexicatessen in San Francisco's Mission District.  I would stand there holding my mother's hand while every other Mexican mom in the neighborhood eventually got there to stand in the same line. When we were finally admitted inside the smells of sauces, and meats simmering assaulted my nostrils.  I could not get out of there with out whining for carnitas and freshly made tortillas. 

  My mother was on a mission though only the dough (masa) for tamales is what she came for and that is all we walked out of there with.  Then we would walk to Casa Lucas, our next stop and buy all the fresh vegetables that would be mixed into our tamales.  One more stop from here and we would be done.  The next stop was the Gallinita a old school butcher shop.  We would wait in a long line there too and I was always transfixed by the Spanish I heard here.  It was not like the Spanish I heard at home, it was rapid fire Mexican Spanish. The men in the back of the counter were always jovial and talked a mile a minute. I couldn't keep up with them but my mother did and she ordered her meat products and then laden down with our purchases made our way home. 

  At home is where the magic happened during the day she prepped everything and by nightfall when everyone was home she would station us around the table to help her wrap her little packages of deliciousness.  I was the closer and in charge of the olive station. I knew my job well, so well that as an adult that is the only part I really remembered it took my sister and I a few years to finally get to the point we can make them.  This year she finally shared with me the holes that were missing in my memory and together with my cousin we shared the recipe so it would not die with us.  We are getting a little long in the tooth and as my cousin pointed out we are now the matriarchs of the family.  Scary proposition, but when she said it I realized she was right and if we did not start teaching our daughters these recipes they would literally die with us as only a memory. 

  I spoke to my neice and we decided to make pastelitos another dessert that my mom made for the holidays.  My sister in law who was more interested in cooking my brother's favorite foods had painstakingly worked along side my mother to glean some of her son's favorites.  One of those was the milk custard that goes into the pastelitos.  I only liked the jelly ones, so I had mastered the cookie part and then used strawberry jelly to fill them, good enough for me, but not good enough for the girls who wanted to learn how to make the milk ones.  So my neice went home with her mom and got her to make the custard and then we all got together with my other cousin's daughter, her son and my daughter and set off to a day of baking at my neice's house. 

  Baking together we talked and regaled each other with stories and memories of my mom.  The girls had had a chance to bake with my mom.  As little girls in order to entertain all these little five, six and seven year old girls she taught them to bake.  They like me were in charge of parts of baking, one would press the little balls of dough into flat pancakes on the press my father had made for my mother.  It is two metal plates fused to a hinge with a metal handle welded to it.  My father was a welder by trade, so this little piece of equipment has survived at least fifty years, and the tortillas presses that they currently sell can not give the right pressure to create the perfect little orbs we need to make our pastelitos.  My father made this for my mother, because back in the day you could not find a tortilla press to save your life around San Francisco.  Now you go to any store on 24th and they have all the tools you need to make food your Abuelita made.  We bought our big tamale paddle there this holiday season.

   The girls talked and we remembered the other things they baked with my mom, like the peanut butter cookies which my daughter has mastered because they are her favorite.  I watched with pride as they assembled the little pies and their hands remembered how to close them so they would not leak out the custard or jelly.  My neice's son is only three but he helped with the press and I knew that he would forever be part of the lineage of this baking tradition that I want to keep up with all these girls and their children and hopefully they will continue with their grandchildren one day.  My mother was with us this day and I feel her presence even more strongly now that I am trying to re-create her gifts to me.

   Today as in many days this past year I again wanted to try to make her bunellos, but again I failed, but I am closer than I have been in the past.  I close my eyes and remember the feel of the dough, the textures and the taste of it because that is all I have left is my memories of these taste long gone, but not forgotten.  My daughter has forbidden me to try to make arroz en leche because it doesn't taste like her grandma's and she does not want to pollute her memory of it with my inadequate attempts and I totally respect that. 

  I will not stop trying to make the taste I remember though, things they may have never tried because I don't know what she cooked for them when I was a work and she had a houseful of kids once again.  All I know is that it is in my hands to share what I know I do not want to selfishly hold onto these recipes because my mother was not like that, she taught all of us and it was our lack of attention that we did not learn more.  I know for myself I did not care how it was made, I was just interested in the results because that is what I loved.   I loved to eat my mother's food it was soothing and it bespoke of love greater than anything I felt as a child. My father was strict and not one to demonstrate affection and he disapproved of my mother's sensitive nature.  I believe through her meals she spoke volumes of love and understanding she could not demonstrate to us in any other way without getting in trouble with my dad. 

   I now appreciate her sacrifices and I appreciate the time and effort it took to make all those meals and special dishes she made for each one of us.  We all have an all time favorite and I know my mother would make each of us whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted it.  My kids will always have that special memory of my mom making them exactly what they wanted.  I have no patience for that and after my mom passed it was you eat what I made if you don't you starve end of conversation, but in my defense I did have to work and could not spend all day in the kitchen.  Now I want to go back and give back some of that love and if I don't do anything else in this lifetime I hope that I can at least make people feel special when I make the meals my mother used to make and I hope that I can share what I learn with my children and my neices and they will also continue the tradition.  In this way my mother's love is transcending time and space and I feel her with me everytime I turn on the stove, pick up one of her pots to cook one of her meals.

Guns and Roses

On Saturday night at 10pm I was watching the news about Sandy Hook Elementary not knowing that my school was at that very moment losing one of our own to gun violence. As I watched the news I listened to the rhetoric about gun control and how senseless and evil the person who did this was, not knowing that I would be feeling the same hopelessness.  I watched the grief counselors and psychologist converge on the community not knowing that we would be in need of these same services.

On Sunday I heard Obama recite the names of the dead and express his sorrow to the parents, not knowing that a Mom I knew would benefit from a phone call from him, because I'm sure she voted for him too. On Monday morning I went to school and talked about security measures for our school and then later realizing how security measures we Moms take to keep our sons safe in this city are just as futile.

I slowly came to the realization, that while the nation will mourn the children of New England, no one outside of his family, friends, and people who knew him will help us mourn. No one is helping all our children of color who lose their lives everyday on the streets to guns.  No talk about gun control there,  I know I will not see this young man's face plastered all over CNN for the next month, either his face or nameless, faceless youth who also lost his life that Saturday on 24th Street and Potrero.   Who will help his friends make sense of this and help them heal.  What is worse is that this has probably happened to them on several occasions, never getting any grief counseling and never being told that this is not ok.  This should not happened to their friends anymore than it should happen to those children in Sandy Hook.

 Therein, lies the hypocrisy of this nation the genocide that is occurring on our city streets somehow does not measure up to the so called anomaly mass shootings.  It should also be an anomaly that you can't walk down the street on Mission or Hunters Point and expect to get shot.  It should be an anomaly that students in Oakland probably know more dead kids than live ones. It should be an anomaly that everyone is getting shot and no one is doing anything about it!  I am angry, I am in pain and I know that the first responder to this crime did not break down and cry because of what he had to see, to him it was another black kid shot in the hood and it kills me. I know that the shooter will not be psychoanalyzed and be given the excuse of mental illness and how we should have helped him and looked out for the signs of violence that would have made him choose this path of violence and evil.  He more than likely will go to jail and no one will ask him about his childhood and how come he turned out the way he did.

No one cares, I am a lonely voice in the big sea of indifference but I had to pour my grief out somewhere, and if no one ever reads this it's ok.  It was therapy for me but if one person reads and shares and somehow is touched by what I say then I did a good thing.

My Classic San Francisco

  Nostalgia means a sentimental longing for the past, typically for a period or a place with happy personal associations. That is what I have been feeling lately for the San Francisco of Dashiell Hammet and Herb Caen, not the one that is currently sprouting around me.  The Mission, typically the hub of working class Irish  of yesteryear and Latinos in my early lifetime is being overrun by self absorbed, overly entitled offensive East Coast types.  Our eccentricities once endearing are now nuisances for the transplants.  No longer can I walk down my neighborhood and hear a plethora of languages, Chinese, Tagalog and Spanish.  Now I hear the annoyed complaints of hipsters about apps, or malfunctioning i-phones.

  I was missing the fog, the lonely mournful sound of a fog horn over the bay.  I was missing walking down the street alone.  Lately, the streets are overcrowded, everywhere I go there is a gaggle of people, lines for restaurants, Muni, Bart and bathrooms.  Dolores Park once a sanctuary for the displaced soccer players and conga drummers is now so crowded with hipsters you have to watch where you step, because you just might step on one of them, gone are the days of stepping in dog poop. Where do all these annoying people come from and why are they always in my flippin' way???

   Well, I had have enough,  I woke up early this morning 4:30am as a matter of fact and headed out.  The streets were deserted, just the way I like them.  It is only during this time that the City really reveals it's soul.  If I could have a Zombie Apocalyse, it would be to eat hipsters, then they would die out, because the zombies would eat their brains and gain NO knowledge and die off, leaving the City just as it was this morning.  Deserted. Sorry I am digressing,  I wanted to see the backstreets of yesteryear, does bread still get delivered at dawn? Are there men working while the rest of the City slumbers. I had to know!! Apparently on Sunday mornings, not so much I traveled to North Beach, nothing snaked my way to AT&T park and found an open doughnut shop.  The denizens were all there, the Cop, the bus driver, the creepy guy who sits at the back table.  Ok, things were looking up!  This is the San Francisco I was looking for my hopes lifted by this encounter I continued on my journey.
 
    I headed to the wharf, the San Francisco Bay does not change, time passes through it. When you look across and see Alcatraz, you can not tell if there are any inmates looking back towards you. The Golden Gate Bridge stands as beautiful as the day it was built, a gateway to the promised land.  The Bay is splayed out before me and the fog horn sounds it's warning to passing ships.  The waves lap against the piers and the seagulls call out to each other about another promising meal that awaits them.  The wharf is empty of tourist, just pure San Francisco beckons me.  I walk under a light post and imagine Sam Spade's face appearing out of the fog as a match lights his features for an instant as he inhales that first puff of smoke from his cigarette.  I look over the Bay and make my way across the bridge to the other side.

    Marin is only beautiful because of it's breathtaking view of San Francisco I feel so lucky sitting here at the edge of a cliff overlooking the bridge, the Bay and the City.   The sun is up now, it's full glory shining over the Bay.  I feel blessed to have this as my backyard, to see this on a daily basis makes one a little giddy.  I understand why so many flock here, but to truly appreciate this City you have to have been born here.  It is in your blood, it is under your skin.  You live and breathe San Francisco and all it's quirky history it makes you quirky too.  You are a part of something special that no one can touch.  I am a native born and bred in San Francisco.  I will  probably die here and I won't mind it one little bit.  If I never left my little neighborhood I don't think I would have ever missed that much.  I have met people from all walks of life, from around the world and all I have ever had to do is walk outside my front door.

  I found my classic San Francisco, I walked the streets of Dashiell Hammett and Herb Caen and I was transported to the beautiful City I love so much.  It was only then that I could get back to the future and endure the hipsters and East Coast transplants, in their own way they love the City too, if they stay long enough and instead of trying to change her, embrace her.  I think they will understand her and learn like all of us do, that if you love someone or something you love it for all it's imperfections and eccentricities that is genuine love and that is the love of a native San Franciscan.