Welcome to Sunshine State AKA Hurricane Alley...
It's that time again. Katrina is moving our way. Another forced vacation. Carload of our precious belongings. The mass exodus to higher grounds. Snail pace through clogged interstates to the Northern States. The smell of fear. The nervous vibration. November 30th need to come soon. We are tired of dodging hurricanes.
Seven times have I despised my soul:
The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height.
The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled.
The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.
The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.
The fifth time when she forbore for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength.
The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.
And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise, and deemed it a virtue.
Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam (1926)
Acrobat, Mark Chagall
Human Foible
by Dee
Perfection is not for mere mortal
Stop being hard on yourself
Everyone make mistakes
And suffer grave consequences
You are your worst enemy
For you know too much
About your past transgression
And inability to seek absolution
Redeem yourself
By loving her unconditionally
Embrace her frailties
And seek divine mercy
We were sitting at an outdoor café in a piazza built by Andrea Palladio in the quaint town of Vicenza, Italy when my husband asked me what I was thinking about. I was lost in the past for a while, thinking of someone.
His name is Romano. He was an Italian civil engineer, the man whom I thought I would be married to instead of the lovely man in front of me. Romano and I went out on and off for five years. I thought he was my soul mate because we came from the same Catholic background and had a lot of things in common. He was thirty-eight years old and I was seventeen years old. I graduated from high school when I was barely sixteen. I was a college drop out working at a travel agency when I met him. I know our relationship stirred a lot of rumors but when I was with him chronology did not matter. He reassured me that he did not care what others thought and that our age difference did not matter because he really liked being with me. He respected my wishes and never pressed me to do anything I did not want to do. He asked me to marry him several times during the five years we were going out but I repeatedly told him that I was not ready. We dated and hanged out whenever we have the time to. He was working at an airport construction project long hours and was playing in his company’s soccer team most nights and weekends. I worked ten hours seven days a week to keep afloat and partied like a teenager should. He asked me to live with him so I would not have to worry about paying rent but I refused his generosity every time he broached the subject. Maybe I was not desperate enough to save a few hundreds in rent money or maybe I knew even then that we would not be together forever.
My family did not have any objection about our relationship. They even tried their hardest to push me into marrying him. “What else could you ask for?” they said. “He is educated, has a stable job, has a home, and a car…” they would add. “I don’t know,” I would answer truthfully. Maybe I knew that my husband would come along and sweep me off my feet when I was twenty-two.
All our mutual friends knew that we were going out. Some of them were not very keen on the May-December angle of the relationship. They all know that after I broke up with my long term boyfriend in high school, I swore that I will never go out with a guy my age because of all the dramas these kind of relationships entailed. I was not equipped to deal with all the emotional complexity of young love. I chose to date men a few years older than I was because they seem to have a very busy schedule and could not be bothered with all the details of my life. I like having a life of my own and not feeling that I have to answer to anybody. Maybe I knew that I would someday meet a man who will let me live the life I always wanted but did not have a clue of what it was at the time.
I thought I loved Romano. I was happy when he called every night to wish me goodnight. I cancelled appointments with my friends to see him play soccer.I grinned from ear to ear when he sent flowers to my workplace or when he brought boxed meals at my office when I was working late. I was always eager to see a movie, go to dinner or watch a play with him. I even relished the time we hanged out at his apartment drinking his collection of Italian wines. I loved that he could have had his way with me several times but did not take the opportunity. “I want it to be a mutual decision. I will not coerce you into doing something you might regret later,” he said. And I thought, “Please do!” but I never gathered the courage to initiate physical intimacy with him or tell him what I was thinking. Maybe he knew that I would not be his and I somehow I knew that we were not meant for each other.
I regret the fact that I seemed to have strung Romano along for five years. I did not intend to. It just happened that way. I thought I loved him until I met my husband. I remember feeling guilty when I realized that I am in love with another man. I met him at a restaurant and told him about it. I saw the pain in his eyes. Then he asked, “Are you sure?” I just nodded my head and stared at the table because I cannot bear to look him in the eye again. I had to leave because I felt so horrible. He still called every night to say goodnight (he left messages since I did not want to take his calls) and sent me flowers until I left to join my husband in his hometown. I did not give him my new address or phone number. I know he could have kept in contact with me if he wanted to but I am glad he did not. Maybe he knew that we will be both better off without further contact and that we were not meant to be.
Maybe I made up all the MAYBEs in this story so I will not feel so bad when I remember Romano. The only thing I am sure about is that I married the right person. I do not regret loving my husband twenty something years ago. I still love him and will be loving him for a long time to come.
(Drum roll, please!)
Presenting.... Mass Battle 2366! A post apocalyptic play starring my own little thespian as the Red Miner Prince!!!!
Opening night tonight. I am so excited and nervous.
Break a leg, J!!!
I am an aimless gondolier. I traverse the mucky waters of the canals of Venice with foreboding...
I have not written anything substantial in a while. The mood was just not right and my creative juices are not flowing. I write a paragraph or two a day on a story I have been working on for a while but when I go back to read what I have written, I have this overwhelming sense of malcontent that I just want to delete everything and start all over again.
I have written a couple of poems about things that concern me lately but somehow I am not happy with the outcome. It is true that I often revisit my writings and revise them a few times before I deem them “good enough” but lately I am suddenly filled with a perfectionist attitude. When I write a poem, I worry about the iambic pentameter. When I write a story, I envision my English college professor with a red marking pen, scolding me about my run on sentences and dangling participles. I recently dug my Little Brown Book, a didactic tome about written English, seeking resolution of my recent unhappiness. I thought reading chapters of it would infuse me with some writing confidence and get me back on track. No, it did not. On the contrary, I used it to nitpick everything I have written.
I used to be so unconcerned about established rules and regulations. I have expressed myself in writing without regards to its conventions. Why am I suddenly bothered that my writing does not measure up to what the English language experts deem appropriate? Is it because reading the brilliant writings and well executed passages in other journals made me feel inadequate? Is it that old age finally caught up on me and my brain is trying to reform me of my rebellious writing ways?
This is not me (should I write, “This is not I” because then it would be grammatically right?). I do not want to be reformed. I want to write the way I want to. I want to be able to say once again that I write for my own enjoyment so it does not really matter how I do it. I hate being insecure and whiny. I know this too shall pass, but I want it to pass RIGHT NOW.
Hubby sent me this as a forward and I laughed out loud reading it. Just want to share the joy...
TO ALL THOSE WHO SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's , 70's and 80's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.
Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have PlayStations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we
were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
These generations produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 60 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own
good.
I took one of the dreaded blogthing tests after visiting aiibrat's and Mrs. L's journals. I was curious if these tests will reveal something about me that I do not know already. I found out that they are passive and they say things one wants to hear. Below is the result I got when I tried one tittled ,"What are the keys to your heart?" I want to go back there and do every possible combination on a quizz and find out what they say. I have time to burn and it is too warm to go outside. So a-quizzin here I go...
The Keys to Your Heart
You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when your lover is creative and never lets you feel bored. You'd like to your lover to think you are optimistic and happy. You would be forced to break up with someone who was insecure and in constant need of reassurance. Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything... no secrets. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.
This tells me that I am passive-aggressive and I have the righteousness of a TV evangelist. Now I see where I need to amend my rotten ways...
