Our Lack of Action

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building understanding, community, Dolores Huertas, Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, hope, love, respect, Stephen Swhartz, violence

Dear readers, all of us have tried to become better persons during our lives.

We live in a society where violence is present from the cartoons are children see to the violent crimes we get to witness through social media, that make you wonder where is our world heading?

It’s easy to understand how easily our values can succumb in these scenarios.

We flip the pancake, as so to say, to accommodate our feelings in a way that our actions are justified.  Or better said “our lack of action”.  Specially when we agree with this anarchic way of life by remaining bystanders and not trying to do anything about it.

We don’t have to become Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, or Dolores Huertas to do something, the only thing that we need to do is take action in one of the simplest ways, educate ourselves first and then share what we have learned with others.  To counteract ignorance helping others see things differently.

via morguefile

We are bombarded with hatred, criticism, bullying, and many of the vices of humanity.  It’s easier to destroy than to build  bridges of communications  on the grounds of understanding and respect. This way we are dismantling violence one step at at time.

Like Stephen Shwartz  wrote,  “hope is frail, but very hard to kill” in the lyrics of the song When You Believe.  I want to hold on to that hope to believe in humanity and the choice we have to become better persons.

We can all attempt to construct a better world for ourselves and  future generations to come, specially if we teach by practice one of the basic values of human race, RESPECT.

Just a little something to think about.

See you next time around, and thanks for stopping by.

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Troubles Melt Like Lemondrops

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believing, community, dreams, Happiness, hatred, hope, Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, racism, The Walking Dead, Trump, violence

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything.

To an extent it’s because I’ve become trapped in my own thoughts, most not worth writing about.

Our world is in turmoil since November 4th and the easiest way out would be blaming Trump and moving on.  However, if I’m going to honest it’s not about Trump or anybody else, it’s about me because  I am part of a society that is liable for placing Trump where he is right now.

The funny part is that as an American citizen I can’t vote for president unless I’m living in one the continental states, however I am affected directly by the President’s policies.

Policies that will make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer.

Basically because  we’ve forgotten to give each other hope in a recession because of our egocentricity,  and have been held prisoners  by a rhetoric delivered with a 5th grader’s vocabulary. And all of a sudden we think that we can make America great with hatred and escalated verbal and physical violence.

Not taking into notice that America can be built greater if we build communities where people can come together and find solutions to the problems we face together regardless of the differences we have.

Most of the time life is hard for so many reasons and we just forget to hope and believe.  Which is by the way ironically is one of the things I think I am, a believer.

Life presents us with so many horrible situations where we have to make a stand or just simply walk away.  The coward in us wants to walk away and be settled in a status quo that most of the time will lead us to live half alive and half dead.  Probably the people who created The Walking Dead with its one line plot feed upon people like me or maybe you.

The dreamers in all of us wish that our problems would just melt away like lemon drops, but its not that simple.  Caring for others is hard enough, imagine if we tried to be changers in a society that  is more and more about the individual and less and less of our problems as a community or country.

Tonight as I searched for songs for a conversational English course that I’m teaching,  I came across one of my favorite songs that transported me back to 6th grade and back to my dreams of finding a place of happiness somewhere over the rainbow.

I felt moved as I listened to Israel Kamakawiwo’ole sing about hope and happiness, and felt such a coward for not standing up to life’s endless situations.

My husband is about to loose his job because of a partial close of a pharmaceutical company, hence it’s no secret that we are all touched by the ups and downs of an uncertain economy.  However, all of us need to hold on to believing that in someway or form are dreams may come true if we are brave enough to believe.

And that my dear readers may sound to many as something delusional to an extent, but nevertheless don’t underestimate the power of  hope.

Hope is the engine of our lives, making us stand stronger in the face of adversity and when the day comes to an end and we welcome the night expecting something good to happen the next day with the rise of the sun.

May we all rest tonight expecting a brighter and better day tomorrow. Life is waiting for us whenever we’re ready to embrace it.

See you around the corner.

#Bring Back Our Humanitarianism

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Arizona, Border Patrol, community, detainees, Government, Michelle Obama, Nogales children

Why do we feel the need to pretend things are okay when they are not?

Why do we feel the need to confirm other people’s doings when they are so clearly wrong?

Why do we shrug off things as racism, injustice, selfishness, and so many other  if they weren’t important?

Why do we feel that it’s our duty to stand up for those very far away from our borders when within them so much injustice lies lurking underneath?

It amazes and outrages me a bit, how so many public figures, celebrities even Michelle Obama stood with the poster in front of them, #bringbackthegirls, however nobody speaks of the children and young men in Nogales. We should all pose with selfies that state #Bringbackhumanitarianism

So many question, so few answers.

Many of these questions are rhetorical in a sense.  Their answers lie in our conscious for only us to answer.

Young men at Nogales Border Patrol Facility Center

Whoever has taken a moment to study our vasts world’s history knows that forms of government and laws have been around for way to long.  Hammurabi’s Code set the example for all civilizations who emerged afterwards to have some sort of rules that will would help people leave peacefully among themselves.

A nation that is still very young in so many ways,  don’t you think can learn a thing or two from the errors of past empires and nations?

The troubles we face are burden on our shoulders.  Yesterdays poverty is still a fresh memory as to segregation, civil rights and so many other things that have made our country what it is today.

Don’t Americans come together united for any cause they may seem worthy beyond our borders, now take a minute to think about finding that same sentiment for a cause within them.

I can’t seem to brush off the images of those children that looked like puppies in a pound.  I can’t let it go, it’s going to take time for those images to go away if they ever will.

So you see, “mis queridos amigos”, our world and our life would be so much better if we raised our heads instead of burying it in the sand, if we raised our voice instead of complying in silence, and if we raised our hands in victory  instead of letting them fall in defeat.  Please, let your heart warm towards these children in Nogales and find in your heart warmth and compassion to help them find their way home. Where ever that may be, because that’s what life is all about.

 

 

Dealing with MG and extreme hot weather: NOT EASY!!!!!!

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Chronic (medicine), chronic illness, community, Conditions and Diseases, Home, Life, love, Myasthenia Gravis

First of all I’ll like to explain what MG stands for.  It’s a short version for Myasthenia Gravis, which I like by the way more than the complete medical term.  MG is short and has a fun twist to it, it’s like having a bit of fun with the mystery of people finding out what it means.

A lot of people are familiar with MS (which stands by the way for Multiple Sclerosis). When I want to get through to people who ask me I simply say that MG is MS’s cousin.  Sorry my MS buddies (specially Cathy Chestner) for that little detour trying to explain what MG really is.

We’ve had pretty hot temperatures for the last couple of days, and for people with Myasthenia Gravis extreme hot or cold puts a lot of stress on our medical conditions.

via MOrgueFile

Today with a soaring 103 (93 and heat index going towards the 103 degrees) my muscles began to protest and scream,

What the hell is going on?????

I feel we went to the beach.. but missed on the spectacular views or sunset!!!!!

photo credit Melissa Segarra

As the day went on I felt my fingers, arms and legs stiffen with the familiar feel of it’s a matter of time before the limping began.

I’ve been so tired that my fingers have been acting as if they had no life in them.  I’ve almost thrown every thing on the floor except the baby (thank God).  Today  I left the comfort of my home to go over to my mom’s even more hotter house so she can help me out with the baby.  NOT FUNNY!

Even now twenty some years after, I have to pass through the excruciating pain of having her tell her how I need to feed my baby boy,  Again NOT FUNNY!

The only thing that kept me going was the fact that by five I’d be home.  Gee, what a relief when my boys were on their way and I didn’t need to say any longer.

Hopefully tomorrow the day will be less hot.

Life Is A Wheel: Sometimes You’re Up & Others You’re Down

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community, family ties, Garden, Home, Kitchen garden, Plant, Puerto Rico, Tomato, unity, Vegetable, World war

Location, location, location!!!!  HOLD IT,  don’t think I’m talking real estate here, I’m talking about my vegetable garden.  

So here I am, choosing a spot for my future garden, not any spot, but a prime location spot.  I still wonder, how the heck did I end up in the back of our garage (basically because there it wouldn’t cause me trouble with my husband’s mowing).  Probably you’re wondering what happened to my intentions of  a prime lot.

Well moving on, I began digging, planting, watering and taking good care of my garden. 

As my gardening activity moved forward,  I began getting some regular visits from neighbors and family members, everyone seemed to want to watch my produce grow.  It went to the extent that many of them began planting their own vegetable gardens, and we held a harmless competition along the way. 

My tomatoes were the stars of my garden, or so I thought.

 

via morgueFile

The part that totally sucks is that after investing time and money into my tomato crop, mostly all of it went rotten.  My husband would tell me each time we purchased products for my tomato garden that it would be just plain cheaper to buy some in the market.  

What a tomato Scrooge!!!!! 

At the end, he was right,  I only got to eat ONE cherry tomato.  Which I picked right from the plant and gobbled it away, it has been the most expensive tomato I have ever eaten. 

We never had the opportunity to settle our garden contest because rain began pouring in huge amounts and almost everyone’s crop received significant damage. But, we had a great time in the meanwhile.  

Family relations are a bit like my tomatoes.  Sometimes we put time and effort in building relationships with our family members and we end up with nothing to show for it.  It’s like everybody is to busy with their own lives, to even share a cup of coffee.  In all families (small or big)  there are good and bad things.  The bad things that happen in some of them are not done or said on purpose.  Or at least that’s what I would want to think.  

In Puerto Rico extended family is part of our ethnic background or at least that was the way things were as my parents and my in-laws grew up.  Back in the day, your extended family was part of a community that tried to endure the hard hit of both World Wars, which brought very harsh economic times.  People would help one another to build houses, roads and what ever was needed.   Everyone would lend a helping hand when the other needed it. 

That generation did it’s best to pass those lessons on to their offspring.

A great example that  illustrates this point fantastically  would be the time  when my husband’s uncle mortgaged his debt-free home,  so my father in law could buy a diner when he lost his job.  My in-laws worked their butt off so they could pay the debt as soon as possible and let my husband’s uncle off the hook.  

They didn’t go to a lawyer’s office to sign a promissory note or anything like that.  He just trusted my father in law, they were family.  I really don’t know if I would mortgage my own home (which is debt free) to help my one and only brother or my brother or sister-in-law.  Tough call if you ask me. 

Now, why have our family ties gone from great to rotten tomatoes, I really don’t know.  Maybe family values are no longer what they used to be, or that we as individuals really don’t put the effort in building strong and reliable relationships because we think that we’re not going to need anyone or anything.  

We have to careful because you never know in our changing economy if we’ll go back to the soup lines.

My mom always wanted to make sure I understood how family ties worked and  would point out every time she could, “Remember, they’re family.” Referring to any and everybody that was related to any of my grandparents, and believe me the number was HUGE. 

via morgueFile

My grandfather would say that building communities was about helping each other out, that life was like a wheel, sometimes you were up, and sometimes you were down.  In other words, the wheel of life is dynamic and changing, not only for you,  but for others as well. 

Even if it sounds silly, when we came together in our garden “fiesta”, we felt united.  We had the opportunity to talk, laugh and help each other, and that’s how I think strong communities are built and relationships are restored, and that’s something we need to go back to.  

Remember, “‘Esa es familia, mija.”  (Remember those are family), and family is the foundation we want to build strong and durable relationships around.  Communities that can become a legacy for generations to come.