https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.clarionledger.com/amp/3275024001

My version:

“She discovered with great delight that one does not love one’s [students] just because they are one’s [students] but because of the friendship formed while [teaching] them.”

~Sarah Campbell’s Version for Teachers Inspired By Gabriel García Márquez from Love in the Time of Cholera

The original:

“She discovered with great delight that one does not love one’s children just because they are one’s children but because of the friendship formed while raising them.”

~By Gabriel García Márquez from Love in the Time of Cholera

Earth Day Infographic

Mother Nature is speaking now
through the absences of bodies
flooding streets that gather pathogens
to awaken las almas before celebrating

Earth Day 2020. We welcome home
those who have been here long before we arrived
(and who will be here long after we are gone)
with decorated masks as if it were festival, carnival

Felicidades, el Mundo Mio! I call to the fullness
of villainous poison ivies and sweetest tomato vines
who rely on the kindness of strangers standing tall
in their gardens blooming colorful blooms beyond measure

To the glory of their species. And I wonder, in 50 years,
if the human race has forgotten how to bloom
synchronously or if the evolution that is taken place
could better be labeled irrevocable dissolution of all

Things bright and beautiful. Until sunshine creeps
into narrow elongated openings between nearly closed
shades with brilliant force from lightyears of time
and space to speak to, act upon, vote for, and educate me:

Hope. The light shines through the pecados de passados
unknown and known to me, to you, to all of us
because there is only one answer. Learn to be good
stewards of the land that cherishes all souls for all eternity.

Image:

1. Learn to sign your name exquisitely (as defined by key people).

2. Recreate yourself (again, key people).

3. Build a Brand: think YOU, not you.

4. Lose something.

5. Win something.

6. Do something.

7. Give something away.

8. Take more than your fair share.

9. Never go back home.

10. And when it comes–and it most certainly will come, even before you get there, because the smart ones can spot an up-and-comer a mile away–Just Say No to Love.

Racing to the car, my fifth-grade son happily informed me that there would be a winter dance at his school. Obviously, I was elated to hear it and asked him when would this festive event take place exactly. He told me he was totally clueless about that, but he did know who he was going to ask to go with him. I was somewhat amazed, of course, this being fifth grade and all, and I thought girls might very well still be considered gross. I suppose that was last year, and so here we are.

“Tomorrow, I am going to tell KitKat that I love her and ask her to go with me.”

I can’t lie; panic ensued within me as if memories possessively hijacked my thinking path. Psychologically, I knew that this was a defining moment for the two of us: vulnerable son and unprepared mother. I decided to do something radically different from my own upbringing: talk to him.

Quickly, as if afraid to miss a beat, I said, “KitKat—isn’t she your illustrator from the Halloween story you wrote for Ms. C’s class?”

I was awfully glad when he smiled and said, “Yeah, Mom. You know, KitKat from Roblox.”

“Right,” I said, knowing this was not really helpful as it gave me her avatar identity in the virtual world of video games and left me unsure of her name in the real-world of middle school.

“I kind of want to get her something…maybe a ring.”

I, too, am obsessively fond of jewelry, but I had to help him pace himself: “She would probably love that, but let’s start on the ground floor—maybe, a bracelet? or a necklace? or a pencil, even?”

“Really, Mom? A pencil?”

“Yeah, you know, maybe start small with the friendship thing, and then you can see where it takes you; we don’t want to overwhelm her, you know.” He thinks for a moment, and I let him. He’s not jazzed about the pencil idea. I can’t see everything, but I can see that plainly.

“Hey,” pointing out the window across from him in the passenger seat, “There’s Belk’s. Bet we can find her something nice there.”

“Yes!” He does a fist pump. Victory. “Thanks, Mom. Can we look for something blue? She likes blue.”

“Blue it is, then. But no rings. Not until you can drive, vote, and drink a beer with dad–legally.”

The world is asleep, and I am awake. Is it so? Am I asleep while the whole world is awake? Are we sleeping together in a dream where we can be awake or not? Is it possible to be awake but live asleep?

They say you should not write questions in an essay that you do not fully answer or that you do not truly care could/would/should ever be answered. Yes, I know, but would you tell me what is real so I can get the hell on with it already?

Everybody is somebody’s somebody.

You there sitting across from me in early summer eve at the Thai restaurant with a bowl of hot coconut soup, you are  somebody’s mother, maid, daughter, cook, grandmother, finders-keepers-losers-weepers lover, sister, doormat, auntie, dry-cleaning pick-up artist, niece, scapegoat, granddaughter, goddess, ex-girlfriend, wifey somebody.

You are my anybody. I do not know you.

There is ticker for you undeneath the doubt and grief beating the rhythm toward home with somebody hearing, calming, planning, celebrating, wanting, ignoring, giving, collecting, sharing, watching, leaving, waning, longing the somebody in you over hot coffee and streusel-topped cinnamon banana bread on a heart-shaped napkin cut from a paper towel so nicely.

You are my nobody. I do not feel you.

Beyond the beyond somebody knows you like the back-of-their-hand, well-charted-waters, numbered-hairs-on-you-head, pickout-of-a-lineup-of-Big-Toes-only, recognizeable-party-laugh, monarch-flight-path-instincts because the body-mind-spirit-soul yearns for human connection beyond sticking to conversations revolving around and hovering between weather patterns and road conditions.

You are my everybody. I do not believe you.

Somebody does not like somebody blue. They fight and fight and fight, fight, fight because they have no defense for going down, down, down, down, down, most dangerous degradation leaving marks from the remnants of bounce off the walls, what a hit, where did it go, back down here, got knocked down, too bad for defenselessness getting knocked down to see what happens next with hardly anything left, falling apart though not breaking my heart, yet, because—wait—we can remake him.

You are my somebody. I cannot save you.

I have been to this park a lot of times, but this is the first time I rode a new ride. Superman is a ride where you go up, and they drop you down. I think everyone who is afraid of heights should ride this: straight down from 240 feet at 65 miles per hour. Here’s what you would get: 1. Face your fear. 2. Science of g-force physics 3. It would just be funny to see your face. Also, the other ride I went on was the flying swings. It went up just as high as Superman, but you are sitting on a swing in chains swirling around and flying up at the same time. It was terrifying because there is nothing to catch you if you go unhooked. At least on Superman you have breaks, but on the swings, it is just you soaring through the clouds.

Friendship has always been a convenience for me, not a necessity. My son is teaching me differently. He seeks out companionship and works through misunderstandings to nurture relationships. When an argument ensues, he is the first to call, linger, and compromise. He is always the last to walk away. How did he learn these things when quick to anger is my natural inclination? My Sicilian blood runs hot and fast within me. Before any other lineage can have a say, I go to “you are dead to me.”  Experience has taught me that nothing gold can stay. Eventually, every promise needs contextualization, re-evaluation, and explanation to remove its initial obligation. Things change. People change. Move on.

But my son knows none of this, and when I complimented him for being a good friend by reaching out rather than just keeping the door open, he said, “Why can’t you do that?”

I wanted to pretend like either there was nothing to forgive–play the denial card. Then, I thought about saying forgiveness isn’t for everyone–like an ice cream flavor.  Another approach came to mind: appear like I didn’t know what he meant–the dumb and dumbfounded act. But I did know what he was talking about. I knew he knew I knew he knew.  He saw someone leave our house sad, and I couldn’t fix it with them. Scot knows that’s not like me to leave it be, and so I had to talk about it. How do you say to your child that sometimes there just isn’t a way to get there from here? I tried to explain something that is true to frame a motherly answer.

“Children are like playdough–flexible, malleable. You can shape and mold them. Adults are more like bricks. They are stuck. At one time, they were shaped, but now it is tough for them to move without breaking. Sometimes, what looks like a brick is just playdough left unattended for too long. But that is hard to know.”

He understood, but I admitted that both playdough and bricks stay in the same place unless an outside kindness is applied. In other words, no change happens without initiative.  If I want to improve the situation, all I need to do is take a lesson from my son: call, linger, compromise, and be the last to leave.

It feels good to put your dirty clothes in the right place and not on the floor. It feels good to brush your teeth. It feels good to take out the trash, put the dishes away, and make the bed. These small tasks keep us moving in an organized way that take just a little effort but make a big difference. Goodness is accumulative, and pitching in, exponential.