There is a reason my blog is called Amor y Dolor. I believe that these two things are the main components of life. It is amazing how at different stages in one's life the overpowering emotion can be love, but in an instant that changes to pain. When stress levels and sadness take over it is hard to keep them at bay.
People always use these colloquialisms to talk about the bad things that happen in our lives as if they only happen to show us how great our lives really are. When, in truth, maybe our circumstances were not that great to begin with. "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade;" "What doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger;" "The darkest night is always just before the dawn;" "God never gives you more than you can handle." All of these phrases attempt to inspire hope. However, sometimes life doesn't give you lemons with which to make lemonade; it gives you poo, with which one could arguably make a compost pile, that is if you have a yard to put it in; but if not, you are just stuck with a large build up of poo in the corner of your bedroom. What doesn't kill you, can cause you stress and pain and suffering. Sometimes when waiting on that false hope we liken to "the dawn, " we are just stuck waiting for something better to happen, to take the pain out of our lives. I also believe that God is never the one to put stress, pain, and sadness in our lives.
So, instead of pining your emotional state on false hope given by some trite statements, the only way hope even makes sense is to make your own "hope," by creating actual things to look forward to...in your own life.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Musings on the 2010 Winter Olympics
For some reason, I get very excited for the Olympics (and the World Cup, but that is another story for another time...THIS SUMMER :). I watched the entire Opening Ceremonies with my family and my partner. I get patriotic when I watch the Olympics...I do not feel particularly patriotic when watching the United States of America bomb bunkers where "terrorists" may or may not be "hiding," but something about the peaceable assembly of all of these countries coming together to compete in the sports that they love makes me feel like peace is possible...within our grasp. Yes, I know that idea is idealistic to the point of being unREAListic, but I don't care. I find new "heroes" to root for from all over the globe. My son was into the spectacle as well. We cheered for the Korean and Canadian women figure skaters because they inspired us. For the most part we cheered on Team USA, but there were many exceptions. On our list of favorite US Athletes; Apolo Anton Ohno, Shaun White, Shani Davis, Lindsey Vonn, Julia Mancuso, Jennifer Rodriguez, the chubby bobsled dude, Bode Miller, and many more...
The best part was watching the highlights before the Closing Ceremonies. After watching all the great feats of athletic prowess my son looked at me and said, "Mommy, when I am a 'dude' (to him, this means grown man), I am going to be in the 'lympics!" To which I replied, "Really? That's awesome! What sport do you want to compete in?" His response, "NINJA!" Another highlight was a quote from my 65 year old, Stanley, KY born and raised mother who said as she watched the Closing Ceremonies, "You know Canada did a great job of hosting the Olympics this year. They make me proud to be an American!" Yes, my MOM gets it...America is a CONTINENT, not a COUNTRY!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Mood Booster: Tres' Playlist
Tres: "Mommy, are you sad?"
Me: "A little bit, but I will be okay, because you make me happy."
Tres: "Mommy, I know what will make you happy. We can listen to music and dance."
Me: "Good idea. You pick the music."
Tres' Make Mommy happy playlist:
1. "Beat It" - Michael Jackson
2. "Get Back" - The Beatles
3. "Foxy Lady" - Jimi Hendrix
4. "I Want You Back" - Jackson 5
5. "Free Bird" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
6. "Come As You Are" - Nirvana
7. "Hey Jude" - The Beatles
8. "Billie Jean" - Michael Jackson
9. "I'll be There" - Jackson 5
10. "Gimme Three Steps" - Lynyrd Skynyrd
11. "Drain You" - Nirvana
In case anyone is wondering, yes, I do have the coolest three-year-old in the world :)
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Jealousy: You Mean You Had an Existence Before ME?!?
"Is she fine? So well-bred? The perfect girl, a social deb?"
"And is she the sort, that you always thought, could make you what you're not?"
"Is she smart? So well read?"
"Are there books; are there novels by her bed?"
"Is she the sort, that you've always said, could satisfy your head?"
"Jealousy" by Natalie Merchant
Why does my own jealousy not operate like that of most females? Most females [as referenced in the above lyrics] are jealous when a situation arises with their partner...a PRESENT situation. I do not get jealous of things going on in a current situation. So to say, "do it in front of my face and it won't bother me." The [nonsensical] reason why?? I can SEE it. It is tangible. What is not tangible? Emotions...especially those emotions that are deeply seeded in relationships in the past. Why think about them? Why let them manifest themselves in an emotion as fruitless as JEALOUSY? Hmm...good question. One for which I have no other answer, than I am only human...
"And is she the sort, that you always thought, could make you what you're not?"
"Is she smart? So well read?"
"Are there books; are there novels by her bed?"
"Is she the sort, that you've always said, could satisfy your head?"
"Jealousy" by Natalie Merchant
Why does my own jealousy not operate like that of most females? Most females [as referenced in the above lyrics] are jealous when a situation arises with their partner...a PRESENT situation. I do not get jealous of things going on in a current situation. So to say, "do it in front of my face and it won't bother me." The [nonsensical] reason why?? I can SEE it. It is tangible. What is not tangible? Emotions...especially those emotions that are deeply seeded in relationships in the past. Why think about them? Why let them manifest themselves in an emotion as fruitless as JEALOUSY? Hmm...good question. One for which I have no other answer, than I am only human...
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Breeding Contempt for The Poor
By LEONARD PITTS JR.
Miami Herald
Feb. 1, 2010, 7:19PM
If he'd said it of Jews, he would still be apologizing.
If he'd said it of blacks, he'd be on BET, begging absolution.
If he'd said it of women, the National Organization for Women would have his carcass turning slowly on a spit over an open flame.
But he said it of the poor, so he got away with it.
“He” is South Carolina Lt. Gov. André Bauer, running for governor on the GOP ticket. Speaking of those who receive public assistance, he recently told an audience, “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.”
You read that right. The would-be governor of one of the poorest states there is likens the poor to stray animals.
And though it drew some newspaper notice, a riposte from The Daily Show and rebukes from Bauer's opponents, it never quite rose to the level of national controversy, as it would've had Bauer compared, say, women or Jews to the dogs one feeds at one's back door. The relative silence stands as eloquent testimony to the powerlessness and invisibility of the American poor.
One is reminded how earnestly shocked news media were at the poverty they saw five years ago when New Orleans drowned. “Why didn't they get out?” observers kept asking — as if everyone has a car in the driveway and a wallet full of plastic.
The poor fare little better on television. The Evanses of Good Times and the Conners from Roseanne aside, television has been heavily weighted toward fresh-scrubbed middle- and upper-class families for 60 years.
Politicians? They'll elbow one another aside to pledge allegiance to the middle class; they are conspicuously less eager to align with those still trying to reach that level.
Who, then, speaks for the poor? Who raises a voice when they are scapegoated and marginalized? Who cries out when they are abused by police and failed by schools? Who takes a stand when they are exploited by employers and turned away by hospitals?
As near as I can tell, no one does.
Unfortunately, poor people have never learned to think of and conduct themselves as a voting bloc; historically, they have proved too readily divisible, usually by race. As Martin Luther King once observed: “If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the Southern aristocracy took the world and gave the ‘poor' white man Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man.”
It takes some helluva psychology to get two men stuck in the same leaking boat to fight each other. You'd think their priority would be to come together, if only long enough to bail water. But the moneyed interests in this country have somehow been able to con the poor into doing just that, fighting tooth and nail when they ought to be standing shoulder to shoulder.
One hopes André Bauer's words will provide a wake-up call — in South Carolina and elsewhere — for people who have been down too long and fooled too often, that it will encourage them to organize their votes, raise their voices, push their issues into the public discourse. In America, one is invisible and powerless only so long as one chooses to be.
And the Bauers of this world need to know: Sometimes stray animals bite.
Miami Herald
Feb. 1, 2010, 7:19PM
If he'd said it of Jews, he would still be apologizing.
If he'd said it of blacks, he'd be on BET, begging absolution.
If he'd said it of women, the National Organization for Women would have his carcass turning slowly on a spit over an open flame.
But he said it of the poor, so he got away with it.
“He” is South Carolina Lt. Gov. André Bauer, running for governor on the GOP ticket. Speaking of those who receive public assistance, he recently told an audience, “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better.”
You read that right. The would-be governor of one of the poorest states there is likens the poor to stray animals.
And though it drew some newspaper notice, a riposte from The Daily Show and rebukes from Bauer's opponents, it never quite rose to the level of national controversy, as it would've had Bauer compared, say, women or Jews to the dogs one feeds at one's back door. The relative silence stands as eloquent testimony to the powerlessness and invisibility of the American poor.
One is reminded how earnestly shocked news media were at the poverty they saw five years ago when New Orleans drowned. “Why didn't they get out?” observers kept asking — as if everyone has a car in the driveway and a wallet full of plastic.
The poor fare little better on television. The Evanses of Good Times and the Conners from Roseanne aside, television has been heavily weighted toward fresh-scrubbed middle- and upper-class families for 60 years.
Politicians? They'll elbow one another aside to pledge allegiance to the middle class; they are conspicuously less eager to align with those still trying to reach that level.
Who, then, speaks for the poor? Who raises a voice when they are scapegoated and marginalized? Who cries out when they are abused by police and failed by schools? Who takes a stand when they are exploited by employers and turned away by hospitals?
As near as I can tell, no one does.
Unfortunately, poor people have never learned to think of and conduct themselves as a voting bloc; historically, they have proved too readily divisible, usually by race. As Martin Luther King once observed: “If it may be said of the slavery era that the white man took the world and gave the Negro Jesus, then it may be said of the Reconstruction era that the Southern aristocracy took the world and gave the ‘poor' white man Jim Crow. And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man.”
It takes some helluva psychology to get two men stuck in the same leaking boat to fight each other. You'd think their priority would be to come together, if only long enough to bail water. But the moneyed interests in this country have somehow been able to con the poor into doing just that, fighting tooth and nail when they ought to be standing shoulder to shoulder.
One hopes André Bauer's words will provide a wake-up call — in South Carolina and elsewhere — for people who have been down too long and fooled too often, that it will encourage them to organize their votes, raise their voices, push their issues into the public discourse. In America, one is invisible and powerless only so long as one chooses to be.
And the Bauers of this world need to know: Sometimes stray animals bite.
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