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.

Summer's End

As the days grow longer and the nights get shorter I sit here and wonder where did the summer go? I am just two weeks away from returning to work and as always I wonder why didn't I do more this summer?  This summer was a crazy one for me because the first month of it was spent burying my past.  So many strong women died that I was shaken to the core remembering their lives and the impact they had on mine.  July luckily was spent biking, hiking, and crafting.  Most importantly it was spent reviewing my life, what do I really want from it.

I think I wasted so much time worrying about a life I don't have and not enjoying the one I do have.  This seems to be the central theme in most of my blogs. I understand this concept, but have difficulty practicing it. My mind just does not shut up.  I have ruminative thoughts that plague me on a daily basis.  I do not think I should be left alone for long.  I talk to myself  too much and eventually talk myself into a tizzy.  I have figured out the things that help and I want to share, just in case anyone else out there is goes through the same things.

Number 1: When stressing about something, take action if you can.  If you can do something about it, by all means do it.  I sometimes stress about the house being a mess or I hate seeing that stupid thing still sitting on the floor and driving me crazy, stop complaining get off your ass and do something about it and voila, it's done and you feel so much better!

Number 2:  Don't believe everything you tell yourself.  Challenge that voice in your head.  My worry is that something bad will happen to the people I love when they are out in the world, honestly I will lose sleep worrying about all the evil in the world and how it will affect my family.  I have to take a realistic approach and tell myself the world is not all bad, yes bad things happen, but not every time my family walks out the door, get over it!

Number 3:  Do something else, when I am in a full blown scare fest I stop myself and do something that requires my full attention, like knitting, sewing little cloth circles, drawing and scrapbooking, once my mind is engaged in something else I forget what I was stressing about.  DO NOT WATCH TV, though that activity is mindless sometimes will provoke more thoughts to stress about, especially if you watch the news.

Number 4:  Don't talk about it with a friend.  What??? I know as bad as that sounds sometimes it is not a good idea to dissect every little negative detail because it just stresses you out more in the end.  Now you have someone else involved in your drama and they will be just as concerned about your craziness and they will try to help, but you and they do not realize half the stuff you were stressing is 80% imaginary.

Number 5: meditate about your thoughts, think of them as leaves on the river.  Acknowledge their existence and then watch them float away, do not act or react to them just let them go.

Number 6:  Be nice to yourself, if you can not stop the ruminating it is okay.  It takes practice and you can not do it if you are worrying about not doing it. It takes a lot of practice and that is why meditation and yoga are called practice, because you really got to work on it.

I still have a lot to work on and one summer is not going long enough to get it all right, but at least I'm trying. That is the key also, keep trying to fix yourself because otherwise you end up doing crazy things like that dude.  I do not want to mention him or his actions or even to think that something as the six things I have outlined here could have helped him, we will never know. I don't want to start ruminating about that one, because that will require a whole new blog.

For now I am going to enjoy the last few days, maybe not hiking around but just sitting here with a computer at my side and my legs up trying to solve the problems of the world.

Legacies

I often wonder what my legacy will be.  Will I matter when I am gone?  How do I accomplish great things, because of these musings, I have gone back to school and graduated.  I continue to look for that elusive thing that will help me make my mark in this world.  That one thing that I am so good at, that others will marvel at my accomplishments and praise me for doing it.

This week I went to funerals of two women, who pretty much were forces in my childhood. The first was my Mother's friend Hayde Hernandez.  This woman was a beauty, as a child I marveled at her and her kids because they were such good looking kids.  As a kid I going to private school, my mom sewed for a living and many of our neighborhood moms went to her for her seamstress abilities.  I always liked this lady, because she was so poised and gracious.  Her kids were nice and they went on to be very helpful in our community.  I always admired that spirit of giving.  They were active in our neighborhood church and are a back bone of what I remember of my neighborhood. 

The second funeral I went to was my sister's mother in law,  Rosa Hernandez she was 101 and I remember when I met her I was only twelve.  Though I knew her son since I was two, I only met her and the rest of the family after my sister married into it.  My childhood was rather painful and lonely at times, my brothers and sisters were all older than me and I was left alone with my ruminative thoughts for hours on end.  I enjoyed reading and discovering other worlds because my world was a little bleak. I remember entering her house for the first time and feeling overwhelmed with love.  My parents weren't very touchy feely, but this family was.  I got hugged at every turn, but not just a little hug, full on bear hugs it was a curious feeling, but I liked it.  I promised myself that I would hug people like that for the rest of my life, because it felt so good and so reassurring. 

Thinking back on the legacies of both of these ladies I realized you don't have to have a prestigious job, or a fancy title to make a difference.  Both these women's legacy is Love, the love they had for their families and their homes.  The differences they made was making everyone feel the same way, loved and important.  They did not worry about making a mark, but they did.  Their marks are deep and wide and more important than any ever made by a celebrity or politician.  Their struggles were many, they came to this country which has always been inhospitable to Latinos, but they not only struggled, but succeeded.  Their children are college graduates, professional people and yet these were humble women.  Women from their time were not given the choice to be able to go to college or school.  Their lives were get married have children, but they did it so well.  Their children, and their children's children will always know about their matriarchs and that they were forces to be reckoned with.

The world is a little less vibrant now, and I know there are deep holes in the lives of my friends.  I only hope they continue to keep alive the spirit of these strong, independent Latina women.  I only hope I can do a fraction of what they accomplished.  RIP Ladies, you will be missed and I will take the lessons you taught me and cherish the moments I spent with you. I will not let your memories fade away from my life.  I will take the torch onward and love my family, cherish the moments of triumph and loss with grace and humility, just like you did.  Thank you for spending time on earth and teaching so many.

The Voice of Reason: Time Marches On

March is always a month for me to do some interspection.   I was born in March, so everytime I reach and pass my birthday I sit and look back on my life. 
This year I turned 49, for many this time in their lives is a time to look back on their accomplishments and look forward to the sunset of their lives, I am not at this point.  I have just recently graduated from college and I am looking towards my future in the same shoes as a twenty something getting out of college.

I am suffering from the same anxieties, what will I do now, and what does the future hold?  Most people of my age measure success by all their material gains and if I were to measure my life by those successes I am a dismal failure.  I do not have a hefty retirement, I do not own more property than  what I came into this world with, and I can not leave my children anything but the clothes on my back.

Funny thing is I do not feel like a dismal failure, I am proud of my life and my accomplishments.  I work nine months out of the year and vacation for three.  I have put my kids through college and myself as well without bancrupting myself or mortaging my kids future.   I been married to the same guy for 28 years, and I haven't killed him yet, and he holds no ill feelings for me either.  I draw and paint when I want to, write crazy blogs no one reads, but at least I do it. 

All in all a good life.  So as I finish my forties and get ready to embark into my 50's I am doing an open invitation to all my friends and family, for my 50th birthday I do not want an over the hill party, I want a high school prom, because just like prom night, that night will be the end of one era and the beginning of a whole new one, ripe with possibilities and good food, music and drink.
Let's celebrate life like teenagers would, why???? Because we can.

The Voice of Reason is being unreasonable (a rant)

That's what I keep hearing, your expectations are unreasonable, you are being unreasonable.  You expect too much and you expect it to fast.  WTF???  I do not believe I am being unreasonable when I ask for information, is it unreasonable to expect a straight answer?  If you don't know just say so.  I don't know and I don't have the time to get you the information you need.  I am busy right now, take care of it yourself.  Simple, right?  Aparently, not in my world. 

In my world I am expected to know all these things are going on telepathically, or just by magic.  I know I'm awesome, but not that awesome.  I am supposed to know someone is running while texting, who does that?  Or driving while texting, isn't that against the law?  Again, a simple statement that can wait until you stop running and driving instead of answering me, like nothing else is going on.  How in god's name am I supposed to know that???

Then to top it off, after I think I have said everything I needed to say, like when I get home I will take care of it, I'm supposed to text and let you know.  Didn't I just get reamed out for texting too much, but in actuality I am in trouble for not texting more information at this point my head explodes and it can be heard around the block.

Texting has it's advantages, when i was a teenager I would have loved to have had text.  Because i would have texted my mom, I'm  fine at the movies with friends instead of calling from a payphone and trying to sound casual as my friends are hooting and hollering in the car with the music blasting and booze bottles crashing in the background.  It was hard to sound casual with all that stuff going on, so I always got busted, because I was a conscientious kid, who always phoned my mom so she wouldn't worry.  My kids are not conscientious at all, they could give a rat's tail to inform me that oh i won't be home when you get home cause I'm going out or whatever.  The husband/Father who is here with them in the morning could ask the simple question, What are you guys up to today, in case your mom calls me and wants to know.  NOOOOO, this doesn't happen in my world.  In my world I am out at the crack of dawn and get back to an empty house no notes, no text, no phone calls, no nothing.  So I sent out a little text hours go by no one responds and when they finally do, oh my phone didn't have no signal  or I forgot to turn it back on, whatever.

This is why I am unreasonable for this simple act of caring.  I am going to turn off my phone or leave it on the sidewalk and just walk away from the electronic leash let them try to find me for a change, without a phone i won't look at the time, won't wonder why no calls or texts me, i will save 50.00 dollars a month.  Once i start saving money like that i will turn off the satelite because no one is home anyway, they are all out and about in their lives, I'm the only ditz who comes home to watch tv by myself since it is the only thing that is waiting for me when I get home. That will save me a few 100.00 a month. So let's see if I save 150.00 a month, I can save up for a vacation.  Which I will probably end up taking alone since I can never find anyone to let them know what's going on in my world. 

Failure and Recovery

I witnessed dismal failure last night.  Anyone who knows me is probably thinking I am referring to the 49er vs NYC matchup, but I'm not.  There are parallels but I am speaking about attitude.

The way we recover from failures is what makes us who we are.  Last night I could have gone on a drunken binge cause God knows it would have been completely justified, but I didn't.  I held my head up high and rocked niner jersey and will continue to rock it because that is who I am.  I realized that life is about choices and the ones we make can either make us or break us.

We don't have to live with our bad choices we can change them at any time it's never too late.  I learned that from watching the niners last week when they beat the Saints, we were down and there was only one minute left to play they could have folded and walked away with their tails between their legs and said, "I done." but they didn't they kept trying and we won.  That game for me was the superbowl.  We are NFC West Champions no matter what and that can't be taken away from us, but I am digressing because I'm not here to talk about football it's just that the anologies are there and I can't help but make some comparisons, bear with me.

Choosing to be defeated by the cards life deals us is the saddest situation we can get ourselves into.  If we sit here and say oh I can't cause I lost my job, my boyfriend /girlfriend won't let me, I don't have time, money, experience etc are all excuses for not doing something with your life.  We are created with a wealth of gifts and when we can go so far, but we choose not to. 

I always sing that song from the old school Xmas shows that goes, " put one foot in front of the other and soon you are walking out the door."  That's life inaction creates more inaction, but action simple action like putting one foot in front of the other creates something.  You never know what is out that door, but you gotta get there.  My life has been a series of sitting in the sidelines and then choosing to run full speed.  I acknowledge my break periods and I choose to do them and I accept the responsibility for what happens when I'm not doing anything.  Like gaining weight or vegging out on soaps, football and old movies.   I accept my failures and do not mask them but it is how I recover from them that makes me who I am. 

I have a lifetime to recover from a few or maybe not, but I am not going to let it get to me  I have seen what happens when people tell you how to live your life.  It destroys the most advantageous prospects and leaves them inactive and dismal.  The slow descent to hell is paved with good intentions of others but if you don't use the backbone god gave you and say wait, this is not working for me because I'm miserable and I'm eating and or drinking myself to death because I don't see another way out.  There is another way out, but you have to put one foot in front of the other and take that first step.  It may be the hardest one in your life but do it, for the love of God do it!!!

Then and only then can you see that it's not over til the fat lady sings.  You can score that killer touchdown, march down that field and win in the game of life and hold your head up high and say I did this, I kicked that shit to the curb and I am taking back my life and moving where I know it needs to be. Good things come to good people, but good people need to stop being so damn good to everyone else and be good to themselves sometimes.  I know that has been my hardest lesson and when I get out of current down time which I am happily in right now, I am going to rock my shit all over this place, but on my time and on my terms.